UTAH!

WE MADE IT! We've been planning to move out to Utah for... I don't even know how long, and we're FINALLY here.

We started packing in the beginning of August because we were so anxious to move! We packed a little each day, and stayed caught up so that when the time came to leave, we were pretty much done with the packing. (I want to add... I did MOST of the packing. -Granted, Kevin was at work all day, and he packed the car... but just sayin').

So we left the coast on Monday September 6th, and started our move! We drove Kevin's dad's pickup truck (which had the bed FULL of boxes, speakers, amps, a coffee table, and a tv stand, and the cab stuffed full of boxes as well). We were also pulling a trailer, which had the Geo Metro on it, and the Geo was stuffed full of all our blankets, pillows, and other lightweight nicknacks. We left after Kevin got done with work that day (ended up pulling out of Winchester Bay around 7:30, then we had to run some errands, so we didn't leave the coast until it was after dark). That night we stayed at my parent's house in Talent. :) It was good to see them again before we moved too far away to see them every few weeks.

Then, Tuesday morning at about 7:00 am we left Talent and started the LONG drive to Provo, Utah! Now, the speed limits on the way to Utah from Oregon get up to 75 mph in places... but with the truck and trailer we couldn't go more than 60-65 mph at the most. Not only because the truck and trailer were stuffed to the max, but also because the tires on the trailer were so old and bald, they had wires and bulges popping out everywhere. We were pretty worried about losing a tire, and we didn't have a spare. We were definitely nervous.

But even with 50 year old tires and a wide load, we made it in one piece. (We didn't get there until 1:00 in the morning... but we still made it!) We stayed that night at Cheyenne and Justice Dahle's apartment. They live in the apartment complex we moved into, so in the morning we were planning on just moving our stuff out of the truck into the apartment. The office of the apartments opens at 10 am, so on Wednesday the 8th (Mom's birthday...) we went to the office right at 10 am, wanting to get moved in as soon as possible. But when we told them who we were and that we wanted to move in, they told us that they didn't think we were coming until later in the month, so our apartment hadn't been cleaned yet! UGH! So what ended up happening was they had to call the cleaning lady to see what time she was coming, but she didn't answer so we had to wait for her to call back. When she finally did call back, she told us she couldn't come until 6:30 that night!

She ended up not getting finished cleaning until about 8:30, so that's when we started moving our stuff in. That took about 2 hours, then we unpacked for a few hours, and didn't get to bed until about 1:30 am again. It was a pretty exhausting few days.

But, we're here now, we both have jobs, (with the same company actually.. just different departments), and we are LOVING it here in Provo! :)

August 2010

Ok... I realized I skipped a few months here... but until I catch up with myself, we're just gonna have to resume blogging as of now. :)

So. August.


This month is going good! We went to see Metal Mulisha, which as a really cool freestyle motocross (I think thats what it's called) group that does shows. We went to the Douglas County Fair in Roseburg, OR and saw one of their shows! Kevin's older brother Brad and his wife Rashelle live in Roseburg with their three kids (Jocelyn, 6, Sydnee, 4, and Tyler, almost 3 months). So, we visit them a lot and they invited us to come over for a couple days and go to the show with them. Kevin's older sister, Jen, was also there with her husband, Kevin Wheeler. It was a lot of fun!! :) The riders did tons of cool tricks... I forgot the names. Let's see... there were whips... ooo a couple of them did backflips which was pretty cool to see... and there were supermans, heel clickers, dead bodies... (thats a trick. not literally "dead bodies" haha) Anyway... it was an awesome show. And after watching the motorcycles we walked around the rest of the fair and looked at everything. I got teriyaki chicken and noodles, and a big slushy in this really odd-shaped cup, we saw the animals (mostly pigs and goats), heard some good music... it was a fun day!

Before metal mulisha- there was a bus that did runs to the fair so you didn't have to worry about parking.

Goof Ball.

Here's a whip.

Another kind of whip...

BACKFLIP!

SUPERMAN! haha

dead body i think.

Then just this last weekend my family came to visit! (well, minus Dad and Ammon.) Ammon skipped out on the visit because he was just here a few weeks ago (and he had a date ;-P ), and Dad had to work. :( But we still had a fun time! We went to Loon Lake and swam for a while, then later that same night we went to the beach and tried to see how long we could wade in the water before our toes fell off (no one got to that point, thank goodness). We also walked around Lake Marie and Braden was brave enough to jump in that one too. The rest of us were either too chicken (it was colder water than Loon Lake) or we didn't have our swimsuits on us. (I gotta confess... I kind of "forgot" mine on purpose.) :) But we had a fun time while the fam was here. We always like it when they visit. :)


Beautiful Momma.

Kevin doing his crazy jumps off hills of sand and grass haha. (dyson did a few too.) =]

Got a little CAPTAIN in ya?! haha jk jk. just funny.

lovely JAZZ.

OLIVER!

BUTTS!

CANYON'S BUTT! lol.

