Day 2: Sunday July 1st

Today we started the day by going to church at the Silverton Branch. I have never been to a branch before and was shocked how TINY the membership was. There were 13 people there when we got there and then four more visitors showed up. The Branch President is married to the Organist and one of their daughters was the Sunday School teacher. We actually missed RS and Priesthood because the website has the Winter hours, not Summer. Nonetheless, it is always great to see that the Church is true no matter where you are and that the Spirit can be felt regardless of the number in attendance. I thought it would be a little awkward to have Fast and Testimony meeting with so few people but it was good. The only kids there were visitors, but they did have a teeny room set up for the Nursery. All the kids went in there for Nursery/Primary during Sunday School and I heard my mom say to James (who is ELEVEN), "Maybe you could be the Nursery Leader." Anyway, I guess they used to meet in the Town Library, but now they have a tiny little building. We took this picture another day when we were walking around just so I could show all how tiny the building is! After church, we took some pictures by the house... Here is Lily, my mom and James on the balcony of the house. When Ryan and I decided to go, we decided my mom could come and we wouldn't have her pay for the house if she helped out. She helped out lots... it was like having a personal chef and babysitter for free!Here is a picture of the train from the balcony. It was literally across the street from us. Here's us before we went on a walk... but don't let the fact that Jason is in the picture deceive you into thinking he went with us. He "doesn't like walking" so he just stayed at the house by himself. What a bum! He said he'd go another time but we never ended up going on a "nature" walk. Oh well, life goes on.

James on part of a RR track. Me, Clara, James and Lily in front of a little house by the train depot. There were things like this all over the town. In 1990, I think it was, there town had a population of like 25,000... and now it's just over 500. Lily and James didn't complain when I took hundreds of pictures. :)Grandma gave Clara a dandelion, which makes for a cute picture... oh but wait, remember Clara puts everything in her mouth that she gets in her hand. Most things I don't mind, but weeds, maybe not, which is why I am having to hold her arm down.

Destination: Silverton, CO

On Saturday, June 30th, we left for Silverton, Colorado. A few years ago, Ryan and Kathryn went there for the 4th of July and enjoyed it so much they decided to rent a home for the week of the 4th and invited us to join them. For a week, the cost of the home split two ways was cheaper than even a fair hotel for a week, so we decided to go. (Oh, and we like to spend time with family, added bonus). So off we went... we planned on leaving at 7am, but we were up late getting ready and still didn't finish, so we didn't leave until 830am. We stopped in Payson for gas and to feed Clara and then didn't stop again until Gallup, NM. It is a boring drive, unless you find things to laugh at (like when Clara was in my lamp and I was changing her diaper, the blanket was over her face and she reached over and turned Jason's cup of "used" sunflower seeds completely upside down with no warning or the guy spraying his swamp cooler on the top of his trailer with a hose from the ground) or you see a semi truck HIT a pickup truck. That's right, as we were driving, there was a semi-truck that went to get into the left lane, apparently without looking. The pickup that was in the lane moved over and was driving halfway in the median, dirt flying everywhere and we think that's when the semi realized someone was in the lane he was attempting to get in, so he jerked, which made his trailer fishtail and it smacked the pickup truck. WOW! Then, the semi truck cut off another semi to get off the freeway and the pickup followed. Hopefully the semi was getting off to talk to the guy, but it looked liked he was trying to ditch him because of how he cut off another semi. Because we couldn't let the excitement end there, we decided to play a game we used to play when my family took road trips: see how many different license plates you see. The I-40 is a great place for this game because of the high volume of truckers. By the end of our trip we saw plates from 33 states... not bad. Of course there were the bad parts of the trip... like when I broke our BRAND NEW GPS device. When we bought my computer Jason got the GPS with Streets and Trips and it was so cool for the minute I had it in the computer on our trip. It shows speed, location and elevation. I bent down to grab, of course, the camera, for a picture and it barely tapped the door and it BROKE. I was really bummed, but it was barely soldered on, so we'll be exchanging it for sure. After we left Gallup, EVERY time we saw a car from Arizona or one towing a jeep, Jason said, "I bet they are going the same place we are..." so that became our inside joke, which was really funny the longer we were in the car. All in all, it took 9 hours to get there, which included two stops and missing our exit in Gallup (which added 15 minutes or so). From Durango to Silverton, it is 50 miles and the drive is BEAUTIFUL! Lakes, trees, mountains, all the stuff Arizonans aren't real familiar with.

The town of Silverton is like none other I have seen. The population is just over 500 and it thrives on tourism. It seems as though all of the buildings and houses are either very historic or have really colorful and detailed paint jobs (like our house). It has a train that goes to it from Durango that we chose not to ride and our house was right by the tracks, so several times a day we heard the loud CHOO CHOOO! It was pretty cool. Next time we go, we want to ride the train.

Here is Jason, Clara (she was SO happy to be out of the car, although she was super good and slept most of the way) and happy Kathryn (who also appears super happy to be out of the car) in front of our house. That night we went to eat with Ryan and Kathryn at the Bear Creek Cafe.

