They Say It's Our Birthday!

So my birthday was last week. Devin's is Wednesday. We have 8 days in between our birthdays. Yeah. It's like that. Here are some pics from our birthday celebrations. Devin's isn't until tomorrow, but we had to celebrate his Fake Birthday because he wasn't going to be around. For my bday, we did the Cornish Pasty Co in Mesa. For Dev's we did Rueben sandwiches at my mom and dad's.

Haven't Posted In A While...

Devin has been back to two weeks on and two weeks off for a few months now. We really do like the 14/14 schedule a lot better because we get to see so much more of each other.

A lot has happened since September, but I haven't blogged about it 'cause I'm a NERD.

I went to Disneyland with my grandmother and her sisters. It was the first time my grandma had gone to Disneyland and I felt so lucky to be able to share the experience with her. I won't go into a lot of details, but I will tell you that we had a lot of laughs and a lot of fun and I got to meet cousins which I didn't even know I had... and got to know ones I knew I had a lot better. I was the only grandchild on the trip, and I loved every single minute of the exhausting trip. We found frat boys at Cal State Fullerton, girls in boys bathrooms at Jack-In-The-Box, a way to get back at Buca di Beppo for not taking all of our coupons, and found out that caravaning across the I-10 can be a little more complicated than previously thought. We found that we could tease and have fun across generations, and that laughing with family can a bond make - even if you do get fired. We hit Downtown Disney, Hollywood, the Los Angeles Temple, Disneyland, the Newport Beach Temple, and Newport Beach on our trip. I wish we would have had another day, but we crammed in a lot of memories, and I seriously adored every second. Here are some pictures from our trip:

I went to Wyoming in the end of September for a couple of weeks and hung out with Devin's family and then drove home with Dev. We went to Glenrock's Homecoming game which was really fun as well. A little weird that they didn't ask the alumni to stand and be recognized, but oh well. And someone needs to pass on a little fashion advice to those teens with those dresses... um. They need rescuing from themselves. Pictures from the game:

We went to Glendo Reservoir to go rockhounding one day, and that was fun, but tiring too. The deer were psychotic and scared the crap outta me a couple of times - seriously the loudest deer on the planet. Here are some pics from that:

Around Halloween, I helped my dad with a Halloween Party for the High Priests Group in their ward. We did all sorts of fun stuff, like carving pumpkins, eating donuts off of strings, and trick-or-treating. I went as an exhausted Read-A-Thon participant because I was in the middle of a Read-A-Thon. Despite my setting up for and running the party for six or seven hours, I still read more than I did the last Read-A-Thon, so I was happy with that. Here are some pics from Halloween.

At the State Fair, we went to get our family pictures taken on the Friday night. The Saturday night we went back for Kelly Clarkson. Kelly was great, and I really enjoyed the show. Here are some pics from the fair:

Now, we're on holiday watch. My birthday is on Tuesday and Dev's is a week from Wednesday and we're still debating what to do for Thanksgiving. I'll be better and fill you in as I go along :o)

What We're Reading:

Devin: just finished listening to Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen.

Shesten: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Website of the Week:

Amazon Filler Finder lets you put in the amount you need to hit the $25 free shipping mark on Amazon and provides you with a list of products that match that amount. Super cool for those who don't have Amazon Prime.

News...

This just in... seriously, just in, like I just got off of the phone with Dev. He is going back to a two week on, two week off schedule. Woot! We don't know for sure when it starts, but it is starting soon, maybe even this hitch. Thank heavens. The one off one on was killing us. We didn't have any time together.

I was going to head up toward Wyoming next week, but we'll see now, it might depend on his work schedule...

Just a short update, but an update that makes me happy :o) Woot!

Happy Birthday Snapdragyn!!

Snappy Anne is 6 today! Yay for Snappy! She's our oldest cat, and to celebrate everyone got to share some birthday tuna. Snappy didn't like it though, unfortunately!

Devin is back at work, and is still looking forward to the fishing trip with his family that is coming up week after next.

I am here in Arizona, just got back from a quick trip up to Flagstaff/Mormon Lake so that we could all have a little fun and do the seasonal cleanup necessary on the cabin. After an afternoon of raking pine needles, we headed over to the "Cinder Pit" to shoot. We shot water rockets and guns, but I didn't actually pull the trigger on anything, I just shot photos and a few vids.

On the way up I thought I might die, seriously, a couple of times because my brother drives like a maniac. 140 miles an hour on I-17. His limiter actually kicked in. OMG. I'm so glad to be home in one piece.

On the way home, Rett, Kevin & I stopped in Payson for dinner and ate at Cardo's Pizza and Italian. Highly recommend. Awesome food. Exceptional service.

We also made some water rockets this week...

This one was at night:

This one was at the Cinder Pit:

What We're Reading:

Shesten: Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs (loving it!)

Devin: no idea.

Fishing & Racing & Food, oh my!

So Devin made it home yesterday eaaaaaarly morning. I think he rolled in around 4am. I am glad to have him home for a few days!

