Grillin'  

Posted by Amber

So... my parents are trying to sell their house in order to move to Phoenix. That's some background you need :)  Also, on May 7th was our stake baptism, where three of our kids were getting baptized!  Unfortunately, I had to work that Saturday :p  But, I still typed up the programs and words to the songs that were to be sung.  However, in an effort to save on paper, and for the fact you don't need a full sheet of paper for a program, I designed them to be on half of a sheet.  Unfortunately, I don't own a paper cutter, but my parents do :)



Just had to show off the program and lyrics.  The programs were on cardstock, and the lyrics were on regular paper.  I went with black and white so I didn't have to go buy colored paper or waste a lot of ink :)

Since I had to drop off the programs before the baptism and before work, I dragged Matt up to my parents' to borrow the aforementioned paper cutter.  When we got there, we found they were having a yard sale.  They had their grill out with a sign asking $75 for it.  Now, Matt and I have wanted to get a grill one day, but just don't have the funds.  Another advantage to Dad's grill is I know what condition it's in and that it's a decent grill :)  While Matt and I were cutting programs and lyrics, I asked Matt if he really wanted the grill, because if we didn't buy Dad's, we wouldn't be able to afford one for awhile :)

Dad came in and heard us, and asked if we wanted it....to which Matt replied (in a very affirmitave tone) mayyyybeee...... My cute dad said if we wanted it, we could have it for $50, so we said yes :)

Dad doesn't own a truck anymore, and we only have cars, so we eventually got the grill back with the help of Matt's dad and brother.  Thanks guys for letting us borrow the suburban and trailer, and for helping Matt carry the grill up the stairs! :D

Oh, and later (since it took awhile for us to pick up the grill), Dad said we didn't even have to worry about paying him for the grill.  Sweet deal, no?

So I was really hoping to BBQ on Zoorasic Saturday, but as you can read in the post below, it rained.  So no grilling for us.  We did, however, finally manage to venture out and buy propane this last Saturday, May 21st :D

Matt made some really good burgers, and I had also purchased soda (on sale) and chips to complete the experience.  Here are pics from the first time we used our BBQ!

 Had to clean the grill first.
 A poor picture, but proof Matt hooked it all up right - there's fire in there!
 Our nummy burgers
 Flippin' time!
 Adding the cheese :)
Matt toasting his bun :)


Saturay was a great day!  Before the grilling, we had ventured off to get a rock chip in Matt's windshield filled at Big O.  Next door was our Young Men and Young Women's yard sale fundraiser, so I wandered over there and chatted with some ward friends :) Then we headed to Smith's for propane.  Not knowing what to do for lunch, we went over to Papa Murphey's for some Pizza and watched Prince Caspian on USA.  Later, I played a little Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.  I'm glad Matt ended up getting it while he was sick last week.  Aside from the fact we wanted to play it because Revelations will be coming out, it really isn't too bad of a game. :)  When I got sick of that, we ended up watching Easy A on Netflix while Matt made our yummy dinner.  A perfect 'summer' day :)


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Birds and Dinosaurs  

Posted by Amber

I think my title is witty, since, according to my biology courses, birds are really dinosaurs.  Well, reptiles anyway. Feathers as modified scales, anyone? Moving on...

No baby canaries for us.  The egg broke.  Sad news.  Not to mention, they never really got the hang of building an actual nest.  Oh well.  Sometimes Bandito still likes to chill in the basket.  The odd thing is the two have actually been getting along now most of the time.  They're not still trying to nest or anything, but now sometimes they'll both eat at the food dish at the same time (this never happened before!).  Cute, silly canaries. :)

Here is a picture of the egg, in case anyone was wondering what canary eggs looked like.

Matt and I have a zoo membership, and we haven't quite used it enough to have paid for itself.  (Part of the problem is Matt would rather go to the aviary than the zoo...)  However, the weather was to be warm on Saturday, May 14th, and it was the opening day of Zoorasic Park!  I was so excited because they had a dinosaur themed display ages ago when I was young, and I wanted to see what they would do this time around. 

