Foundation

So we actually accomplished everything we set out to do this weekend. :)

We rolled into town about 11:30 Friday night, we didn't even get around to unloading the truck before going to bed. Saturday morning Clarissa went for a little walk and picked the spot where she wanted us to build and we went to mark the corners. I had forgotten my trig.... and couldn't remember how to measure for a right angle using the length of the sides of the triangle. Therefore we "eyeballed it". Turns out I had a pretty dang good eyeball that day. We were within 1/2" on getting it square. Thats better tolerances than the straw appears to be bailed to, so I think we are good.

By about 11 we were level and formed up (all but two pieces which we decided to pick up in Wendover so we could use one piece for a straight form instead of scabbing a bunch of pieces together). So we jumped in the truck and went to A & I Hardware in Wendover to get the rest of the quickcrete to pour.

On our way back just outside of Oasis was a golden eagle chowing down on some lunch; what a neat sight! We drove past and turned around for pictures, as soon as we pulled up it took off. Unfortunately it didn't give us the chance to get a good picture but what a magnificent bird!

When we got back in town we spent an hour or so trying to chase down the owner of a travel trailer on the side of the highway that had a for sale sign w/o a number, price, or name. After that flopped we headed back down the 7 miles of dirt road and got to work pouring.

Man alive did the sun go down way too early.

After calling it a hard day's work we warmed up a little with the sagebrush we cleared.

And the next morning we removed the inside forms and filled it with gravel.

Two weeks to cure and we will be out stacking the straw!

I cant think of a better place to spend Thanksgiving!

A shout out to my brother Brad. Thanks again for helping us out, and for lunch in Wendover. We definitely couldn't have got everything done with just Clarissa and Me.

Straw Bale Structure is becoming a reality!!!!!

We have the straw!!!!! It currently resides in my dads driveway, but plans are underway.

We intended to start the project a couple months back, but money got tight and it took us a couple months to get back on top of our finances.

I am happy to announce that the weekend of November 6th we are going to our property in the Tecoma Valley to work on the footings for our building.

With any luck we will be able to get the ground leveled, and footings in and cement poured that weekend. If not we better hurry up and get back out there the next two weekends because we have a firm date of November 26th that our straw will be arriving on site for stacking!

I have done all the math and we will be bringing 15 80 lb bags of concrete mix out with us on November 6th. Our structure's inside dimensions will be roughly 11.16' x 11.16'. It will be big enough for us to sleep in, cook in, and play games in should the weather be bad upon our visits to our property.

Our new discovery

So we were in the market for a new vehicle recently. It took awhile to find what we were looking for, but I want to tell you about what we ended up with.

A 1994 Dodge Ram 3/4 ton work van, including fully functional work bins, shelving, & cab divider.

Dents all over the place, a little rust here and there, and she drives down the road about like a bus.

We dropped a whopping 2G's for this baby! I know, it sounds like we got ripped off, right?!?!?!

WRONG. In addition to petrol, her motor hums to the tune of $1.45 a gallon CNG. (and thats after the 50% price increase since we got her caused by a tax break expiring)

I got to work ripping out the bins & everything that next day. Before long she was a fresh white new canvas to work with as I wished :)

Right now its only two temporary bench seats and the CNG tanks. It is pretty loud with no insulation or carpeting, but I wouldnt sell it for the world. It will be improved drastically in the coming months.

We opted for the 3.9 V6 that comes in @ a modest 175 HP. It manages a whooping 18 mpg average and I think I can get it up to 20 or more on road trips. Capable of towing a decently sized trailer, as much room as we can use with doors that open up big enough to put a couch in!

With the second CNG tank I added we have a CNG range of about 130 miles when she switches herself back to Gasoline automatically and starts sipping away at the 20 gallon tank at an increased mpg. With all those features, we would need to find a car that gets about 36 MPG to break even with the cost of fuel. It is the benefit of a van/truck with the operating costs of a honda civic!

It only has 80k miles on it and CNG is a much cleaner fuel, so I think the van will serve us well for years to come.

There is a downside in that CNG fill stations though on the rise are minimal, that is why we opted for a bi-fuel vehicle that runs on it and gasoline. But fueling is a quick and simple process.

The biggest problem here is that our dream of living in Montello kind of makes the specialty of this van obsolete as there is no fill station there or in Wendover where I anticipate the jobs being and the closest place to get the things that the local store in Montello can not offer. The good news is when that dream becomes a reality years down the road the van will have more than paid for itself and we won't be out anything.

