August in Hindsight

I apologize for being a bit behind with the blog posts but instead of skip the month of August, we will just do it in review:

 

Amy and Cory came over with Annie the Shih-Tzu so that Sasha could get more "dog socialized".  The ice-cream was quite scrumptious!

Cans at work before compactor foot...

Cans at work after compactor foot! (I was kind of looking for things to do that day)

Most of the time that we go over to the Long's now, we take Sasha with us because she and Tater have become pretty good friends.

Jason at NPT gave us two passes to a Diamondbacks' game as a birthday gift / going away present!  It was a lot of fun.

 

What a beautiful couple, right?

We started up school again and I found out that they've done some remodeling to the patio in front of the business building.  It's nice to not have to climb up and down the stairs in the fountain area anymore.

Bates Family get together / pool party--this might have been late July actually.  Alexis and I were in charge, so we delegated everything out, arranged with Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike to use their pool and had some delicious pulled pork for dinner.  Yum!

I finished up work for the summer a few days before school started and, it being my birthday, Alexis and I went up to a cabin in Eagar, AZ that the Johnsons (the amazing senior couple from my mission) let us use.  It was very nice to just get away from the heat, work and just relax a bit before school started. 

Here is Alexis prepping the cooler for the drive.

Here is the house / cabin with a very curious Sasha sniffing around.

 One interesting thing that we noticed about Eagar is that its residents are quite patriotic.  It was refreshing to see a flag on almost every porch or a bench painted red, white and blue.  I'm afraid that we are losing touch with the sense of patriotism that we should feel.  Even I forget to put up the flag on holidays and I'm the one mentioning it.

 When I would take Sasha for her walk in the morning, she was usually quite "excited" to see that almost every house in Eagar has a dog or two as well.  Honestly, we could hardly pass more than 1 house before a dog would start yapping at Sasha or a horse would come running over to take a closer look.  I think she liked the attention though.  This little dog was more friendly and Sasha reciprocated that kindness--too bad there was a fence or they could have been fast friends.

We hung out inside most of the time because we didn't want to leave Sasha alone (we had forgotten her crate) and because we just wanted to relax a bit. We had a lot of fun putting some puzzles together--I can't remember the last time I did that and Lexie enjoys them. That is one thing, among many, that I love about her: that she is incredibly bright and creative but doesn't need a complex computer game or movie to entertain her--a puzzle or a game is just fine.

 I liked the soccer one best--I might be a bit biased though.

I colored Hercules (one of the best Disney characters of all time) while we watched a movie.  I think it is a pretty good likeness of him if I do say so myself.

 Scrabble is, well, kind of boring.  I thought that it would be fun like Word Feud on the Droid, but apparently not.  We did finish one round though! 

Oh, and there was the car accident.  We weren't in the accident but it happened about 25 yards behind us at an intersection.  We were just walking Sasha in quiet, peaceful little Eagar when a car passed us by on the road, ran the stop sign (or at least that is what we suppose happened since we didn't turn around until we heard the collision) and slammed into the front of a van which proceeded to crash into this power line pole.  Lexie took care of Sasha while I ran over to check on the people in the van (an elderly woman and her senile husband--who for some reason hadn't been wearing a seat belt and ended up stuck between the two front seats with a bleeding hand) and all the old lady could say was, "You saw that it wasn't my fault right?  Oh my goodness!" as I frantically tried to dial 911. 

I had actually never dialed 911 before so that was fun, I guess.  I was worried for a bit because the airbag had launched and the dashboard was smoking (which concerned me since I did not know if it was something in the recently smashed engine or just the airbag).  Fortunately, the police, paramedics and firemen arrived in short order to help the old man out of the van (he was not in a pleasant mood at that point) and into an ambulance.  They seemed like they were going to be okay but the van was totaled.

 

The lady that likely ran the stop sign slid off into the grass next to the van after the collision and, fortunately, didn't go in the neighbor's yard (which you can see was only a few feet away).  She seemed okay but was also taken in an ambulance.  

The police had us wait around for about 25 minutes because we were the only "witnesses" but since we didn't actually 'see' anything, they let us go.  It was quite an adventurous walk, that's for sure.

Later on, I opened my gifts from Lexie.  

 

I opened "The Music Man" soundtrack first--Hooray!  I love the Music Man.

 And then....

 "The Big Book of Answers"!!  Because I am always asking so many questions (weird, insightful and otherwise).  It is actually a pretty interesting read.

Sasha relaxing with Justin.

 Alexis decided that she was "finally" going to get her hair cut this month (and believe me, that was a Big decision).

Before...

After!!  I think she looks super cute--the shortest that I've ever been around to see it, in fact.

My blood pressure has gone down significantly since my month of unemployment at the beginning of the summer!  I was quite excited and I'm sure you are too.

The good husband making pizza dough for dinner--under his wife's watchful eye.  I love Pizza!  Thanks for the dough recipe Kim!

And that's all she wrote!

On the Road Again

As I have been going through my internship at National Pool Tile this summer, I have had a number of opportunities to drive to different places in one of the company vehicles to either pick up or drop off product.  I have driven three different vehicles including two different trucks and a 4-door Jeep kind of car.  Work took me as far North as Surprise and as far South as Casa Grande on some days, but nothing could have prepared me for what came next...