Let me just say, the zoo was packed! We drove around the north parking log, up the hill to the south parking lot, then back to the north parking lot where we finally found a spot.  It was a lovely day.  We were in shorts and I didn't even take a jacket. :)  The dinosaurs were fun this time because instead of having a dinosaur exhibit, there were animatronic dinosaurs throught the zoo. :)

First, we went through Discovery Land and found that the Prairie Dogs had babies! :D

Yep, I also learned they eat sticks....
 
We found our first dinosaurs at the duck pond.
 Matt with a Brachiosaurus
Suchomimus
 
Well, it is spring, so there were lots of babies - like these adorable Canada Goose goslings!
We also ran into a friend of mine from high school.  It was good to see her and her little boy. :)  Can't wait to see them again in July at our high school friends BBQ!

Next, we swung by the elephants.  Zuri is a toddler now, and my has she grown!
Since we had a lazy morning, we got to the zoo kinda late in the day.  After the elephants, we were at the bird show amphitheatre in time to line up and wait for a little bit for the last bird show of the day.  The bird show is one of our favorites!  We met a new bird, Olga (I think, that or Helga, something like that) the Sea Eagle.  Sorry, no pics, but her beak and feet were bright yellow!

Unfortunately, it was getting cold and windy.  The first little falcon they released got blown off course, even.  That's when we learned that they have radio transmitters, and they have momentarily lost birds before.  They told us about one time they tracked a bird to the Wyoming border before they got it back. Craziness.

Well, it started to rain, and people started to leave, so they had to cancel the show.  It was sad for us.  The little falcon showed up again as we were all leaving, but a seagull spooked it off.  We decided to stick out the rain and headed over to the lemurs.  Surprisingly, the building wasn't super crowded like I'd thought it would be.  The Ring-tailed Lemurs had recently had babies too, but they still had paper on their display with little looking windows torn into it, so we couldn't see them that well.

The rain died down a little, and we took the new bridge past the construction (which is coming along nicely) over to Asian Highlands, where we again took shelter in the viewing building of the leopard, who was also waiting out the rain in his lean-to.
After awhile, we headed down to the small animals building and hung out watching the birds for awhile.  After we were done there, we decided to head back to the car.  The rain had mostly stopped, and we were cold.  Overall, I'm glad we decided to stay, even though we weren't prepared and it was awfully rainy.  It was still a really fun day!

 

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Nesting  

Posted by Amber

Our canaries often 'enjoy' each other's company at least a couple of times per day.  Our cutie Bethesda has subsequently been ripping the cage lining to shreds trying to make a nest.  Unfortunately for her, she had no where to put these little strips of paper.  Well one day, I awoke to find an egg at the bottom of the cage - so tiny!  So tiny, in fact, that it fell through the grate on the bottom of the cage and was resting in the tray where the paper is.  Bandito was all fluffed on the ground trying to sit on it, so I knew I had to take it out so they wouldn't try to hatch it.  The poor little egg was cracked anyway.

Knowing that if you take their eggs away, birds will try to nest again, Matt and I picked up a nesting basket and nesting material on Saturday.  The canaries have been going to town! Their cage is a complete mess.  They LOVE the little string nesting material, but they don't seem to love it in the basket - so it is strewn all about the cage.  Sometimes Bethesda will put some back in the basket, but most of the time she carries it all around the cage and ends up dropping it on the ground.  I've since given up trying to put it back in the basket.  As I type this, Bethesda seems to be trying to weave a nest, so we'll see how it goes.  Bandito likes to sit in the basket with no strings in it - the little bugger.

Here are a couple pics of the nesting activities :)

 Bethesda has a beakful
What the bottom of the cage looks like.... sigh

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CONCACAF Finals!  

Posted by Amber

Real Salt Lake did an awesome job in CONCACAF and made it to the Champion's League finals along with Monterrey.  Matt had asked me, if RSL made it to the finals, if I was okay with him buying tickets.  I, of course, said yes :)  Well, season ticket holders got a super long time to buy tickets, and they could buy their seats times like 4 or something.  Tickets were supposed to be opened to the public April 15 at 5pm.  In Vegas, we got online, but tickets weren't available for purchase.  On our way home Monday, April 18th, I got an email from RSL saying those who had purchased tickets to at least one game during the season so far were eligible to purchase CONCACAF tickets before they went public, but you had to call them.  So I called, and got an answering machine.  Fail, RSL.  So Tuesday, I called again, got a real person, and bought tickets!

