Family fun in Utah and Yellowstone

I have about a billion pictures from the trip so follow these links to see the photo albums on my facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199215&l=46520&id=17806428 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199223&l=229db&id=17806428
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199229&l=73a95&id=17806428

Well, this past week was awesome! Not only did I get to see my family for a whole week, but we went to Yellowstone; and it was gorgeous!!! :) The only bad thing about the trip was that Kade had to leave early to get back to work. It's not easy for him to leave the farm during the summer, the busiest time of the year, for a whole week.
Kade and I drove to Utah on Saturday, July 19th, in time for my Grandma Blood's 90th birthday party with Dad's family. We also stopped by Mr. Mac for Aaronhead's mission clothes, where mom decided I needed to try on shoes they were buying for Stephen because we have the same size foot, very weird...
Sunday, we also spent with Grandma, going to her church and staying for dinner. Monday we drove up to the cabin. Kade loved it! I knew he would, that's why I bribed him to stay just until Tuesday, so he could go. The cabin was very nice and relaxing. The cabin supplied us with horseshoes, tetherball, pingpong, and fooseball. I beat Kade at horseshoes once :) hehe... Kade, Aaron, and I also went for a bike ride down the road. It was pretty hilarious when I first got on the bike. First, I probably haven't ridden a bicycle in who knows how long. And second, when I got on the bike there was a monstrous hill right in front of me. So, I gracefully flew down the hill completely forgetting where the brakes were. Kade was already long gone, and Aaron just sat there and laughed at me. Thankfully, I did remember where the brakes were before I got to the huge bump at the bottom of the hill, which would have sent me flying. Those dang seats are so uncomfortable! I couldn't sit down for a couple days after that bike ride...
Tuesday we drove to Trial Lake to go fishing, also very beautiful. I like this picture of dad. Sadly, I was depressed most of the time because Kade was leaving at noon. Kade loves fishing, so he was having a good time even though he didn't catch anything. But right after he left they caught 11 fish!! He missed out..
Then we went back to the cabin and ate them all.. I love fish :)
That night we played some more games and watched a movie.


Wednesday morning we left for Yellowstone from the cabin. It went by fast because the drive was beautiful. We stopped at the Grand Tetons National Park at Jenny Lake for lunch. Wow was that gorgeous!! I now have this picture as by desktop background. Then we kept heading up to Yellowstone. We were lucky enough to make it to Old Faithful right before it was about to erupt, so we didn't have to sit around for an hour waiting for it to go off again. That night we stayed at one of the four Best Westerns in West Yellowstone. We got confused trying to find the hotel because there were 3 within a block from each other.
Thursday we got to spend the whole day in Yellowstone, and got to see almost everything. Though hiking some of the trails would have been fun, but we didn't have the time. First thing in the morning we followed very slow cars up to the Mammoth Hot Springs. We saw an elk there too, just chilling right next to the hot springs. There were plenty of elk in Yellowstone. And you always knew where they were because there would be a crowd of cars on the side of the road watching the animals. Then we drove down to the Canyon and waterfalls (my favorite)! We stopped for lunch and ice cream and headed down towards the falls. I was kind of scared looking over the edge at the Lower Falls because we were extremely close to the edge. But my favorite was the Upper Falls, it was breathtaking inside of the Canyon.
Then we started heading back to the hotel, but mom, dad, and I wanted to go see the paint pots down by Old Faithful. So after forcing Timmy and Joanna to come with we headed down, while everyone else went back to the hotel to swim. We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pots where there were turquoise pools like this one, and bubbling mud holes, and small geysers that were constantly erupting. It was really cool, I'm glad I went, as were Timmy and Joanna. :)

Friday morning we headed back to Utah going through Idaho this time, not a scenic route but quicker. That night for dinner we had a picnic at West Jordan Park with Mom's side. The playground at the park was very impressive, it had a huge castle. While taking this picture, it was difficult running back to the group after hitting the timer on our cameras, but I did make it back. Sadly, I have my eyes closed.. haha..

On Saturday Daniel, Wendy and Jocelyn had to go to the airport in the morning so Dad and I took them. Then later in the afternoon Dad drove me back to the airport so I could catch my flight to Reno, where Kade was picking me up. I was sad to leave my family, but also glad to see Kade again. While I was away he was able to look for deer with Brandon all he wanted without worrying about me. I guess I'll see everyone again at Christmas, except Aaron of course he'll be in Chile on his mission.
Oh, and while I was away my garden exploded! Everything got huge, and I even see small cucumbers and watermelons forming! Unbelievably, my flower garden grew even bigger when I was gone! My sunflower plant has dwarfed everything we put in there. I'll have to get some pictures of that. The next thing I'm looking forward to is the release of Breaking Dawn :) Only 3 more days!!! Yay!!

First time gardener

So I was extremely excited to start my first garden in our backyard. I began very small so I would actually be able to take care of it. But being a novice, I forgot an important step. Luckily, I had Kade's dad to point it out to me. Last Sunday his parents came over to check out all the work we have been doing on our house (including my garden). When he looked at my beans, he knew right away I had a bug problem. I was in shock, even though it should have been obvious. The bean plants were pretty much just the stalks, no leaves. But because I didn't really know what bean plants were supposed to look like, I figured they were supposed to look like that.... Well, they're not. Not only were the beans missing their leaves, but the cantaloupe plants were completely gone. I noticed a few days before one had disappeared, but I thought maybe it died or something. But then both disappeared, so I don't have anymore cantaloupe plants. :(
But, thanks to Kade's dad I have now put some bug killer on my garden, and hopefully I'll still get some vegetables out of it this year.
I hope I'm not missing another important step...
Oh and I should comment on my flower garden. The sunflowers I had started from seed in my window seal have no grown so huge they are bigger than the bushes we planted this spring. Hopefully, the stupid thing will produce some more flowers, right now it just looks like a big green monster...
Ok I got some pictures, thankfully the sunflowers have bloomed :)
And I have a mini-green tomato! yay!!

