Free Books

The Alpine Library had a challenge if you read ten books by a certain day you get a free book light. Well, I have just finished my tenth book this morning (I'll post a picture of my free light later)! Anyway, the Alpine Library isn't very big and a lot of their books are borrowed from other libraries in Star Valley. So they just don't have a huge selection of books. Jake had found this page where you can download books for free. Its called the Gutenberg Project. The entire site is for books whose copyrights have expired, so they're available to everyone. They are older books, but all of the classics are on there. My tenth book this morning was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was a super quick read and a fun story. They also have lots of music on there, both recordings and print. Anyway, I thought it was really cool and wanted to share it with everyone!

Good Morning!

Every morning, between 3:00 and 4:30 AM, this is what I wake up to:Jenny? Jenny? Hey, Jenny! Are you awake? I'm hungry!


This is what he wants:

You may say, why do you get up so early? Why don't you just close the bedroom door? Why don't you just ignore him? Why don't you adjust his schedule so he doesn't want food that early?

Well, let me just tell you. Ignoring him doesn't work. The meows get loud. When I say loud, I mean, jet liner passing over the house loud. Then the claws come out and he starts to claw at me. Sometimes he rubs his little wet nose all over my face and makes me smell like cat boogers. Sometimes, he will simply plop down on my chest until I wake up. Then when I do, "MROW!"

And we can't close the door, then the screams get louder. And the door starts to shake as he tries to get in the bedroom.
PS- His poohut is in the master bathroom (there is literally nowhere else to put it), so if we closed the door, that could lead to terrible consequences...

Plus, since we've moved, and he's trying to adjust as well. The last few weeks, he would scarf up his breakfast, inhaled. Then he would puke it up. So I would be up later cleaning up cat puke off of our rented carpet. So, now I give him a little bit until he inhales it, and make sure he doesn't puke it up. Then I give him the rest that he comes back for later.

Then he plays for a couple of hours. Mostly pulling open drawers, chasing rattle mice, playing in shoeboxes, chasing Q-tips, or anything that makes lots of noise.

Then he sleeps till noon.

Birds of Wyoming

One of the great things about Wyoming, is that everywhere is pretty much the great outdoors. So everywhere you go, the wildlife is fantastic. We live a mile from an Elk Refuge (A side note, as I was typing, I mistyped and put Elf Refuge. I laughed really hard at the thought and pictured Elves huddled around fires following the trucks that are passing out food. I thought it was pretty funny). So whenever we drive by, there are hundreds of elk smiling at us.

Well, as many of you know, we are bird watchers so I wanted to share some pictures of the birds we've seen in about the last week, just doing our thing. So here are some of their pictures.


Hooded Merganser: Jake saw it in the river on his way to work


Common Merganser: Just floating by with his Chica


Swans: Can't tell what kind, but we regularly see large flocks fly over the house and road.


Ravens: I know, gross. But we didn't have Ravens in Idaho Falls.


Mountain Bluebird: Landed about 15 feet from me as a stopped my bike to look at it. Beautiful!



Horned Lark: We've seen these in Rexburg, but never this subspecies.



Gray Partridge: We regularly scare these guys up from the grasses across the street. They're pretty cool.


Bunny Bird: If you were patient enough to read through this entire post, you get to see the most rare and elusive bird of Wyoming. The Bunny Bird.

Hope you enjoyed our birds!

Change

I don't handle change well. I never really have. When I graduated high school and went to college, I didn't do well. I had to come home every weekend. I ended up retaking most of the classes of my freshman year so I could get better grades. After my sophomore year, I cried for several weeks because my favorite roommates of all time were all gone to other schools and I had to start over with new roommates in a new house, not entirely sure what I was going to do. I got over that when I got to know my new roommates and figured things out and got a new routine. Even when we got married I stressed a little bit. I loved being married, but everybody knows that it is an adjustment. I don't remember stressing when we moved to our other house, mostly because I wasn't sad about leaving Rexburg. Now that we have moved again, I have stressed. I've been so anxious and just don't know what to do with myself. I think part of it is that I know we are going to be moving again after we sell our house. Oh yeah, we haven't sold our house yet, that doesn't help either. Part of it is also because I left some very dear friends that I miss desperately, wonderful neighbors and ward, a set routine, and a house I loved! Before we left, the Bishop gave a really good talk about not looking back, and not yearning for things of the past, moving forward and progressing in whatever situation we are in. We've met so many nice people here, and we live in a nice house, in a VERY beautiful area. We both have callings and are involved. I guess we're getting into a routine of things. Its been really nice having Jake home every night. And he really likes his new job. So, I guess I don't really have much to complain about. Change builds us up, right? But I really miss my friends.

Fruit Roll Ups

I had a couple of pounds of strawberries that needed to be eaten, so I decided to make them into roll ups. I found this recipe online and decided to try it. We just got a food dehydrator so I was excited to try it out. Have any of you tried to put liquid into your dehydrator? Even with the saran wrap, it ran all over the place, kitchen was a mess. So I decided to put it in the oven (like the recipe said...oops). If you make this recipe, I would suggest to be sure that your pan has a flat, level bottom. The one I used wasn't quite flat, so the edges were done way before the inside was. Good luck, they were yummy!