Random Thoughts about Books vs. Movies

So for all you you book reading people (and I'm talking as if anyone still reads this old blog of mine) You know that complete annoyance you feel when you go see a movie that was adapted from one of your favorite books? The annoyance that no matter how hard you try, you just can't get over the fact that the book was so much better. The annoyance that, for instance, in the 6th HP movie they add whole scenes in that NEVER happen, like the fire at the Weasleys house!! Scenes that wastes a good 5 minutes, but they leave out parts (that were actually in the book) that you feel were important to the story line!!!

Well, since I am a bit of a reader (ha ha ha) I feel this annoyance a lot. It's one of the reasons that I've not read Eat Pray Love, because I feel like I should see the movie first just so I'm not let down when I leave the theater. Josh however, has never felt this. He doesn't understand my ranting after having watched all the Harry Potter movies. He sits and pretends to listen but he just doesn't get it. Well, that is until today!!

Josh isn't a reader, he can read, he just doesn't like to. Well, today he went and saw 127 hours. The movie that was based on the true story of Aaron Ralston, the hiker that was trapped with his had pinned between a rock and the wall of a slot canyon. It was the 2nd book I ever saw Josh read. He actually really liked reading it. Today, FINALLY he understood my annoyance!

When he came out of the theater (Keegs and I saw Tangled, very cute BTW) I asked him how it was and he just kind of shrugged. He said it was alright. When I asked him if we will own it, (our way of rating movies) he said yes but only because we have the book too. Once we were at lunch and were talking about it, he was telling me that he was annoyed that they added parts in that never happened. (Uh, hello, I've been saying this for years!!) He also wondered, and was annoyed, by the fact that they left out some of his favorite parts of the book. (Again, a common annoyance for me)

So as I sit here bored tonight, I'm a little happy on the inside that HE FINALLY GETS IT!!

Spoiled???

Spoiled?? Here is our sweet doggy sleeping on Josh's fresh pillow. Looks comfy right? He must like the smell of the fabric softener

Funny little story

We were in the car today when I hear Keegan in the back seat say

"I have some rules for the next time we spend the night in a hotel."

I said "rules, you have rules for us?"

He says
"Yes,
Rule #1 stay in your room.
Rule #2 if you are thinking of having a party in your hotel room, don't do it! and
Rule #3 if there is a bug in your room, you squish it with a book."

When I asked him where he heard all of this he told me "Koda" (our dog)

So really, where does he come up with this stuff?

Favorites

I've done this before but I'm going to do it again just to see what I get. I'm going to interview Keegan.

1. What's your favorite animal? "Hmm, I don't know.....maybe the tiger

2. What's your favorite color? "Red! Red cars, red chairs, red suits"

3. What's your favorite show on TV? "Scooby Doo"

4. What's your favorite toy? "My dragon, he's right there and my Bakugon"

5. What's your favorite book? "One with Llama's"

6. What's your fav thing about ABQ? "Hmmm, I like all of it"

7. Favorite thing to eat? "cheese sandwich"

8. Favorite Restaurant "McDonalds"

9. Favorite Movie "Ice Age and Dinosaur and Tom and Jerry and
Scooby Doo. Those are my favorite movies"

10.Favorite game "I spy with my big blue eyes"


So there you go, a small interview with Keegan

Holy Toads!!

The other night we were leaving the house for an after dark trip to the store. Keegan was out the door first, I'm not too far behind and I hear him say. "Daddy look a frog" right out our front door.

Just hanging out, was this baseball sized toad.

He was a fatty.
After getting home I googled "Toads of NM" and found out that they are all poisonous to animals. If I had to guess, this is a Woodhouse Toad. So, now I have to watch out for toads, who knew. We didn't see any last year.

Aliens, Aliens and more Aliens

So we made it to alientown. When you first drive into town you start seeing aliens on buildings, fences, holding the welcome sign to hotels. Standing out in front of the KFC.


The front of the Wal-mart is decorated with aliens and spaceships.

They even have paintings of aliens buying groceries. Apparently they like watermelons and McDonalds.

