Random Pics From Today and Yesterday

Since tonight is new years eve in PV I thought we would probably get a whole slew of new photos and I better purge so tomorrow's post isn't huge.

First I must say "doesn't Tara look great in a moo-moo." (if I post tomorrow it means she didn't kill me for showing you this)

The second picture ocured as I backed up while tara aggresivly persuded the camera. I was not allowed to take pictures of her in the moomoo. Thankfully for alll our loyal readers tara only knows how to take pictures and not delete them.

On the boat to paradise (las Caletas). The boat had an open bar and I caught Tara admiring a fellow sailor that had possiably already had to much to drink.
There was some spanish rice made with squid- we all presured Alex into eating some- Yummm!

Rocks are fun!

Last night we ate at a wonderful resturant that was outside. truely I can't imagine many places better than this.

This was another part of the resturant during the day. Kimmy, can you say roosters?

Old rusty gates are neat.

Old rusty lanterns are neat-er

The local church is amazing, but even more amazing at night.

Me-he-co We're HERE!

Below you wil find a collection of photos from our first day here. This is just one of many steep roads on our way up to the condo. At one point I thought our little nissian cab car was going to just start sliding backwards.
This was the first thig we saw when we entered the complex. Its kind of like the garden of eden- but better.

Here is the fantastic view from the Hurley condo patio. Tara and I are still trying to get use to the persistant wet feeling that comes along with the humidity. On the bright side I have never felt like my hands were so soft.

Tonight we are off to dinner at Si Senor. I'm sure many updates are to follow.

I hope you are all enjoying the snow, I know I'm missing it... Oh wait, Nope I'm not.

The Cannibalisation of a Ghetto Headboard

As you all know Tara is expecting in march and our extra bedroom is in need of a makeover for the addition of our new family member. In the pic below you can see we have painted our bed room and installed a new fan/light. The light kit was on clearance for 1 cent at home depot- I thought you should all know. next in line is a headboard makeover. If you were to sit against this headboard you would find yourself falling backwards, between the two 2x4s the fabric is stretched between, into the window its concealing.

First the its all got to come apart.

Next the headboard gets a new sheet of plywood for some structural and back support.

After that we rounded the corners- with a plate

Then comes the foam

After that we stretched our fabric

...And used about a bazillion staples

Once we got some fabric on the frame we started to try our some tufting options

After widening the legs we upholstered them too. as far as the tufting goes you will need to tune back in later to see the final product in our new nursery.

Out with the new and in with the new-er

This topic stirred up some controversy in our home, and what my buggy’s real purpose is and how it fits into the rand scheme of our family’s future. I have decided to replace my wood floors. They’re just getting so old and worn out. Ok, ok, ok- so they’re band new and I’ve never driven the car since they were installed a year and a half ago, but a better opportunity has presented itself. A friend that works for 3form hooked me up with some architectural grade translucent panels. In lame mans terms I am going to install a semi-transparent floor in my car. Wicked cool huh? I always worried about the durability of the wood floor, but didn’t really have many other options. Now I'll be able to hose down the interior of my car.

As far as physical progress goes it might appear to an outsider that nothing has happened, but don't be fooled by the fact that the car is still in pieces- I have been hard at work. I have nearly completed the wiring of the car. I decided to run all of my wiring through the side rails of the fiberglass body. This way I can do all of it with me right side up, over it, instead of me upside down, under it. I have also fiber glassed in the side rails to create waterproof speaker enclosures (the resonating chambers are a little too large for six and a half inch speaker, if upgrade to some 6x9’s then I think I'd be right on the money). I have rebuilt portions of my engine for a second time, re-tapped one of my spark plug holes, and installed a new exhaust.
After all of this work I am happy to announce that my car officially idles- roughly, but none-the-less idles. it runs under its own power, and this is the first time I can say that it will do it without any external input from me to keep it going.

Its amazing how a little paint, chrome, and engine degreaser can make an engine look brand new.

He is acually a SHE!

As most of you have already heard (because really, who keeps this kind of information to themselves until they can blog??), we’re having ourselves a little girl!! I know I have been slacking on posting throughout my pregnancy but some part of me thought that if I jumped the gun and exclaimed all of my excitement that I’d jinx the whole thing and we’d lose our baby (gruesome but I blame it on the hormones). However, I think a little back-story is definitely needed.

I was and sometimes still can be, a major tom boy. I hated dresses, scaled walls to hang with the neighborhood boys and believe that I can play sports just as well as the guys. Ask Adam or my family, I have a nasty competitive side that comes out in a seasonal volleyball game or catch phrase. I’m ruthless. I like my life with as little drama as possible, especially since I feel I paid my dues in high school.

Adam and I joke that he has all the feminine qualities I lack (gardening, sewing, designing, decorating, the list could go on and on) and I have the more masculine traits he lacks (mostly knowing how to play an array of sports and enjoying smack talk). We’ve always said teasingly that our poor children will be so gender confused and one day my sweet child will come running to me saying, “ Mom, I don’t want to garden with Dad today!” and I’ll hand them a baseball and bat and we’ll sneak out to the backyard.

