The Clampetts

In between Lake Powell and Europa we squoze (no, that is not a word but it means to have squeezed according to urbandictionary.com) the annual Howerton family reunion in there somewhere. My mom's side of the family all flew out to the great state of Utah to be with us. We do this every year at the Homestead. It used to be really low key but now that we are expanding it's become quite a party. My Grandpa is so sweet to us and it's fun to just hang out and catch up. He was actually still recovering from open heart surgery and doing awesome! He's a trooper!

Aaron & the Gpa, I can't get enough of this picture!!!

I did a lot of hanging out with the lil'bro who flew in from So Cal because he is so totally awesome. My Grandpa, Aunt Valerie and Uncle Joe flew in from Hawaii. Jared, Rose and baby Tyler flew in from the Nor Car (or North Carolina if you're not hip) along with my cousin Violet's fam which included, Wes (her hubby), Wes Jr. and Logan. My dad and my cousin Heather and her 3 boys drove the greuling 45 minutes from Provo. And my Uncle Wayne, Aunt Beverly and cousin Ivy flew in from Georgia. My cousin Beri was the only one not in attendance. Miss you Beri!

back: Aaron, me, Andrew, Jared, Rose, Uncle Joe, Aunt Valerie, Uncle Wayne, Aunt Beverly, Patrick, Zachary, Wes, Christian, Logan, Violet, and Ivy

front: Dad, Tyler, Grandpa, Heather and Wes Jr.

My bff's lil'sister, Court-face or Courtney as she likes to be called, came up and took some family pictures. Sadly, it was raining so we couldn't really go outside but they turned out great anyways!

I love his cowboy hat, mmm...mmm...mmmm

We also took Tyler on a canoe ride at the ranch. Aaron shot a rock chuck and my dad ran for the hills when a snake was spotted and left me to pick it out of the canoe. True bravery. We took some cute pictures but I can't seem to find them :(

this will be the Andrew and Krystal Webb family pictures in about 40 years.

back: Andrew, Ida Mae (Aaron's future wife), Aaron

front: me, Parly (our son) and Siena (our daughter)

classy.

WAY over the hill

This summer my dad turned the big 6-0! We threw a fun filled party for him in his backyard. It was mostly for neighbors and close friends but every one of my dad's interns from the hospital also came. That was a sweet surprise! I know I wouldn't have gone to my boss' birthday party if my life depended on it. (She was crazy and married to a pedophile, that's a whole other story)

Anyways, we set up the ping pong table, had way too much food, Beach Boys playing in the background and a huge cake my dad had picked out himself. It was a gorgeous evening and Jared, Rose and Tyler even got to attend!!! That was a present unto itself, Grandpa sure loves his buddy.


I was trying to be the hostess with the mostess and completely forgot to take pictures! (oopsie) so these are some from the very end of the shabang.

Here's to you Dad!!!

the play ground of the gods

June 2010

Whoever invented Lake Powell was a genius.

Water, bathingsuits, jet skis, cliff jumping, Gunsight, candy, watermelon, Beach Boys, swimming, sunscreen or sans sunscreen, life jackets, wakeboarding, houseboat, cold coca cola classics, exploring, speedos, star concerts, dance parties, Antelope Point, tubing, red rock, an incident, Hunger Games, family, card games, cranking anchors, bbq, bathing in the lake, wrestling on the ion.

Another year, another party.   

Home sweet home part deux

Here's some photos of our diggs. It's still in the works but getting there.

But first I will introduce you to my long lost friend, The Peach.
I bought a carton of peaches from the place we went raspberry picking last week and they were divine. After 2 days these were the sole survivors. Not for long!

I digress, back to the apartment.

Zee front room, love the fireplace

Zee bedrooms, still trying to figures these ones out. We are currently using plastic drawers from Big Lots as our dressers, super cute.

Zee bathroom, pardon the awkward shot

Zee dining room and zee kitchen. No dining room table yet, I'm working on it.

Zee window AC unit, we're high rollers if you couldn't already tell.

Cardboard and duct tape, pure class.

Speaking of class. This is where we have eaten 4 out of the 14 days that we've been here. Half pepperoni, half mushroom and black olives. I'll let you guess who gets which side. Captain Tony's is across the street from our apartment. The owner already knows who we are. This is going to be a great two years.

the road less travelled

Well, it's official, we are in Cleveland! We had an exciting adventure getting here including Andrew thinking that he lost his wallet in Wyoming somewhere (we found it, don't fret), getting pulled over, braking a mirror, thunderstorms, stupid books on tape, no mountains and too many corn fields, I found a kitty and almost took him with us, crazy people in Indiana, Nebraska (nuff said), too much fast food (ugh) and having to buy new tires in North Platte.

So fun.

