New Calling

You are now looking at a slightly enhanced picture of the new 2nd counselor of the Young Women's Presidency in the Abilene 1st Ward! I was just called today and I am super excited and very nervous about it. I wont actually start till next week so I have all week to worry about what they're gonna think of me and if they'll like me or not.

 Wish me luck!

Books

So this last week while Ricky was gone to nationals again, I found myself rereading the Twilight series and remembering that I love books! I haven't been reading lately because when I get into a book, I tend to stay there and forget about everything and everyone else. It's not good when I'm lost in a book and people are around, or when Ricky wants to go do something. But since I was alone for a week I was able to read as long as I wanted (except for when I had to work), and I decided that I was definitely going to need some books for when Ricky deploys. 

So I bought The Chronicles of Narnia. I got a pretty good deal for them too, all seven for around $25, slightly used but still in great condition. I'm pretty excited to start reading them especially with the third movie coming this December. 

It's been a while...

So it's been quite a while since my last blog, and even though I'd like to blame that on the fact that life has been super crazy, which it has been, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to catch everyone up on what has been going on with the Farnsworths lately.

Firstly (is that a word?) I finished my letters. I actually finished them while Ricky was gone to nationals for Honor Guard. And if your wondering yes some of the picture frames do not have pictures in them yet. I wanted to take some newer family photos of me and Ricky to put up there, but finding time and funds to do that is proving to be a challenge.

Secondly we had an awesome fourth of July, and by awesome I mean sub par. We had plans to go to Six Flags for a friends birthday, but it was stormy all week thanks to Hurricane Alex. We didn't get anything more then rain and thunderstorms, but if there is lightning within so many miles they shut down all the rides. So going would have been a waste of a trip. So we went to Eclipse instead! None of the husbands were excited at all. But all us girls pretty much loved it, even though we all love the books better.

That night they had fireworks in Tye, which is about 15 minutes from where we live, so we went. Unfortunately we didn't know that they wouldn't start until almost 10:30 p.m., so we showed up at 7:30ish and had to wait three hours! Not a lot of fun especially with the rain that kept coming and going, but they did eventually start and it was a really good show.

I'm sorry for the not great quality of the pictures, I took these with my phone.

Anyways, that was our fourth. Life just got busy after that. About a week ago, Ricky got a call saying that he was going to be deployed early and for longer. Early meant August instead of October and longer meant a 6 month deployment instead of 4 month. But when he started talking to people in charge things changed again. Apparently the people who were trying to send him hadn't talked to the First Sergeant, which is a big deal cause he's the one in charge of everybody in his squadron. So plans changed back and he will be going in October again.

This last Saturday Ricky and I went to the temple, and when we got back our dog wasn't doing too good. She could barely walk, and was hyperventilating and foaming at the mouth, and her eyes were all over the place, not really focusing on anything. So we hose her down thinking she might be dehydrated but then we notice she's favoring one of her back legs. So we take her to an emergency vet clinic and the take a look at her, take some x-rays and tell us that there's really nothing to wrong with her just some soft tissue damage like a bad bruise, but they did want to give her an iv and keep her overnight just to be sure. Sunday she was doing so much better and came home that afternoon.

You can kind of see where they gave it to her.
But yeah, the only thing I'm not very happy about is that we spent almost $400 to find out that she was just fine. It's kind of frustrating, but most things like this are.
Oh and one more thing, Ricky is back at nationals this week. It should be the last nationals that he has to go to. So hurray for that!!!

Look what I did!!!!

Look what I did, well for the most part. Ricky helped a lot.

But I still cut out quite a few of the letters! I'm very proud of myself. Now to sand and figure out how I'm going to decorate them.

t-shirts

This last week I got a really good discount at Kohl's that I decided was too good to pass up. What I got was three t-shirts. Why three? One for me, one for Ricky, and one for my little brother whose birthday is coming up. 

This is going to be his shirt. It totally reminds me of him, and he can hardly wait to get it. 

This one is Ricky's. He got to pick it out. He looks really good it, but he looks really good in most everything he wares.

This last one is mine. I actually had one just like it but it shrunk and stopped fitting right. So I got a new one. I really like it.

Destructive Dog

Lexi, our puppy has become very destructive lately. 

