RIVERDANCE!

Well, I finally did it!!!  I bought a ticket and I am going to be going to a Riverdance performance in April.  For those of you who do not know, I love Riverdance.  I have been wanting to go to a performance for years (nearly ten years) but for some reason it has never worked out for me.  I almost went last year but out of the blue the performance dates got changed to a week when I would be in school in Idaho.  I was sooooo upset.  A couple weeks ago I randomly found out that Riverdance was going to be in Indiana in 2009, so I checked the dates and it turns out that it will be there between my winter and summer semesters so I am going to fly myself home and go to it with my dad! (my mom didn't want to go)  Its going to be in South Bend Indiana.  Kind of a long drive to get there but it will be totally worth it!

Besides that, I am finally done with this past semester.  Now I just need to start studying for the GRE.  I am going to be taking it when I am home over Christmas... Not looking forward to that...

Ostrich Hides

When I was in Colorado I was talking with Laurie about some of the things I have made out of the ostrich hides and how I am going to try to make Lynny a purse for Christmas so I thought I would put some pictures up for you guys to see them.  I'm not sure who has seen these or not...
 
 

This is the scripture case that I made for TJ before he left for his mission.  It has some stains on it from when they were in their accident after their wedding so it doesn't look all that great right now.
 

This is a little book cover that I made.

I also tried making some slippers a few years back but that was a huge disaster.  I stopped after one.  I would put a picture of that on here but it is back in Indiana.  I REALLY hope this purse for Lynny will turn out.  Knock on wood for me!

Rafting Pics

These are before we hit the river

This is the boat I was in for the trip

My friend Tyler and the type of boat he was in

Self picture and an example of how you went to the bathroom...

Some of the rapid we did.  They don't look as bad in the pictures

If you can look hard enough you can see me in my little blue boat going through these rapids

After the take-out

Before and After

So I have always wanted to grow my beard out for a month just to see what it would look like.  I actually was a little shy of a month when I ended up cutting it (I cut it for a job interview that I don't think I'll be getting...)  I thought I would post the before and after pictures for yall to see.

I actually liked the way it looked on me!  What do you guys think?  Its actually kind of hard to see it in the picture.  I already know moms answer =)

I also decided to just chop it all off, hair on the head, hair on the face...

When I get a chance I will also post pictures from the colorado trip and from my rafting trip...

New Car

So it is true.  I got a new car.  I guess mom and dad have wanted me to have a newer car with less miles on it (my blazer has over 204000 miles) because of all of the driving that I do.  Personally I think my blazer still has a lot of life in it.  But I guess in the long run it does make sense.  It was heart breaking to get a new one because I love the blazer (although I do like the Jeep as well =)  And SOME of you have question how I am able to get a new car with my financial struggles over the past few months...  Mom and Dad are helping me with the finances.  It is just going to take me a very long time to pay it off =)  Dad actually scouted out this Jeep when I was visiting Katy.  Its a manual, so that will be nice!  Remind me of the days with the little red mazda.

I am actually having TJ and Julia drive the blazer back out to school and I will probably try to sell it there.  If it doesn't sell I might give it to TJ and Julia, but Julia didn't seem to excited about that.  If any of you girls want it let me know!  Lynny, if you really want it maybe we can figure out somehow to get it back to you!  We just needed to take it back to school to get all of my junk there...

Just a picture of my dog!

The Near Death of My Dog...

So TJ and Julia and Pam are here right now and last night we were in the family room watching a DVD.  We were all sitting on the chairs and couch and my dog was sitting in her bed right in front of the fireplace.  About 40 minutes into the DVD we hear a crash and we all look up to see that the big clock above the fireplace had fallen on to the ledge right bellow it.  Then in like slow motion the clock started to tip forward and sure enough it went crashing down to the ground.  It seriously landed right next to my dogs bed even hitting part of her padding.  It was the loudest noise ever and of course scared the living daylights out of Jali.  I have never felt her heart beat so fast.  It was one of the scariest moment of my life.  I could just see the clock falling on top of Jali, luckily it didn't but still.  So the moral to this story is, always hang your clocks with nails and dont use those sticky tack hanger tag things...

Update

Alrighty, well its been a while since I last posted something and I'm sure everyone has heard most of this. I ended up surviving my white water rafting trip in Oregon. It was a lot of fun and pretty dang scary at times. I forgot my camera in my friends truck so currently I don't have any pictures of that adventure to show you. I rafted down the river in an inflatable kayak (not as sketchy as it sounds). It was really fun but since it was a smaller boat I would "feel" the rapids a lot more compared to my friend who was in a much bigger boat. After the first day I think I must have gotten a severe case of sun poisoning because I got pretty sick. I woke up the next day and my throat felt swollen shut, I was congested, and my body ached. I tried powering through it and ended up rafting for about 4 hours. We then took a break and my friends dad said I could jump in the supply raft with him to take a break. I ended up taking him up on the offer.
This perhaps might have been my wisest decision ever. Not much longer after I got in his raft we ended up hitting the most ferocious part of the river. It was down a narrow canyon and the rapids were pretty crazy. The raft that I was ridding in kept bouncing off the rock walls that all around us. The whole time I was rafting in my kayak I was never bucked out into the water, although I came close, but if I was kayaking down that stretch of river I'm pretty sure it would have done me in. I actually kind of wish I had got to try it just to see what would have happened! All in all it was a blast and hopefully I get the pictures sent to me and that they turned out so I can post some on here.

After the rafting I went back to Katy and Clays for a few more days. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and seeing Jack walking for the first time! He's a very cute/busy little guy =) Now since it has taken me so long to post anything on here Katy actually beat me to putting the good pictures from the trip on her blog but I'll probably repost some of them and describe them differently.

