An Aven(t)-full life.

Some of you may have noticed the new title and banner at the top of the blog. I've been wanting to come up with a better blog title for a while now and I also wanted to put my own personal photo for the top of the page. The photo is one I took in Washington D.C. the leaf was caught on the edge of a fountain. This is one of my favorite photos that I have taken in a long time.
This is the original photo. I cropped it down to fit the page title space. It's still a little bigger than I want. I might do more tweaking to it later.


As to the new title of the page. We have finally decided on a name for our new daughter: Aven Bailey. Aven is going to be the first name, unless we change our minds in the next 2 months, which is possible. We are also still deciding on if were going to do a middle name or not.

Floating

Floating



I just found this shot I took last summer at Flaming Gorge.
It''s more impressive at full resolution, Click on the photo to make it nice and big.
What do you think of it?

10 more weeks or so.

Were only a couple months away from the big day, I thought I would post a photo of my beautiful pregnant wife.
That's right we only have about 10 weeks left until the sleepless nights and poopy diapers start up. I'm excited though. I can't wait to meet my new daughter.

A visitor from the far north . . .

On February 11th my former fellow art teacher, Missy, came for a visit during our collaborative work time at good old West Jordan Middle School. She moved to Finland last year so her husband could pursue a masters degree in physics. She's been sorely missed by everyone at school, so it was great to see her. It's just not the same teaching art without her next door. We also shared a ridiculous experience while attending a middle school conference together in Houston- so this relationship goes a little bit beyond being next door neighbors in the 240 hall.



Above is the Fine Arts team (L-R): Kate Kimber, who replaced me as the ceramics teacher (I replaced Missy as the Drawing teacher), Lauren Flygare, the band and orchestra teacher who has been at WJMS 29 years, Lisa Morey, our Drama teacher with an endless supply of energy and fabulous ideas, Missy Ames, currently expecting a baby, which is super-exciting, Me, looking as big as a house, and Phil Grothaus, our wonderfully talented choir teacher who also performs in the Taberbacle Choir.


Missy brought some delicious black licorice from Finland to share with the team.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy visiting schedule to spend a couple hours with your old F. Arts friends!

The Lighter Side

I've been so wrapped up in the scary parts of my dad's experience at the V.A. that I thought it would be somewhat cathartic for me to share a few tidbits of the lighter side of my dad's 10 day hospital stay.

When my dad came out of surgery at about 1:30 Monday morning the nurse assigned to his ICU room was a scruffy looking guy named Bill. My dad, in his drugged out state, spent all night thinking he was the janitor. I suppose in that state it would really weird you out to think that a janitor was hanging out in your hospital room. It was quite funny the next day when my aunt explained to him that Bill was his nurse- a little twilight zone moment for my dad.


Another funny moment came later that day. My aunt Shelly was in my dad's room when he pressed the call button for the nurse. Three cute female nurses assembled in his room to see what the problem was and my dad announced "I've got some bad news for you ladies- I've gotta go". Shortly after that my dad got to have his first, undignified meeting with a bed pan.


One final thing I will share is one of those 'funny in hind sight' memories. The night after the physical therapist was able to get my dad up on his feet for the first time he was given Ambien to help him sleep. I'm sure that most people are aware that Ambien can do some pretty weird things to you. My dad woke up at 2 a.m. thinking it was 2 p.m. He yanked his I.V. out, causing blood to spray everywhere, he got himself up out of bed and went to the bathroom. While in the bathroom he became convinced that he was in South America and was the victim of a conspiracy. Needless to say, this freaked the nurses out just a little bit.


In the end I really hope that these are the memories that stand out while the scary stuff fades away.

Anything that's dead shall be regrown . . .

My dad was just released from a 10 day stay at the V.A. hospital yesterday after a very scary ordeal. He had been having some pain and swelling in his left foot which turned into worse pain and his foot turning gray- not good. He went to a podiatrist who told him to see a vascular surgeon. Luckily my dad is a veteran, and for a self-employed man with no insurance that opened up a whole world of nearly-free medical care. It almost makes his horrible, life-altering experience in the Army worth it. He left his Redmond home very early on Sunday morning (2/8) and drove to my Aunt Shelly's house. She took him up to the V.A. and as soon as they verified his discharge papers and income the E.R. staff started freaking out about the fact that there was 0% blood flow in his left leg- yikes. That led to the discovery of multiple blood clots.


An angiogram was performed to put clot-busting medication in his veins. Then his foot turned white- that's even worse than gray. At that point the decision was made to do emergency surgery to remove the clots, so at 10:00 p.m. on Sunday my dad was whisked away to the O.R. In his delirious, drug-induced state he begged my aunt not to let them take his leg. He came out of surgery at 1:30 a.m. and the surgeons were quite happy with the results. Another surgery was planned, but his condition improved so fast that the surgery was canceled.

He continued to improve until the nurses in the surgical inpatient ward intervened and threw in a little extra suffering by placing an I.V. in his muscle instead of a vein and leaving it there for about 12 hours, letting an intern practice blood draws on the back of his hand, and ramming into the bad foot and not apologizing.

He somehow managed to survive the hospital and is now at home in Redmond, which isn't by Cedar City, in case you were wondering.

"my dearest friends, even if your hope has burned with time, anything that's dead shall be re-grown, and your vicious pain, your warning sign, you will be fine." - Angels and Airwaves

Here's to a speedy recovery, Dad!

Cabin Trip with Deer

I wanted to take a minute to post some more photos.
These are from a cabin trip from back in 2005.

This is one of two deers that stopped by one morning. They are about 10 feet away from us, We were out sitting on the deck throwing them old apples to eat.

