Update your bookmarks!

Who would have thought that after 15 months in Big Water that we'd be moving to Mantua? Of course we had to update our blog address and instead of just going with a generic one we thought we'd stick with the theme and change it to our life in Mantua.

Our new blog address is ourlifeinmantua.blogspot.com or you can click here.

Moving Day

Thursday was packing day and with the help of our parents and a few of our friends in Big Water we were able to get everything loaded in the Uhaul and the other trailers that were returning to Salt Lake. It's amazing how much stuff we really have.

We said goodbye to Big Water on Friday around 10:30 a.m. and made it to the Wasatch front about eight hours later. With the Uhaul, two trucks, a suburban, two trailers and a boat it was quite the caravan driving up I-15.

hooking up the boat getting ready to leave

Quent is checking out the pool table behind the Uhaul

Driving the Uhaul was easier than I thought!

Final Days

Quent and I have packed up just about everything including most of the kitchen. We have resorted to some creative cooking the last couple of nights and I think we'll be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to finish out the week.

My dad and Bill & Joyce will be down tomorrow afternoon to help us finish everything up. We have a crew scheduled to come Thursday morning to load the uhaul and will be driving north Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.

Back in Big Water

Quent and I returned to Big Water today after flying back to Salt Lake on Saturday. We have four days left to finish packing up the house and pick up the Uhaul. Our plan is to head north on Friday.

We had a great time in Peoria with the Frager's and Quent's parents last week. It was nice to take a break and relax for a few days before finalizing the move.

Visiting Peoria

Quent and I left Monday for Peoria, Illinois to visit his sister and her family and to participate in r Mitchell's confirmation into the Catholic Church.

On Monday we were able to go to the Caterpillar proving grounds where the work on all the big equipment. It was really interesting to see all of the different areas of the proving grounds. Dave, Nancy's husband even let us drive a 40-ton dump truck. It was really cool to drive, not sure I'm cut out to drive one for a living but for the 10 minutes I was behind the wheel it was really cool. It's hard to describe how large the dump truck really is but each tire was 7-8 feet tall. Due to restrictions at the site we were unable to take pictures of us driving the trucks.

Today we went and walked around downtown Peoria and will go to the confirmation tonight.

Halloween in Salt Lake

Quent and I spent Halloween in Salt Lake with my family. Quent made his first trip to IKEA where we picked up a couple of things for the house in Mantua, I don't think he'll be going back anytime soon.

Following our shopping extravaganza we went to Riverton High School's playoff game, they were playing Davis High, unfortunately Riverton's season came to an end after losing the game. It was fun to be in the valley to watch my brothers coach the last game of the season.

Friday night we spent at my parent's house it was fun to see all the kids in the Halloween costumes and Quent had a great time handing out candy at my mom and dad's. It's been a long time since Quent's had any real trick-or-treaters.

As soon as I locate the camera, I'll post pictures from Halloween.

Construction Zone

We're still in the middle of a construction zone however things seem to be heading in the right direction. It's amazing how much can happen when you spend more than two days working on a project. Yesterday we had our phone and high speed internet installed and currently the carpet is being installed.

The bathrooms are looking about 110% better than what they were before we started this project and they're still not finished, we're expecting at least a 500% improvement over their 35 year old state.

With the help of both of our families we installed tile over the weekend, replaced the subfloor in the bathrooms and patched some drywall issues. We also were able to polish the kitchen cabinets, put down contact paper and scrub the appliances. The house has been wired for telephone and satellite all we need is our stuff.

Quent and his dad are driving down to Big Water to pick up another load of stuff and will be back tomorrow.

We haven't been too good about taking pictures of the project but we'll definitely take pictures of the finished product. More pictures coming soon.

Here is a picture of the living room pre construction

Morgan and Slim did a great job setting the tile.

The tile looked pretty good after Cindy & Quent finished the grout.

Keeping Busy

It seems as if it's been 100 years since I've updated the blog and it's only been about a month. Quent and I have been busy and have actually spent the better part of the month in Big Water getting everything in order for the move and to finish up a couple of projects that Quent needed to get done before we head north for good.

Quent's aunt Von and three of her friends visited us last weekend, it was fun to meet Quent's aunt and her three friends were a lot of fun. The four women planed to visit the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon and Zion's National Park in a week. Quent played tour guide on Sunday and Monday and kept them busy all day and all night.

We've picked up the pace with packing and will hopefully have 90% of the house packed up before we head north on Thursday for what will be our final 10 days of repair at the Mantua house before moving for good. We hope to get the two bathrooms finished and get the kitchen in working order so we can move in around the 15th of November.

We will be spending November 3-8 in Peoria, Illinois with Nancy and her family and we had hoped to be moved to Mantua before the trip but it's been slow going and we hope to be moved just after we return.

Mrs. Fix-it

Last Thursday we had some friends over for dinner and in an effort to clean out the cupboards before we move we decided to make a cake for dessert. Quent got up early that morning to go to work and I got up at the same time to start my day. About 6:15 a.m. I decided that I would make the cake turned the oven on to preheat.

While making the cake batter, I noticed that the oven was arcing and sparks were flying inside the oven, I had used the oven the night before and nothing odd had happened so I turned off the oven and turned it back on and the bottom element and died, and after seven years, I guess it was time to replace it.

After finding the right part and having fed-ex deliever two different heating elements, we got the right one delievered to our doorstep today and I'm proud to say that I myself switched out the element all by myself and tested it out by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

After tagging 1,000 fish today, Quent was excited about the cookies on the counter when he got home from work.

