New Mexico, Part 1

The first part of my trip to New Mexico was definitely themed "Family Visiting"! It was great being able to see everyone before I leave to Japan for a few years. 

Roxanne and Shayleen(SP?) came down with their mother (Aunt Sharron) to see Grandma McGee. 

Grandma had a heart attach scare just a few days before we went to see her. It turned out that it was actually an enlarged kidney - it won't kill her now but it might make things complicated in the future. 

Avery was having fun showing off how static her hair got. It was actually funny to watch how it got higher up as she climbed the slide and then fell down as she slid down. The picture above is of Grandma laughing at Avery being silly. Mom said it was the first time she heard her laugh in a long time. 

Grandma telling them about some family pictures that mom has been working on organizing. 

Grandma McGee said her hair was not brushed that day but she was still nice enough to let me take some pictures with her. 

Four Generations.

Had to get a pic with Grandpa Reeves too! 

While I was down, I also got to go see Grandpa Cluff! He is moving to Arizona so I wasn't sure when I would get to see him next. We had a great time talking to him about what it was like growing up in Mexico. 

One story Grandpa told us about was when he was young he would walk to school barefoot. One day he tripped and stubbed his toe really bad. After a few days it was infected so bad that he couldn't walk on it. His parents took him to his grandma's house for her help to heal it (she was the closest thing they had to a doctor). Grandpa said that she first cut off as much of the nail as she could and then as his Grandpa held him down so she could take a heated up needle and poke it under his nail over and over. Then several times a day, his Grandma would dip it in alcohol until it healed up. Grandpa said that it didn't feel very good. 

Grandpa, me and Lisa

End Result

I am so happy to announce... that my first ever garage sale is over!!! 

It was a lot of work last week. My friend, Cassie, who let me use her driveway, decided last Monday that the coming weekend would be best for her so I kicked it in gear and started tearing my house apart to get everything out I wanted to sale. It was quite a process and ended up with my house looking like this:

Each night after the sale I would still come home and find even more things to take the next day. I ended up taking 3 car loads full. Remember that in my RAV4 the back seats go completely flat giving it a 6 foot long bed (it can hold a LOT of stuff). There ended up being a total of three of us who sold stuff ( I had the most) but we only had enough to line the driveway with one row in the middle and the biggest item was Logan's weight set.

We had the sale from Thursday to Saturday 7-noon. As you all know, I have been on Logan's schedule (sleep from 1:30-10am) so waking up at 6:20 was super hard because I was never able to fall asleep the night before. By 11am each day it was so hot! I wore my big black hat and sunblock each day. I was surprised that we always had a rush of people just before 7 and then again at 12 so we always were rushing to get stuff out and then had to wait to get things back in at the end of the day. They were very long days.

Things that I was surprised that sold so well:
The cookies I made - I had to make more every day. I put 5 small ones in each bag and sold them for $0.75. Many people probably would have paid even a $1.
Knickknacks - we mostly had Spanish people come by and they would buy all the little things that I thought no one would like Cassie's used make-up, old bras and my half used lotion bottles. Interestingly it was really only the "white" people that bought the larger ticket items like the kitchen appliances.
Cassie's baby clothes sold very well but not any of the toys.
Also, Tracy sold a ton of belts.

Things that I was surprised that they didn't really sell were the purses and bags, adult clothes, kitchen plates and seasonal decorations.

What I will always like to have in future garage sales:
Cassie - She is like the nicest person ever and I loved getting to know her better by having the sale at her house. She didn't have much to sell but still worked just as hard as me. Also one of the best things about her is that she grew up in one of the Mormon colonies in Mexico and could speak perfect Spanish to all out customers.
I will also probably always sell cookies and small toiletries - they did very well.
Tape the biggest signs from the dollar store on a box with a brick inside. They were easy to see, put out and pick up and we never had to worry about them falling down or blowing away.

When it was finally over, we just had one car load to take home and when I sorted it out, I had mostly empty boxes with two to donate and one of stuff to sell online. I was so happy with the success of the sale! I definitely had the most stuff but was pretty impressed that the total for all three of us was $1300.75. Isn't that crazy!!!!

Tomorrow, I leave for Albuquerque! I can't wait to see you mom!

Garage Sale Madness!!

Sorry, I've been not very communicative this week. All I've done this week is work on my garage sale, ,just like mom and katie, and work out! My house is a wreck as I've been going through everything and my feet hurt a lot. But the garage sale has been going very well (at least day one) and I have been having so much fun going to Zumba class and swimming!

Logan's class is working on big project this week so I haven't seen him much. He's been a little stressed over it because he is in charge of coordinating it. Over all, I think he is doing good, Here is a picture of him that he told me to take the other day!

It was funny caz he kept being like "no, zoom in closer so it looks bigger". He makes me giggle.  Wife bragging moment- Log may not have the biggest arms but he can military press me by lifting me up by my locked elbows. He is a MAN!  Here is another pic of Logan being a man (showing off his pull-ups). I love him!  He he! 

Shelby, I hope that you are feeling better! I couldn't believe when mom told me you had to go to the hospital from dehydration! No more of that okay?! 

Places We've Lived

I found a awesome website here that makes water color maps!!! I couldn't help the Geographer in me and made images of all the places Logan and me have lived together (or will soon). 

