The Salony Squib

Cam'Ronicles Part II: Documenting "The Area"

2011-10-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, my dream was to play professional basketball for the Utah Jazz. Later in life when I realized that my physical attribute were not up to snuff for the NBA, my second love became communications. I knew a profession in public relations could land me in a variety of career fields, but I never imagined I'd do anything science-related, let alone end up at a nuclear cleanup site.

In a matter of weeks, my supervisor expected me to guide public tours of a former plutonium production site which is larger than the city of Houston. I had a lot to learn. My idea was to pick the brain of Hanford experts and to bring a videographer along as I did so. What a fascinating experience this was!

The story of the Hanford Site has it all: history, war, culture, science, nature and now a valiant environmental remediation effort.

Please take the time to check out this documentary at www.youtube.com/hanfordsite.

Film Summary
A recent graduate from Utah State University (Cameron Salony) accepts a job with the Department of Energy at Hanford and soon finds that his new workplace is a former site of plutonium production during WWII and the Cold War, but today is part of the world‟s largest environmental cleanup. However, he soon realizes that the history runs even deeper at Hanford as he meets with members of local tribes whose ancestors inhabited the region thousands of years before settlers began moving into the area in the 1860s. Eventually the government would take the land from both the Native Americans and the settlers for war purposes in the 1940s. Today some of the best-educated scientists and engineers in the country are working together to clean up what remains after 45 years of plutonium production in an effort to restore the land. Join Cameron as he explores the history and issues of Hanford as he interviews local tribal members, a citizen advisory board member, former and current workers, Hanford management, regulators and more.

Cam’ronicles Part 1: The University Whose Mascot is a Color

2011-10-19T21:24:00.001-07:00

So I promised Heather that I would write some entries about a few of my work adventures. I was lucky enough to get to travel to some pretty cool locales across the country.

Heather has already blogged about our month-long adventure we had in DC during my work orientation, so let’s move on to the next story: Stanford University.

One of my first assignments in my new job was to make a 30-minute documentary about the Hanford Site, a former Manhattan Project site in southeastern Washington State. It’s a pretty complex nuclear cleanup site with a fascinating history. Before this I had almost no video production experience, so I needed to learn fast. Lucky for me that my friends at Stanford and the Digital Media Academy offered a week-long crash course on things I would need to know in order to produce an effective and appealing piece.

As part of the class, a group of us made a documentary about the Stanford University Equestrian team. The team is very talented and is under the direction of great leadership and has an excellent farrier to take care of the precious horses.

Did you know that Utah State University has almost twice the amount of students as Stanford? Little tidbit I learned. Check out Stanford’s beautiful campus.

One of the members of my group had a car. This was an omen that we were supposed to go check out Frisco. My new friends Calvin and Ricardo.

We jetted across the Golden Gate Bridge, but unfortunately the fog was a barrier to our view.

It’s really there, I promise.

Then we cruised down Lombard Street: the windiest road in America. Sorry it was dark and I was in a car, so I don't have a good picture of it.

Reptiles in SF come in the form of sourdough.

Just a hop, skip and a swim from Alcatraz.

Though my San Francisco experience was short and sweet, I tend to agree with the famous newsman who said, "Leaving San Francisco is like saying goodbye to an old sweetheart. You want to linger as long as possible." - Walter Cronkite

P.S. The Hanford documentary will be posted to YouTube soon.

What's Up Pussy Cat? Whoa--oa

2011-10-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

I sort of forgot that I never posted about our Labor Day adventures. It was a great weekend! We were lucky enough to catch a ride with the Morris' to Utah and while we were there we had fun spending time with our family. On Friday we went to lunch at a family favorite, Robintino's, in Bountiful, Utah. As you can see, I got to sit across the table from this hunk, look at those muscles!

After lunch we headed up to Lakeview Memorial Cemetery to look at the headstone for Cameron's Mom, Julie. The boys and I had some 'adventures' outside exploring while Cameron and Melisa were inside. It was actually pretty cool because I got a dragonfly to land on Matt's hand but didn't have my camera there to snap a picture.

We had a lot of fun on Friday and love these boys!

On Saturday afternoon Mom, Cameron & I went to Antelope Island for their Hot Air Balloon Festival (there were some pretty cool kites too but we didn't get any pictures). After waiting for a bit they announced that the balloons would take off from another part of the island and land over by the entertainment stage. We followed the trucks to where they'd be taking off and found a vantage point were we could see all four get in the air.

It was fun to watch as one by one they filled up with hot air and took off.

It was a pretty night and as the balloons disappeared on one side of us, the sun was sinking down over the water on our other side.

The rest of our weekend was spent with family and of course playing games with Mom & Dad and getting some fresh Perry Peaches to bring back to Washington.

So Cal

2011-08-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm just flying through these posts... Cameron has said if I catch up then he'll do some posts about his fun work trips, so I'm motivated to be up to date.

Just two weeks ago we 'jetted' down to California to visit Ron and Maria. It had been about two and half years since I had been down and we were excited to visit. We also decided that we didn't want to go to any amusement parks or anything so we found some different attractions to visit. Also during the trip we gave Ron and Maria some 'firsts.'

We arrived late on Thursday night and on Friday we headed down to San Diego for the day. Our first stop was the Olympic training center, a 155 acre facility. It was really neat, a great facility, and we had a great tour. They operate solely on donations, so visit www.teamusa.org to donate.

This is their BMX track...

Field Hockey...

Archery...

A funny/cool statue...

Rowing...

It's a great place, here's a picture of Cameron and Ron.

And we got a few pictures out front before we left.

Then we headed to Cabrillo National Monument and the Point Loma Lighthouse. I didn't realize until we got there that I had visited back in 2005 on a family vacation.

Ron loves lighthouses, but had never actually been to one, so we were happy we got to take him to his first one.

The view of San Diego behind us.

I liked this picture because the lighthouse is just small up there on the hill.

This is the National Monument.

Cameron took this funny picture of a picture :) Ron loves to snap pictures of everything, and I was just sitting here when he came up to take my picture, so it's very true to life.

After the park closed we headed to the beach for a picnic dinner.

And a shot of the sun streaming through the clouds and the light bouncing off the water.

That night we went to an improv show similar to "Who's Line is it Anyway." It's called "National Comedy Theatre" and they were clean, funny, and well priced.

Those are all the pictures I have, but on Saturday we stayed local and had authentic Mole with Maria's family and then did some shopping at the Mall. We also played card games that night and it was Maria's first time playing with face cards.

Can you believe we did all of that in one weekend, we didn't even have to take off any work thanks to our rotating Friday's off! It was a great little trip.

A Day on the Columbia

2011-08-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we borrowed some Kayak's and spent some time on the river. We invited the Blodgett's and took turns paddling around and exploring. There was a wake boarding competition happening near the spot we put in so it was fun to watch that too.

Here's Kyle and Carrie

And here's Cameron and I

It was fun, and a workout!!

Whirlwind Wedding, Birthday, Reunion Weekend

2011-08-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

The weekend of July 16th we went home for Jonathan & Holli's wedding, Macai's Birthday, and to see Brian, who had just returned from his mission to New Zealand. It was a busy, fun, beautiful, and quick weekend. On Friday the 15th we went boating on Willard Bay.

Here I am with Cohen and Elise.

This second time I'm with Cohen and Cameron.

This is Brian when he flew off the tube and was skipping across the water like a rock.

It was funny when Brian was getting off the boat and onto the tube Cameron faked him out and pulled the tube out from under him as Brain jumped so he ended up in the water.

After boating we went down to celebrate Macai's 1st Birthday. He's such a cutie, check out that smile and those eyes.

And to finish the night we had family pictures as well. The first time the Curtis clan has all been together since November of 2007.

Saturday, the 16th, was wedding day. Here's Beckett and Matt waiting for the Newlywed's to come out of the temple.

Ta-Da, and here they are!

That evening they had a ring ceremony and dinner at the Lodge in Perry. It was a beautiful day and coincidentally Elise and Matt were married on 6/16, Cameron and I on 8/16, and now Jonathan and Holli are 7/16.

On Sunday, Brain spoke in church and then we had everyone over for lunch. This is a fun picture we got of Matty dressing up as a clown football player.

Even though it was a busy weekend it's always good to be with family and get to see everyone.

Explosive Mount St Helens

2011-08-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

We look a group day trip over to Mount St. Helens on July 8th. We were glad we didn't have to drive our own car and could sleep and read and relax on the bus because it was a long day of driving. Our 'main' stop was at the Johnson Ridge Observatory. It had great views and we could have spent several hours there since they had many hiking trails that left from the observatory.

It was interesting to see all the surrounding areas and how they've been affected and changed. There was also a video that showed how things looked before and how the volcano and ash completely changed rivers and lakes, etc. At the end of the video the screen came up and then huge blinds opened to give a panoramic view of Mount St Helens.

Next time we go we'd like to spend a night camping over there and then buy the permit to hike to the top of the ridge...let us know if you'd like to go with!

Beantown Boogie and other Dances

2011-08-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

Do you like my title?! I stole it from Cameron's facebook album. So I think I uploaded these pictures almost 2 months ago, and it's taken me awhile to add captions. So here goes nothing...

We drove to Seattle after work on June 6th and took the red-eye flight to Detroit. We did our best to sleep on the flight (luckily we both got upgraded to first class) and then on the floor of the Detroit Airport. Note: There are bird noises that play over their intercom that morph from a bird squawking to a monkey yelling. As you can imagine it's not a pretty sound.

Do you recognize anyone in this picture?! Me...well in case you don't know, next to me this is Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly Kapoor on The Office.

Cameron and I were star-struck when we got on our flight from Detroit to Boston and saw her sitting in first class. She got off the plane so quick, but luckily we saw her at baggage claim and she was so nice and gracious enough to get a picture with me.

