Movin' On Home

THE WORD IS OUT! We are moving back to Utah. Brett got his Airforce position which may start in January- so we have 5 months to kill! And we reckon' we will do so in the Beehive State.

(Ya know, my senior year of high school I told a woman I was going to college "somewhere in Utah" and a non-mormon lady responded "HOW INDUSTRIOUS OF YOU!"
That was cool.)

Anyways I (RACHEL) will be in town next week to look for Apartments. Bretts goal is to live close to Sandy, and my goal is to find a place with a pool. If you know of a place that can satisfy us both let us know.

In Other News - We went to Palouse Falls last Sunday with some good friends.

Apparently if you drive 2 hours into the middle of nowhere you come to a giant canyon with a sweet waterfall. On the way, however, we stopped in a little town called Starbucks because they had a notably noticable bathroom next to the road that enters their town. Also, they have a large bell that our friends kids got up on and were able to ring. We rang if for a while before I noticed the enscription on the bell which said "RING OUT THE INVITATION." Moments later a couple of large Starbuckian men came to see "wha wa goin' on?" We assured them nothin wa goin on, however I was slightly dissapointed they did not greet us with some Starbucks coffee, of which I would have gotten to turn down.

Liars and Cake Bakers, One in the Same

So how was your summer? You? Yes you. I'm not talking to anybody but you right now. Well I can't hear you so I will just tell you about mine. According to the last entry I am climbing trees for our bread and butter. I have to admit that's a lie. I might as well tell you I am a brain surgeon or a professional baseball player (btw-Tigers dominated on 7/06/07)- because thats just about as true as Brett telling people I am a tree pruner. Anyways I have been babysitting most of the summer, givin' a little plasma, and mowing lawns. For the most part 14 year olds around here are all out of work because of me. They fear me and my mad awesome skills I went to college for.
In other news I am making a wedding cake. Just to eat? No,but yes, but no. A friend in Utah is a wedding planner and had a little falling out with the caterer for a August wedding when she ask him to refund a couple who he made a lopsided cake for. So she says "you've been talking about making wedding cakes." And then there was silence. Long silence for a IM conversation. The kind of IM silience where you know the other person isn't saying something because they are busy or because they are talking to someone else- the silience was a question in itself. And then I finally said it "what would you think if I made the cake?" And here I am today will this sweet picture of the demo cake I made to give to the bride to be.
She's all for it. Of course I have to change a few things.. like get proper sized cake plates, a chocolate curler, and maybe I will wash my hands before I make the real one....

Tucker Barn

It's been a couple days since my last entry. Anybody visiting the site recently has been treated to a nice shot of the toilet. Well, two weeks ago Rachel and I both put on the robes of an apostate priesthood and graduated. Rachel was able to graduated at the law school graduation ceremonies. So it was nice that we didn't have to sit through two ceremonies. Although, they replay the undergrad graduation on the local channel and I couldn't turn away. Something about wondering if the person would wave to the camera, or just smile, or show no signs, combined with me waiting to see somebody I knew, combined with the confusion that it was on TV, combined with the confusion that I was watching it.

Now my job has been to study for the bar. I've been taking a bar review course. It's 4 hours of lecture in the morning, and then assignments and practice questions for us to go over. It's hard to keep up with the pace of the assignments. Especially since we have tons of work assigned to do on Sunday. I'm going to not do any on Sunday, and just try to play catchup the rest of the week.

I've put Rachel into a state of no-man's land. It's hard for her to know what she is supposed to be doing right now, since she graduated. We don't know where we'll go after I take the bar, so it makes it hard for her to know what to do. I tell her to relax and take advantage of the time. But she always likes to be doing stuff. I guess she's one of those crazy people who needs a purpose to their life. She's been doing tons of odd jobs for everybody. She is a jack of all trades. She's mostly been doing some tree trimming with this crazy guy who likes to make up stories about mormons.

That's about all we're up to for now. I'll attach a picture of "tucker Barn". It is the site of one of our first dates. It's pretty romantic. We were chased off by this giant crow that lived in there. Usually its all green around it, instead of ugly brown. Rachel's mom is really artistic and whatnot and she's going to paint us a picture of it, but with inserted green...and a better river....and she'll take out that ugly bush....and she'll move the structures around...and make it more hilly...and make the barn look nice...or maybe she'll take the barn out of it altogether.

The fish died

Our lame fish died. I think he costs us about a dollar a day. I think we murdered it by feeding it too much. But that is just a guess. He will best be known for eating really loudly and sitting underneath the toy bridge. I've attached a picture of his tombstone.

In other news we had a real funeral to attend. It was for Rachel's cousin Jeff. You may remember that Rachel wrote about him on this blog a long time ago. When somebody has lived a good life, funerals are such spiritual experiences. Jeff's family was so strong and amazing.

Today Rachel and I went to the park and played catch with a baseball. Rachel did take two off the leg, possibly leaving bruises, but she caught most of them. The hard part is she tells me to throw her pop flies, but I know she's going to get smashed in the face with it. But I do as I'm told and more often than not it works out. The most impressive is how she would throw the ball a quarter mile. She almost threw it over them mountains. She's got a cannon on her.

Our New Baby

Coming up on our one year anniversary, we decided to add a new member to the family. His name is Mr. Sprinkles. He is an Oranda Goldfish. For you non-fish people that means he was not as expensive as the $14.95 fish but more durable than the $.23 cent fish.

He is the perfect addition. He is not grumpy, and doesn't seem to have any expectations that his life will get better.

I wanted to name him "Puppy" or "The Dog" but Brett wasn't to keen on that. So Mr. Sprinkles suits him well enough.

Welcome home Mr. Sprinkles.

broken streak

I hate to write an entry and lose my streak of pretending like I don't have a blog, but alas, time moves on & I need to make changes. And as graduation approaches - I come to a realization. I need a job. So since we are not planted anywhere so I might get a regular teaching job (and the fact I secretly hate teaching- no offense to Bubs who I will eternally respect and admire for being good at it/liking it) I have been looking for a job.

That was probably the worst idea I've ever had. Over spring break I contacted someone who I thought would be a pleasing retired old fella to help "spring clean" at $8/hour. It seemed like a good rate, that is, until I got into the 4th hour of pine needle raking. You see, that was after I was prancing on top of his roof with a rope tied around me, sweeping the pine needles off. As dangerous as it was, I thought it was fun. I didn't know at that point I would be raking the needles up after I pushed them off. Oh my nieve ways are always my downfall.

Anyways, I don't mean to complain... however I do want to clear up one crucial item. Cleaning chimneys IS NOTHING like they show on Mary Poppins. Unless of course if by using brushes they really meant using a 20 foot rope with 40-50lbs of chains at the end, and by dancing and singing they mean crowched into the top of the chimney and choking on carcinogenic dust - THEN YES- its just like on Mary Poppins.

But on the bright side I think I got a job with a man who prunes trees. He doesn't believe in bucket trucks or machinery so he repels in the tree. All I do for now is watch him from the ground, pass up tools to him, and read propoganda he wrote about being a vegetarian and a hippie. Just kidding, but not really.

The picture at the top is what I will look like at my new job.