Andrew did most of the driving, bless his heart.

it's the po-lice!

When we arrived we quickly realized that we aren't in Utah anymore. Our apartment is a nice apartment compared to everything else I saw but it's not Utah nice. What's Utah nice you ask?

For starters there's no AC. Who's the idiot that thought we could survive without AC? Yeah, that'd be me. Needless to say we ended up buying 2 window AC units within days.
Our apartment was dirty when we first walked in. There were spider webs everywhere, the hot water in the bathroom takes forever, paint splatters and scratches all over the floor and since they had just remodeled the kitchen there was sawdust everywhere.

Welcome home sweetie...

And our neighborhood is a tad sketchy. Our first night was accompanied by a group of guys standing by our moving trailer shooting the breeze until about 1 am or so. The next night around 4 am a group of teenagers ran past our bedroom window and hopped over a wall with another group (the poe poe?) following closely after them. Luckily Andrew had the presence of mind at this time to look out the window and get a good description of the thugs in case he needed to testify. 

this is us, the snoopy neighbors

I thought that we had made some terrible mistake in choosing this place.

But there have been some good things too...

Daniel and John, from the ward, and Darrell from next door came and helped us move in. Daniel, an Orem high alum, treated us to Sunday dinner even though his wife was in Utah. So nice! He made it all by himself and it was delicious to have a home cooked meal after hamburgers and fries for 4 days straight. Darrell is possibly the nicest guy I'll ever meet. He saw us moving and just walked over and started helping.

The neighboring women all came to say their hellos. There is Sandra Moore, Darrell's landlord, a retired school teacher who loves to chat. I mean it, LOVES to chat. Wendy, who is moving in next door to us as soon as they finish the renovations. She is fighting lymphoma but you'd never know it with her sassy attitude. Merrell, she is a road biker (with an actual bike, not a motorcycle) and was heading out to ride 15 miles to her parents house when she introduced herself. She gave us some tips about our apartment which were much appreciated. Sarah, a 20 something with a weenie dog that has a select group of people that he actually likes (Yuki?). And Jenni, the woman who lives directly above us. She's from New York and we stole her parking spot one day, oops!

The food here is also amazing. The people of Cleveland know what they are doing when it comes to my stomach. Captain Tony's pizza is already a dinner regular, Melt with their summer chicken sandwich, Five Guys, Chick fil a and anything else you could imagine. We have only scratched the surface.

Melt...mmmmmmmmmmm

The country. I was invited by Sarah, a girl in the ward, to go pick raspberries with her and a few other girls last week. We went to the Monroe Orchard which is next door to the John Johnson farm. The raspberries are divine and the peaches, even better. Then yesterday Andrew and I took a tour of the Johnson farm. It's owned by the Church and completely fabulous, as if you'd expect anything else. Elder Orton from Logan took us on a tour. Then he recommended going to eat in Amish country about 20 minutes away. We arrived at Mary Yodel's only to be welcomed by girls in bonnets and horse drawn carriages. Andrew got the home made Thanksgiving dinner with turkey with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, fries and heavenly rolls. Let's just say he was a happy boy.

To defend myself the reason why I wanted to live in this area is because of Shaker Square. We live across the street from a little shopping area with restaurants, a dance studio, movie theatre, Dave's grocery store, train and bus stops, CVS, an art gallery and best of all a farmer's market every Saturday morning. We walked through it yesterday and it was fantastic. All organic, local grown fruit, veggies, meat, flowers, a crepe station, honey and jams, breads, home made pasta, jewelry and the humane society also has a booth! It is a party every Saturday and I love it!

le square, terrible picture but you get the idea

But most importantly...we found where we want to get our bulldog from. Her name is Linda and she lives in Chagrin Falls, about 30 minutes from our place. Her next litter is September 1st and we are on the list!!!

try and say no to that face, I dare you

Long post but it's been a while. Stay tuned, apartment pics coming soon! Toodles!

rocky mountain high, no more

Tomorrow morning is the beginning of our 1,729 mile drive to the Cleve. This is what it looks like on Google maps

Doesn't that look like fun? You know you want to come!
Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and then our state of residence for 2 whole years...OHIO! Aren't you just so jealous? I am actually really excited right now believe it or not!

Not excited to do 8 loads of laundry, deep clean our bedroom and pack our sweet little car, but excited nonetheless.

As all of you know moving is never as easy as it seems it should be. I just found out this morning that there will not be gas in our apartment. For some reason the gas company can't find our meter...oh geeze, this will be interesting. After about 16 calls to the gas company and Marie at Shaker Square Apartments (she was not happy with me) trying to figure this all out I get a call back from Dontez, our property manager, saying that they will figure out the gas situation because as of now there is no gas. Lovely.