We started our Boston adventure by having lunch at Cheers!

After filling our bellies we walked over to the highly recommended New England Aquarium.

Following the Aquarium we rushed (in our usual style) to the JFK library and museum and got there just in time to be the last group admitted. Cameron and I both really enjoyed this, the displays were just so great and fun to go through.

This is an outside view of the Library and Museum. There was also a beautiful view from the library into the harbour. It faces the airport so we saw several planes taking off and landing.

We headed back into the center of town and to the Skywalk Observatory and a birds eye view around town. Luckily on our way there we walked past a ColdStone and so we had yummy ice cream for dinner.

As the sun set we headed out of the city and up to New Hampshire for a good nights rest and a welcome shower!

Cameron has some AWESOME friends from High School, the Hammill's, that live in right on the ocean in New Hampshire and they let us stay with them. It was great to have some local tour guides that knew the right places to go.

On Thursday, June 8th, we started by finding a local lighthouse, called the Cape Neddick lighthouse.

We got some goofy pictures of all of us.

Is it ironic if we take a picture of a picture? I love seeing artists painting out in public.

The Hammill's took us to Warren's for some 'real New England' seafood. Cameron had the Lobster Roll... and I was adventurous and tried a bite :)

Then we had the opportunity to take the Hammill's to the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, a local attraction that they hadn't seen before.

After we got home, Cameron and I explored the local beach and park. What do you think of our paintings we had commissioned?

We also ran into some wood chucks, but never got an answer to how much wood they could chuck.

Next came our private tour of the Coast Guard Station and Lighthouse.

Me and my new buddy Atticus at the top of the Lighthouse.

It was a little nerve racking to get to go on the outside of the Lighthouse with just a small guardrail.

To end the night we went for some delicious local ice cream.

... And shopping... this was a cool store Marie showed us that sells all sorts of things for great prices, I'm still confused as to why it's named Christmas Tree Shops when there wasn't anything Christmas-y in there during June. I would maybe compare it to Big Lots and similar stores.

Thursday, June 9th, we continued heading north and searched out some lighthouses in Maine.

Here's some of Cameron's rock skipping action. This beach had the flattest rocks I've probably ever seen. It was a rock skipping paradise.

This is at Portland Head Lighthouse...which has been my computer wallpaper at work and kept me motivated and excited leading up to our trip.

This one is called "Bug Light" since it's so small, but it was perfect for jumping pictures.

Cameron the Frog

Then we went over to Breakwater Lighthouse

There were huge stones that we walked across to get out to the lighthouse.

All of a sudden he fell in between the stones and got stuck...

...I was able to rescue him and we lived happily ever after, The End.

Just Kidding! Now to my favorite part of the trip... our whale watching trip. So it's kind of funny because it was supposed to be a 4 hour tour and we had been riding out on the boat for almost 2 hours and hadn't seen anything yet, we had eaten right before leaving and I wasn't feeling so hot. Needless to say I lost my lunch twice off the back of the boat but still saw everything and it was my favorite part of our vacation.

Here's a couple shots of the whales...

And this is a shark, it swam right towards us and right to where I was, I could see it's huge outline in the water. It was all just so awesome.

On the way back it got rainy with rougher waters. We could see lightening on land, and it did make me nervous that we might end up on our own Gilligan's Island.

When we got back on solid ground we took a stroll around the city and got some pictures.

And finally, dinner...

On Friday, June 10th, we did some driving up and around and through the middle of New Hampshire and into Vermont.

This is the quarry site, I think it's so pretty. One of the reason's we decided to visit here is because the granite that was used to build the Bountiful, UT temple (where we were married) came from Rock of Ages in Vermont. We picked up some sample/scrap pieces of "Bethel White" at the visitors center as a memento.

They made an outdoor bowling alley that we tried out. When they originally proposed building granite lanes it seemed like a good idea, but it's actually too smooth and slick and doesn't do well so the idea never caught on.

For lunch we stopped at an odd little local place in Sharon, Vermont. It was a restaurant in the front and a thrift store in the back, doesn't get much better than that.

This is at the birthplace of Joseph Smith, which is actually right on the line between the cities of Sharon and South Royalton. The hearthstone in the picture is the original hearthstone from the cabin that he was born in.

This is the monument that was dedicated in 1805. It was done by Rock of Ages (which we had just visited) and the story of getting it to the site is amazing because of the weight and size. It's 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for each year of the Prophet's life.

They also had a traveling exhibit about the Hubbell Space telescope, the pictures are so neat.

This is still on the site, one of the original bridges.

This is just a view from the car window as we were driving. I now understand why Vermont is called the Green Mountain state, it's just beautiful to drive through and it takes your breath away.

We then stopped in a few small towns to look at their covered bridges and get some photos, there was a whole slew of them.

We stayed in the greatest hotel that night in Lexington, MA. It was called Element and it was a modern hotel with their set-up and furniture, also they served the best continental breakfast we've ever had, no joke, we loved this place! The location was also perfect for our plans the next day, Saturday, June 11, we got up and went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to see Author's Ridge.

This is Henry David Thoreau.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Louisa May Alcott

And Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is at the gate to the cemetery.

We then visited historical spots from the Revolutionary War...

This is the bridge where the "shot heard round the world" happened, that was the first shot of the Revolutionary War. It was kind of rainy all morning and we didn't have much time, but I'd love to go back and visit Lexington and Concord again to spend more time at these places.

We got back into Boston and went to the Museum of Fine Arts. You know what, I LURVE Art Museums. We had gone through most of the museum and Cameron had to run pick up the car from the meter so I stayed so I could find the Impressionist Collection...it was totally worth it and my favorite part of the museum! I had a realization while I was there... my favorite type of art is the Impressionist Style. I could spend days looking and Renoir, Monet, Manet, Degas, and Cezanne.

A special exhibit they had there was of this blown glass, it was awesome, and I couldn't help but think of my friend Tricia since she loves blown glass and wants to learn how to do it.

Our last stop before the airport was the Museum of Science (we had bought the City Pass and needed to get our moneys worth). Here's a view of the city as we left the museum.

We flew into Seattle late that night and decided to spend the night there. We ended up at a cheap Motel 6 next to the airport (a real downer after our amazing accommodations the night before). It was a little sketchy and I got hit on as I was checking in and Cameron was in the car; needless to say I was glad Cameron was there with me because I wouldn't have dared to stay without him.

We miss you New England, thanks for the Great Times!!

Weekend Warriors- Episode 3

2011-06-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

Moving right along- following our camping trip we took the following weekend to visit Canada, specifically beautiful Victoria.

We had to take a ferry to get there and since much of the trip was planned in the two weeks prior to going we had to take whatever ferries were still available. We spent Thursday night with family of the Morris'. It was funny because in the middle of the night a little 2 year old boy came walking into the room where we were sleeping and he was crying so I asked him if he wanted to lay down by me and he did for about an hour before going back to his bed. It was really weird, but I never really know why I do the things I do in the middle of the night.

Our ferry left early Friday morning from Anacortes WA. We looked at the views, napped, and played games.

Cameron was the Rook champion for the trip.

When we got to Victoria we were browsing around and found these stellar hats (or maybe just hair accessories). Very retro, which I love!

Here's their beautiful Parliament building, which we toured.

This is in one of the old original cabins (Ann's School for Girls) that's right near the parliament.

Here's a view inside the parliament building.

Lovely whale greenery

I'm infamous for blinking during pictures, but I loved this one and the view of the boats with the parliament building and hopefully most of you can't even tell I'm blinking. We ended the night by eating at the Old Spaghetti Factory and watching an IMAX.

Day 2, Saturday, started with a walk to a nearby fair. We browsed and just rubbed shoulders with the locals.

The small island behind us is where the First Nations used to bury their dead.

After the fair we drove to this cool and beautiful castle for lots of pictures of the building, and JUMPING...

Right near the castle we came across some government building that have some massive gardens which we explored.

And drove back near downtown and walked along the coast to get to the heart of Victoria and Fisherman's Wharf. The walk took much longer than we expected and we were all famished when we finally arrived but there's nothing like fresh fish and chips.

There were a couple of blind seals that people were feeding off the wharf; I like seals, I like the way they swim and I think they're cute.

I'm just now realizing how much we did... then we drove to a state park and hiked around until we finally found the lake we were looking for.

Here's a couple of pictures of the team:

Note: This picture was taken on a timer as our camera precariously sat on a small branch jutting out over some water.

After getting back to the hotel, swimming and showering we wanted some dinner and ice cream. We found a pizza place and then went to the Cold Stone that I had seen earlier just to be turned away as we opened the door because they were closed. This was the 3rd place that day that had turned us away because they were 'just closing' or we didn't have time to 'get through' everything. We ended up at a pretty cool waffle place that had an awesome variety of waffles from 'dinner' types to 'sweet' types and we had yummy yummy frozen yogurt.

This is the parliament building lit up at night, they light it up every night!

Day 3, Sunday, we went to church and then visited went to Butchart Gardens. This is a view from a small harbor near there where we ate our lunch, isn't Cameron a wonderful photographer?!

I loved the gardens, because I just love gardens and flowers

After the gardens we went back to Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse that had turned us away the day before.

It was pretty windy when we went out to the lighthouse.

Isn't this a funny picture?! It's a little scary too :)

I always love to get pictures at things like this... this one was randomly stuffed into a tiny room with candy and pop machines.

And that was pretty much the day. We rode the ferry back early on Memorial Day and took a different route through Vancouver to get home. The state ferries they have are really nice, I felt like I was on a cruise ship.

So that, my friends, was our pretty snazzy Memorial Day weekend. Thank you to the Morris' for putting up with us all weekend long and taking this adventure with us!

