Sunday, October 25, 2009

Working and Waiting

I spent a lot of time this week working on my calling at church and working with Don. We took a couple of calls this week with the business, but I also spent a day with him and some of his colleagues out in the field doing plant surveys on a remote ranch that the county owns. It was interesting for me to learn how the surveys are done and to be able to help. This is me recording John's findings (he's the ranch manager).



The only real hazards were the cactus and this little guy who thought i had something on the bottom of my pant leg that he wanted.



Yesterday my side of the family got together to celebrate my youngest sister's birthday. It was fun to see Jon again. He is my niece's husband who is home from Iraq and is now out of the Army. He will be starting school soon, and is very happy to be back with his wife and two little boys.

Speaking of little ones, we are doing a countdown here at our house awaiting the arrival of Nathan, Sarah, and the grandkids...11 more days! We haven't seen them in almost 18 months and are very excited for their arrival! I can hardly wait to hug them all again, especially those three little ones!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

We Love Dallas (and I don't mean Texas)!

We had so much fun having Don's youngest sister, Dallas, with us for the last 8 days. Every day we did something together. Besides going to the zoo (see last blog) we went to the Home Show, the Car Show, and shopping. Jennifer and Nicole enjoyed getting to know their Aunt Dallas (they haven't seen her in many years). One evening we went to a show at the Gaslight Theater. Below are some pictures we took afterwards.


Dallas and I.


Don and Dallas.


Don.

We also had Paul and his family over for dinner and watched old home movies from when they were all younger.



Paul with his grandson, Preston.


Dallas with Preston and Dale (Paul's son).


Cali (Paul's daughter) with her daughter and son, Trinity and Preston.
One day we went out metal detecting...too bad there wasn't any gold (just old bullets and pieces of tin cans and wires). That afternoon as we were 4-wheeling through the desert, we got stuck. It took us over an hour to dig the truck out. We laughed a lot, and we sweated a lot...it was a hot day. In spite of the unexpected delay, it was a fun day.

Don and Dallas digging up something they found with the metal detector.



Dallas and I in the creek willing to dig wherever Don told us to.

We took a couple of calls while Dallas was here. The rattle snake was straight forward. But below is a picture of a ringtail cat that climbed down someone's chimney into their gas fireplace and couldn't get back out. It was hard to work around the log, but eventually Don got him out.
I wish you could see his beautiful tail. It's long and bushy and striped like a raccoon.


All in all, we had a REALLY FUN time with Dallas, and hope that she will come again soon. We also hope that her husband, Aaron, will be able to pull away from work and come with her next time. LOVE YOU, DALLAS!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Something Going On Everyday!

It's been so hard to find a few minutes to write! Andy and I got into a local studio last week and got three songs recorded as a demo (just guitar and vocal). Andy put down the guitar parts, I sang lead, and we both did back up vocals. It was a lot of fun (I always love doing studio work)!






On Saturday I spent most of the day setting up or participating in a Super Saturday (craft day). It was a successful activity.

Don's youngest sister, Dallas, flew in that morning and is staying the week with us. It's been a lot of fun having her here. Yesterday they went to the zoo with Paul (another brother) and his family, and then they all came out here for dinner and to spend the evening talking and laughing.

They took pictures while at the zoo. Some of them were beautiful...












...and some of them were silly.




Below are three of the siblings in Don's family. I'm glad they all enjoy being together.


We have things planned for every day this week...I'll try to blog this weekend.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Back in the Saddle Again

This week my friend, Andy Hersey, came to spend a couple of days with us. He's a singer-songwriter who has played all over the western US. I got to do back up vocals for his last album at a studio on 16th Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a blast! Anyway, Andy got a phone call from a friend of his who is a producer/studio owner in Nashville. He has a new artist he's going to start producing in November and asked if Andy and I would write a couple of tunes for her. Andy told him "yes", gave me a call, and came up for a couple of days to write. We haven't seen each other in quite a while, so it was great to have him here. We wrote for 8+ hours a day for two days and got three songs done. On Monday we'll go to a small studio in Tucson to cut a demo on the three songs that we finished, and then send them to Nashville. After that, we'll just wait to see if he and his artist like the tunes and if they are going to put them on the new album. I'll keep you posted.

Here's a couple of pictures. We spread out all over the dining room table with our water, root beer, papers galore, and a pile of sharp pencils. And that's where we stayed for two full days.






I've played the guitar so little in the last few years, and after two days of guitar playing my poor fingers are SO sore! But it was worth it.


We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference today and are anxious for tomorrow's sessions. How blessed we are to have living prophets and apostles of Jesus Christ on the earth again. How wonderful it is to be a member of God's Kingdom on the earth, and how grateful I am for the privilege.