Also, if you remember, our doctor said he bet it would be a boy at 12 weeks and I warned him of the repercussions if that was not true. I’ll admit it, we both wanted a sweet little boy. A nice calm boy to pave the way for the other children we plan to have.

Yesterday as the woman was showing us our baby (it’s an actual person, inside of me!), she was moving around constantly. The technician kept laughing because she would try out a head stand position then move to the tree position, then stretcchhhh and then back to the head stands. I looked over at Adam and said, “Crap. She has your energy levels.”

We were both shocked and thrilled to hear we are having a girl. It’s going to be a very fun adventure and we know girls are easily just as much fun as the boys!

We did not rotate these pictures, she was just all over the place. :)

Strong Education and a Strong Back

When I started my grad program here at Utah State University I was not expecting much more than a fantastic education in Interior Design, but it seams that I was wrong. As I traveled back from the library with 15 more new books in my bag I realized that my back was getting as much of a work out as my mind. Here is a pic of my desk.

Pumpkin Build-Off 2009

Well it has happened. The Major event of the season. Tara and I had planned long and hard to make sure that our build off would go off with out a hitch, and even though we had a seemingly successful build, it was still a day full uncertainty and stress.

I spent 12 hours yesterday writing a chronological paper, so bare with me, its the only way I can think right now.
Pre-buildoff: Tara and I got the idea from some art displays and Disney's haunted mansion where they project faces on different things. After that we just need to find a great way to present it, and The true story of Hansel and Gretel was born. Up until the night before, we had compiled 15 pages of scrip, notes, sketches to show our exact plan of attack.
Saturday 11:30: we meet at Aggie cafe
12:15: we eagerly end lunch early and run to the cars (not everyone ran, but I did)
12:25: drop off Oliver at the groomers while on our way to home depot. I have a serious anxiety attack while Tara takes TEN MINUTES! to just drop off the dog.
12:50: we arrive home and begin filming our faces with Hansel and Gretel's parts
1:45: we begin recording our voices for the parents and the witch
2:30: I put all digital components into the computer and find out that our voice recording were not done in a compatible format, and I spend the next half hour trying to reformat them.
3:00: I give up, and rerecord all external voices with a different device
3:30: I get new voices into adobe premier and start building our video (yes, I was just starting on creating the video with less than 2 hours left). Tara begins shaving off the faces of the pumpkins to give a lighter, less reflective surface.
4:15: Tara starts stuffing the leader-hosen
5:00: I finally finish creating the video and began exporting it to find out that I have about FIFTY minutes of rendering time.
5:05: we start building our stage
5:15: we use a frame of our video on another computer to line up the pumpkins and see our faces on them for the first time with less than 15 minutes left.
5:20: In passing I notice that me computer had CRASHED! I had ran out of hard drive space. I quickly deleted a season of "Lost" and restarted the compiling of the video.
5:22: Tara starts getting some pictures together for a PowerPoint that would give us the background to our stage.
5:27: we reluctantly leave for Kieth and Heathers house not knowing if w will have anything when we return for desert

After returning home from dinner we had about 5 minutes to set up and prepare for our guests. Our video had successfully rendered, and we quickly hooked up the projector to my computer. We sat back and watched a piece of our video for the very first time as someone knocked on the door.

Here is a filming of our presentation. if you get bored after a minute skip forward to about the seven and a half minute mark. Our movie ended up being about twice as long as we had originally thought it would be.

If you didn't catch it at the end, with all of the commotion, the witch baked our pumpkin people into pumpkin pies.

My only regret would be that I wish we had more speaking parts for the pumpkins, since that is the coolest part of having the faces projected onto them.

Below is Gabe and Brooke's Fire Breathing Dragon. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the flames coming out of the dragons mouth- which it did have.

Below is Gabe's nephews boat "Jack the Skipper". it had a air mattress blower as it propulsion system.Below is Kieth and Heather's Light-Bright Pumpkin in all its glowy glory.

All-in-all we had a fantastic time and loved all the pumpkins. We decided to not vote for a winner this year because we lacked a group large enough to make a fair vote, So we have crowned everyone winners. Hoo-Ray!!!

Garden Sadness

Well the growing season has come to an end, and my mutant tomatoes have finally met their maker. At the end of the season I calculated my prized tomato plant to occupy about 180 cubic feet (6’x6’x5’) with a more than a 75 tomatoes a week. We stopped picking zucchinis soon after the rocket zucchini was picked so by the time the first freeze came we had 10 more that size and many more of smaller various sizes.

Our green thumb luck has prompted us to start preparing for next year. We have been pulling seeds out of all of our domestic and commercially grown produce, and have plans to build a green house in the basement that a cannabis cultivator could be proud of. We’re going to double the size of our garden this fall before things get too cold in anticipation of our numerous hearty seedlings coming next season.