 The BIG ONE

I got to go out with Paul, the in-house truck driver, to go deliver product on a couple of different days.  I had never been in a semi-truck before so it was exciting.  

 For the few days while the Sales manager was gone on vacation last week, I was in charge of Paul's deliveries (with the Branch Manager's help, of course).  

I had to make sure the deliveries were pulled, checked, wrapped and loaded onto the truck everyday as well as help divide them up geographically so that he wasn't driving all over town on each load. 

Paul is really fast with the "Donkey" (forklift made for delivery trucks) but still very careful.

 

We went to a truck stop to fill up so I got to see what a "Truck Stop" was like--did you know they have showers?

I also learned a little bit about driving the truck itself, that "Lot Lizards" are bad and that the truck's 160 gallon capacity for gas costs the company almost $500/week!  I couldn't believe how much the gas bill was when he paid it at the truck stop. 

 

This is not a truck.  It's a dog that was on one of the job sites and took quite a liking to me actually.  So, in short, it was fun to actually see the delivery end as opposed to just the prep work.

The Wedding Singer

Alexis recently made her premiere on the Wedding Singer's circuit at a church up in Scottsdale.  Ironically, she sang at a funeral in that same church a few months ago.

We even got to go to the dress rehearsal the night before--neither one of us had ever been to a dress rehearsal but I can see why they have them because there is a lot to remember.  I'm kind of glad that our wedding wasn't so complicated or I probably would have fumbled around a bit.

The groom did a great job.

Alexis did a great job singing "The Lord's Prayer" and "For the Beauty of the Earth".  It was kind of interesting though because they had her sing the latter during Communion--so there was quite a bit going on at the time with people standing up and coming to the front.  She told me that after a while, she just gave up trying to sing to them and just focused on singing.

Overall, it was a really good experience and there was a good spirit there.  The bride's family flew in all the way from Korea and the groom's from New York so it was quite a gathering.

Watching What We Eat

This is just a look at our breakfast table--the cocoa puffs are mine and the Lite Yogurt with boiled egg and a piece of toast belong to Alexis.

 I just can't figure why I've gained so much weight with such a healthy diet.  :)

Family History, They are Doing It

We got together a few weeks ago with the extended Long family and after eating and the FHE lesson, we got into the family photo albums.  Her mom is a big Genealogy buff and has done a lot of work with their family history.  

This trunk is literally like 90+ years old

It was fun to see pictures of Dad and his brothers when they were teenagers or newly married.  I should really do more work on my family history--well, Mom (Mom Bates) has already done a lot of it but I could at least read some personal histories.

All the cousins having fun looking at their parents as "young, hip teenagers"

I think that Alexis was holding a picture of Uncle Jim with an afro

Once per year, if I'm not mistaken, Grandma Long goes to New York to see a play on Broadway.  As a result, she has a number of autographed and framed Playbills on her wall.  This one caught my eye because I didn't know that David Pierce ever acted on Broadway--I just recognize him from Frasier.  Apparently he starred in, and won an award for, a show called "Curtains".  He will always be good ol' Niles Crane to me.

Person, Place or Thing!

Alexis and I take turns deciding just about anything--dinner, cleaning the bathroom, Family Home Evening Lesson, etc.--so this last Monday was my night for FHE.  As I'm sure some of you are aware, FHE with a newly married couple with no children can easily seem just like a glorified couple scripture study, if you're not careful.

So I decided that we would do something out of the ordinary despite reading scriptures, which was the spiritual part.  I call it:

"Person Place or Thing!" 

(and yes, you do have to Exclaim it as the Exclamation Point indicates)

Basically, you each have to pick one Person, one Place and one Thing (a very generic category open to pretty much anything).  You have to find out some basic info about them, maybe some fun trivia, and then share it with everyone else.  Pretty straightforward, right? 

For example, I chose:

• Person: Benjamin Franklin (did you know that he lived a "common law" marriage for most of his life because the lady he intended to legally marry had already married another man who ran off with the dowry to the Caribbean?)
• Place: Switzerland--where you are never more than 10 miles from a body of water (talk about a conversation starter)
• Thing: Pistol Shrimp!  See link--it is worth it, trust me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPrGxB1Kzc&feature=player_embedded

So, that was FHE.  It was actually a lot of fun.  Hopefully you found it entertaining, if not useful!

1st of July Celebration!

4th of July Hoopla on the 1st of July!  Aaron and Brittany York, a great young couple in the ward that I hometeach, invited us to their house on Friday for a 4th of July celebration.  They also invited Jose and Lynette Nuñez and Eddie and Catherine Rodriguez over for a night of food and fun.

Their house looks great! They just moved in so they just finished painting and decorating.

The decorations were really fun and the food was amazing!

They even had a Chocolate Fountain with bananas, strawberries and marshmallows!

Our quazi-card table (a large beanbag)--it was a bit shifty but it worked.

There was food, fun games, friendship and laughter; overall, a great evening.  Hopefully, we can have some more nights like that on a regular basis.