This one want's more apples

Here are both of the deer together. The one on the right was the one in the above photos. It looked like a younger dear it came closer to us then the older one.

Here is a photo of me and Cara up at the lake after a swim.

A History of Vacationing: Part 2

Somewhere deep in the woods between Flaming Gorge and Vernal, Summer 2007. Ian led my sister and I on one of his famous 'death hikes' on this cabin trip. On this particular brand of hike a trail is usually not followed and steep, rocky inclines with plenty of loose gravel to slide on are a must. We managed to survive and we even came across the remains of an old trapper's cabin.

Mountain Man Rendezvous, Fort Bridger, Wyoming, September 2006. I'm a big fan of the history of the American West, Abe Lincoln, and Priuses. What better way to combine those loves than spending the day at Fort Bridger with a bunch of people wearing period costumes. I even ran into one of my best friends there. Pretty random place to run into a friend.

Flaming Gorge, Summer 2006. Yet again we escaped to Ye Old Malecker Family Homestead, this time with good friends Amber and Dustin Corona. Above you will see Amber and I risking our lives on the edge of a deadly cliff.

Las Vegas, June 2006. Ian got called up for active duty in the eBay army for the second time. He was asked to work gruelling 10 hour days at the eBay Live convention in Vegas for 4 days. We stayed an extra four after the convention to have fun. After eight days in Vegas I decided that I was Vegased out for about 20 years.

I like this picture because you can see where Ian scraped his forehead along the bottom of the wave pool at Mandalay Bay when he was unexpectedly caught in a rip-tide.

Hawaii, June 2005. We spent three weeks in Hawaii for our honeymoon. A week and a half on Oahu and a week and a half on Hawaii a.k.a the Big Island. In the above photo we were visiting Pearl Harbor.

Out of the dozens of cool things we did and places we went while in Hawaii there is one standout un-cool thing: Ian got stung by a Man of War jellyfish while swimming at Hapuna State Beach Park. He was screaming bloody murder and all the lifeguard could say was "I guess you should get in the shower and stay there". Very helpful, dude. His entire back was covered in tentacles along with his neck and the side of his face, one even got in his mouth. This kind of jellyfish has no remedy for pain, and trust me, he tried all the standard stuff for jellyfish stings. It was about 24 hours before he was feeling okay again.

One super-cool thing we saw was a volcano erupting at Volcano National park. The lava was shooting up about 50 feet in the air. Pretty freakin' awesome.


New Orleans, June 2004. Ian's first stint in the eBay army was at the New Orleans conference for four days. We were there eight days and it was awesome. I still drool looking at the picture I took of the fried green tomatoes I ordered at an open air bar on the banks of the Mississippi. i would go back just for those.

Puerto Penasco, Mexico, November 2003. The morning we flew out of Salt Lake it was snowing. In the above photo we were sailing on a catamaran with Ian's parents and brother on the Sea of Cortez in breezy 75 degree weather. There were even dolphins swimming along side the boat.

Cannon Beach, Oregon, August, 2002. Ian wasn't on this trip, I was with my mom and sister, but I couldn't leave it out because of the road sign we spotted driving along Oregon's Pacific Coast Scenic Highway. The sign does not lie.

I didn't realize how many cool places Ian and I have been together until I put them all together in an abbreviated format on this blog- go us!

A History of Vacationing

I was thinking about how many great vacations Ian and I have been on together in the almost 7 years that we've been together and thought I would post a few photos of some of those fabulous trips. Can you tell I'm really sick of winter and constantly daydreaming about warmer times?

Washinton D.C., August 2008. Here we are on our most recent trip outside of Utah. My mom gave us a trip to Washington D.C. for Christmas 2007, which we took in August 2008. We were there for 6 fantastic days and we both loved it.Above, we were standing just outside the back door of George Washington's Mt. Vernon home. Our first president sure knew a few things about real estate.

Moab, August 2008. Ian was born in Moab and did most of his growing up in central Utah. I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of Moab, mainly because we only seem to go there during the summer and I don't particulary care for mountain biking or hiking in 105 degree weather. On our most recent trip we went on a night hike in Arches National Park and that is my favorite thing we have done in Moab so far. There was no moon, which caused us to get lost for awhile, but the stars were beautiful and it wasn't too hot.

Cabin at Flaming Gorge, July 2008. I know I've posted about the cabin before, but this was probably one of the worse trips we've taken there. My poor mom fell at Mustang Ridge and broke her ankle on my birthday. We did our best to have a good time despite the suckiness of a broken bone.

Redmond, Utah, April 2008. We went to visit my dad in his new home and while we were there we burned some stuff in a ditch for entertainment. Let's just say my dad easily acclimated to small town life. I just had to add my dad's favorite geographical joke as an edit- Random person: "Where's Redmond?" my dad: "Do you know where Cedar City is?" random person: "ya" my dad: "well it's not by there". Makes me laugh every time :)

San Francisco, March 2008. We spent 5 days in San Fran seeing everything we could possibly pack in. We also made sure we watched an episode of Monk while we were there. It was all amazing and beautiful. Riding the trolley was one of the craziest things we did there- you need incredible strength and endurance to operate one of those things.

Wow- we went on a lot of trips last year. I'll have to do some follow-up posts about other trips we have taken farther back in our history so this post doesn't end up being a mile long.

More Warnock Displays

I thought I would post a few more of the photos I took in the Warnock foyer, where I found the Pixar display.
The photo above is a cool fountain right in the main doorway. The water streams fluctuate in strength so the water arcs move. It's really cool check it out if your ever in the building for some reason.


This is the guy that the building was named after. Apparently he likes typography. It's a cool poster though.


Here's a display showing the space shuttle and some rockets.

This is a display showing how the copper ore is collected in the Kennecott copper mine.