Happenings of late

Tonight for family night we all jumped in the car drove to see the progress of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in Daybreak/South Jordan. The angel Moroni is up, but still lots of exterior and interior work going on. They don't have windows up yet and you can see the lights of the workers inside. It's still gated off because of the construction going on, but I still got some decent pictures. I'm excited for it to be finished because our stake is being re-assigned to this temple instead of the Salt Lake Temple.

Here is the back view (facing east). Right now it looks like a yellow temple with no windows.


Here's a view from the front (facing west) of the angel Moronit that was recently put on the spire. The spire itself isn't quite finished, I think it looks like lace though. Kind of cool. Lovely chain link fence for added depth.


Silhouette of the spire.


How did this beast get in here?


This was my first attempted picture with a slow shutter speed and high ISO while we were driving. I waited until a car drove past to get a cool picture. BUMP!!!! It made it look like the car jumped over the median and disintigrated.


Cool B & W version of the spire.


Another back view.


Lots of construction going on even at 8pm. All the lights were on inside.


Oh, I finally cut Rachel's bangs like I promised. It only took 2 weeks from when I dyed her hair. She loves them, and now I'm debating wether or not to chop some of my own.

Cabbage patch baby

Miles is almost 3 months old now. We are really lucky to get to see him at least once a week. Michelle and Lema come over to do laundry every friday and we all fight over Miles. He's gotten to the stage of recognizing people and smiling when you talk to him. He loves the color red and starts trying to talk at the little flags of countries we have in our living room. Here he is with Lema about a month ago.


This is his favorite pose. It's like a mix between a pucker and trying to whistle. He makes this face whenever he is concentrating. He has some buff lips from doing this so much.


Miles refuses to use a pacifier. Why bother when a fist is so more convenient?

Sorry, Can't.....Help....Myself

I went outside to water this evening (yes, in that 101 degree heat) and took some more pictures. I'm trying to figure out shutter speed and all that jazz on my camera. Plus I've had more flowers bloom and the garden grow huge in the past couple weeks.

I'm sorry Mr. Cosmo, but I must remain true to my sunflower. We've been best friends for so long, I just can't give it up now. Cosmos will have to remain my second favorite flower. The sunflower rules all.

My beans getting buds. I don't like beans, but the rest of my family does, so I'm growing it for them.

Kind of a sad droopy sunflower. Why not make it sepia to make it look even more sad!


This is a picture of a section of my garden exactly 11 days ago.

Today's comparison of the exact same section. Holy Cow! I can't even walk in sections now because their is so much green!

Cool squash ringlets trying to suffocate a sunflower

A spider building a nest on my squash leaf.


Another purple dahlia about to bloom

Don't these sunflower leaves make you want to go rub your face all over their fuzzy goodness? I tried it. More like sharp deathly spines. I don't suggest this.

This is the first sunflower of the season.

A late bloomer in my bunch of bachelor buttons.

You wanna do what?

What to post what to post?

I just got back from the dentist. Can you say, "NO CAVITIES!!!!!" woot.

I wonder if the people in a dentists office realize how much humiliation they put you through in less than an hour. More than would normally take a couple months to rack up my humiliation meter. First, they have you sit a chair that is covered in plastic wrap with makes any part of your body not covered in clothing sweat like you're in a sauna.

Second, they lay the chair back so far, you feel like your body will slide off to the floor in one fluid motion. The only thing holding you on is the friction of your sweat against the plastic wrap and you holding onto the handles of the chair for dear life. All while trying to acheive non-sliding motions, you open up wide and voluntarily let someone make your gums bleed with a pointy metal instrument of torture and string they call "floss" wedged deeper than you thought humanly possble for your gums to handle.

And now the climax of our visit, as if the sharp metal objects weren't causing enough pain, they now spray your teeth with cool water and stick a vacuum in your mouth. Suddenly it feels like I've stuck an ice cream on my most sensitive front teeth and left it there for 5 minutes, while my cheek is being suctioned up a tube and I don't know if I'll get it back anytime soon. And who knows how many cancerous cells are forming in my face and brain while they do the routine six x-rays. Isn't that much radiation kind of....ya know.....BAD for you? And we are supposed to go to the dentist two times a year for this kind of exposure?

Really though, it wasn't that bad. Exaggeration runs in my family. My dad had me and my siblings brushing our teeth, flossing, and rinsing with mouthwash since we were about 5. The flossing really keeps any plaque and cavities at bay. I've only had 3 cavities my whole life. My brother Randy only 1. You know the grinding feeling of the tooth polisher against your teeth that makes you want to gag? I've become accustomed to it ever since I started using an electric toothbrush. In reality, the dentist has become a boost of self esteem for me. I always get compliments on my teeth from the dentist and the assistants. I was in and out in less than 45 minutes.

Not bad for someone who used to consider breaking a bone rather than go to the dentist when I was little. We all grow up a little I guess.