More Visits

Last week I had another friend, Sarah Linman, and her husband Jason, come by and visit. They are in town from Utah and have a little boy named Elijah (6 weeks) so they came to say hi and show off their cute boy. I went to ASU with Sarah and when I had no desire to get a 'real' job after school, she was the one to convince me to interview with CBIZ, which is where I ended up working for 2.5 years. Anyway, Sarah ran away to Utah so I missed her at work until I 'retired' so it was fun to visit with her and to have little babies a few months apart. I suppose I would enjoy a little boy, but until then, I'm going to continue to obsess over CLARA and continue to take a bazillion pictures of her. Here are a few of us playing around and then her crazy hair one night after the shower. Her towel was on her head, I pulled it off and this is what I found!!

Flashback

I was realizing this last weekend how much I appreciate my friends. I have some of the best friends ever and I just love it when we all get together. We always have such a great time, even if we are just sitting around. (You know, like at Tyler's house in high school). They are good people, good friends, good influences and just good to have around!! When we were at my house Sunday, it made me think of when we did this two years ago when Jen came to visit. Here's the pic from then (July 2005): Amy is not here, but Roni is and Tyler and Lisa weren't here because they are at Dental school in Oregon.And we got together last year in June 2006 for Tyler and Lisa's wedding. Here I am with Roni, Beka and Jen. All but Roni were pregnant in this picture. Little did Beka know there were TWO inside of her!!Obviously some people don't get that the people you don't see in the display picture won't be in the picture! The two Trevors are on the left, then us, then Matt in the back (him and his wife, who wasn't able to make it, are in California for Optometry school (I think, or maybe Opthamology, still don't know the difference, sorry!), the bride and groom, Beka and Danny, Roni, Jen and Curt and then Rob (at BYU now) and his girlfriend. Oh so fun, who knows when the next time we'll be together will be. Regardless, I'm greatful for my wonderful friends.

Noble Novel

We had a fabulous weekend! Jen, Curt and their baby Cache were visiting from Colorado (or "the OC" as Jen refers to it), hence the naming of this blog in honor of them. They came on Thursday and left Monday. I already miss them. It is fun having a friend to talk to 24/7. Hopefully one of these days we can go visit them in Colorado. On Saturday we went to the Whipples to visit Roni. She loved Cache and Clara and I'm pretty sure they loved her. How can you not love a Whipple? Kind of like Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, Whipples are the happiest people on earth. Trevor visited with us for a bit too but we didn't get any pictures of him... next time... Happy Roni with Cache and Clara. They are happy as can be in this picture and have their little arms interlocked. And then about two seconds later, Clara decides to scream and poke Cache in the face. Sorry Cache! I will work on teaching Clara how to play nice. She likes to bully the little kids. Insteat of crying, Cache just got a look on his face like, "What in the world is going on"?After we made our Whipple stop, we went to lunch at Rosa's. We went here last year when they were in town and they wanted to go back. I guess there aren't many good Mexican food restaurants in Colorado. Clara started getting a bit restless so I was feeding her some ice (Curt got this great picture of her with a little chunk of ice in her mouth). A bit later I realized it had been a while since I fed her so she was probably starving.After that we went to visit Beka and her twins. Our four babies are all very close so it is fun to have that in common. Especially since we are best friends from HS. Here we are with our kiddos. Clara is 6 months, Cache is 4 months and the twins (Braden and Landon) are 5 months. It's fun to see what you learn about your kids personalities as you take pictures of them. Clara can't keep her hands to herself, that's for sure! We decided Jen needed to see what it was like to have quadruplets, so we piled all the kids on "Aunt Jen". The twin on the left is about to lose it, Cache can't figure out what is going on and Clara her mouth open wider than I thought possible. And Jen is just calm as ever.

We had to take one of just the kids, no adult supervision. Clara was posing for every picture. It helped that I was dancing around making a fool of myself trying to get all of the babies to look but also making sure Clara didn't attach any of the younger kids.
On Sunday, we had what few friends from HS that have stuck around AZ over for dessert. We all at a little too much sugar and started acting, well, a little like in HS. Trevor doesn't seem to like to take serious pictures. After I gave him his plate of treats, I tried taking a picture and this is the look I got. Maybe once he realizes how many pictures I post on my blog he will start smiling at the camera. :)
Here's me with Beka, Jen and Amy. It's a little weird to think we are all moms now because it kind of seems like we just graduated from HS. It's always fun to get together, reminisce about the good old days and talk about our crazy lives.This is when the night started getting out of hand. Beka put her twins on the pillows and they looked so cute. So I get this great idea to get a picture of all the babies together doing it. The problem was it was late so they were all hungry and tired. But we all know how much I like pictures! So we snapped a few, none of them turned out well, and then they all started rolling off their pillows and SCREAMING (see next picture). It was funny. We were all just laughing at the chaos we created. What was really out of control was the idea that we could all lay on pillows like the little kids. Sure enough, we did (hence, my previous post). I was looking at the picture realizing how dumb we look, but hey, what is life without moments like that? :) I'm just glad we are all secure enough to post things like that online. HA!
Here's everyone. We miss all of our friends that are away at schools out of state. Top L-R: Trevor F., Danny, Curt and Jason. Middle L-R: Beka, Amy, Jen and Anna. Bottom L-R: Braden or Landon, whichever one the other isn't, Cach and Clara. Clara in her pretty little nightgown before bed. And some random thoughts about Clara's sleeping habits for the record. Up until last Monday, we swaddled Clara to go to bed and she would never cry herself to sleep. If she fussed, we'd just give her her pacifier and to sleep she'd go. So last Monday, she was SO fussy. I put her to bed and she wasn't swaddled and I just let her cry and after about 8 minutes, she was fast asleep. Tuesday, she was asleep within just 2 minutes or so. So the swaddling days have come to an end after six months and so has not being able to cry herself to sleep.
On Monday, we tried out Shabu Fondue in Chandler. We just got the cheese and chocolate courses and I was less than impressed with the cheese. It was not good and I will probably NEVER go back again for that. The dessert was a little better, really, how can you screw up chocolate? Although the chocolate didn't seem anything more than semi-sweet chocolate chips you can buy in the store. I would probably go back for the dessert, but mostly it would be because of the atmosphere. Anyway, I didn't think it was great. I've never eaten fondue in a restaurant, so I have nothing else to compare it to though. But at least it had neat decor and I was with Jen and her family to keep me entertained! :)

