Pictures of the Construction

Here are the pictures that go with the last post.

Digging out the water shut off in our snowy front yard.

Water coming out of the cracks in the asphalt.

Water coming out of the cracks in the asphalt, part 2

The construction crew.

The BIG digger!

We have no water pressure

About 9 p.m. Friday night we flushed the toilet to find out that we had no water pressure. Of course stuff like this always happens after hours! With a little investigation and a call to the neighbors we figured out that the frozen pipe between our house and the hatchery had broke.

The hatchery has been without potable water (not to be confused with the water for the fish) for most of the winter and we knew we had a frozen pipe. The problem? The pipe runs from the middle of our front lawn to the other end of the hatchery, about 100 yards. It was suggested earlier in the winter that we start digging up the pipe to fix the problem. Well not knowing where to start and the fact that the pipe was buried six feet deep it wasn't something that the guys wanted to tackle in the dead of winter. The pipe is buried six feet deep we weren't sure if it would break once it thawed or if it would just gradually thaw and all would be right with the world.

Kent and Quent went to work digging out the water shutoff to both houses about 9:30 Friday night (we still had about 10 inches of snow on our front lawn, the joys of living in the mountains!) and it was discovered that there were two shut off valves, one to our house and one to Kent's house, but not one to the hatchery.

First thing Saturday morning Quent and Kent had a construction crew up here digging up the parking lot and apparently all the stars aligned becuase they actually started digging right above where the pipe was broke. A couple hours later and the pipe was fixed, we had water in the house and all was well with the world...we thought.

This and That and helping a friend!

Things have been pretty quiet over the last couple of weeks. Quent has been working a ton and has some sick fish. They are treating them with some new experimental treatment which involves penicillin which of course he is allergic too. Luckily the guys he works with aren't so he is able to stay away when they are putting it into the tanks of sick fish. Hopefully the little buggers will get better soon and I won't have to worry about getting a call about Quent getting rushed to the hospital because he came in contact with penicillin.

School has been going pretty good, I just finished the course work for the Flash class(in a nutshell animating graphics for the web along with a thousand other things)I am working on my final project for the class which I hope to have finished early next week.

For those of you who like Pampered Chef I have a friend in Phoenix who has recently become a consultant. The best part about the internet is that you don't have to live in Phoenix to shop with Lindsey. She has a website with all the great products and will ship right to your door. (Better than going to the silly party at your neighbor's house right?) I know a lot of my Utah friends have a consultant in their neighborhood and aren't looking to find someone else who sells Pampered Chef but for all my friends who are looking for a no pressure way to buy the good stuff contact Lindsey! I have quite a collection of pampered chef stuff and my sister-in-law has a whole kitchen full of all the cook gagets. Check it out you won't be sorry!

P.S. she's giving away a stoneware bar pan on her blog ... check out the contest, maybe you'll win a really cool pan!

Valentine's Day Weekend

Quent and I had a great Valentine's Day weekend. We started the weekend off on Thursday at Maddox for dinner (celebrating Valentine's Day as well as our 2.5 year wedding anniversary.) Friday night we spent the night watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Quent had to work Saturday and Saturday night we helped with the dinner at the church.

Quent surprised me with flowers and teddy bears (yes plural) on Sunday at various times throuthout the day. I found Quent a mini coke fridge (it holds six cans) and also ordered him some personalized M&M's.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

Pictures as Promised

In an earlier post I promised pictures of this week's arts and crafts project...and here they are! Quent and I were asked to help out with the church's Valentine's day dinner and were put in charge of table decorations. So with a little time searching the internet, several hours wondering around Tai Pan Trading I came up with several different ideas and went to work. What I had originally planned to do isn't what we ended up with but I think we did a great job.

We found out late in the week that there were going to be more tables than originally planned so I needed to make more flowers to add to the vases. I decided to make some tissue flowers to fill up the vases. Who knew that 15 years ago when I learned how to make the tissue flowers that I'd use the skill again. Thanks Kathie!