At least I got a free toothbrush!

More (or less) to be seen

My other half (aka, Rachel my little sister) has started a new blog. She's insane, so her posts should be somewhat entertaining to those with psychotic tendancies. She's the artsy-deep-thinking-hippie-at-heart type, so their will be lots of topics to choose from. She's bored at home right now waiting for the fall semester to begin, so their should be a regular amount of postage going on at her blog. Link to the right as usual under friends/siblings. The Hodgson's are taking over the web. BEWARE.

www.moretobeseen.blogspot.com

Garden Update (with pictures!)

My garden is starting to look like a garden rather than a desert with weeds mangling the fence. I have more flowers this year than any other year, and I love it! Lots of bug problems though. If you look at the flowers, you'll see holes from hungry bugs who took out frustrations on my plants.

A flower about to bloom




My mom got me a rose bush this year. Very tiny, but I already have two blooms

We bought this windmill 2 years ago and Rachel and I put it together. Still standing strong!

I got my Dahlias!

More Dahlias!


Lots of squash this year. The squares of wood chips are for the squash vines to spread out on. The big ugly black box my compost box I got for my birthday. Smells like a dump some days, but it's worth it in the long run.


What garden of mine could possibly be complete without mammoth sunflowers? This one is about 5 feet tall right now.

The angel on my birdbath soaking his feet in the gross mossy water. I think he needs a paint job.


I decided to actually use a pot I bought about 5 years ago. I raised the ground a bit to give some height. Cosmos should be blooming in about a month here. Yay!

A birdhouse I got at the D.I.. I've been to lazy to attach a pole to it, so I stuck it on the ground until then.

Even though it's my garden, I'm harboring some cucumbers and yellow squash (yuck) for my mom.

One of my gaurd gnomes. Their names are fred and george after the twins in Harry Potter (seeing how in the book they hated garden gnomes sos much.) They stand at the entrance of the garden and protect it. I've been trying to get Fred to quit smoking, but he just won't listen.

I had to build a fence this year to keep the dogs out. They trampled everything the first month. Pretty good for scraps of wood in the yard eh?

Detail of my table. It's plastic but looks like iron.

My beans are taller than me now! See them on the arch?

This was the first flower to bloom of the year.

Wasp getting a drink in the bird bath

Yellow Dahlia. Holes everywhere, but this was the best picture.

Sunflower about to open up

Maroon bulbs.

Hairstylist for a day.

Yesterday I went with Michelle wedding dress shopping with her sister Kim. It was really really hot, and we had a really really fun time. We went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (best chicken EVER) and browsed around for dress ideas. I haven't been to fahsion place mall in ages and missed all the cool shops compared to valley fair mall. Then we went to Shopko, Jamba juice to beat the heat and bridal shops and the bank.

It was so fun, I decided to it again today.

I went to practically every single store today with my mom and sister Rachel. Kind of a girls shopping day. We stopped at Chick-Fil-A (My family could have that stuff every meal if we could), shopko, dillards (looked at a $375 purse. *choke*) and bed Bath and Beyond. Busy day.

The store Icing is one of Rachel's and my favorite stores. They had a ton of stuff Paris/France/eiffel tower that we couldn't get enough of. We both settled for the same two things.

Metal 2"x 2" case with the eiffel tower picture on the front. PERFECT size for bobby pins (rachel's physco genius idea) and a little pill case.



As you well know, I constantly have a miniature first aid kit in my purse to ward off blisters and every kind of headache/migraine imaginable. I've decided to downsize to this. Though if my purse ever gets searched, I'll look like some kind of drug addict, which in technical terms, I probably am. Oh well. "I was prepared!" (name that movie and I'll send you a cookie)

And what shopping trip would be complete without a new pair of shoes? I only have two pairs of 3" black heels and needed a pair of flats to give my tootsies a break once in a while. Welcome in sweet things below. 12 wide!!! Normally wide is a little much, but these seemed to run narrow than most. Better safe than sorry I always say. well maybe not always.

And what female could pass by Bath and Body Works without trying something new or buying additional lotion for her never ending supply? You can never smell too good. We originally went in to look around, but of course walked out with a bag full of goodies. Sweet Pea is my signature scent and I HAD to have the new conditioner. Men will be restraining themselves from licking the hair on my head as I walk by. Now if they had some kind of pill that made your sweat smell like sweet pea....



Rachel and I constantly talk about the daring ventures of coloring our hair some drastic shade of black, blonde or purple. This week Rachel made it final and I colored her hair. this was her hoped for look.

And the outcome:

I'm still going to trim off an inch or two, more layers and a sweep, but we ran out of daylight.

The picture makes it look a lot lighter than it really is. Almost black in real life. Not mod looking, but snow white/Toni look because Rachel is the pale one in the family. I, on the other hand am called black-foot among siblings for my native american looking skin.

One of these days I'll go blonde. I swear. Once I get up the guts.