The day of the game, Wednesday, April 27, I was working 10am to 6pm so we could get there by 7pm for the game that was starting at 8pm.  Well, it was a super slow day at work, so I got off at about 5:15pm and met Matt at the park and ride.  We stopped at Arby's for some dinner and headed north :)  This time, we parked at the free lot at the Sandy City Center and took a shuttle up to Rio Tinto Stadium.  When we got there, there was much music (or at least banging on drums) and confetti everywhere.  Shortly after, the gates opened, and we headed into the stadium and walked around half of it to get to our seats :)  I had brought a book, but I didn't really read much, even though we had 1 1/2 hours before the game started.

 Long before the game started...
We were told to wear read in support of RSL - Matt doesn't own red, so he wore yellow (the color of their away unis)
View from our seats

We were just to the west of the support section, and it was fun to watch all of the crazy people :) It was also enjoyable to watch the different fans coming out to support their teams, watch the media wander around, and watch the teams warm up. This is why I didn't get much reading done :)


 Warming up
 Bouncing confetti on the giant flag
More warming up

My favorite part of the warm up was watching the referees warm up - it was like they were dancing ;)


Right before kick off - the energy was AWESOME.  Everyone was so excited to cheer on our boys in the finals! It was great fun as the whole stadium sang. (I took video, but it's super shaky, so I'm not posting it because I don't want to make anyone sick :) )
 Nasty mess of streamers :)
 Shaking hands before the game
 An action shot
Corner kick from our corner :)

Alas, Monterrey scored a goal during stoppage time of the first half.  Try as we might, we were unable to score a goal.  Monterrey won the game 1-0, and subsequently won the trophy.  It was a sad night, and emotions were super high (especially from the drunk guy in front of us), but it was such an awesome accomplishment for our boys to make it to the finals and come so close.  We didn't stay for the awarding of the trophy.  Instead, we made the long walk back to our car.  It was an exhausting night, but it was worth it.

 Our goalie after the game
 More dejection of our team over the loss
Setting up to award Monterrey the trophy

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Good Friday and Easter Sunday  

Posted by Amber

I don't actually celebrate Good Friday, and honestly, I don't know what the point of the holiday is. What I do know is that a lot of projects didn't dial that day due to the holiday - so it was a slow day at work. This was perfect because we had our first annual QA Editor Birthday Party!
The cute invite I made :)

It was super fun just to get together with our team and do something fun! We met at Magleby's Fresh in Lindon for lunch. Jan got some cute Easter eggs for little party favors, and we learned fun facts about things that happened on everyone's birthdays in history.


 Easter basket with the Easter eggs
 Sorry the pic is blurry - Tiana and Shannon
 Shannon, Joan, Jessica, and Britnee
 Nick
 Britnee and Marie
 Jan and I - Jan is being a pain....
It was okay though because I'm quick on the rebound and got her laughing ;) HA!

We were missing Melissa and Rachel - but like I said, this should be an annual thing :) Also, as it says in the invite, for those who wanted, we took a little tour of our new Lindon call center.  It's schwanky - much better than where they were in Orem (back when I dialed. . .and where I first started editing :) ).  Aimee, the PC (phone center) manager was kind enough to let us have a promotional stuffed ball - we all picked soccer balls over the footballs ;)  Good times.

Saturday, I ended up having to work :p So I didn't get to go to the Wilson Easter picnic.  My sister-in-law Camile was having a BBQ at her house for her birthday, so I arrived late to that.  It worked out quite well though, and it was fun to hang out with family, even if it was super cold!

Saturday evening, I drug Matt around our building to deliver Easter baskets I made for our neighbors :)  They've been done for ages, but I hadn't gotten around to taking them because I wanted Matt to go too :)  Cinco is a huge fan of Easter grass, though, so we ended up putting them in our closet and shutting the door.  Silly gato.  I made 10 baskets for $50 thanks to Dollar Tree.  I also took the Church's Easter message and put it on a picture of Christ to include in the baskets. (If you haven't watched the video - I highly recommend you do! It's so poignant in the film :) )




We ended up delivering five of them that night.  It worked out well that I had 10 because a new family moved into our building, where I thought someone already lived, so we got to meet them - well, their kids and the grandma who was tending them. :)  They should be at church this week - yay for another kid in nursery and in Sunbeams!