Drama in Big Water

Quent and I decided we should share the following article about what's going on in the town we are about to leave. The funny thing about the "drama" is that there is actually a lot more serious issues going on in town but right now this seems to be the current focus of the entire town.

A bit of background to the new marshal - he started enforcing the law immediately upon being hired. He has patrolled Highway 89 daily and has written hundreds of speeding tickets and has been cracking down on DUI's. Quent and I felt like he's done a pretty good job around town, but alas, we haven't been written up for anything as we are generally law abiding citizens. Ask yourself this question after reading the following article. Do you think the punishment fits the crime?

The following is copied from the Lake Powell Chronicle which is published weekly in Page, Arizona.

Big Water marshal is under fire
Posted: Wednesday, Sep 24th, 2008
BY: Michael Wigman — Lake Powell Chronicle

BIG WATER — A contentious Big Water Town Council meeting on Sept. 15 featured heated discussions and crowd outbursts regarding actions taken by the town marshal when he stepped in to resolve a vandalism complaint involving the grandson of a town resident.

The recent spat between Glen Canyon Special Services District employee Teresa Tiberi-Phillips and Big Water Marshal Gary Patterson led to a complaint being filed with the Town Council, and the council going into executive session to discuss the complaint.

According to Town Clerk Genia Joseph, a special council meeting was scheduled for Tuesday to discuss what was decided in the executive session.

Tiberi-Phillips told the council she thought the marshal overstepped his bounds when he made the offending children wash the town’s fire department vehicles and police car as punishment for an act of vandalism committed on a town resident.

Earlier in the meeting, when Patterson rose to speak about a survey he had given out to town residents, someone in the audience yelled out, asking if he was going to talk about his letter. The letter in question was written by Patterson and given to the council sometime prior to the meeting, but the Chronicle could not verify its contents.

The letter was referred to numerous times by the council and audience members throughout the meeting. Council member Carl Powell said certain people had been damaged by the charges in the letter. Even though requested numerous times, the Chronicle was refused access to a copy of the letter by the council and members of the audience who had copies in their possession.

Patterson never rose to defend himself against the allegations being leveled during the matter, or to comment on the contents of his letter to the council. Instead numerous town residents, employees and council members spoke out against the incident and the contents of the marshal’s letter.

“Unfortunately our marshal may have meant well in his intentions in what he did, but in my point of view he overstepped his bounds when he tried to take control of fire department vehicles,” Tiberi-Phillips said.

Tiberi-Phillips told the council her daughter had agreed for the grandson involved in the incident to carry out restitution for the vandalism by having the children pull weeds for the assistant fire chief. Tiberi-Phillips said she was mainly upset because of the safety concerns of having children in a fire station with all types of equipment where they could get hurt, and the risk of insurance claims against the town.

“I do this to protect the district. You guys are the ones that do the insurance on those vehicles,” Tiberi-Phillips said.

Tiberi-Phillips said the marshal should have written a complaint on the charges and let Big Water Judge Peter Thompson decide the punishment. Town Attorney Charles Hummel quickly stepped in to explain to her that juvenile complaints immediately go to Kane County courts and would have been decided by a judge in Kanab, not Big Water.

When contacted for comment on Thursday, Patterson said he told the victim of the vandalism he didn’t think pulling weeds was really a justified punishment for the crimes committed. He wanted to write a report and send the matter to juvenile court, but the victim refused to press charges. Instead, Patterson said he thought helping the police and washing the town’s vehicles was a more suitable punishment.

Patterson also described Tiberi-Phillips as someone who complains to the council any time there is a legal issue with her family. He mentioned a previous problem she had with a former marshal after a family member was arrested.

During the council meeting Joseph commented on the letter, making reference to “ridiculous criminal charges he claims I have, though I have never been cited for.”

Joseph said the letter also claims she refused to pay a bill Patterson gave her for repairs done on the town’s police cruiser. She said she was given a bill that was for more than she is allowed to pay without proper authorization from the council and the treasurer.

Patterson would not divulge the contents of the letter he had written, instead referring comment to Hummel, who could not be reached by press time for comment.

Mantua Update

A view of our "front yard" in Mantua.

Quent and I spent last weekend in Mantua and with the help of our families got a lot done. On Thursday my dad, Quent and I repaired a couple of the holes in the walls and got the house ready to paint.

On Friday with the help of my dad we were able to paint all the ceilings and the two smaller bedrooms a nice shade of bright white. It was amazing how yellow the white paint looked once we started spraying the walls white.

On Saturday we had a lot of help including Quent's Dad, my dad, Joe, Jim, Rick, Steve and Joy as we painted the walls in the kitchen, living room and the master bedroom a nice shade of tan and painted the one finished room in the basement and the utility room white. We even managed to get the stairs painted white.

The highlight of Saturday was when Rick, Quent and I ran down the canyon to unload our trailer full of stuff in the storage shed. We needed to go to Walmart as well so I told Rick to just go out to I-15 and head up the highway to the next exit as this would be faster than going through town. We got to the highway overpass to head to the on ramp and we came accross about 30 head of cattle being hearded over the overpass with three horses and an ATV, I don't know if it was faster to go this way but it was fun watching the cows "jog" over the overpass. (See picture below)

We drove home on Sunday only to find we had a broken water pipe that Quent and Nob fixed on Monday. We plan on being in Big Water until next Thursday to pack and get stuff going down here.

Who would have thought we would see cows crossing an overpass?

I can't believe how big TJ is getting. We had fun playing with the niece and nephew last weekend.

