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Archive for June, 2009

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Jun 28

MONTICELLO TRIP (Part 1)

Our big trip for the year was a road trip to from Georgia to Monticello, Utah, to visit my family. We went through 10 states to get there and it took us three days of hard driving.

For those of you unfamiliar with Monticello…it is in the far Southeastern corner of Utah…50 miles south of Moab…right by the four corners (UT, AZ, NM & CO).

Monticello sits at 7000 feet on the foothills of the Blue/Abajo Mountains (is it Blue or Abajo?? I’ve heard both and seen both on maps…don’t know). Because of that the temperatures were in the mid-70s to lower 80s while we were there and dipped into the 40s at night…and NO humidity…it was heavenly…except for the wind, which always blows there.

As you can see in the picture above, there are a lot of National Parks and recreational opportunities in the area. It is really beautiful.

Grandma and Granpa took good care of us, we got to see Cody, I got to see my sister and her family, and we had an amazing time!

THE DRIVE TO GET THERE

Above: Frank drove the ENTIRE 1749 miles to get there. I swear I offered many times to help…but he said he wanted to . He let me drive on the way home (a little bit). I actually got a lot of reading done, which was good.

Above: Liz, PJ & Megan. The trip went amazingly well in regard to kids. Not that we didn’t have our tense moments…but overall I would have to give them an A-.

Above: Mikayla, Ashley & Donovan. I LOVE portable DVD players and iPods! It’s the only way we survived.

Above: Like I said…10 states. It was great.

Above: We had our share of “potty breaks.” Luckily we found some good Rest Stops along the way.

Above: VIDEO ALERT!! The kids had fun. Donovan loved it…until he lost his grip and went flying onto the grass. I missed it…but I guess he got up a little dazed…and it was pretty funny.

Above: Rest Stop in Oklahoma (duh). We were soooo happy to be out of the car.

Above: We got to see all kinds of cool stuff like this…The Leaning Tower of Water.

Above: …and the World’s Largest Cross.

Above: Wooohooo…getting closer. We stayed in Tucumcari the night before we made it to Monticello.

Above: Finally…only 2 states away!

Above: Liz’s manicured toes sticking out of the car at a road construction stop between Shiprock and Cortez…it was HOT. Where did all of the trees and greenery go??? We were having a hard time acclimating back to the desert.

JUST HANGING OUT IN MONTICELLO…

Above: Grandma and Grandpa’s Slade’s house. They have lived there for like 30 years…they’ve had the same phone number since 1979. It seems crazy these days with people so mobile. It is awesome to go back and have so many memories still in tact.

Above: Grandpa and Liz playing dominos. One of the best things about Monticello (besides Grandma and Grandpa) is that time seems to move more slowly there. It’s so relaxed and laid back. We got a lot of domino and card playing in while we were there.

Above: While we were there, My dad’s 1st cousin dropped in (far left) from Arizona. Monticello is on the beaten path to SLC for a lot of people driving up from Arizona….so they get drop-ins here and there (we used to live in Arizona and both of my parents are from there and have a lot of family there…so it is cool). Grandma and Grandpa Slade are on the far right.

Above: PJ and Donovan playing around in the back yard.

Above: The highlight of Gr&Gr’s house is the swing in the backyard. The kids will play for hours on it. The favorite thing to do is wind it up (I think the record was 30 twists or something) and then let it go and see who can walk after they get off of the swing. Left to Right: Tristan (cousin), Mikayla, Ashley, Bronson (cousin), Megan & Ashton (cousin).

Above: Megan getting ready to twist Mikayla up on the swing.

Above: Mikayla untwisting.

Above: A favorite place of ours in Monticello is the (LDS) Monticello Temple. It was the very first SMALL temple built (dedicated back in 1998). It was really cool for the town because President Hinckley came down on many occasions to check on the construction of it so he could directly oversee how the small temples were going to work. I was there for the dedication in 1998 and got to see President Hinckley set the cornerstone…very cool.

This photo was taken as the sun was setting…I never made it over there in good light to get a good photo.

Above: A photo from the front with the sun setting in the background.

Above: I got this one from the church website since I didn’t get a good “light” photo.

Above: Frank on the north side of the temple. We walked up there a couple of different times…it is just one mile from my parent’s home…how lucky is that?

TRIP TO MESA VERDE NP….

