The foolish man made his sewer line out of ...

pipes that can be broken (Catchy huh.  I am thinking it should replace the foolish man built his house upon the sand).  This week we found out that we have a twelve foot crack in our sewer pipes.  This has allowed water to seep out of the pipe, that has eroded the soil beneath the pipes causing them to sag, which has made our sewer line not work very well anymore.  So tomorrow the plumbers are coming to our house to dig up our front yard to replace that pipe.  The wonderful thing is that insurance or home warranties do not cover anything like that so we have to pay for the whole thing and it is not cheap.  So unfortunately we have to postpone going through another adoption agency presently.  We are still going through LDS Family Services, but other agencies are considerably more expensive and we don't think that it is prudent to go through another agency right now.  It is still something we are considering but after we pay for the sewer line.  So although that is a negative, there are a lot of positives to think about even though we have a broken sewer.
1.  At least it did not back up when we had a bunch of people here like it did one year.  It did break on a holiday weekend, but I just think it likes to break when it is the biggest pain in the butt.
2.  It is expensive, but at least we have the means to pay for it.  It is not what we were planning on doing with our money, but it could be so much worse.
3.  It is not in the street.  It does go under the sidewalk which is not the best, but it would have cost us a lot more to dig up the street.  My dad also pointed out it was good it was not under the house because they would have had to dig up our basement.  So that is a huge positive.
4.  There is a 50 year warranty on the work that is being done, so we don't have to worry about fixing that part again. 
5.  They are fixing it quickly so it is not like we have to live for months with a broken sewer.  Also we will still be able to use the sewer and water while they are working on it.
So I guess once it is done people can come over and use our new sewer line.  Haha, who would invite people over to do that.  Well I am glad that it will be fixed and that we will not have to worry about it for awhile (knock on wood).

last two weeks

    So the last couple of weeks since vacation and graduation have been fairly boring.  This is why I don't have a Twitter account.   My tweets would be things like, went to the grocery store, just cleaned the bathroom, threw a snail against the wall, played on my phone, watched t.v., ect.  Riveting stuff huh.  I would have like one follower and it would be a relative that felt obligated to follow me, lol.  But seriously the last couple of weeks I have been busy getting yard work and house work done.  I got my garden planted and already have some tomatoes on some of my plants.  My roses are looking really good and I am really happy with my new red one. 
     I have decided to start indexing genealogy records.  So what it is, is volunteers look at old census records or other records and type up the information so that when someone is searching through records they can just type in information and have it pop up instead of looking through thousands of names in the hope of finding the one they are looking for.  It has been interesting but kind of difficult because you have to read handwriting that is not always clear and is in cursive.  I am hoping it will give me something to do, that hopefully helps people who are trying to do their genealogy. 
    Well that is about all that is going on, I know super exciting.  I am hoping next month that we will go on a hike and we will probably have the pool working so I can start working on my tan.  Also next weekend is my nieces blessing and we are celebrating my nephews birthday so that should be fun. 
 

Graduation

May 4th I finally graduated.  Jason, my mom, Jennifer, my mother-in-law, Kirsten and Marianne all came to the actual graduation ceremony.  It was so nice of them to come.  I am so glad to be officially done.  Last week I got my actual diploma in the mail.  I am just so grateful for all the people that supported me, especially my parents and Jason who made a lot of sacrifices to ensure that I could go to school.  I am still not quite sure what I am going to do with my degree, but it is nice to have a sense of accomplishment that finished something that I started.

 

   Don't you love how my dad and brother wore Oregon Ducks shirts to my graduation celebration.  We laughed at that.  Go Ducks!

 

 Me, Jason, Kirsten, Janene (Jason's mom) and Marianne

Isn't it great how all gowns for graduation look like Mumus. 

Vacation (Part 3)

Day 9

We had to leave my grandma's which was really hard.  I miss her a lot and she is such a wonderful person.  It makes me sad we see her so little.  Grandma's dogs were sad that Jason left, they really liked him. 

We were not sure what we were going to do when we left.  We had planned on going on a hike around a bunch of waterfalls, but I confused Silver Falls State Park with Golden and Silver Falls, which is a different park.  So I got directions to the wrong park.  I was not sure if we could find the other park, but after my grandma told us that Golden and Silver falls was not that exciting, we decided what the heck and decided to try and find the park with 10 waterfalls.  Boy am I glad that we did.  Jason found a travel kiosk which had directions to the park and we found it easily.  We parked and started for the hike.  Almost immediatly we heard a waterfall and not too far from the start of the hike was the first falls.  It was amazing, partly because we were able to walk behind it.  That was so cool.  It was one of the neatest things that I have done. 