Weekend Warriors- Episode 2

2011-06-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

We have been busy on the weekends lately. The weekend after my parents came into town we went camping up at Tucannon. We'd tried camping here in Washington once before, but didn't pick a great place and it never cooled down in the evening. Tucannon was further from home, but a really pretty and fun place. We went with two other couples and it was nice to have a little group and be able to split up meals, etc.

Here we are with our camping friends, the Guthrie's and Morris'.

Have you ever tried eating an egg cooked in a fire pit?! Cameron has...

On the way home we found a small town celebration of sorts with a camel and stellar library book sale.

Stay tuned for episode 3 coming soon-

A little visit to Walla Walla

2011-06-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Mid-May there were two events that collided wonderfully. My parents were planning to come up and visit and it happened to be the same weekend as the Walla Walla Hot Air Balloon Stampede. We were all really excited to attend and chose Saturday as our day to visit since we had to get up and drive there to see the Balloons launch at 6 am. As you can imagine the day started before the sun came up, it was a bit rainy but we were hopefully as things cleared up as we neared Walla Walla. To our dismay the ground was wet from the rain overnight and prevented the Balloons from launching. We hung around for a good portion of the day seeing other things like the historic hotel, pa rousing the farmers market, visiting an old mission, driving past the 'vintage' and historic houses and luckily seeing a couple of Balloons that stayed tethered but never took off.

Big Smiles for seeing at least one balloon.

Our weekend guests and my wonderful parents!

We learned more of the history of the area by going to the Whitman Mission. Marcus Whitman was a missionary in this area and it's believed that the sad story that surrounds his families fate spurred others into action and helped in creating the Oregon Territory. This is a monument on a hill overlooking the original location of the mission.

All of these turtles were sharing this one spot on this little pond.

Here's a view of the monument from the bottom of the hill.

And my Mom and I walking past a covered wagon. When I read about the people that lived during these times and the pioneers that came across the country in these wagons or on foot I'm sure thankful to live in this time with our many conveniences.

Walla Walla was a beautiful area and so different from the Tri-Cities even though they're only an hour apart the Walla Walla valley is so much more green and 'plush.'

We had such a fun time over the long weekend with Mom & Dad. Of course we played a lot of games and Mom brought me those beautiful plants and flowers from my Grandma's garden so we spent some time in the yard getting those planted. It was just a great weekend!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! and Randomness

2011-06-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

I think it started back in November or December, but I was sitting in my office one morning with my two office mates and we were listening to the radio. They said something about calling in to win free pastries so my co-worker called, and won! They brought us these yummy pastries that everyone enjoyed and after that we kept calling in on giveaways.

I've won each of these things on separate occasions:
3 car washes
$25 at a bakery/deli
$25 to Applebees
$10 to a Chocolate/Candy store
2 free tickets to the home and garden expo
And a couple lottery scratch tickets

See this big pile of candy? This is what I picked up from the home and garden expo, it was great just stopping at each table just to pick up a piece of candy.

I made some cupcake pops for the birthday of one of the girls in my Primary class. They turned out really cute and I think they are easier to make than just the plain cake pops.

I went to this fun even a couple of months ago, it was called Project: Craft. My good friend Sarah invited me and it was A LOT of fun. Just a bunch of ladies getting together to craft, visit, oh and there were giveaways that had been donated from various Etsy shops. :) I started these cute Easter eggs and they turned out great, it my eyes. I bought an old book, some old music, and used some old stamps to cover the eggs and just used Modge Podge to make it stick. A fun, easy, and cheap craft which is just my style.

How's the House?

2011-06-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to one very special person, for several reasons... she travelled over 2,000 miles last year just to come see me for a weekend, she motivated me in my decorating, she motivated me to do this post, and she's my sister. So Stephanie, this post is for you!

Here are some pictures of our house now that we've been in it over a year. I realized that I posted the entire building process, but never any photo's of our house 'lived in.'

One of my favorite places is the kitchen, of course, here's an overall view.

I did some little berries above the crown molding for just a fun little detail.

I bought these big glass canisters at Walmart and then had the vinyl lettering made for the fronts.

I felt like the corner of the 'dining room' needed something so I found a large vase at Pier 1 and filled it with willowy branches that I cut to different lengths (this was inspired by Stephanie).

In our living room, I put up a shelf for our VCR so I didn't have to have a table right under the TV and put up some fun candle holders (I know there's a cooler word for it but I can't think of it right now).

This is a collection of frames that I have going up the stairs, I'm only missing most of the pictures to fill the frames. :)

I chose this quote and had it made in vinyl for the stairway underneath my big clock.

This is one of my more recent projects, getting a guest room put together rather than having an empty room where we could blow up the air mattress (When Ron and Maria were here the air mattress had a hole and even after trying to patch it they woke up every morning on the floor). The quilt was made by my Grandma Ricks and the red flowers fit perfect with the room.

We finally got a bedroom set, and we both love it! We got it from a clearance center in Oregon, which means cheap and tax free.

I like this little nook at the top of the stairs...Books! And I finally figured out how to get our large wedding portrait to fit well in its frame.

I covered the back of the bookcase with some fun fabric thanks to an idea that my other wonderful sister, Elise gave me.

Oh, and the upstairs 'loft' area just came together this last month. I finally got my hope chest that I've been needing to pick out since I graduated from USU.

And my parents brought us some extra pieces of furniture from my Grandma Rick's house. I love the way it all looks together!

I have to include this little picture for those of you who know me and my love of organizing. This is in our laundry room as you come in from the garage. It used to be a pile of shoes and a bunch of boxes. It was a mess, until I bought a shoe rack and a thingy to hold by broom and Swiffer. It just puts a smile on my face that it's nice and clean now.

I've been working on a garden, here in rocky West Richland. It's been a rewarding challenge already just to see everything start to grow. Here's the vegetables; I planted beans, cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes, a variety of sweet peppers, and a variety of herbs.

When my parents came up in May they brought several plants from my Grandma's garden. I've kept most of them alive so far. This is my rhubarb...I'm dreaming about yummy rhubarb pies this summer!

In this picture you can kind of see the two rose bushes... and then there are several flowers we put in the beds around the front of the house.

I hope everything keeps growing, I love going out and watering them after a stressful day at work and it helps me to unwind.

In closing I just want to mention what a beautiful and nice day it's been today. I've been really stressed and busy at work lately and the weekends have been such a nice escape (more posts to follow with details and pictures). Today the weather has been in the mid-80's and I've accomplished so many things that I wanted to. Also, as I've been sitting here at the computer I've been listening to some neighbor play a bagpipe outside, What?!

There's been a Murder (Mystery)

2011-04-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

We love Murder Mystery Parties!! This is the second one that we've hosted and one of several that we've been too. It's great to dress up and pretend to be someone else while solving a mystery. It's like a real live game of Clue! Typically the games cost about $25 and can only be used once because the mystery is solved. I found 'Til Death Do Us Part' at the thrift store for only $1.50. It takes place in the Cayman Islands and the poor victim is the newly married Bride. I won't say anymore since I will be passing this on to other members of my family to play. Now on to our guests...

Dean Cash (Las Vegas lounge singer) and Briony Bax (Bride's half sister)

a.k.a. The Morris'

Courtney & Jason Fish (Parents of the Groom and members of Grand Cayman's 'old money' society)

a.k.a The Russell's

Claire Kingsley (Reigning Conch Queen) and Michael Cavanaugh (International croquet champion)

a.k.a. Diana and Carrie

Frankie Fish (the Groom) and Randi Bower (Caymanian debutante and party girl)

a.k.a. Brock and Andrea

Katie Kiebasa & Matthais Oleander (World famous wedding coordinators)

a.k.a. US :)

I think everyone had a great time, we were glad to finally do this since I've been holding on to it since September. For hors d'oeuvres I served snacky foods like chips and salsa, cheese and wheat thins, a carrot cake cheese ball with scooby graham crackers, gummy bears, and Treacle Tart (Harry Potter's favorite dessert).

I got the coolest cookbook for Christmas from my best friend Steph, it's a Harry Potter cookbook. Here's a picture of the treacle tart, it was very British since the filling is breadcrumbs with lemon and other flavorings, I didn't realize it was like a pie, but thought that was pretty cool.

Hope everyone's enjoying Spring wherever they are at! I'm heading out into the yard now for the morning and as a spoiler I'm planning my next post to be some pictures of how the house is decorated currently.

A Visit

2011-04-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

If any of you have noticed, I prefer to post pictures and not write a lot about them. Here I've tried to balance it so you know what's going on.

During March we had Ron & Maria up to Washington to celebrate Dad's 50th Birthday. It was a fun weekend, and boy did we do a lot... they arrived on Thursday and had a fun evening watching Cameron's Documentary and playing the Wii.

On Friday, Cameron took them on a day trip to see almost everything between here and Portland. Their first stop was the mini re-creation of Stonehenge and the Maryhill museum and sculpture garden.

Then they drove over Bridge of the Gods.

And when they reached Multnomah Falls, Ron and Cameron decided to take the hike to the top.

This is the view from the top.

When they got home we had a party starting with Ron's special request homemade stuffed crust pizza, and finishing up with a candle topped cake.

On Saturday we drove up to Seattle for a day full of fun. We started at Pike's Place Market and met up with Maria's cousin Jesus. I bought some fun dried flower arrangements which I was excited about because the last time we went I saw the cheap live flower arrangements but couldn't get any since we weren't going straight home. These were pretty and I can keep them forever.

We rode the monorail from downtown over to the Space Needle.

And we took the ride to the top so we could see the whole city.

When we were finished at the Space Needle we headed over to Gasworks Park, by that time the sun was starting to come out so we got fun jumping pictures. (It's too bad I was looking down)

This is the view from Gasworks Park, you can see the Space Needle on the right and the downtown skyline on the left.

I couldn't pass up a picture of the Duckboat. I have yet to take a Duckboat tour, but I love them. When we were in Seattle last summer we were walking around and heard some of the commentary from one of the guides as they sat at a light. I can't remember what they said but we laughed for a while. Plus, who doesn't like a vehicle that can go on land or water?

