Utah or Africa?

Brandon and I like to see some of the amazing things that Utah has to offer. We also like to do things that are free. Today we got to do both. We went to the Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve near Layton, UT. It was such a beautiful, calm place. I loved hearing the wind in the grass. It felt like we were miles away from Utah. I joked that it felt like Africa. If you have the chance you should go here too. http://www.mitigationcommission.gov/wetlands/wetlands_layton.html

Going to the Dump

Yesterday I had some free time and my family had some junk. So we got together and went to the dump.
My dad helped me load the jeep with two old twin mattresses, some old head boards, and a broken dresser.

The back of the jeep couldn't close on its own so we had to tie it shut.

We were hoping to leave before my mom got home so we could surprise her. We wrote her a note like we stole the junk.

But she got home just as we were about to leave.

Mom wanted to be the one to throw the junk away so she talked my dad into staying home while she rode in the passenger seat.

Then she had the fun of helping me throw the stuff into the giant pit. Instant gratification for only 8 dollars!

Thanks mom and dad for helping fill some time on a Saturday. I would have been completely bored otherwise.

Fall Photo Shoot

Brandon and I have been married for almost 2 and a half years. I figured it was time to get some pictures of us together that weren't wedding pictures. So I invited my dad up to Logan to look at the fall leaves and to go on a photo shoot. He quickly agreed.

Here are some of my favorite pics.

This is up Green Canyon. It's the same canyon we took engagement pictures for Emily and David last year.

My sister Hillary came with too.

It was partially her photo shoot too.

I took this picture of Hillary.

Brandon Passed!!!!

As of last Monday Brandon is officially Instrument Rated. Which means he can fly by only using the instruments in his airplane. (Imagine driving a car without being able to see outside the car and you only the speedometer, odometer, and a GPS to guild you to your destination) This means he can fly in clouds. He has worked on this rating in one way or another for the past 4 years. But it has only been the last 6 months that we have seen any real progress in USU actually helping him learn how to fly instrument. With that in mind I modified the following Calvin and Hobbs comic. (Click on it to make it bigger)
Here Brandon is with his temporary instrument licence. The permanent hard copy should come in the mail soon.
Here Brandon is with the DVD of the first season of the TV show Tail Spin.

I bought this for him for Christmas of 2007 as the anticipated reward for him passing instrument. Neither of us realised it would be almost 2 years before we could open it.

Now that Brandon has passed instrument we can start on Commercial Flight. This shouldn't take as long as instrument.

New Phone (sorry that I didn't call you)

I'm sorry if you called me in the last month and I didn't call you back. I broke my phone about a month ago.

I got my new phone yesterday. I'm on Verizon now, but I have the same phone number as before.
So far I like my new phone. It reminds me a lot of my old one which is good because I loved my old one.
This one is skinnier though,

Again, sorry if I didn't call you back, but now I can talk again.

Linger Longer Decorations

I am not a food oriented person. I can't tell you for the life of me how much food will feed how many people. So when the activities committee was discussing the details of our spaghetti dinner linger longer I was planning the decorations.
Some of you may recognise these center pieces as a variation on the back drop I did for my sister's wedding last November.
It's amazing what you can do with sticks.
There were 11 tables in all.
Imagine how good they would have looked if we had table clothes too.
I didn't have enough vases so some of the center pieces were in jars with ribbon wrapped around the mouths.And this one is in a sparkling cider bottleThe food table
Happy ward members enjoying their food.

Presents for Brandon

A couple months ago Brandon lost his Swiss Army knife. He didn't want to buy a new one because all his money is going to flying. Still I asked him which one he wanted. I planned on buying him one for his birthday or Christmas. Then I got some unexpected money and immediately bought the knife from Swiss Army.com. I saved it until last night at the Anniversary Inn. We were celebrating Brandon [almost] passing Instrument.

I figured he would know that I got him a knife so I bough a bunch of candy in boxes and wrapped them up too. The box with the knife is the one wrapped with the white lilies.

He is so happy to have a knife again. Now that he has a lucky charm he should be able to pass Instrument all the way next week.