All Our Bags Were Packed...

So we took off for Arizona on Saturday morning at 7:28 - only about 1 hour later than planned, but oh well! We were pretty much completely packed the night before, so I think we just had the slows!

I found it interesting how much the landscape changed as we went south. We had the mountatins of Colorado, and as I-25 turned East, we got more into the plains. Once in New Mexico I sort of expected it to become a baren desert (no offense Jordan), but I was surprised that there were areas with lots of trees, and then it would abruptly become very brown, dry, and flat. Not 2 minutes after I took this picture we were surrounded by trees again, it was really odd.

We stopped in Santa Fe and got gas and had our sandwiches. As we came off the interstate, we saw a gas station where unleaded was $3.19. We almost choked, so we went about 1/2 mile further and found that inside the city limits it was only $2.85. We had lunch and I jumped in the driver's seat (those of you who know me know that I am a serious narcoleptic, particularly when it comes to long meetings or car rides, so this was a big deal! I drove to the Arizona state line where we stopped for a bathroom break.

This turned out to be a fairly interesting experience since the water was yellow (even after flushing - ew!) and the soap smelled and looked just like the liquid part of a cherry cordial. Double ew. We had the nice lady in the welcome center fill our water bottles and they came back clear and clean. Whew.

We drove for awhile more and finally got up into the mountains near Snowflake, AZ. Then we settled in to wait for news...

Beastie Update

He's still there. And I hate him.
He's fast too. He hid in the zucchini plants and I ran inside to get a pellet gun our neighbor loaned us. By the time I got out there (hiding the gun from all the neighbors so they didn't think I'd gone postal) he was gone. Grrrr.

My Day...

For some reason I feel compelled to write about my day today, and because you chose to come look at my blog, you get to hear about it, so here it is:

6:15 - Woken up by Aaron who was feeling chatty before work
6:45 - Ate breakfast
7:00-8:00 - Planted my fall garden (lettuce, spinach, peas, and carrots)
8:00-9:00 - Sprayed outside for bugs - the house, patio, lawn, garden, rocks, etc.
9:00 - While spraying off the garden plants that had been lightly misted with the bug juice, I saw something dart out of the flowers and into my zucchini plant. It looked a little like a frog at first, so I sprayed the zucchini plant until I saw it run away. It was a mouse. Evil beastie.
9:05-9:55 - Did battle with the evil beastie. Lost. Crap.
10:00 - Discovered that the Magnolia tree has 2 beautiful white blossoms with pink tips. Hooray!
10:10 - 11:30 - Blogged and emailed.
11:30-1:00 - Worked on touching up the paint jobs from this weekend.
1:05-1:17 - Showered
1:17-1:27 - Got dressed and did makeup.
1:27-1:36 - Drove around Southlands Mall looking for LeSorelle Day Spa.
1:36 - 2:30 - Got a pedicure with Karen. Yay!
2:30-3:30 - Went to Walmart
3:30-5:00 - Hung out with Karen. I'm not really sure what we did, but it was fun!
5:00-8:00 - Made dinner, ate dinner, cleaned up dinner, did the dishes.
8:15 - I'm sitting here blogging, watching Harry Potter, and listening to the dryer buzzing. I should probably go get those clothes...

Thanks for reading guys! Hope your days are great! Glad to be back!

Labor Day

Our friends Dave and Nicole are moving here from DC and were here this weekend, so we got to spend some time with them on Monday. First we got to go see the house they contracted on (right around the corner from ours!). Then we packed up the car with lots of food and headed down to Castlewood Canyon State Park. It's only about 25 minutes from here and is really pretty. We'd never been before, so it was an adventure for all!

We had a fun picnic and took off on a 2 mile hike that was really fun - a perfect length actually! Here are some of the shots we got.

What a beautiful day!

We be hikers!

Aaron, Devony, Nicole, Dave

Goofing around

What a pretty canyon!

We had a great time and it totally inspired me. By the end I was ready to buy an annual pass and go run a mile (despite my inability to breathe in the high mountain air). We had a great time though!

After we got back from that, I made cookies (after sending Aaron to find eggs since he ate the last of them Monday morning) and we took off to a BBQ at our friend's house. It was great, despite the fact that the tiny microbursts we usually have turned into an enormous storm which found us all huddling under umbrellas or in the gazebo until we decided it wasn't going to stop raining and we'd better make a run for it. We all grabbed the food and took off for the house. We started right back up again inside and had tons of fun though! Obviously a great party since people didn't leave when they got wet! What fun. Let's always have Mondays off ok?

There is an Evil Beastie in my Garden...

Aaron's solution when I called to tell him was for me to get the shovel and chop off it's head. I told him I couldn't do it. I hate the beastie.

