Phoenix...again

Over the weekend of September, 18th, we went to Phoenix to visit Brian's brother Mike, and his wife Misty, and their kids Kelsy, Conner, and Zoe.

We didn't have alot of time to spend there - we got in late Friday night, and left Sunday morning. But we did have alot of fun Saturday, just hanging out a catching up. Mike and Misty's new house has a pool and a hot tub, so we really enjoyed that!!! Brian is now thinking that we need a hot tub too!

On the way home from Phoenix, we decided to stop by a little town called Chloride, about a hour outside of Vegas. They have some cliff murals, and Indian petroglyphs that we wanted to see. Unfortunately, the road was washed out, so we weren't able to make it up the canyon. We will have to go back a different weekend with the truck. So, we just drove around the town for a little bit, and then headed home.

Overall, it was a good weekend though! It is always fun to hang out with family and friends!

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Hair identity crisis

So, for the last four years I have been growing my hair long. And it got long. Really long for me. It was also getting really hard to take care of. So I decided to cut it shorter.

I went to the salon the Thursday before labor day weekend (and our death valley trip). It turned out hideous. It was some weird shoulder length mullet looking mess. I kept it pulled back into a ponytail for the entire weekend. There is no pictures of this cut. It was really bad.

So, Tuesday, I went to another hairdresser (at Salon Indigo) to get it fixed. She cut it in a cute, chin length layered bob. I liked it, okay. I kept it cut like that for about two or three weeks. But, I wasn't really happy.

I went to the hairdresser (Salon Indigo), and had her whack it all the way off. Super short. It was so weird. I have had short hair a majority of my adult life - but still, I couldn't get over the feeling that four years was gone in about 45 minutes. It gave me some crazy anxiety - which is even weirder. I was always the girl that was willing to do anything to my hair. My hairdresser in high school always used me to "try out" new haircuts. I had realized what a security blanket my hair had become to me.
Anyway, I am not sure that I like it now. I wanted more of a short "messy" pixie style. But my hair is too fine, and just won't do that. I am not sure that I like it. But I am still glad I did it. I am thinking I am going to grow it out - but not grow it out just for the sake of growing it out. I want to try lots of different hairstyles in between. And maybe I will find one I REALLY like in the process. I think it will be fun and exciting!

I plan on posting pictures of all my new hairstyles. So please leave comments. BE HONEST! If you like it the best long. Tell me. I promise that you are NOT going to hurt my feelings. If you like it, tell me - if you don't, tell me. I really appreciate honestly!!!!

Long hair

Medium Hair


Short hair
Okay - not the best pic. And for the record, I am not really that weird. Maren always makes a "mean face" in her pics, and I was trying to copy her. It didn't work out so well.

Happy Birthday Adalyn!

On September 14th Ady turned nine years old! I can't believe that my baby is nine already! It has gone by WAY to fast!

In other Adalyn news: Violin lessons are going great! Her teacher is amazed at how fast she has learned to read music. After only a month and a half, she reads the notes, without even pausing to think about it. Violin is really hard! It has been alot of work for her, but she is doing incredible. Most importantly, she loves it! I never have to remind her to practice - and lately she has been practicing twice a day. She wants to be able to play a "mini concert" for Maren and Matt when they visit Utah in December.

School is going great as well! Ady is getting straight A's (of course), and she is loving the 3rd grade and her teacher Dr. Muench. At the beginning of the school year, Ady's teachers referred her to be tested for the Gifted and Talented Education Program at her school (GATE). It is pretty hard to test into the program, but she did it! She was one of only two students in her class to be accepted into GATE! So far, she has been loving it! School comes really easy for her, so it is really nice that she now has something a little more challenging.

We are so proud of our Ady! She is such a beautiful, smart, outgoing girl. She is such a hard worker - she always does her best in everything! I know that she will be able to achieve any goal that she sets for herself, and will accomplish alot in her life!

Mt. Charleston

I have slacked off really bad on keeping the blog updated this last month! So I am trying to catch up.

On September 12, we went to Mt. Charleston. Brian organized a big party with a bunch of our friends. We got rained on, but it was still fun! We also took our dutch ovens and made some potatoes. They turned out good, and we were quite proud of our first attempt at dutch ovening - which is sad since we have had the dutch ovens for about 9 years now.

