Wicked!

I was going through my pictures on my camera and I came across a few pictures from our trip in LA to see Wicked!

The Bunker

With Pioneer Day over, I have successfully completed my 4th summer of work at the fireworks bunker! Although it was hot, busy, long hours, and stressful, all of the shows went off perfect! The Salt Lake Tribune did on the company. If you want to read it (since I can't get the link to work) go to www.sltrib.com and search Lantis Fireworks. The reporter offered to take our picture but we graciously declined since we all looked like we had been outside in the 100 degree desert all day packing firework shows! The picture shows a 12" and a 16" shell. The 16" is the largest shell (it weighs over 40 lbs) we have and is now illegal and considered to be dynamite. Needless to say everyday at work was like taking a weight lifting class at the gym

Hole in one!

Nancy and the kids came to visit last week! After a lovely meal at a McDonald's Playland, we all went miniature golfing. I was successful as a labrador retrieving hand-thrown balls all over the course by Emma. Using major engineering skills, Ben and I even managed to save Sarah's blue golfball from a pond complete with bright blue water that also had been thrown in by none other than Emma. Luckily, we convinced the kids that one time through the course was ample fun for one evening. (Thank heavens for that last hole which keeps the ball!).

I want to live at Disneyland...

We went to Disneyland on Saturday and had lots of fun:) There's a piece of prime real estate at the end of Main Street that I am trying to convince Brian we need to move in to (its the big pink pointy one).

You've got me on my knees, Layla.

Meet Layla.
She belongs to the family that I tutored for our first week down here (aka their last week here for the summer). Layla is the same size as Abby (not near as cute, of course!) and suffers from the same hair loss "condition" our poor puppy has always lived with. The family shaves Layla in the summers and they said she is always so much happier and perky when she's shaved because she's so much cooler -- and it saves them from the shedding! What do you think? In my opinion, this is definitely an option Abby should look into....:)

Please note the stylish pom-pom at the tip of her tail:)

Home Sweet . . . Hotel!?!!?

So Dad, Mom and I were starting to feel like the house was a little to big for the three of us. After returning from Oregon, we decided we didn't want to go home. We would rather stay in a hotel. It has had some very nice perks for us besides the fact that we have less space so we are"closer" together! :) We have found that our new home at the Comfort Suites in Oakley offers a lovely spread for breakfast, all free of course (no biscuits and gravy, bummer). The USA Today paper arrives right at our doorstep on most mornings; a lot closer than our paper boy at home ever got it. There also is a lovely pool with a sun deck that mom and I can relax at in the afternoons. Best of all, if we leave in the morning and come back in a couple hours, our beds are made, the floor is vacuumed and our bathroom towels are fanned out beautifully. Need I say more, why would we ever pay a mortgage on a house that gets leaks in the slab when AAA will pay for us to live here!!???

Vroom. . .Vroom, Mom's got a new toy!

Check it out! Susan has a truck! Yesterday mom picked up her new Honda Ridgline! Isn't it beautiful! Nighthawk black exterior; tan leather interior! We have several shots so you can see what it's like, inside and out! It is so nice to drive and very comfortable to ride in. It rides like a car, hauls stuff because it's a truck and is a Honda so it gets great gas mileage (something the expedition was not good for). So this little beauty will replace several other cars. We are finally going to consolidate the car lot we call a driveway. The Expedition is for sale and Dad's green truck and the green honda will soon be for sale! When that is all said and done, we will have a good ratio of one car per driver! p.s. The coolest thing about this truck is that it has a trunk underneath the bed-it is awesome! According to Olivia, it smells good too! p.p.s. They just got back from church, can you find the pyrex dish? =) haha!

Happy 30th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom and Dad celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary while we were in Oregon! Look how cute they are and still so in love. Mom says, "30 years . . . where has the time gone?" Dad says,
"Bring on the next 30 years!"

Say Cheese!

Oh my goodness-how could I forget to mention our trip to the Tillamook cheese factory while we were in Oregon??! Crazy! It was a pretty fun factory! I love factory tours. Remember on Mister Rogers when they
would show videos from factories of how they make stuff? I loved the crayon factory episode! :) This factory had a self-guided tour so we meandered from window to window watching them package cheese. We learned how to make cheese. We sampled cheese. We bought cheese. We ate ice cream. We smelled cows (that was pretty effortless, in the town of Tillamook you just have to inhale to smell cows!). It was great fun!

Newport

So we kept trying to plan trips for this summer but nothing ever worked out. I really wanted to do something since graduating from college. I thought I should go on some exciting getaway to celebrate. I have come to learn we should start planning a few months ahead instead of a few weeks but still we were hopeful. With our timeshares you can often get last minute deals so we tried. Hawaii would have worked except the flights were full on Southwest and Hawaiian Airlines prices were so astronomical it would have meant no souvenirs and maybe no eating for half the trip! A cruise was another attempt but something did not work out there, I can't remember why-oh well! But lo and behold, we were able to find a condo in Newport, Oregon for a week! It was lots of fun (after we got used to sleeping on our swedish Tempurpedics!)! We went to a couple lighthouses, walked on some beaches (the water was chilly!), ate some yummy seafood (we're talking world famous clam chowder!) and went crabbing! The crabbing was awesome (minus the fact that I got motion sick on the dock-crazy weird-I know!). In order to keep the crabs you catch, they must be male and have an abdomen that measures 5 3/4''. Go Susan! Mom was the only one who caught one big enough to keep. Fortunately we had some nice crabbing neighbors from Boise who were catching but not keeping their crabs so they gave us one. We got them cleaned, cooked and ate them for dinner-yum! It was all so fun and quite the adventure! I had never been to Oregon before but it is so beautiful! You could be driving down the road with a forest of pine trees on one side of you and sandy beaches on the other. Here are a bunch of fun pictures from the trip! p.s. If you fly into Portland and drive to Newport, it takes about 3.5 hours, even though it is only like 115 miles, Oregon does not have many (I mean "any") freeways by the coast! Just a traveler's tip!

I finished!

Woo-hoo! I graduated from BYU-I in April in Family and Consumer Science Education! I also got a job! I will be teaching home ec at Iron Horse Middle School in San Ramon. Go Jags! I am super excited about it and am loving my summer break. I really could get use to this teaching schedule! I am still busy getting my classroom and lessons ready and organized- just a month away from school starting!