Salt Lake Trip

Last weekend we were able to make a quick trip to Salt Lake.  It was a pleasant suprise to find that it is only six and a half hours away.  Sam planned the trip to meet up with and ski with a friend, and I insisted on tagging along.  Even though I had to ditch class to pull it off--it was totally worth it!  I hadn't seen Kim in over a year and a half and I wasn't about to sit at home while Sam stayed at her house. 

We went shopping,went out to lunch, exchanged books, and we even invited ourselves over to my friend Kirsten's house.  I apologize to everyone else who lives in Salt Lake--there are now so many of you up there it would have been impossible to try and see everyone on this trip--but maybe now that I know its only about 6 hours to drive maybe I will make the trip again--but hey--the road goes both ways--and you are all welcome on the rez anytime :-)

Savanah and Rachel become best friends. 

These two slept in the same room each night--and they actually slept (which is more than I can say for each time sleepovers are attempted with cousins--those nights have all ended in kids crying, one kid wants the door open, one kid wants it closed, another wants the light on, the other doesn't...you get the idea.)  But these two did great.  And Rachel loved Savanah...and her toys.  Barbies (with all the tiny accessories that mom doesn't let her buy) and ponies (with their own castle) and play kitchens--she was in Heaven. 

The one picture I wish i would have taken was of Rachel pouting at Kim's parents' house.  Kim and I were going to go shopping and so we had planned to drop Kim's 3 month old off with the grandparents and we could shop without lugging the infant car seat everywhere.  Once Rachel got word where we were headed she was not happy.  We got out of the car at their house and Rachel told me she wanted to stay there.  I said "First of all, you don't even know them, second of all you haven't been invited.  You and Savanah are coming with us we are just dropping off the baby." She pouted and refused to move.  Which I ignored and walked inside.  A few minutes later Kim's dad came in wondering what was wrong with Rachel--apparently she still hadn't moved lol!   I just think it was funny that despite the fact that we were at a strangers house  (okay--she knew that I knew them, but she is usually shy around people she doesn't know)  she was throwing this fit to stay at their house--mostly because of how much she despises shopping.  That's right--she hates it.  Grocery shopping you name it.  Unless she is at claires spending her own money on frilly girly things--she is miserable to take into a store.   She definitely got that from Sam, not from me :-)   Thankfully, her love of wearing skirts and dresses, makeup, and getting her nails done --makes up for this lack of a shopping gene. 

Adorable

I had to snap a picture of Rachel as I was tucking her in--she is so adorable!  Each night she chooses different animals to sleep with, and the rest are usually not to far away--tonight she made a bed for them on a chair next to her bed. 

Here are a few pictures I have taken this week of sunsets--they really are gorgeous, and I took them for granted until I moved to Boston and rarely saw so much of the sky--let alone the entire horizon, and realized that while the sun sets everywhere, not every city sees such vivid colors. 

Basketball Obsessed

I was thinking it might be fun to go to one of the basketball games this week since this town is obsessed and we have never gone.  When I was at Rachel's school for her class party around 1:00 another mom said there was already a line at the baskeball arena for that evenings game (at 7:30pm mind you).  I asked if even in the gigantic stadium the games can sell out, and she said yes.  So I figured, I am pretty close to there so while I am here I could run over and grab some tickets, I got there around 2:15.  Only problem, apparently the ticket windows weren't even open. What?! These small-town-high-school basketball-obsessed-suckers were standing in line to buy tickets and the ticket window wasn't even going to open until 5:00!!

Pics 1, 2 & 3 are the beginning, middle, and end of the line.  WOA! These people are crazy.  And I was one of them.  I had heard stories about this happening, so I decided that it was a quintisential living on the rez experience that I should take part in at least once while living here.  So I waited, then had some nice person save my spot in line while I went back and picked Rach up from school, and sent her home with a neighbor.  (the high is only 40 degrees so I figured she would get bored and cold waiting with me).  Lucky us, the window opened a little early at 4:30 so I bought some tickets for us, and some friends who said they would come along.  Here are the pictures of inside the stadium-There really weren't very many open seats by the time the game got started.  

 a little Navajo pride

here is the half-time show--some girls doing traditional navajo dancing

Oh-and they sang the Star Spangled Banner in Navajo too.

And while googling the Den to see just how many seats it holds, I found this article

Best High School Gym in America--the Arizona Republic --really?! on the rez?

(by the way it says it seats almost 8,000.

Oh and as of the 2000 census, the population here was only 5,366 people

Where do the people come from lol!

So that was 10 years ago...but I don't think many have been flocking here in the past ten years.  :-)

Random pics in Jan & feb

This little girl just looked too cute when she was all ready for school--she is definitely in the silly stage every time I try and snap a picture, you can't really tell but she is giving herself bunny ears.

