Thanksgiving 2012 - Bridges

I decided I better get this out before Christmas so no comments on the prose, or lack thereof.

I want to share pictures of the cool bridges Nathan took me too see around the Boise area...

Man, my family loves me.  They know what I like :)

First was this awesome old train bridge reconstituted into a footbridge.

 Nathan paced each span at about 75 yards or around 225ft.  I was so excited to see this one because the bridge I'm working on right now is a tied arch, although its only one 160ft span.
Of course I forgot my camera...

So Emily took some with hers.

I wanted so badly to get down on the abutments and see how they attached the beams.... and spent some time at this first abutment trying to get a good picture with Emily's camera.

Nathan called us across.. (Look at those beams!!)

And I discovered I could get up on the second abutment.  See that big pin?

so awesome!

It made me so happy.

I won't bore you with all the other pictures I took... except maybe one more of the abutment.  There were cracks in the concrete on these bearings (not shown) but I guess it didn't matter much now that the bridge only carries foot traffic.

Yes, there's a few more picture but... on to the next bridge!

The next day we went to see another steel bridge, this time spanning the gorge behind a huge earthen dam (no pictures of that).

The piers were beautiful!

Apparently this fills up with water in the summer... and they still have problems with flooding.

But guess what... the last span was on rollers! (Emily put her cell phone down for size).  Totally awesome.

Nathan was a little worried about the kids falling off the cliff so he held on tight.

Unfortunately we had to get Bailey back for a basketball game so we didn't get to stay long.

But man... I could of admired it for a while... its too bad I couldn't get to the other side.

Anyways.. those were the bridges Nathan took me to see, along with a working old dam (I didn't get pictures) and the bird of prey reserve.  I kinda felt bad cuz it all was just for me (or so I like to think)!  I just guess he loves me.

PS. Apparently Emily's phone was hijacked on our way back from that last bridge and since she hasn't posted these pictures yet...

(Zane and Lauralynn who appears to have some sort of sticker disease, Melina, Bailey and Annaliese, Joel)

Thank you Idaho Helms! So much fun to be with you guys.  The withdrawals were hard but now I'm ready for Christmas... it's been a long 4 weeks :)

October General Conference 2012

This is the last of the October posts.

Emily came down conference weekend (first weekend of October) to watch Wicked and just to hang out with me.. cuz she loves me.  I had an awesome time and would have moped after she went back home but couldn't cuz I had too much to do at work. (See previous posts)

She came late Thursday night so I took a picture of her Friday morning before I went to work...

OK.. so she didn't stay in bed all morning, she did lots of her own work at my house while I was gone.  She can do catch up work at home.  I even went swimming that afternoon and she got even more work done.

Friday night we watch WICKED!  Of course, pictures weren't allowed so I just took a picture of the stage before it all started.  That's a big dragon on top.

It was awesome. I'm so glad we got to go see it.  Thanks Pat for organizing it! I don't know that I would pay that much to go see it again, but I was way entertained. I now enjoy the CD that much more when I listen to it cuz I actually know whats going on :)

Then we watched conference. I love conference!  Just sit and be fed.. not much effort on your part.  I know I've said this before, but it totally helps me understand the appeal of a paid clergy.  You know, that reminds me.  I've been reading a series of books about a Episcopalian priest.  The parishioners pay their priest to do the stuff we are supposed to do... visit the sick, look after the poor, spread the gospel, etc.  Can I just say so much easier?  Ah well.  What can I say, single people are selfish.

But back to conference.  This is Emily's reaction to the missionary age change announcement.  I was going to facebook it but didn't feel comfortable putting a picture of her in her pajamas up there.  Apparently blogging is OK :)

It was pretty funny because both of us stood up and walked around cuz we were so excited we wanted to talk to someone about it... Emily said we would have been texting each other like crazy if we hadn't been together :) We discussed it for the rest of the weekend with Emily telling me about the reaction on the Internet.

I really am so excited about it.  So awesome and its going to be so fun to see what all the repercussions will come because of it.  My little niece Megan's getting her papers together!  Love it.

Emily also started a new tradition of sending pictures of our conference set up to everyone in the family... cuz then we started getting them back.  Emily made fun of Aaron because in the parents picture they sent he was on his computer.  So I surreptitiously took this one of Emily...