Mesa Verde National Park is only about 1.5 hours from Monticello over the Colorado border. Frank and the kids had never been there, so we took a quick trip over to see the Anasazi Indian Ruins.

Above: Heading to the tunnel that leads to the Visitor’s Center. (Megan, Mikayla, PJ)

Above: Grandma Slade & Frank at the Visitor’s Center.

Above: (L to R back): Mikayla, Shayne, Grandma Slade, PJ & Megan. (L to R front): Ashley, Ashton (cousin), Bronson (cousin) & Donovan.

Frank went ahead of us while kids were going to the bathroom and then we couldn’t find him for a long time. When we finally did he said, “It’s really hard to lose 9 people (especially at a small little visitor’s center)…but I did it.” We must’ve just been going in one door as he went out the other…he went to the car to look for us.

Above: Ashton and Ashley — AKA: Ton & Lee. Both are nicknamed “Ash” and we kept getting their names mixed up…so we tried to call them “Ton and Lee.” Ashton and Bronson are my niece & nephew (my sister’s kids).

Above: It was quite a hike down into this ruin…actually the hike out was the hard part…but it was fun. Grandma waited at the top of the hill for us.

Above: Starting the trek.

Above: Hey, it’s actually me in a photo…one of the rare ones . It’s rough being the photographer . See…I CAN havea good hair day when there is no humidity ! It was way hot that day though!

Above: Ashley is not shy

Above: Finally made it to the ruins.

Above: Getting our first upclose look.

Above: We waited in line to be able to go down into the kiva. Bronson climbing in.

Above: Frank.

Above: Donovan…”Get me out of here!”

Above: PJ

Above: Megan

Above: Ashley

Above: Ashton

Above: Part of the hike back up…it was really pretty there.

Above: We were all pretty hot, thirsty and exhausted by the time we made it back up. We were shocked to see PJ giving Donovan a lift.

Above: The climb up the mesa to get to the ruins is pretty brutal…but there are amazing views. This is looking Eastward toward the Colorado mountains where you will find Purgatory (ski resort) and the towns of Telluride and Durango. The photo doesn’t do justice to the beauty and colors.

Above: This is looking westward off of the mesa toward the Utah border. The moutain in the background is the Blue/Abajo Mountains. That is the mountain where Monticello is on the foothills. It’s so weird to be able to see a long distance…get a “vista” view….again. In Georgia, you don’t get that very often.

Jun 28

MONTICELLO TRIP (Part 2)

CANYONLANDS VISIT (The Falls)…

We took a day trip down into Canyonlands. We were so excited to go to “The Falls”…a popular hangout place for locals. At “The Falls,” a river cascades down several small sandstone cliffs and makes several small pools for swimming in. Well…we got there and discovered that the “river” was not even trickling, let alone running….so all we found were a few stagnant pools of water. We were all pretty disappointed. But, the kids did have fun climbing around on the rocks for a while.

Above: Before we headed down to Canyonlands, we stopped at the rock right by the turnoff and the kids (w/Frank) checked out the little cave at the bottom of it…the one you always see and wonder about as you are driving to Moab. (Ashley, Donovan, PJ & Ashton)

Above: PJ getting a little climbing in on the way.

Above: Donovan…ya gotta love the red rocks.

Above: Not as big as I thought…but still cool.

Above: So, yeah…no water.

Above: I kept telling everyone (that had never been there)…”Can ya just envision how cool it WOULD be??”

Above: My favorite sister, Samantha. Ok…she’s my only sibling…but even if I had 10 others…I BET she would be my favorite

. Love ya, Sam!

Above: The kids “envisioning” the coolness of it all.

Above: Ashley on the other side of the “river.”

Above: Megan.

Above: Sam and my mom.

Above: A good view of where the water WOULD be going if it were there.

Above: This is the direction the water comes FROM.

Above: Tristan, my dad (“Pard”) and Frank….contemplating the water issue.

Above: Amazing!!! It rained and suddenly there was water!!

Just Kidding. This was taken not even a week later by our niece who was visiting the area (thanks, Christy). Crazy, huh? Maybe we were lucky that it wasn’t running because it is running really fast and DIRTY! But it would’ve been more fun. Our theory is that someone upstream was probably irrigating…

Above: Christy and her awesome outdoorsy friends walking in the very dirty water above the falls.

