Fall Colors, Rugby, and the Opera

This last weekend my parents and I took a trip over to St. George. The journey over was one of the longer drives I have ever been on. We decided to take the "scenic route" and so it took us twice as long to get there. We left Blanding and went up through Hanksville, then to Capitol Reef, then we made our way over Boulder Mountain. I was starting to get burned out with this long drive, but that is when we hit some great fall colors. The higher we climbed on Boulder Mountain, the brighter and more vibrant the colors became. We stopped at a rest stop near the top and took a few pictures of the scenery. After coming down off the mountain we wound up at Cannonville and went to see Janice. We had never been to her new house, so we stopped in to see her. It was nice to talk to her for a bit. I was really suprised at how big her house was though, that thing was huge. After visiting with Jan for almost an hour we hit the road again. A little farther down the road we made it to Panguitch. This was a particularly exciting for my dad, because it is where he grew up. We drove around town for a few minutes while my dad checked out a few familiar spots. When we got going again we made it to Parowan, which was our stopping place for the night. We met up with Farley and Tina in Parowan and spent the evening together. We went to dinner then went and played pool in the lobby of our hotel. After that Farley, Tina, and I went swimming. It was supposed to be a heated pool, but the water was pretty chilly. It was a lot harded getting in that water than it was hopping in the pool in Mesquite two weeks ago.

The next morning we got up and finished our journey to St. George. We spent most of the day just hanging out and taking it easy. We did a little shopping, and got to see a movie. We went and saw Forever Strong. It is a movie about the Highland Rugby team. I didn't think I was going to like it, but it was a really good movie. After the movie we went and ate at Texas Roadhouse. We had a great meal, and I had one of the most tender steaks I have ever eaten. It was amazing! After dinner we went to the hotel and relaxed for about an hour before heading to Les Miserable at the Tuacahn Theatre. It was really neat seeing it out in the open with the canyons as a backdrop. It was a little different than the last time I saw it, but it was still well done. We got back to the hotel around midnight, then Farley and I headed for Mesquite to try our luck on the slots. It was a lot of fun to just hang out with Farley, plus I won $3o! By the time we got home it was like 3:00, so we were both really tired. The next day we had breakfast together and then headed for home. It was another long drive, but it was worth it. Well, here are a few pictures to enjoy.

Construction Updates

Well for the past couple of months, our house has been a construction zone. We have had our upstairs hallway, Farleys old bedroom, and the bathroom torn apart and getting remodeled at a slow pace. I had actually intended to do more pictures to show a progression, but you all know how the saying goes, I think it is something to the effect of "the pathway to hell is lined with good intentions." Anyway, we are getting pretty close to the finished product now, so I thought you might enjoy these pictures.

The re-designed closet in Fars room

Another view from Fars room

There is a ton of tile in our bathroom now

The new cabinet and sink.

The carpet on the left is in Farleys room, and the carpet on the right is in the hallway

The Trip That Almost Wasn't

This past weekend I got to go down to Mesquite with my friend Kyle to pick up his wife and his mother-in-law. Dany and Carrie had been there babysitting for Danys sister Clea, so Kyle and I went to pick them up, and to celebrate Kyles 21st birthday. We actually had planned on going to Vegas while we were down there, but it didn't really work out. Anyway, a few days before the trip I got a call from Kyle saying that the trip was off because Clea and her husband were going to be stranded in New York for a couple extra days because their flight got cancelled. A couple days later we found out that they had managed to get a flight for Saturday night, so the trip was back on. So I spent the next day and a half getting all my school work lined up so I could leave. Then on Wednesday night I got really sick, and was suffering through work the next morning, so I was ready to back out of the trip, but I was able to get over it on time. So long story short, it worked out in the end and we had a great trip.

So we left Blanding on Thursday night at 6:30 after I got done with all my school stuff. It was a very long drive to get to Mesquite. I could barely stay awake towards the end of the trip. We got to the house around 1:00 in the morning. The next morning we got to have a pretty quite morning. In the afternoon we drove over to St. George and did a little shopping and had lunch. Then we went back to Mesquite for the rest of the evening. We actually wound up going to the tailgate party for the high school. It was really weird being there because we didn't know anybody, but we went because we provided beans for navajo tacos. I guess the party was sponsored by Clea and her husbands business. After that we went back to the house and opened up the pool. It was really fun to have that nice of a pool all to ourselves. After swimming we went back inside and fired up the Wii. We played tennis on that for a couple of hours. I never knew you could get sore arms from playing video games. The next day was a little more challgnging. Dany and Carrie had been there all week babysitting 4 kids, and we had been able to kind of avoid them for the most part up to that point. Since they were out of schhol on Saturday, we couldn't really avoid them too much. So we had to fight and deal with them almost all day. They were CRAZY! We still managed to have some fun throughout the day. We went swimming that afternoon for a couple more hours. That evening we went to the Eurika Casino for the prime rib and crab legs buffet. It was a lot of really good food. After that we went back to the house and wtached Baby Mamma, and it was a pretty funny movie. Then we had another tennis tourney on the Wii. We had a little early birthday celebration for Kyle. Then at 12:01, when Kyle was officially 21, we headed back to the Eurika Casino to play the slots for a while. I won $30 like right off the bat, but ended out breaking even. I walked into the casino with $20 and walked out with $20, so I walked out feeling alright. Finally today we made the long journey home. It is never any easy drive, but we had Kyles Kia loaded to the brim. We were very weighed down. It was well worth it to just get away and have some fun for a weekend.

Where we spent the majority of our free time.

Emma, Kyle, and Mandy

Kyle reading his home made birthday cards.

Kyles cake!

Ready to blow out the candles.