She wasn't too pleased because she said she was looking up something the speaker had said :)  See the marshmallow mateys at her feet?  Didn't know Emily had a thing for them and I forgot to send them with her!  That and all the candy she bought after Jenny showed us her preparations for staying awake in the afternoon sessions.  Don't worry, Jenny's kids took care of most of it for me this weekend.  But that's another post.

Emily and I took a walk or 2 between conference sessions and took some more pictures.

Emily tried to get a good one of me...

But the best one was me with my head turned away :)

My new favorite thing is putting my feet in the community (unheated) pool after exercising to cool off.. so Emily and I tried it after conference because, you know, conference is exhausting.

I love it when Emily comes visits.  Oh yes, and Melissa was kind enough to let us play in her hot tub Sat night.  She's so nice to us.  Guess what we discussed... the missionary age change!

To end, Emily decided to wear the brown fabric cover I made for my witches hat last years Halloween to turn it into the sorting hat. What does it remind you of?

Pumpkinman 2012

Well... I did it again.  And Mom and Dad came to cheer me on because they love me... and Melissa and Mitchell came too!  Then I went to work and Mom and Dad adverted disaster by replacing corroded metal in my upstairs toilets and changing out kitchen lights.  Nice, eh? Dad said that he was on such a roll that if my car was there he would have changed that out too.

So... I'm just going to give you the quick run down since most of you have already heard the whole story. Thank you Mom and Dad for the pictures! Zazoosh actually gave me all their pictures for free but I look much better in Mom and Dad's... cuz its from farther away :)

Overall the swim felt kinda weird.  I felt like I swam all over the place and never really got going, running around and into people.  I even went on the wrong side of the first buoy... looked around for someone to get mad at me and then just kept going.

This is me wearing the watch I ran back to the car to get right before my wave started... and then forgot to push the start button.  Typical.  Plus, the ramp had just been resurfaced... OUCHY on my feet!

 But really overall I felt pretty good. Well hydrated (I had brought 5 water bottles with me... Can you over do hydration?)

 I did try one of those fuzzy things you put in ur waterbottle I got in my packet... not very pleasant in my tummy, but overall I was OK. (Note to self.. don't try something new on a race day.  Wait, didn't I make a note of this last year?)

I was feeling pretty strong, Passing boys and girls on the bike... and being passed once or twice myself.

Feeling pretty confident.

Then the run.  Its always the run...

Once again u aren't going to get any pictures cuz I look bad  Pretty sure everyone I passed on the bike passed me on the run.

I did run the whole thing this time (my goal) but rather slowly.  At the end, I had been following this perky young lady plodding along and finally caught up to her around the corner to the finish line.  I thanked her for being such a good rabbit.  She expressed surprise, said "your welcome", and then turned on the speed (relatively) for the grand finish.  I was trying not to throw up so needless to say I didn't keep up with her.

Mitchell wanted to run in with me and I said "lets go!"... then I was concentrating on not throwing up so didn't notice he ran all the way to the finish!... Still feel kinda bad about that.

Here I am regaling one and all with the whole story.

 And here I say I'd like to eventually do the Olympic distance.

Then I realize what I just said.

:)

Oh ya, one more story.  I was feeling pretty ill at work that afternoon until I finally ate my dinner. 

Duh.  Note to self, eat something afterwards... regardless of how you feel!

PS. OK.. I just looked through the Zazoosh pictures and the swimming and biking are kinda OK... its the run ones that look bad.

Do you think they might flip the order of Pumkinman... just for me?

Not likely.. darn that USAT.

PPS.  Forgot to say, I got second in the fat ladies under 39 division... There were all of 5 of us :)

Halloween 2012

Anyone notice I skipped all of October?  Ya, that's cuz I was working.  I have two very nice October posts that never got posted (let alone written) because of work.  Its either feast or famine here.  One day its "Please take some time off since we have nothing for you to do" and the next day "here is a nice Amazon gift card for working weekends all last month even though your parents came to watch you race... and can you work this weekend?".

