Mostly for Erica...

I mostly made this post for Erica, so she can see what happened while I was talking on the phone with her, but first, here's a picture of our bed. :)  Doesn't it look good?  

And here's what happened while I was on the phone with Erica.  Taco decided to pull out the toilet paper and begin shredding it.  Luckily, I noticed before it was TOO bad, but still.  Yes, I made Jason clean it up because he was the one that left a little bit of toilet paper hanging down for the dog to be able to reach!
That's Taco's idea of fun.

New things for everyone!

Jason got some new clothes for interviews... right down to the shoes.  Can you tell I dressed him? :)
I'm trying to convince him he should dress like this more often because I think he looks spiffy!
And here is his work "uniform" aka black pants and a white polo with SECURITY on the back, and the company logo on the front.  Today is his first day, and he's work 12 hours to get his training over and done with... they REALLY need people, so they want him to work as soon as possible.  The nice thing is that he's working at the mall across the interstate from us, so it's like a 2 minute drive... and he could ride his bike to work if he really wanted to.  Oh yeah, ignore the hungover, high, not so happy look on his face... today was opening season of deer hunting (with a bow), so he woke up EARLY to hunt, came home and took a nap, then went to work... he's really just tired in the picture, not hungover, high or anything like that. :)
Jason got his pants yesterday, and they weren't hemmed at all, so the ones he's wearing today are safety pinned for now.  I decided I needed to learn how to hem pants, so I searched online, and found a video on youtube showing how to hem pants... and TADA!  I can do it!  This is my wonderful hemming job.  For my first ever time doing it, I think I did pretty darn well.  The entire time I was doing it, I was just thinking about how Gramma would be so proud to know I learned how to hem pants. :)  I guess tonight I'll do his other pants.
More new things for us.  Last night we bought the fridge on the far right for $100.  It's a year old, and the only thing wrong is it is missing one of the bottom drawers (and I think another shelf), but for $100, it was REALLY hard to pass up, so we got it because the other fridge (next to the freezer there) just wasn't cutting it.  There's a freezer in the top part of that little fridge, so you can imagine how small the fridge part is.  The night before last we bought that chest freezer (in anticipation for a deer being killed soon). :)  Craigslist is our absolute favorite place to get things!
Our other find from Craigslist, but we got these like the second day we were here... our washer and dryer.  They work VERY well, and they were only a year old too, so they should last us awhile.
And for good measure, here is our living room.  I know, it's kind of messy right now, but it gives you an idea of the size and whatnot.  You can see our new recliners which are VERY comfy, and the futon on the right.  The tv is GREAT being on the wall, and doesn't seem so huge now that it's not in such a small apartment.  I still need to get an audio pier for below the tv to put all the boxes on (dish box, vcr/dvd, Wii, etc), but we're getting there.  By the way, see Taco sitting on the carpet there??  Yeah, that's how small he is in this house!  Haha

That's about it for now.  I've been applying left and right for government jobs all over the area, but of course those take awhile to hear back from... so it goes.  I'm hoping to get a retail job or something to hold over for now... time to get out and apply for those! :)

Family from the Woodwork!

For a long time Jason has wanted to find relatives from his father's side of the family.  He didn't really know where to start until he started talking to Nana.  Nana knows his aunt (his father's sister) because they go to the same church, so she gave Jason her phone number.  After talking to Natalie for over an hour, he then had phone numbers for 3 of his cousins, as well as his grandparents, so he called those.  He called his cousins, and Kimber gave him his brother's phone number.  SO... Jason called Josh... and Josh couldn't believe it was really Jason because he's been trying to find him for a long time (they both knew each other existed... just didn't know how to find each other).  I believe the conversation went something like this:

"Is Josh there?  Hey Josh, this is Jason, your brother."

(Josh in the background) "Shh, be quiet, I need to find out if this is really who he says he is."

Then there were several questions asked to confirm it was Jason, and once Josh was convinced that it really was Jason, he HAD to meet us that night... it was like 8 or 9.

Josh (age 27), Jason (age 24) , and Garrett, Josh's 4 year old son.  Same height, same build... crazy.
And here's Jason and Garrett.  Garrett warmed up to us pretty quickly, which apparently isn't normal for him, so it was pretty neat.

Last Saturday, we went over to Josh and Shannon's house to watch the UT football game (which was nothing to talk about) and hang out some more.  Jason got to ride his first 2 wheeler... a little small for him, but he enjoyed it, nonetheless.
Then Garrett decided he wanted to chase Jason around the yard.  The funny part is the fact that Jason was going so slow since he was just learning that Garrett could keep up with him just fine.  Haha
Gavin, their 9 and a half month old son, watched from inside.  He was asleep the other night we met them.  He's a very happy kid though, and I get my baby fix from him for now. :)
Jason, Garrett, and Josh's wife Shannon.  Garrett was showing them what parts of the motorcycle were where, like the gear shift, the brakes, the motor, etc.
Here are some cousins... Jason, Kimber (their cousin), and Josh.  They were pretty excited to all be together!
And what better to do with a brother than arm wrestle?!  Jason and Josh on the floor, and Dusty, Kimber's boyfriend, mediating in the middle.  Josh actually won, but I have a feeling there will be some rematches in the future... that floor wasn't big enough for both of them to get the room they needed. ;)

Josh and Jason are quite a bit alike, it's almost scary.  Some of their mannerisms and humor crack me up because they are just the same... and they even pick similar women for wives. ;)

Thus far, it's been good for Jason to find him other family. ;)  Josh and Jason have a sister named Amber too, but we haven't met her in person yet because she lives farther away.  We're also hoping to get to meet his grandparents in the next month or so... we'll keep you updated.

