Sewing Projects

I am making a white dress shirt for Brian in my sewing class. I am excited to see him wear it when it is done.

I am also making a pair of snow pants for myself, I need to get around to altering the pattern.

I am also making swimsuits for Shannon and Emma, I just ordered the fabric and need to find some more time to work on those when I get a chance.

ModBod

I am trying to win something from ModBod and Beth is having a giveaway on her blog here

Tillamook Cheese

I am trying to win Tillamook Cheese here. I really like cheese and Tillamook is the best. My favorite is mild cheddar or mozzarella. We often add mozzarella and olives to a Little Caesar's pizza then put it back in the oven until it is crisp to make a cheap pizza better. I love cheese!

Haircut

So I forgot to post about this but I got a haircut probably 2 weeks ago. I saw in the BYU newspaper at work that they were giving away free haircuts in the WILK if you donate your hair to Locks of Love. So I went over and did it that same day and got 10" cut off. I didn't even tell Brian until he saw it when he got home that evening. He likes it. I love that I don't have to do much with it, the only sad part is that I can't put it in a ponytail. I like it :)

Fishing Success!

We went fishing at Utah lake today with Andrew. Brian and Andrew combined caught 9 white bass and 1 catfish! They were catching them so fast. I did not catch any, but yesterday we also went and I caught a white bass. They are fairly good sized fish, not much meat though. We filleted them when we got home and we are going to eat it all for lunch tomorrow. I ate mine yesterday and it was so delicious!

Brithday

Brian got me a sewing machine for my birthday! I love it so much, and it was only like $120 or something. It works very well and it is the industrial version which they still manufacture because it is very sturdy and reliable. Here is a picture of my sewing corner that I set up. The only bad thing about it is that the closet door only opens a little when I have the table open. He also got me a class at a sewing machine store in Provo. It is a one-on-one class with an expert that works there and she will teach me all about my machine, how to upkeep it, setting the tension, and other cool things. That way I can use it the right way and it could work very well for me for the next 10 years or so.


Brian made me cupcakes for my birthday and put 20 candles on one cupcake! I did not eat that cupcake, I ate another one.

New Skirt

I made a skirt in my sewing class. It is a pencil skirt with a green leafy pattern. It was really fun to make and learn how to do things like darts, zippers, and a blind hem. I lengthened the pattern by 5" and it only just passes my knee when I sit, good thing I did! I should probably press out that fold in the front before I wear it somewhere. I also made pajama pants and am in the process of a purple blouse. I will make Brian a pair of cargo shorts also. I love this sewing class, it is my favorite part of the week and at least 2 days a week I spend about 6 hours in the lab because it is so fun and I want to do everything right and get good at sewing well.

Temple Square

Here are a few photos from when we took Christina to temple square right before she went back to Washington. It was so hot that day, at least 98. But we got the see the new model of the Salt Lake temple that is cut in half so viewers can see the rooms inside. It was very fun, I liked riding the trax.

Jordanelle Camping

We went to Jordanelle and camped on a site called "Hike-in" camping. We really beached our boat and walked just a little to get to the site. It was nice, it had a picnic table, cement pad, and fire pit. Emily and Neil drove up from Idaho and picked up Christina at the airport. We got to our campsite at about 6 or 7pm. We set up our tents and cooked our foil dinners. After that we took the boat out for a drive but did not get in the water. We played Neil's loud music and had fun. We played games like "BANG!" and ate s'mores. The next morning we ate bacon, pancakes, and eggs. Most of the day we were out on the lake teaching everyone how to waterskii. They all liked it a lot and picked it up pretty fast. We did some tubing also and Brian fell off pretty badly once. We did a little bit of fishing and I almost caught one but it got away. It was a very fun trip, I liked sitting around the campfire and cooking food the best.

Grove Creek Backpacking

This weekend we hiked the Grove Creek trail that starts in Pleasant Grove. It was about 3.5 miles one way and 2 miles were the side of the cliff like in the one picture. The trail was pretty skinny and some places had rocks up and down the side of the cliff that looked like they had slid. There is a bench to sit at about mile 3 that looks at a waterfall. The trail follows the Grove Creek almost the whole way. After that there is a bridge that crosses the creek and the scenery becomes more forest. There is a really nice place to camp called Indian Springs where the Grove Creek spring is. We got there at about 8pm and still had about an hour of daylight left. It was a really nice meadow to set up a tent in. We ate tortilla soup and it was so good. The next morning we had bacon and hot chocolate and it didn't take very long to hike down. Having walking poles was very nice on that cliff because they helped us balance and not fall. One of my favorite things about this hike was that it was free and not very far to drive to. It was very fun and we both enjoyed it. Here is a link to a page about the trail.

New Mexico

Brian and I took a trip down to New Mexico to go boating with Brian's brother Jared and his two sons Andrew (9) and Brayden (6). We went to Navajo lake which is kinda like Lake Powell but smaller, I like that it has a lot of little fingers so you can camp on the beach but be away from the main body of water. We camped on the beach and went tubing and water-skiing on Friday. We also did some fishing and Brian caught what we think is 2 Small mouth Bass. I also caught one. We ate one of Brian's and it was so good! I wanted to keep the others to eat but it was too much work to clean them so we threw them back. It was very fun.

On the Thursday Brian and I went to the Aztec ruins (actually inhabited by the Pueblo people). They were really cool. It was a city that was basically 1 building with a lot of rooms like houses.