BOYZ

dyson. such a cutie!

puppies. they LOVE the beach... though they tend to poop sand the next day haha.

teenagers. :)

Chillin upstairs at the house. watching The Office on Netflix. :) fun fun.



Well, that just about sums up August so far. Kevin and I are just kind of waiting until next month when we move to Provo! We're really excited. We've (I think) officially set the moving date as September 7th. (That's 2 days after our 1 year anniversary... so I don't think we'll be doing anything big this year haha) But we're slowly packing things that we won't need for the next few weeks so that we won't have a load to do the week we move (I'm sure we will still have a load to do... but hopefully packing in increments will make it a little less severe.)


:)

Sunday at the Beach

Yesterday (Sunday, May 2) Kevin and I went to the beach with Sadie. It was a lot of fun! We had been sitting around since church got out, and at about 7:00 Kevin got restless and wanted to go do something... so we drove the whopping 3 minutes to the beach. haha. It was a REALLY nice day! a lot nicer than i expected! there was a little wind... but not NEARLY as much as there usually is, and there was sun and it was just gorgeous. We walked down the shoreline for a bit and found this giant stump that was pretty cool looking, so kev and I climbed up on it and had a laugh at Sadie trying to jump and climb up the steep side (which amazingly enough she eventually succeeded at).

I climbed off the stump after that cuz i saw how "dramatic" the lighting was, and i snapped a few quick iphone shots of kevin and sadie... and the silhouette ones turned out awesome! haha they look so dramatic it's hilarious. there's also a cute one of them. the sky was so blue yesterday!

but the outing was really fun. sadie had a great time bolting around in the sand and biting at all the broken shells. She definitely took a long nap afterwards... and got a nice bath too. ("beach" and "dog" don't make a very good smell.)

haha i love how dramatic this is. =]
This is the "SIMBA" picture! haha
aww so cute. my little family. (minus me) lol. *BLUE sky*

Utah Trip

Last week Kevin and I got to go to Utah! It was a lot of driving, but so fun! It was so great to go check everything out before we move there in a couple months. We got to see his sister graduate from BYU, and we got to see Cheyenne and her hubby, and a bunch of my family! We saw Sherie and her fam, Grandma Shirley, and Brie and Ben! it was super great. Chey, your puppies are adorable... sorry sadie was such a grump with them haha.

Chey and her hubby, Justice, let us stay with them for a few nights which was so nice (thanks guys) and we had a ton of fun with them. We went to Pizza factory and got the "twisty expensive bread" as Chey calls it haha, watched Sherlock Holmes, played cards, went and checked out the apartments we're gonna be living in (which are awesome by the way), and ate Korean food! It was a lot of fun.

Then we headed to Brie and Ben's and we got to see the new house they recently moved in to... which is AMAZING. Brie, your nursery for Brynlee is so adorable and I'm jealous. haha. Can't WAIT to see you all again in AUGUST!

Oh, AND... Brie did my hair! Before I got it done it was the longest I've ever had it. I had Brie put dark brown in it (with blonde highlights still in it) then cut 6 or 7 inches off! it feels so good!) I forgot to take "before" and "after" pictures... but I do have a picture of recently before it was done and then one the day after it was done. so those will have to work. *(THANK YOU BRIE)*

Sherie, Me, and Grandma Shirley at Sherie's apartment. :)
Me and Kevin. :)
Sherie and I. (This is also the "before" picture for my hair)

The "after" picture of my hair. *Thanks again Brie!!*

One of the passes we had to drive up. there was snow in some places we drove. scary!
You go crazy after long hours in the car! haha (we're proof)

Sadie is always so good in the car. :)

Overall, the trip was a lot of fun! Kevin and I can't WAIT to get back out there!!! =]

Dune Camping

This week we went camping as a family. Now, it may just be that I'm a Cluff and I've always camped a certain way, but this is much different than I'm used to. We always camped in tents growing up. If it rained, you put a tarp over your tent and hoped for the best, or packed up and went home.-- Boy were we missin' out!! Camping with the Muntiferings is a completely different story. We have trailers-- And not just trailers... but trailers with full hookups- including cable and wifi. the only time we need to endure the "harsh outdoor climate" is to make s'mores!

Kevin's parents, 3 brothers, and I had 2 trailers set up in a campground by the dunes and went riding a few times a day for almost a week. It was lots of fun! we barbecued... soaked up the sun.. and had a lot of fun on the sand. I even DROVE my own four wheeler!!! We went on one ride for about 2 hours and I drove my own quad the WHOLE time! And to my surprise... I had FUN! The other few times that I've driven my own quad on the dunes have been tense and emotional... but this time was great. My fear of the dunes is slowly being left behind, and I'm slowly progressing to becoming a "rider babe" as kevin calls it. ;)

There is a sadder side to the story, however. The Muntifering's family dog of almost 12 years (Maddy, a Great Dane) died on Thursday night, the 4th night of our trip. It was really sad, but she was old for a great dane, and went in the best possible way- with her family around and loving her. We'll all miss her very much.