But you don't care about that.  I just brought it up to explain the lack of October posting and why November will have 4 or 5 posts.  I still want to post the pictures from Conference and Pumpkinman.

However, this is going to be about Halloween and my typical awesome set up.

Remember last year when I was obsessed with Hogwarts even though just a few months before Halloween it was all about pioneer costumes?  Well, its a good thing I changed because I really didn't have the time (or ideas) for this years theme and I could fall back on the pioneer idea.

First though, let me tell you about how an engineer makes a cardboard wagon wheel.

She calculates how long 1/8th of the circumference of a 48" diameter wheel would be (online research set the size). Then using string and a pen, makes a template based on this distance plus a few inches on either side for overlap (24-26").  She starts cutting out cardboard and, after realizing she would have to do this a total of 16 times, gets out the exacto knife and goes to town.  Then she lays it out using the grid she made for blocking doilies and a yard stick (Blue tape = clamps).

Just want to say those spokes are pretty close to 45degree angles.  Unfortunately the final diameter was about an inch taller than wide but I guess a tolerance of 1/2" on each side is pretty good... at least it is in concrete.

The wheel of course took all of Sunday in between church, VTing, and choir.  Unfortunately that was all the time I had set aside for preparing this year.  So of course I ended up staying up until midnight the next two nights after getting home late from work doing the fire and packing the car...

Here is my set up.  That lantern was only 7 bucks at Walmart and made me very happy.

 Just want you to know that when I put my outfit on at home, it looked alot better in the mirror.  Oh yes, and I have on my corset, bloomers, petticoat, and $5 button boots (well, hooks) I got on sale at DSW that look surprisingly authentic.  Not very comfortable to wear, but nice enough for a costume.

I told the bishop a corset is very uncomfortable and he said (as he quickly rolled away) "TMI".  It's also difficult to drive in a corset.

I tried to get a picture of the fire but moved around too much. The candy is cooking in a plastic dutch oven over the fire.

(The "iron hook" its hanging on is made of two sticks wrapped in black duct tape.  Actually looked almost right)

See my packed wagon? Pat let me borrow the quilts and camping plates, cups and cookware (Thanks so much Pat!).  I hung some muslin up behind to drape over the back seats so it looks like the rest of the wagon is packed to the brim and covered in canvas.

 As I was putting it all away, I realized I only had 1 or 2 pictures so I took a few more.

I tried to take a picture of my fire without the flash... yea, really awesome.

One of wheels, my knitting basket (I was going to be knitting but was too busy handing out candy and talking), and the edge of my shawl hanging from the wagon.

I didn't realize how well you would be able to see the inside of the wheels (cardboard from appliances reinforced with blue tape is rather colorful) so I had to put them sitting back a bit.  I don't think everyone noticed them.

Other wheel. The bale of hay is still wrapped in the cover (drop cloth) in my car.  Not quite sure what to do with it now.

That night I told my friends I didn't have very many good pictures (of me) so they sent me theirs but most of them didn't really turn out so I'll just show you 2.

Pat's was dark but at least has me in it.

The best was Shawna's cuz she took one of the set up...

 And of me over under the street light.  My hair had fallen out by then and I'd lost my bobby pins.

My cell phone and keys were in my pocket. Made me laugh. The costume really did look MUCH better in the mirror.

I was there till the bitter end, handing out all my candy (not as big this year cuz it was just our ward but still gave out all but a few pieces I'd saved for myself) and walking around swinging my lantern while everyone else cleaned up.  I didn't want to have to blow it out and get in my car cuz it made me so happy.

When I got home I turned off all the lights and lit it again... and a candle.  Fire + Food = happiness.

FYI.. it's hard to knit by firelight.

 Anyway, I think it was a success, even if it did feel rather thrown together and a bit of a blur (and I kept stepping on/popping the Christmas lights stringing from fire to car). I'm pretty sure I won... at least that's what I told everyone. If there was a prize, I would have won it.  Definitely.

 Problem is, I'm already thinking about next year.  There really are not many good, easy costumes for cars, you know? And I'd like to be able to wear some of my costumes again cuz they took alot of work.  Bethanie and I have been brainstorming for next year so we'll see.

On an unrelated note, Dad, do you think you could make me a small guillotine?