Deflated

Saturday was such a happy day and then turned sour. It started out pretty productive and exciting and ended on a bummed note. We went to Home Depot and we were finally able to get a BBQ. I have been saving my pennies for a while to get a nice, fancy BBQ that would last and I finally had enough and they finally had the one in we wanted. However, it wouldn't fit in our car, so my dad came down and helped us with their van so we could get it home. We also looked into garbage disposals to see if we can buy the missing parts for ours to finally get it hooked up. We actually decided to just get a new disposal, it needed it anyways, and we could either buy the new part now and in a few months buy the new disposal that comes with the part we needed or just get the new disposal now, which is what we decided to do. Ross wasn't so excited about putting it in and I didn't want to deal with it so I bribed him. I told him while he puts the disposal in, which he wasn't excited for, I would cut off and hem some shorts for him, which I wasn't excited for. But we both put a couple hours into getting these things done which for me wasn't easy cause I had a puppy who wanted to "help" and pull the shorts out of my hand and run or drag me over to his leash for a walk. And I heard lots of moans and groans from the kitchen. But, we prevailed and got done and I was so excited to have a dishwasher. We ran a cleaner through the dishwasher before using it to make sure it worked and sanitize it. There weren't any leaks and everything seemed to be working, then much to my dismay the dishwasher wasn't draining. I tried the drain button on the dishwasher but no luck. I was so excited to not have to wash dishes anymore but I still have to wash dishes, but its so nice to have two sinks that work. Now when people dump water in the left sink it doesn't go to the cupboard below.

There's No Place Like Home

As I was sitting in the airport in Baton Rouge yesterday and I heard over the PA that my flight was yet again delayed, I learned that clicking my heels together 3 times and repeating "there's no place like home" does not really work. So, add that to my growing list of annoyances at trying to get home. I am also starting to realize that maybe I don't enjoy travel as much as I once did. I am not sure if its due to this last trip or if its just a compilation of past experiences.

To start off we were very lucky we actually got into Louisiana. Had we gone a day earlier all the flights into Baton Rouge were cancelled, if we had gone a day later all the flights in were cancelled, had we gone through Texas (like we do 95% of the time) we wouldn't have been able to leave Salt Lake and had we gone into New Orleans our flight would have been cancelled. There was a lot of freak snow in the south closing Texas, Atlanta and Louisiana at different times. But we did make it in to Baton Rouge without any delays or problems, just to find things were not as planned. It was extremely frustrating to spend all that money and take time off work for things to turn out the way they did, but we decided to make the best of it.

We did get to go to a couple of parades, one of which was in Baton Rouge and it was so much better than the parades in New Orleans. We went to Spanish Town in Baton Rouge, which from my understanding is Spanish Town (part of downtown Baton Rouge) used to be the gay part of town but not so much anymore. The big theme for this parade every year is pink flamingos and all the floats were covered in pink, including those riding on the floats. They were decked head to toe in pink, complete with pink wigs. I don't really have pictures of the parades because I was too busy during the parade. This was a very fun parade because they didn't have the barriers on the streets so you could go right up to the floats and it was easier to get cool things from people when you made eye contact. I only had one person on this parade ask to see my boobs, but honestly, had I wanted to show them I couldn't. I had beads up to my ears and my coat on, it would have taken 20 min to be able to flash. But we came away with tons of beads, 90% of the beads we brought home came from this parade, my in-laws gave me the majority of the beads they caught as well as what Ross and I got.

On Sunday Ross and I went down to New Orleans. We had actually gone down for the big parade that night, Bachus. All the parades have names and they run at the same time every year and Bachus runs Sunday at 5. When we got to New Orleans we had some shopping to do so we ran to do that and caught the end of the Rex parade and in the process of getting back to the car to drop off our stuff we got caught in the Thoth parade but was able to get a really good spot for the Bachus parade. The parade started at 5 but because they move so slow it got to us at about 7:30 but it was INSANE. Drew Brees (for those of you that don't know he was the Saints MVP from the Superbowl) was the king of the Bachus parade and Southerner's LOVE their football. People came from out of state to see this parade and it was deafening when the float with the king came by. One thing the parades in New Orleans has that Baton Rouge lacks is the fire guys. I don't quite understand their purpose but they have a propane tank strapped to their backs and they have there big metal contraptions that has 4 horizontal spouts that shoot fire and a group of them walk the parade route, between the floats and bands and you throw change at them. Some had so much change in their pockets they were loosing their pants, which inspired me and the old guy standing next to me to sing Pants on the Ground. However, the parades in New Orleans were so stingy with what they threw. I did get asked to flash but I showed the guy that I wasn't able to get to my boobs with everything on so he gave me the cool beads anyways. We didn't stay for the whole last parade, we were done by the 12th float. But it was fun to just go down with Ross and hang out.