After that, we went to the Temple so Jen could get some pictures and we took some in front of a cactus. That's right, there are Sagauro all over, but I doubt I have a single picture in front of one. Well, now I do and so does Clara. Jen 'needed' to go to the scrapbook store so Curt patiently waited in the car while we shopped. Curt and Jen left that afternoon. They are such great house guests. Jason wasn't able to do much with us, but Curt was always helping me out with Clara. Thanks for staying with us and remember, you are welcome anytime!Oh look, Jason does exist... :) I'm telling you, I am curious to see what's going to happen when Jason is done with school and he's around us more. Now, there are some days Clara never sees him. When he is home, he is usually doing homework so we don't see much of each other. It'll be like falling in love all over again...

Tummy Time for Adults... HA!

twin's 1st birthday

tomorrow lucy and elsa, ryan's twin girls turn ONE. their party was tonight at ryan's. we swam, ate and just had fun watching the girls open presents and eat cake. of course, their favorite presents were from clara, the tag blankets. actually, i think the best was one of their little cousins wrote them a little note (or told his mom what to write) and said for their birthday he was giving them one of his toys and sure enough, he wrapped up one of his toys and gave it to them. how sweet is that?? kay, now for the pictures... here is angela with lucy and me with elsa sporting these AWESOME sunglasses.here's angela, daniel, me and clara. daniel will be a senior. he has grown like six inches this year so he's cuter than ever. awwww... we love him. i love watching kids do funny things and i don't know if all kids do this, but the twins crawl SO funny in the grass. they use their feet not their knees because i guess they don't like the feeling and it just looks absolutely hilarious! so here is elsa in action. and how cute are angela and clint? they are the best neighbors ever and they are just such good looking people, so naturally they make a fantastic couple. ope, and we can't forget dad in the background chatting away. oh, so that's where i get it from...clara took a little swim in her diaper because i was too lazy to go put a swimmer on and her swimsuit. afterwards, her cheeks were all red from being so hot so i left her clothes off and put some of the table decorations on her and angela got this darling little picture of her. lucy and elsa with mom and dad opening their favorite present. lucy took her blanket, put it on her head, rubbed it on her face and then lost interest. and elsa? well, i don't think she was ever interested in the first place. hopefully someday ryan can teach his kids how to be appreciative of people's hard work. :)and now the fun stuff. elsa, left and lucy, right... before they discovered what frosting tastes likelucy after:elsa after:

aren't they cute? they sure are fun and we hope they have a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

jen's in town

my good friend jen noble, her husband curt and son cache came into town yesterday and i am the lucky one they chose to host them while they are here. i LOVE having visitors, so if anyone ever needs a place to stay, let me know. it's nice and cozy in our humble little abode, but we make it work. someday we might have more room to accomodate, but for now, this works. clara tried to grab cache and today they played steam roller... if curt wasn't protecting cache, clara would roll right over him. he's six weeks younger and such a calm baby. clara is SO high strung. but today they were playing on the floor together and jason took clara and cache started fussing. curt moved so cache could see clara and then he was content again. i'm pretty sure he's in love with her. HA! oh, and they wouldn't look at the camera and then clara kept rolling away. jen calls her a little gymnast.

tag blankets

so here they are, the tag blankets i made for my twin nieces. i really like them and can't wait to make one for clara. i thought hmmm, these are cute, maybe i will sell them, but NO WAY. they would cost way too much. i took some up-close pics to show the cute stitching. it's the first time i have used that setting on my sewing machine, which i have had for oh, about five years or so. :) anyway, if you can't tell from the pics, one is pink and one is purple and both have the same black with white polka dot satin back. the purple fabric is great but it sheds like crazy where you cut it (which is why it's all over my carpet). but it was much easier to sew with than the pink fleece.