Well it's getting to the time of year that I love Idaho for. The sun is always out and its warm. Friday we checked small mammal traps for the last time (and took them down) and then went and caught salamander tadpoles. Things have been slow at Petco. For the past 4 days in a row I haven't had any dogs. That means that I just sit there for 5 hours. It's very boring. Saturday I hiked to the wind caves with this guy Sean and his ward. My friend Rusty, Sean's roommate, thought we'd get along so he set it up as sort of a blind date thing. It was a beautiful day, awesome hike and absolutely freezing in the caves. I had to wus out and turn around. I was way to cold. Sean is totally a nice guy and I had a lot of fun but I didn't feel a lot of "chemistry" or anything so we'll see how it goes. After the hike Brian, Sterling and I went climbing and then I stayed the night at Rachels and left Kona at Brian's house. The next morning at church Brian informed me that Kona had followed them to church and sure enough when I checked my phone I had 2 messages from different people telling me they found Kona laying in the grass in front of the Hinkely building. I thought it was funny. She's a good dog though. She was just laying there in the grass, waiting for us to come out. Monday we had a trash pick up day, then I went to Rexburg and picked up Sterling. We went climbing at paramount and then we went to F.H. E. at Egan Lake. It was pretty cool. Egan lake is huge but it only gets knee deep at the most. We played ultimate Frisbee and Kona loved it. After F.H.E. we went to Angie's (mary's old roommate) birthday party. They had cake and home made rootbeer. Yesterday I got this gerbil for this little girl. She really wanted one for her birthday. I couldn't get a hold of her yesterday though, so I still have it. It's really cute, I almost want to keep it, but I don't really like rodents for pets. This morning I spent almost 3 hours mowing the lawn and then went in and had wheat berries with nectarine. It was really good. Then I check the dove traps and now I'm at work. I'm supposed to finish the newsletter. I got this annoying email today from a guy who works for fish and game. He wanted volunteers but didn't tell me when or where until Monday. I didn' t get his email until Tuesday and that just so happened to be the day he wanted volunteers. I told him Art may show up and according to the message he left me he was planning on it but I got an email from my coworker this morning saying that he really could have used some volunteers and please try to get some for him next week. He sounded pretty annoyed though. But If I'm going to get volunteers lined up I need some notice! Anywhoo, I'd better get back to work. I can't wait for the 4th of July. I love BBQ.

Wahoo for picture posting :)

Well for some reason it won't let me post the picture of Kona with mud on her face. It' s a cute picture but oh well. I've tried like 10 times and it says it's uploaded and every thing is fine but then it doesn't show up.

Wow, this weekend was great. I apologise for doing a horrible job at taking pictures. I decided to sleep in on Saturday until Rachel called. (about 10:30) I then got everything ready and headed into Rexburg where Rachel made muffins, eggs, hashbrowns and orange juice for breakfast...yum! Then we headed up to Monkey Rock where we layed out in the sun, swam and ate snacks. It was just what I needed. I love relaxing next to water. It was a little cold though so we were wrapping up in our towels. Monkey rock has got to be one of the coolest swimming holes. I think it's my new favorite swimming spot for the summer. We also went up the road a little ways and jumped off the bridge. It was a good one. High enough for you to think - Ok, I jumped...I did it...I'm falling...Oh, my stomach!...I'm still fallin-splash!! Just the way I like them. A rush, but not high enough to hurt. Then Alex showed up and told me he had an extra ticket to see Brian Regan live. For those of you who don't know him you should look up his stuff at http://www.brianregan.com/ He's a clean comedian and really funny. He had never been to Idaho before and came out to do a special charity show. All the proceeds went to the Search and Rescue team who had volunteered their time for a boy who ended up dying, but was a huge fan of Brian Regan. It was pretty cool. I got to shake his hand. Afterwards we had tacos and then I spent the night in the back of my truck in Rexburg. Sunday I went to church and was overly greeted. I found out I'm on the inactive list. Oh well, at least they gave me 2 cany bars. I'm not going to be there this week either because I'm going to Utah to pick up Sterling. I can't belive he's comming to college. Maybe I'll go to my ward and leave for Utah after church. Then on Monday Kori's mom, 2 brothers and I went for a bike ride in Kelly Canyon. I'm actually sore from it. Her family is hard core. I headed to work ant 3 and set up all the small mammal traps. Then I went to FHE in Rexburg. Yesterday I had a fun 14 hour work day. The cool part was though that I actually had fun. It started with checking the traps we set, then we went down this crazy dirt road for 2 hours, stopped at Pole Creek and looked for toads. That's where Kona got all the mud on her face. I think she fell all the way in a few times because she was soaked and filthy afterwards. It was a 2 hour drive back and I got soo car sick! I've never been car sick before, but it was bad. Then I went back to the office, caught up on my messages and headed to Petco. It was slow yesterday so I cleaned up and spent the rest of the time playing with Kona. I trimed her nails, brushed her teeth and put lotion on the pads of her feet. She's the most pampered outdoors dog I know. Well, I'm at work again so I suppose I'd better go. The pictures are: Kona with a muddy face, Kona and a friend she found at Monkey Rock, and Rachel and I on the water fall at Monkey rock. That one is kind of a bad angle, but the watefall actualy drops 10 or more feet. Oh yeah, the picture at the beginning is a nest we found while looking for toads.

