Work, work, work.....

I know I haven't updated for a long time. I am really bad at that. My post is going to be all over the place today. Well, I have been at my NPS job for 6 weeks now. I still love it. I am now doing clothing. I am doing it by myself, but I am still in the Amazon room with everyone else. They are all kind of mad that they are doing industrial and crappy stuff, and I get to do clothing and shoes. The fun things! They didn't know that, that was what I was hired for. We sell really good things with really high quality brands for super cheap. Anyone that wants to look, go to your address bar and type in npsstore.com and click ebay store. You can find anything! It's great. Well, anyways, I have been doing that and selling for Alan from him warehouse items. I never have time to even think. It is so nice, because I would rather have too much work than not enough in these hard economic times. I am just so grateful that I have something to help me take care of the debt. Shawn's books finally arrived. All 5,000 copies of them. We haven't really been doing anything about it quite yet, because all of the things that he is scheduled for, is in the upcoming months. We are still really excited about it. I am so proud of him. I got a new calling in our ward. Assistant Camp Director. That is what I was in my last ward, and it was a blast!!! It was Stake Camp last year, so I didn't have to do much. I am kind of excited to plan the whole thing. Shawn is coming this year to be one of the Priesthood Leaders. He is going to do a cooking lesson for the girls up there. It will be so awesome. Shawn's Brother came home last wednesday. I was able to take him shopping this week, and it was a blast!!! He let me have him try on anything I wanted. No one has ever let me do that before. Things are going well. Shawn and I tend to get the short end of the stick on everything, but I feel that things are starting to go the way we would like them to go.

New Job!!!!

So, I have been working at NPS for 2 weeks, and I love it! It is totally up my alley. I am able to go in, do what I love, and leave. No strings attached. My supervisor is so cool and we are already instant friends. Eddie (My supervisor) sat me down on Friday, and said that they are opening up a clothing division (which has only been tried a long time ago and it flopped) and they want me to do it. I will be the only one authorized to be able to do it. He said I will be the pioneer of it, and I am so excited and scared at the same time, because I have really high expectations placed on me. Everyone is counting on me to make it work. I am excited, and scared. I will do the best I possibly can. I also have something on the side. I literally have no time for anything at all! I have to be to work at 6:00 am to 2:30, and right after that, Shawn and I go to this warehouse to sort out clothing, shoes, accessories, cd's and books. This guy that owns Closet Creations in Centerville inherited a condo-full of all of that stuff. There is around $100,000 worth of stuff that he received as payment. This 58 year old guy died, and his brother called Allen (Closet Creations) to come clean it out, and said he would just give him all that stuff for payment. Allen didn't know what to do with it, so he was asking around for help if anyone knew a pro at ebay to sell it. Well, to make a long story short, I am it. It is really overwhelming with how much stuff there is. There is a lot of really nice and high-end designer stuff (None of it fits me) and it has been a pleasure trying to sell it. It is going to take me a year! I am so grateful that I was given an opportunity to get out of debt though. That is why I never answer my phone, or texts. I am so busy all the time, but I am happy. Shawn and I just had our 4 year anniversary on the 12. It's amazing it has been that long already! It seems like yesterday. We went to the delicious Cheesecake Factory. Yum!

Annual St. George trip 2009!!!!

The Wave in Coyotte Buttes North Paria Canyon

Moqui Cave entrance

There is a store, artifacts section, bar, showroom, etc...... inside

dinosaur tracks

flourescent rocks as they are in nature

these are real. the rocks at bryce canyon are also flourescent and can be seen at night overlooking the canyon

The old bar (out of commission) with the bar made out of real geodes

Shawn got "perks" wearing his chef gear, and got to drive the carts around. All the parade hosts and people thought he was VIP

view from backyard

Shawn loved this outdoor kitchen. There were barstools in the pool

Mom kept trying to work her way into all my pictures

Grandiosa pool with lair inside rock.

climbing wall with 3 ft of padding mother is demonstrating if you fell

view from backyard. lots start from the $200 thousands!

Just an example of a cool bathroom in the show

Fun plaything in the house for kids

awwwww!!!!

Shawn says this is his dream kitchen. Anyone got 4.5 mil to buy this house?

This is what would happen if my mom had one of these in their room.

who is that tall man in that funny little box?

Shawn attempting the hammock. The branch was bent and we thought he was going down for sure

After the little "spill"

Dad walked away not caring about Kara's stuff, but about his prized possession. His sweatshirt.

