the great salt lake

jeremy and i were super bored yesterday so we drove out to the salt lake (really only a short drive from our house in magna!). we walked out to the lake and waded for a bit. it's really low so we walked the sand/salt beach for about .5 miles.

this is a pic of the slimy water at the shore. it's really gross and stuck on our feet so we had to rinse them off at the shower. it was pretty gross.

we found a little bird that was caught in some netting. luckily another couple came by and cut him free. he was fluttering around and couldn't get off the ground. she had to hold him in her hands while they cut him free. it was pretty wild...where are those animal activists when you need them?!

here we are. it was such a beautiful day. so sunny and bright. the water was really warm too, probably because it is so shallow. it only got stinky for a couple minutes. for those of you who have never smelled the stench, it's comparable to dirty, stinky poo diapers! but the scenery is really pretty and the sunsets can be absolutely gorgeous.

duckies!

we woke up one morning last weekend to these two ducks playing in our sprinklers. the cat went wild when she saw them and tried going through the sliding glass door. she's not the sharpest tool in the shed!

our grass is slowly but surely coming up back there. it's so exciting!

brandon's family farm...

brandon and i went out to his family's farm to get firewood for this weekend, here are some pictures...

i always love to go out there because of the animals. they've got dogs, horses and candy (the cow that's sole mission is to make brandon's life miserable!). they did have puppies but recently sold them. these little troublemakers took brandon's phone and buried it in the dirt. he spent forever looking for it and he said when he finally found it he couldn't even be mad at them cuz they were too cute!

these are just some random pics of the land. brandon's grandpa loved it out there. he bought about 7 acres way back when with his brother. he eventually bought his brother's share and continued to raise animals out there. pigs, chickens, cows, horses, and dogs.

brandon spent a lot of time out there working and bull%$#ing with the guys. he even learned to drive out there on the tractors. the family always shares their many wonderful stories of the different adventures out at the farm. it's for sale now (although not really in high demand and with the economy will probably be around for some time) but we all have memories to keep:)

well, we are off for an over-nighter at the dunes tomorrow night. hopefully it's not too hot!

tabby mountain

for the holiday weekend we are making the short drive to tabiona, utah. i posted the map because i'm sure only 3 people who are reading this know where it's at. it's about a 2-hour drive, i think. not too far anyways. tabiona, utah has a population of 159 people (according to some random website). a little reminiscent of some of the places i've lived/been to in north dakota. brandon's grandfather grew up there and bought a tract of land on the mountain side about a decade ago (or more...i'm not quite sure). they have created this little camp area with ALMOST all the luxuries of home. it's a great place to spend time with the family. of course we are bringing our 4-wheelers and plan to get some good rides in. it's quite beautiful on the top of the mountain. i'll take lots of pics to share. there is a lot of rain in the forecast though so i'm hoping we don't get too much up there. we'll bring games to play just in case...

but before we go anywhere, we are helping krista and mike move today. yeah for moving day! the picture below looks like something brandon would do and i'm sure before the day is over he and mike will come up with some hair-brained scheme to make something easier. brandon is good at that, especially with some encouragement from mike or whoever is working with him! sometimes these ideas work out and other times...well, it is usually fixable. i can just picture his grandpa sitting back and laughing at him when it went wrong. then there would usually be some comment about laurel and hardy out there (uh, not sure who they were/are but i'm assuming it was something like the 3 stooges trying to do work...any ideas??) needless to say, i'm hoping nothing gets broken...

fyi-our seedling is sprouting! my daisies are coming up in the little flower bed and we've got some little green pokies all over the backyard!! it's quite exciting:) well, i'm off to google laurel and hardy...

yardwork!

This is Brandon's idea of yardwork-dragging a pallet around the backyard to "level" it out. It worked (kinda) and we didn't even have to put millions of man hours into raking through it ourselves. He spread the grass seed out a couple of days ago and I am so anxious to see grass back there, it's not even funny. We still have lots of improvements to make on our house, but we are getting there-little by little. It's exciting to see how nice something can turn out if you just put a little blood, sweat and tears into it. Can't wait for those summer barbeques in our "new" backyard!!

