The Mammouth Hunters

The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As with all the other "Earth's Children" books, this one started off slow but you still love Ayla and want to keep reading. Then, all of the sudden you hit about 1/4 - 1/3 of the was through the book and you can't put it down! The only sad part about this book is that I wont have enough time to read book 4 or 5 before school starts again so I will have to pick up where I'm leaving them next summer. The author is VERY descriptive sometimes, so I admit that I skim some parts because I really don't care about the detail of the trees, rivers, caves, etc. I'm more interested in the characters but it's not that hard to follow even skimming some parts. I've love this series and would recommend them for anyone to read, they are fabulous!

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July Birthdays

My step dad, Todd, had a birthday this week, and we met them at the bees game on Saturday night. We were there for Mike's work (in a suite, woo woo!) but stole away for a while to hang out with my mom and Todd for a bit.
My niece turned 6 this week! I can't believe it! I remember visiting her in the hospital when she was born, and it just doesn't seem like it was that long ago. She is such a fun girl! I've had the chance to see her a lot more in the past year and have really enjoyed it. We celebrated her birthday on Sunday. Happy Birthday Tori!

We also celebrated my Dad's birthday on Sunday but somehow I failed to get a picture of him in here. Happy Birthday Dad!


Cody and Mac at my dad's


Mac with his "Junior officer badge" sticker on his nose. He doesn't look too happy about it!

Then we ran back over to my mom's house to have birthday cake with Todd.
It was a busy birthday weekend. It was good to see all my family though!

Steak dinner

My Uncle Thomi donates platelets, and now my mom and Aunt Theresa do too. They can do it more often than you can donate whole blood so they go sometimes as often as once a week. (If they donate like 24 times a year or something they get invited to a special Red Cross dinner so they always try to go at least every other week). You still have to have a high enough hemoglobin (iron level) as well as a high enough platelet count to donate though and my mom is convinced that if she eats steak and broccoli the night before she donates, that it will make her iron levels high enough. I tried to tell her she can't do anything to raise her platelet count but my aunt has her convinced that if she eats salmon it will increase her levels, however she has yet to try it, she hates fish! So she takes her iron and eats high-iron foods without fail since at least she can work on her hemoglobin. We often accompany her to these pre-platelet donation dinners. Sizzler has become a regular. Mike loves going there for the Sizzler toast. This last time Cody and Mac met us there too.

He gets a big kick out of feeding us, since we are always feeding him.


My mom doesn't like these cookies but Mckaius didn't care, he wanted her to eat them!


Father and son in their matching plaid shorts, they are so cute. My brother is such a cute little dad!

Pets

I moved out of my parents house about 2 and a half years ago, but up until that time, these were my pets. I love and miss them. My step-dad works out of town so much that my mom makes trips to visit when he cant come home and I'm always willing to house-sit for her. It gives me a good opportunity to hang out with these crazy animals I love so much!


This pic cracks me up, Mckaius loves to give the pets "loves", they just don't like it as much as he does. The cats face is what gets me, she looks so pissed.


Waggles is not so much of a people kitty, she stays to herself. I love cats, anything you lay out, whether thats a box, a shirt, a bag, anything, cats think it is there for them to lay on or in, I don't even know why they like it so much. Waggles does this a lot. She thinks the stair is there to hold her up, she'll sit like this all day.



It always scares me when Mac tries to give the dogs his "loves" because they are so much bigger than he is, but Sammy is so good. He doesn't really care, he was only getting up because he saw the flash on my camera and thought it was a light he needed to chase, silly Sammy.



He gets so tired from playing outside that he often eats lying down but he thinks Gizmo is going to steal his food or something to he's always got an eye out. It's so funny because he keeps his nose out of the bowl too so it gets all squashed, its hard to explain, I'll try to take a video next time because he makes a snorting noise when he eats too.



