A Scouting Adventure

I'm hesitant to blog about our dog, Scout, for fear of sounding like an obsessive dog owner who treats their dogs like children...but...our dog is pretty awesome. We've been feeling a little guilty about "neglecting" Scout. "Neglect" because the first two weeks we had her, we spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time with her, and took her swimming every day, and played innumerable games of fetch. Now, we spend less time with her, as her novelty has worn off a bit (hopefully that won't happen with our kids...) but she still is WAY more spoiled and gets way more interaction, and more walks (2-4 a day) than an average dog. Anyway, we took her hiking with us last week, up near where we camped a few weeks ago. The plan was to let Scout run around and do whatever once we got to our destination, and Marcus and I brought books to read, so we could relax and stuff. However, Scout was not about to let that happen. She wandered and entertained herself for about five minutes and then came over and bugged us until we played with her.




Luckily, we had the foresight to bring her squeaky tennis ball with us, and she had fun fetching it out of the freezing cold mountain stream. When we were getting ready to leave, I started throwing her ball straight up in the air, and she would catch it in her mouth on the way down. She's pretty awesome at catching the ball like this, and she does all sorts of cool twists and almost-back-flips, and she leaps SUPER high into the air and was catching it pretty much every time. So, of course, we tried to get a video of it, and every single time we videoed it, she missed.



(you can blame the sideways video-ing on Marcus)

Finally, we gave up on trying to record her awesome ball catching ability on tape and packed up to go home...and OF COURSE, right after we put the camera away, I threw the ball up in the air and she caught it without even moving from her sitting position next to me! The moral of this story is: our dog is awesome.

Long week at the Empty Sea

This week at work was the week we train for all year. For one week each summer, one third of all the Mission Presidents are new and come to Provo to receive training. Besides being available for mission president's personal needs, we are also there to provide close security for those offering training sessions: members of the Quorum of the Twelve and other General Authorities.

We work long, long work days, get great food and get to be around many wonderful people. Throughout the week, I was able to meet and provide security for Presidents Monson, Eyring, Uchtdorf, and Packer as well as Elders Perry, Holland, Bednar, Hales, Scott, Christofferson, Cook, Wirthlin, Oaks, and Ballard. I was also around the Presiding Bishopric, the seven Presidents of the Seventy, and some 50 or so other general authorities.

We spend many hours rotating through various positions (many of which include standing in the sun in your suit) but the highlight for me was when Elder Christofferson offered me his hand to shake and I completely blanked on his name. In my head, "Chris..Christo..I know this!!". Instead I just said, "Hello, sir." Classic.

Six Months Later...

Happy Six Month Anniversary to us! We've been married for six months now (I know it's not quite 8 years, but still...)

And again

We had another fun day with Lauren and Gary on Wednesday. We ate some yummy lunch at Tucano's (don't worry Mom, we mostly ate the salad...)and then we went over to Color Me Mine, which is a very popular dating place here, they have them all over too. It's a place where you pick a piece of pottery - they have everything from plates and bowls and mugs, to toothbrush holders, to vases, and other kitchen or bathroom stuff like that. So, you pick one of those, then they have all sorts of glazes and ideas for painting them. We all just chose bowls, and had fun painting them. They glaze and fire them for you, so we will pick them up on Saturday to see how they turned out. Gary and Lauren really like Color Me Mine, but Marcus and I had never been...so it was fun. Also, we had a coupon, which made it even more fun!

At Tucanos:



Gary got a little out of line at Color Me Mine, but Lauren took care of him right away...



Gary, hard at work on his Swedish flag bowl:


And, this next picture isn't really my favorite, but my teeth look really fabulous in it, so I thought I would post it anyway. My dentist was extremely proud of himself when he was finished with my teeth. And really, can you blame him? It's also a really good example of Ricker eyes...






Here's a video of our bowls, we're thinking about painting them on a professional level, since they all look so awesome...


After Color Me Mine, we went to this little Italian place for some gelato. It's run by this cute little family from the Tuscany region of Italy, so it was pretty authentic. Then, of course, we went to IKEA, where we bought some Rhubarb pie. We had some last night, and it was super good (very sour!) so...if you live near an IKEA, you should definitely go get some!

Can't think of one...

This week, Gary came to visit us, I mean, Lauren, and made some time to visit us as well! It was fun to see him, we got to hang out and eat some dinner, and shop, and visit with Aunt Darlene and Aunt Jean as well. On Wednesday, Gary came down to Provo and we hung out with the Giles' and went shopping (but didn't buy anything :(...).





After lunch Gary, Jeff, and I (Marcus was working) went to the BYU bookstore, where there is always lots of exciting things to do, and Gary wanted some fudge. We found this awesome Cougar hat, and we all had to try it on:





On Thursday, we got to hang out with Gary AND Lauren, and Marcus got to come too, and we had a lot of fun. We met Gary and Lauren at the beautiful, brand new hospital where Lauren works, and then we went to visit Aunt Darlene, Aunt Jean, and Greg. We had a nice, fun visit with them, it was good to get to see them!



After that fun visit, we went to dinner and hung out some more with Gary and Lauren, we're glad that Lauren convinced Gary to come visit!