Badlands and the rest of the trip

Someday I will be caught up... I'm almost there!

After Mt Rushmore, we went to the Badlands.
We didn't go down INTO the park really.  There's a highway that comes off of I-90 and goes through the top park of the park and back to I-90, specifically for people like us that want to see it on the way through... but it pretty much all looks the same, so it was enough for us.
I LOVE the colors in this picture below.  All the different periods in time are represented by a different color, pretty much.  It's kind of crazy to think about what the Badlands actually are.
While we were driving, Jason noticed some antelope, so I slowed down and pulled over to get a picture... then we noticed all these little critters all over the place!  There were a TON of prairie dogs on both sides of the road in this one particular spot, so we rolled down our windows and watched them for a bit... and listened to them.  We didn't get out because there were signs saying they could give you the plague, and we didn't really feel like getting the plague that day. ;)  I didn't realize they were this fat!
There was a different area where you could get out and walk on a little path, and along the way, we came across this cute little guy.
Here's Jason contemplating getting lost in the Badlands.  There were trails in this specific area, but there were quite a few of them, and it was hard to tell which one was what because there weren't any signs saying which way to go... we didn't feel like getting lost, so we didn't go very far.  Jason was hoping to find some sort of fossils, but I have a feeling that area is walked so much that anything that might have been there is already gone.
I had to take a picture of some wild cactus... I've never seen wild cactus before.
If you look real close (or maybe click on the picture to make it bigger), there are sheep on the side of this hill.  Jason kept saying, I'm surprised there aren't any bighorn sheep around here... and then we looked behind us and saw them.  It's insane what kind of places they choose to be!
After the Badlands, we headed out to finish our trip to Tennessee.  We went through Iowa...
...and Missouri.  Apparently I didn't take any other pictures in Iowa.
We went through St Louis.  Rush hour wasn't too bad.  We passed the arch too, which I've never seen before.
And then we got to Illinois.
That's all the pictures from our trip.  I would have a Kentucky sign and a Tennessee sign, but it was dark when we got to those, and the picture I tried to take definitely didn't turn out!  We are definitely glad to be done driving, and we're finally getting somewhat settled in here.  Once the house doesn't have boxes everywhere, I will post some pictures of the house. :)

South Dakota and Mt Rushmore

Since there was nothing in Wyoming, we continued to South Dakota.
Our GPS led us astray because we had it on a wrong setting, and took us on a unpaved road.  Well, on our way to turn around from this unpaved road, we saw turkeys.  To Jason, that made the wrong turn worthwhile... he's a nut.
Then we saw this deer, and a couple other too.  That REALLY made the wrong turn worthwhile... sheesh.
Finally we made it to the small town on Keystone, SD.  The only reason it exists is because of Mt Rushmore.
Once again, we gave the National Park Service some of our money.

I've always thought this row of flags was pretty neat.
It was the first time Jason had seen Mt Rushmore (my second time), so we went to the little museum they have about building it too.  Quite the accomplishment.
And to prove that I was there too, we got someone to take a picture of us. :)  Not the best picture in the world, but oh well.  Haha...

Sorry for the many posts, but I'm trying to keep the posts smaller so everyone with slower connections can upload and see them all!

Little Bighorn, Part 2 and Wyoming

After several days of trying to upload these pictures, they finally decided to upload today.

Here is Custer's stone.  It was the only one with flags around it, all the other ones were just white stones in the middle of a grassy field (like the one in the top left corner of the picture).
Here is Jason at the Indian memorial there.  It's one big circle with all the different tribes that were involved.  There are scattered quotes from some of them too.
In the visitor center there, they had weapons, uniforms, and other things from the battle site.  I thought this one was funny.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Crow scouts Custer had told him it wasn't a good idea:
Here are some medals some of the soldiers got.  I thought it was interesting to see some really OLD medals.
Like I said before, The Battle at Little Bighorn was a good history lesson for both of us.  We left right before the park closed, and we were back on the road again.

Wyoming welcomed us next... that's the REAL welcome to Wyoming sign, unlike the other ones we had seen.
We watched the sun set as we were driving, and happened to find a nice overlook to get a picture.  That's about all  Wyoming is good for.
We decided to take a little bit of a detour to drive to Devil's Tower.  This sign shows the Indian legends of how the tower came about.

We decided not to give this park our money.  We wanted to get on the road again and actually get somewhere, so we stopped at the gate and took pictures.

Now for something different...

Jason's aunt Cindy sent this to me... I thought it was interesting.  I lasted 12.548 seconds for my longest time... but you better believe I'll keep trying it!

RedSquare

Half of Little Bighorn...

After Yellowstone, we stopped at Little Bighorn Battlefield.
The National Park Services LOVED us this trip because we went to so many of them and paid money for each one... haha.  Here is a look at Custer's Last Stand hill.  He was pretty much right where that big monument is up there, and all those white specs are stones of people who died.
Here is a close up of what some of those stones say.  Most of them say "US Soldier" instead of an actual name.
This picture is from the top of the hill overlooking where the Indian encampment was.  It pretty much covered that entire valley, where all the trees are now, and also some beyond it.
Another view of the Indian encampment land.  All those fields were filled with Indians, and yet Custer still thought his 600 men would be fine... dumb.  The hills in front here were the ones the cavalry retreated UP after trying to conquer the Indians below... poor horses sure ran directly uphill!
And for some reason, my computer/the internet has decided not to let me upload the other half of the pictures from Little Bighorn, so you'll just have to wait to see Custer's stone and a few other things.  It was a good history lesson though, and Jason and I realized how DUMB Custer really was to completely ignore what his Indian scouts had told him!