The animals in my life

This post is going to be dedicated to all the animals I neglected in my catching-up summary post.
(Summer 07) So, the first would be the pheasants I helped raise. They were the most adorable little birds when we first got them. And get this, 50 little birds were packed like sardines in a box and shipped through the post office, does that seem humane??
Let me start from the beginning. The whole reason we even got these birds was because a friend of Kade's dad convinced him he could make a butt-load of money having a bird hunting club. It's probably true, if they ever get the thing set up and running. So we bought 50 birds to raise, mostly just to see if we could do it. On one of the ranches the farm is leasing there is an old chicken coop. So Kade, Brandon (Kade's brother), and I fixed up the building so they would be comfortable and not be able to get out. When they arrived we blocked off part of the building with wood boards because when you let them go they ran around like they had their heads cut off (One even got stepped on in the process :( very sad).
I was so attached to those cute little birds that I ended up taking care of them everyday after work. That included making sure their water and food feeders were full. I enjoyed taking care of them, except when I would open the door and find a dead bird on the ground being pecked at by the others. I felt really bad for the dead ones, so I buried them outside the building (Kade laughed at me...haha). Then, when they were old enough, the hunting club still wasn't going (duh! they barely have enough time to sleep, much less put a hunting club together!) so we set them free on the farm. Kade took some pictures of the freed ones around the farm, and I was glad at least they didn't all die.

(August 2006)
When I married Kade I had no idea he was such an avid hunter (obsessed is a better word). But I guess it was because the first summer I was in Winnemucca he was too busy trying to convince me that Winnemucca is where I wanted to live for the rest of my life, to try and kill a deer. (Ok, so Kade informed me he couldn't get a tag that year because the year before he was late on his mandatory response, oh well) So after getting married that summer he found a huge deer in the mountains by the farm. Luckily, he got an archery tag for the area the buck was in. Even though he was extremely busy with the farm, he managed to spend hours a day tracking this deer with help from his brother. He would spend hours looking for the deer and then hours trying to sneak up on it to get close enough for a shot. I have no idea how his brother could sit there for hours on end staring through a spotting scope, but he seemed to enjoy himself. In the beginning of the hunt he had a couple times where he was 30-40 yards away but missed. But before the end of the season he managed to get it. After arrowing the deer he called me to get his dad and come out to help him pack it out of the mountains. We four-wheeled in and found Kade ecstatic, to say the least. I tried not to look or smell as he gutted it (I made someone else take those pictures). Then we packed in on the four-wheeler and headed back (I was lucky enough to score a seat on the four wheeler with the deer, ha!) The picture I have of his deer is actually just the deers head. Kade cut the head off so he could get it mounted. The buck was 29 inches across and was a 4x6. The head is now hanging on Kade's mom's wall. When we got the head back (it took a year) Kade brought it to where we were living (his parents) and never has got around to taking it to our house. Kade begs for the head to be hung above our TV, but it scares me so its going in the spare room where I don't have to see it.

(September 2007)
I always wanted a dog and Kade always grew up with a dog, so the first big purchase we made after getting into our house was to buy a dog. I would have been happy picking one up from the shelter, but Kade insisted on a pure-bread hunting dog. Kade always had German Shorthair Pointers, so thats what we got. I didn't really care what kind it was I just wanted one! Oh, I guess I did have one condition, I didn't really like the spotted look of most German Shorthairs, so we decided on a rarer pure liver (brown) one. We looked at ads in the local newspaper and searched the internet. We were finding some, but not pure liver. Finally, I called down to a family in Yerington and they told me they had one little pure liver female for sale. Luckily, Kade's parents already had a trip planned to Reno (Yerington is kind of on the way), so we got a ride with them. When we got down there I couldn't believe how adorably cute all the little puppies were! Especially the one we were planning on taking home. She was actually the shyest one of the bunch and the smallest. The family showed us the mom and dad while we were there. The mom was very small for a German Shorthair, but the dad was huge; so we figured she would be average. We had brought a box and towels for her to sit in on the way home. Because she had her first shot right before leaving she slept almost the whole way. When she wasn't asleep Kade played tug-of-war with her, it was so cute! We named her Roxy and made a home for her in our garage (we had both agreed on an outside dog). I love the picture I have of her as a baby, she is absolutely adorable!!
After a couple months our garage was a mess and Roxy had grown out of her adorable stage. She was now in the psychotic stage, and still is. German Shorthairs are known for their energy, but I swear there are drugs in her dog food. She has so much energy its unbelievable! When Kade gets her at 3 in the morning, Roxy does circles around the house before Kade can get to the truck. We are lucky she has a farm to run at, or she would go crazy being pinned up in our yard all day long. We bought a kennel for her, but she has managed to dig out a few times, and teach Kade's dad's dog how to dig out (he's not too happy about that).
She is about 10 months old now, but she is still pretty small. Kade's worried she will be like her mom was, but I like our little mini dog, much cuter. She is a very obedient, too. Kade and I have taught her to fetch, sit, and drop what's in her mouth. She also knows the meaning of "no," even though sometimes she just likes to forget. I need a recent picture of her on here; she seriously looks like a bull dog with all the muscle on her legs. Her legs are huge! I guess that's what happens when you run constantly all day long. I love how she gets really excited when you come to her kennel and pet her, she loves it!

Well, that's all the animals in my life. I wanted another dog, but Kade won't let me get one.