Then came getting home. I never dreamed it would become the ordeal that it was. We were supposed to fly out at noon on Monday and on the way to the airport we found out that our flight was cancelled and they had put us on a flight leaving at 5pm the next day getting back into Salt Lake at midnight. No was was that going to work because I wasn't about to ask my parent's to pick us up that late and by the time we got home we would have 3 hours to sleep before getting up for work. So we went in and talked to them. They claimed that the flight was cancelled for routine maintenance. If it was routine maintenance then they would know about it and one would think they wouldn't schedule flights for that time. So, we got on a flight to Atlanta the next morning at 8. We get to the airport, again, and find that our 8am flight was cancelled and we were put on a 10:00 flight. About 9:30 we find that our 10:00 flight was delayed and pushed back until noon, which would cause us to miss our connecting flight. We were so annoyed/frustrated. Luckily they were able to put us on another carrier and we went through Dallas instead of Atlanta and we were finally able to get home about 4 on Tuesday. I have never had such troubles and I am not sure if it was because of the Baton Rouge airport, but if we had gone in through New Orleans on Thursday we wouldn't have gotten in, all the flights that night into NO was cancelled, so we would have been stuck in Atlanta, where it snowed so no flights were leaving there. Anyways, long story short, it was a big mess, but we did get home and our jobs were understanding. Over all we did have a good trip and we did enjoy the time we got to spend with my mother-in-law and the break from work.

Reminders

I don't know if anyone else is as effected by this as I am, but smells and some foods remind me of times and places in the past, mainly from my mission, and some of them are really strong. I am sitting here enjoying some Baked Lays sour cream and onion chips and every time I eat these it reminds me of my p-days in my last area with one of my favorite companions. Berrett and I would do our laundry and then go grocery shopping and we always got a bag of these chips each and after our activity and play was done we would end up back at our apartment eating the chips and playing speed. It was quite the combination and helped to pass many a p-day. This companion was a lot of fun and we found great joy in the stupid and simple things of life. When I shower it takes me back to my 2nd area in my mission. We were in a very ghetto apartment surrounded by Mexicans and gang members. A couple nights we sat in the middle of our apartment listening to gun shots in the neighborhood. The walls in this apartment were so thin that we could hear the next door neighbor when he would pee and talk on the phone. So, now when I use the same shampoo or conditioner I used in that area I can almost hear the neighbor peeing while talking on the phone. That one is one of the stronger associations I have, and the fact that the bathroom and shower head is extremely close to the way the bathroom there was. Maybe its just that my mission was a big influence on my life that so much reminds me of places and people.

I survived . . . . .

I survived traveling at Christmas!! I have heard horror stories of traveling during the holidays with all the other travelers and the weather. The Christmas before we got married Ross was trying to go home and due to weather in Denver ended up spending about 24 hours in the Denver airport not even sure he would be able to get a plane out. This trip we were fortunate to have a direct flight from Salt Lake to New Orleans, so as long as we could get out of Salt Lake we wouldn't have any problems getting to New Orleans. There was also forcasted snow for the day we were leaving. However, we got to the airport without any problems, there wasn't any snow, and the line for security wasn't bad at all. While we were standing in line for security there was a guy, I think he was a paid escort for kids, but he was dressed as an elf, complete with the tights and pointy shoes with bells. I wish I had the guts to get a picture of him, it was quite humorous and very hard to miss. When we got to our gate Ross and I got something to eat while waiting. When I was done this random old guy walked up and asked if he could throw my trash away for me, I thought that was very bizarre, and then he came back and started to talk to us. He was quite an interesting individual. I am sure most of his stories were not true but after finding out our flight was delayed an hour he kept us entertained and the extra hour wasn't so bad. When we finally got into New Orleans it was about midnight but we still were able to go to dinner with my mother-in-law. We went to Camilla Grill, its a very interesting restaurant, the counter winds around the restaurant and they cook everything in front of you, and they have some killer chocolate pecan pie.