When FLSmidth makes the move to 72nd south I will be commuting over 100 miles a day, I will have to refuel daily, but the gas savings will pay itself off in about 5 months. That adds up to a lot of money!

April 2010

Easter came and left fast!

Friday night before Easter Dad and Patti were kind enough to watch the kids over night so we could go look at some land near Montello Nevada. It was nice to have a little break AND we now own 20 acres of land to possibly plan a future around one way or another.They took the kids to the Easter Egg hunt in Uintah and it looks and sounds like they had alot of fun!

Montello is a beautiful place. According to the person operating the store in town (That’s right, I said store (singular), there are about 80 residents of the town itself. It has a two room school, a church, a gas station/general store/motel, and some building that advertises the world’s largest drum set lol. We purchased the land from some people that we really enjoyed. Though we can’t speak for them enjoying us, we hope it is a good indicator that the people we met from up there seem to be ones we could have a friendship with. The community of people that I have talked to/met/read their blogs, make it sound like a very nice community to be part of, even if it is part time! Our intentions are to place a 20’ shipping container onthe land, turn it into a small oasis, and spend weekends and holidays up there for the next 10 years or so.

When we got back from Montello on Saturday afternoon it was time for Priesthood session / girls night, we all had fun. We sure have a great family!

Easter morning was mostly spend on the down low. Relaxing with the family and listening to conference. Then we had lunch with the family at my father’s home. Good food, good family, good conversation, and good fun. They had an easter egg hunt that the kids enjoyed. Overall we had a great holiday weekend!

Taylie Is getting big, smart, and funny! She is really starting to catch onto things. For example, we were going home the other day in the car and we were talking. All of a sudden she just stopped talking and was quiet. We tried talking to her more, but after a minute or so all she said was “Taylie is ornery now, I don’t want to talk.” Hah, she is definitely a girl ;-). Just kidding. Taylie knows her whole alphabet in upper case letters now! She is also getting good at using scissors.

Cambrie is learning everything so fast! She has her colors down pretty good finally, she is mostly potty trained, still loves to dress up, dance, and eat anything with sugar! Cambrie is going through these phases where she won’t sleep for 3 or 4 nights in a row, and its simply because she doesn’t want to. After awhile she gets so exhausted she will sleep, and then sometimes the phase starts over again, sometimes it doesn’t. It has led to a lot of really long nights trying to get her into bed and to stay in bed.

Grayson is growing faster than anyone. He is walking like a pro (well maybe a drunken sailor pro ;) ) He is the most logical and analytical thinker I have EVER seen in a baby. He analyzes everything and you can see it in his eyes he is trying to figure out how it works. He claps, walks, teases, isn’t afraid of anything (except Clarissa’s exercise ball lol), he can snap!! Well he doesn’t do it hard enough to make the noise, but ever since he saw my mom snapping a week or so ago he

watched her for a couple minutes and then figured out how to do the same thing with his hands. That impresses me so much seeing as Taylie still can’t figure out how to snap by watching. Grayson likes his food! The only problem that we are having with Grayson is that according to a nurse he has “Holding breath syndrome” I dony know if any of you have encountered this, but when he gets REALLY upset he will scream and scream until he runs out of air and he won’t breath in for 15-20 seconds. Then his lips start to turn blue, and then he just looses all energy and almost goes limp, but starts breathing. After that he always almost falls asleep. It is TERRIFING, and nothing can calm him down. But apparently 5% of babies have it (do it) and it doesn’t do any damage. They say he should outgrow it when he is around 3 or 4.

Well, that’s enough for today. Hope all is well with all of you and thanks for taking the time to read this and keep updated on our family.

With care, The Sawyers.

