Disneyland 2009

So this year I promised myself I was going to get tons of pictures with all of us in them and.....failed miserably. I did get some really amazing videos, but for some reason they won't download to my computer. Hopefully I can figure it out soon and post them.

Portrait of Sally in the Haunted Mansion

Another slightly blurry Haunted Mansion picture
Alanna and Nadine going into Small World

My favorite picture of Lauren and Malcolm

Still getting the hang of the new camera

The entrance to D-Land

What a cool baby

Making a call

In California Adventure

A flower I fell in love with

Malcolm and Alanna waiting in line

The End

The outside

I finally have a few pictures of our new home to post. I was excited to get some shots of the fall leaves in our front yard. Inside pictures will come once we're completely moved in.

The Front

Our Cool Apple Tree
Cute Little Stairway on the Side

View From the Deck(it's way better at night)

I Love These Red Trees!

J and me

Revenge of the Wasps

Yesterday morning I took a branch off one of the beautiful oak trees in our new back yard to be examined by the staff at Millcreek Gardens. I had noticed a particularly large amount of puffy, green nodules on the branches that seemed to be killing the trees.

I was told that the nodules were called "galls" and that they were caused by a tiny, silver-winged wasp that creates them to house it's larva.

The kind man at Millcreek told me that unfortunately there was not much I could do, but removing the galls might help. Well better said than done. There are thousands of these galls on our trees. Regardless, I set about walking through my backyard with a large garbage bag in hand determined to pluck as many of the little suckers off as I possibly could.

Tonight as we were driving home we ran into what I believe was an indignant group of these ferocious little beasts. I was on the phone with my brother Matt, when were attacked. Thousands of the winged creatures began pelting the car as we stopped at our local gas station. They were literally raining from the sky like some cliched 1960s creature flick. I could hear Jason screaming as he quickly pumped a couple gallons in the car. We got out of there as quickly as possible.

I have never seen anything like it. My skin is still crawling. Yuck! Jason said the lights must have attracted them, but I have to wonder if they were really just getting their revenge.

So Trivial

I started to post a comment on facebook about how excited I was to get the keys to our new home today, but I stopped. It seemed so senseless to be writing “Yay” when people who I truly care about are in pain right now. I hit the delete key and walked away thinking about a dear friend of mine that I saw holding a homeless and hungry sign by a freeway exit this morning. I struggled over the meager five dollars I had slipped into his hand before driving away in my comfortable, air conditioned car.

I also thought about our friend Allen who lost his son Monday to Leukemia. What a great kid Danny was!

I feel like an idiot for pouting over the $1,500 bill to fix my car last week, the flood in our new home, and the teacher who hates my guts. Although it all seemed like such a big deal at the time, it just seems so trivial right now.

House Hunting

So as I said before Jason and I have been looking at houses. Our two little condos just aren't working anymore. We need a place that is big enough for Jason, me, Stigma, Yankee, Gracie and all our stuff. In our search we've seen some interesting and fun places, but this was by far the most conversation worthy!

The house is 3,912 square feet in Holladay with an asking price of $329,900. For those of you who are not familiar with the Utah housing market, that is a STEAL! We decided to see why they were asking so little. First I thought maybe it was the street it was on. Nope, it was located at the end of a prestigious private road, surrounded by million dollar homes. Then I thought maybe the lot was small or needed attention. Nope, the lot was huge and filled with trees behind an attractive iron gate with a code. Our friend, and Realtor, Tony pulled the key from the lock box and said "I guess we're about to find out why it's priced so low." We were all thinking it must be trashed inside. Nope, other than some scary decorating decisions(the owners have an affinity for flowery wall paper and dead things. Bears, ducks, deer, coyotes, etc.) it was very nice. We were all stunned!

