On the Road Again...

Quent and I made a trip to Cedar City yesterday to return a trailer that he had borrowed to pick up some trees. After we hit Cedar, the rain was coming down and we decided that it would probably be in our best interest to drive home through St. George rather than trying to drive over the Cedar Breaks road as it was hit with a lot of snow.

St. George and all of Southern Utah got hit with a lot of rain and we drove through rain most of the way home. We did manage to make a couple of stops in the "big city" and it was fun to eat at Cafe Rio, I haven't seen that many people in line waiting to get their food since I was in Salt Lake last.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Quent and I put up the Christmas tree on Sunday and have been slowly decorating the house. (We'll post pictures as soon as we have everything in the right place.) Between the two of us we have enough tree ornaments to decorate five or six trees. We decided to go with the star and coke ornaments and have filled the tree with over 1,000 lights.

Now all we need is snow...

Black Friday...I did it!

I made it through my first Black Friday shopping trip!!! Today is the first time in 10 years that I haven't had to work the day after Thanksgiving and was able to spend the morning with all the crazy people fighting over a good bargain.

To prepare for the shopping trip to Walmart we all took turns reading the sales ad that was delivered right to my post office box on Monday. Quent and I had decided there were a couple of items that would be good Christmas gifts if we could get them and Kerry made a list of things she wanted so Joyce decided she'd come along for moral support (of course she did end up buying a few things as well).

As a rookie I wasn't sure what to expect, after all, the only thing I knew about Black Friday was that all the TV stations spend time interviewing people in line waiting for the stores to open and then filming grown women and men fighting over the "hot item" of the season.

Quent set the alarm for 4 a.m. and we were in the car headed to Page by 4:30 a.m. To be honest, I'd never ever seen so many cars in the Page Walmart parking lot. I generally park right at the front it's not like Salt Lake where if you get a parking spot within a mile of the door you're excited.

We arrived about 5 minutes early and had to stand in line with about 200 other people. (Quent said he had never seen so many people at Walmart the day after Thanksgiving and that there isn't usually a line to get in the store.)While we were in line the Walmart employees were handing out store maps marked with all the door buster items as well as the sales ads for those who were in line not sure what they were looking for.

We studied the map and decided who was going where and what each of us were going to pick up. We ended up getting all the things on our list including a few extras. Our Christmas shopping has officially begun!

In line with all of our friends in Page.
Notice I am studying the map of the store, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly where I was going.

Thanksgiving is a Success

Our Thanksgiving dinner went off without a hitch, dinner was complete with turkey, mash potatoes, and stuffing and all the extras. Joyce brought pies down and from salads to olives I think everyone was happy with the meal. Everyone helped cook dinner and for my first ever Thanksgiving dinner not at my parents I think things worked out well.

Quent was excited to see the Packers win their game as he is currently beating his opponent in his fantasy football league, but don't worry come Sunday it will most likely be another mark in the loss column.

After dinner we taught Bill, Joyce and Kerry how to play Phase 10. Joyce scored the most points in game one and in game two Bill scored the most points. (I think we forgot to tell them that Phase 10 is a lot like golf, the person with the most points doesn't win the game.)

Wanted! A Real Post Office

One of the things I miss about living in the city is a real post office. The city of Big Water contracts with the Kanab post office for our mail service and is open daily from about 10 a.m. to about 2 p.m.

Recently we had a personnel change at the post office and my new quest is to get the new employee fired. I realize that I should cut her some slack and that everyone entering a new job has a training period, but I am slowly losing patience.

Today I received a package that was mailed from Salt Lake City on November 6 and was delivered to our post office on November 10. (One day later than it should have but because everything has to go through Kanab and it takes a day or two extra to get here.) Our post office worker left a notification in our PO Box yesterday that we had a package (of course I was at the post office about 2:05 p.m. so I missed picking it up).

After realizing that the package had been sitting in our post office for 10 days I was not happy and I am on a quest to make some changes at the post office. Quent suggested that I go to the city council and discuss the state of our current post office. Big Water was incorporated in 1985 at which time they should have applied for their own zip code. I will be researching how we apply to get our own zip code so I am educated when I speak my mind, I figure if the town of Chester (located in Sanpete county) has their own zip code, population178, that the town of Big Water should have enough people to get our own zip code. This way our postal employees will have to follow the rules of the USPS and not just make things up as they go.