February 2010

Its been ages.
We are now settled in our home and it feels like home! We are extremely well blessed in life right now. A wonderful family with amazing kids, a roof of our own, and a steady and good income despite the economy.
Taylie is growing like a weed, she is like 40" and around 35 lbs. She is talking up a storm and I am amazed at how much smarter she gets every single time I talk to her.
Cambrie is growing in leaps and bounds as well. She is really starting to pick up talking better.
She is still struggling with her colors, and shows no interest in really potty training, but Im sure she will decide when she is ready. Her personality is really starting to show through. Cambrie still loves food, dancing, tea parties and a game Clarissa got them called pop bellies. She is really fine tuning her motor skills!
Grayson is nearing 10 months old now. He is growing and learning like crazy. He is such a logical thinker and it amazes me to watch him figure things out. He is crawling all over the place and climbing around. Him and Cambrie get in alot of arguments, Im sure that there will be some battles in the future. Grayson can stand up and balance extremely well, but he doesn't have much interest in walking. He gets around great crawling or in his walker or on his little push car, but he gets nervous when he realizes he is standing up without help.
I cant believe we will have been married for two years in less than 20 days. Just to give a couple shout - outs, Congrats to Danielle and Aaron for their wedding in March, and Kendra and Justin for their wedding on the 20th of Feb, we are way excited for you guys and thing you guys are great.

Changes

Whoa! Alot has changed since we last updated on here.
April 20th, 2009; Grayson Elmer Sawyer was born at 2:33 in the afternoon!
he weighed in at 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20" Long.
He really is the coolest, most relaxed, funnest, smartest little kid I have ever been around!

He sleeps a good 7 hours almost every night, and doesnt cry much at all, you know if he is crying he is hungry, needs a diaper change, or he has gas. And that is pretty much it.
He has been such an amazing blessing in our lives. He is especially a daddy's boy.
He loves to be held and is a very cuddly baby, especially with dad. he is now three months old and probably nearing around 13 or 14 pounds.

This is one of my favorite pictures of him, after our first offer on our home was rejected, I decided that I should go and buy him a shotgun for when he gets older. Anyways, I came in and sat down on the couch next to him and showed it to him and put it above him as you can see, he immediately wrapped his arms around it and let out an enormous smile.


I cant even explain how excited I am for him to get a little older so I can have a fishing, hunting, fourwheeling, fixing cars, all around buddy. I sure hope he continues with me being his favorite because I see him being my best bud for the rest of my life.


On another note, Taylie and Cambrie are also doing very well. Cambrie is starting to take a liking to the toilet, so maybe before long I will only be buying diapers for ONE :) She is starting to talk a LOT, the problem is that the only person that can interpret what she says is Taylie, and then sometimes it gets lost there too. Its pretty funny sometimes when Taylie realizes we cant understand what she is saying so she starts trying to act it out, they are all such cute kids.

As previously mentioned we have been house shopping the last couple months.
After two offers didnt work out, the third offer just got accepted yesterday.

The home may not look like much to alot of you, but we are SUPER excited. it is on a little less than 1/4 acre, two upstairs bedrooms and two downstairs in a mostly unfinished basement. It sits on a corner lot in Ogden, but I probably shouldnt give the exact address on here :) But text me if you would like to know.















Anyways I guess I better get back to work, hope everyone is well.

35 Weeks

Well Clarissa hits 35 weeks this week, which means we are nearing the day I will be able to hold my little boy. Grayson is due on April 26th, and he will be born at Ogden Regional Hospital. Clarissa is starting to feel pretty crumby lately, but overall she says it has been a great pregnancy. It is way exciting to see the end drawing near.

Life is going pretty well for us, Lots and Lots of work on our home for me to do, it never ends, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I need to do some painting, relay two rooms with carpet, put up some trim, and finish the siding and we are pretty much to the point we can put the beast up for sale and buy a home. That is really really exciting for us. no more crazy neighbor who is like 8 feet away from us, no more rules about we cant put a fence up in our own yard, no more tree's on our property that fall on our roof and they wont trim them so I keep having to fix our roof, and I cant touch the tree. granted, it is alot better than an apartment and cheaper, but I cant wait till I have my own yard, and my garage! It will be amazing!

We got Carolina a few weeks ago, she is our family pet (the fish didnt work out so well haha) She is a four year old German Shorthair and is sooo sweet and smart and good. She definitly listens better than the girls haha. I am taking her up hunting this weekend to train her with some quail and some chukar, we will have to see how that goes.

We have decided not to go to Moab this year and the truck is still up for sale. The bohemuth is a rock solid crawler if anyone knows anyone looking for one pass them along my way. We listened to a course called Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey and are commited to not get in debt ever again aside from a mortgage. We should be entirely out of debt by this summer, that is why we are waiting until then to get a home, that way we will even still qualify for that 8k dollar deal for first time homebuyers.

Life is good, we could really use a vacation, but who couldnt I suppose.