The Joy of Visitors

This weekend we were excited to be able to hang out with Marcus' nephew, Michael. Thursday night we went and saw Kung Fu Panda, which was way cute, then we swung by the Springville Art City Days carnival thing - very fun, but very crowded, since the spot they were having it at was under construction and everything had to be squished together...Friday we decided to make another attempt at camping. Thankfully, the results were much better this time around. We actually brought a tent, and came prepared with warm clothes, so as to avoid the problems we had last time...Marcus and Brett had scouted out a spot up Hobble Creek Canyon a few days before, and it was really nice, it had a really gorgeous view. Marcus, Michael, Bret and I went up around two to set up camp and have some fun. Bret's wife, Mican and our other neighbors Rob and Lindsey joined us later, along with Marcus' Uncle Tim and Aunt Elma, who only stayed for the evening.

The view from our tent:



Next is Marcus and me, and Marcus and Bret being manly and chopping wood (with the EXTREMELY dull ax we rented from BYU...poor Marcus got a blood blister from it ;(...)




Next we have the waterfall that we hiked to. Bret found it on his dirt bike and we decided to all go see it on foot. Next time I'll be sure to wear socks, so as to avoid the blisters I got on both my heels AND my big toe. Then again, maybe I deserved it, because who doesn't wear socks when there is a possibility of hiking?




Next are just some random pictures of the tent and around the fire, the friends we were with, etc:



(We're on a slope here...)




Saturday was busy too, after we returned our tent and other rented stuff to BYU, we went down to Salem Lake to swim. It was probably the hottest day we've had so far this year, so the water was really nice. We overbooked our day a little though, seeing as you never really get a great night of sleep camping, and we didn't schedule any time for naps that day. After swimming, we went to Wal-Mart for some supplies so we could go crawfishin' saturday night. We drove up to Strawberry Reservoir, which was a little over an hour away. Crawfish apparently don't come out until late at night, so we didn't start fishing until 10:00. We got a modest haul of crawfish, less than we expected though. Probably because we should have started later...as it was we got home pretty late...it was worth it today though when we cooked them up into a crawfish etoufee...

All in all, we had a SUPER fun weekend with Michael here, we only wish he could have stayed longer. It made us even more excited to move to Texas so we can hang out more with all of our nieces and nephews. (And siblings and parents too of course!)

The Week in Review

We had lots of fun this week...we finally decided to branch out in social-ness with our ward, so our upstairs neighbors and us invited another couple over for a barbecue on Tuesday. It was fun, but not very warm, but we at least got some good use out of Marcus' fire pit thing that he built. I only had to work for 5.5 hours this week, thanks to one of the offices I clean relocating, so it was a nice vacation week. Today we went swimming at Salem Pond, which is actually more lake size. We took the dog and went with Bret and Mican, our upstairs neighbors. It was fun, but could have been warmer. The water wasn't too cold, and the sun was nice until some clouds came and made it cold, so we went home. Scout LOVES to have her ball thrown in the water, so she can go retrieve it. However, she thinks it's funny to stand right next to you when she shakes all the water off, we're trying to teach her not too. She is fun to take to the lake, because all the kids that are there love to throw the ball for her. A bunch of little boys were way excited to throw the ball for her to chase, they were cute. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Marcus and Brett



Swimming



Waiting for the ball



And a video...

A new addition to our family...

So, we've been wanting a dog for a while now, and we were going to wait until we got to Texas...but then we didn't. We were looking on Craigslist, and Marcus fell in love with this dog, so now we have a dog! Yay! She's a six year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, named Scout (she came with that name, and we thought it was cute enough to keep). The lame thing is that I'm the one that has been REALLY wanting a dog for a long time, but she is totally in love with Marcus. She follows him everywhere, and if she has to choose between being near him and anything else she will definitely choose him. She's a really cool dog, very mellow, which we like, but still fun. She only barks when people try to come in our gate or at Blue Heeler dogs. She gets along fine with any other type of dog, which is weird. She LOVES to retrieve things. We took her down to Salem Pond on Monday, which is about fifteen minutes from our house, and she loved having us throw her ball in the water so she could swim out to get it. Marcus was especially pleased about that, since it bodes well for hunting season. She's about as experienced at duck/goose hunting as Marcus is, so they should have fun come November. Also, she is BIG! She weighs 71 pounds, which is about as much as she should, but I didn't expect her to be so huge. But we love her already, so...here are some pictures of her, and parts of us...

Lamb and Wool

Yesterday we went to the Lamb and Wool festival at Thanksgiving Point. It turned out to be a lot smaller than we had anticipated but for $3.50 a person you can't be too sad. We enjoyed petting a lamb, as well as a calf and a donkey but were saddened at the lack of lamb available for eating. :(

We went with our upstairs neighbor, Bret and Mican. They had a scale which told you how much you weighed compared to a horse, pony, sheep, cow, etc. The four of us together weighed as much as a pony.




Mican wanted to try out the pony ride carousel, but there were too many kids in line...also, the ponies all looked really sad about being involved in it. Here are some more fun pictures: The first is a peacock...he had his feathers all displayed and kept turning around and around, every once in a while he would vibrate his feathers and they would make a weird kind of whirring noise...I guess it was supposed to be intimidating to predators or something...next is Marcus and a cow, then a picture of Tara and a really ugly sheep. It's hard to tell how ugly he is in this picture, but he is. He also had a really low, creepy sounding baa. Anyway, ugly sheep is followed by Marcus, a horse, and our neighbor Bret, (Marcus is on the left) and finally Tara petting a much cuter sheep. Although, when we saw this guy after he had just been sheared, he looked pretty traumatized, and was practically hyperventilating...luckily he calmed down and we could pet him. He felt weird, kind of like a sheep skin rug or something.











In the end we had a really fun time and didn't bring home any souvenirs.