Morgan decided to put her dad's sunglasses on. She is "Joe Cool" in training.

Where are Quent & Cindy???

With two houses, two post office boxes, three zip codes and a lot of uncertainty, everyone keeps asking where we are. The answer all depends on the day you ask. Today we are in Big Water, tomorrow we'll be in Salt Lake and Thursday we'll be in Mantua.

We are heading up to Mantua again this weekend to paint the house, meet with a contractor and finish up any other repairs we can before returning back to Big Water next Monday. Beyond that I'm not sure where we will be. Over the past three weeks we've driven over 3000 miles and we're just getting started.

The move is definitely going to happen, slowly but surely we are getting everything packed at our house in Big Water.

We hope that after we meet with the contractor this weekend that we'll have more of a plan as to when the "big move" will take place and when we'll trade three zip codes in for one. Until then just keep checking the blog, it's the easiest way to keep everyone updated.

Post Office Update

As many of you know we have a "pretend" post office in Big Water so when I found out we were moving to Mantua I was excited that we might have a real post office to work with.

After talking with Quent about our commuting back and forth we decided that the best course of action would to be to get a post office box as the Hatchery and the residence share an address, yes this means we get mail delivered to the house!!! (Mantua has it's own zip code but the mail is delivered from Brigham City.)

While looking on usps.com for some unrelated information I found that I could reserve a post office box online and then take the form into the post office, pick up the keys and I'd be on my way. So in an effort to save time I decided I'd do that.

Last Friday while Joy and I were in Brigham City running errands and preparing for the move I stopped by the post office to pick up my keys for our new post office. What seemed like a simple task and a good idea didn't work to our advantage.

The friendly clerk was so excited to see the form, it was a new form and he wasn't even aware that you could reserve a po box online what a great idea he said. After spending some time and challenging me on the information it said I could use for verification we had to get a supervisor involved as he didn't know how to enter it in the computer well after about 25 minutes (at lunch time no less) he told me that they would have to void out the transaction and that they would figure it out later and get it taken care of. I checked my keys for the po box and we were finally on our way.

Today I decided I'd double check the status of my Brigham City po box to see if it had been resolved or if I needed to call the brigham city post office. Well after looking at my account online I found that I had a different po box assigned to me and that the status of that box is closed. I called the post office and they were well aware of the situation without even telling them who I was they assured me that the box that I was assigned last Friday was my box and that they had voided out my online transaction. I guess it wasn't as easy as usps.com made it out to be. I am hoping that this is the only post office drama we have in Mantua.

On the bright side I was able to get a hold of the Mantua zoning commissioner today to find out about getting a separate address for the house so we can separate our mail from the hatchery mail. After a brief history of the area and a nice chat with the man he told me that the hatchery did not actually have an assigned address and the only addresses assigned to the area were the two houses that were on the hatchery land. After explaining that he couldn't change the address of the house he suggested that we assign the hatchery a new address. Obviously after 30 years the hatchery isn't going to change it's address so Quent and I will take over the new hatchery address as our home address.

Back in Big Water (for a day or two)

It's been awhile since we updated the blog so here is a brief summary of the past 10 days.

We started packing up the house however it's going to be a slow process as we are going to be commuting from Big Water to Mantua twice a week and the house in Mantua isn't quite ready for us to move into so we are living out of suitcases when in Northern Utah and out of boxes in Southern Utah.

On Thursday we drove to Salt Lake where Quent dropped me off for a couple of days and he proceeded to Farmington where he spent the night at his parents house before heading off on Friday for his first full day of work on the new job. He said things went well and there is a big learning curve. He managed to go through his new desk where he was cleaning out hatchery reports from the early 80's. Not sure how long the government requires to keep information but over 25 years is probably a little long.

Friday I spent the day in Brigham City trying to get things ready for the move. I rented a storage shed that took about an hour longer than need be and then I went to the Post Office to get a post office box. I'll explain more about my Post Office experience soon, but needless to say we were there about an hour as well. I guess after growing up in a "big city" you get used to the luxury of people being in a hurry to help you so they can help the next person, not so much in a small town.

Friday night I was able to go to my cousin's wedding reception in Lindon - Kelli was a beautiful princess bride accoring to Morgan and fun to see my cousins who I haven't seen since I got married.

Saturday we spent the day at the Manuta house getting things ready to paint. Bill and Quent spent most of the day pulling the log paneling off the walls and I do mean logs, some where four inches thick nailed to the walls while Joyce and Joy spent the day washing the walls upstairs getting them ready to paint. I followed behind them with Spackle as every room had at least 50 holes in each wall that had to be filled before we paint.

Sunday Quent and decided that we would take a break and spend the day together. We managed to watch some football, some tennis and most importantly, Quent was able to take a nap.

Monday morning Quent went up to the hatchery and helped load over 1300 pounds of fish that were to be stocked near Vernal and then headed to my parents house to pick up a trailer and return home. Between Thursday afternoon and Monday morning I logged 415 miles in the Suburban and Quent logged about 1000 miles in the state truck. We arrived back in Big Water about 6 p.m. Monday night.

Next up: Another drive north on Thursday!

Thanks Quent!

The highlight of Friday was driving home from Farmington, a short seven hour drive from the time we left Quent's parents house and unfortunately it won't be the last in the coming weeks.

Quent had originally planned to do something fun for my birthday but when we ended up in Northern Utah for the better part of the week the only thing we had energy to do was to sit and watch the US Open, which in my book isn't all bad especially because Andy Roddick won.

