BBQ and a bruisin'

mark and I decided we would try to have a really awesome Memorial Day. So we bought a bunch of burgers, brats, hot dogs and ribs and grilled them for some of our friends! It was the best Memorial Day I have ever had!! There was tons of food, and we played games. It was all around a pretty awesome day! It did almost rain us out, but the rain held off until after we were done eating, so we got to enjoy being outside! Up top we have a picture of the food (mmhmm!) then we have Ryker blowing bubbles (yes those are Angie's sexy legs!!) and then we have Lauren with a cute cheesy smile!
Anyways, so today, I was checking out the garden (it seriously has been raining for the past 3 days straight) and I decided to run back to the house. We have a puppy, he likes to play chase, so yeah, I ran. Well, the sidewalk turns to the left, Bandit was on my left, he went straight, I made the turn, and we collided! (see Map below) And seeing how I am bigger than he is (Yes, I really am!!) I survived without a scratch, and Bandit got the injury. He has a scrape above his right eye, and Mark described it as scraped knee, like when you fall off your bike. But on Bandit it looks so much worse, cuz of all his hair that is missing. (See above picture) Plus he has the sad eyes anyways, so sad eyes + big scrape = I feel awful!! He hollered so bad at first that I thought I rolled over and broke his leg! He wasn't limping, he was just crouching down to the ground and howling! It looks pretty bad, but he's still jumping around, playing, gnawing on ya, he's till playful. I just feel so bad every time I look at him now.... I was cooking dinner (and he has a this cute habit of just wanting to sit in the room with you and watch you) and so he was just sitting there, watching me, like my own personal poltergeist. We're hoping he looks a little better before we take him the vet for his next shots on Saturday... please.... But he's still cute and he still chases me and follows me everywhere. :)



Lots of love, bry & mark

Yet more weekend adverntures....not so awesome

Wow. All I can say is that we are very glad to be home! We took work off on Friday because our friends Angie and Smitty were getting married! Yayayayay! So we started for Utah after work on Thursday. Friday was an amazing day, long but amazing, and I think everyone would agree. Saturday we hung out with the family and then went to the drive-in. Here is where is starts to get interesting, we brought a couch for Mark's folks to sit on, great idea right? WRONG! Apparently they don't allow couches at the Motor-Vu drive-in, so we had to take it home. Well, we dropped it off behind some Christian school a block away, (it was still there when the movies were done.) and then we drove in again and handed them our debit card. WRONG! Cash only. (Seriously, what year is it?) So we had to leave for the 2nd time, and go get cash. SO finally we get into the drive-in, find our family, and sit and watch Star Trek (pretty awesome, by the way.) and that was the end of our Saturday. Ahh, and now we come to Sunday, the start of the new week, a great day to talk with family. Well, I have been bugging Mark to bring his Toyota Land Cruiser home to Colorado, and he said once it got warm out (no snow) we'd bring it back with us. So I was all excited when Mark started getting everything ready to take it back with us!! Yayay! I am so excited to ride around in it, and help him fix it up! I even helped him get it out of the back yard, I steered the Cruiser as he pulled it with the gray truck and a tow rope. It's a 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser, it's got the big 38" tires on it, and it is just beautiful!! So we get it on the tow-bar, make sure the brake lights work, and the top and doors are son securely, and we brace the steering wheel and make sure it's in neutral. We start on our way up 84, to hit up I-80 on head home. We're going thru the canyon, and I notice the Cruiser is wobbling a bit, we're going thru some turns and that makes it wobble more. The last thing I said to Mark was "It's wobbling pretty good, should I be worried?" He looked in his mirrors and very calmly said, "Now you should be worried." And I started to scream as we started to fishtail. I didn't watch the Cruiser roll, I think Mark watched as much as he could thru the rear-view mirrors, but I know we missed the cliff on the right side, and there were no other cars around. I remember we took out one .5 mile marker and we stopped on another, and I remember grabbing the puppy as he flopped around the passenger seat. I'm not sure if we spun around full 360, but I think we might have. But once we got to a stop, there were already people stopped, on their cell phones, rushing over to see if we were ok. I asked Mark who I should call, so I calles his dad. His dad and brothers came as fast as they could, and so did a friend of the family. Mark and I are ok, our truck didn't roll, the Land Cruiser actually popped off the hitch, but was still attached by a cable that was our chain. We were 10 feet from the Land Cruiser falling into a rock filled trench, and about 40 feet from being smashed against the rock face. We are very luck the tow-bar popped off the hitch, if it had not, the pick-up would have rolled with the Cruiser. The reason for the rollover? Loose lugnuts. The lugs on the rear right tire were loose, and as we turned, the Cruiser wobbled and pulled on the lugs making it worse. And eventually the rear right tire blew out, and then the rear left tire blew out. In the picture there are only 3 tires on the Cruiser, the 4th one is adjacent to the TAGGART exit sign, pretty much by the yellow curve arrow (>). Yeah it flew that far! (Oh and the dark dirt you see, is a bag of top soil Mark had in the back of the Cruiser.) The top came off of the Cruiser (the doors, and the top were pretty much toast, and so was the wind shield, but the roll cage held like a champ, built by Mark himself. Mark says who needs doors... or tops for that matter.) But in this pic you can see the tire tracks kinda (I didn't want to get in the road) but the tracks start (I think) just to the left of the white Ford Explorer. Mark was taking a balast home (light fixture) so he could put it in the garage. Anyways, so the family showed up and helped out tons, and then to police showed up, stood around a chatted with us and then with each other (for a long time) and then, they just left. They said it looked like we had it taken care of, and Mark didn't damage any state signs or anything, so they were just going to leave, and have a good day. So the family took care of the Cruiser, and Mark and I headed on our way home. Both a little jumpy and very grateful to be alive and not hurt. Well, we got to Rock Springs, I wanted Burger King and Mark wanted some Dew, so we stopped, and at Wal-Mart, I backed the truck up and turned and I heard a pssshhh! coming from the right front tire of the pick-up, but only when I backed up while turning right, not left. So Mark tried to get some rocks out of there and then said once we stop in Rawlins and get gas, he'll look at it. We got about 25 miles out of Rock Springs before the right front tire blew out (Yeah!!) So Mark changed that tire, we had the full size spare, and we finally were on our way, and made it home without any more mishap!! We pulled in around 3 and went to bed and got the pup settled around 3:30 am. Alarm went off at 5:30. Yay for a new day. Anyways, that was our weekend. We are so very grateful to our family and our friends for coming to help us out when we really needed it. Thank you so much. And we feel so very blessed to not be injured and to have made it out of what could have been a very tragic accident without a scratch and able to make it home safely. We are so very grateful for this. Mark and I were discussing the fact that we have luck, it's not always good luck and it's not always bad luck, but when we have luck we have a lot of it! All we can do it look back and see how blessed we have been in our lives. For this we are very grateful! :) And now... bring on Tuesday! Take care all!