(P.S. This is not the actual beastie, mearly a picture I found on google)

Adventures in Painting

Well, we're getting there, one room at a time! On Friday I painted the upstairs hallway to match the kitchen and the rest of the house (or what color the rest of the house will be. ;) As you can see, it started out white and ended up tan. Hooray!




On Saturday we went over to Home Depot and grabbed a gallon of paint for the upstairs bathroom. Despite starting rather late in the day, we got it all done late that night! Let me tell you though, 8 o'clock church is really early when you've been up painting until super late 2 night in a row though! Here's the bathroom though. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Aaron picked out the color - you like?

Just noticed that the last pic was taken really crooked. I wonder who did that. Hmm. Sorry. Anyway, next we need to paint the guest bedroom and our bathroom, and then have someone paint the stairs and living room. Then we'll be ALL done painting our house! Amazing!

Dev's Family

While we were out in Idaho we also got to spend some great time with my family. We drove up on Thursday (can we talk about the terrible McDonald's they have in Wyoming? I actually filed a formal complaint!) and I spent all morning Friday shopping with my mom. It's always fun to go out and have some girl time, so that was great. Saturday night, Haylee was kind enough to plan one of her Bridal showers while we were there, so I could go. Her friend Camille threw it for her and it was really fun, with the traditional funny little shower games and everything. (Thus the picture of me dressed in a toilet paper wedding dress). Sunday her fiancee JC came out and we finally got to meet him. I even went for a ride on his motorcycle with him - a first for me! We drove back on Monday (only Burger King for us that day). We had a great time and loved seeing everyone!

Family Reunion

August 10-11 Aaron's mom's family had a big family reunion that we went back to Idaho for. We had a great time seeing everyone in both of our families and we enjoyed loads of great food and fun! Here are some pictures of everything that happened.

Vonda, Josie, and Martha (sisters) making a quilt. Lucky Marla won it - she deserved it too for all the work she and Steve did for the reunion. Thanks guys!

Poor Garthy (Aaron's brother) is all tuckered out from a long day of relatives.
Sarah taught a bunch of people how to knit. The less ambitious used the looms to make little baby hats for the Church humanitarian organization.
Ellen with the Snap N' Style doll that most looks like her. I think it's a pretty close match! Any of you with toddler and older girls that don't know about these fantastic dolls - ask me about them - they're amazing and wonderful!
All the Snap N' Style dolls all "dolled" up! Cute Emma dressed as a pirate - Argh! Cousins Maren, Tiffany, Shera, and Abby all put together fun activities for the nearly 20 kids under 4 that were there (as well as a few older ones). They made pirate hats, swords, eye patches, and spotting scopes.
All the kids gathered around the "Treasure Map" made by Pirate Captain Maren. Good job Maren!
We had a great time and loved being with Aaron's family at this fun time! Thanks again to Marla and Steve for planning and pulling it off, and to Martha and Paul for letting us take over their home and yard! We loved it all!

Sorry...

I've been terribly remiss in blogging this month and I'm sorry. Mostly I haven't had much that is blog worthy, but I'll try over the next few days to post about a few things we've done. Stay tuned for more non-earth shattering news...

North and South

My new favorite movie. Thank you, thank you, thank you Manda for showing it to me. I love it a million times over. For you poor souls who have never even heard of it (like me as of a few weeks ago), it's this amazing Pride and Prejudice like story set in England (no, it's not about the Civil War) during industrialization. It's an amazing story and I loved it. After I finished it at 2:30 in the morning (it's 4 hours long), I watched the last chapter on the DVD 2 more times because it was so good. Then a few days later I watched the whole movie again and finally took it back to the library. Then they charged me a late fee for not bringing it back on time. It's ok. It was worth 30 cents. :) Go get it. Watch it lots, and if you find it in a store tell me because I desperately want to buy it! Plus, the male lead - Richard Armitage - is pretty dashing I must say. A new celebrity to follow I think.

New Favorite Site

Look I found a new sample site I love. Check it out http://www.allureaccess.com/sampling07/index.cfm

Ode to Scholastic

Oh Scholastic Book Orders, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

1. I love getting the book orders
2. I love circling all the books I want (even if I know I won't buy them)
3. I love/hate the narrowing it down to figure out which books I am actually going to get
4. I love getting the email saying my books are in
5. I love getting my books
6. I love giving everyone else the books they ordered
7. I love that when I pick up the books, the order forms for the next month are with them.
8. Please go back to #1 and repeat from September through June. :)

FYI, the September Book Orders are here (I know it's only August 1). If you want to order, I need to know which ones you want by August 7 (next Tuesday). I have fliers at my house. Call me if you want some. Beware, they are addicting and bring you lots of happiness and literate children (when used at least).

Dang Goodwill

Goodwill shirts are $4.99. For a used man's button up shirt! What gives people? Shouldn't they discount them more than that if they want people to buy them?