This is my artistic 'flare out' picture that I personally took.

The next item on our tour agenda was the Fremont Troll. It's just cool that there is a random cement sculpture holding a VW Bug in one hand and having a hubcap for an eye. I like things like that.

And then as the day was winding down we stopped into a free museum for a few minutes and headed to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, Jesus treated us so well that we all left several pounds heavier.

I must say, if you come visit us, we will show you a good time (and most of Washington), plus we just got a bed for our spare bedroom, so we have somewhere for you to sleep. Again, we had a great weekend and were so grateful to spend some time with Ron and Maria.

Introducing....Brian Regan

2011-04-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

On January 27th Brian Regan came to the Toyota Center here in the Tri-Cities. I had bought our tickets back in October as soon as they came available at the box office...so you can imagine that we were excited! Brian Regan is definitely our favorite comedian and I had not seen him live, so this was a first. We went with our friends Matt and Sarah and we all laughed until our faces hurt, and then we laughed some more. Here are a few pictures before the show started.

And here are a few pictures during the show. I think half of what's funny is the way he talks and his body language.

I love to laugh, and recommend Brian Regan to anyone who has a sense of humor ;)

Christmas (In the blink of an eye)

2011-04-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick run down from Christmas...

We had quite the hassle with our flight out of the Pasco Airport and ended up bumming a ride with another couple (that we hadn't met before) up to Spokane to fly out the next morning. There was so much fog in Pasco and so many flights had been cancelled that it would have taken 2 more days to fly from Pasco.

Once we made it to Utah... our first evening was spent with both our families. We rode Frontrunner down to SLC to see the lights at Temple Square. It was a lot of fun especially with little Matt and Cohen playing the whole time. This picture is from when they were showing each other their muscles.

Here's Macai, he's just so chill and happy all the time.

This is Matt in the Visitor's Center, we went up to look at the Christus.

Again, these buddies holding hands.

This is Melisa at the reflecting pond. We were so glad to be home and get to spend time with our family!

At that's it from Temple Square.

On Christmas Eve, my brother Jordan, Cameron & I went bowling. As you can see Jordan got his name on the wall with the high score of the day. I almost beat him but really botched the last frame. Either way, it was a personal best for me. Cameron and Jordan were laughing the whole time at the way I look when I bowl, but I don't care because although I might look funny to them I can knock the pins down.

Here's a good one, Cameron and Mike just having a little fun with Matt's new train set.

We had a wonderful Christmas and are grateful for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. We love our family and the time we get to spend with them!

Photo Shoot

2011-03-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

My sister Elise is a wonderful photographer, while we were staying with her over Thanksgiving she took some pictures for us. All of pictures look so great so I wanted to share them here. You can also check out some of her other work at sleemanphotography.blogspot.com

It was a fun shoot and we laughed so much and had a great time. We wish we lived closer to the Sleeman's so we could hang out more, we always have a lot of fun with Elise & Matt (and Cohen & Beckett).

Thanksgiving

2011-03-16T20:48:00.001-07:00

So I started looking at our pictures from Thanksgiving and realized... I hardly took any. We left New Orleans on Wednesday the 24th and drove over to Irving Texas to spend Thanksgiving with my family. We had a pretty good group there; Elise, Matt, Cohen, Beckett, Jonathan, Jordan, Cameron & I. It was also my first time meeting Beckett. What a cutie! The pictures that I do have are from 6 Flags over Texas. We had a fun time and I got to ride lots of rides with Cohen. My favorite kid's ride was probably "Taz's New York Adventure" like a miniature version of the "Rocket" at Lagoon. My hips were sore after getting off because the seat was so narrow. Another day while we were there we went to the US bureau of printing and engraving. Pretty neat stuff. All in all the entire vacation was a great hit, seeing new things, family, and new baby's.

Joke of the Day

2011-02-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

WHAT LAKE TASTES GOOD WITH FRENCH FRIES?

The Great Salt Lake!

Yes this is a Laffy Taffy joke :)

New Orleans

2011-02-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

Ok for all of those people who've pointed out that usually Heather does all the work on this blog, I'll start pulling a little bit of my weight. I hope you enjoy the following entry on our New Orleans trip by me: Cameron, Heather's worse half ;) Let's get started.

So one good thing about crazy flight routes and their accompanying layovers is that we didn't "get stuck in LAX for 3 hours," we "got to have a midnight snack at Carl's Jr. with my Dad and stepmom Maria." So nice of them to pick us up and hang out with us for a little bit.

We saw Dad this last summer, but hadn't seen Maria for almost two years. They did an effective job of pumping us up for our Nawlins trip. They went last year and showed us some of their pics. If you look close enough, Dad is even wearing a hat he got in N.O.

Funny story here. If anyone is ever searching for a McDonald's on the outskirts of the Big Easy, your GPS will not take you to the fast food restaurant, but the Ronald McDonald House. I'm sure everyone knows the difference, but for that one person that might not, this is a charity, not a place to pick up wonderfully delectable McGriddles. Not to worry, we we're able to play the Monopoly pull and peel game and fill our stomaches at the real deal a couple blocks down the road.

Here's Heather standing atop of the levee on the Algiers side of the Msssspp River ( see I can spell Mississippi with no eyes). We took a free ferry across our nation's largest river and spent a few minutes looking at Louis Armstrong statues and random daycares that looked like nomadic hippy dwellings.

I'd recommend watching Disney's Princess and the Frog right before or after visiting New Orleans. It really does do a good job demonstrating the city's landmarks. Here's one of the most famous St. Louis Cathedral. We saw part of a Catholic Mass, before exploring the French Quarter.

Here's the French Market where HeathBabe bought a cute, yet creepy voodoo doll.

The Seattle Seahawks (oddly our "home football team") were in town to take on the Saints. Everyone was wearing a Saint jersey and I mean every one. It's like seeing guys in white dress shirts on Sunday in Provo, it's what they do. We didn't go to the game, but watched the first quarter on the Jumbo Tron at Champions Square just outside the Louisiana Superdome. Of course, it was a very party-like atmosphere.

Here I am outside the Superdome. You may know it as the place that frequently hosts the Super Bowl (yes, the place that Tom Brady and the New England Patriots won their first NFL title) but to thousands of New Orleans residents it was a makeshift refuge from the dregs of Hurricane Katrina.

So I have this crazy goal of going to all 50 of the United States, so we took the long route to dinner and ended up in Mobile, Alabama, at Dick Russell's Famous Bar-B-Q.

Man oh man was it good. For only $14.95 you can get a generous sampling of Dick Russell's original recipes. That includes pork shoulder, baby back ribs, beef, beans, cole slaw, oven fresh biscuits or garlic bread. Of course we also had to have the Cajun-style seafood gumbo served over a piping-hot bed of steaming rice. - See these are the onerous details that you people just don't get from Heather :) Love ya babe.

Welcome to Oak Alley Plantation. Population 300 yards of 300-year-old oak trees and you. There are a lot of plantations to see in N.O., but I'm happy with our selection of this fully restored beauty only 30 yards from the MS River.

This is the opposite view from the balcony. Just beyond the trees is the River.

Then we went on a three-hour tour of areas devastated by Katrina. A three-hour tour! (Ok, I get it, no one gets the obscure Gilligan's Island reference. That's a lame-dad joke anyway, right?) Well, if you look closely, here you will see some orange markings on the blue and white paint on the house below. Rescuers had certain codes with which to mark a house: already searched, no survivors, rescued two people etc.

Most of the houses that weathered the storm had to be completely demolished, some just merely had to be repaired, others -like this one- was abandoned.

This is the Brad Pitt in action. He's working on rebuilding some of the houses in the lower 9th Ward and really these residences look like a combination of a mobile home and a Guggenheim Museum. All are on stilts.

Here's an updated memorial for loved-ones lost.

Here's my lovely bride outside the famous Cafe Du Monde.

This is the place where you get golden delicious beignets (a French powdered-sugary, scone treat).

Here I am trying to blow the powdered sugar off in a cool-like way, but alas the photo of the happy tourists doing this in the city brochure looked much cooler.

HeathBabe and I have been to a lot of cool museums. We lived in DC for a couple of months and the Smithsonian knows what's up, but this National WWII museum was pretty awesome. I learned some new things about the D-Day Invasion and enjoyed the interactive exhibits. I also thought it was cool to be surrounded by American Veterans who frequent this establishment.

So I'm starting to think that Heath and I have a thing for reptiles. We spent part of our honeymoon at Gator World in Orlando and of course had a go on a good ol' gator swamp tour in the bayou. Yee-haw! I'm surprised this gator in the picture didn't rip off my leg.

A turtle (not of the ninja variety) sunbathing in late November.

A gator responding to our tour guide who was throwing marshmallows at him.

The swamp is pretty in its own kind of way.

Heather is pretty in her very-pretty-lady kind of way. Here she is holding a baby gator.

I know I may not be pretty in a blue-steel Derek Zoolander kind of way, but I liked holding the baby gator, too.

I feel like we should of been listening to Credence Clearwater Revival's "Born on the Bayou" or something. It was a great swamp tour. Our guide also fed raw chicken to the gators and showed us a really ugly snapping turtle.

Now to Mardi Gras World. Yes, there is such a place. Here they make 90% of the floats you see on Fat Tuesday and throughout the entire celebration.

I thought it was cool that the place is considered "green" because they recycle their floats and make them into different designs in later years. For example, a soldier from last year will be turned into Abraham Lincoln this year.

Trying to get our money's worth, we took a quick 15-minute tour of the aquarium before it closed. Supposedly it has one of the largest jelly-fish displays in the world.

And it has this big old frog that people can sit on.

The mall is right on the Mississippi River.

