{i have no name for this post}

so we have a water spout out in our front yard and the other night it popped... or something. im not exactly sure what happened, but dad was out there trying to fix it in the middle of the night, bless his heart. we didnt have water for awhile... and we have a big ol' hole in the middle of our plants. its kinda funny... in a sad way. anyway. it rained last night and filled up the hole a bit. austin came into my room this morning to tell me that there was a giant frog in the hole. it really is giant.

so i googled this beast to find out what it was... and apparently its the "infamous sonoran desert toad, bufo alvarius" [if you were wondering]... sometimes referred to as the colorado river toad. i thought i knew what colorado river toads looked like... but i guess i really only see baby toads. i have no problems picking the little ones up... but i was not about to pick this one up. no thank you. anyway.... a few fun facts about this toad... these are the largest toads in the u.s., toxins are secreted by the large glands on the side of the head [if these toxins are ingested... more often by dogs and other four-legged vertebrates than humans... they can cause hallucinations, paralysis and even death. whoa. right?], and the white tubercles under these glands help distinguish this toad from any other.

kinda fun!

::

yesterday, we got to babysit hayley for awhile so dustin and adrian could go on a date. i was playing with hayley a bit... and she started doing this strange happy screaming thing as i was putting the blanket over her and saying "where's my hayley bug? there she is!" apparently she found it really amusing... and her [dare i say] laugh was so dang funny! kels took a quick picture of it... oh how i love that baby! :)

{again}

so i was house sitting for a family i know for the last week or so... kelsey and nicole spent the nights with me... austin did too once or twice. and we had a really fun time! we played a lot of games, invited some friends over, went swimming a bunch and ate a lot of hot dogs. this family just got an adorable little german shepherd puppy... 8 weeks old. he was the cutest little thing ever... they have another dog too [a black lab]... shes 13 years old, i think.

anyway. the other night we were coming back from a pizza night at the townsends [devin and zac and me and nicole... kelsey had to run back home to get pajamas] and i start pulling into the garage area but there was something in the way... i thought it was a giant colorado river toad [theres tons of them around this house] but then this thing turned and it was a hu-freaking-mongous gila monster! for reals! apparently we are just gila monster magnets! this booger was seriously 14 or more inches long... wa-hay bigger than the one at our house. we called rural metro [again] and they came out... we were hoping that kelsey would get there with a camera in time, but those rural metro men are just too darn fast and she just barely missed them. nicole took a picture with her phone... its a little blurry, but you can see how big it is in comparrison to our little one last week. it was quite the adventure.

the beast...

the lil' monster from last week...

::

we were driving home from adrians birthday dinner on sunday night and it was a beautiful sunset.... this ones just from my phone. but still... its pretty...

{happy fourth... a little late}

as is tradition on the 4th of july our family swims all day then has a fun little barbeque that night. this year we had some friends come over. ashley [our cousin] has been in town this weekend, devin and nicole were there, and then that night the townsends came over [as well as adrian and dustin and hayley]. there was a-mazing bacon cheeseburgers, delicious patriotic little cheesecakes for dessert, a diving contest and sparklers. sorry we didnt take more pictures.... but here is what we did get...

me kelsey ashley austin devin and zac with our sparklers

[nicole was the picture taker]

flying our flag


our cute cheesecakes!


...GOD BLESS AMERICA...

::

oh and real quick... [this isnt fourth of july-sy, bear with me]

this morning i went out to water the plants out back and something in the pool caught my eye. this is what it was...


poor little [well, not so little... this thing was huge... like 10 inches long... bigger than the gila monster... no joke] lizzard. he has some pretty coloring- but still, ive never liked finding dead things in the pool...

{psst...}

i finally put up lake trip pictures [sorry its a couple posts late!] but check them out! theyre fun!! and thanks to nicole for taking them!! :)

oh and the pictures are in the lake post... the one right before "oh wow"

...just keep scrolling down, you cant miss 'em.