My Sweet Gizmo, he is so old. Our Maxi dog was so sick and we had to put him to sleep the night before I started 8th grade, then the summer after that school year we got Gizmo. He was mine and my brother's responsibility, we helped train him, and took turns sleeping downstairs to let him out in the middle of the night. I love him. My mom always jokes that he didn't walk for the first year of his life. Well after that, he was too big! He got up to about 70 pounds, so i'm glad I babied him when I could. He's getting so old and because he's so big, his arthritis is getting a lot worse, it breaks my heart when he struggles to get up from laying down or up the stairs. I wish our pets could stay young forever! He's such a good dog.


CJ likes to lay with her head on the water dish. Sometimes she even will dip her paw in the water.


And she really likes to lay in shoes or my purse or backpack, like I said before, they love to have something to lay on, even though sometimes it doesn't look any more comfortable than the floor.

The Real 4th of July

Sunday night was the real 4th of July but most people celebrated on Saturday. Our friend, Beau, threw a party on Sunday, as he does for every occasion imaginable to celebrate. Apparently he does this every 4th of July, but this is the first one I've witnessed. I got there late but it looked like he had a buffet-like bbq to feed the masses.
When it came time for fireworks I was in for a few surprises:

1. Random people from all around were lighting and throwing flowers (those cylindrical fireworks that spin and change from pink to green) everywhere, into the fire pit, at each other, at the people lighting the other fireworks, I was terrified at first, then I just learned to pay attention and get the hell out of the way!

2. Beau did the fireworks in his back yard on some sort of hard surface placed in the middle of his lawn, not in the street like most people.

3. He lit one firework with a lighter, that was all. All of the subsequent fireworks were lit from fireworks that were already going. That's right, he got close enough to lit fireworks to light more.

4. Why have one firework going when you can have five going? I remember seeing the box of fireworks he had purchased and thinking "this is going to be 4 hours worth of fireworks", nope, it took maybe 30 - 45 mins.


5. Drunk people run through lit fireworks like they are sprinklers. (My roommate Parker included).

6. I learned what the term "Roman candle wars" meant. People (guys) were picking up lit fireworks and chasing each other around with them.

Well, that's all the things I can remember learning this 4th of July. It was the most insane firework show I can remember. I'm incredibly surprised that no one ended up in the ER. But it was entertaining to say the least.

The 4th of July

I love summer holidays. Especially this year because for the past several years we've gone to watch fireworks somewhere (usually my mom's because she lives right by west jordan park) or done nothing at all. I told Mike this year that I wanted to light fireworks ourselves like when we were little. I remember how much I used to love sitting in the front yard on camping or patio furniture watching my dad light fireworks in the road. So Saturday Mike gave in and we bought about $40 - $50 worth of fireworks and waited for dusk (most everyone was celebrating on the 3rd because the 4th fell on a Sunday). Mike's brother, sister-in-law and niece (Braden, Meg and Eve) were in town so we invited them too. It turned out to be a whole night of fun (backyards, bbq, drinks and fireworks) with our neighbors too.

I have to shout out to our neighbors (even though I don't think they blog) they are the best neighbors ever! They are a little bit older than us and help us whenever we need it, they are awesome and they have every gadget known to man. Any time we need a ladder or tool, they always have it. Not to mention that they are a blast to hang out with.


Braden and Mike


Braden and sweet Eve in her PJs


My neighbor's little girl, Atley, she is so much fun!


oh yeah, we were there too ;)


Parker was too!


Nick and our neighbor's cousin's son
This little kid was out of control! He wanted to light every firework, not to watch them, just to play with fire. I thought several times he was going to be injured because he wouldn't pay attention to the fireworks already lit, he'd run into the middle of the circle and light one then get another one right after the last was lit. When we took his lighter away, he tricked his mom into lighting sparklers so he could start fireworks with them. I just come from such a strict family that I'm so crazy about kids minding their parents, and this kid was totally not minding!


Brandi and JJ (aka my awesome neighbors) Brandi was on call (she's an OR nurse at St Marks) but fortunately didn't get called away and got hang out all night with us.






Miss Atley, on the other hand, is so well mannered and good. We are in the middle of fireworks and JJ tells her she has to go to bed now, she looked a little sad but started going inside without an argument at all before he told her he was kidding. Then a while later she was tired, so she just went inside and went to bed! She's such a cutie!