Tomorrow is the day that we pack up and go home... and I think we're all definitely ready. Sand in every crevice gets old pretty fast... and a nice long shower is one of the only things on my mind right now. (Although trailers are nice in the way of heaters and soft beds... one thing they aren't so good for is relaxing showers- zero water pressure and 2 temperatures: SCALDING or ICE COLD- and the hot only lasts a few minutes. all those things together don't make for a very relaxing shower experience.) There are showers at the lodge here at the campground, but they run on tokens and each token is only good for a few minutes (limit: 1 token per person per day).

So overall the week was fun and allowed a lot of quality family time! can't wait for next week when we get family time with the OTHER side of the family! :)

(i'll add pictures to this post when i get back home)

Wild Animals in the Sand

Today Kevin and I went to the dunes. We rode in a side-by-side, and I had Sadie on my lap! she's really good at the dunes... I actually think she likes it! She doesn't freak out at all.. just sits there and enjoys the ride, sniffing around. :)

Anyway, as we were riding, we came over a hill and saw a PORCUPINE!!! It was just waddling across the sand, apparently not bothered at all by the four wheelers and dirt bikes driving all around it. It just kept waddling toward a big water whole that had been created by all the recent rain. We watched for a bit as it walked into the water and splashed around (though I don't know why... the temperature was in the 40s outside). But it seemed to be having fun.

So after we watched for a bit, we took a picture and left (the picture is really far away and hard to see)... but it was cool to see! I didn't know that porcupines lived in places like this. I always think of thick forests because of the movie Homeward Bound when the dog gets slapped in the face with a porcupine's tail. haha. And I've never seen one in the wild! haha. It was cool!

"Topic of the Day"

Living where we do right now there aren't a whole lot of things to do. Kevin and I have to sit down practically every week and think of things that I can do to occupy my time other than watching television ALL DAY. So, during one of our weekly discussions, we came up with the idea that every morning, Kevin would give me a topic and I would research it throughout the day until I was satisfied with what I'd learned, then I would tell Kevin about it at the end of each day. This was fun, and lasted a whole 2 days. The first day was alright, I think I was assigned "the invention and progression of the cell phone", which I was actually kind of curious about. But, on day two I discovered that it wasn't such a good idea to ask Kevin to assign me the topics, because he assigned me "the invention and progression and function of engines". UGH! Really? Come on.

Now, I know Kevin really likes this stuff. I mean, he's been into cars and mechanics since he was a little kid, and now its his job, so it really is almost all he thinks about (so really I couldn't have expected him to be too creative). hehe. But I'm more into things like animals (dogs mostly, but all animals are interesting haha) and history and people and things like that. So, I've decided to ask all of YOU! If anyone has ideas, PLEASE let me know. And maybe give me your email if I don't already have it so that I can email you the information I find if you're interested at all. I know this may sound weird, but you really would be contributing to my sanity. =] THANK YOU!!!!!

Dune Living

So, I guess living at the dunes comes with the responsibility of knowing how to drive a quad in the sand, and this has always been something that really scares me. If you've ever driven in the sand, you can feel the bike sliding under you ALL the time and it's really scary!! At least it is for me.

Anyway, yesterday John had someone over and they wanted to go riding, so Kevin and I went with them. I didn't want to take my own four wheeler the whole time, so I just rode on the back of Kevin's, but for a little of the time he let me drive it.

Now, normally when I go to the dunes with the plan to learn how to ride better, I get SUPER stressed out and I stress out everyone around me, and the day usually ends in either a fight between me and someone, and/or me crying and pouting with frustration. Yesterday, however, I was determined to end the day on a good note! So when Kevin asked me if I wanted to drive, I said "sure!" and hopped willingly on the front and started the bike.

I'm already having second thoughts at this point, because I can just feel my calm slipping away, and my emotional sensitivity rising.

Stick with it Kaylynn! Is what I'm thinking, because I know how much Kevin likes it when I try new things and do them with an open mind. So I drove around slowly and got a little more comfortable as time went on, asked Kevin some questions when I had them, and ended up driving around for about 10 or 15 minutes. (I didn't go up and big hills, but i putted around calmly and didn't have any emotional breakdowns! yay, mission accomplished!) haha.

I know this sounds dumb and wussy, but I was proud of myself for not quitting! (well, eventually I let Kevin back on the front because we were facing a huge hill and I was scared, but I still drove!) :)

Next time maybe I'll be on my own bike the whole time! (if I can hold off a freak out session for that long) haha.

Some of my drawings

Here are a few of the drawings I've done. Some were sit down pieces that took a long time, others were just doodles done when I should have been doing something else. (in class, at church, during homework time, etc.) lol.

This one is.... hmm. actually i don't remember when i did this. lol

This one is a doodle. (left upper corner is a rough draft of what i gave to my uncle jeff, and the rest is just random.)
The one I sent to Ammon on his mission.
Art final senior year that my art teacher lost. all i have is a photo of it now. :(
Doodle. Not one of my favorites.

The one I gave to my uncle jeff. (this is when it was almost finished, not quite.)

Drawn from a book. Not from my head. haha.
Another doodle... i dont remember when i did it.

A long time ago.