Turkey is just around the corner

Quent and I are hosting Thanksgiving Dinner at our house for his parents, sister and possibly one or two coworkers on Thursday. How hard can it be cook a turkey, make some dressing and mash some potatoes. We went shopping last night with our detailed grocery list. We've got three days left to pick up any items we may have forgotten.

I'm looking forward to hitting the big sales on Friday, of course down here that means I'll be going to Wal-mart, but they've got to have something exciting on sale. After all it is the first black Friday I haven't had to work in 10 years.

Look for pictures later in the week, I'm sure we'll have plenty of pictures of Bill and Joyce's visit as well as us eating turkey on Thursday.

Earleen Comes to Visit

Yea more visitors! Earleen came to visit Saturday afternoon, it had been a couple of years since I had seen her. She is currently living in Billings, Montana and was in Kanab visiting a friend from High School.

Earleen spent part of the day with her friend and her friend's daughter looking for a lot to buy in Big Water and didn't realize that our house was actually at the hatchery. She was quite concerned with the town and couldn't believe that I had actually moved to town. Well after we connected she was relieved that I actually don't live in the city limits of Big Water and that we are two miles north of town.

It was fun to visit with her and catch up. It's amazing how many people have visited us since I moved down here.

Kerry in the House!

Kerry is here visiting this week and will be here through Thanksgiving. While I am busy working on projects around the house, she is getting ready for her move to Prague. No pictures of Kerry's visit yet but we'll make sure to get one before she heads home.

Quick Update...

Quent said that he will update everyone on what he's doing as soon as I get home with the computer...so look for something new a little later this week.

Back in the City...

While Quent was in St. George this past week I decided to head to Salt Lake to see my brother (Joe) for his 30th birthday and celebrate Steve's 33rd birthday and Morgan's 2nd birthday.

The week turned out to be a bit more busy than I had planned but it was a fun week up in Salt Lake. I caught up with some friends and spent some time with family, I was even able to go to the University of Utah football game on Saturday.

The one thing that I don't miss about the city is the haze and gunk in the air. When I drove into the valley on Tuesday the haze was disgusting but I decided to stay anyway.

Below are some pictures from the weekend.

Morgan and I enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches. (She let me stay at her house for the week.)
\The Utes beat the Cowboys 50-0 on Saturday. I think there were more people in the stadium on Saturday then there are in all of Kane County.

After the Utah game we went and celebrated at Ruby River. (The dinner was actually the November birthday celebrations, the Utah win was just an added bonus.)
My half-eaten dinner, you can't get food like this in Big Water!

Balloon Fest 2007

Quent and I went into the Page Balloon Fest Glow tonight as part of the annual balloon festival. All of the hot air balloons that set off from the old golf course are set up on Lake Powell Blvd. at dusk and the balloons take turns "glowing" it was pretty cool.

We spent time walking around the balloons and watching all of the people. I think I saw more people in one night in Page than I have in my three months down here.

Do Bees Really Talk?

Quent and I went to the Bee Movie last night and I will have to say hands down it is an all around family movie...something for everyone. While the movie is only one hour and 25 minutes, it was a lot of fun and I must say the only movie I've been too in a while.

Now lets get on to the real point of today's blog entry. The movie theater in Page is a one screen movie house kind of like the olden days, although the Villa is the only movie theater I can remember that only have one screen and today it's an expensive carpet store.

The Mesa Theater as they call it is quaint, with fairly new surround sound. Quent told me that they didn't have surround sound when he first got here and it was the first thing he mentioned when we went to find our seats.

The theater is totally old school, kind of reminded me of the Olympus Starship theaters. No stadium seating, and there was a big cowboy and indian (or is that cowboy and native american?) mural painted on the walls.

In any case it was the first time in a long time that Page has had a movie on opening day and we braved all the kids and decided to go. It was well worth it and I believe we will be going back to the Mesa again in the future.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Today I got the chance to see just what Quent does when he goes out on the lake working. After setting nets yesterday we went out and pulled the nets today and collected the fish that were caught in the nets. I was the official data person on board the boat and recorded each fish that George and Quent pulled in, Wayne was the captain of the boat and took us to each of the 10 nets.

It was a beautiful day out on Lake Powell, a perfect day for waterskiing, the water was as smooth as glass, the only problem, it's November 1 and the temperature outside was just about 50 and the water temperature was not warm at all. Not too many people out on the lake as November isn't a very busy time at Lake Powell.

After we collected the 10 nets we took the fish to the cleaning station where we recorded length, weight, fat content, parasites and sex of each fish. Once the data was collected Wayne and George filleted them for some lucky person to eat.