ITS A GIRL!!

Working on the Bathroom

One of the major things going on right now is the bathroom. We started it in May and it's not done yet. We are so tired of tubbin' it!

Before

Redoing the floor.

Tearing down the walls...

...and everything else.

New floor, pluming and toilet!!

We are much further along than the pictures show. We'll have to take some more pictures when it's finished. Austin has done an excellent job. I'm lucky to have such a handy man around the house.

One funny story about the bathroom: I got food poisoning the weekend that Austin had to do the tile. He had to take the toilet out, so I kept running to the gas station because I had severe stomach cramping and diarrhea all day! Finally at like 8:00 pm I said, "Can you take me to the motel. I've got to be by a toilet." So he checked me into the Fairview Motel where I watched Lady Gaga on Larry King and finally threw up. Don't take the porcelain throne for granted!

Catch Up Time! Part 1

The next few posts will feature photos from the past few months that show what we've been up to. Check out my albums on facebook to see more.

March-ish: Our first fire in the fire pit. I'm trying not to be cold despite the snow and measly fire made with damp wood we found by the house.

Hiking in Maple Canyon

More soon...

YES! FIRST OWL!

After many nights of crazy intense hiking I saw a female spotted owl last night. She was pretty ticked off that we were there actually and she kept dive bombing my head! I was like, "LEAH! Help, she's trying to scalp me!!" I'll post pictures later.

Austin came down last weekend and we explored Canyonlands. We decided to go mountain biking to the Colorado River Overlook and thought, oh it's only 14 miles, that's nothing on a bike. Well not on pavement, but in deep sand and slickrock in the middle of the desert day, it took us nearly 5 hours. Oh not to mention we ran out of water. So there I am 4 months prego, biking on super bumpy terrain, dying of thirst. I almost had a breakdown twice before we finally got back to the car. The best thing is we could have drove most of the way, but thought, NAAAAA we can bike the whole thing.

Actually, that's the first time we have mentioned the baby business on our blog. It's true, we are joining the kid club. I'm 4 months. Today was the first time I had to wear my shorts unbottoned. I think baby is tired of hiking and wants to go home. 3 more weeks.

News Caboose

HOLA!

Well, as usual I never post the pictures I say I'm going to. To my defense our lap top is on the craps for a while and we don't have internet on the desktop. So maybe you'll see Puerto Rican pictures sometime in the future.

Right now I am using the computer at a hotel in Monticello, UT. I have a new job in the Canyonlands area which is south of Moab. I'm a field technician for my friend Leah from USU. She is doing her graduate project on Mexican Spotted Owls, so that is what we are out here tracking. They are threatened and apparently so because I haven't seen any yet. We met up with some other grad students from Montana to go out hooting last night, but they ended up getting stuck on the road. We stayed in Monticello and watched the 24th Fireworks instead. Monsoon season makes it really hard to drive to the remote places we have to get to. We are going to try to go out to Fish and Owl canyons tonight. Hopefully the thunderstorms stay away for a night.

I am staying in a trailer at Dugout Ranch which is just outside the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. So far, things have been slow going because we have been trying to get established in the area, talking to the park rangers, and figuring out where to get water, and where to dump the black and gray water. I don't know anything about trailers. We organize and plan during the day and then go out hiking about 5:00 in the evening. We drive, then hike into an area using preselected GPS points that Leah has picked out. When we get to the first one we have to wait until official sunset time to start the first hooting calls. The MSO has a distinct call, much different than the Great Horned Owl, which is actually a MSO preditor. We hike for a few hours in the dark with our headlamps and packs until we hit four call points, then we hike back to the car and drive home. We go to bed late and wake up however late the heat will allow us to sleep in.

Don't know when I'll be able to post again!

Jessica

To check out the park, look at this link: http://www.closertonature.com/maps/canyonlands-map.gif

Bout Time For An Update

Okay, I wanted to put some more picture up, but I have to save pictures onto the external hard drive before I download more onto the computer. So I will give an update in words and post pictures later.

Austin is still at the mine. He's swamped with all the water monitoring he has to do this quarter. He likes his job a lot though. I'm still at the boy's home. That's a long dramatic story, so lets just say I'm grateful to have a job at all. I'm waiting to hear back from an online school I interviewed with. I would be able to teach from home, plus a billion other better things than my current job, so I am dying to hear back from them. Also I'm working on my math endorsement with some online classes through University of Phoenix.

Austin is working on remodeling the bathroom. Right now it has dolphin wall paper, a pink sink, pink tub, and pink toilet, and no shower. Can't wait to have a new bathroom!

We just got back from Puerto Rico. We've been wanting to do a big getaway since forever ago, and since we are out of school it could finally happen. We went snorkeling and hung out at the beach for days and days and I wanted to stay there forever.

We miss our USU friends a lot!! We want to come up to Logan the weekend of the 3rd of July. I think that is the Cruise-in weekend. I hope it is cause then we could all go.

Peace Out!

Is this what the kids are listening to these days?

I checked out this band after one of my students said it was awesome. This student also loves Avenged Sevenfold. Need I say more? This is probably the worst music video I've ever seen. It compares to vomiting. From the Zoolander faces to the rainbows, wow. It's a little too Pete Wentz for me. Make sure you let it buffer so you can get the full effect of the awkward dancing.