Provo, UT; Enid, OK; San Angelo, TX and Okinawa, Japan! 

BREAD!!

You guys are probably sick of seeing my pictures of bread but I made my last loaf this morning. This one takes about 20 hours to make but it is so worth it! I love opening up the lid to see the beautiful golden brown top! It has a subtle sour dough taste and is great with pasta or soup!

Another great thing about it is that all you do is mix up it's four ingredients (that takes like a minute) and the rest of the time it is just rising or cooking in the oven! It's super easy considering it has almost no hands on time but comes out looking amazing!

I also recently decorated one of my flour sack clothes so I can keep my bread fresh! I think it turned out cute!

And just in case you couldn't tell, it is supposed to be a water colored avocado on it.

Lots of Pics!

I have lots and lots of pictures I've taken since I got my new camera!! So I put them in several collages! Enjoy!! 

This last Saturday Logan's class had a little get together so we went and hung out with them for a while. We played this ladder game (forgot what it's called) and it was me and Morgan against Logan and Mike. And guess who won the game on the last throw?!! MEEEEE!!! (In the bottom right is a pic of the winners!)

After that, we met up with Scott (Logan's bro-in-law). We went out to eat for the first time at a place called Zero One and it is probably the best place we have eaten at here in San Angelo. Then we went fishing! This is like the fifth time we have gone and the first time anyone has caught anything - so we know it is possible! Scott caught a little Blue Gill. Poor Logan still has only caught a branch. (I think Logan's face when he opened up the box of worms was great!)

We found a new location hoping to have better luck around dusk. I didn't get a pic of it, but we saw a musk rat swim by! I thought it was a beaver it was so big! One thing I think is amazing about my camera is being able to adjust all the settings. Below, the bottom right pic is what it looked like at the time with a flash and the top right pic was taken right before when it was just as dark. The only thing I changed was the shutter speed and ISO to take in more light and voila! You can see without the flash!! (Look at that face on Logan! lol! I caught you looking!)

Poor Logan is the only person I have to take pictures of most of the time. The other night he was watching some funny YouTube videos while I got some cute pics. I love it when he starts laughing really hard! (You know Logan really loves me when he lets me take pics like this.)

 So here is another fun camera trick! Writing with a flash light! It takes a little practice but here are some of the good ones! The shutter was open for ten seconds and while it was on the tripod, I ran in front to write out the words. Sorry if I didn't get your name in... my flashlight died.

 Okay! Here is the last batch of random pictures! National Doughnut Day is on the first Friday of June each year so I got a little box and had to wait ALL day for Logan to get home and then we ate almost all of them!! On Monday, my new shoes came! I love them! They are Merrill barefoot shoes. They are made for you to be able to run and hike in and then you can jump right into the water with them on! They are going to be perfect for walking over sharp lava flows and then jumping into the ocean to snorkel when we are in Okinawa! The pictures of me are just me playing around with my camera.

Today, I decided to make bread! I don't think I'll be able to take our food storage with us so I'm trying to use some of it up now! Twenty cups of flour later, I have 5 loaves of bread! All the honey wheat is done (two in the dutch oven like above and two in bread pans for sandwich bread) but the sour dough won't be ready until tomorrow morning. I can't wait!

New Camera!!!!

I got my new camera today and LOVE it!!! It is so fun taking pictures with! I'm still learning all the buttons and stuff but here are some of my first shots! Which ones are your favorite?

Best Brownies I've EVER made from scratch!!!

These are actually the really little ants zoomed up-close.

Our apt (we are the bottom right).

Bug House

I feel like there are a billion bugs always in my house!!! Last night I walked around the living room and swept up over 16 rollie pollies that were just walking all over - not to mention all the dead ones that are always behind my couch. Today I found a HUGE dead spider and named it Aragog. Logan gave its eulogy ("Farewell, Aragog, king of arachnids...").

Also last night I saw something above the front door. I didn't remember there being a spot there so I asked Logan to check it out. He was like "I bet it's a moth...oh wait! Anna come check this out!!"

So when I got up closer I could see that it was actually a baby gecko!!!

 He was so cute! He must have come in through the front door with one of us. I looked it up and he is called a house gecko. Makes sense to me considering that's when we found him!

 I got out a jar and put some of the mesh cabinet liner under the jar ring so he could have air.

He was fun to look at and watch crawl up the sides. They have the most amazing toes! Then, before bed, Logan said I had to let him go so we took him to a nice place outside in the bushes and said good bye.

Oh, yeah. We had another animal encounter last Sunday on our way to church. Logan stopped to save a turtle in the middle of the road that was over a foot long! The turtle thanked him by peeing all over his leg! lol.

Weekend Date

I've been kinda wanting to go get a sonic shake for a few months and every time we passed one we weren't hungry or didn't have time. Finally, this last Friday when Logan got home from work, he needed to fill up the car with gas so at like 12:30 at night we finally got some! 

It wasn't Braums, but it was good one time fix.

On Saturday, Logan came with me to do some grocery shopping and then we went fishing! It is one of his favorite things to do here even though we have never caught anything. Well.. that's not quite true....

We sure caught a big branch this last time we went! It struggled and fought us but we won out in the end!

I love this pic!