My Jacket

Awhile back I said that I had sewn a jacket. Well, here it is. The picture is not that great, but at least there is a picture. The story of the jacket is kind of funny. I had a baby blue trench coat that I absolutely loved and last winter I pulled it out of my closet and somehow it had rust stains on it. I decided to unstitch the jacket and use it as a pattern to make a new jacket. It ended up being a lot of fun even though it was time consuming. I changed parts of the pattern and even added a red lining inside. I am so excited to wear it. Now if it will only get below 90 degrees here so I actually have a reason for it...

My Cute Nephew

Josh and I take our two nephews, Damian (10) and Braedon (7) to church with us every week. The girl I visit teach told me this story of something that happened at primary a couple of weeks ago...

The primary president was talking about following the prophet before conference to encourage them to listen and she was trying to get them to guess. She said, "I am thinking of a person who is a really good example, someone that we should follow. Anyone have any ideas?" Braedon, who is 7 yrs old, raised his hand and the president called on him. He said,"My Aunt" Without missing a beat, the primary president just said, "Your right, your Aunt Paige is a great example. Anyone else have any ideas of someone who we should follow?"

What a cute boy. I admit, that I teared up a little bit. I love all 20 of my nieces and nephews!

My Nemesis

They are called "Teddy Bear Cholla" or"Jumping Cholla" but don't be fooled by their cuddly appearance, they are the reincarnation of the devil himself. Balls of prickles fall off these plants and little the ground in all the places they shouldn't be. If you are unlucky enough (like me) you will accidental get one caught on your boot or pants leg while you are walking and get these little devils embedded in your skin. Yesterday while hiking I had the joy of getting a entire ball stuck in my right thumb. No less than ten needles were embedded in my poor nettled thumb and every time I tried to pull one out another get stuck in. These aren't just straight needles either. The end of the needle is curved slightly so it holds into your skin even better. I had to pull the needles out individually with a pair of pliers. Oh the joy of hiking in the desert. Yesterday we hiked

Up and over this mountain, down the other side and around the mountain. I believe it was about 9 miles of the hardest hiking I have ever done. My legs are so sore that I can barely walk today. From the picture it looks like there is a nice trail all the way, but we were actually hiking where they are planning to build the hiking trail up a mountain. In some spots the gravel was so slippery that we had to grab on to whatever none-prickly bush that was there and pull ourselves up. Every muscle in my body hurt when we finally made it back. I believe it gained over 1200 ft in elevation change. I hope I never have to do that hike again! The worst part is that on Monday I climbed this same mountain in the other direction twice (north-south, today's was west-east). So in the last two days I have climbed this three times. I am tired just thinking about it.

What I do in my Spare Time

Josh has been overwhelmingly busy during this semester with a full schedule and teaching two classes. He has been staying at school most days until 6 or 7 at night grading papers or doing his class assignments (often involving looking through microscopes for hours on end). He has also been staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning to get all his homework done. In addition to this, he has had field trips for a couple of weekends (including this weekend) where he leaves on Friday or early Saturday and I don't see him again until Sunday night. So I have had a lot of extra time to myself. It has been nice in some ways but it gets boring after awhile and I am always glad when he finally comes home. So here is what has occupied my many solitary hours.

1. Girl's Nights Out: wait a minute, all my girl friends that I used to hang out with move away! Scratch this one.

2. Chick Flick Movie nights: Josh isn't a fan of chick flicks and since most of my girl friends don't live her anymore (see #1) I have to content myself with watching them on my own when Josh is out of town. I still love them even if I do watch them alone. Some of my favs:

3. Baking Bread: In 2007 one of my goals was to learn how to make bread so Josh gave me this fabulous book for Christmas. It has taken awhile to get into it, mainly because most of the recipes take about 8 hours to make, but they are worth it. Everything comes out looking like it is from a bakery so you can really impress everyone. I even fooled my sister-in-law who is an amazing cook when I took them dinner a couple of weeks ago.

Today I made rye bread and it looks pretty good. I just hope it tastes as good as it looks!

4. Sewing: I had a baby blue trench coat that I absolutely loved and somehow hanging in the closet it managed to get rust on it. I am completely perplexed because nothing next to it or around it had anything on it, so I have no idea how it happened. Since I loved it so much I decided to pull it apart and make a new one. After about a month of working on it (intermittently) and sewing almost everything twice, it is done. Well, almost. I tried it on and realized my hem isn't quite lining up, so I will post pictures when it is really finished. ;) My Mom taught me how to sew a little bit when I was younger, but I have never made anything this complicated before. I am quite impressed with how it came out.

5. Reading: I have been reading quite a bit over the last year. For some reason I just have the desire to read all sorts of things. Here is a list of the books I have read so far this year:

Atlas Shrugged ( It's worth all 1069 small print pages of it)

Pride and Prejudice (I think I have read this ten or more times-it is definitely a favorite)

Persuasion

Anna Karenina (Hated this one, the only way I got through it was to tell myself I couldn't read The Fountainhead until I finished it. Tolstoy is a good writer, but I couldn't stand Anna)

The Fountainhead

The Birth of Freedom (Haven't finished this one yet-it has all the previous documents that formed the intellectual background for the American Constitution)

The Three Musketeers (I am almost done with this one- it is a much more mature book than I expected)

6. Oh, and one more thing that I am ashamed to admit:

It is so much fun. I never thought I would like playing video games, but I love this one. The cut scenes are hilarious.

Snakes and Horny Toads

WARNING-IMAGE OF FOOD CHAIN IN PROGRESS!

This is a sidewinder rattlesnake we found in Yuma yesterday. I think it is a horny toad he is eating. It seems too wide for a lizard. He was really upset that we were spoiling his lunch! I have never seen one in the wild before. It was really neat. We let him eat his lunch then found him again on our way back. You can kind of see the bulge in his stomach.

We scared him and he was getting as far away as possible.

This is him getting really angry at us. You can see the rattle just going to town!