Quent did bake me a birthday when we got home and fixed dinner, we didn't want to drive another 30 minutes to go out to eat.

Thanks to everyone who sent cards and emails, it was a pretty good birthday all things considered.

Goodbye Big Water...Hello Mantua

On Monday Quent accepted a job to be the hatchery manager at the Mantua Hatchery in Mantua, Utah. For those not familliar with Utah geography, Mantua is located just outside of Brigham City on Highway 89 heading up Sardine Canyon. *the speed trap area*

On Tuesday we drove to Quent's parent's house as Quent had a meeting with his new coworkers on Wednesday. Thursday we will be spending time in Northern Utah before heading home on Friday.

We are really excited for the move however for the next six to eight weeks things are going to be a bit crazy. As noted in an earlier post Quent has been the only full-time employee at the Wahweap hatchery so until they can get someone in place he is going to be going back-and-forth for awhile. We hope to be settled in Northern Utah in mid to late October.

We are moving from one end of the state to the other, the distance between the two towns is 431 miles, a nice eight-hour drive depending on traffic through Salt Lake and Davis Counties. We will try and keep everyone posted on our new adventure although things might get a little hectic.

A little bit about Mantua...

Location...
Mantua Hatchery is located in Box Elder County in the town of Mantua. To find the hatchery from I-15, take the Brigham City (1100 N) Exit, Take Highway 89 up the canyon to the Mantua exit. Go right on Wyatt Park to Main Street and turn right. At first stop sign, turn left onto Fish Hatchery Road. Follow Fish Hatchery Road to the southeast corner of the valley.

Hatchery Operation...
Production includes the Bear Lake cutthroat brood that produces approximately 3,500,000 eggs per year. Bear Lake cutthroat, kokanee, albino rainbow, diploid and triploid rainbows are produced and stocked. Annual production with the new raceways will increase from 65,000 pounds to over 110,000 pounds.

A view of the hatchery.

Garden Update

As noted in an earlier previous post, the garden took a huge hit in last week's flood. After a week the garden has dried up a little bit but is still soggy in some spots. Over the weekend we were finally able to get into the garden to see what vegetables (squash) we could salvage. We knew there would be a bunch of cucumbers that would have grown beyond belief as the more water the cucumbers get the larger they grow. I think the largest one was about 36 inches long by about six inches in diameter.

We are hoping that the garden will bounce back and produce some more zucchini but Quent says he isn't too hopeful as the plants took a hard hit and some of them are starting to dry up.

Here is a couple pictures of what we took out of the garden yesterday.

We had about 20 spaghetti squash that we can use, looks like I'll be freezing more this week.

Look at the size of the cucumbers

Home Sweet Home

Well I've been back in Big Water for a week now and things are starting to get back to normal. Quent and I will be around for awhile as he is a one-man-show at the hatchery until the state decides to replace his tech that quit two weeks ago.

The carpet we had installed while I was in Salt Lake looks great and the weather is starting to cool down a bit, ok not really but if I keep telling myself that then it really doesn't seem so hot.

The Post Office is still driving me crazy, I know I haven't had a good post office rant in awhile but just wait, there is one brewing and I'm sure there will be one coming soon. (something to entice you to keep coming back to our blog)

The rabbits have found my flower pots on the front porch and are have decided to eat the tops off which doesn't make me very happy. My pots were looking great, not as good as Sydnee's but for the middle of the desert, they looked great. Hopefully Quent will be able to take care of said rabbit.

Big Water Flood 2008

Saturday called for a few high clouds and less than a 20 percent chance of rain. Boy was the National Weather Service wrong. About 2 p.m. the thunder and lighting hit and the rain started to fall. I have never seen a flash flood like this before, in about 60 minutes we had just over an inch of rain and what a mess it made.

It was raining so hard the water was just pouring off the house and the garden started to fill with water. Once the nickel size hail started to fall I decided it was time to wake Quent up from his name (who sleeps through hail anyway?) and let him know that the storm could cause damage over at the hatchery again.

After the rain stopped we got in the truck and drove around the hatchery to survey the damage, the hatchery made it out just fine but my garden took a hit. Below are some pictures we took just before the rain stopped.

As of Sunday afternoon the water is starting to dry up, we still have a huge pond near the garden but the water has dropped three to four inches and it's possible that we might be able to save the garden.

A view from the water tank looking down at our house.

Quent checking out the garden.

Wahweap creek (which is dry 95 percent of the time) was flowing three-four feet deep at the peak of the flood. This is the same wash that took out the bank of the hatchery three years ago. Luckily the rock wall is now in place to save the hatchery.

Another view of Wahweap Creek.

This is the wash that runs right behind the house down across the upper hatchery road. It was flowing about 6-8 inches deep before dumping into Wahweap Creek.

Dinner with Rick & Ash

Quent and I decided not to drive home Thursday afternoon like we had originally planned as we were both pretty tired and decided that it would be best if we spent one more night in the city before returning home to Salt Lake.

We decided that it would be fun to get pizza with Ricky and Ashley as we had not seen them since being in Salt Lake. Of course when I called them to invite them to dinner with us it did not occur to me that Ashley works at the Pizza Factory and that she may not want pizza.

We ended up going to The Pie, Quent's favorite and had a great time hanging out with "the kids."

The Jeep's Fixed!

Or so we thought. The transmission place called me to let me know that the Jeep was finally fixed and that I could finally go home. Because I'd been told this before, I didn't tell Quent that they had called me as he was just getting ready to leave to go to a meeting at the Salt Lake office and I didn't want to stress him out anymore as we had been told many times before that the Jeep had been fixed.

