Fishing with Preston and Tyler

 On Monday, I decided to take the day off and go fishing with my nephews Preston and Tyler. I picked them up early that morning, and then we headed to Talmage to meet their grandpa.

I think Percy was trying to sneak into my backpack so he could go with me.

While I was there, I took a few minutes to say hello to an old friend. 

Sage seemed to remember me and was happy to see me. 

She's still as bouncy as I remember her being, so it was hard to get a good picture. 

I've missed having a dog to keep my company. About every 3 months, I will text my cousin and tell her I want a dog. Her job is to remind me that my yard is too small and I don't have the time to give a puppy the attention they would need. That's the great thing about cats; they are low maintenance. Give them food and change the litter box and they are pretty much okay on their own. But a puppy would take more time and training and I just can't offer that while I'm in school. Add to that, my tiny yard and how I think they would deserve more room than that... a dog will just have to wait until I am done with school. 

We decided to go to Lower Stillwater to go fishing. We got up there around 11 and got the boys set up to catch some fish. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great fishing day and we only ended up catching 2 fish all day. 

Monday was also the solar eclipse. I was worried we would miss it because of the clouds. But they did clear up long enough for us to watch it through Matt's welder's hood. 

I love these boys so much. I'm glad I got to spend the day with them and their grandpa. 

The first fish was on my pole, so I had Preston reel it in. 

Its not the best picture, but I took a picture of the eclipse through the welder's hood. A few people asked me if I noticed any changes during the eclipse. It did get darker, but I think the weirdest thing was I had cell service during those hours. I don't think I've ever been fishing there before and had service. But while watching the eclipse, I started getting text messages. I even responded to them. Then about 2 hours later, my phone went back to saying no service was available. 

Grandpa had also made a solar eclipse viewing box. It didn't work near as good as the welder's hood. 

Towards the end of the day, Tyler finally caught a fish. I love that he packed his pole and the fish in the net to his grandpa. 

Tyler LOVES to fish. And to eat them. He took both of them home that day and his mom cooked them the next day for his birthday dinner. 

I wish the boys had caught more fish. But it was a beautiful day and we still had lots of fun. 

Fall Flowers

 My favorite guy came back from a weekend trip to the city with these gorgeous fall flowers!

I sent him a text later that day to say thanks and his response was just as amazing as the flowers: "They were so beautiful and so are you so I figured you would be perfect together." 

Home Improvements

Last month, I decided to celebrate the anniversary mark of being on my own for a year by splurging on myself. On Amazon Prime Day, I bought an Echo for half off! 

I also decided to upgrade my couch. It was a hard decision to make. My leather love seat meant a lot to me. It was the first big purchase I made, on my own. I felt like it was God telling me I could do this. But the cats had pretty much destroyed the leather and I was also ready for a full size couch. In the end, I even decided to splurge and get one with electric reclining seats. 

I had to get help with the last two items on my list. Years ago, the doorbell broke. It only made a quite buzzing sound, but you pretty much had to be standing under the bell to hear it. My brother looked at it a few months ago, but the cover was painted to the wall and he didn't want to mess it up. So I had Vince look at it a few weeks ago. He was able to get the cover off and then messed with the wires inside it and it started working again. 

The other thing I did was I've been wanting a ceiling fan in my bedroom for years. When I mentioned this to Vince, he offered to install it for me. He made it look so easy, I wish I had done it years ago. My bedroom has stayed so much cooler!

We installed the fan on a Sunday after church. The next morning, when I was getting ready, Blue was downstairs crying. So much so, that I finally went down, checked the food bowl (which was half full) and then checked him for injuries. I couldn't find any, so I didn't worry about it. But then he did the same thing on Tuesday morning. Again, I checked him for injuries, but he seemed fine. Tuesday night, it occurred to me, he hadn't slept with me that week; in fact, I hadn't even seen him upstairs since installing the fan. So I gently carried him upstairs, and sure enough, he freaked out when I went into the bedroom. 

I decided to leave it off for a few days to help him adjust. Each night, I would carry him to bed and calmly pet him while he stared at the fan. But he finally seemed to adjust by Thursday night. So on Friday, I turned it on low and spent the next two nights calming him again. He is back to sleeping with me, but I've noticed he still enters the bedroom slowly while staring at the ceiling fan every time he comes in. 

Uintah Canyon - The Sink

Considering we had Monday off, for the Utah holiday, it was still a long work week. By Thursday, I had had enough of my office and I decided to leave a few hours early and make a quick trip up to the mountain. I had thought about going up Rock Creek, but decided to go up Uintah Canyon, since it was closer, and see if I could get to The Sink. The road was pretty rough, but we made it. 

There was a few guys up there fishing. We talked to them and they said they had caught a few small brook trout. 

We didn't have a flashlight, so all we did was go through the small cave. 

A short hike up the mountain next to the river.

Bigfoot sighting!

(He had to do this twice because the first time I was laughing so hard, I snorted.) 

One of the fishermen offered to take our picture for us.