NERMAL

A few weeks ago Eli noticed that our lawn was being over taken by voles. A vole is a bigger, uglier version of a mouse, by the way. They were tunneling through our lawn, into the flower beds, and up near the foundation of the house. Eli immediately saw this as an opportunity to go to the hardware store. After countless hours spent trying to trap, poison, and get rid of these nasty little creatures, it seemed they were only multiplying. I suggested a cat, but Eli HATES cats. So we bought more poison. Which also didn't work. So after weeks of this dilemma, and seeing the home and garden center on our Wells Fargo statement way too many times, I decided to take matters into my own hands. While Eli was sleeping one day after a long nights work, I got on ksl.com and found a cat. An old woman was trying to get rid of the cat because she kept leaving dead mice and birds on the porch - just what I was looking for. So, I called her up and went and got the cat. I didn't know if an adult cat would change homes easily, so I also found a free kitten online and picked him up too. The adult cats name was Sophie, so that needed to be changed. The box I brought her home in said "Hot Tamales" on the side, so 'Tamale' is her new name. Nermal just seemed to fit the kitten, so that's what he got. When Eli woke up and went out to the garage for something, he saw Tamale and Nermal - NOT HAPPY. The next morning when there was a big fat vole on our front porch he started to come around. The morning after that when there were two on the front porch and one on the back, he suggested I go buy her some treats and a collar so no one could steal her. Vole problem solved.

Labor Day Camp

Every year for the past, well. . . at least 30 years, the Buttars family has gone on a Labor Day camp trip. And when I say the Buttars family, I mean EVERYONE - aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins kids, grandparents, and even some of the grandparents siblings and their kids, and also their kids. So, there's a lot of us. The location varies, but this year it was at Emigration campground, near Bear Lake. Since leaving for college I haven't been, so this year we decided to at least make an apperance. For the most part it was a lot of fun and the food was, as always, AMAZING. (our relatives are the dutch oven cook off champions of the midwest) But, being nearly 9 months pregnant and sleeping in a tent kind of put a damper on things, so we didn't stay long.

Trouble. There are no other words. . . . and she's not even quite 2.

My Nesting Project

I am finally nearing the end of pregnancy #2, and have gone into what Eli refers to as my "nesting" phase, where I feel the urge to buy, make, and create all sorts of things for the baby. My most recent nesting project was making a quilt. Not a hard task, but for someone about as far from Martha as you can get, it was trying enough for me. Along with my nesting phase comes my forgetfullness phase. Somewhere between the car and the entrance to Hobby Lobby, the amount of fabric I needed for said project doubled in my mind. But, you can't return fabric, so I just made the baby quilt. And then made one for my new neice. And then also made one for Sophie's baby doll.

Time is at a complete stand still. 71/2 weeks left, and it seems like an eternity. Why does growing a human take so freakin long?

LAKE POWELL

We were lucky enough to get to spend an entire week at Lake Powell with our friends Bryson and Danielle and their family . . . and it was AWESOME! We stayed on their family's house boat, did tons of wake boarding, jet skiing, cliff jumping, and relaxing. I mostly just did the relaxing and picture taking. Sophie did even better than we expected, and was a little too fearless for my comfort.

My mom and dad bought us a swing set as a house warming gift, and we were pretty psyched about it, especially Sophie. The manual said it would take 10 to 12 hours of building time, which we thought was a load of crap. It was not. Even with the help of my two brothers it took us nearly 7 1/2 painful hours. Most of the pain came from Sophie trying to help and losing the bolts and screws, or insisting on being right next to whatever we were working on. We were shocked by what a huge swing set came in such a small box, slide and all. We finally got it all put together, and now Sophie and I spend literally hours everyday going up and down the slide, over and over and over and over. . . .