Friday, October 30, 2009

Pumpkins

Last night we carved pumpkins with Jennelle, Tim, and Evan. A couple of our pumpkins acquired some injuries along the way, but toothpicks work wonders. Jennelle made some amazing root beer cookies and we tried our first attempt at baking pumpkin seeds.

Here are a few pictures from our pumpkin photo shoot:

Tim's Happy Pumpkin

Jennelle's Pac-Man Ghost

Evan's Magical Harry Potter

Nicki's Cat

Brad's Spooky Spider
Happy Halloween!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Oregon Coast

We recently returned from a vacation to the Oregon Coast. We went up for a family get together on Brad's mom's side of the family. We all stayed in a beach house on Rockaway Beach. It was really fun to have a beach house with a great ocean view, we even saw a whale one day. We had lots of fun hanging out on the beach, riding our sweet cruiser bikes, flying kites, eating the famous Tillamook icecream, and sleeping in.

Twin Rocks.

Ryan really wanted to see a starfish. We went to the tidepools and found lots of them!
Brad and Doug sporting the helmets they found in one of the local shops.
Brad went on a charter fishing trip one day. He caught some pretty cool stuff I hear, I was worried about getting sea sick so I didn't go. This was probably a good idea, a few of our family members returned from the trip having been a little green in the gills. While Brad was fishing I made blackberry jam with Brad's mom, Dianne, and Grandma Johnson. It is so delicious!

We spent a day in Newport and one in Cannon Beach. We visited the Newport Aquarium and I saw my first light house.
This was one of my favorite fishies.

This is the view from the lighthouse.
Us at Multnomah Falls, or as Brad calls it Melanoma Falls.

We had a wonderful trip, the Oregon Coast was beautiful and hope to go back soon.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Summer update

Nicki told me that I would have to post on here. Clearly, I have out-done myself by posting twice already, so after this post I will retire from this blog forever...or until I either get some really cool pictures, or Nicki tells me I should post again, or I post again. So this is similar to a Micheal Jordan or Lance Armstrong type of retirement. (I think that's pretty much the only way I can compare myself to them, aside from my physical conditioning)

Okay, I realize now that this blog is several months late in coming for some of you...(at least one of you). So, we finally had a lazy Saturday to hang out and get some things done around the house, so I will post an update of the goings and comings of summer 2009. I know I will forget a lot, but here it goes:

May - School ends. Everyone cheers and runs off doing random things and a lot of people get married. Starting the 7th of May and continuing into sometime the week or several weeks later, marriages continue and Brad and Nicki are off to see them all. Nicki's brother Curtis married his lovely wife Gentri (spelling) on the [can't remember] day of May. (I think it was the 7th...yes) It was nice.
Here we are chillin' and waiting for the reception to start.After the wedding it was off to California for another one. Nicki's Uncle Rick got married. We got to hang out for a few days on the beach. It was nice. But that is not all we did, we went to a Spanish Mission, a nature reserve and saw a duck in a pool, we went to a wedding, and to the beach, and rode bikes on the beach, and we went to the hotel, and we stood in front of the hotel, and we went to some yummy places to eat, and did other things that are not coming to mind right now, but I'm sure we did them.

The sun was bright at the mission. You might be able to tell from our squinty eyes and bright surroundings.

For some reason the hotel thought it was fathers day. Pretty sure it was May though. (This is Jason with the confused look) Edit: I don't think hotels can think.
The hotel, we were trying to spell Mission with our upper extremities, maybe with 3 arms the letter "N" would be a little easier. (Only one of the many advantages of having 3 arms).
Oh, duh. I remember what else we did and can't believe that I forgot...We went to Knotts Berry farms and rode on some sweet roller coasters and did other fun things there. The lines were short and I got dizzy several times from staying on rides consecutively too many times. I think they have long lines for a reason.

Then we drove home from el California to Bountiful, Utah, for one more wedding (Jennelle and Tim), and returned home, exhausted from the smorgasbord of wedding festivities.

So after resting up, the rest of the summer has been filled with...you guessed it - work and fishing. Nicki works, and Brad fishes. Well, that's not completely true, because Brad has done some work too - all seemingly random things, but work nonetheless.

Nicki is working as a legal secretary and does a great job, everyone is jealous of her notary status, at least Brad is. Brad, on the other hand has not done any secretary work - but he has done some lawn aeration - thanks to the Van-O's, Website design (Check out www.huntaddicts.com, the sweetest hunting website ever, (it will be if it isn't already) www.dougadamssculpture.com - Doug Adams makes sweet sculptured bells and Brad made a website for him, and last but not least - www.dianneadamsart.com. Brad's talented mother paints pretty things and now they are also online.) and Brad is also meddling with some hay hauling and window washing. In fact, 2 Guys and a Squeegee is the newest and coolest new window cleaning company in Logan. Completely licensed and registered to knock on your door to see if you want your windows washed. It has been a fun learning experience getting the business licenses and accounts and solicitor registration and all other things related to starting a business. So if you need a window washing, or a website, or your hay hauled, or flooring installed, or your lawn aerated...I may or may not know someone who can hook you up. Speaking of which, www.2guyssqueegee.com may, or may not, be under construction.

Now to the culmination of photos in this blog so far. Feel free to comment below on how big these fish are, or how jealous you are of Brad's "mad skills." Seriously though, the fishing has been fun. Brad has added 2 new species to his all time fish list, and perhaps not coincidentally, they both are named after the same large striped predatory cat: (they are also both sterile and hybrid fish, but they look really cool) New fish # 1: The Elusive Tiger Musky (cross between a northern pike and a true musky, and new fish # 2: The Tiger Trout (cross between a brown and brook trout).

Tiger Musky

Tiger Trout
Delicious Bass (This year I found out that Bass tastes a lot like mud-so I released this one)
Another Tiger Trout (Biggest so far - 18.5 inches and fat)
Funky Salamander in the Uintas (I didn't catch it)And a few brookies and rainbows from the Uintas
The end,for now. There are a few trips not mentioned, like the 4th of July at Grandpa C's and the rainy camp trip, and the fishing with Leigh Perkins. I have tried my best to switch tenses over the course of this post and confuse you as much as I can with run-on sentences and bad grammer, as well as "man-ify" this blog as much as possible by posting pictures of fish. More fish and dead things to come I'm sure. This blog is way too girly.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Welcome to the blogging world!

I just welcomed myself, because there wasn't anyone else to welcome me. Brad here, Nicki has been talking about setting up a blog for a while, but never knows what to write. So I reviewed many blogs, updated by many of you fellow bloggers, and came to the conclusion that nothing very exciting has to happen in order to blog about it. For example, Nicki and I just put together this blog. We sat around this evening, started talking about blogs, looked at some...looked some more, then signed up...looked at some more stuff, and found a background that [we] liked. (don't tell Nicki, but I think it is a little girly) Then we put it all together and I made this banner and came up with this really creative name for our blog..."The Carters." So it isn't so exciting, but proves my point that even though this blog creation was not a life-changing event, or even all that fun...I can still blog about it, and you read it. So welcome to our blog, I'm not sure how often I will write on this because of the girly background, but enjoy yourselves while your here!