And I Thought I Was Busy Before...

Ha!  I thought I was busy in the last post!  I guess that's what I get for hoping life would slow down a little :)  In the next two weeks I have a wedding cake to make and I have to pack and clean our entire house...more on that later.  First, here's what we've been up to:

 This is the cake I made for our Relief Society birthday party.  Everyone asked me how I did the top; it's called a buttercream transfer and I've been wanting to try one for a while, so I figured this was a good cake to try on.  You just pipe the reverse image onto wax paper, freeze it, and then peel it off onto the cake.  Easy peasy :)

 The bathroom rug I had went through the washer a few too many times from potty training accidents and needed to be retired.  So I made a new "rug" for next to the tub.  It's just denim scraps with cotton scraps peeking through.  I like it better than the old rug, so I guess it's okay that the old rug suffered death by washing machine.

Lane has bonked his head I don't know how many times, but he's never got a goose egg from it, until now.  He tripped in the church parking lot.  Maggie was a little confused when I said "Lane has a goose egg on his head."  She said, "but eggs are for eating."

 Look closely at this picture and tell me how this can be comfortable.  If you're confused, follow Maggie's right arm until you find her hand.  I think I'd be sore for days.

We delivered bulls through Wyoming and Nebraska.  We woke up really early, so our breakfast consisted of powder sugared donuts in the truck until we got somewhere to eat.  It was fine by Lane.

As we drove past Palisade Reservoir I joked that I needed to look for my wolf, because that is the only place I have ever seen a wolf in the wild.  And what do you know?  I ended up seeing two walking along the bank of the frozen reservoir.  That road is so windy that Jonathan is always too busy driving to notice any wildlife I spot in the distance and I felt bad that Jonathan has missed seeing them each time.  But I only felt bad for a little bit because it wasn't too much longer that we both saw a wolf near the road.  It was close enough that I made eye contact with it.  Even though they cause so much destruction, it was still a pretty animal.  It wasn't the typical color you think of when you think of a "grey" wolf.  It was more of a light tawny cream color.  We also saw a lot of elk, bald eagles, some deer, and obviously pronghorn (is it possible to drive through Wyoming and not see pronghorn?  It would be like driving through Yellowstone and not seeing bison.)

 Lane eating his toes.  I guess the powdered sugar donut didn't hold him over long enough :)

The sand hills of Nebraska.  I quite liked driving through the sand hills.  It was pretty country, but I think I would eventually miss the mountains if I lived there.

 Maggie loved seeing all of the windmills, or "round-and-round" things as she called them.

 The headquarters of part of the church's ranch there.

 Where Jonathan's brother and his wife lived.

After we delivered everything we went to Pieper's sale.  They made us feel just like family, but maybe it was because the kids were running around like they owned the place (they were sure happy to be out of the truck.)

 Maggie loved their dogs...

and sharing her water with them.  Don't worry, I didn't let her drink out of the cup afterward :)  The cat they had bit Maggie on the finger, so she wasn't too fond of it.  Everyone there seemed to love the kids and they felt bad that the cat ended up getting her finger.

From Pieper's we were just a few hours from Mt. Rushmore, so we drove to Keystone (the nearest town) and got a room, so we could go see the monument first thing in the morning before we headed home.  Unfortunately we had two drunks in the room next to us who were being obnoxiously loud. Then they decided it would be funny to play pranks on the other guests. They banged on our door at 2:30 in the morning and woke the kids up (we were already awake contemplating calling the front desk--the walls were paper thin and I knew they'd hear us call and I was imaging it escalating into something scary.)  Anyway, I overheard them saying how it would be fun to go smash out windows, so we called the cops instead.  That ended that, but I was up most of the rest of the night trying to get Lane to go back to sleep.  Plus I had so much adrenaline and frustration/anger pumping through me that I wouldn't have been able to fall back asleep for a while anyway.  Needless to say, it was the worst night's sleep either of us have ever had in a hotel. We were both really careful about the kids making too much noise when we checked in because we could tell we had atleast one neighbor.  Too bad they weren't as considerate in return.    

Maggie called Rushmore the "Daddy Mountain" because she refers to any adult male as a daddy, so to see four faces of men on the mountain it was the obvious name for it.  We smashed a few pennies for souvenirs for her and Lane in the gift shop and she thought that was pretty neat as well.  She held them for a good portion of the ride home.  I've been there before and I told everyone how we'd see lots of mountain goats, but I guess they were all in hiding, because we didn't see any.

The pictures are a little out of order now, sorry.

 I now understand why they call them the sand hills.  The name gives it away, but it's still hard to grasp until you've seen them first hand.  It seems that all they'd have to do to get a nice riding arena is till the ground where they want it to be.  We had a hard time convincing Maggie that it was time to leave the one ranch we stopped at because it was like a giant sandbox to her.  She was having way too much fun playing in it all.

The people there are really friendly too.  They wave at everyone they pass and seem to be the bend-over-backwards for anyone type of people.

There are pheasants ev-er-y-where in the sand hills.  And turkeys too.  The turkeys and pheasants are rather large compared to any you see here, but the Canada geese in Nebraska seem tiny compared to what we see out here.  Kind of weird.

 This tree had about seven hens in it, but you can only see two.  I can't say I've ever seen pheasant in a tree before.

 Sunset over the Black Hills of S.D.

 The sun was shining right at us, so the kids weren't about to look at me for a picture.

Now for the big news...
We're moving to Utah.  I'm too paranoid to say where exactly, but we're taking a farming/ranching job there that seems to be just what we've been looking for.  Things here have been fine but a) neither of us ever thought we'd stay in this area after college, b) neither of us feel like this is where we're supposed to be setting down roots, c) neither of us are "town people" so even living in this little town has been too much for us and d) a few other things have happened recently to make us more serious about finding something else.  So we've been feeling like it's time to move on for a while now, but we never found anything that felt right until now.

Jonathan will be managing a ranch for an absentee owner. The owner wants us to run it like it's our own, which is the next best thing since we can't own our own place.  A house is provided with corrals, so we get to keep our horses right there with us. (we've been tired of switching them around pastures here and there; they should get ridden more often now...maybe Dunny will lose his gut that he's acquired :))  The home was built in 1930.  Most of it has been updated, but it still has a lot of old home charm.

So, our house is listed with a realtor and we're hoping it sells quickly, but we have a plan b and c if it doesn't.  Now I have two weeks to get everything packed and cleaned, which is tricky since I still want to the house to look organized and homey in case anyone comes to walk through.  Then I have to fit in making a wedding cake this weekend.  I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but I'm really excited for our family and this opportunity.    

We were down in Utah a few weeks ago, so we slipped over to see the house and see if the ranch was anything we'd be interested in.  The bathroom was the only room I managed to get a picture of, but it gives you an idea of the style of the rest of the home.

 The view of part of the ranch.

The aerial view of the house.  I'm wondering if I'm going to find a sunny spot for a garden...I guess I'll worry about that later though since I have a lot of other more important things to worry about right now :)