I picked up the Jeep in West Jordan and drove to my dad's house to pick him up so we could drive back to West Jordan and he could take his suburban home. Once I picked up my dad and headed back across the valley, the Jeep did the same thing it's been doing for the past year. So like I've done for the past year, I called the transmission place and told them that I was headed back to the shop and that I really needed them to fix the problem. (And of course I wasn't that nice)

Once back at the shop they did a few more adjustments and told me to take the Jeep that it should be fixed. I'm happy to report that we did drive the Jeep home and that for the past couple of days that we haven't had the problem with the transmission however I'm not counting my chickens and I'm still not sold that it's really fixed.

One Year and Counting...

Quent and I celebrated our first anniversary on August 11! We were able to spend a couple of days together in Park City, Utah in between his meetings in Midway and Salt Lake and me being in Salt Lake to get the Jeep fixed.

We had a great time celebrating our anniversary and thank all of our friends and family for all the calls and cards we received!

Last Comic Standing

Quent and I kicked off our anniversary celebration on Sunday at Wise Guys comedy club in West Valley. Marcus from Last Comic Standing was performing and we decided it would be a lot of fun to see him live.

Joe, Joy, Jim & Melissa joined us at the show and even though we didn't all get to sit together it was a great show and hope we get to see him again.

Before the show we all met at Joe and Joy's house for dinner, my parents as well as Nicole, Steve and Alyssa came for dinner, it was really good to see the family while we were in town. Nicole found out she is going to be having a boy in February and Alyssa is determined to name the baby T.J., the same name as Joe and Joy's son. Morgan decided that the baby should be called Lightening McQueen Baby much to Alyssa's dismay.

Near Hurricane in Salt Lake

I dropped the Jeep off on Monday to get fixed (again) and after not hearing from them yesterday I called the transmission place to see what's up with my car.

For those of you not familliar with my Jeep here's the abbreviated version:

Last summer two or three days before our wedding the transmission on my Jeep went out so we had to get it replaced. (That was the easy part) After getting the Jeep back it still had a problem where the it wouldn't shift out of first gear on a regular basis. Basically when this happens I have to stop the car, put it in park and then put it back in drive, and this has been going on since the day we picked it up (August 16, 2007).

Over the past year when we have been in SLC we have taken the Jeep in to the transmission joint where the customer service is awful and they think that I'm making the problem up. They could not ever get the Jeep to duplicate the problem I have been complaining about so of course there is nothing wrong. Well after a lot of research after I got home from Vegas I pin pointed exactly when the car is having issues.

When I took the Jeep in on Monday I was able to get the Jeep to do exactly what it does for me with a service technician in the car with me and he said "well the check engine light doesn't come on and the computer isn't throwing any codes so everything seems to be fine". This is when there was a near hurricane, (and for those of you who know what a hurricane is you're laughing right now.) I explained "nicely" to the repair man that there is obviously something wrong and it started when we picked the Jeep up a year ago and the transmission is still under warranty so he will need to get it fixed as he does not want me to be forced to take action.

I called them this morning and asked them if they have been able to look at it and he said well yes and no, we haven't been able to get it to do it again so we're not sure what to do and I politely explained that there was a service person in the car with me and it is happening and I'm not making it up. And luckily he agreed with me and said that they are working with an engineer and are ordering in some parts to see if they can get it fixed.

So for now I'm still waiting and hoping that the Jeep will return to a normal state before heading back home.

Packing up and other random things

We are getting new carpet next week and in preparation we are packing everything up so we can move the furniture into the two rooms that aren't getting carpet. This is almost worse than moving.

Quent went out to the garden earlier today to pick some zucchini and spaghetti squash and came in with not one but two 28 inch cucumbers. We didn't realize the cucumbers were growing as their vines have intertwined with the squash and we weren't aware they were there. Our neighbor Nob said that they grow up to five inches a day so we need to make sure we're watching them as one day they maybe to small to pick but will be ready the next day.

Quent picked 10 spaghetti squash and there are at least another 15 growing strong. It's a good thing I like spaghetti squash as my freezer is going to be full of it this winter.

We'll post pictures of the garden soon.

New Design

I decided to change the design of the blog today and after not paying attention to what I was doing I had to recreate everything but the posts. So after about two hours of playing with the blog layout I hope everyone likes the new design.

Visiting Salt Lake

Instead of going camping over the 24th of July holiday we decided to head to Salt Lake for the weekend as Quent wanted to visit the Mantua Hatchery near Brigham City.

We stayed with my parents and had a BBQ on Thursday night with my family and then spent Friday afternoon/evening with Quent's mom and dad and Kerry.

Saturday was spent hanging out around the house, running a few errands and Quent even got in on his first "Tom" project at the house helping my brothers load some scrap metal on a trailer.

We returned home on Sunday and I will be home for one week before heading back to Salt Lake to hopefully get the Jeep's transmission fixed. Long story but I'm sure I'll be updating everyone soon on the progress of the Jeep.

Home from Vegas

I made it home from Vegas on Monday, July 21 and am excited to be home. While Quent was in Vegas he pointed out the fact that of our 11.5 month marriage that I had spent over 30 days in Vegas. I'm just glad that all the time I've spent in Vegas over the past year was work related and that we were paid to be in Vegas.

Time off for good behavior

Quent came to visit this weekend and I was able to skip out on a couple games last night to go to dinner with him. We had a great time away from the strip and were able to just relax last night. It was good to leave the arena before dark however the heat was incredible as it was 105 degrees yesterday.

