More February

Last week I introduced Ryan to God's gift to winter-The Banff Mountain Film Festival- along with the scruffy hippies, free swag, the pullup contest which I so totally could have won, there were also some sweet films as an added bonus:

After watching these films and feeling both intensely motivated and intensely like lame-o's we Went on a climbing trip with Brent, Becka, and Karina-St. George, valentines day. Ryan did awesome smoothly working his way up 9's and 10's

 and my favorite route of the trip was a gross little offwidth, check out the knee jam below:

One of my hardest climbs was about twice the length of Ryan's forehead (see scale reference below)

In our woodworking class we decided that furniture building was way to easy so we decided to learn how to build dovetail joints by hand-our instructor turned into mister miagi-forcing us to cut precise angled slices into wood with a handsaw.

Don't let the smiles deceive you, at one point I got so involved in the project that I accused my husband of chopping off my carefully sawn joint- when I couldn't find it. Only realizing later that I had cut out the parts I was supposed to leave and left the parts I was supposed to cut out. Poor Ryan, between me and mister miagi it was a rough night.
(Ryan gets a little nostalgic looking at this picture because it is the last photo of his friend, the brown corduroy jacket, which passed away earlier this week)

I also finished a TV console out of Pallet wood and I'm kinda in love with it.  (The wood was free but the tools and hardware made up for the savings

I got my first paid photography job-a wedding (for $50, they offered to pay me more but I told them not to expect too much) and unfortunately the day we scheduled to shoot engagements it rained, so we tried a parking garage and for some reason those photos just didn't work out, I guess the lovely scenery of concrete  oil stains and honking didn't really create an ambiance of love.

But we went out again yesterday and the magic was happening so I was happy that we got some good shots.

Ryan has been working hard on the Rome visitor's center, I've been working hard to avoid work. In reference to one of my clients a coworker told me "you know what they say about headbangers(referring to self-harming individuals)-if you can't beat 'em join 'em" and that about sums up my job (some days).

I got invited to go on the Nicaragua trip with work-so I'll be taking my girls to a third world country-because apparently I'm not challenged enough with headbangers.

Random Pic of the week (is actually a video-yes I've been watching too much star trek)

Random Pic of the week-since we missed last week

February

It's been two weeks since we wrote-mostly because Emma has been tired and sick.
My (Ryan's) family came to town, for Aunt Linda's funeral and we used the opportunity to eat ourselves silly at Tucano's and multiple other restaurants.

Went to the ice castles with Ryan's parents

Our woodworking class started, Emma missed the first 2 weeks because she was travelling for work, once to Minnesota and two days in a yurt with a dozen girls from work. Ryan learned how to not get impaled with a board while using the table saw. Hopefully we both survive the class.

 (while up at the Yurt Larra(Our lead residential supervisor) told me the story of the time she was waiting at the ER with a strep throat and a man in a trenchcoat walked in, he looked pale and wobbled as he walked up to the counter, where he opened his trenchcoat and revealed that he was currently impaled by a board, Larra graciously allowed him to go first.
On a completely unrelated note Larra also told me that she ran into her conspiracy theorist friend at Costco who attempted to convince her that all artificial sweeteners are produced by milking the anal glands of Beavers (I am not making this up!) and that the proof was on the internet. I told Larra that she better stop drinking Diet coke because every Diet Coke is another beaver being milked in captivity)

Emma went to Minneapolis where she froze-it was -25 when we arrived and walking the little tube thingy between the airplane and the airport my teeth started hurting because of the cold.

On the way home I(Emma) got glared at multiple times on the airplane by the woman sitting in front of me because I was non-stop chuckling the whole flight while reading a book "Hyperbole and a Half" which I can't recommend because of the number of times the F-bomb is dropped but it is the funniest book I have read in years. I was snorting and crying the whole flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix.

I bought said book in the amazing Mall of America which is a ridiculous place-there were 3 GAP's, an amusement park, 70 ft lego statues, and an absurd amount of people hoarding around the mall. It was terrifying to walk three miles while staying indoors and being acosted by PINK! stores. We ended up going to the MOA to meet with a client, but if I'd had my say I would have gone to the "Extreme Sandbox" where they let you drive backhoes and bulldozers and complete an obstacle course

Ryan shoveled meat for 3 hours at the church processing plant--and still managed to eat 3 hamburgers that day...Emma is considering that as a new job-at least it wouldn't interfere with her home life (except for maybe the residual ground beef under the fingernails).

Random pic of the week.