Crafty Kristy

This is my cousin Kristy making a snuggie using her snuggie as a
pattern. It's for a boy she knows- she spent more on the fabric than
a snuggie would've cost! For all those who don't have a snuggie, get
yourself one. They are simply fabulous.

Welcome home!

Katie Smith

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kate Smith <katiejoycesmith@gmail.com>
Date: December 24, 2009 10:29:58 AM MST
To: katiejoycesmith@gmail.com
Subject: Welcome home!

Maggie felt it would be appropriate to chase my ankles as a way of
thanking me for leaving her for a week.

Shark hunting

Buffet

Here I am doing what I do best- eating at a buffet! Now, it's not
chuckarama which is one if my favorites, but it is the Polynesian
Culture Center so it should be good.

Hawaii!!

Aloha I'm enjoying my first trip to Hawaii. This is my nephew Henry.
Its his first trip too We are all staying in a house on the North
Shore.

Hold the seafood please

I'm making gumbo but I intentionally left out all seafood and seafood
related products.

Headed to see Liz dance

Headed down to byu to see Liz dance.

The kids

Josh and Nicole are doing great. Nikki loves to vacuum. Josh just got
his 'hair all gone'. Lots of fun to see these cute kids in Portland.

Oregons finer points

You may not be able to pump your own gas here, but the McRib is back
so it's all ok!!

Over the top

Ok. I admit. This is ridiculous. However, he didn't sleep like this
all night- just after I got out of bed. He almost looks cute and nice!

All done!

Recovering from his loss

Tim's bolstering his spirits by cleaning his AR15. For the record, I'm
not making any snippy comments.

Close game!!

Our shopping

The downfall of America.

First of all- the child is driving. Second of all- he was going
against the flow of traffic. Lastly of all- it's the day before
thanksgiving! Stores shouldn't allow these kinds of people on such
busy days!!!
As a side note, I'm at costco again.

Spencer sitting

This isn't a shelf at a dog food store: it's all of Spencer's gourmet
food for three days! The worst part is Maggie and Spence won't sleep
in the same room so Tim will sleep with her upstairs as well as
Caesar, and I will be with Spence and Harley in my bed. And, we have
to check on Jewel's three dogs while they are out of town.

All clean!

We used this chemical my dad recommended and it came off easily.
As a side note, the Ukraine is being especially hit hard by the
'california' flu so it's good I'm not going. Good luck Kristy!

There goes our neighborhood

Our fence got Grafitied last night. Seriously- did they think our cute
little fence in Bountiful needed spray painting? Tim takes this as a
sign that we need to move east.

I hate outerspace!!!

I manages to go inside at Griffith Observatory but only for a few
minutes. I hate everything to do with outerspace. Except my memory
foam pillow.

In 'N Out without the wait.

Malibu

Ironic that Tim is at the beach today because hes going skiing tomorrow.

And we are off!

We just enjoyed a fabulous lunch at the Blue Bayou. We even rode a few
rides in Adventure Land. Now we are headed north towards Griffith Park
and then hopefully to the Getty Villa.
The weather is great and we do wish you were all here.

I've kidnapped Tim!

Can you believe it??!!

Fudge when you screw up how much sugar you add.

I should've added twice as much sugar, but since I wasn't looking at the recipe, I didn't realize that until the fudge failed. I then added the sugar and turned it into icecream topping!

charity hair

I don't need any of this crap.

I'm at NPS and couldn't say no to any of this junk. Now I'm waiting
for a price adjustment. And waiting....

Three dogs

I'm jut glad these three muts aren't on my desk sleeping!

Another sad thing

So, to top off my (actually Bret's) dental drama, I started the week
off with a bang.
To begin, it was only 20 degrees last night. That alone is enough to
ruin your day.
After I woke up, I found dog pee in my closet. You get to guess which
dog it was.
Then, Tim walked in our front door, it was only about 6:15 am. Turns
out, my beetle died in my mom's driveway. It kind of shuddered and
shut down. We thought maybe the diesel froze but it still won't start
after thawing in my moms garage (just celebrated my one-year
anniversary with my big Hobart mixer seen in picture).
Then, at about 6:45, I opened a drawer and found that dead mouse in a
trap! I can't tell you where, but I'm sure his twin brother will be
there tomorrow morning.
So, all before 7:00am, I had lots of inconvenient things. So have a
good day!

Harry is off to Vegas

Harry is driving Brets race trailer down to Vegas for supernationals.
Bret will fly down tonight after he makes a stop at Dr. Picketts for a
chipped tooth. We'd like to give a shout out to Dr Pickett for being
an awesome dentist and thank him for coming in on a Sunday- Bret has
to be in Vegas tonight.
Good luck drivers!
ps- if you want to come to Vegas next weekend a bunch of us are going
down. Former F1 champion Michael Schumacher will be there as well -
he's like the Michael Jordan of racing.

Back view

Avalanche Bag System

Tim got to demo the $1,000 avalanche protection system at our
avalanche class today. It costs about $80 to refill it for the next
time. When deployed, it has nearly a 100% survival rating.
You just pull a rip cord to inflate as soon as you feel you are in
danger. It helps keep you on top of the snow.

The price of honesty today.