Love always, ~ bry and mark

Weekend Adventures!

Saturday was a big day for us all! Mark was helping paint a house on Saturday morning, and the girl created her garden! I bought 3 tomato plants, 2 green pepper plants, and a bunch of seeds (watermelon, cucumbers, spinach, corn, beans, peas, melons, and sunflowers!) But my legs hurt from being crouched down all morning, it hurts to walk and bend and squat!! Ugh! But, we shall see how that all turns out. But here are pictures! Mark even created a fence, to keep the Bandit out. Mark is also teaching Bandit how to point. Well, he doesn't really need teaching, he points on his own. Mark is just trying to get Bandit in the habit of pointing, it's working really well. Then Bandit had a big day at the vet's! He got his second set of shots. Then Mark and I went down to Parker for a wedding reception. (This was a reception for a girl, who's family I know from WI. Whitney's mom was a single adult rep for out stake.) Sunday is Mother's Day!! Yay for all the moms!. And then once we got home from church, I blew bubbles for Bandit, he went nuts!

He likes the bubbles alot, he can chase them, and once he gets them, they explode. Just proof that Bandit likes killing, which is good for Mark's plans to turn him into a bird-dog. :)






Love always, Bry and Mark

Meet the baby!

I guess there really is no explanation as to why I had to get a baby, but Mark obliged and we would like you to meet Bandit, our german wirehaired baby. I got an "itch" and started looking online for GWP pups, all the locals pups were from breeders and had papered lineage, so they would cost us a very pretty penny, but I found a couple selling purebred german wirehair pups for way cheaper than the $1000 the breeders were asking. However, these cheap pups were in Camp Verde, Arizona. (Mark's brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Heather, were coming out to visit us, and they got to Rawlins before the gates closed. They stayed overnight in Rawlins, but when the gates still were not open by noon the next day, they turned back to Utah, vowing to return when it's not snowing.) When they turned back, Mark asked me if I wanted to head to Arizona and go pick up the pup? The time we had originally set aside was the first weekend of May, we're pretty busy, and it's a 12 hour trip to Camp Verde, and a 12 hour trip back to CO. So, we bought some Dew, gummy worms, sunflower seeds, and some cashews and headed south. (It was snowing so bad in Denver when we left, it was awful. And Mark's work called and said they had an emergency in Boulder-opposite direction- and they might need him to go get some raccoons out of some guys house. So we turned around and waited in Lone Tree for the word to head to Boulder or not. The word never came, so we went on our way.) We stopped in New Mexico for a bit, and then we stopped just inside Arizona to sleep for the night. We then passed a shop saying FOSSILS but it had paper mache dinosaurs eating manequins ( hilarious and odd) and then we stopped at Wal-Mart a 1/2 hour away from Camp Verde, for dog food, dishes, a towel, treats and water. We then picked up the pup, and decided on the name Bandit, and it totally fits him now, he's always running away with his duck trying to hide it. It felt like the longest trip ever on the way home. (We stopped by at the Grand Canyon, it's beautiful and amazing, but not really on the route from Camp Verde-Phoenix to Denver, so the trip was longer going home than it was heading out.) But Bandit was a good puppy, and he didn't pee or poop in the truck at all! Whenever we'd pull over, he would always go then. He was such a good boy! But we finally made it home, and Bandit is adjusting pretty good for being 8 weeks old. So, welcome to our family Bandit! Yayay!