Quent heads home tomorrow morning and I'm headed home on Monday.

Bad Basketball

Monday was the first day that games were played in both COX Pavilion and Thomas & Mack. The bright side of this is that we now have two games going on at a time and I don't have to sit through a full six games a day, just four.

Monday's games started out exciting with a close fun game that involved the New York Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The excitement left the building when Stephon Marbury left with the New York Knicks.

The final three games on Monday featured an average of 48 turnovers per game and one game had over 65 free throw attempts with one player attempting 23. Needless to say I'm excited that there are only five games today and that I'll only have to watch three of the five.

Only 49 Games Left

I survived the first day of the 2008 NBA Summer League! Things went surprisingly well for the first day. Of course there were people that showed up that hadn't requested a credential and like all summer leagues rosters changed just before tip-off, but that is to be expected and all went really well.

It was fun to see all the people I used to work with in the league, especially the scouts and assistant coaches that I got to know really well while working with the Rocky Mountian Revue Summer League.

The highlight of the day was when I got to talk to Keith McLeod, a former Jazzman who signed a contract with the Dallas Mavericks yesterday. Keith was one of the players that I really enjoyed working with and is a really good guy.

Quent reports that not much has changed at home. He said there might be some rain showers this weekend, Vegas was hit with quite the storm last night.

Loving Las Vegas!!!

I've been here 24 hours and I've had In-n-Out burger just once! Ok seriously things are going well with the Vegas Summer league, we did a lot of set up today and things seem to be going well.

Games start tomorrow at 1 p.m. and before heading home on the 21st I will watched 53 basketball games, now I know you're all jealous but you too can join in the fun, they are being broadcast live on the internet at http://www.nba.com/summerleague2008.

More updates to follow!

Happy Independence Day

Quent and I hope you have a safe and happy 4th of July. We don't have big plans this year as I am headed back to Las Vegas the middle of next week for a couple of weeks and I have a lot of work to do before I leave.

Success in the Garden

Quent and I picked our first vegetables from the garden yesterday, ok Quent picked them, I just took the picture. We have a ton of zucchini setting on and the summer squash is going like weeds. My spaghetti squash is taking up about half the lower garden (yes we have two) but it doesn't seem to have anything but flowers on it right now.

The heat has taken quite a tole on the garden, our tomato plants have all but stopped growing and our beans have died off. On a positive note we should have enough squash/zucchini to feed an army if it all grows.

Trip to Columbus

Quent and I just returned home from Columbus, Ohio where my older brother lives. We went back for Ellee's baptism and to see their new home. We had a great time attending the baptism and spending time with the family. We were able to attend a pack meeting for Parker where he received his arrow of light and also visited an Amish community while we were there.

We were also able to spend Dale's birthday with him. We had a great time visiting Ohio and hopefully will be able to go back and visit someday.

Dale, Sydnee, Parker & Ellee

Parker had a great time playing guitar hero, it was my first time ever playing and we even got grandma molly to play.

Parker did a great job in the annual rain gutter regatta

Ellee and Quent had a great time together, we played a lot of games and team "QUENT & ELLEE" had a lot of fun beating the rest of us.

The quilt that Quent and I made for Ellee.

Full Moon

Both of these pictures were taken from our front porch. The first picture was taken on June 17 and the second on June 19.

Just Like The Real World

As of 12:30 p.m. today Quent and I officially have caller id. So if you call and we don't answer, we probably are just so excited to read who is calling us that we forgot to answer the phone. It's taken me 10 months to talk Quent into calling the state to see if we can get caller id hooked up at the house and the hatchery and after about a week of trying, we were successful in getting it to work. Now for everyone that is not familiar with are phone system, below is a brief explanation of how things work down here.

Just how is your phone hooked up you ask? Well it comes from the jack in the wall like any other house. The difference is in how it gets to the house. Because we live out in the middle of no where, Qwest wouldn't run phone lines to the house or to the hatchery, so it's set up on a satellite system. Our phone is beamed from a satellite in town that hits a satellite at the school which then hits our water tank and then the hatchery building. From the hatchery building to our house there is a buried phone line just like any neighborhood would have.

A quick trip to the city

Quent and I made a quick trip to Salt Lake last weekend and had a great visit with our families. We were able to spend a couple of nights with his parents as well as visit with my family and attend a bbq at a friends house.

Believe it or not it was the first trip I had made (Quent went on a quick one night trip in May) since April. No one thought I could stay in Big Water for 30 straight days but I did.

Up next..Ohio to visit Dale & family.

Pictures, Pictures and More Pictures

The moment everyone has been waiting for....pictures of our cruise to South America. It was difficult to narrow the 1200+ pictures down to just a few, the gallery is about 135 pictures. ENJOY!

Let the Fun Begin!

Rick and Ashley arrived last night and were up bright and early to go fishing with Quent. The "kids" are still out on the lake and at last count they had caught close to 20 fish among the three of them. Ricky sent me this picture from his cell phone.

Breaking out of their shell

Quent decided that it would be fun to hatch some chickens while our nieces are in town this weekend so back on May 2 he put 34 eggs in the incubator. By his calculations he said that the chickens would start hatching about noon on Thursday, May 22 just in time for our nieces to see cute yellow chicks.

Quent wasn't so sure that it had worked as he said the incubator wasn't getting hot enough and that we may not see any chicks. He was wrong. The first one started to break out of the shell this morning.

Our neighbor, Nob, will take the chicks once they are hatched and old enough to live in the chicken coup. We already have about 14 chickens that are producing on average 6 eggs a day, we certainlty don't need more than 6 eggs a day.