We really are lucky to live where we do. We have the hot desert climate (which I love, especially in the winter when we have NO SNOW!), but if we want to escape the heat the mountains are only a 1/2 drive away.

My Opinion

Before getting to the main point - I have a couple things that I need state:

1) I am absolutely proud to be an American and I love our great country.

2) I fully support our troops. Although I do not agree with this war, I recognize our soldiers who are fighting it, and I sympathize with them and their families. I am very grateful for all the brave men and women who have risked their lives to give me the freedom to live my life and voice my opinions (which are quite abundant).

Having said that, I want to say that if one more person sends me another email about our brave US troops or how bad President Obama is, I will scream. Yes our troops are brave. Yes, they have a very hard job. But it is not completely selfless act, like everyone makes it out to be. I think every one of these men and women were completely motivated to be a proud member of the US Armed Forces, every time they collect their paycheck. That's right. Being a member of the military is a CAREER CHOICE. They are paid for their service to our country with a paycheck, paid living expenses, paid education, great benefits and excellent retirement - as they should be. I absolutely, think they deserve credit for what they do - but in the same way that a doctor deserves credit for saving lives on a daily basis, or a garbage man deserves respect for taking away our trash, or a teacher for teaching our children, or parents for raising good, wholesome members of society, etc.

To the best of my knowledge, not one person was drafted into this "war on terror". This means that every single person who has been called to fight, knew that that this was the risk he was taking when he chose military as a CAREER.

So please, by all means, support our troops. Send them packages, letters, and your love - because they need it. It is a hard job, and they deserve respect for what they do. But please remember, that everyone who serves us whether it be our gardener, postal worker, teacher or sidewalk sweeper deserves that respect too.

Also - do not be so foolish to as to think that supporting our troops means supporting this war.

Secondly - it is time we stop pointing fingers at our leader for the state of our economy. We can be mad a credit lenders, and at Bush, etc. for creating this mess. We can be mad at Obama for not having it all cleaned up yet. But what good will it do? We are just passing the buck.

We are in this mess because everyone, EVERYONE - our country, big corporations, small businesses, and individual citizens - were spending, spending, spending and living beyond our means. I suggest that every single person in this country point a finger at themselves. How many of us saved for a rainy day? How many of us were living beyond our means? Maybe credit was lended to easily - but it was our choice to accept and use credit that we knew we couldn't afford. Maybe losing a job was beyond your control - but how many of us had saved money for such an emergency? Each one of us is accountable for ourselves. Instead of sitting back and complaining about how this isn't getting fixed faster, I think we should all start fixing it ourselves. Those of us who are smart will use this as a learning opportunity.

So I guess that the whole point is: STOP SENDING ME YOUR US TROOPS/OBAMA JUNK MAIL. Maybe this makes me a "hardcore liberal" or "unpatriotic". I don't care. Think what you want. Just stop crowding my inbox with political nonsense.

Sorry it took me so long to get to the point!

Death Valley

We wanted to go somewhere fun over Labor Day weekend this year, but we soon found that it was suppose to be raining pretty much everywhere within driving distance. So, we went to the one place in the world, where your almost guaranteed not to get rained on... Death Valley National Park. It is only about a 2 hour drive from our house.

It was still really hot, so we didn't get to do much hiking, but we did brave the sand dunes. Ady and Alysa had fun sliding down the dunes, and Bry got frustrated trying to make a sand castle. By the time we got back to the car our shoes were full of sand.

We also visited Badwater Basin - the lowest and hottest point in North America, Zabriskie Point, Artists Drive and the Devils Golf Course. The girls also worked hard to earn their Death Valley Junior Ranger Badge.

There wasn't alot of dining options along the way, and the girls were starving. So we stopped in Death Valley Junction, CA to eat at the Amaragosa Opera House and Hotel Cafe. The place is suppose to be haunted, and it has been on the TV shows, Chris Angel Mindfreak and Ghosthunters. But because it was Sunday, they were closed. The girls thought they were going to starve to death.

Luckily, there happened to be a little cafe in Lathrop Wells. According to the signs, we were in "Alien Territory". I guess since the haunted cafe was closed, we had to eat at the Alien one.