Well, after months of trying to post another picture it finally works!!!!

I'm stressed out. I know blogging is just taking up more of my time. But some how it's relaxing. I have to cut back on hours at work. I wake up at 7am, lay in bed for 10 min trying to wake up, get some food ready and am out the door by 7:30 so I can make it to work by 8am. I skip my lunch break because I have to leave early to make it to Petco by 4pm. I get off at 9pm, usually a little late and by the time I get home its a quarter to 10. I pet Kona for a minute or so, grab something to eat and go to bed. I don't even have time to shower, study for the GRE, do my laundry, go to any church activities or anything. Not to mention I never get to do fun things like walking the dog, or paying much attention to her at all, playing the guitar, rock climbing, biking, rafting or any of the other stuff that I love Idaho for. At least my jobs are low stress. Today all I have to do is put on a barbeque. Sounds easy but I don't know how many people are going to be there or what the age range will be and to top it all off I'm having major problems with what budget/paperwork I'm supposed to do for the $600 worth of stuff I bought. suck! It frustrates me because they expect me to follow all the same restrictions as a regular employee but they don't give me any of the benifits. Oh well, I guess one good thing is that you can't fire a volunteer! In the mean time I feel like I'm neglecting Kona. She's limping really bad and it seems to get worse every day. I was thinking maybe it was because it was in the morning and she's stiff. I don't know, I looked at it a little bit but diddn't really have time. Hopefully I'll get my bills paid off soon. In the mean time though does anybody have and extra $16 grand they want to give me? I hate growing up. I miss the days when I would float around the swimming pool on my $1 raft, listen to music all day, feel acomplished when I got rid of my t-shirt tan and actually interacted with people my age on a daily basis. Barbecues were easy, I knew all my friends would be there and I knew they would eat everything we bought. The budget thing was a lot more simple to: after I made it out of the store it was all over. No paper work, no approvals, no pca numbers, no deadlines, no $ limit, no BA1 forms...just good old fashioned food stamps...I mean cash...

Well yesterday was my little brothers Eagle Court of Honor. It actually went really well. I came down to Utah for it and was planning on getting to go climbing but we didn't end up getting here till 2 am Saturday morning and I slept in, helped my dad with the garden (kori came and helped a lot to), drove my mom around to do errands (she hasn't slept for 2 days and didn't want to drive), finally snuck away to play tennis for a half an hour, picked up dinner at panda express, said goodbye to kori (mary came and took her to the airport), picked up the cake and headed for the church. After the court of honor Karah, Aric, their 2 kids, Randy and Daisy (the dog he is babysitting) came over to my parents house. I was hoping Kona and Daisy would have a good time playing together but I think Kona was a little to overbearing. Daisy is a small dog and started to run...Kona likes to chase things that run and make little squeaky noises. So I guess you could say she plays a little rough. Daisy didn't get hurt, but after about 2 minutes she started barking and trying to "defend" herself every time Kona came around. Needless to say if you know Kona, that just made things worse. So after the brief hang out Randy had to take off and the rest of us met up with Mary and her brother and headed to Provo for their summer carnival thing. When we were about half way there the fireworks started going off so Karah and Aric pulled over so the kids could see them. Then we went to their house and lit of some firecrackers that Aric brought back from Wyoming. Brian, Sterling and I headed home and my dad woke me up and sunrise this morning to take him to the airport...then when I was almost half way home he called for me to come pick him up. He got his flight time wrong and missed his flight. So after I got home I was really tired so I fell back asleep until about noon. I haven't slept in like that since the last time I came home. I don't know what it is about this place, but it seems to suck my ambitions. I think Brian can relate to me...he's still sleeping right now. I took Kona for a little walk and she gets soo hot soo fast. It was maybe for 15 minutes and she came in and layed on the cool kitchen floor panting with her tongue hanging out. I hope she gets used to the heat because I love warm weather and sunshine!
Brian and I had a little conversation on conservatism and we decided that we didn't like it. It's fine to live a conservative life style but I have found a lot of Utah mormons to be very unaccepting of not just sin, but anything that will give you an adrenaline rush. I think this is completely wrong. Christ taught to love everyone and focus on perfecting yourself.. and loving everyone. Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with trying to live a higher law, and not tolerating sin, but I don't consider toilet papering or putting M-80's in ant hills a sin. In the mean time I feel a little guilty...I didn't go to church today. Maybe that's why I feel the need to say something about Utah mormons. ..sheesh at least most of them were at church today.

WAAAA HOOOOO!!!
I just got through telling Mary about why I can't put pictures and stuff up and decided to try one more time and ahhah! It works. I'm so happy. Well, I'm just at work...again. I'm supposed to work about 12 hours a day but I never do. The other day we took Kori's mom rock climbing. It was fun. She made it all the way to the top of the 5.8 at Paramount. I saw her today though, she said she was really sore. Unfortunately my camera is at home so my pictures cannot be posted right now. However I do have a work camera so I'll take some really quick. I just got my hair cut last night and it's probably the most reserved hair cut I've had in a while. The sun is starting to rise so early and set so late. It didn't set till almost 10pm last night and I woke up at 6:30am and thought I was late to work it was so light. I love it. Anyways I just tried like 10 times to post pictures and I keep getting the 'server cannot be found' page. I QUIT!