I survived my first Southern Christmas. The next day was Christmas eve and not much was planned, it was so nice. With us being there for 10 days we didn't have to cram everything into a couple days, we could spread it out and be a little more relaxed. We got to sleep in and just kind of move slow. All we really did that day was in the afternoon, we stopped to do a little last minute shopping on the way to my brother-in-law and sister-in-laws house for dinner. We got time to hang out before we ate, it was really good food. After dinner we went to the grandparent's to open presents. This was the big family get together with the grandparents, the aunts and uncles and stuff. It was a fun get together, we all got to open presents for each other and then had sweets. They were so good and so rich. On Christmas Eve Ross and I slept over at his brother's house and Christmas morning my mother-in-law came over and made monkey bread for breakfast. A tasty way to start the morning. Later in the afternoon we went to the extended family Christmas dinner. That was rather interesting. It was buffet style and some of the foods I have never seen, let alone heard of, before. I went into it thinking "Ok, just give things a try, you never know what will taste good," and I did. I did have to ask my brother-in-law, who was behind me in line, what some of the things were. They had, I think they called it baked spaghetti, and all it was was boiled spaghetti noodles with layers of cheese on it and then baked. To me it looked like something an elder would make for a missionaries dinner and they had it at their big Christmas dinner. I was wondering if anyone really ate it, but Ross said they have it every year and it did go pretty fast. I did get a little to try it and it was really pretty good. I never would have guessed but I enjoyed it. Then we get to the corn dishes. First there was a bowl of cooked corn, simple and basic enough, but next to it was a couple of yellow casserole looking things. I didn't think there would be such a thing as a corn casserole, let alone two different types of corn casserole. But I had decided I would try new things and I got a little of both. Much to my surprise, again, it was really quite tasty. The meal as a whole was good and I liked all the foods I tried, I was actually too stuffed to make it to the deserts.

Unfortunately while we were there Ross' grandpa ended up in the hospital. He had been sick for a little while and it just got worse and I think he had pneumonia. Luckily he got the care he needed and was released 3 or 4 days later.

I survived a Hall family road trip. We, all 5 of us, took a road trip to Houston. I was pretty excited cause I have never been to Houston, other than the airport. It was about a 5 hour drive from Baton Rouge and my butt was numb by the time we got there. We did go over a couple bridges that from a distance look like they go straight into the air, pretty steep roads. We spent 3 nights in Houston and went from one end of the city to the other. We got to go to NASA and see mission control and see some old space shuttles, we went to the aquarium and got to pet some sting rays and star fish, we went to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, we went to see Avatar and went shopping at the 4th largest mall in America. This mall was massive, so many stores, so many levels, so easy to get lost and confused (and we did). On the very bottom level of the mall was an ice skating rink. The 4 of us went ice skating, my mother-in-law decided to watch. I was the only one that had been ice skating before but the last time I had done it was on a date in college, so I was pretty wobbly on the skates at first. It was a lot of fun, I almost took out little kids a couple times. Its a small crowded rink, which made it hard to maneuver safely. But fun none the less. While there my mother-in-law gave us each money to spend, with the stipulation that we spend it that day in the mall and on ourselves. This was pretty hard, I had no idea what to get or what I wanted to spend it on, until I saw a shoe store. I think the highlight of the trip to Houston was the hotel room with the king size bed. We left the hotel in the morning and we were going all day so when we finally got back to the room that night I was so tired and stuffed from dinner that having such a large comfy bed was so nice. I did have to laugh because it was so much like traveling with my family, but I did enjoy it.