Lunch at Newspaper Rock…

Above: We were all hungry by this time and decided to just stop at Newspaper Rock to have our lunch. We actually had wanted to stop in the campgrounds across the way…but they were by the river and they had been shut down due to “flood danger.”

Above: Our motley lunch crew. Yep…that’s my Favorite Niece, Tristan, being a ham in the middle. Of course, Heather…if you were there YOU would be my favorite… . (inside joke)…

Above: Grandpa and Grandma Slade…they’re awesome.

Above: The REAL Grandpa!

Above: Aunt Sam and Dad.

Above: Cody showed up as we were having our very exciting parking lot lunch! We were all excited to see him. That’s him on the left and his friend/college Roommate, Eric Engstrom (they’ve known each other for their whole lives, I think…back in the Vegas days). They had just gone to the Manti Pageant the night before and traveled down to party with us the next day.

Above: Frank and Donovan.

Above: Tristan and Megan just hangin’.

Above: We discovered (ok we were bored) that everyone but Donovan and Shayne could roll their tongues (it’s a gene, you either have it or you don’t). These girls had even more developed tongue talents.

Above: Some of the guys got adventuresome and hiked up to the top of the cliff. I’m quite certain that we got mooned by one of them…but it cannot be proved.

Above: Four of the suspects, er, I mean, hikers: Beano, Colton, Corey & Bronson. Corey is my sister’s husband…and these are 3 of their 7 kids.

THE DRIVE BACK FROM CANYONLANDS….

Above: Right as we were finishing up our lunch and heading back to Monticello, the Engstrom family got there (Eric’s family). These are good friends from Vegas who also went to the Manti Pageant last night (and took Liz with them) and then they drove back down to hang out for a couple more days with us. It was so great to see them all.

We went the “back way” home…up over the mountain…it was so beautiful. They have had lots of rain this year and everything is so nice and green. Behind us you can see out into Canyonlands.

Above: Liz with her good buddies Veronica (center) and Marika (right). Veronica is not technically part of the Engstrom family…but kind of is. They are taking Liz back with them so she can hang out in Vegas for a couple of weeks and see all of her “Vegas friends”…which were many…and then fly home.

Above: Megan and the Mountain. I wish you could tell the brilliance of the green from the photo…it was so amazingly beautiful. For those of you familiar with the area…Foy Lake is off to the right.

Above: It’s so good to have Cody home!!!

Above: Frank

Above: That was one obstinant cow…it would not move.

Father’s Day in Monticello…

Above: Grandma and Grandpa Slade…ready for church.

Above: Frank and Grandpa being ooohhed and aaahhed over before we headed to church.

Above: Frank trying out the neck pillow from PJ. Now he can sleep comfortably on the bus ride to work in the morning or on those long business trip flights.

Above: The whole family…ready for church. Can you believe PJ is taller than me (he’s only 11)!??

Above: Our true character comes out.

Above: So…these guys were born 10 days apart. Beano, on the right, is the older of the 2.

Above: Tristan, our little “Flower Child.”

Or, what did Grandpa say, “bloomin’ idiot” or something??

Above: Corey and Ashton.

Above: Beano…the marksman…

Above: Colton…who says he never smiles??

Above: Do you love the awesome shirt? You might’ve seen them at Wal-Mart….what a great idea. We had a hard time fitting 7 hands on the front though.

Jun 28

MONTICELLO TRIP (Part 3)

Horses and Four-Wheelers…

One of the things the kids like most about Monticello is riding horses…something we don’t get to do anywhere else. Luckily, they have a cowboy for a Grandpa. Also, there are great places to go four-wheeling. We haven’t found any good places in Georgia…if anyone knows of a good place to go…please let us know!

Above: That’s my dad. He’s so cool. He actually went on to Arizona State University on a full-ride rodeo scholarship for a while. How cool is that? Also, he grew up as a rancher in a small town in Northeastern Arizona. John Wayne had a ranch near the town. He got to meet John Wayne several times as he would come over and help the Slades brand their cattle. Also, my dad said that John Wayne would help the Relief Society put on a big party each year by donating the beef….he said J.W. was “very down to earth” and “a very nice guy.”

Above: Dad on his “other horse.”

Above: Ashley

Above: Donovan and Frank.

Above: PJ

Above: Tristan…a true cowgirl…just don’t let her use a cell phone while riding!!!

Above: Donovan (8) has become a good rider over the last year.

Above: Shayne, her mom, and her sister.