So maybe here's proof that we have a thing for alligators. We see them on our vacations and we eat them for dinner. Heather ordered gator with a twice-baked potato and veggies. We think gator tastes like a mix of steak and chicken if you can imagine that.

I ordered the seafood platter. Can anyone say stuffed crab is like Christmas in my mouth?! The crawfish, catfish and shrimp weren't bad either.

I really like this picture. Heath looks like a little girl walking into a caribbean Christmas wonderland. This was a Christmas festival at the center of the city.

On our last day we visited the famous St. Louis Cemetery #1. This is Dave, the groundskeeper. Now, he doesn't get paid to give tours, but he does accept tips. He gave us a 30-minute rundown on the most historical parts of the cemetery.

This is where the Voodoo Queen is buried. She was this lady from the olden days who would cast death spells on people and, sure enough, they would end up dead. People feared her and did not want to cross her. Later they found out that she actually poisoned the people she cursed. People come to her tomb to make wishes, give reverence and practice their voodoo faith. They leave alcohol, chapstick, matches, lipstick really anything in giving tribute to her. To me, it just looks like a bunch of trash, but Dave tells me the bums really enjoy the alcohol people leave. The XXX somehow became her symbol.

How random is this? The pyramid will be Nicholas Cage's and his family's final resting place. He paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars to procure this plot, then built a pyramid on top of it. It's kind of cool, but I think he took this whole National Treasure thing way too far.

Does anyone else think it's weird that we visited a cemetery on our vacation?

So I'm glad that Heather indulged me in taking a small detour through Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. You see, I also have this thing with campuses. I can add this to my list of other colleges I've seen recently along with Stanford, Duke, UNC, Georgetown, George Washington, Virginia Commonwealth, Gonzaga, Michigan State and Maryland.

Even though I am not a fan of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) the 2003 and 2007 National Champion called this stadium "home."

Side note: we got a Power Pass and would recommend such a purchase if going to New Orleans. We went to see several attractions which would have cost us each about $175, but instead it only lowered our billfold $80. It's not every day that you can save about $95, well unless you are like Heather and are into crazy coupon-ing. (Can I really make that into a verb?) We also low-balled a bid on Priceline and got a room at the Downtown Sheraton (four-star hotel) for only $60 a night.

P.S. After leaving New Orleans we road tripped to Dallas to spend Thanksgiving at Heather's sophisticated and savvy sister's house. I'm sure Heath has blog plans for that.

Have a marvelous day in the meadows. -Cameron Hugh Salony III

Paragliding

2011-02-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Last fall we went paragliding!! It was so fun, turns out we're kind of into extreme sports (remember when we went sky diving?), just as long as we have a trained professional hooked to our backs and we can go along for the ride. We 'jumped' off Ki-Be here in Washington, which is only about 20 minutes from our house. We were able to do this because we had won it a a charity auction, and it was well worth it. The first couple pictures are of me. The first being a view of Benton City behind me.

My ride wasn't too long because we didn't catch any good air. As we were coming down to land we did catch one last little bit of air that pulled us higher for our landing than we expected, so it wasn't the smoothest landing but thankfully my only wound was a sore toe that got stepped on.

Cameron went after me and had a little longer ride. I even got the take-off recorded so you can see how you get in the air.

We would definitely recommend this as a fun thing to try for those who haven't!

Hello!?

2011-02-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Where do I start after so long? I've had my time occupied by constant studying. Last August I decided that I wanted to take the Professional Human Resources (PHR) certification exam. It's a pretty tough test and is similar to a P.E. or C.P.A. you take the test, pass, and then have to continue to re-certify every couple of years through continued education, etc. So that's what I've been up to, I got my study materials in September and took my test on January 22nd up in Spokane. Every time I would have some 'free' time I would keep myself from getting on the computer and study instead, it's no excuse for not blogging, it's just what I decided I'd need to do. The test was nerve racking, but luckily you know if you pass or fail within a few minutes and I... PASSED!!

I received my official certificate last week and now just need a nice little frame so I can hang it in my office. It's pretty funny because my wonderful co-workers threw me a party the week after my test and so many of them said they knew I'd pass, but I sure didn't and I think the nerves helped me do my best.

Oh Canada

2010-09-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

I love to post travel pictures, they are so fun to share and it reminds me of how much fun I had myself. At the beginning of August we celebrated our 2nd Anniversary by taking a trip to Vancouver, B.C. It was a first for both of us to visit Canada, and we enjoyed seeing the sights from the Olympics as well. We got there on a Friday and took a bike ride around Stanley Park. This first picture shows the downtown area behind us.

There were some pretty cool totem poles we stopped to look at as well.

This huge bridge was above us about half way through our ride.

We also saw the Ilanaaq, which you probably recognize as the emblem of the 2010 Olympics. When we first saw it I didn't believe it was the real thing, so it's a good thing that Cameron got a picture because I later realized it was the real deal.

After our bike ride we just strolled around the city, found a cute cupcake store, and walked by the ocean. Here I am by the harbor.

This is Cameron eating Lobster Mac, it was one reason that he was so excited for the trip because he wanted to try it for the first time. We ate at a cute little place called "Rogue."

Here is the Olympic Cauldron, both at night and then during the day, and it was nice because our hotel was just a block away and we could easily walk to see the Olympic stuff that was still around.

Isn't this a cool Orka? It's a sculpture that is made to look digital. Cameron's doing the same pose here.

So on day Saturday it was rainy all day, and after looking at some of the Olympic stuff we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

It was neat, you walked across the LONG bridge and then on the other side they had little paths you could walk on and other bridges from tree to tree that make me feel like I was visiting an Ewok village.

Yes, I was excited to be walking across the bridge.

I had to throw in both pictures of Cameron & I here because I think they are funny.

After we were done there we went to the Queen Elizabeth gardens. There were parts that were well cared for and other parts that seemed kind of dead (I didn't include any of those pictures).

I liked the way the rain drops were on this lily.

This picture in the large Quarry garden looking up toward the bridge.

And this picture is looking into the large Quarry garden from the bridge in the last picture.

These next two are from the small Quarry garden. I liked the Canadian flag design in the flowers as well as the sunburst design.

This is just another shot of the same thing but I had to include it because of the building in the top right corner. It's a restaurant named "Seasons at the Park." It was just a week or two after we got back from our short trip to Canada and we were watching "Psych" on USA Network. It's my favorite show and in the episode we were watching they go running into a restaurant and I pause the show and say to Cameron, "We've been there!" Turns out "Psych" is filmed in and around Vancouver, and I was right, they had a scene right here!! I felt so cool that I realized it, figured it out, and had been so close.

These statues were right across from each other so we each posed right across from each other.

Sunday we visited a few more Olympic sites. This is the countdown clock that they still have up.

After going to church and before we hit the road we also visited the Temple. It's brand new this year.

When we got to the border I was driving and the line was slow so Cameron got out and got pictures around the park.

As he was taking pictures the line started to move and I couldn't see him anymore, I started getting closer and closer to crossing the border. I called his cell phone but he wasn't answering so I honked my horn like I told him I would do to let him know he needed to hurry and he came running back right in time so I didn't have to leave him in Canada. :)

It was such a fun, short trip and we look forward to doing it again sometime!

Beautiful Baby

2010-09-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

I made some fun little things for my new nephews Beckett and McKai. The first one is called a "Taggie Blanket" and is for little baby's as they start to hold onto things and play with different things it has different textures and colors. It has minky fabric on one side and flannel on the other, and was a fun little project for me.

These little things are pacifier clips that I saw on a blog and had to make because they are so cute, and relatively easy.

We took a trip down to Utah on July 15th to see McKai who was born just after midnight. Here's Grandpa Ron with McKai.

Here's proud Uncle Cameron.

And here I am. I just love little McKai, and it was so fun to see him when he was still so brand new!

I also love this little guy who just wears me out when we play because he is so full of energy, he's such a proud big brother.

While we were there my Dad took Cameron and Ron out to the Rocket Garden at ATK.

And since they were out in the middle of no where (Promontory, Utah) they went to see Promontory Point.

And that was our fun and quick trip to Utah.

Beach Day

2010-09-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's a shame that summer's over and we only had one "Beach Day" by the river but here's a few photo's of documentation.

We met up with the Blodgett's and started over on the Richland side of the river and had some delicious hamburgers and waded a little, but the bugs were ferocious so we headed over to the Pasco side of the river. When we got over there the river was higher than we expected and there was 6 inches of water over the sand we planned to sit on....but we sat there anyway.

Here I am setting up shop. It was really nice to sit with my feet in the water and read.

Here's a little view from where we were. Isn't it pretty, it's the 300 area of Hanford.

Here's Kyle and Cameron showing off when they realized I was taking a picture.

Ahh, the lazy days of summer.

A Wild Rockin Weekend.

2010-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

First off, why didn't anyone tell me that my last post was posted twice? Anyway, here I am in the middle of September and I really don't know how the summer got away from us?! I've done some procrastinating it appears but it'll be fun to put these pictures up.

Back on the 3rd of July we went to a cover band rock concert up in Moses Lake, it was called "Rumble in the Desert." Though I'm not a huge fan of classic rock I did recognize some of the songs. The pictures really tell the story. The first one here is of Cameron when we first got there.

We went with our great friends, the Russell's. Over the weekend of the 4th we did a lot together and it was just like old times when we lived right across the street in Kennewick.

Okay, I had to include this picture because it shows the Rockstar logo and the stage (and a guy with great hair and no shirt). For those that were there they know all about "Seeing Stars."

I just liked this picture of Cameron, he was taking the camera away from me, but I think it's a fun shot.

And here I am cheesing it up. It was an interesting, but fun day.

The ALL Green Post

2010-08-22T20:03:00.003-07:00

As promised here I am for "Round 2" this week ;) If I had to make a comparison I would say mowing our lawn for the first time was like getting a baby's hair cut for the first time, we took plenty of pictures and it was a momentous occasion even though it will be done regularly the rest of it's life.