When I was back in Phoenix the last week in January I had a blast! The first day there I hung out with my sister in law and Rachel's cousin Jamie, and later a few friends from Chandler and ended up spending the whole day in the sunshine at three different parks.  It was such a nice break from the cold snowy weather up here.  The other thing I did was go thrift store shopping.  I remembered my love of thrift store shopping and the fun of the hunt.  I went with my college roommate Megan to Name Brand Exchange  in Mesa and I had fun trying on expensive jeans like True Religion, that were still about $70--apparently that is a bargain compared to their retail price. I went with Heidi to Turnstyle in Ahwatukee, and we both bought some jeans under $7.  nice!  I got all of these books at Savers with my mom and dad (some I have already read...but I loved them and wanted to be able to see them on my bookshelf) plus bought Rachel a bunch of books and games and it was all under $30.  (I had just splurged and bought 3 books from Barnes and Nobel a few weeks ago and for just those 3 books alone I think I spent around $40.)  Rachel was in heaven:

"mom can I get a book"

"Sure!"

"mom, can I get this one too"

"Sure"

mom, look it's guess who, and I have always wanted to play Guess Who and we don't have it, can I get it?"

"Sure!" :-)

You get the idea, she ended up with this game, and about 10 books.

last weekend it was sunny enough that we wanted to be outside so we tried to go on a hike in the canyon...turns out it was still pretty muddy so we didn't get far, but here is Rachel with her friend-note more silly faces.

Rachel's other friend was over and we made pink, heart-shaped rice krispy treats for Rachel's party at school.  (those two things in the background are the extent of my Valentine's decorations so I thought I would get those in the photo too :-)

Every time I turned my back these two were snitching from the pan. 

stupid slow internet

Trying to upload lots of new photos...but our internet is SUPER slow and all the uploads are failing...guess you will all have to wait a while longer to see what we have been up to.

Ditched mutual and brought the only two kids that came to the basketball game - and just ran into the bishop lol
Amber

Think what you will...

But here is what is going on in our part of the world

The Rez in the news:
Food Drops on the Navajo Rez

Food drops not going so well

also: we had a funeral today for a man from our church who froze to death.  While the weather has been cold, it hasn't been that cold so I asked around trying to figure out how it happened.  Do they live in a hogan without any electricity and not have any firewood? I was told that he went outside, possibly to drink, and must have passed out and they did not find him until morning.  Sad.  Frustrating. unreal.

I read all of the comments on the news articles, and thought about the death of this man, and as someone who lives here, I still don't know what to think.  Some people do live in shacks, and have "crap" all over their property (as one comment suggested), yes-many still live without running water or electricity, many of the elderly do not speak or understand english very well.  Many are on food stamps and welfare.  Some on the otherhand, seem to still live a traditional lifetyle--herd sheep etc.  Some people who work here do so because they love helping, and sometimes I have a hard time feeling like any of the "help" does any good in the long term. 

blog stalking

So one benefit of driving 30 minutes to class (to an even smaller town) is getting the chance to meet up with two couples who live up there.  They do a lot of fun stuff, let it be said that neither has any children, so they are in a fully free state to come and go as they please.  I emailed Julie because she is a pharmacist and wanted to chat with her about this profession I am considering (for reasons that still seem ridiculous to me at times:-).  Anyway, when she emailed back I saw a link to her blog at the bottom and thought, hmmmm, so I read all about her--They hang out a lot with this other couple and had links to their blog, and Patricia's photography blog.  Let's just say that when I look at her pictures it makes me wonder, "Do you live on the same rez as I do?!"  I will happily purchase some of her photos to have in my house and enjoy the beauty of the desert that I don't often see when I look out my window.

When I just looked at their blog to steal some pics, I saw that they recently went on another random, fun, couple excursion.  After the storm, they loaded up their 4x4s and their skiis, and their snowchains, and drove to a road that is closed for winter, and then put the chains on the cars and kept driving, and then put on their skiis and skiid down the snow covered road.  Awesome!   If only we could keep up with them :-)

Decorating

Here are some looks that I enjoy--borrowed from HGTV's ratemyspace.com and from my friend Kirsten's design website....

 And here is all I have so far--obviously I need a lot of help :-) 

After going back and forth on whether or not to decorate here--or just wait till we move, I have decided to go ahead and decorate...but try to choose items that will also work in my "real" house  (ie--the house that Mike and Heidi have already lived in longer than we did--but we have hopes of someday returning to). 

I want to bring in the green color as an accent, but I think I also want a second accent color--maybe a blue-grey, or another color that pops...not sure what.

I hadn't bought a bedskirt because I hoped to buy a bed frame that wouldn't require one...but we are going to wait on that for now...and so I should probablky get an inexpensive one for now...but in what color? White-to blend in with the bed? brown--to pretend like it is a bedframe? khaki--I saw something like that in a hotel that looked pretty-but then the walls were khaki too.  

If anyone has any brilliant ideas--please share :-)