The little house that was rented for us has a fenced in backyard. Keegan decided tonight that he needed to run through the sprinkler.

He wanted the water on really high, as it was it was hitting the house on one side and the fence on the other. Along with the little house is a little yard. But we aren't complaing, Koda loves it as long as he isn't in the sprinkler.

My skinny boy playing in the water.

Here is our 50's retro kitchen. It is small!! The counters are white with gold flecks in it. The sad thing is that it took me over 3 hours to realize there is NO DISHWASHER!! And I know that my in-laws survived a little while without one, but they also used a lot of paper plates and plastic utensils.

Here is a view of the dining room and then living room from the kitchen. It is not huge by anymeans but is clean and works just fine. If you see the TV, just before it on the right is the hallway to the bedrooms. Ours is fairly small, but functional, other than we have no place to put the dog bed. Keegans room is just about the same size and has 2 twin beds in it and has enough room for the dog. So it all works out fine.

So there you have it. Our little place in Roswell. Oh and other than the washer and dryer in the garage, I can't really complain.

So be prepared for a post with as many aliens in it as I can photograph.

A Little Bit of This.....A Little Bit of That

No news so far on where we are headed but, we have kept busy.

We spend a lot of time over at "Pa's" house. Keegan loves all the puzzles they have.

We have been lucky that we are able to spend a lot of fun time with friends. This is Keegan at Liberty Park on one of the little rides.

Here is Audrey.

We have been fishing on the Provo river. I have a picture of Keegan sitting on this exact log every year for the past 3years.




Daddy let Keegan reel in his fish. And boy was it a "Whopper" according to Keegan

Here we are at the playground by Audreys house. I'm so glad those 2 play together so well.

We have had some really nice weather, we decided to take advantage of it by going to Tanner Park. It's an off leash park at the mouth of Parley's canyon. Koda loves it.

Keegan thought we were hiking, he managed to hike the whole way without complaining.

This is Keegan's new favorite thing to do. He loves the Razor scooter. Which makes me soooo glad that just 6 months ago for Christmas I bought him a 3 wheeled scooter because I just didn't think he could handle a Razor scooter.

We have spent some time over at Josh's grandparents. Or Grandma and Grandpa Cowball to Keegan. (they have a Texas Longhorns football) Here are all 3 of the Viehweg Great Grandchildren.

Keegan, Austin, and Jason

While we have spent A LOT of time over at the Viehweg's, it hasn't always been peaceful. They are remodeling the kitchen and some days it got EXTREMELY LOUD!!! This was the day(s) they took out the old tile floor. The tile floor that DID NOT want to come up.

It got so loud we had to put on ear protection. It just wasn't fun playing Wii while it sounded like the house was being torn apart.

Keegan with his ear protection.

There was even work that Keegan could do. He was a great wallpaper peeler. He worked at it for over an hour.

After all the demo and wallpaper removal. Jon, Josh, Paul and I have been painting, painting, painting and then doing the tile on the floor. It has actually been fun. So here is what we have been working on. After 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint it is finally done.

Then on to the tile. This pattern looks really neat once it was finished but it took me following a "map" and the boys placing tile where I told them to get it done. There may have been a bit of confusion and prying up of tile at one point cause I got lost in my "map". In the end it turned out alright, at least I think.

So that is what we have been up to. Hopefully next time I have some more exciting news to post.

Pictures

Not much really to update about. We go to the gym every morning. Keegan thinks we are taking him to a really fun place to play, he doesn't really get the fact that it is a daycare. After the gym Keegan goes and plays with my BFF's son Evan (Keegans new BFF) They ride bikes, run around, make a mess in Lisa's basement. Basically they keep each other busy enough that Lisa and I don't have to entertain them much.

Swimming lessons should start up again this week. So far he has loved them . One of the best parts for him is that Evan is in his class.

The flowers have started blooming, now that it is FINALLY warming up.

This year for easter we actually dyed eggs instead of doing the plastic ones. They came with stickers and Keegan was determined to use every single one.