I survived 5 trips to New Orleans. I love New Orleans so its quite ok that we made many trips down there, and its only a little over an hour away from Baton Rouge. The first trip was when we flew in and stopped for dinner. Then we went the day after Christmas. Ross' cousin and her husband were in town for Christmas and the husband had never been to New Orleans so they went with us. It was so cold. We just wandered and shopped and ate at the House of Blues, kind of relaxing. The third time we went was on New Years Eve. We went with the intention of finding a way into one of the really old, really cool above ground cemeteries. I don't know why, I just like cemeteries and these ones are really really cool. When we got into the French Quarter we saw an add for a cemetery tour and decided that would be easier to do than try to find our way in and out of a cemetery, and its by the same company that did the vampire tour we did and that rocked. But the tour was for the next day, so we got to make a 4th trip down to New Orleans, but it was well worth it. The cemetery tour was so cool, the not only showed us the cemetery just outside the French Quarter, but we got a history about it and of Marie Lavou and Vodoo, it was interesting and educational. Well worth another trip to New Orleans. The last trip was to go back to the airport when we came home.

I survived New Years Eve better than the neighbors house. For New Years Eve we went over to Ross' brother's house. Grant and Leah had gotten fireworks for us to shoot off at midnight, but also got some extras for us to shoot off earlier. The quote of the night was "is that supposed to be there?" As we were shooting off some of the fireworks (I stuck to the sparklers, too many bad experiences with fireworks) one of the fountains, one that shot other spinning fireworks in the air, misfired and one of the fireballs ended up in the next door neighbors bush. Grant's friend brought it to our attention as their bush was a big ball of fire. A couple of people ran over to pour their beers on the fire, which, shockingly enough, didn't do much to put the fire out. A couple people were trying to get it out and someone went to get some water. Luckily the neighbors weren't there and there really wasn't any damage to the house. A couple min later another fountain shot something in the air that didn't go high enough and ended up having another ball of fire land on the car in the driveway across the street, it fell off the car and spun out on the ground and garage door. Another narrowly missed catastrophe.

As much as I enjoyed the trip it was definitely good to get home and get back to the daily grind. On the trip to Houston 4 of the 5 of us got sick and since we were so busy the whole trip it was hard to get over the cold and it was nice to get home with a day to rest before going back to work. But I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know my in-laws better and to see some new places.

Slacker

I have been trying to update my blog and put in my Christmas vacation adventures but have been slacking big time. This weekend is going to be a lazy stay at home weekend cause Havoc was neutered and we need to keep him from making his incision worse for the next couple of days, so hopefully I can find some time to import some pictures and do my vacation blog. But this morning I took puppy in for his snipping and I picked him up about 2 today. He is doing pretty good now that we got more pain pills in him. Around 5 today he was shaking and whimpering in pain, not to mention the trauma that comes from wearing the lamp shade. I felt so bad and helpless cause he was hurting and I couldn't do anything for him until the pain pill kicked in. Once the pill hit he knocked out and slept in my arms for a little bit. Now he is bored and running around, knocking into everything with his lamp shade. He is learning that he can't chew in his rawhide because he can't get his feet up to his mouth to hold it. The hardest part is keeping him from jumping on and off the bed (his latest trick he learned) and tearing open his incision. Not that many of you care but that is what I am dealing with this weekend.

The incision picture doesn't do justice, its pretty gnarly.

Family Room

I showed you my living room on my last post and now I will show you my family room. I think this is one of my favorite rooms in the house. I love the color on the walls and the way the white of the fireplace and crown molding sets it off. This is the color we were going for with the living room, however I like the color for the living room as well. The walls in this room weren't as disgusting as the walls upstairs, thank heavens, but the carpet was nasty. In the pictures you can even see where all the furniture was in the room, its the clean part of the carpet. I just wish the pictures did justice of the grossness of the carpet, especially on the stairs. The stairs were so gnarly that if they weren't stapled down I am sure the carpet would have been able to walk away on its own. However, on the bright spot, knowing the carpet was going to be replaced made painting a whole lot easier, especially since a big cup of paint was spilled in the middle of the hall. Hopefully this week we will have the kitchen finished, or as finished as it will be for a while, eventually it will need some new cabinets. The ones in there are very outdated, not very functional and they waste about 6 inches all around the top and one day we will re tile it. But for now, paint and some spackle will suffice.

We haven't gotten our TV or all of our furniture set up yet but the painting is done, except for the laundry room. The white wall just past the doorway you can see will eventually be brown but at this point we are a little burned out on major painting jobs so hopefully we will get it done after taking a bit of a break.