We then started to hike to the other waterfalls.  There are a couple of different hikes that you can do.  One is two miles and you see two waterfalls.  You can do the five mile which you see seven of the waterfalls.  Then there is an eight mile hike were you see all ten.  We decided to do the five or at least see if we could.  After we got to the point where we could decide if we should go on to do the eight mile hike, we decided we were not tired and decided to try the whole thing.  We actually only got to see nine of the waterfalls because one of them was on a side trail and we missed it but nine out of ten is not bad.  Also the hike was so beautiful.  We hiked by a river and along the trail there were little waterfalls, trees, and moss covered rocks dripping water.  We are going to do it again because it was so fun and just so great, next time we want to bring lunch to eat on the hike.  I don't know if we hiked eight miles because we accidently took the wrong trail and kind of went in a weird circle, but we did go at least 6 miles and probably close to 8.  (Sorry for the picture dump, but this was one of my favorite parts of our trip)

After we were done hiking we went up to Portland and checked into our hotel and ate dinner.  We were pretty tired from hiking but it was worth it.

Day 10

We spent the day in Portland.  We wanted to go to OMSI to pick up a cool present for my nephew, but of course they were closed on Mondays.  Jason wanted to go the Japanese Gardens, which were pretty, but I always feel underwhelmed.  We then went to the zoo which was pretty fun.  We then drove to Vancouver because we promised my nephew we would get him a Washington state keychain.  We drove all over stupid Vancouver for two hours and could not find one keychain.  We were so frustrated.  We then went to a mall and did some shopping and ate dinner at a mexican resturant. 

Day 11

We headed back to Idaho, but on the way we stopped at Multnomah Falls because we always look at it from the freeway, but Jason has never seen it up close.  The falls looked beautiful and we were both glad that we stopped. 

I always have a hard time leaving Oregon because I think of it as my home so whenever we leave I get really sad.  Well just to show how great Oregon is we stopped in Pendelton to get gas at an Indian reservation and I found a Washington keychain.  We could not believe it but it proves that you can get everything you need in Oregon, ha, ha.  When we got to Idaho the kids were excited to wish Jason a happy birthday and we went to dinner at Outback steak house.  Elizabeth was so nice and made Jason a birthday cake and we stayed up late playing Dominion.

Last Day

  We were able to spend some more time with Elizabeth's family and we went to the Boise aquarium with the kids and Elizabeth.  It was really small, but the kids had fun.  We then drove back to Utah, which is not an exciting drive.  We did hit a lot of bugs on the way, which was pretty gross.  So I guess it is back to reality and having responsibilities.  It was nice to leave them behind and have a wonderful vacation.  I can't wait to go back to Oregon.  I think that we are still planning on getting a beach house when we retire, so I am really looking forward to when we retire. 

Vacation (Part 2)

Day 5

We left Lincoln City to go to Coos Bay to stay with my grandma.  We decided to spend some time in Newport.  Of course it was raining hard that day, making it difficult to go store to store.  We also found out that restaurants in Newport are closed on Wednesdays.  I don't know why every town we were in places were closed when we were there but it was sort of annoying.  We did got to a glass blowing studio.  They were not doing any demonstrations, but we did buy this amazing glass float.  When we got in Coos Bay we had a little run in with the Wal-Mart photo department over the pictures Elizabeth took, lets just say I am not going to Wal-Mart again to print photos.  We then got to see my grandma.  I have not seen her in two years so it was so good to see her and we spent the rest of the night talking. 

Day 6
We went to Shore Acres, which is a garden in the Charleston area, with my grandma.  It was really pretty with spring flowers and close to the garden there are views of the ocean which are really neat. 

 After we left my grandma bought some fresh crab from a little store on the dock.  We ate the crab for dinner with melted butter and it was so good.  It has been so long since I had a whole fresh crab and it was heaven.  She was so nice to do that for us. 

Day 7

We had a laid back day walking around Mingus Park and downtown Coos Bay.  We then played games with my grandma.  Jason won all of the games which was annoying.  My grandma and I wanted to beat him up.  One great thing about spending so much time with my grandma was getting to hear a bunch of stories about my family I had never heard before.  I thought that was so great.

Day 8

Last time we went to Oregon Jason loved the drive down to Brookings, so we decided to do it again.  My grandma came with us and it was great.  The beaches and ocean are so beautiful down there and you can see some of it from the highway.  It was just so nice to stand out and breath the fresh ocean air and stare at how pretty it was.  I know I am biased but I think that the Oregon coast and the western part of Oregon is the most beautiful place in the world and I wish we could move there.  I would love to live there again.  We then took my grandma to dinner and played more games.  This time my grandma actually beat Jason on Quiddler, but he won all the other games. 

