Friday Dec 18,2009

I went to Utah. Finally after over a year I saw my family. I have missed them so much. This is Friday adventures. I woke early took brother Brent to work at the poop factory-more on that later-I had plans to visit Alicia my longest friend but she got suddenly ill and we were not able to meet up. So I texted brother Daniel. He is a technical support guy for Sorensen Relay. What? You are asking yourself...It is a phone service for the deaf. There is a camera so an operator can see the person making the phone call. The person uses sign language to communicate what needs to be said and the operator tells the person on the other end what the deaf person said. Make sense??? Well he helps people who are having issues with their unit and helps customers install their units. He is so cute isnt he...we met up at In N Out for burgers. It was so fun to see him before Christmas.



This is brother Brent. Almost 2 months ago he was at work in the golf cart seen above. He took a tumble and next thing he knew he was in the hospital with a splitting headache. He has been told that he fell down, lost consciousness and when he came to he did not know who he was. That lasted for a short time. At the hospital his wife Jenni was shocked to learn that Brent thought she was the neighbor girl. Needless to say he had some serious brain trauma. He was in ICU for several days and then in the hospital for several more. Poor boy. I was out of my mind being in Portland and moving and working. I wanted to be there so bad.

Fast forward to Friday....I got the honor of going to the Orem City Waste Water Reclamation Plant. I got a private tour of where the poop goes...It did not stink very much. It was similar to entering a dental office...you know there is just a hint of cold sterile mixed with dry socket paste. Well first off the sewage goes into filters and all the non human products get filtered out (tampons, condoms etc--tp is dissolved). These products are then dried and compressed in the Muffin Monster. I think it is so funny they named the muffin monster!!!

Then the water goes to several ponds and undergoes several non chemical steps of sludge removal.
Oxygen is being added here.
In this pic water is trickled over these rocks which have snails, moss, bacteria etc that clean the water. This was the stinkiest place in the whole plant.

Then the water is clean. They add chlorine and some sulfur to make finalize the cleanliness. Then it is dumped into the marshes near Utah Lake. It is pretty amazing. It is pretty clean water. I was impressed at the chemistry involved. There was so many steps that my mind got a bit overwhelmed. My brothers made my first day back in Utah wonderful! I am so grateful that they are my brothers!

Sweet Potato and Gingerbread

This weekend has been a bit more productive than last weekend. I had my step daughter. The plan was to celebrate Christmas. Dan went grocery shopping and picked up some sweet potatoes.

Then expected me to make a pie. I was up for the challenge. Here is the before picture. The butter was a bit chunky...(probably because it was frozen and not quite thawed ha ha ha)

This is the after picture. I have to admit I have never eaten a sweet potato. I have had yams but no sweet potato. I was scared of them. As I was cooking them they smelled an awful lot like regular potatoes. I am not a fan of potatoes, but this delicious pie was great. It was very much like a pumpkin pie. I really liked it.

It looks a little burnt but it is not I assure you.

My next adventure was to make gingerbread houses. This is mine. I started off with Necco wafers for the roof but ran out and had to use starlight mints for the other side of the roof...I am not very good at this.

I love that I have junk in the background of all my pictures. I feel like a slob. I tell myself I am not and I believe myself but pictures tend to show the truth.


Well all in all the weekend went alright.

Captain Dan

Here I am watching Elf. This happens to by one of my favorite Christmas movies...I love that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

I love the innocence of Buddy and how the loves everyone and syrup.

Today I had the honor of putting captain bars on my husband's military uniform. We got the news yesterday that his promotion finally came. He has worked so hard for this.

I do not have pictures because I was up in front of everyone and the people who took pictures have yet to email them to me....I hope they do. I get nervous when things like this are out of my control. Anyway, Dan's uncle Curt and his girlfriend came as did Dan's ex-girlfriend and her son (they are still good friends). His mom and sisters did not make it. Nor did his daughter. She said she had other stuff to do, but Dan felt that she was just saying that because she did not want to go. It broke his heart. I wanted to cry last night. It was hard to watch.

Well the ceremony was nice. It was outside in the cold. The soldiers were in formation and they called Dan to post. Then they called Curt and I up and introduced us to everyone. Then as they read the orders I removed the velcro patch on Dan's uniform and placed the captain patch while his uncle removed the Lt pin and replaced it with the captain pin on his hat. It was nice. Pictures were being taken all over the place. So hopefully I will get one. We then went to lunch. It was wonderful. I love Uncle Curt and his girlfriend. They are great people and I am sure we will hang out again. I am thankful for my family who showed support to Dan even in Utah. I am grateful that I have friends and family who give me support no matter how much notice I give them or how far out of the way they have to go!!! I love you all so much!

Curt happens to be an Oregon Ducks football season ticket holder and he says....Buckeyes are going to win. So Jami...Enjoy the game! I hope it is a good one.

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This morning the moon was so lovely from my opertory window, I had to snap a picture. Sadly this picture does not do the moon justice. It was so large. I could see the 'man in the moon' with amazing detail. I wish I could share with you the great morning moon with you.

I have written this post 3 times now. I think I will end it now....

How great and wonderful is the world we live in? How bad do I hate working out? How come I cannot befriend a 13 year old girl? Why do I love junk food? How great is my husband? Why is he so good to me? How bad to I miss my family? What is the best Christmas movie?