Meg and Braden


Little Eve slept through most of the fireworks in my neighbors baby swing (like I said earlier, they have everything!)

It was such a fun weekend. It was a relaxing 4 day weekend and it was so good to see Braden, Meg and meet Eve, since they've moved to the East Coast we rarely get to see them and I miss them! I'm glad they were able put so much time aside to spend with us (and for Braden to help Mike get a little more of our deck done, thanks Braden!) Miss you guys and hope to see you soon!

Demolition Derby

Until a couple of weeks ago I was a Demolition Derby Virgin. That's right, I've somehow managed to live through my 26 years without ever attending or really even know anything about demolition derbies. Mike decided that it had been long enough and bought us tickets.



I was surprised how many people were there, it was practically a sold out crowd. Then it began and I realized what types of people come to the derby. The large man who was sitting behind me with at least 3 out-of-control children told these children to quiet down because they were going to sing the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes, that's what he said. He didn't think it sounded off, or try to correct himself. He legitimately mistook the Pledge of Allegiance for the National Anthem. Sad but true. I couldn't make that up. This is a person raising children who doesn't even know that it's called the National Anthem.
(On a side note, do children in school still say the Pledge of Allegiance? Or know about the National Anthem? I remember in elementary school we used to say the Pledge at least once a week if not everyday. Did they do away with that because it says "Under God"? If they did, it's a shame!)


I was surprised at how much fun the derby was. I always thought that watching a bunch of cars crash into each other would be dreadfully boring, but it actually wasn't, it was oddly entertaining! I even think I'll attempt to go again in the future.


We were sitting on the second or third to last row and me being the worry-er that I am asks Mike if we are going to be safe. He says, "Of course!" and laughs a little. Then some part of the car flies over the crowd and into the parking lot. I'm thinking, Oh great, we're going to die.
As you can see, I've lived to write about it thank goodness. It's bad, but I can take any situation and overwhelm myself with worry about what could go wrong. Don't worry, I'm trying to fix that. I did end up having a great time despite my worrying and getting kicked in the back by those out-of-control children!

Utah Arts Festival 2010

Mike got free tickets to the Art's Festival from a coworker which turned out to be an awesome event! We went and checked out the Sponsored patio and got hooked with with free food and drinks, then we headed out to venture in the crowd. There was many interesting arts. Paintings, pictures, glass, wood, metal, jewelery, and music. It was really cool to see all the things people come up with. We didn't buy anything since I've been trying to save money to survive the next year of school, but it's still fun to browse. It's also a great atmosphere just to hang out and wander. I'm glad we were able to go this year, especially because the only money we spent was on parking! :)



This is just a part of the festival, there were tons of people there!

Donating can be fun!

The other day I got a postcard in the mail from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah asking for donations of usable clothing and household items. The postcard said that all we had to do was put them in a bag and put them curbside by a certain time on a certain day and they would be picked up.
How easy is that? I already have 3 bags full of old clothes in the basement, why not go through them and give them to someone who will use them? So I talked Mike into going through his many, many clothes and giving away some of them.
I admit that I had to be a little hard on him to get him to decide for certain items of clothes. The rule was that if it doesn't fit or if you wont wear it, it gets put in the bag. So began our quest.
And I have to say that I was shocked.
Mike has clothes from Junior High! And he was reluctant to give them away. It was like torture. I felt bad, but I made him give things away that he didn't really want to, but they all fit the criteria that it didn't fit or that he wouldn't wear it
Here is his pile:


This was mine:

I routinely go through my clothes and throw out, give away or at least put aside unworn clothes about once a year to make room for the new clothes I buy. Out with the old, in with the new. Why not have closet full of clothes you wear, instead of a closet full of clothes you used to wear?

And why not for a good cause?!
Thank you Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah for helping us to help you! We gave away 2 huge lawn and leaf bags full of unworn clothes! Now we have all that room for new clothes!

The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book 2 of the series was fabulous. It's turned into a little love story too, I really am loving these books. I'm just hoping I can finish books 3, 4 and 5 before I have to start school again!

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