Love- bry and mark

Crafty-ness

So, I found tons of blogs (Thank you Angie and Teri) about making crafty things and I'm going to start trying out some of the cute things. Of course I will post what I create, and where I found the project at. Here are the blogs I found: http://kari-youcanmakeit.blogspot.com/ -- Tons of way cute thigns on this one! I'm way excited to go and start making things.
And this one : http://brassyapple.blogspot.com/ --Again with the cute things! Be sure to check back and see what I try to create, plus I'll still keep you posted on the goings-on here at home. Steve and Heather are coming by in two weeks, that'll be fun!! I'm so excited for them to come to our house!! Yayayay! I'm also going to take pictures of our first Easter, I'm also excited for that!! yay!

Love ~ bry & mark

PS: Oh and here is were I got the wallet tutorial at : http://elily00.wordpress.com/tutorials/wallet/ It's a way easy tutorial and the wallet is super cute!!

Wallet

TA-DA!!!

love <3>

Nice day for a walk and....wallets.

It was nice out yesterday after work, it wasn’t cold, it was sunny, the snow has melted, so I asked Mark if he would like to take a walk with me before dinner. We had to go to the bank anyways, so we walked to the bank and back. I Googled it, it is .8 miles each way, and I like to round up when I achieve things, so we walked 2 miles yesterday. :) That’s pretty awesome considering the doctor’s said it would be about 6 months before I could take on strenuous activity and be fully recovered. The only hard thing about the walk was the talking. When you walk and talk, it makes your breathing change, but things were great, he talked mostly. And it was really nice to have places that are close by the house, close enough to walk to. It felt good to get out of the house and do something, but it felt really good to test out the newly improved heart. After we made it to the bank, we stopped by the park. There is a park one street over from our house, the train tracks go right by the park. We stopped by and had fun on the swings. Then we had a gum race in the little creek in the park. I think Mark won, but neither of pieces of gum made it out from under the bridge. It was really fun to be out and about, and just have fun with Mark. J

Oh, more news! I started paying for the wedding pictures! Yay! About time too! Trust me, I have been wanting these pictures since June 20th, and now I finally have the means to get them! WHY?! Because April is the LAST month of the lease on the apartment! Yay! So we will finally be out from under that stress! I am so glad this is going to be over soon! It really was more stress than it was worth, I think.

And I have been starting yet another project. I’ve been trying to find a wallet that will hold my checkbook, my credit cards/ID cards, and my new envelope system (Dave Ramsey program). And, I cuold get an awesome one, for $20!! No way! So, I went online to see if I could find a pattern or a tutorial on how to make a cute one. I totally found a tutorial for a way cute one! I borrowed Angie’s sewing machine (Thank you Ang!!) and I went to JoAnn’s to find fabric (they have “Fabric Quarters” for $1.50 for 18”x22”, and that’s enough for ½, so I bought 2 colors/patterns, one for the inside and one for the outside.). I tried a practice wallet first, just to get the idea of it down, and for the practice one, I didn’t really do a good job. The stitching isn’t strait, the edges are all sticking out, and the end “product” is lumpy, I didn’t press out any of the creases,a nd I used only one color of fabric, so it’s hard to see the different parts, and there’s no zipper (I didn’t buy and extra zipper), so yeah the practice one looks bad. But the new one, I measured, I wrote down parts of the steps that I changed for my wallet design, I pressed the creases, I added the zipper, I did the interfacing on the real one. It looks way nice, and way cute! I love it! I made some changes to the steps, I use more of both fabrics, rather than all of one and just a little of the other. Mark even says it’s cute. So that has been my latest project! I am so very excited about it, because if these keep turning out as cute as the first one did, I have a new gift idea. (Christmas is only 8 months away, people!!) But, we’ll just have to see if I can keep up the cuteness. I'll getom some pictures of the real one I did up here soon, our camera is currently in Utah, Mark left it behind after his fishing trip last weekend. (The practice one just isn’t worth uploading the picture, trust me, it’s pretty ugly.)

Love ~ bry and mark