Here's a few more "before" pictures.

These are our stones that lead from the porch to the garden, you can see how overgrown some of them are.

And here's a picture from the back of the lawn.

These are the red ants that I found eating our sod on the side of the house... there's a big indent down to the dirt, can you believe that?!

Here's some cute lady bugs that I found in the backyard.

There was a whole family, I counted about 8 but could only get a few in the picture.

Here's a progress picture.

Another progress picture, about a half an hour later.

And everything was done in a little over an hour.

You can see the stones to the garden in this picture here.

And here's a bug's view.

I also made a fondant cake for fun this week and decided to make it a grass cake.

Sitting and Watching the Grass Grow

2010-08-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I haven't posted in awhile, and I've had several people remind me of that.... I have a lot to post, so I'll be posting a few times this week and then I'll post regularly all through September and October.

Here's our grass after one week, you can see the green tint starting to come up.

This is a close up after one week, look at those little tiny blades of grass. It made me SO happy that something was growing.

This was after about three weeks I think.

Current day: The first 10 feet is sod but the last 3 feet closest to the fence is the hydro seed, I mowed that little piece when I was mowing the sod this week

We plan to mow the entire lawn this Saturday and then put the fertilizer on.

This hydro-seed was definitely the way to go!

Our AMAZING shelves built by Ron Salony:

Cameron's Dad came and visited back in July and built these shelves in our garage. This shows the step by step progress.

You can see here how big they are.

From the side.

Stained and getting closer to completion.

Final Product, we've been able to put so much on them and still have room left over!

Our fabulous Carpenter, Dad! Thanks!!

The Yard

2010-07-04T10:10:00.001-07:00

It's such a relief to finally get to post about the yard. It's taken a lot of our time & energy and I'm still crossing my fingers that everything will grow! Here's a few pictures from along the way. These first few pictures came from mid-June when we found baby birds in our vent from the laundry room. We heard them before we saw them because they were always chirping. Cameron had to get up on a ladder and pull them out before we put up some wood slats to make sure no other birds make their home in our house.

This is how our yard looked with all the weeds and all the rocks. We had to kill all the weeds with Round-up and rake all the rocks into lines and then shovel them into a wheelbarrow and take them out of the yard.

You can see the lines and piles of rocks here. My Mom & Dad were great to come and help us over Memorial Day with these rocks.

This is the yard all cleared and ready for some good rich topsoil!

All of the rocks in the fire pit came from our yard, most of them we hand-picked.

Our first pile of dirt, approximately 3 tons. When the semi dropped off the dirt he got stuck on a little pile of gravel and our neighbor had to help to pull him out using a little old truck. It was funny to watch :)

On Saturday, June 19th we had someone come help us spread the first pile. Here's what we got spread the first night. Mostly along the back fence.

Showing some progress as the week continued.

We also had to take care of all the red ants in our yard, they seemed to be everywhere. This is just one of their hills.

On June 26th we rented a Bobcat and Cameron spread the second pile of dirt we had received earlier in the week. That day was also fun because I was moving a portion of fence that we had taken apart to get the Bobcat in and I stepped on a nail. To make a short story shorter I am now up to date on my tetanus shots and am doing fine. By the end of the day I was back out in the yard spreading dirt with a rake.

Here's the work we got done at the end the day.

And to show my hard work I had Cameron take a picture of my sweaty hat. It's exhausting work and I have calluses and a few blisters to prove it.

This is what the competed yard looks like. We put some rocks around the trees so the grass won't be right up next to them and the trees won't have to compete to grow. You can see little footprints and shadows in this picture and when they came to spray the hydro seed on Wednesday they said that would hinder the growth because some spots would get missed due to the ridges and shadows so we had to rake over the yard one more time to smooth everything out.

They came back Thursday and Ta-Da! We now have the hydro seed and are on our way to grass.

It's such a funny color

Here's what it looks like today, on the 4th of July, after being diligently watered the last few days. It should take 3-4 weeks to be ready to mow!

The Perfectly Finished House

2010-06-14T21:35:00.004-07:00

We've been in our house over a month now and it's great! The backyard has kept us super busy as we're getting ready to hydro seed (That's one of my excuses for not blogging).

Here's some pictures of our house in the final and completed phases. And here are the wonderful, soon to be Zanders. Don't they look like great house guests? They were our first out of town friends/family to see the house.

Mirrors in the master bathroom.
Our tiled front porch.
Soaker tub in the master bath.
KITCHEN. Gotta love the kitchen.
Laundry Room.

And a few more views of the kitchen.

Well that's all folks. I'm working on putting pictures on the walls and doing a little decorating so I'll put final pictures up when that's all done. Thanks for watching our house grow up from the ground with us!

HAWAII

2010-05-30T17:50:00.018-07:00

I'm sure everyone has been in suspense since I've last posted. We now have the internet again and I can catch up on everything that has happened in the last month.

HAWAII, ahhhh, it was such a fabulous vacation and it was perfect timing. We were able to get away from our stress and lounge in what I refer to as "eternal summer." We were gone for about 9 days right at the beginning of May. It seems crazy that we've already been back over a month. I'm also so glad that we went with Steph and Ethan, we couldn't have found better travel buddies and I loved spending time with Steph since it's so few and far between that we see each other. We stayed with Ethan's WONDERFUL family and are glad for the new friends we've made with them. We combined all our photos and ended up with nearly 1400!! The pictures are a little out of order on a few days but it's all the same, so here's a sample...

Here we are all ready to fly out of Portland. Luckily we didn't have anyone else sitting on our row and could spread out a little.

When we got to Honolulu our wonderful hosts Kristine and Chris were there to greet us with beautiful lei's. We drove home in 2 separate cars so we could fit all our luggage. The girls got to ride in the yellow mustang convertible :)
After a good night's rest we went into Waikiki for the May Day festival. Here I am making my own lei for my wrist.
We enjoyed the festivities at the park and then walked over to the beach and took a little dip. Here's Cameron & I with Honolulu in the background. The rest of the afternoon we spent looking around.

Day two we were all over the place. Thinking back I can't believe how much we squished in. This first picture is at Hilo Hattie's. This is our Tiki impression.

Then we went and saw Pearl Harbor.

We went inland and visited the Dole Plantation.
We rode the Pineapple Express.

And ate Dole Whip, the yummiest dessert. It's two of my favorite things combined, pineapple and soft serve ice cream coming together for a wonderful deliciousness.

After a yummy dinner we stopped at a beach and saw some sea turtles. I thought this was really cool that we ended up there at just the right time...they don't hang out on the beach all the time.
The next morning we decided to take a bike ride, here we are all ready to go. As some of you know I love to go on casual bike rides and this was just perfect. We stopped at a few beaches and got some great pictures along the way.
We decided to hop in for a minute here because the water was spectacularly blue. The picture doesn't even do justice, it looked like it was straight out of a calendar photo.
After the bike ride we got cleaned up and went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. This is us at our luau.
Here's the fire dancers at "Ha: Breath of Life" that we went to after the Luau.
Here's our cool tattoo's. Cameron's was a warrior and mine was a princess.
Here's the beautiful Hawaii Temple.
First thing the next morning we hiked up Diamond Head. Here's picture from the top of the volcano/mountain.

And here I am goofing around up at the top. It was kind of a funny hike, with some tunnels with windy stairs and weird cement at different places that you are almost crawling through.
My favorite thing that we did in Hawaii was... Surfing. Here I am holding my pose as I ride the wave in.
This is Cameron paddling into shore after we were done.
Here's the both of us paddling out at the beginning.
And here's our beach lesson.
I was the only one in the group that had a blue top, which has come in handy looking back at pictures because I can quickly tell if it was me or not.
This guy on one of the corners had these parrots and they were absolutely hilarious so we had to get a picture.
This is my best fish face at the International Market Place.
You can't tell completely from the photo, but this tree was huge, and we are probably 5 feet off the ground (I had to get a boost to get up there).

This picture is from Nu'uanu Pali, it's a beautiful overlook of the windward side of the island.
You can get more of the view from this picture.
Day number...ah, well anyway the next day we went to the Byo-do In temple. There were some bamboo gardens that were really cool on the grounds.

Here we all are looking at the temple and the water.
This cool picture we took in a gazebo near the temple.
This is right after Cameron almost made a bunch of bamboo fall on my head, it's a good thing I didn't get hit. :)
This is Cameron's huge tuna sandwich. We all had huge sandwiches/burgers for lunch.
And followed up our lunch with famous Matsumoto Shave Ice that had ice cream at the bottom, yum!
On our way home we stopped at jumping rock to get in the water and of course, JUMP. Here I go!
We went snorkeling a few times, once at Turtle Bay resort and once at Shark's Cove. Here's some cool underwater pictures.
I was the first one to spot the turtle, it was so exciting for all of us and it was so awesome to swim around with it!!
This is our second to last day. After snorkeling we had Calvin (a local friend of Cameron's) take us around the island. Here we were looking at a location where part of "Lost" was filmed (I was also being eaten alive by mosquitos so we didn't hang around for too long).
This is a picture from a view point that Calvin took us to.
This is the waterfall that was on "Lost"
In the afternoon we hung out at a Waikiki beach and did a little kayaking (you can see Diamond Head in the background here).
We ate A LOT of plate lunches in Hawaii. By the end of our trip we opted for burgers rather than a plate lunch.
Watching the sunset and getting ready for the fireworks!
A night view of Honolulu from Tantalus.
Our last morning we went back and ate at one of our favorite restaurants again, it was called the Hukilau Cafe. On our way home we stopped to get a picture by this pig that was roasting in someone's front yard.
Then we went and took some fun pictures by Chinaman's Hat.