So, I returned this combo food processor/ blender today to Costco. He
said it's $156.65. I was like, no I think it was like $70. We looked
at the screen and we had bought a cuisineart for $156.65 about a month
ago.
So, he returned it. I walked up to it on the floor and sure enough
it's $70. So, I've spent the last twenty minutes trying to 'buy' back
the right return and return the right one.
Sure, I could've easily had an extra $100 in my picket but I wouldn't
be able sleep with myself. Not to mention, I had to show the costco
guy I really know how much my kitchen appliances cost!
Turns out Kara bought the cuisineart in question at about the same
time I bought the mini one

Pinewood derby

Bret working on Emil's pinewood derby car. He's melting lead to make
it heavier.

Tims muscles

Tim's using his muscles to play Jenga for the first time in his life!
He's been working on his muscles faithfully for about two weeks.

Look who's at Pierce Brother's!

Happy Halloween

Jungle cruise

Potty stop in Vegas

We stopped for the bathroom at in n out in Vegas. Liz is doing well
and will be there until at least Sunday. Please go visit her- Utah
Valley Medical something in Provo.

Blood tests

They are taking more blood to see how thin it's getting as well as to
test for five possible markers that would give an underlying reason
for clotting- they don't just blame the medicine she was on.

Liz in hospital

Liz has been hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism! She's doing well
with the blood thinner cumiden but has to stay until Sunday to
regulate the medicine.
The culprit was some medicine she'd been taking.
It's a tiny blood clot in her lower left lung. She didn't have the
regular symptoms- no coughing or shortness of breath. She just had a
little pain in her lung, thought it might be pneumonia or pleuresy.
She's at Utah Valley Medical Center e577. Valet park at the front of
the building

Chocolate soap

I made this soap yesterday. I'll cut it into pieces today and it will
take about a month for it to cure. It's actually chocolate orange
flavored soap. Another batch I made with coconut oil from the
Philippines textured with some beach sand.

Headed out!

This is the clinic we finally found. We went to another 'clinic' but it was really a spa. This clinic ironically, is next door to the atm! Imagine that!
They prescribed some oral antibiotics that were quite expensive so I'll try to find some cheaper ones.





This is Shoko, Nanjean, and Kate making the truffles for Fridays. It was awesome because she pre-did every step of the process so it was like a TV show and she would pull out the next step immediately. Shoko had never done chocolates.

We are leaving Fridays for a van, to a boat, to a van to the Kalibo airport for 615 pm Saturday night flight to Manila. Spend the night in a hotel. 815 am Sunday Manila to Tokyo (615 saturday night Utah time), then to Portland and home around 1 pm Sunday. Please have Sunday dinner ready.

Last day in Boracay

Scott, Me and Shoko eating a fresh coconut on a boat. The coconut was sold to us from a boat onto our boat. Great service but I actually think the fresh coconut is disgusting.






Sunset at our beach. About 40 miles away, you can see other big islands.








Me on a coral beach - look close, no sand, just coral which is like rocks and stuff. Very painful without shoes. We had taken a little boat over to this little island. I felt like Gilligan going on a three hour tour of the Jungle Cruise and we landed at Tom Sawyer's Island. Very fun.



Group on the boat to 'Tom Sawyer's Island' eating ice cream that was also delivered to us. We had tied into this bouy in a 'preserve' area to snorkel. Only little fish around here, like maybe 6''. I'm not really an ocean water swim person. It was only about 4' deep, but it still made me nervous even with a life jacket on.


See you in three days or something whenever I get home - the bumps on my legs are totally out of control. I put cortisone cream on with no avail and I bought some stuff at the pharmacy that burns so at least I don't notice the itchiness.

this is it! We leave in 36 hours!

We've done lots of things the last few days. I finally went to an ATM and got some local money (thanks Tim!). I've just been using dollars but I ran out. The dollar has devalued 10% while we've been here - I think the world is still mad over Obama's Peace prize.
I bought some more pearls on beach from these ladies. I won't disclose how many sets...but if you tell me you want one, I'll give you one.
We went on side by side ATV's. Harry and Tim - they were 200 cc PGO's. We just went on pavement to the top of the island. Nice view.







The first night we were here they had a pig roast for us. We didn't really eat because the natives needed the food but we sampled and it was very good. They stuff the pig with lemon grass - it's actually grass that tastes like lemon and it was amazing! So, then, I saw a boy turning a pig, manually, over coals so I took a picture of that. Maybe you'll see it.
My favorite purchase, is a $3 house dress. My bags are getting pretty full or I'd go buy a few more. I've been wanting a moo moo for a while and this one is perfect! Knee length with a pocket. It reminds me of the good ol' days with Maurine.
Oh, and as my service while I'm here...
The daughter of the guy Don got the boat for is Gemma. She and her brother have horrible skin - the kind that leaves scarring. Don and Cath brought her proactive (probably $40 or so) hoping that it will help her. I had kind of just kept my mouth shut and assumed that medicine hadn't worked for her or wasn't available (no one I'm with knew that her kind of acne wasn't the result of poor skin care).
So, last night at dinner I asked Don if she had seen a doctor for her skin. He kind of laughed and said they would never have enough money for that. A girl was with us that Don and Cath put through college and Don asked her to find out about a doctor. Luckily, there is a clinic on the island we are going to take Gemma to for the whopping amount of $10! Anything they give her will be an improvement- medicine is cheap. I don't know if the have Acutane her because that's what she really needs. So, I'm hopeful that we can find something that will help her and her
brother.
And helping her makes me feel better about buying 30 strands of pearls :)

Me at a fish market. blegh!