Easter Sunday we attended church and had dinner at Matt's parents' house.  Then we went around to finish delivering baskets :)  We got four more done and ended up just leaving our next door neighbor's on their door.  I hope they got it :)  We also found out our downstairs neighbors were moving.  We collected our old boxes that I still had in a closet and took them down for them to use - yay for helping AND getting rid of boxes!  Melissa was so sweet - she gave us some Easter candy and gave me some flowers she had.  Pretty, yes?

Twigs and blossoms from her mom's tree, and wild daffodils from up the canyon :)

I hope all of you had a joyous Easter :)

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Vegas Baby! Part 3 - Sunday & Monday  

Posted by Amber

Sunday, Natalie, Tashina, Shawn, Darren, Matt, and I headed back to the strip to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay.  It was awesome :)  Big aquariums are so cool.  Our poor little Living Planet Aquarium here in Utah is okay, but not nearly as awesome :)

 Komodo Dragon
 This Emerald Tree Monitor was one of my favorites :)
 Shark!
 They swim so fast!
 Feeding time!
Lionfish

They had a touch pool with stingrays and horseshoe crabs.  I didn't dip my hand, but I did take pictures of everyone else :)


 Matt checking out a horseshoe crab
 Tashina, Natalie, and Matt
 Jellies!
 Matt & I in front of the jellyfish
Relaxing on the comfy bench while waiting for everyone else :)

Other fun parts of the Shark Reef Aquarium were the shark tunnel - where you can see underneath the sharks and other fish as they swim above you - and the sunken ship - which incidentally also has a small tunnel on your way to the gift shop, along with some viewing windows in the floors.
 Fishies relaxing on the 'sunken ship'
Self-Potrait with a Shark. 
Sorry it's so grainy - I had to lighten it a lot cuz I didn't use a flash, but I'm still pretty proud of my timing to get me and the shark in the frame so well :D

On our way back to the cars - which were on the complete opposite side of the building it seemed, I got a picture of Matt and I in front of this cool little fountain with little stone . . . chameleons? something like that anyway.
 Oh yes, the bag is because we bought stuff at the aquarium gift shop. :)  I got a pair of earrings and a bracelet, and Matt got a shark tooth necklace :)
This little dude was our favorite - Matt wants to find a stone mason to make a miniture version to put on our patio :)

My earrings and bracelet

After the aquarium, we headed back to the games to watch the drum major competition.  After which, Matt and I went to get some lunch at the vendors and then came back to watch the band competition. 
 Jason Paguio (my fav :) ) - SFU and David McCormick - LA Scots

I got bored part way through and went back to the booths to shop :)  I bought two pairs of earrings from A Girlz Glitter and two stone rings from Another Realm.  I was quite pleased. 

 My hematite ring
 Earrings and my other ring

I then sat and listened to one of the various entertainment bands play a song or two before heading back to watch the Grade 1 bands (LA Scots and SFU).  Everyone else had left already - except Natalie and Tashina and us - because everyone else was going home Sunday.  The four of us didnt' leave until Monday.  We still got to see everyone though because they were just getting ready to leave when we got back to the house.
 Matt listening to the bands
 SFU waiting to go on for their MSR
 LA Scots exiting
 A very loud peacock - who would shut up every time I tried to video him
 Awesome car
Another shot of the awesome car :)

That night, we stayed in and ordered pizza.  Natalie, Tashina, and Matt watched TV, and I opted to read in our room.  I thought the house would feel super empty with just 4 of us left, but it was rather pleasant still. 

Monday morning we woke up and made sure everything was taken care of - like all the sheets put in the laundry room, the dishes all washed and put away - you know, everything to get our cleaning deposit back :)  Once the key was in the lock box, we were on our way back home - to the un-warm weather :p  It was great to have a vacay - even if I had to unpack everthing and do laundry when we got home :)  And Matt still had to go to class lol.


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