So I was trying to teach Jack how to chase the birds in their back yard.  He was having a blast running full speed at them but of course his full speed isn't extremely fast as of yet so I put him on my shoulders so he could go a little faster and get closer to the birds before they took off!  You can kind of see it in the picture but he didn't really 'hold on' with his hands.  He would actually rub his hands in circles through my hair.  I thought that was pretty funny.

Here we were swimming and again you can kind of see it but he had his little cheek pressed firmly next to my head and he was talking like crazy into my ear the whole time.  Of course I couldn't really interpret what he was saying but I imagined different things in my head that seemed to fit with the speed and tone to what he was saying.  Some things like "Oh boy lets not go to fast now" "be careful going around that corner, I don't want to slip off your back into the water"  Then sometimes it did sound like "faster faster faster!" 

A good picture of the Warrens

I liked this one with my sister

Broken Heart in North Dakota

Well, I am currently sitting in the library waiting to find out if I qualify for the loan I just applied for from the bank. Things changed at work and I am suppose to leave today instead of tomorrow...but I don't currently have the money to pay for gas. (I'm still waiting for a check to clear at midnight tonight) Anyways, I thought I would do another post in the mean time.

Yesterday as I was driving back to the park after work I past some 'roadkill' and it looked interesting so I backed up to see what it was. (I was on a country road so backing up was ok) It turned out to be a Coyote pup and he was still alive. He looked so sad and in pain. He was just laying there breathing really hard. I tried calling dad and mom with no answer then tried Lynny's where she reminded me that they were in church. Dad eventually got back to me and talk to me about him. I wanted to pick him up and try to find a vet to take him to or something but I was afraid to move him and make things worse. I tried describing his injuries to dad and he said it didn't sound like he was going to make it and that the vet would probably just put him down anyways. I also have no money (as mentioned earlier) to pay for the vet bill. Dad reminded me that that would happen. I didn't even think about the fact I would have to pay. So he suggested that I move him off the road and find some shade for him. I very gently did so but unfortunately there was absolutely no shade for the little fellow. Luckily it was pretty over cast so it wasn't to hot. He didn't have much strength, obviously, he was hit by a car, but he did move around a very little bit. It was so sad. I probably spent 30-45 minutes with him before I ended up leaving him. I really wish he had passed away when I was there with him but instead I have no idea how long he laid there suffering. For any of you who might not be a gun lover, this would have been a perfect time to have had my .22 on me to help put him out of his misery, but unfortunately I didn't. The whole situation just broke my heart. I ended up naming him Boris!

Don't worry, the fluid mark in the dirt by his head is not body fluid. I tried pouring a little water by his snout to see if he would react to it and then to get him to drink. He didn't even flinch =(

Disaster?? I guess not!

Just a quick update. I just got back from the Verizon store to see if they could fix my phone. I told the guy that my phone had gotten wet (not how it got wet =) and he opened it up to look at it. He said that the water indicator sticker didn't change colors at all and that it looked like it should be working. He then took it apart and said everything looked fine and wasn't sure why it was messing up. He then called it in to have them send me a new phone under warranty!! When he was on the phone with the people he found out that they were out of the phone that I have (the Razor) so they were going to send me a brand new phone. The guy was all excited for me because he said it was a much better phone and he has never had someone bring it back in with problems. That made me very happy because previous to falling in the river with it I was having a lot of trouble with that phone. So I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes it is a good thing to fall into a river =)

Disaster...

Alrighty, so lately I have been working on my own project looking for signs of river otters on some of the rivers up here. By doing this I am walking on all four sides of the bridges that cross my specific river that I am working on looking for their latrine sites. (they supposedly like to go near bridges and things out of the ordinary...) However, the rivers I have been working on have been very relentless. As you will see in the pictures the vegetation is VERY thick and hard to walk through and there are a lot of steep cliffs. I have been walking on the edges of these cliffs because the latrine sites are typically right there on the edges. But since the vegetation has been so thick I haven't been able to see where exactly I am stepping. There have been countless times when I blindly would step and then fall into some random hole and almost break my leg or almost fall off of the cliffs or into the river. It just so happens that the other day I was walking on the grass by the river (the vegetation wasn't bad at all there) and one spot of grass I stepped on didn't have any earth beneath it, instead it was water. Yes, I fell into the river. The crazy part is that the river was probably ankle deep all over EXCEPT for the one spot I fall into. I found the one deep hole in the river. It went up mid chest on me. Ahhh. And I previously had decided to carry my phone with me incase I did fall into a hole or something and break my leg so I could try to call for help. Well, it turned out that I couldn't call for 'help' because my phone is now practically broken. What a disaster....

The picture of the cliff I'm guessing is 15-20 feet even though it doesn't look like it.
The picture of the vegetation is actually over my head there.

And yes, the farmers tan. The same day I fell in the river I was driving the 4-wheeler ALL day and totally forgot to put suntan lotion on. I was already pretty dark from the summer but this made it a little worse =)

My Western Hat

Alrighty, well to explain this post.... I have wanted a 'cowboy hat' for years and since I am up here in North Dakota I thought that this would be a pretty good area to buy one. Sure enough the mall had a western store so I went in and talked to some guy about them (I wore him out with questions) and ended up buying one. It feels really weird and I'm not so sure how it looks so I need my sisters or whoever to give me your HONEST opinion. I know mom will be honest with me about it! My feelings wont be hurt. I figure if all else fails then I'll have a nice hat for decoration!

One of the pictures is of me holding "pepperweed" another is of a cool cloud.

Take 3.5

And here are a few of me hard at work =)

Take 3.4

A couple more that I liked of the fishers. One has 2 fishers in the picture which is a little unusual to see. We think they must be juveniles.

Take 3.3

And some more...