If you have no idea what I'm babbling about, check out the post from a few weeks ago (scroll down or just click here http://aaronanddevony.blogspot.com/2007/07/my-next-project.html).

The One You've All Been Waiting For

Ok so I'm finally posting the pictures of the Harry Potter book party last week. Our friends Karen and Zack (and their baby Eli) went with us to Barnes & Noble at about 10:30 PM on Friday night (July 20). We watched the costume contest (there were some amazing ones and even one super creepy little kid that looked exactly like Voldemort - shaved head, pastey white makeup with red veins showing slightly around his temples. Other than the fact that this kid had a nose, he totally looked like a mini-me Voldy. Cree-py.

Anyway, we went to the party, then at about 11:45 we drove across the street to Walmart and got in line to get the book there. When we walked in a few little kids saw Zack and went nuts. They were like "It's Harry Potter!" It was hilarious. We got our books and we got some bracelets (One for each house except Hufflepuff, which means that together, Sarah and I have a matched set). I put mine on and decided not to take it off until I finished the book (except for a brief little time where it accidentally came off on my gardening glove when I pulled that off, I kept with it too).

All dressed up for the Party.

Our own Harry Potter

A little wizard in training. Eli was a good sport for it being almost midnight.
The long awaited books. We love them.
My bracelet (it says Gryffindor).
We went home after buying our books (we cheated and bought them in Electronics so we wouldn't have to wait in the long line, especially since there were a few poor souls who decided to do their yearly grocery shopping on that night. Lesson to be learned, even if you're not interested in what is coming out, if it's this big, know when it is so you can avoid it!

We came home and I started reading almost immediately. I kept at it until 4:30 AM, and finally went to sleep. I knew I'd never be able to function the next day since Aaron was wanting to work in the yard. I didn't read too much over the rest of the weekend, so I worked on it Monday and Tuesday, and finished it Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 2:30 AM. Oh gosh guys it's sooooo good. I came close to crying in the second chapter. It was the saddest. I loved it though and I am sad that it's over. Good thing that Aaron and I are going to read it together now - it'll gave me a chance to remember some of the details that have gotten fuzzy.

I Finally Got It!

I'm very busy reading. I'll post more on the book party, dressing up, etc. later.

My Next Project

Seriously people, I am in absolute awe of this woman. There's no way I would have had this much imagination. Check out the project I MUST do next. I think I might stop at Goodwill tonight on my way home and look for frumpy shirts that really never should have been made...

The shirt when she bought it:

After she got her creative little hands on it:

I'm dying to try it. Check out this link to see her tutorial. You'll be amazed. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=170402.0

I've been Tagged!

Four jobs I've had
1. Snow Shack Manager (those were the good times)
2. Potato Sorter (those were the bad times - it was my first job and lasted 1 month)
3. Office Manager
4. Application Support Analyst (Now PART TIME!!!)

Four favorite movies
1. Pride & Prejudice
2. Breakfast at Tiffany's
3. Mary Poppins
4. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (new)

Four places I've lived
1. Idaho
2. Minnesota
3. Missouri
4. Colorado

Four favorite TV shows
1. Treasure Hunters (why won't it come back on?)
2. Reading Rainbow (an oldie and goodie)
3. The Magic School Bus
4. Anything on the History Channel
P.S. Can you tell how old I am at heart? And I actually don't watch tv. Like ever. Can you tell?

Four places I've been on vacation
1. West Coast - OR, CA, WA
2. East Coast - DC, VA, NY
3. The Mediterranean - Spain, Monaco, Italy, Malta, Greece
4. Canada

Four things I want at this moment
1. To sew - I currently have the bug
2. My husband NOT to have to take another business trip this week
3. The HOA to decide they like my garden and want me to keep it
4. The new Harry Potter book.

Four favorite foods
1. Strawberries
2. Ice Cream
3. Chicken Garlic con Broccoli from Olive Garden
4. Sesame chicken from Paradise Asian Cafe.

Four websites that I visit daily
1. Blogspot
2. Gmail
3. Yahoo
4. ParentProfiles

Four things to do
1. Read my Scriptures
2. Iron the laundry
3. Put the laundry away
4. Go buy beads at Hobby Lobby because they are on sale

Four places I want to visit
1. Europe (with Aaron this time)
2. Idaho (in 3 1/2 weeks!)
3. Arizona (I really want to see the Grand Canyon)
4. The new Harry Potter theme park. Let's get crackin' guys!

I tag Brittany Brown (time to post hon), Janey Price, Sarah Schwartz, and Jessica Robison. Also anyone else who would like to be tagged!