As we were leaving we threw our lei's into the ocean to show that we would be back someday!Our last meal was at the Like Like Drive Thru. We were sad to leave Hawaii, but we had a fabulous time.
We got into Portland early in the morning and stopped at the world famous Voodoo Donuts (thanks for making us go Steph)!
This sign on the wall across from Voodoo Donuts couldn't have said it better about the part of town that we were in...

Aloha

Loungin'

2010-04-29T22:54:00.002-07:00

Lookie here, we've got carpet and our house really feels like a house. On Tuesday evening we got to the house and much to our surprise they were just finishing the carpet installation. It's beautiful. We had some time to kill so we sat in one of the rooms upstairs and laid on the carpet. It was so cool to hang out and lounge in our house. We can't wait to move in and lounge all the time. :)

Here's Big Blue Eyes
Here's me doing a snow angel.
And our fence was up as well, pretty darn slick.

Our Oasis

2010-04-25T20:20:00.002-07:00

I've been wondering if I've been putting too many pictures on here, every one's going to see what the house looks like before they ever come visit, either way I hope we still have lots of house guests :) I just found out this week that a good friend of ours is going to come up the last week of May and we're excited for our other family and friends that have trips planned for later this summer.

This week the tile was put in the kitchen, bathrooms and entryway.

And we got landscaping...in the front (we'll be doing the grass in the back ourselves).
And stone around the garage, which really ties the exterior of the house together in my opinion.
This is our brontosaurus tree (that's what I like to call it). They're really popular around here and we ended up with one in our yard.
Our fire pit. We're going to rake all the rocks from the yard and put them in here to make the pit.
The hardware appeared in the kitchen. You can see all three in this picture.
Most light fixtures were put up.
The counter tops were put in the bathrooms and washroom.
Rods were put in the closets.
Here's the light fixture in the master bath.
So exciting, just a few more weeks!!

A Thousand Words

2010-04-18T20:01:00.006-07:00

I'm not sure if I've ever said it here on the blog but it's always been funny to me that, "A picture says a thousand words." If this is the case why do we put captions on our pictures?

First and foremost, we are so EXCITED to go to HAWAII with STEPH and ETHAN!! I made a countdown chain for the next 2 weeks. It's pretty hard to miss when you come in the door :)

Our house is getting more character and turning into "our house" more each day. Here's a picture of the door frames. Cameron says they remind him of a colonial look. I took this picture to also show the design of the doors. I like them. But hey I like it all..
This is the floor in the bathroom, they put this stuff down to prepare for tile which should be coming this next week.
The door frames and baseboards look stunning with the red.
Cameron's testing these shelves for sturdiness.
They completed the sprinkler system and smoothed the backyard even further.
Here's the banister on the stairs (pre-paint, it's white now).
Our beautiful column. I think about 10 times this week we've mentioned the column to each other because we like the way it turned out SO much. You could say we LURVE it!
Here's the cement poured for the flower beds, etc.

Our door was uncovered this week so we saw it for the first time. It's classy glassy.
Here's a look down the stairs at the island. It's cool to look down the stairs and see something there.
We're really pleased with our choices on the cabinets. This was one choice that was a no-brainer for us because we both love dark cabinets so much.
The cupboard and shelf in the washroom.
And a finished picture of the cabinets.
Master bathroom
We also picked out our fridge and washer and dryer on Friday. We're pretty sure on our choices but are waiting on quotes.

Oh, and I also began the glorious process of packing...enough said.

I See a Red Wall...

2010-04-11T16:48:00.006-07:00

Isn't this a lovely piece of art? Cameron and I won it at fundraising auction and have just the place for it in our new house!

Speaking of our house...it's still speeding right along. On Monday they dug trenches for sprinklers,
Smoothed the backyard and got rid of all the sagebrush,
And covered the doors and windows to prepare to texture the walls.
On Tuesday it was cool to see all the walls and ceiling covered and have a little texture,

On Thursday we found doors in our garage,
And painted walls!!! We did a few walls red in the front room, one wall in the bathroom, and one of the smaller bedrooms. I really like the color :)

On Friday we arrived to find our garage door installed,
Pipes in the ground,
The the painting finished up.
It never ceases to amaze me what can be done in just a week. When I look back at my pictures I realize how much has been done in just 5 or 6 days and it's just wonderful! If anyone here in the Tri-Cities needs a builder definitely use Valiant Homes, they're AMAZING, as you can see!

This April Fool's and Easter Week

2010-04-04T21:09:00.005-07:00

I thought I should have a separate post for a few fun things I wanted to post about. I've had such a great week! Here's the highlights.

I've been working for CH2M HILL for a whole year! March 30th was a full year, and it has gone so quickly. The month of March was a busy one for me at work and this last week came back to a normal pace where I was able to get caught up on everything. It feels good to have time to breath while I'm at work. ;)

April Fool's Day. I got Cameron! I turned off the breakers for our apartment's power and then when he woke up I told him the power was off. He checked to make sure we still had work (I was trying not to laugh) and then I flipped the breakers back on about 3 minutes before we needed to leave with a big "April Fool's!" It was a good one and it only worked because he was still groggy and not on top of his game yet. He did get me that evening with the Saran wrap on the toilet trick, darn it!

This Easter weekend has been fun, it was great to have General Conference and Easter the same weekend and listen to President Monson and the leaders of the Church. I'm grateful that we have a prophet on the earth today to receive revelation for our day. This year Cameron and I didn't celebrate with baskets full of Easter candy, and I liked that. For me it helped to focus on our Savior's Resurrection.

We also had several fun activities we did this weekend. On Friday night we went out to dinner with several friends to a new restaurant in town called "New York Richie's" It's a pizza and sub place and it was really yummy. Today we had a beautiful Easter dinner with some new friends. There's just something about ham and potatoes that always tastes good to me.

Now for a little story...Remember when we moved in? It was exactly one year ago on April 1st. We were here without furniture and pretty much 'camping' in our apartment? Well we have a fireplace here in the apartment and we had bought a piece of wood to burn so we could roast s'mores at our 'camp site.' We've never done it and every weekend lately I've been trying to put our fireplace to use. We finally had a fire on Saturday night!! It was so fun to roast marshmallows, I probably ate too many but they were getting roasted so perfectly, it was great!

Last, but certainly not least, OTTER POPS!!! I saw some at Wal-mart yesterday and bought a box. For the past two months since I've been out of Otter Pops I've been telling one of my co-workers how much I was anticipating summer just so I could buy more Otter Pops. I've really been loving these as a sweet little snack. I take them to work and put them in the freezer and then eat them after lunch. I'm sure that I'm odd to some people with my pink Little Mermaid lunch box and eating Otter Pops, but it's just who I am. Hopefully these practices will keep me younger longer.

It's been a pretty DRY week.

2010-04-04T20:52:00.004-07:00

It's been a pretty dry week, even though the weather has been pretty rainy, our DRY wall is nice and smooth. What's so cool about dry wall you ask? In my personal and humble opinion it's the guys that wear stilt-like things to work. They are like the jumping stilts that look like this...

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I was thoroughly impressed when I showed up to the house on Monday and saw a guy going around the house wearing these and putting the mud on the walls. I didn't take a picture of him because I thought it might be weird to ask for a picture with him while he was working. :)

So they cover all of the floor and put the mud over the walls (a few layers), let it dry and then sand everything over so it's smooth. Today when Cameron and I went over I enjoyed just blowing on sections of wall and watching all the dust fly off.

The garage...
Corner of the bedroom...
Master Bathroom window...
A close up shot to see the thickness of this stuff...

Me and a smooth layer that is drying...
The half wall by the stairs...
Oh and we have a thermostat, it's just hangin' in there for now...
Ta da! They painted the shutters this week. What do you think now?

Our House, in the middle of our street...

2010-03-28T21:06:00.004-07:00

I've been surprising myself with how many weeks I've consecutively blogged. This house is a good motivator!! :)

Here's our house with the outside painted. I know it's hard to see but the main color is light green, the gables are brown, the trim is taupe, and the shutters and front door will be dark green.

I like trying to get different angles that are new.

The insulation was also put in this week.

The back patio and front sidewalk was also poured. Do you like Cameron's pose out the back door?

When we drove up on Friday this is what we saw... DRY WALL!!! It's such a transformation. Here's some random pictures throughout the house.

So Stinkin' Fabulous

2010-03-21T19:11:00.004-07:00

I'm so excited to write this post, and don't have a lot of time, so I'll try not to mince words. Our house is beautiful! I just got back from taking a few pictures and here's everything thats happened this week...

Electrical, don't those outlets look good.

Our shower for our master bathroom was put in.
Preparing for siding.
Filling in holes with this fun expanding orange foamy stuff. (I accidentally touched a little while it was still wet. I'd never seen it before and thought it was so cool.)
SIDING!! On the back and one side of the house happened on Thursday.

The front and the other side happened on Friday. When I stopped by at about 6:30 they were still working to finish up.

Also, this beautiful stair from the garage to the house. It's funny how even the small things like this make me so excited. That's part of why I like going to see the house everyday. The tiny details that can change just let me know things are moving along.
Ok, when I drove up to the house and saw the shutters I was so excited, they are so stinkin' cute. I LURVE THEM!! (Which means I really really love them)
I love that they are not your normal shutters, like this... our shutters are character shutters, they add character to our house.
And here's a full picture of what the house looks like now.
From new and multiple angles...

Now I've really got to run, but enjoy and know that painting starts tomorrow!!!

Expired

2010-03-19T23:13:00.006-07:00

When I have funny things happen to me I automatically think about putting them on my blog. Most never make it, but the few that have I hope don't seem too lame.

For our wedding Cameron and I received a 72-hour kit. I think it's a great gift idea to give to newly married couples who probably don't have any other food storage. It's just a small thermos mug thingy stuffed with food and a large label on the outside telling you what's inside and how to spread the food out over 3 days. The label also has a place to write when the kit was assembled and that it should be rotated every 2 years.