Sexting

Apparently there is a new phenomenon among teenagers that is called "sexting." That is when text messages turn sexual in nature and may even include nekked body parts. I say this is new but I'm seriously doubting that. It seems that as long as there has been text messaging there has been sexting. Not just among teenagers either. But, it becomes a problem when the subjects of these texts are <18> of a questionable nature which had legal implications because they contained certain underaged body parts. Hmmmm, an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, you have got kids who are willingly taking the photos and sending them-seemingly consensual. However, sexting can be very problematic. For example, say the person on the receiving end forwards the sext to others, the original sender may be very hurt by such an action. And I could definitely see cases where the sext is not consensual, like the picture was taken without the subject knowing. Either way, this is a small issue in the grand scheme of things, but I found it interesting that laws are being formed to punish the kids who are caught doing it. Even so, the laws have recently become more lenient because parents were hiding the infraction to prevent their child/teenager from getting into too much trouble. We'll see how that goes!

st. george trip

Like I said earlier, Brandon and I went down to St. George to see the parentals. We met Krista and Mike down there so, the whole family was together. The weather was so delicious...~90*. On one of our 4-wheel adventures, Brandon stopped the procession to show me this (see picture below:) bloomin' cactus. I thought it was really beautiful and just had to share it with ya'll.

Here's Brandon and I'm not sure if this is his nice face or his snarly one...It was taken BEFORE he had to dig my brother out of the sand 5 times so, it must be the nice one. I had to help him a couple times myself. The worst part is when your shoes are filled with sand. Literally, filled. You take one step forward and slide two steps back. In the meantime, you've got so much sand in your shoes that your foot barely fits anymore. Eventually Jeremy got the hang of it...

The next day, Brandon, Jeremy and I went on a hike. We ran into this caterpillar type thingy and it looked like he was trying to make a cocoon. It was pretty cool but not a very safe place for him to be. We had to stop Jeremy from destroying him and I'm sure the next person might not be so nice.

Here's another from the hike. Brandon's resting in the shade and Jeremy is ready to move on.

The rest of the trip was good and like I posted before I didn't even get sunburned! That was the best part. But, it took us 7.5 hours to get home when it normally takes about 4. Insane! It seemed like we stopped every hour for this or that. Then we took a detour to see the site of the WWII Japanese Internment Camp. There was nothing out there but a small memorial. We finally made it though and Mamma was glad we did:)

This was a GORGEOUS day. The weather was almost perfect. Well, it was perfect for working in the yard since it was a bit chilly. And that is what we did.

Check out these loverly flowers that were growing amongst the crazy weeds in our backyard. They are so BEAUTIFUL. Thanks, to my wonderful husband for cutting them and putting them in water. What a loverly surprise!

I'm behind on blogs but don't really wanna do it right now so that is all I am leaving you with. More to come!

it's some kind of alternate universe

we went 4-wheeling today and something AMAZING happened. everyone else got sunburned and i DIDN'T!! i'm always the first one to get burnt with outrageously ugly sunglass lines. not this time. i applied sunscreen several times (i'm super proud of myself for that!) and voila, no red skin. i was just now looking for a picture to post from yahoo images and hells no, there are some really gross pics and i won't put you all through that. anyways, we are going riding again tomorrow and i'm crossing my fingers to keep my skin white or even just slightly more tan.

by the way, brandon and i drove down to st. george today for a couple nights stay. we will be making the trek back up to salt lake on monday. i'll definitely post pics when we get back.

i've got a few more loose ends to tie up before school is completely over but i'm mostly done!! it's a great feeling because after this semester i won't have any more classes, just internship stuff. i'm almost totally done! (i'll be graduating next may:) i can't even imagine life without school. it will definitely be strange but i think i can make the adjustment.