Two birds with one stone

I'm killing lots of birds today. Right now, I'm trying out the "poll" feature on blogger at the same time as deciding on whether or not to put labels on my posts. Hmm... me thinks I can to accomplish all!

Darn Mogi!

So my camping trip reminded me of how much I HATE MOSQUITOES (or mogi in Korean)! So when I was surfing my google reader--which I do WAY too much--and came across these mogi solutions, I was over joyed. There were two. One was a kind of trap that Dave, Brent's brother, mentioned using carbon dioxide; and the other was a Death Fan Trap (to fully understand the "death fan" you'll have to read this. Koreans are interesting). Both mogi solutions looked pretty ingenious. I guess I'll have to try them out!



These are the carbon dioxide traps...








And here is the Death Fan trap

Widgetbox

If you've noticed, I've got a couple of new widgets on the side of my blog! I'm so proud of myself! I used html and java! I found the Jesus Christ widget on this great website called widgetbox.com. Most of the widgets that I found on that site were space wasters, but I really liked this one on Christ. It links directly to the site the church made about Christ. It even pops up in a new window! The best part about it is that if you want to add it to your blog, all you have to do is click on the "add widget" button at the bottom of the menu, copy the code and paste it into a HTML/JavaScript page element thing. Yay for easy blog stuff!

Our Weekend of Camping with the Ortons

By no means is this a picture I took.  I found it on the amazing Visit Idaho website.

We went camping this weekend.  This is amazing.  It might not seem amazing to you, but I swore off camping after Girls camp.  Girls camp was fun in its own way, but after awhile, the novelty of sleeping in the "wilderness" lost its appeal.  So when the Ortons invited us to go, I wasn't exactly excited, but Derek and I agreed to go.  And now, camping isn't that bad!  It's actually enjoyable!  

We left Friday afternoon and were going to meet the Ortons at whatever campground they chose the night before.  It turned out that they didn't make it up to the Cascade/McCall area Thursday evening so we ended up deciding together where to go camping.  We ended up choosing McCall because none of the camping areas near Cascade were speaking to us.  And we found an AMAZING campground in McCall.  Anyone who's going camping in this area should go to this campsite.  Payette lake is adjacent to the campground, their bathrooms were clean and had running water (showers and real flushing toilets!), and the park even had entertainment planned!  Derek and I are definitely planning on going again!

Friday afternoon we spent at the nearby dock.  The water was FREEZING, but it was fun to splash around.  Brent and Tanya even brought a little rubber raft to float around in.  Derek took everyone on rides.  At first, Jane, John and Paul hated the boat, but they all eventually tried it.  That evening, Tanya and I got tin foil dinners ready while the guys set up the tents. Brent's brother and his family were coming a little later in the evening and we wanted to get stuff set up for them.  The Dave Orton family arrived just before 8 and we all ate dinner, talked, and enjoyed the evening.  

Saturday morning we spent at the lake again, this time with both Orton families, and this time at the "beach" area.  I write "beach" because it wasn't really that much of a beach.  It was only a few yards long and just about 4 feet wide, but it was the perfect size for us.  It was almost like our own, private beach!  

We drove back Saturday afternoon tired and happy!

The top 10 best things about camping this weekend (When I started, it was supposed to be in order of good to best, but then by the end, I realized that all of it was great!)

10. Bug spray and sunscreen. Oh, sweet relief!

9. Wonderful weather. 

8. Brent and Tanya being kind enough to let us sleep in half of their tent. 

7. McCall was far enough away from home to be "away." But close enough to home to make it worth the overnighter trip. 

6. Splashing, wading, boating and fishing in Payette lake.

5. Payette lake being only a couple minutes walk from our campsite

4. The Ponderosa Park campground had conveniently placed  REAL FLUSHING TOILETS and REAL SHOWERS!

3. Delicious food, tin foil dinners; bacon, eggs and pancakes; and yummy sandwiches!

2. Jane slipping and falling into the very, very shallow water (maybe two inches deep) near the shore of Payette Lake and saying "It's a good thing I had my life jacket on!"

1. Spending nice, relaxing, quality time with our great friends the ORTONS!!!  Thanks Orton family(-ies) for all the work you went to to make the camping trip a total sucess!

As far as we could see, the only negative to the whole trip was the MOSQUITOES!  It was seriously as if all the mosquitoes in the state of Idaho heard we were going camping and went to meet us there.  As soon as we got out of the car, they swarmed us!  But it wasn't anything that a good dousing of Bug and Sun sunscreen and bug spray couldn't at least keep at bay!

Visiting Teaching

I am so excited to do Visiting Teaching! Isn't the church great? They set you up with people to become friends with by service. And I think I have the BEST companion and visiting teachees ever! I've seen these women at church and wanted to talk and become friends, but you know how it is at church. Everybody gets busy and there isn't ever enough time! So imagine how happy I was to find out that the sisters on my list were the exact ones I wanted to get to know!

After doing my visiting last night, I went to my aunt's house to learn how to take care of Grandma for the weekend. Really I just need to check on her in the evenings to help her take her medicines. Peggy, my aunt, showed me what to do in about 15 minutes, and then after that, we talked outside for about 2 hours! She's such a nice gal and a great artist to boot! She's willing to help Derek out with learning sketching.

