Stucco - Before, During, & After

So I think I mentioned earlier that the some of the stucco on the front of my townhouse had some water damage issues. This summer the home owners association for the development that I live in issued an assessment to cover the stucco and roofing repairs. Here I've documented my photos of the damage, during the repair, and the finished product. Ram Builders is the company that did the work and to date I'm pleased with the results.


Before



During












After

Flashback Friday (or Tuesday)

Everyone seems to be doing a "Flashback Friday" on their blogs. I just wanted to be like everyone else. Here goes:

You can get your own flashback photos at Yearbook Yourself.

Banana Sandwich

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of bread
• 1 large banana
• 2 tablespoons Miracle Whip

Directions:

• Smooth Miracle Whip over one side of each piece of bread.
• Slice banana and place on Miracle Whip side of one of the pieces of bread.
• Place second piece of bread on top of the sliced banana (Miracle Whip side down.)

Yesterday I made myself one of these great sandwiches and I thought I should share my secret recipe once and for all. The tanginess of the Miracle Whip works great with the sweetness of the banana. Try it out and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

I'm not entirely sure where this sandwich idea came from. I have heard of other people eating banana and peanut butter but never banana and Miracle Whip. My first memory of this great concoction comes from one of our family vacations to visit family in Virginia. We (6 kids and my parents) would all pile in the old brown station wagon and head out for the several days it would take to drive to the east coast. I remember my sisters in the back seat taking sandwich orders. I just remember ordering a banana and Miracle Whip sandwich. They obliged and I've been eating them ever since.

Provo River Parkway Trail

Lately the weather has been so nice. Maybe it's all that fresh air from my screen door just going to my head, but I felt the need to be outside before winter comes. You know how it works here in Utah. You get six months of summer and six months of winter with just a few days of spring and fall in between.

So after church I gave up my post meetings nap and headed for the Provo Canyon. I really didn't have a definite plan but I was prepared with my camera, iPod, and water. I pulled into the Canyon View Park just after heading up the canyon and parked my car. Then I just hit the trail. I was planning on walking up to Bridal Veil Falls not sure about how far I would have to go. It definitely was a good distance for me.

It took me about 2 hours but I enjoyed the scenery along the way and took a few photos as you can see.

Procrastinator No More

Well okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But I did finally check an item off of my old to-do list.

When I bought my townhouse I was supposed to get a screen door. It was just part of the deal. Of course being a new home owner, I closed before lots of items were finished as well as they should have been. And of course, the builder promised to take care of everything I needed. In truth, he wasn't terrible at it. As you can imagine though, once my unit was closed on he was more interested in closing on the next unit. So here I was 8 1/2 years later still with no screen door.

Last weekend I bit the bullet. I needed to paint my trim in a bad way anyway. So, I got it all painted and installed my brand new screen door. Probably not very exciting you say. Well you are wrong. It's been great! Almost all my waking hours at home are spent with my backdoor open and a nice fall-ish breeze blowing in. It's especially nice because most of my windows that I normally leave open have been covered in plastic as the HOA repairs the stucco on the front of my unit.

And while I was out back taking some photos, I thought I'd share how nice my impatients look. I'm definitely planting more of them next spring. I thought it might be too hot for them but they have thrived.

David Archuleta's New Video

David Archuleta released his new video for the single Crush on iTunes. But there you can only preview a small snippet of it or purchase it. I'm all for supporting David but I also wanted to share it with those who have not seen it yet. It appears that YouTube has had the video posted a few times but had to remove it. Of course China isn't concerned with whether they have permission or not so I did find it posted on a Chinese site. (The video above is not hosted on my website, thus the Chinese lettering.)

I really like the video. It totally fit's David's image and that's good to see that they aren't trying to change him too much.

It's Official, I'm Getting a Crown

The verdict is in: I'm getting a crown. As I reported earlier I went to see the dentist today about the tooth that I broke last night. There were two options. The first being that they could just try and use a filling to fix the broken tooth. The second option was to drill down the tooth and cap it with a crown. Since my broken tooth also had a large filling in it, the dentist was concerned that the filling might later break and cause worse damage. Therefore I opted for my first crown.

The experience wasn't as scary as I was expecting. I went in at 10:15 am and was out by 12:30pm. But thanks to the laughing gas it was actually pretty enjoyable. While under the effects of the nitrous oxide, the thing I was most preoccupied with was that I thought I needed to adjust my head on the headrest but was too lazy from the gas. I left the dentist's office sporting a new temporary crown and return in two weeks for the real thing.

I was pretty numb and still feeling a little light headed from the gas but I headed back to work picking up a sandwich to take to the office. It was tough to try and not bite my tongue while eating the sandwich. By about 4pm the numbness finally wore off and I am pleased to report that I am experiencing no pain.

Chew On This

Last night after my trip to the gym and a stop at the grocery store, I got home and was starving. Since I have an abundance of tomatoes these days (Thanks, Mom!), I decided to make a sandwich using some whole grain bread, turkey, swiss cheese, etc. I sat down with my sandwich to watch a little Tivo TV and enjoy my evening. The sandwich was great and was washed down nicely with a Diet Dr. Pepper (caffeine-free since it was late.) But apparently I was a little more hungry than I realized and I ended up eating my tooth that broke off from the whole grain bread!

Actually the tooth had been giving me problems for a while. I had the dentist check it out 5 months ago but he could see nothing wrong with it. It has hurt off and on since then but mostly when I bite something that is a little more solid like seeds, etc. Next month, I'm scheduled for my 6 month dental checkup and I thought it could wait until then. I was wrong.

So I'm off to the dentist this morning to see what needs to happen. Wish me luck!

It's Just Not In My DNA

Okay, I admit it, I am not a sports fan. It's really kind of genetic. Most of the guys in my family are not big sport event watchers (or whatever the sports term is.) Most of the time I could really care less. Occasionally, I do enjoy watching a game especially if I am at the game in person. So why am I explaining this? Well I just don't want you to get the wrong idea about me from this post.

Just because I don't want to watch BYU's games doesn't mean that I don't want them to win. I do. But of course, I didn't watch today's game against UCLA. Surprise, I know! Tonight, I went to Yahoo to check one of my e-mail accounts and noticed their home page. Here's the headline: The Bruins get humiliated: BYU hands UCLA its worst loss in nearly 80 years. Good for you, BYU! I always enjoy seeing BYU get some good press. Normally we only get stories about how weird we are (not that they aren't deserved) but this is a nice change!

Monkey Boy Baptism

Last Saturday I got to spend the day in Kaysville for a special family occasion. My youngest nephew turned 8 years old last month. This month he was baptized and confirmed a member of the LDS Church. He was very excited about it all. He looked quite handsome in his nice suit. Although it's not the typical baptism photo shown above, it's pretty typical for him. :)

Oh, and he was only barefoot the for the pole climbing.