Still stickering
The egg dyeing kit we found had lots of colors

We have gotten to see our friends a lot this trip. Keegan really loves playing with Audrey. Here they are at Chuck E Cheese

This was one day at the park.

This is out of order but we have also spent a lot of time with a cold. Here is Keegan in the middle of the day, he fell asleep while waiting for "Pa" who was only 2 minutes away.
Back to the park with Audrey.

And this would be a really cute picture if Keegan was smiling normally.

Here is the little jammer "speedo" that I just couldn't resist getting. He wears it under his trunks that are way too big in the waist.

And this is my mom's naughty dog that I caught sleeping in her chair. After I got him out of the chair 5 minutes later he got right back in while I was looking at him. So it seems that I didn't catch him doing anything, he is just that brazen.

So that is a short summary of what we have been up to. Of course there is the usually stuff too, like the grocery store, Josh playing video games, me sewing. Reading to the little loud boy in our house. Tomorrow we are going fly fishing, wish us luck.

Goodbye Vancouver....Hello Salt Lake

Today we are leaving Vancouver and heading home. We are kind of bummed, we have liked it here a lot, maybe even more than ABQ. And sadly enough, the place we have liked the most we spent the shortest amount of time here. No option for extending and even the other travelers that the hospital did extend had their contracts canceled. So since I am on a list kick I will list what we are going to miss the most.

1. Tillamook Cheese being cheep. Here, it is cheaper than any store brand out there. Soon we will be back where I can only dream about buying it.
2. The trees, it is so pretty here.
3. The weather, I really can't complain. It was never really cold and I actually like the rain a lot.

4. The park just across the street. It was so nice to be able to take Keegan to the park anytime it wasn't raining.
5. The fun things to do here, the zoo is gorgeous, Multnomah Falls, the beach was close enough to do in for a day trip.

Anyway, we will be hitting the road later today, wish us luck.

A Couple of Keegan Funnies

So the things that come out of this kids mouth are usually sweet and nice, but sometimes it is just down right loud. Then there are the times that he just keeps me laughing.

The other day he was wearing a pair of pants that are just too big in the waist. I have to roll the waistband just to keep them up. So at one point I noticed his pants were falling down and I told him "your drawers are falling down" he looked at me and replied "What?!? my drawers" he then turned and ran up the stairs to go push in his dresser drawers.

First thing this morning he asked me how old I was. I told him and he looked right at me and said "Wow, that's a lot"

It's kind of funny how he just says exactly what he is thinking even if I didn't want to be reminded of how old I was.

We'll just have to see what he comes up with tomorrow.

And 9 years later...

So 9 years ago I started a project. I was all jazzed and got half of it done right away. Then, life got in the way and this little project got packed away in a rubbermaid container. I brought it out again 3 years ago, only to do part of it wrong. Totally discouraged, I put it away again. But as we were packing our stuff for Vancouver, I decided I was determined to get this blasted thing finished.

FINALLY

done with the hard part

All that is left is to put the borders on and then find someone to do the quilting. There is no way I'm going to try to do that myself. There are computerized machines for just that purpose. I would go NUTS.

Costco

Nothing really new to report. I can say say that we have visited all of the area Costco's the one here in Vancouver and the 2 on the Oregon side. The one in Clackamas was fun only for the fact that Clackamas is fun to say. Ha ha ha Oh and the ones on the Oregon side don't have sales tax. Like I said a thrilling week. Hopefully next time I will have something more exciting to tell you all.

** Just looked it up, there are 2 more that I can visit.

Our Funny Dog

So our dog is a great dog. We love him and can't believe that someone would actually send him away. Oh well, thier loss is our gain. However, he is sometimes a bit strange. Koda loves to sleep with our shoes, he never chews on them just sleeps with them. It is well know here, and at any house we take him to, Mimi's, The Viehweg's, or my Mom's. If you can't find a shoe, or the pair for that matter, check Koda's bed. Sometimes he tries to be sneaky, and thinks you can't see him and takes them when you are right there. But, like I said he never hurts them so we don't really care.