And Derek taught me how to do this cool thing with text links. I've seen them, but I thought that they were WAY out of my league. But, guess what! They weren't! They are the coolest thing! Say you want to put a link to a site in your post, but the link is long and U-G-L-Y. Type in this html code and it makes a word a link! This is all probably baby stuff for a lot of you bloggers out there... bear with me.

Ok readers, I feel like a dummy. There is actually a "text link" button right next to the left align button. So to get directions for the easy way of text links, and the hard way, click on my text link. It will tell you all the rest!

Temple Night

Our friends, the Ortons, invited us to go do some family names at the temple this evening. I'd never gone to do sealings with family names before. It was a great experience! I kind of felt like we were serving on two layers. We were doing a service for those who were dead, but we were also doing a service for Brent and Tanya because the names were their ancestors! It was neat to see their joy in doing their family work. We also ate dinner at the Temple cafeteria. We were both surprised at how GOOD the food is there! Brent and Tanya were kind enough to treat us. They're the best!

Boise, Idaho Temple

We also had one of those "it's a small world" experiences.  The sealer, R. Wade Curtis, lived in Germany during the same time as Derek's family.  And he knew Derek's parents!  We made sure to get his contact info so Mom and Dad Cheney can get a hold of him. 

And Mom, I looked at the carpet, upholstery, and wood in the temple, and it varied.  Everything was really neutral; tan or cream carpets,  cherry colored or oak colored wood, and creamy neutral upholstery.  

So, between the two of us, as of June 11, 2008 Derek and I have attended these temples 

Frankfurt, Germany

Fukuoka, Japan

Washington DC

Raleigh, NC

Provo, UT

Timpanogos, UT

Salt Lake, UT

Seoul, South Korea

Chicago, IL

and of course, the Boise, ID temple, too!  I know compared to a few of you readers out there, 10 isn't a huge number, but we're working on it!

We're curious to know, what temples have you all been to?

Geocaching and good ol' Jeeves and Wooster

So we did our geocashing last night. Not very successfully though. In the end we attributed it to the darkness of the late hour. But we still had a TON of fun! Embarrassingly enough, I've never really used a GIS. I'm a geography freak, but have never had the chance to really use one! One of my favorite parts of the evening was seeing Brent and Tanya's kids all bundled up in jackets and coats, running around helping us find the stuff. I love little kids in coats! They're so cute!

After a fun, but fruitless search, we went back to Brent and Tanya's house and watched Jeeves and Wooster. Now, for all you who haven't watched this British comedy yet, WATCH IT NOW!!! The TV show is based on the Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G. Wodehose. And for any of you who haven't read those books, READ THEM NOW!!! P.G. Wodehouse is a master of comedy, and the TV show does the books proud! Each episode is based around Bertie Wooster (a rich, playboy type) getting into trouble once or twice, and then Jeeves (his genius valet, or personal assistant) comes to the rescue and solves all the problems. My favorite part is how oblivious Wooster is to his own stupidity. He always thinks he's so clever, yet he gets into so much trouble!



In other news, we took Willow to the vet on Wednesday to get her two front paws declawed. She had been doing pretty well with not really using her claws on anything she wasn't supposed to, but lately, she's been clawing the carpet, our hands (not too roughly, but it doesn't have to be too rough for it to hurt!), and using her claws to climb up on furniture. So we decided it was time. Our vet, Blayney Vet Clinic was great! $90 for all the essentials and two nights boarding! We picked her up Friday morning and she's doing great! I love my Willow!

Found a new blog!

I found another great blog that is really informative. I'm also a news junkie, but I don't like reading about all the sad stuff: wars, murders, etc. I like the good, postive current event things. And this blog fits that bill. It's all about food and health. Here's the link...

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

Working, working, working!

Lately, Derek's been doing some work around the house at my parents'. And he's been doing an EXCELLENT job! He's fixed doors; made a gate in their fence; dug out a patio; re-arranged the sprinkler system to accomodate the patio; repaired the sub-floor in the second bedroom; cut, sanded and stained shelves for a pantry cubboard; repaired grout lines in their master bath (the professionals didn't use silicone in the joints so every joint cracked, dumb professionals!); and now he's filling in the hole he dug for the patio with road mix in preparation for the cement to be poured. I'm so impressed with how much he can do, how quickly he learns how to do it, and how well he does! A lot of the stuff he's been doing around here, he's never done before. He's got one of those genious brains thats able to just look at a problem, think about it, maybe reference a book, and then do the job well! I've got to do a couple of trial runs before I get a good end result. He's the best and I love him!

Another question for all you out there...

Some friends of ours invited us to go "geo-cashing." It's where you use a GIS thing and go treasure hunting. Have any of you all gone before? What's it like? They told us that we should leave a treasure in place of the one we find. I have no idea what to leave! Any suggestions?

Know of any good blogs?

So I've realized that I'm a blog junkie! I love to read them! But I'm having problems "searching" and finding good blogs. All the blog searcher that I've found so far will just bring up individual blog posts that contain my search word. So, do any of you out there know any good blogs to read? I read anything thats even mildly interesting!! :D