Before we left, she had destroyed 2 sprinklers, 1 hose, many chew toys, and one of her food dishes. She had also started digging a hole to the neighbors yard. Since we've gotten back she has successfully made it into our neighbor's yard, and even brought back a friend, one of the 2 little lab puppies across the fence. So last night we went and got some supplies to keep her out of their yard. 

It has worked so far, but we're not sure exactly how long it will last. 

Now the plan is to either get another puppy for Lexi to play with, or get rid of her. Ricky is very much for getting rid of her, and is constantly thinking of new ways to do it. I'm sticking my ground and going with another puppy.

A Much Needed Vacation

(This is Ricky's little brother's car.)
The last two weeks Ricky and I were able to go on a much needed vacation. Ricky went three weeks without a weekend before we left so he was exhausted when we left, but he was able to relax and enjoy not having to work. We had a ton of fun together driving and getting to know family neither of us has really met, catching up with family that we do know, talking with friends that we haven't talked with in what feels like forever, and all the sight seeing.

It started very early, we drove to Yuma, Arizona, which is 14 hours away. It was actually a really good drive. We laughed at all the random signs, like one that said WARNING PRISON AREA DO NOT PICK UP HITCH HIKERS. I have never seen one of those signs before and we just had to laugh.
We laughed at border patrol.

We even got stopped by border patrol, and asked if we're citizens. It was pretty funny.
 I got to see Mexico. The GPS shows just how close we got to the border.

We drove through El Paso. It was kind of crazy to see these brand new hotels on the US side, and across the fence there was what I can really only describe as the slums.
We really didn't do a very good job of taking pictures but we did get a few good ones, like this next one.

This is Ricky's Uncle Jeff. He's the only guy in a cowboy hat, if you couldn't guess. Ricky says he looks like Garth Brooks. I couldn't tell you, not knowing what Garth Brooks looks like.

The reason why we drove to Yuma is because Ricky's cousin Alex was graduating from high school. 

The picture above isn't very clear but it's the best one we got of the three of us, plus it seems to be the only one with Ricky's Aunt Marisela. She's the one on the left looking at the camera.

Ricky and his cousin getting along. 

We had a lot of fun getting to know this side of the family. Most nights were spent talking and telling stories. It was nice. 

From Yuma we flew to Salt Lake, and it was very eventful. By eventful I mean that the computers were down in Yuma so we couldn't check our bags all the way to Salt Lake. So when we got to Phoenix, we had to recheck our bags. The line was ridiculous. It took us almost an hour to get through it. Then we found out that they had overbooked our flight. We almost didn't get tickets, but some people came up and volunteered to wait for the next flight. 

Ricky's Mom, stepdad and new little brother came to pick us up. We hadn't seen this kid since he was about 2 months old, and boy has he grown.

This is Gunner. He's about 9 months old now but he's growing out of 2T baby clothing. He's such a happy kid too. He never really fussed or cried while we were there. Ricky fell in love. This is the first baby that he has ever really connected with, which gives me hope that he may start thinking more about having our own kids in a few years.

Anyways, while we were in Idaho, we got to go out on a boat in the River. Granted it was only about 65  degrees and the water was still very cold but it was nice. 

Once again not many good pictures.  Ricky looks angry.

We didn't do a ton of actual things in Idaho, cause we were only there for about a week so not a lot of time to do anything but visit with friends and family, so that's what we did. It was nice to reconnect with everybody. I already miss it there, and am so ready to go back.
Ricky's family drove us back to Salt Lake so we could catch our plane back to Yuma. On the way we stopped at Promontory Point. It was interesting to see.

When we got back to Yuma we were really sad to say goodbye to the cooler 50-60 degree weather, and hello to the 100's.

This is how hot it got on our way back home.

We stopped at a Cabela's on the way home too. Ricky was so excited. I was actually impressed. If you don't know what a Cabela's is, it's basically a Sportsman Warehouse on steroids. 2 stories with escalators and a restaurant. It was crazy. So in memory of that we got matching-ish hats.

Mine is the red one.
Ricky wanted to go to flagstaff (since we were so close) cause that is where sledneck headquarters is. While we where there we saw this.

It's an official nascar. Ricky was pretty excited about that too.
So that is basically our trip. It was nice and it made me really ready to get out of here. Who knows, maybe after Ricky deploys? Maybe...