Sorry if this post will bore the tears out of ya'll, but it is mostly for my family that couldn't attend this year, and in detail what we did.

We decide to start an annual thing 3 years ago, that we are going to go to the St. George Parade Of Homes every year. We have every year since then. Usually, it is my parents and Shawn and I that go, and that was the case this year. We always have an outdoor activity every year along with that too. Our activity was decided that we were going to see The Wave in Paria Canyon down in Southern Utah. If you have not heard of it, well, let's just say, that everyone wants to see it and photograph it. The permits are next to impossible to get and only 20 people a day are allowed because it is delicate. There are 3 ways to score permits. 5 can be obtained pre-purchasing 4 months in advance, 5 can be obtained on the online lottery, and 10 are obtained as walk-ins. No more than a group of 6 in one party can go. The pre-purchasing method has to be obtained online on the 1st of each month, and they are gone before you can even begin to fill out the application, next, you can enter the lottery, and choose 2 possible days to go, and pre-pay for everyone for those, and if your days don't get chosen, you lost that money, and the 3rd method is the walk-in passes. You have to show up at the Kanab office (off-season) at 9:00 am on Friday (only day to obtain walk-in passes) for sat, sun, and mon. and if there are more than 10 people trying out for that day, they will do a lottery. I have tried for 4 years to get passes.

I just needed to give a little background on how to obtain these tickets. Well, we decided we were going to have to get up by 2:30 am and leave for the Kanab office at 3:00 am to make it by 8:30 and fill out the necessary paperwork application to score tickets for the wave. All of us were tired, and couldn't just suddenly go to bed at 7:00 pm and sleep right away. I kept laying there and when I would fall asleep, I would wake up. We left and drove down there, and none of us could sleep in the car. Shawn and my dad certainly kept us entertained. We got the the kanab office, and filled out the app. More and more people showed up until the office was chuck full of people. They announced that this was the first week since New Year's they had to do the lottery, because it had been a slow time. Lucky us, it was only on our day that the lottery needed to be in place. There were 15 people and only 10 passes. One person from the group gets assigned a number and they take balls and roll it around in this thing and draw balls. Well, let's just say, that our ball was the only one left in the thing, and we were the only group that left without a pass. It sucked, and I was so mad. We went for a little breakfast and decided that we didn't know what else to do, so we just drove, and found a cave called Moqui Cave that had the only collection of real flourescent rocks, plus dinosour tracks, and cool Indian artifacts. The man we met there was so cool and so knowledgeable. He was LDS and told us some cool stuff that they have found down in Southern Utah, helping to prove the facts that the people in the Book Of Mormon did, in fact, live in the USA. Supposedly, Montezuma's gold is believed to be hidden under a lake right up the street from the cave. You can look it up and read about it. We went and checked in our hotel, and decided to see some of the homes. We went to the hotel and crashed early. We got up the next day and had a home spree. There was this ridiculously excessive home that had a pool with fake rock behind it with waterslides, and a lair inside with a jacuzzi. It had a 2 story gym in the basement with a raquetball court, half-size basketball court, climbing wall, putting green, and a Guitar Hero Harry Potter room upstairs. Incredible homes. I get a lot of decorating, and designing ideas from the show.

We went and visited Momma A (one of the missionary host families from Shawn's mission) and her husband Paul. They are fantastic people. We went to a random Sacrament Meeting with old guy's coughing up all their phlegm everywhere, and saw a couple more houses, and went to pick Kara up from Dave's modular home.

Some things that mom has been laughing about all weekend is when we went to a gas station for a pit stop, and noticed dad was walking out of the women's bathroom looking all sheepish. He had not noticed the sign, went in, and went into a stall, noticing that there were no urinals to be had. He then realized that something was not right, and knew he was in the women's restroom. Mom couldn't stop laughing all weekend. Another thing, is when we went to pick Kara up, we pulled out onto the road, and heard Kara scream, and looked back. The back had come up and all of her stuff tumbled out and was strewn on the road. Shawn came to the rescue and picked it up. Dad was just mostly concerned about his sweatshirt. Overall, it was a super good time.

So, an update on the job situation. I HAVE A JOB!!!!! The people from NPS called me today (the ebay/amazon sales job) and said that they were sorry it took so long to get back to me, but I have the job! It is mon-fri 6 am to 2:30 pm. ooh, the 6 is going to kill me, but I have a job! Whoo hoo!!!

If you want to see the complete St. George trip in all it's glory, go to www.picasaweb.google.com/karleebucher and click on the St. George Trip 2009 link