Exciting news for him is that he gets to go hang out with Damian and go fishing on his next days off. He's really excited about it and is totally looking forward to it. He brought home his fly-tying stuff and has been making flies, a lot of them, since he got home and situated. Their fam is going to Tensleep and that's like Devin's favorite place on the planet, so I am excited that he's gonna get to go. Unfortunately with that whopping 40% pay cut, it's not really feasible for me to go.

He also brought some other things home which I am super excited about:

• DISHES!! Woot! (I now have plates, and bowls, and even a casserole dish that will fit in the toaster oven!)
• Flatware
• My Kitchen Aid mixer
• The blender and food processor (it's one unit)
• A whole box of DVDs (was hoping for exercise ones, but no luck)
• Wii

He also brought home some food from work this time. At the end of the hitch (the guys call each set of days they work a "hitch") the guys just throw away all of their extra food and stuff that they've brought for lunch from the man camp. Devin was the one to clean out the refrigerator this time, so instead of throwing it in the garbage, he brought it home. So we got a whole drawer full of individually wrapped condiments, a whole cabinet full of shelf-stable milk and gatorade, and a whole basket full of snacks.

My mom and dad are on vacation, so I have been spending a lot of time over at their house, hanging out with Rett (my bro), Kevin, and Stephen. Kevin lives with my family in my room, and Stephen is a really good friend to both Rett and Kev. They took pity on my in all my lonliness and let me go to the drag races with them on Friday night. Basically, you get to drag race your own car down the strip at Firebird. It was really fun. I even raced Stephen one time. Here are some pictures from our event...

The last little bit of news I have to share is that with Devin and I tag-teaming it, we finally got our wireless router working and woot! we've got wifi again.

What We're Reading:

Shesten - Don't Judge A Girl By Her Cover by Ally Carter

Devin - Maximum Ride book 4 by James Patterson

Website of the Week: Invite Share allows you to connect with others who have invitations to private betas that you want in on... super cool. Check it out. I was tempted to keep it to myself 'cause I want the invites, but that would be greedy and uncool, so I overcame that temptation and am sharing it with you now!

Roadtrip: Leg 4 (Devin and I)

After wasting a whole lotta time with the county treasurers in Converse County, Devin and I headed off on the second part of our trip, alone. We had so much fun with Kris & Britta, and hope that we get to go on a trip with them again some day!

We started out in the Grand Teton National Park. Oh my gorgeous. There was still snow on the mountains because of all of the moisture that the area had been getting. While Devin was at work, he went for two weeks straight with rain each day. Usually Wyoming is kinda a brown golden color when I visit this time of year, but it wasn't this time. It was green and lush and gorgeous. That extra moisture really made the Tetons a lot more fun. You may remember that we went to the Tetons in October with Kris (of the aforementioned Kris & Britta), but we only got to spend a bit of time there because we got a late start in the day.

Thanks to the whole sun being up until like 9pm thing (weird!), we were able to do everything that we wanted to do in the Tetons in a day this time. We went on a hike around the Moose Ponds and saw a whole bunch of Moose tracks, the places where Moose rubbed on the trees, but no Moose, boo. I really wanted Moose... it ended up being the only animal that I wanted to see on our trip but didn't get to. Notice Moose is capitalized? It's on purpose, I'm not a grammatical idiot. It is now the elusive Moose to me, and I want to show it the proper noun respect it deserves... call me crazy.

What We're Reading

Shesten - The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong

Devin - Graceling by Kristin Cashore

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Change

Changes abound in the Melder house.

Devin has now moved to a one week on, one week off schedule, which impacts the amount of time and travel he has to do and gives us 2 days less together per month, which sucks. It also

sucks because the wonderful, insightful, well-prepared, and sadly still Fortune 500 he works for cut his pay by 40%. So, I get to get a job now. Fun stuff.

My stuff still lives in Wyoming, and I'm plotting ways to get it back. If I have to live at home alone for more than half of the month, then I at least want my stuff here. When Christmas comes, I want my stuff here. When Halloween comes, I want to decorate. But, alas, I do believe this will not happen.

I think I will need to buy dishes again. I don't need pots and pans yet though because guess what I don't have? You guessed it, a stove!

Sorry, I've been trying to think now for a while on how to add a positive spin on this, but I can't think of a way to make it positive. I just can't. Maybe in ten years I'll look back and see that there was some good that came from it, but for now, I'm thinking I'm just going to stay in my little cave-house without a cieling in my kitchen or kitchen counters and half-painted walls/ceilings, broken windows, and well, what I affectionately call my hell-

hole forever. At least there's sunshine here, and gorgeous cacti and gorgeous mountains. And in October, I can start hiking again. There's my salvation. If I can hang on 'til Halloween, I can hike. Devin though, I'm not sure how long he'll be able to make the twice monthly 1600 mile roundtrip...

What We're Reading:

Devin - is between books right now, I think.

Shesten - Emily the Strange: the Lost Days

Fun Picture... Wynk reading The Stolen One by Suzanne Crowley.