The Tastes of Summer

We love summer. I mean who doesn't? The sun, warmth, pools, vacations, etc. But it's been especially fun this year since we have a house, yard, and garden. (Going part time and being able to enjoy all of this hasn't exactly hurt either!) ;)

We're having fun with our garden and have harvested lettuce, spinach, some peas, and and even one zucchini that was about 1 foot long! Hooray. We've pulled a couple of carrots and onions too (even though they were tiny!), and it has been really fun.

We've enjoyed salads completely from the garden

And today we had a great BBQ. Aren't these the prettiest darn Shish-kabobs you ever did see? They had pork marinated in Caribbean Jerk sauce (yum!), onions, pineapple, red and green peppers and yellow squash (from our cute little farmer's market at Southlands), and zucchini and snow peas from our garden!
They were very yummy, and it was fun to have such a summery meal! Gotta love the BBQs!

Potty Wee Potter

So we went to see the newest Harry Potter movie yesterday and we both liked it. I was actually surprised because I didn't think it conveyed the darkness that the book held. I thought that Movie #4 (the maze at the end?) was WAY darker than Movie #5. I need to see it again to be able to analyze it properly, but there were a number of things that I liked and a number of things I wished would have been in it but were not. Number one on my list of things I didn't like? The nasty short low cut dress Aunt Petunia was wearing. Eww. Let's not go there again please.

Finally...

I'll totally be here in exactly 12 hours. I can't wait.

Pirates Rock!

Thanks Jane for the great site! One of my ancestors was the pirate Jack Rackham (whom Captain Jack Sparrow was loosely based on), so this was cool that my name turned out to be Rackham too! My aunt had the same thing happen. Actually Jane did too. Maybe this site is really dedicated to ol' Jack. Let me know if any of you get Rackham names too!

My pirate name is:

Dirty Jenny Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Introducing...

Our new Honda Ridgeline! Yay!!! We sold the Chevy Blazer we had (time to upgrade before anything went majorly wrong with it) and went with another import. This time from Honda (we have a Toyota Camry we love too).
Long ago (when we first got married) we made a bit of a deal. Aaron really wanted a truck and I told him that when I got a house, he could have a truck. I guess you could say we’re square now. :) It’s a great truck with some really cool features that made it a practical vehicle to buy as well as fun (simply because it’s a truck). It has loads of storage space even inside the cab and can fit 5 people. The truck bed has a trunk (like a car) in it that is actually insulated so you can use it as a cooler! (That sounds like picnic/camping fun!) There is even a drain in the bottom so you can let the water out. Honda is smart I am thinking.

The only downside to the truck is that it is longer and wider than the Blazer, so it’s a bit of a tight squeeze fitting it in the garage! It will fit though, so I guess we can keep it! Here is our own truck (contrary to what you all thought, I did not take that lovely promotional photo above). It’s not the greatest pic (taken in the parking garage at work), but it’ll do until I can get some better ones.

Patriotic Theme

Ok no more construction on the blog for at least 3 1/2 weeks now. I promise. I know I've gone all over on it. I just decided to be patriotic for a bit (since July 4th is steadily approaching). The spring theme totally wasn't working for me, particularly after I learned some fun new header tricks. So I changed it. Here's the result for the next couple of weeks!

Bye Bye Comfy Couch

OK so we bought this couch and chair shortly before getting married. It was the first large purchase we bought together (that I remember) and therefore it holds a special place in our hearts.

We got the the point though where we decided we were ready for something bigger and newer (and not blue since most of you know I am a green person really). I posted the couch on craigslist and in 18 minutes it was sold to a person offering to come pick it up within 2 days and pay cash for it - at the asking price! Also, the asking price was only about $10 less than we paid for it 6 years ago, so we felt like we got a great deal too!

The furniture sold on Monday and they came and got it on Wednesday. They were super happy and kept saying what a great deal it was. They totally would have paid more for it!

The house was empty and sad after the couch and chair left. I think it had the blues (ha ha). We actually pulled our gimpy air mattress down (it deflates quickly) and set it up so we would have something to sit on and fill the room up a bit until we got furniture.
We had been shopping for furniture for awhile and not really found anything we were crazy about that was not uber expensive and that was in stock, so we didn't buy anything. Finally, when we found out Aaron's parents were coming out we decided we would get any of the pieces of our desired sectional that we could and we would wait for the others.

We changed configurations about a zillion times, and when we went to get the 1-2 pieces we could on Wednesday, we found that they had ALL of our pieces in! Hooray! Here is the finished product:

It's microfiber, so it should stay good looking for awhile. I think it will look great once we get the room painted and those pillows recovered (triple eww). Stay tuned to see the finished room when we get it done! (Hopefully soon!)

Paisley Change

Ok apparently the big paisleys took WAY too long to load unless you were on a high speed connection. Let's try the little tiles. Any opinions? Too busy? I may just start over...