Happy Eat What You Want Day ...

So you know that today is Mother's Day right? But did you know that it is also Eat What You Want Day? Earlier today Quent and I were having quite the debate on whether or not there is a national "step parents day". I didn't think there was such a day and Quent was more that sure there was. I went to the internet for answers and came upon this site. http://www.holidayinsights.com/ Not only does this site have every "known" holiday listed it also has a category for Bizarre and Unique Days.

For instance, my birthday, August 29 is National More Herbs Less Salt Day.More Herbs, Less Salt Day promotes use of healthy herbs over salts. Late August is a very appropriate time to celebrate this special day. The harvest of garden herbs is at a peak. There's nothing better than fresh garden herbs in your favorite recipes.

So if you have a minute you might just want to check out the holiday insights website and find that special holiday that Hallmark hasn't gotten around to making a greeting card for.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Gotta love small towns ...

After working for a car dealer for 10 years I thought I'd seen just about everything when it came to running "deals" to get people to buy a car. I was wrong. Lake Powell Ford (located in the lovely Page, Arizona) is currently running the promotion that takes all promotions. If you buy a new Ford truck you get a goat or a sheep as a "thank you". Now I've seen everything from Jazz tickets, to Tony Lama boots, to free meals at a bad Mexican restaurant to an additional used car with purchase, but a live animal?

I saw the livestock on the lot earlier in the week and thought they were running some kind of petting zoo in the parking lot to get families to come down to the dealership, boy was I wrong. Quent told me today that they do this every year and that they are out of goats already so if we were to purchase a vehicle we would undoubtedly end up with a sheep. I have nothing against goats or sheep but seriously, why not a cat or a dog?

By the way we're not going to buy a truck. Can you imagine Larry H. Miller running a promotion to get a llama with purchase? Or maybe a horse or cow? Not even the guys at First Class Cars did something this crazy.

A little slice of heaven in St. George

It's true...it's really true. In -n- Out Burger opened in St. George this week and Quent and I were lucky enough to eat there on Friday. Upon seeing the sign for the In-n-Out Quent suggested we eat there for lunch. I had my doubts about it really being open as I had googled it earlier in the week and there was no mention of the Utah location. He was right, it was open.

The first time we drove by at about 11:30 a.m. (on our way to Home Depot) we noticed there were about 25 cars in the drive through lane which wrapped around the parking lot. When we went back at about 2:30 p.m. to actually eat lunch we noticed that the line did not stop where we saw the "last" car but wrapped around the back of the strip mall allowing for about 50 cars to be in line at any given time.

There is nothing better than an In-n-Out burger with melted cheese and lots of sauce...the fresh made fries and a large diet coke. Looks like we might be making the trip to St. George a little more often.

My hair's too short

We made a stop in Colorado City on our way to St. George. Tourism has picked up in small little town since Dr. Phil recorded back-to-back shows from the area just a couple of weeks ago and with everything going on in Texas the town seems to be gaining residents.

And we thought $3.56 was high...

As of Friday gas in Kanab was 3.61 (well I guess it was $3.59 for the cash price, see picture, but who carries around enough cash to fill your tank at $3.59 a gallon?) In Fredonia, Arizona (just across the border from Kanab) gas was a whopping $3.82, not to mention diesel is $4.40.

Gas maybe $3.56 a gallon but....

So gas isn't cheap these days and regular unleaded in Page ranges from $3.38 to $3.56 for 87 octane. The good news is that Wal-mart now has a red box. For those of you who are not familliar with the red box let me explain. For just $1 a night you can rend a video and return it to any red box location the next day, keep it two days and it's just an additional dollar. You can log online and see what movies are in at the red box location and even "reserve" the movie so when you get to the red box location all you have to do is pick it up.

I guess the price of gas makes up for the price of the discount movie but it was certainly the most exciting thing that has happened around here in awhile.

A Blog Update...Sorry for the Delay

I was reminded earlier today that we have been neglecting the blog. Yes it is true we have not updated the blog so I will try and give everyone a brief summary of what has been going on.

Quent came down with a cold at the end of our cruise and has been sick since we returned. I'm happy to report that the cough has almost gone away and he is sleeping through the night.

I spent 10 days in Salt Lake with Joe & Joy helping them out with their newborn and two year-old. We had a great time making pretend broccoli soup (who actually eats real broccoli soup) and watching various Disney movies. I was able to catch a Jazz game while I was in Salt Lake, I even managed to get hired on by ESPN so I got paid to go to the game, just like the old days.

Next on the agenda is planting the gardens. Yes that is plural, we'll be planting two as we must have separate gardens.

We know we owe everyone pictures from the cruise ... they're coming we promise!

We made it home!

We made all of the connecting flights and made it to Salt Lake right on time. We landed and went directly to Instacare to make sure Quent didn't have a nasty South American virus. Luckly for us it was just a nasty head cold. He slept most of Sunday and was a trooper on the six hour drive home. He's been in bed most of the week and is hoping to get back to work on Monday.

Pictures of the trip are coming soon...

Hurry up and Wait!!!

We made it to the airport in Santiago, Chile this morning at 10:45 a.m. this morning and found out that the Delta counter doesn't open until 6:40 p.m. and our flight doesn't take off until 9:40 p.m. We knew our flight wasn't until later but we were hoping to check in and then take a cab to take a tour of the city, however this plan was slightly altered once we got to the airport and realized we were stuck with our four large bags. So we decided to end the trip the way we started it and camp out in the airport. Free wireless is the best!