Well, tonight, he topped that. I had taken Josh to work today, so this evening I had to go pick him up. When we go home Josh was very excited to turn on the TV and start watching a show we thought we had missed the first part of. Well, where is the remote???? We could not find it anywhere, not it the blankets on the couch, not behind the couch, not inthe cushions. It was gone. I was almost postive that when Keegs and I left, I had put it on the arm of the couch. But nope, not there. So just out of curiosity I went up to our room. And guess where the remote was.....On Koda's bed with my shoe. What does a dog need a remote for???? He had not done anything to it, not a single tooth mark, a little wet yes, but not harmed at all.

Not sure if this if funnier than the time we left him at Josh's parents house where he got up on the counter and ate 2 loaves of bread, but not before leaving a few pieces under the pillow on the couch for Paul to find later. Paul went to lay down on the couch to take a little snooze and put his hand under the pillow only to find 3 or 4 pieces of bread that Koda was saving for later.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been busy around here. We got to Utah and immediately started building a room for Keegan at my mom's house. It turned out really cute and we just have a couple finishing touches and then we will be done in time to move away again.

While here we got to do our annual pumpkin carving with Jacey and Jon.

This is Jacey's

Mine

Jon's

Josh's

Keegan had fun watching and even dared to scoop out some guts. Last year he wouldn't even touch them so this year was a big step, maybe next year he will do his own. Ididn't get any pictures of Keegan in his costume. He never really wanted to wear the whole thing. We went trick-or-treating and at everyhouse he lost a piece of his costume. By the end I was holding all of it.

After Halloween, we finished Keegan room enough that we could move in. The part I was dreading was the moving of all of our crap! We had been moving boxes with each trip over to my moms and then it was just the big stuff left.

So this pic is just because I kind of ''forget" what the Wasatch Mountains look like when we are away. LOVE THEM.

So now we have under 2 weeks left in Salt Lake and then it is off to Vancouver, WA. We are really excited and can't wait to go see somewhere new. Now, if Josh's company would just tell us where we are going to be living I would feel soooo much better.

Plans change so quickly around here!!

Since before we left ABQ we decided we would take the rest of the year off and make sure we were home for the holidays. WRONG!!! This morning I was woken up by Josh's phone ringing, in the back of my mind I already knew who it was. Even though there is no reason Josh's recruiter should be calling, he was. He was calling to let Josh know that there were new openings in Vancouver Washington, right across the river from Portland. He knew that Josh wanted some time off but also knows that Josh loves Washington. So after some talking we decided it would be alright for him to send Josh's info up to the hospital up there. If some of you remember any of our other travels we have NEVER ended up going to the 1st place that has come available, so while we were torn we didn't think that there was anyway that they would call. So less than an hour later his phone rings again, with an out of state area code. Guess who it is..... the stinking hospital in Washington. So now after hearing all about it, it sounds like a great area and a great hospital. Guess where his boss was born and raised.....Albuquerque. So needless to say, Josh said yes. He starts on November 18th. So no holidays here in UT but we get to go off and explore somewhere new!!

Vancouver here we come...in 3 weeks.

Busy Busy Busy

We have since left ABQ and made it safely back to Salt Lake, with a minor detour in St. George to deliver some chilies. Since being back we have started building a room at my mom's house for Keegs since we will be staying with her instead of my sis. So far things are going well. After MANY trips to Home Depot (3 yesterday) We have framed, electrified, insulated and done 1/2 the sheet rock. ( we would have had it all done but a fishing trip today was a MUST DO. ) Most of you know my husband well enough to know this kind of stuff is not his forte' Thanks to his Dad's help we are both learning a lot.


I was going to post some pictures but the computer is freaking out and wouldn't let me, maybe another day.

It's Time to Say Adios to Albuquerque

I'm actually quite sad that we are leaving. We have really enjoyed our time here. As usual it wasn't our first choice and we didn't know what to expect. In my mind I was expecting a cross between Tucson and the Wild Wild West. We got here plesantly surprised to see NO cacti and NO cockroaches. And that there are the same kind of trees we have in Utah. We also learned that the weather here is quite like Salt Lake.