We decided to fill the vases with candy hearts to make it more festive. In an effort to save a little money and not buy a thousand candy hears we used pvc pipe inside of the vases and add the candy hearts around the outside.

Here are the pictures ...

More Eagles

It was eagle day at the hatchery (well not really but we had a bunch around the area today). Quent spotted both bald eagles and golden eagles flying around the area. I grabbed the camera but unfortunatly they were all too far to get really good pictures but I tried. Here are a few of the pictures.

Don't mess with a classic ...

It's been awhile since I went on a tangent. Remember my move to Big Water and the challenges I had with the post office? Well I have another rant, maybe not as serious as the post office issues in Big Water but dang near close.

Sweethearts candy hearts are or were my favorite Valentine's candies but as of 2010 the Sweatheart company decided to "reformulate" the candy. Not only did they change the valentine sayings on the candy to updated more "hip" sayings they changed the candy all together for the first time in their 145 year history. (Yes I did some research)

Now instead of the hard (almost stale) chalky hearts that said be mine, they are now not as hard, almost chewy and say "BFF" and "text me". Now I'm all for updating the sayings, well not really but I could handle that I mean really we're just eating them right? Well the thing that is the most disappointing is that they have changed the flavors to stronger, more flavorful flavors. Now the "mint green" takes like green apple and they introduced a blue heart (eliminating the white) that tastes like blue raspberry (really blue raspberry?) and now they have purple that is a grape flavor.

We purchased said hearts for the centerpieces I was put in charge of for a dinner Saturday night (pictures of my Martha Stewart talents to be posted on Sunday) and I can say that they were probably the last box of candy hearts I will ever purchase.

For more on the Sweetheart Candy Company and their heinous changes to the sweetheart candy hearts, click here.

All I can say is don't mess with a classic!

Superbowl Party 2010

Nicole invited everyone over to celebrate my dad's birthday and watch the super bowl. Unfortunatly Steve was out of town for the game but he had the large screen all set up as well as popcorn popper full of freshly popped popcorn.

Our family loves to cook and today's food was great. Nicole provided meatball subs, mom and Joy brought salads and Melissa brought yummy homemade pies. Richard made his famous salad and we were in charge of the beverages. No one went home hungry.

We gave my dad a new cell phone and a gift certificate for some new clothes for his birthday and we're excited to teach him how to "text" hopefully he'll get the hang of it soon.

Patrick and T.J. entertained us during the game and Morgan and Alyssa shared their new found rock star talents with us. Dressed in sunglasses and skirts the two showed off their performing skills with a microphone and barbie guitar. Alyssa had a little Joan Jett going on while Morgan was a little more Taylor Swift.

It was great to see the Saints win the super bowl and have some fun with the family at the same time.

Living in a winter wonderland

We woke up to about four inches of new snow, nothing too exciting as 12-15 inches overnight isn't uncommon. I had a few things to do this morning and was on my way out the door around 10 a.m. While I was driving around town I realized I was living in a winter wonderland. People dream about it and we live here.

There were kids sledding on the snow hill, 25-50 people ice fishing on the reservoir, trucks pulling trailers full of snowmobiles and of course the cross country skiers and a family out snow shoeing.

The sun peaked it's head through the clouds this afternoon and I grabbed my camera and went out to see if I could capture what I saw this morning in my mountain valley. It's been warm enough to melt the snow from the roads and the trees had lost their overnight dusting but just imagine the pictures below with a little bit more snow. I even caught a glimpse of the wild turkeys that like to hang out in town.

It's February...Really?

Where did January go? It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Christmas and watching a lot of football. February has been pretty quiet in our neck of the woods, Quent's been working and taking care of sick fish and I started a new class at school, I'm learning flash which is proving to be a lot of fun.

We're looking forward to watching the Superbowl at Nicole's this weekend on her ridiculously large TV and celebrating my Dad's birthday.

We'll keep you posted in anything fun and exciting goes on but for right now all is quiet in Mantua.