We walked onto the back deck and looked out over the sprawling yard. "How peaceful" we said. Then we noticed an odd little flower bed toward the back of the yard. A few stones surrounded what looked like fake mums. Mom laughed and said, "What if it's a grave?" Jason walked over as I dismissed it saying "It's probably just an oddly placed flower patch." Jason then looked back at us shocked and motioned for us to walk over. There at our feet, was a bronze plaque that read "Private Cemetery." Beneath that were the names of 35 people and the dates they had been buried.........in the back yard! Ok, I like scary stuff, creepy stuff, intriguing stuff, but the thought of hitting a coffin while planting a nice hasta is just a little much even for me. Also, is it just me or does all the dead stuff inside the house now seem ironic?

Inside the home we found a large, hardbound, professionally printed, book with a history of the family who owned the home. What interesting people! We saw actual photographs of the folks who now rested just a few feet away.

Good luck to whoever ends up with the place, because it's a hell-of-a house! But the owner is responsible for taking care of that cemetery, legally, and as much as I respect the dead, I think it'd be awfully hard to have that hanging over you.

Did I mention I wholeheartedly believe the Zombie Apocalypse is near?

Hints of Something Else

Those of you who know me, know I am not a religious person, but I do like to think there is something bigger than me out there. Ever since my dad passed away I have seen hints of that something bigger. There are times when I simply know he is still with me. This was one of those times.
Things have been pretty hectic lately. School has been stressful, and Jason and I are trying to plan a wedding and find a home. The other day I was at the Sugarhouse Petco picking up some food and such for the kids, when I decided to stop by Old Navy. I walked in and saw a table full of t-shirts with different fish designs and started sifting through. My dad was crazy about fish, especially seahorses. I had a hard time finding anything in my size and was about to walk away when I felt a shirt fall on my foot. I reached down to pick it up and found a large seahorse design sitting there in my size. Slightly startled, I grabbed it and headed for the dressing room. At that moment the words "Just go back to the places where we used to go, and I'll be there" rang out on the intercom. Of course it was just one of the many 80s songs programmed in to Old Navy's music that day, but it still got to me.
Long-story-short, I bought the shirt and maybe it'll replace that seahorse tattoo I was planning on. Maybe.......

Old but fun

This video is from a couple semesters ago. My Math 1050 teacher, Cindy Soderstrom, was a lot of fun. She constantly had great ideas on how to make math fun and easy to relate to. We did a lot of problems that had to do with cows so Cindy brought this little guy to class one day.

Catching up IIII: The Utah Real Estate Challenge

When Spring semester started, one of my marketing teachers told our class about a competition sponsored by the University of Utah called the Utah Real Estate Challenge. The competition entailed developing some type of real estate proposal in Utah. The prize money was $20,000. He said if we entered this contest he would give us points that could be used to supplement other assignments in the class. He went around the class and asked if we thought we wanted to enter the competition or simply go along the regular track. It was an easy choice for me; The possibility of $20,000 or $0.........No question!

My team mates and I chose to propose the restoration of one of Salt Lake City's beautiful historic buildings. We selected the Crandall Building because of its history, its location, and mainly because our marketing teacher knew the owner. It was exciting to learn about the extensive history of the building and Salt Lake City as well. I, as I'm sure my team mates did, became very attached to this building and its very gracious owner Mr. Robert Crandall.

When we got to the finals we were ecstatic. It was a big deal for students in their 1st year at a community college to do so well against U of U and BYU students; many of whom were graduate students. Six teams advanced to the finals and those who did not win were still given $2,000. We worked hard and in the end, unofficially placed 2nd (we were told by one of the competition organizers that this was so). Winning certainly would have been nice, but I wouldn't trade the experience for all the world. I met many amazing people along the way. I would like to say a special thank you to our teacher Jeff Morrow. I would also like to thank Bob Moore and Vasilios Priskos.

Early Photos of the Crandall Building

These intricate carvings can be found everyone on the building
The Crandall Building in 2009 with City Creek development in the background

City Creek Promises to bring much attention to this area