Unlike the last 2 places we have gone, I have always had something to complain about. Here....I have tried REALLY hard to come up with something just to even things out and the best I can do is....the parking spaces are narrower than other states , and the library system kind of sucks. Or maybe the food is WAY WAY too YUMMY!!!!

Here are some of the things we are really going to miss

1. The food. There is something slightly different about mexican food here. They call it New Mexican.

2. Waking up to Hot air balloons out my window almost every morning.

3. The Balloon Fiesta!!!! Still the coolest thing I have EVER EVER EVER seen. Everyone should see it atleast once in their lives.

4. The roasted green chilies on EVERYTHING. I love them!!! Maybe that is why I am bringing almost 50 lbs of frozen chilies back to UT.

5. The fun things to do...zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens, tram

6.My apartments bathtub. To some of you this may sound strange and to others you know my obsession.

7. Did I mention the food??


So in 13.5 hours we will be leaving one of the funnest places we have been so far.

But the good news is, that if after the holidays no other hospital calls Josh to work for them, The Heart Hospital in Albuquerque told him that he could come back!!! Yay Yay Yay

Just needed somthing new

Nothing too exciting to report, still in ABQ and waiting to come home to UT for the winter. So since I hadn't posted anything new in a while I thought I would post these. I mean, who doesn't like clean kids and bubble baths?

I'm sure going to miss this tub. It is so big, especially for an apartment bathroom.

Our Hike to....Well Nowhere

Well the other day we decided to go hiking. Josh had heard about a place from people at work and it sounded like a lot of fun. Waterfalls with pools to swim in, thermally heated pools to swim in as well. Sounds fun right. Since we are not from the area I made sure to look it up online and find out as much as I could. I found out where we had to drive to and what picnic ground to park in and that there were many trails so even if some proved to be too long for Keegan there were still options.

After looking online we decided on one that said it was .2 miles (yes 2 tenths of a mile) sounds perfect right, short hike and you get to a couple of places to swim. Well we get up the canyon and find the ranger station. It says that it is 2 miles not 2 tenths of a mile. Way too long for the little man, especially since he still demands on being carried to the car when we leave a grocery store. Knowing that I read about other places to hike to right at that same spot we still head up. We get to the map at the trail head and sure enough, the pools are way too far for K. So instead we decide to go to the waterfall that looks to be just about 1 mile in.

So we set out. Keegan with his hiking stick that he made with Grandma Sue

He was a real trooper, never asked to be carried just kept going.
After we had been hiking for a little while Keegan decided he needed lunch. So he and I stopped and ate. Josh ran ahead to see where the turnoff for the water fall was. We had to be close but Keegan was sure he would starve if we didn't stop. So here is the view from where we ate lunch.

His hiking stick is equiped with a feather and a bell to scare bears. He now thinks that bears are everywhere. Including our shower and closets. Don't worry though, he scares them away before they can do any damage.

After waiting for Josh for what seemed like forever, we were losing our shade so we moved about 50 feet up the trail to a much shadier spot. The whole while wondering what kind of boy scout leaves his group. Apparently our move made us hidden from Josh's view cause somehow he couldn't see us. So this was our view from our new "hidden" rock. After waiting for an hour we decided to go back down the trail and see if he was somehow down there.

Sure enough after playing in the water for a minute Josh came back up the trail to find us coming down. After a minute of minor disagreeing we discovered that he never found the turnoff anyway. So our hike to a waterfall turned into a hike to nowhere really. We all had a good time anyway, Keegan turned out to be quite the little hiker. Maybe we will try again and who knows maybe we will actually find that waterfall.

Oh and after coming home I got back on-line and found that many people have complained that the trails are poorly marked and that there are many trails that just end up looping you back around. Glad I found that out after we made one of those loops.

In Just 2 More Sleeps

We will be looking at this!!

Yay!! As Keegan went to bed tonight he told me that in just "2 more sleeps and 1 nap and then we will go to Utah."

Can't wait to see this view from my sisters house.

See you all soon.