Above: Ashton & Tristan (nieces).

Above: Tristan with Ashley.

Above: This is the way Grandma likes to ride.

Above: Bronson (nephew)

Above: Megan

Above: The younger kids created this “seat” while they were waiting for their turn to ride.

Above: Ashton

Above: “Cuz I’m a country boy…I got a 4-wheel-drive…”

Dutch Oven Cookin’…

Above: After overseeing all the horses and four-wheelers all afternoon…Grandpa and Grandma still found the energy to cook us all a “to-die-for” dutch oven meal up on the Mountain (Dalton Springs).

Above: LOL…what can I say here??

Above: The Master Dutch Oven Cooker….he is so good at this!! And it is SOOO much work. I felt guilty…

Above: Ashton meditating in the late afternoon sun…

Above: The boys hanging out around the campfire. (Bronson, PJ & Donovan)

Above: The kids going off to play in the field/forest….you don’t have to worry about ticks and chiggers there…

Above: Grandma putting together some of her famous biscuits.

Above: Tristan and Ashton. Soooo cute!

Above: PJ and Frank

Above: Tristan and Sam, daughter and mom…

Above: Meggie-Lou

Above: Mmmmm…mmmmmm.mmmmmmm!!!! Fried chicken and the biscuits!! But my favorite part is the dutch oven potatoes…no one makes them like dad!!!

Above: VIDEO ALERT!!! The master chef at work!

Above: The kids were trying to sneak up on a deer. This darn deer was very friendly and kept coming back around camp over and over.

Jun 28

MONTICELLO TRIP (Part 4)

Picnic at Lloyd’s Lake…

Above: This is a man-made lake above Monticello. We had a picnic and then took the kids down to the water to play around.

Above: The mud was a “little” deep.

Above: Ashley, “Help!”

Above: I had no idea Frank was such a good rock skipper. He had one that skipped like 12 times before it went under. He was teaching the kids how to do it.

The Trip Home…

Above: We had 3 more grueling days of driving to get home. We stopped in Amarillo, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. The kids loved being able to swim at the hotel at the end of the day.

Liz was in Vegas already, so we only had 5 kids in the car on the way back…it is so weird when just one is missing.

Above: I loved the huge windmill arrays that we saw along the way. We saw one of the blades for these windmills being shipped by truck in Cortez. It was HUGE!!! It was so huge the guy couldn’t make the turn in town and had stopped traffic. We also got a close up look at one on a truck stopped in Monticello….you can’t tell how big they are from a distant view.

Home at Last…

Trips are so rejuvenating! But it is always GREAT to get back home and sleep in your own bed and have access to all of your “stuff.” We were so happy to be home…even though it seems that the heat and humidity had been cranked up in a major way while we were gone.

Jun 28

Visit from the Lamberts

Those of you from Desert Sage Ward (Vegas) will recognize the Lambert family! They had a family event in Alabama and made the drive over to Georgia to see us. We were so excited to see them…they have THE cutest kids!

Above: Holly & Michael.

Above: Liz playing with Kylan.

Above: Liz playing with Aiden.

Above: Aiden.

Above: Kylan…besides being so cute, he is such a smart little boy too. He just turned 4 (I think I got that right), but he talks like an 8 year old.

Above: What a cutie!!!

Jun 28

Random June Items…

Early June was mostly spent waiting for our road trip to Utah. But there were a few “exciting moments” before then…

Above: Poor Lizzie Poo!!! Liz had to have her wisdom teeth extracted in early June. She had a few rough days…but overall did quite well. Here she has just gotten home from surgery and is still pretty medicated.

Above: We got our first “Slip N Slide” for the kids this year. They loved it. This is Donovan and Seth (cousin) racing.

Above: Mikayla, Seth & Donovan. For some reason Seth always ended up in the grass.

Above: Mikayla, Megan (sliding), Seth (cousin), Donovan & Hannah (cousin).

Above: PJ (scooter) and Hannah (cousin). Hannah wasn’t so sure about it at first…but then she got into it.

Above: VIDEO ALERT!!: Seth and Donovan racing….”Who won?”

Above: This was a different day. I’m thinking we need to get a swimming pool…at least one of those little round plastic ones. But, hey, I guess this works too. This is Donovan, Ashely & Christina (friend from down the street).

Above: Ashley & Christina.

Above: Donovan and Ashley.