Vacation (Part 1)

   We just got back from our vacation to Oregon.  We had so much fun and it was super hard to come back home.  So here is a quick synopsis of how our vacation went. 

Day 1

We left for Idaho to stay with Jason's sister's family.  Elizabeth and Tom made us hamburgers for lunch and we played our new game, Dominion.  (Thanks Rosanne and Jeremy for introducing us to the game.  Jason had to go out and buy it right away.)  It was so fun to see them and see our new niece, who is super cute and it was really fun to hold her.  Elizabeth also took new pictures of us, which was so nice of her and she is so talented.  She did such a good job and although we don't have all of the pictures here are a couple of pictures that she took. 

Day 2

We left Idaho and headed to Oregon.  We stopped in Portland to eat at Shari's, which I had not eaten at in years.  It was just ok.  We then went to Tillamook because Jason really wanted cheese curds and ice cream.  Tillamook makes the best ice cream.  After that we went to Lincoln City where we had reservations at the same hotel that we stayed at last time that is right on the beach.  We immediately took a walk on the beach and walked on the beach until sunset.  We also watched the waves from our hotel room at night. 

Day 3

 We decided that we would wonder around Lincoln City.  We had found this place online that we wanted to go to for breakfast.  We drove down there and they were closed.  They were closed Mondays and Tuesdays.  So we just drove down the main road in Lincoln City and found this little hole in the wall place that only had six tables.  Jason ordered the crab omelet and I got the pancakes.  The food was so good and I could not believe how much crab they put in Jason's omelet.  We then walked to little stores around Lincoln City and then went to the outlet stores.  We then decided to drive down to Depoe Bay and looked around there.  When we got back to Lincoln City we ate at a seafood restaurant for dinner, which was really good.  We then walked on the beach. 



Day 4

We got up early to drive to Cannon Beach to look at the tide pools at Haystack rock.  We had never been up there before so we were pretty excited.  It was pretty fun.  We got to see starfish and anemones.  I really wanted to see a puffin, but we could not see them.  We then walked on the beach for a couple of hours, because the beach was huge.  It is one of my favorite beaches we have been to. We then decided to drive up to Astoria because we had heard how great the city was.  No offense to Astoria, but I was underwhelmed and wished we had spent more time in Cannon Beach.  We then went back to Tillamook for more cheese and ice cream. When we got back to Lincoln City we walked on the beach one more time, as we were leaving the next day.  When we got back we were hungry, but found out that every place in Lincoln City closes before 9 pm.  That was kind of frustrating, luckily Dairy Queen was open. 



What I have been up to

The last two weeks I have been busy preparing my house for a home inspection. I like to make sure the house is super clean when we have one. This one was with LDS Family Services but compared to the Foster Care inspections, it was a piece of cake. I mean they are always stressful but the foster care one is really stressful. Before getting ready for the inspection I worked on a lot of projects so I thought I would share pictures of some of them I have finished and ones I am working on. Since I am not working right now I have been working on quite a few things.


This is the onesie I am making for my new niece that was born a week and a half ago. I bought the black onesie and I am sewing on the pick flowers. It is not quite done but this is what it will look like. I have ideas for other onsies to make, so I guess when I make them I will have to post pictures. I was hoping it would look like a boutique onesie so hopefully it does.

This is a baby afghan I made. It was suppose to be for one of my sister-in-laws, but she lost the baby. So I am just going to save it for when she has another one.

This afghan I made for my new neice. I am making another one that is purple with green ribbon that is for her sister. I thought it would be fun to make them matching afghans.

This baby afghan I made just because I liked the design. I don't know what I am going to do with it yet.

I made this floral arrangement for my sister-in-law. I had wanted to do something like this for years, but was not sure if I could. When I told Kirsten about my idea she liked it so I thought I would make it for her.

I made this afghan for my friend's son for Christmas. I made one for his sister too, but I forgot to take a picture of it. Hers was red, purple, blue, and white and had flowers and starfish on it. I liked the colors of this afghan but I did not really like the yarn, it was not the easiest to work with. He liked it though so I guess that is what counts.

Well that is part of what I have been up to since finishing school and being at home by myself. They are not anything spectacular, but it does keep my busy. I have also been working in my yard trying to get it cleaned up since the winter. I am going to work on it a lot this week so maybe I will posts some pictures. We planted some new plants and soon we are going to plant another rose bush. I hated one of my bushes so I tore it out and I am going to replace it when I find the perfect bush to replace it. So that is keeping me busy too.