Bupata Buhhhhh

I am more than excited, my house is getting to be near completion. The big capstone happened on Tuesday the 1st when we got our new carpet installed. Honestly, it was one of the happiest days of my life. The carpet that was in before was pretty nasty, I couldn't bring myself to walk on it barefoot. There were stains all over the living room, upstairs hall, stairs, family room and downstairs hall and not knowing what caused stains of that magnitude was beyond gross for me. I did recognize one stain in the hall upstairs, it was a black little kids hand print (no, the kid was not black, the stain was black). We ordered the carpet 3 weeks ago and to finally have it in is such a relief.

To save money we decided to rip up the old carpet ourselves. The guy at Home Depot said he ripped up the carpet in his living room and it took him about 20 min and we knew our removal was much larger so would take more time, we were thinking around an hour to an hour and a half. As with most things in our house the project ended up taking up much more time, six and a half hours longer than we thought. No one told us the pain in the rear that removing the tack strips would be. The carpet and padding removal itself did take about 30 min all, and the rest was us hunched over prying the tack strips and staples out of the floor. The worst was the ones on the stairs, my hands got very banged up and I don't think they will ever be the same again. The first night we worked from 5:30 to about midnight and had to get up again at 4:45 the next morning to make sure it was done by 8, when the carpet people were supposed to get there. I have learned a very valuable lesson: sometimes its better to pay people to do certain projects and not save the money.

The carpet people were supposed to be there between 8 and 10 am on Tuesday and they showed up at 9:58, talk about cutting it close. Then the real hell began. Because they were doing the major rooms in the house I really couldn't do much without getting in their way so most of the day puppy and I hung out in my room with nothing but the TV. We did make it outside to potty and run around a few times. Then to top things off they had to crank the heat up to near 90 degrees to soften the carpet and make it stretchable. One of the times I took the puppy outside I noticed they had opened the garage, without asking anything, and took it upon themselves to rearrange my garage. I can understand that it would make it easier to get the carpet in but they moved my brand new couches off the old carpet and onto my nasty garage floor and tipped one couch on its side on top of a pile of old tack strips. Then they moved my puppy's pee pads and (he doesn't have the best of aim yet and occasionally misses the pad and hit the ground) was stepping in some pee. I was pissed, I tried to tell the one guy he was stepping in pee and tracking it into my house, he gave me a blank stare and proceeded to walk into my house, onto my new carpet. I had moved one of the couches back onto the carpet and they pushed it off again. I don't think it came out very nice when I explained to them that they were brand new couches and the garage floor was disgusting and black and that's why it was on the carpet. Then I noticed the couch laying on the tack strips. I don't think I was very nice at this point but they moved everything back and left them alone.

By the time Ross got home they had finished with the upstairs and we quickly moved our furniture in and set up our living room. Its so nice to be able to use that space and to have a nice place when people stop by. We still have a few touch ups to do and need to finish the crown molding but I am very happy with how it looks. We just have the kitchen to finish up and we will be done for a little while. The more we do the more it feels like home and the more I like it.

I didn't notice the placing of the vacuum when this picture was taken, there is a big hole in the wall behind the vacuum. Too bad you can't see the bloody boogers in the pictures, it makes it harder to appreciate the end product :)

When we pulled the carpet up in the living room there was some nasty stains on the wood. It makes me glad we went with the padding that doesn't let anything through it either direction.

In this picture you can see that we haven't finished the crown molding totally and we do have some touch ups, that you can't see, to make. When they laid the carpet it scraped some of the paint off. So in the process of working on the house Ross has learned to cut corners for (not the cheating kind of cutting corners) the base boards and crown molding and I must say it looks really good, again, hard to see in the pictures. I think he missed his calling in life, the corners he did look very professional. I also learned how to patch holes in the wall. There was a big hole to the right of the electric outlet on this wall and I am pretty proud of my patch job.

It is so nice to have this room almost finished. Its much nicer when people stop by to have a presentable room and to have a place for them to sit. For us its such a big change that sometimes when I walk down the hall I have to stop and just stare. We got the family room almost done as well, so I will hopefully post those photos soon.