Pumpkin Tinkle Fun

Tonight we went out with our good friends Gabe and Brooke. At dinner we decided we were going to carve pumpkins, so we stopped by smiths and "picked our poison". we returned to find a small Oliver piddle on the floor. while I was trying to figure out what in the heck I was going to carve Brooke put her hand in another Oliver piddle... up on the cushion of their couch. Oliver had never peed on top of a sofa, but their is a first time for everything (sorry Gabe and Brooke). Side note: our erratic Oliver does "fist time" things on a regular basis, for example, last week he ran in circles until he sprinted full speed at our sofa, "sliding into home base" style, paws first, under the couch. SSSSAFE! one of my personal favorites of his new tricks. This unfortunate event led to the inspiration for our pumpkin. Now Oliver has no need to pee on Gabe and Brooke's furniture anymore.

Logan Shame

Today I was shamed. while making cookies Tara announced that someone was rolling an engine down the road. she was only partially correct. It was actually an entire family rolling an engine down the road. you might not be able to see him but the dad is somewhere behind the mom doing most of the pushing. When I saw this I had to take a picture. The only thing offensive about this post is the visual image that will be left in your mind.



Here is a close up.

It's for real!!

Recently I've been worried that my pregnancy has been too easy and that the baby was not growing as it should. Every time I went to the doctor I'd say, "I just don't feel pregnant!" and every time the answer was, "Once you hear the heart beat, it'll change."

Yesterday, at my 11 week mark, Adam and I headed into the doctors office-- I was bracing myself for the worst and Adam was in a great mood, even telling me, "Hope you gained weight!" as I stepped on the scale.

We met our fantastic doctor and then he showed us this:

See that????? That's a baby! Its little arms were moving so fast and I couldn't stop staring at the screen. I still can't believe that little thing is inside me, with a healthy heart beat and wiggly arms.

Adam was ecstatic as well but the highlight of his day came when the doctor said, "Ooh see that? That's the pelvic bone and usually it looks the same for boys and girls at this point but if I had to bet on it, I'd say this one looks like a little boy."

I keep telling Adam that there is a chance it could be a girl and to brace himself if it is, but regardless we're just happy we have a healthy baby!

Lemon Lime Madness

Today we found out the our baby is between the size of a lemon and a lime. We have officially nicknamed him sprite for the next week.

Classic

This past Tuesday, early in the morning my wonderful Grandfather passed away. Adam and I are heading to California this weekend to attend his memorial service and visit with family. With the chaos of school starting, feeling the effects a being pregnant (I can't seem to sleep enough!) and grandpa passing, I have little time, or energy, to think about much else.

However, I mentioned earlier in this blog that I had started recording my Grandpa's personal history and thought, in memory of him, I'd share a few of my favorite moments during our interview (T=Tara, P=Patrick)

T: What’s the best part of being a parent? The grandchildren?

P: Yeah. Really, that is true. I have to admit it. Oh, they’re great. Most of them are! I am partial, I admit it, and I know it. I love little girls and they can wrap me right around their little finger, where my grandsons I’ll correct them and give them a little royal chewing once in a while.
******

T: Ok, I think that’s it. Is there anything else you want to share about parenthood?

P: No. I like being a parent, believe it or not. I don’t act like it, but I do.

T: And a grandfather, and a great-grandfather.

P: Oh, that’s the great part.

******

T: Do you have a favorite television program, or a few?

P: I have enjoyed over the time, “24.” I thought that was well done. Last year wasn’t as good, but … Um…

T: You like the political shows.

P: Oh, yes, you mean things like that? I like Bill O’Riley. I try to watch him all the time, or I’ll tape him and watch him later. Sean Hannity is ok, but Bill O’Riley is very good.

T: I think either Hannity or Combes looks like a dinosaur.

P: That’s Combes. Hannity is a nice looking guy.

T: Combes looks funny though.

P: Well, yeah. God beasted him with a funny look, and then he’s a flaming liberal, so that twisted his features, too.


I'll definitely miss his humor.

Salvation comes in a little plastic bag

This week was a momentous occasion. It started with me picking up a few small parts in non-descript plastic bags, but ended in a symphony of smooth popcorn like exhaust pops. The car not only started but ran, and not only ran but purred. The one down side to this grand starting of the car is that I nearly had to disassemble the entire car to get to this point. You might remember the car looking like this:

Saturday it looked like this: The body is obviously gone, but all the electrical and half of the engine is missing too.

...and this: If you ever wondered what my car looks like upside down- now you know.

But after tearing it all down and putting some of it back together my car runs better than it did before.

P.S. Our baby is the size of a prune.

salvation does not come in a box :(

A week or so ago I received a package in the mail. the contents of this package (shown below) included one hydraulic piston and one hydraulic pump. Its likely that you have heard me say my car runs but does not move, that is because I have spent the last year trying to fix my throttle cable situation. The easiest way to explain it is that I changed my engine from a fuel injection engine to a carburetor engine and that screwed up everything.

This box was to be my knight in powder coated aluminum armor, but that's not how this story ends. It ends like this: The valiant Knight road toward the dragons cave, as he arrived there he realized he did not fit in the cave, so he helplessly sat and listened to the princess be eaten by the dragon. Every one dies except the Knight who is shamfully sold on eBay- The End.