We hope to have a photo gallery posted early next week of all the amazing sites of South America.

Here's hoping our flights are on time and that we make our connection in Atlanta!

Cindy & Quent.

We found the end of the world!

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind at the end of the world. Cindy started to get sick on Wednesday and ended up visiting the ship’s doctor on Friday morning, not to worry, three days on antibiotics and I’m back up and running.

Friday we sailed around Cape Horn, an island at the southern tip of South America.

On Saturday we went to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern most city in the world. Quent and I went on a tour of the Tierra Del Fuego National Park which was simply amazing. The national park is over run with Canadian beavers which were introduced in the early 1940’s and is the only animal in the park that is not protected by law. The only animals we saw on the tour were a few rabbits and some birds. The scenery of the national park rivaled that of the mirror lake highway in Utah. The tour was about four hours. We travelled down the Pan-American Highway to the end of the world which ended at a lake in the park. After the tour we walked through the town and picked up a few souvenirs. Saturday night we cruised through the Beagle Channel and saw some amazing glaciers which Quent is now referring to as the Chilean Glacier Fields. We took over 300 pictures on Saturday.

On Sunday our day started a bit earlier than expected as the ship wake up call didn’t adjust with the time change so we got a wake up call at 4:30 a.m. instead of 5:30 a.m. Following the early rise we took a two hour ferry ride to see the penguins at the Natural Penguin Reserve on Magdelena Island. There were over 140,000 penguins on the island and it was amazing to see them in their natural habitat. They burrow into the ground and create caves to protect their eggs. They were in the process of molting and preparing for the winter months up north. Following the penguin reserve we toured the town of Punta Arenas, Chile on a Sunday afternoon. Most of the shops were closed but they did have a small flea market set up in the town square and we were able to pick up a few things. We enjoyed a show on the cruise Sunday night, it was acrobatic impressionist dancers that are much more flexible than Quent and I.

Monday and Tuesday we will be “at sea” and Wednesday we will be Puerto Montt, Chile. Thursday will be at sea and Friday we visit La Serena, Chile. Saturday we dock at Valparaiso, Chile and fly out Saturday night from Santiago, Chile. We’ll be home Sunday morning providing all of our connections are made.

We hope you’re enjoying the pictures so far. We will be creating a photo gallery once we are home.

This is a view of Ushuaia, Argentina from the ship

Tierra Del Fuego National Park

Tierra Del Fuego National Park

One of the really cool glaciers!

Cindy in front of one of the glaciers. The wind was really blowing.

The black dots on the picture are all of the penguins we saw at the National Reserve

A view of the lighthouse we hiked to

A molting penguin

Quent in front of the Magellan statue in Punta Arenas

Not finding any diet coke on this trip, it's all Coke Zero!

Greetings from Argentina!

Greetings from South America! It was quite an adventure getting to the cruise but now that we’re three days into our vacation, the time spent in Atlanta was well worth it.

We were so excited when we landed in Buenos Aries, unfortunately we were unable to see any of the city. We grabbed our luggage (part of it anyway) and we were off to a shuttle to take us to the cruise port. The cruise port was just a regular shipping yard with old buildings, not the lush terminal we had used in Florida 18 months ago.

Unfortunately not all of luggage made the airplane out of Atlanta, when we boarded the plane we knew that it would be an issue as we had changed our flight twice that day but felt we’d rather fly direct on Delta (the friendly skies) rather than connect to a Brazilian airline in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We did get one of our bags with clothes in it and the other had our shoes, our toiletry bags (everything but Cindy’s makeup that is) and other necessary items. The ship was very accommodating and gave us some laundry vouchers and some t-shirts to wear, we’re lucky we did get some of our clothes because I don’t think anyone needs to see either one of us in a size Large t-shirt. Our lost bags caught up to us today (Wednesday) and we’re good to go.

On Monday, our first stop on the cruise, we were in Punta Del Este, Uruguay. We decided not to take one of the tours offered on the ship and to do our own thing. Once we crossed the ocean on a very bumpy tender ride we were approached by some locals to take a city tour, and so we did. We waited about 45 minutes for an English speaking guide and five of us went on a tour of the area, which was a lot of fun. We were able to get up close and personal to see some sea lions and we took a tour of a house of a famous painter of Uruguay that looked a lot like a Dr. Seuss house.

Tuesday was a day at sea, we slept in and had room service and just lounged around the pool for most of the afternoon. The water was a bit choppy on Tuesday and the wind was a bit cool but overall a great day.

Today we were in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, a small coastal town about halfway down the country on the Atlantic. We got off the ship this morning and walked around the shops and Quent spent sometime walking along the shore line collecting sea shells. We didn’t take an excursion offered by the cruise line today as they were not very enticing and we had such a great time in Uruguay that we figured we could do our own thing again today. We stopped in a grocery story to pick up some bottled water and I was amazed at all of the products they were selling that were the same in the states, the only difference, the labels were in Spanish not English.

We will update again sometime during the trip, not sure when but hopefully after the Chilean Fjords.

Thursday – At Sea

Friday – Cape Horn, Chile

Saturday – Ushuaia, Argentina

Sunday – Punta Arenas, Chile

Monday – Strait of Magellan

Tuesday – Chilean Fjords

All Aboard! We now know where to go in case of an emergency.

Sunset picture, day 2

Sea Lions posing for a picture.

Museum in Uruguay, looks like a Dr. Seuss house to me.

Quent playing shuffle board.

The wind was blowing....