Cameron's been waiting for almost 2 years until I would let him eat the food inside so we could rotate new food in. As I was getting something out of the closet on Friday I thought I'd pull out the kit and dump out the food so I could put new food in. I noticed some fruit snacks and opened up a pack to snack on. They were a little harder than normal but still fine. Then I noticed a plastic baggie...it had something like Slim Jims in it...covered in MOLD!!! I was so disgusted, and I don't know what the individual was thinking when they put the kit together. Nothing should be out of it's original packing if you're going to save it for years. After seeing the mold I decided to look for expiration dates on the other food. The beef jerky was expired (but still in it's original package and not moldy), the Capri Sun was expired (March 17 2008, before we were married), even the Top Ramen was expired.

I guess it really is time to put new food in our 72-hour kit, but I have to chuckle when I think of how long someone had this kit before they gave it to us...already expired. Hopefully this post has encouraged someone to rotate their food a little quicker than we have.

Growing!

2010-03-14T15:23:00.002-07:00

Isn't spring fun with all the new growth coming out of the ground? I planted some wheat grass about 1 1/2 weeks ago and love watching it grow. My favorite part is the water that is pulled from the pot all the way up to the tip of the grass. I think it looks SO cool!

What a week can do

2010-03-14T15:14:00.002-07:00

Another week gone and the house continues to fly together.

It was a busy week at work and I didn't get to stop by everyday but here's what happened.

Windows, Cement in the garage, driveway, back porch, and entry, Ductwork, and Framing around the entryway.

A week of changes!!

2010-03-07T19:34:00.004-07:00

What a fabulous week this has been for our house. It's really come out of the ground, literally! These are mostly just pictures, but it's been fun to stop by each day after work and record the changes.

MONDAY: Framing on the first floor.

TUESDAY: Framing started on the second floor.

A look from the back of our lot.

WEDNESDAY: Framing continued on both floors.

THURSDAY: Trusses up for the roof and all the walls on. You can even see someone still at work at 5:30 :)

FRIDAY: The stairs went in and we went upstairs for the first time.

The view from our bedroom.

SATURDAY: Pre-plumbing complete, and our soaker tub installed.

We love our House! (and hope you're enjoying the pictures, cause we like to take them.)

More Building Pictures

2010-02-28T15:59:00.002-07:00

In this past week the foundation has been poured and the lines have been put in for utilities. I love going by and seeing the lot, even if nothing has happened since the last time I was there. Here are a few pictures I took on Thursday and Friday. I'm standing by all the wood they'll be using to frame the house on Monday!

Our Weekend Getaway

2010-02-28T14:06:00.005-07:00

A few weeks ago we went adventuring for the long weekend. We'd wanted to go to Canada, but due to unforeseen circumstances ended up in Cour De Alene, ID. Our friends, the Blodgett's, were our travel buddies.

On our way we stopped in Spokane and looked around. Here we are at the Riverfront park.

And then we went to Gonzaga's campus. Did you know Bing Crosby went to Gonzaga? He did, I thought that was pretty cool. There was a little room/museum dedicated to him in the student center.

Don't feed the bears, you might get caught. (Odd that their mascot is a bull dog but there was this bear made to look like the bull dog)
Here are Carrie and I by Lake Cour De Alene. We took a fun little walk by the water.
Unfortunately Cameron and Kyle got a little too close to the edge.

We took a little drive to Wallace, ID. This is a small little town where Dante's Peak was filmed. They also claim that a manhole cover in the middle of town is the center of the Universe, so we got pictures at the center of the Universe. Also, another cool fact is that a man that looked almost identical to Harry Truman lived in Wallace. He was once mistaken for the President by one of the White House guards who let him onto the grounds of the White House.

Cameron is playing a fun little bowling game at this little store that had a bunch of vintage games.
Kyle and Cameron led Carrie and I into a basement that we got locked into. It was a creepy place but Cameron found us a way out.
From this picture you can see just how scary it was...being locked in there with Kyle.
On our way home we stopped in Spokane again and looked at some gardens, I'd love to go back when flowers are in bloom and everything is alive. It's a great place to take a stroll.
And last, but definitely not least is Jack and Dan's Tavern near Gonzaga. This is the bar that John Stockon's father owned. If you know Cameron at all you know he is a huge Jazz fan and this was a fun little treat. It's too bad John wasn't there while we were having lunch. We heard he comes in a few times a week.
Happy Adventuring!

Our House

2010-02-06T11:27:00.004-07:00

Well as I finished up the last blog, Cameron and I are building a house here in Washington! We've signed a contract and made our selections for colors, etc. We're really excited and the house will be done at the beginning of summer in enough time to get the tax credit.

Here are a few pictures I snapped the other day. This here is the view from the back of our lot.

They haven't broke ground yet but they did go stake everything out. It was fun to see where everything will lay and picture it completed.

We got a great deal on the lot and it's kind of a funny shape but it's a good sized lot and we'll have a HUGE backyard so we're looking forward to it.

More progress and pictures in the coming months.

The Fox

2010-02-06T10:56:00.003-07:00

Last night we went to a party at our friends, The Russell's. It was a mystery party titled, "The Fox" and it took place around the Revolutionary War. Turns out I was "The Fox" and was pretty sly because no one suspected me one bit.

One of the funnest parts was dressing up. I love to play dress up. Here are the costumes that Cam and I created for ourselves. Mine was an average women's blazer that I cut up and added lace to and then a plain old skit that I again added lace to and pinned a body pillow under to add some fluff. The pieces of Cameron's costume are harder to explain but his hat came from the corner of a bag and the rest were odd pieces from the thrift store that came to life when we started to cut them up. I think we did pretty good with our costumes.

(I need to change the fact that I don't take a lot of pictures. We only got a few pictures when we got there and didn't get any action shots or many of the other couples that were there. It's a shame because there were some good costumes.)

Projects

2010-01-31T10:04:00.006-07:00

I've caught the bug, the craft bug. Since the New Year began I have been all about little projects and doing fun little crafts and finally catching up on a bit of my scrapbooking from years ago. I'm not one of those people that dreams cool stuff up in my head and I've told many people that I want to like one of my best friends Tricia when I grow up and have her creativity. These two projects I saw at different places. This wreath I've seen all over blogland. It looked easy and cheap and just right for me. I think it turned out great and I think my favorite part is I can spray paint it over and over again to match different holidays.

This second one I saw at a craft fair during November in Farmington, Utah. It's an advent! I love having a Christmas advent and when I was little I would set my alarm 5 minutes early in the morning so I could be the first one up and change the family advents. (That's until we set a rule so other's could have a turn.)

The first picture here is the finished product. It's made from a mini-muffin pan and I measured and cut paper to fit over the openings and then for the numbers I actually cut them out of the paper and put plain green paper behind the original. Once the paper was glued together I laminated everything together to make it stronger and hopefully last a long time.

Here you can see the magnets on the back. I didn't do one on each corner to save magnets but if I need more in the future they are easy to add.

It'll be fun to fill with little treats or thoughts and use the end of this year... In our new house!!

I'm too slow

2010-01-18T22:40:00.002-07:00

Ha ha, after having such a great day I thought I should post a little something about it. Looks like my blood sister already has... here.

We're going to Hawaii and are so excited!! Just bought our tickets tonight. It sure pays to live close to the west coast. Only $340 per ticket. Gotta Love IT! HAWAII HERE WE COME!

Some Salony Scrumptious Selections

2010-01-02T21:37:00.001-07:00

Cam’s Mediterranean Chicken Pitas

By Cameron Salony

2 ½ cups cubed chicken breast

½ cup frozen peas

1 small can sliced mushrooms

1 tsp. sugar

1 small lemon

¼ cup Italian dressing

1 tsp. lemon pepper

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1 bag of pita bread slices

In a small bowl mix Italian dressing, sugar, Italian seasoning, and lemon pepper. Squeeze lemon juice from lemon into the mixture and set aside. Coat frying pan with Italian dressing (not the mixture, use some more plain Italian dressing) and brown chicken cubes on medium to medium-high heat. Now add the Italian dressing mixture, mushrooms and peas. Fry until thoroughly cooked. Season and/or add more Italian dressing on top if preferred.

Remove pitas from bag and place on microwave safe plate. Dampen a paper towel and place on top of pitas. Microwave for 30-45 seconds. Scoop fried mixture onto pitas and enjoy.

Cam's Chinese Honey Chicken

2 ½ cups cubed chicken breast

½ cup grated carrots

¼ cup sliced green peppers

¼ cup honey

1 tsp. sugar

1 tbs. hot sauce

2 tbs. soy sauce

3 tbs. water

In small bowl mix honey, sugar, hot sauce, soy sauce and water and set aside. Coat pan with preferred cooking oil (vegetable, olive or Italian dressing) and brown chicken breast in pan on medium to medium-high heat. When brown, add honey mixture and green peppers to the chicken. When mixture is thoroughly cooked add sliced carrots to the mixture. Sliced carrots should caramelize to the mixture and therefore it is important that they are added last. For a sweeter taste, pour a coat of honey over mixture. Add desired seasonings. Serve over rice.

Salony Apple-Raspberry Fritter

By Heather and Cameron Salony

1 pkg. JIFFY Apple Cinnamon Muffin Mix

1 pkg. JIFFY Raspberry Muffin Mix

8 cups apples (peeled and sliced)

½ cup white sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

1 cup quick oats

¾ cup margarine or butter (can substitute applesauce for butter)

2 tsp. cinnamon & sugar mix

Preheat oven to 350°. Place apples in 13 x 9 pan, cover with cinnamon & sugar mix. Combine rest of ingredients and sprinkle mixture on top of apples in pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes. If crispier top is desired bakes for a few minutes longer under close supervision.