{oh, the memories}

so today me and mom spent a good little chunk of time organizing and sorting old papers and pictures. we tend to keep a lot of junk... we are pack rats by nature. i wish like crazy that i could be a minimalist.... but i fear i am just too sentimental.

anyway... there were tons of funny pictures and funny papers from my elementary school days... its amazing how much i remembered when i had something to look at... like how proud i was of my barn swallow report in the fourth grade... and my aztec pot that i made out of paper mache for our ancient indian reports... and the valentines day cards from kids that i had forgotten about. and of course there were pictures from my ugly fatty chipmunk stage... that just arent cute [but that my mom made me keep...haha]. funny funny times. there was a lot of cards from grandma & grandpa neilson that i loved reading through.

im not quite sure why i kept all of that stuff... and i still kept a bit of the funnier things and almost all the pictures. oh, the memories. hahaha. anyway... these are my favorites...

mom adrian and me

halloween one year... me as the bat, kelsey as a princess maybe? chellsey [cousin on the farr side] as a zombie looking thing, and adrian as a witch

me on a quad... this is part of my not-so-cute phase. feel blessed that you get to see it. haha

apparently this is one of my many birthdays spent at the cabin with my farr family

grandpa neilson sent this to mom in '92... i thought it was so funny... and so very fitting for this time of year!

that is the front and back of a picture... the backs of pictures are almost as funny as the pictures themselves!


kelsey, adrian, grandma farr, me and chellsey riding horses at the cabin one year...


adrian, me & shooshy pup, lexi, austin, ashley and kelsey


speaking of our puppy... me and kelsey made these signs all the time when we were potty-training our dog... im not sure if this one was by me or kels... but its so funny! "puppy pea" hahaha!

i really have to preface this next one. there was a time in our young lives that me and my sisters didnt get along as well as we do now. and once upon a time, dad would let us go to the trampoline and literally let us fight it out. anything was game while we were on it [well, there was no throwing people off...] and apparently grandpa and grandma neilson were here for one of those sessions. this is a picture that i got in the mail from my grandma... i think i love the back of it the most...

hahaha! oh man... that is so funny! we sure do look happy in that picture... so apparently daddy's strange technique worked! :)

{oh wow}

so this morning me and kelsey went to deliver a couple framed pictures to dad at work. one is the one we gave him for father's day [the prayer at valley forge] and the other was a newly reframed drawing that i did of the columbia river gorge a couple years ago. it turned out lovely... and now daddy has a beautifully decorated office [with a window... and a view of the mountains! :) ]

::

we spent the afternoon in the pool. dustin, adrian and hayley came up. and ashley, our fun cousin, is here for the weekend. anyway.... we were in there for quite awhile [until a storm blew in, and even then we were in until it was raining and thundering right above us! haha]... but dustin did get mighty burned... poor dude. it just looks painful. hahaha. pray for him!

::

we've been playing and having fun this evening... until mom came in [not quite yelling, because miss hayley bug is asleep] but telling us that there was a gila monster in the carport! oh wow!! we've only seen one other gila monster our whole 16 years. my mom called rural metro because the gila monster is a protected animal in arizona [rural metro is the fire department place] and they got here in 18 minutes [kelsey won... with a vote of 18 minutes. haha]. so all of us... mom, dad, adrian, dustin, austin, me, kelsey, ashley, and devin and zac... went out to witness the monumentous occasion.... and these are the pictures! enjoy!


it hid behind the pole thingy... so i was a litte bit more brave to get a little closer to it... haha... then when the fire man dude came we had to nudge it out a bit... haha... look how cool this is though... he had these sweet little forcep things then dropped it into this bucket that looks like a camping toilet!! :) and then i really did get nice close pictures!!


::

end note:

there were 1o cars here when the fire department came... for the 11 people in this house [the only one without a car was baby hayley. haha... austin cant really drive. nor is he legally allowed to... but we let him "have" the truck. so really it was 10 cars... for the 9 driving adults in this house.] thats kinda embarrassing. and that is what we should have gotten a picture of. but now its raining... and dustin is gone, so... just imagine! :)

{lake trip & other fun}

so last friday me and kelsey [and devin and nicole] went to roosevelt lake with our university ward... and we had a surprisingly fun time! we got to ride in our bishop's boat and we even made a few new friends... nicole took all the pictures... so a big thanks to her! :) it was a really funny trip, but we were glad we went. ]we may or may not have gotten lost on the way to the lake and turned towards phonenix instead of globe... pa ha ha!] we dont really know many people still, so we need all the help we can get! lol...


we seriously got stuck behind this huge copper-hauling truck outside of winkleman. its a pretty curvy road... and this [not actaully this truck, but one that looked just like it] stopped in the middle of the road. we actually drove around it... but still! wow! it was crazy. that is why huge butt semi trucks do not belong on windy roads! ba ha ha!

::

ive also gotten a calling in this ward. within this last month ive moved into this ward, given a talk, got a new calling [as a relief society instructor] and gave a lesson. lol... i was a little bit nervous to move back into this ward, but so far its going really well... things are looking good!