Fishing at Utah Lake

Today we went fishing at Utah lake. It was really fun but we did not catch anything. It was supposed to rain today but it didn't so we went out. It was a bit cold though and kinda windy.

MCAT & Sand Hollow

Last weekend we drove down to Vegas and stayed with Brian's brother's family (Seth & Jenny) so Brian could take the MCAT. We drove Thursday and brought our boat which we dropped off in Hurricane with Brian's Mom's cousin (Buffalo) and then continued on to Vegas to spend the night with Seth and Jenny. Brian took the MCAT Friday morning and he thinks he did pretty well, he is very confident about most of it except the biology part. The practice tests he has been taking he got a 8, 10, and 9 on the three sections. Most mid or low level schools accept all 8's as average scores. So hopefully he did well.
Then Friday afternoon we drove back to Hurricane to grab our boat and go to Sand Hollow (10 minutes away from Hurricane). Before we left we found out that the Scuba Diving club in Springville was going down there that weekend so we brought all our gear and our boat too. We got there Friday night and just camped on the beach but it was very windy so it was like a sandstorm. We ended up sleeping on the floor of the boat so the sand would not get in our faces, it was very nice to have a bit of a breeze too.
Saturday morning we headed out on the boat because it was supposed to be less windy in the morning. We went water skiing and rode the tube a bit also. We tried to go diving but we started descending on our boat's anchor line to go look at the anchor and we could not see a thing. The wind had mixed up all the sand on the bottom that I could not even see Brian 2 feet away. So we didn't end up diving much, just 2 times for about 5 minutes each.
At 2pm on Saturday the Scuba club had a steak and baked potato BBQ which was really good. The potatoes were huge! We got to talk to everyone and nobody did much diving because there was nothing to see and it was easy to get lost.
We played around on the boat for a while and then we drove to Walmart and bought some fishing poles and tried our luck at fishing. We didn't catch anything but we did successfully figure out how to work the poles and put them all together. We did use worms and I didn't want to poke them with the hook but Brian made me. It was so weird because they would get all tense and wiggle too much. Anyways, we had a good time fishing and just relaxing on our boat.
We went to drive home Saturday night and were going to get a hotel somewhere around Parowan but we blew a tire on the trailer right before we got onto the freeway. The tire was ripped to shreds and luckly we were about a mile from Walmart so we just drove very slow about 1 mph to walmart but by then it was 7:30 and their tire service closes at 7pm so we stayed the night at Buffalo's house and went back to Walmart in the morning to get 4 new tires on the trailer because they were so old. Probably from like 1990 or something.
We drove back to Provo Sunday safely and then woke up Monday to find snow. It was a crazy weekend. We both got a bit of a sunburn but it is not that bad. Our skin is just so dry and needs lots of lotion.

Boat

Brian and I got a new boat, not new but new to us. It is just about as old as the other one we had. We found out that our old boat that we were fixing was not worth it to fix. It was beyond repair. So we got this new boat and we will be selling off parts from the old one which will pretty much pay for itself. It has a bench in the back and it continues up one side. The driver has a seat and the bow has more benches. There is storage under almost every seat and next to the engine. This one runs and yesterday we took it out to Utah lake to test it out. A storm was coming in so it was pretty choppy but at least we know it floats and moves. Here are a few pictures from when Mom and Dad were here.

Easter

This morning the Easter Bunny came and hid some candy in our house. Then he gave us some eggs with crazy faces. Brian loved the hunt.

Y

Brian and I hiked to the Y on Saturday. We just got some new hiking boots and decided to wear them in before we go backpacking next Friday. The hike to the Y is not very long, about 1 mile but it is hard. We were tired when we got to the top. I guess we are out of shape. It was cold at the top with a little bit of snow but hot hiking on the way up. But it was so fun just going slow and stopping to look and talk. I would say it was a very peaceful day. I just took off my sunglasses in this picture and it was very bright.


P.S. This picture is of the Y, not snow.

Apple Pie

I made my first ever apple pie in my cooking class last week. We put it together in class then cooked it at home. Brian was very excited that he got to eat some pie. He loves pie. This is so delicious and we keep eating it every day because it is so good

Dishwasher

We got a dishwasher! We are so excited. It is pretty small and is like an oversize microwave. It works very well for the amount of dishes we use every day. It has a hose that hooks to the faucet and drains into the sink. We usually start it every evening and let it go while we watch TV shows, then it finishes when we go to bed. We really like having a dishwasher

Ham Radio

I got my ham radio license last Wednesday. They have the test once a month at the BYU Law Library. The test is very east, there were two 11 year old boys there and they passed. There are 500 questions that they pick 35 from. To study for it you just need to read over the 500 questions and then on the test they are exactly the same.

We have 2 handheld radios and Brian's car one. We talk with the BYU ham radio club every Thursday night at 9pm and Brian is the Net Manager which means he is the ruler of the radio for an hour and tells people when they can talk. So it is pretty fun to be able to talk on the radio and it is good for emergencies or even if we go hiking and get lost.

Snowshoeing

We went snowshoeing on Saturday. It was really fun because it has just snowed the day before. We walked on the Provo canyon river bike trail. The snow was nice and powdery. There was only a handful of runners and 1 or 2 other people snowshoeing. We got there early in the morning so the snow was great. We ended up walking total about 4 miles. It was really fun and quiet and looked peaceful with all the snow. We were careful not to walk under or near any ledges because of the avalanche warning. That is why we chose this place because it is not very close to any steep mountains and not very far up in the mountains. We both had a great time.

Our Future

Disney Dive Quest