Above: The most recent missionary crew: Elders Hunter, Johnson, Cockayne & Quinn. Everyone but Elder Hunter left us right after this.

Above: I was out shopping and Donovan called me and said that when I got home had a “performance” ready to show me. This is what I saw. He’s pretty funny.

Jun 28

Bathroom Remodel

We decided to get our bathrooms retiled…with a little bit of remodeling too.

We also had the tile redone in our front entry way. The men that were doing the tile in the entry way discovered that we had a lot of water damage and a colony of hungry termites. That’s a whole other story though…see the entry: “Let’s Get a New Door…”

So, the bathrooms…that was really cool. I took some videos that show the before and after…that will be a lot easier than doing photos. So, here ya go.

KIDS BATHROOM:

BELOW: Here is a video walkthrough of the Kids’ (Jack N Jill) Bathroom BEFORE any work was done.

BELOW: So, here is the AFTER video walkthrough. Doesn’t it look beautiful?? (there are 2 videos of the After)

BELOW: Here are a couple of photos, since I know the video isn’t big enough to get a really good look at the tile??

Above: Kids’ bathroom before any work was done…

Above: …and the after….

Above: The kids’ shower before…

Above: …and the kids’ shower after.

Above: More of the kids’ shower after.

MASTER BATH:

BELOW: Here is the BEFORE walkthrough of the Master Bath. There are two videos, actually….the second one goes into the toilet/shower room. You can see that we had a very large shower before…which I hated. It stayed dark in there and the mold LOVED it. It was a constant battle.

BELOW: Here are the AFTER videos. We had the shower made smaller and a closet added…and we have no shower door (to keep clean). We absolutely love how it turned out.

BELOW: Here are a couple of photos of the Master Bath before and after.

Above: The master bath before…

Above: …and the master bath after.

Above: The master tub before…

Above: …and the master tub after.

Above: The master shower room before…

Above: Inside the master shower before…

Above: The master shower during construction…

Above: …the master shower room after.

Above: …walking inside the Master Shower after.

Above: Inside the new master bath closet.

***************************

For those of you in the area, we would HIGHLY recommend Ken Avery for any work you need/want done (thanks to the Bucks and Swetnams for recommending him). He did an excellent job in all respects. He has some amazing tile guys come in and do all of the tile work. They did excellent work as well and were very detail oriented. If you need Ken’s number, let me know.

Jun 22

Let’s Get a New Door…

So, we had to get our whole front door replaced…and we are talking the door, sidelights, and the half-circle transom over the top. Oh, yeah, part of the wall too.

Unfortunately, the house we bought last year had a serious water leak into the wall by the front door (the roof had been done incorrectly originally)…which had “enticed” termites…and it had been going on for years and years, I guess. We discovered this when we hired someone to put new tile in the front entry way and they started tearing the old tile out. At least we found out now before the whole thing fell in. It was quite an adventure.

Above: This is a BEFORE picture of the door (this was taken before we bought the house).

Above: This is what the front-entry way looked like before. You can see how foggy the half-circle transom is…probably because of the water leak.

Above: This is what it looked like when they started ripping up the tile and found the termites by the front door.

Above: This is what we discovered on the outside. It turns out water was leaking at a roof joint just above this and it was all rotted inside and termites were in there. You can see where it had been heavily caulked and it was mushy to the touch. We broke through it with just the push of a finger.

Above: This is inside…on the opposite side of that last photos. You can see the termite trails all behind the trim.

Above: We had to tear a ways into the wall to get rid of the termite damage. This is Ken Avery that contracted the work. He is awesome and we would HIGHLY recommend him for anything you want done around your home. Email us if you would like his number.

Above: This is what it looks like when someone removes your front door.

Above: This is what it looks like when you have no front door. At least it is a pretty view with all of the greenery.

Above: The outside view…

Above: The new door on it’s way in…

Above: Remember the hole in the trim on the outside of the door. That hole was there for several days as we waited for the new door to arrive. So, in the meantime a bird built a nest in there. I found out the hard way as I was up on a ladder taking some plastic and tape down (a poor attempt to keep the rain out)…the bird flew out right by my face.

Well, when we discovered the nest with little baby birds in it…Ken tried to find a nice spot for the nest, since we couldn’t leave it where it was. But, the momma bird didn’t come back, the nest fell, and all of the babies died. It was really sad…