A new addition

So, a few weeks ago our dryer died. The heating element went out, again. We replaced that 2 years ago for $200. We were not prepared to replace that again for the price of a replacement dryer. Thanks to Jake’s Aunt Rita’s generous Christmas present we were able to go to Home Depot today and they had a few dyers on sale for the New Year and we got one today for $300!Yay a brand new dryer and not one off Craigslist. Jake and I unloaded it and switched out the old for the new and we are catching up on our back loads of laundry! I am so excited to simply do laundry!!!! Happy New Year to us!!!!

We have named her Rita!

Birthday Hawtness

I turned 26 on Dec 8^th. Awesomeness, I must say. I got to spend the day with Jake; he skipped working today to stay home with me. He put the hinge clamps on the card table for me so I could silk screen some things and it made me giddy!!!!! FINALLY!!! YAY!!!!

We also went to dinner at Macaroni Grill with Jennifer, Katelyn, Tracie and the girls. I must say, the food was wonderful and I did make myself a little sick on the chocolate cake. I did share with everyone at the table and even ordered it with no nuts so Annabeth could enjoy some.

Not that birthdays are about getting presents at all, but I have to brag about it this year. I was given an awesome green fuzzy blanket by Katelyn which I have so obviously named Kermit. I am wrapped up in him as I type this up, he is keeping me toasty warm on this snowy evening. Tracie gave me this adorable blue rose necklace, LOVE IT!!!!! Annabeth totally rocked the house with a drawing of a flower, which is hanging on my fridge with all the other Annabeth originals! Jake’s folks sent me a replacement Aladdin Genie cookie jar (that passed away a few months ago after an incident with ants in the kitchen which I will not go into further), a really neat shirt from Prince Edward Island. They went on a cruise recently and got to go the Green Gables (places hand to her ear to hear the universal sigh, and “Gilbert”) and were nice enough to get me a magnet, stickers and a really cool t- shirt as previously mentioned. They also got me this book called Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson and I am so excited to read it!!!! Erika sent me a Michael’s gift card, which I am totally using once I get well enough to go out into the world of people. Jennifer totally floored me this year. She gave me Inception on DVD, a cute fedora, and a pair of feety panda pajamas! I have never received a gift that I never knew I wanted so badly until I actually had it. They are so me and I had to put them on and show them off!

Thank you to all who made my birthday a good one!

Hey let's go, hey let's go

When the Davis Family came to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday Brandon played with some soot sprites I had made a while back and absolutely LOVED them. (Side note: Soot Sprites are from My Neighbor Totoro, one of absolute all time favorite films) If he was in my house he had then in his hand. After he left I had an idea for some Christmas tree ornaments. After 1 trip to Michael’s, a few burnt fingers, and a day’s worth of labor I was the proud parent of 20 Santa Soot Sprites.


I think they turned out quit cute! I decorated my tree with some of them and dropped a few off for the Philip and Tracie Shafer family, mailed some to the Davis family, gave a few to Jennifer on her Annual Christmas Tree Decorating Party which took place tonight, and have a few to give to the Sam and Mary Jane Shafer family. Happy Holiday!

Long time no blog

It has been such a long time since I updated this poor blog. It must feel so neglected :(

Let’s see, what has been happening since my last update? Came back to the States, enjoyed quit a few meals at Cancun (the best Mexican food in town!), went back to work, stopped working, Jake went back to work at Best Buy, then he stopped working at Best Buy to spend his days slaving away at his dissertation in a 3 by 5 ft office for 12 hours a day. At least he has a window!

I have been applying to every job posting I can find. No, that’s not true. I have been applying to every job posting I can stomach the idea of working at. I made a vow a long time ago that if I could help it I would NEVER return to the world of retail. I don’t know if that will last much longer. So, at least until after Christmas I have put my job finding days on hold so that I can bust out all the Christmas presents I have to make with Jake and I being on a limited budget. Homemade gifts are the best right? (bites her nails hoping that everybody likes their gifts)

So far it has been going well. I have been silk-screening like made ever since Jake put the hinge clamps on the card table for me so I don’t have to have him at home helping me. I have a pretty good system set up, it just takes a little time and requires the bathroom window open which hasn’t been fun the last few days being so cold. I have burnt my fingers so many times with the hot glue gun I can’t feel them anymore. I was making good progress, that was until Jake got sick, and then he gave it to me this past week. I have spent the past few days on the couch with my laptop in tow catching up on some Fan Fiction and TV spoilers.

I have recently discovered that Criminal Minds is a pretty good show. Jake and I signed up for Netflix and we raced through the entire series and are now caught up and have to wait like everybody else for new episodes. I just read a spoiler for new Reid episode and can’t wait. I feel that the Reid fans have been gypped this season and most of season five. Bring it on! I have to say that Jake really does love me. When I start to watch a show, I become obsessed with it. With ION showing it every night and watching the DVDs it has been on basically nonstop for like 3 months. He has been so patient with me and listens to me ramble on and on about it that I KNOW he loves me because any other man would have told me to shut up long ago. Anyway, he has nothing to complain about now, we have moved onto Leverage in our Netflix Queue, another good show we never get to watch because we have no cable. I love you Netflix instant streaming!

Anyway, so I vow to update my blog more often, although I am not sure if anyone actually reads it. Doesn’t matter, it’s fun for me anyway.

back posting

I haven't been able to update the blog for the past few weeks. So I have posted the last few posts today, but they spanned over the course of a month. We should be leaving Pucon on Sunday. Finally!

slow internet

The internet card has not been working for the last week or so. We have been driving into the town just so we can check our email. We are sitting in the truck as I send this email. Sigh.

We hope everyone had a good Easter! We enjoyed the photos from the Shafer get together. Jake and I spent Easter washing artifacts. We tried to listen to conference online, but the internet card could not handle the streaming audio, so we had to wait a day and download the audio files. So, we heard Saturday’s sessions on Sunday. We really enjoyed conference this year. Jake especially enjoyed Elder Bednar’s talk where he said that archeology can’t prove faith.
For our Easter meal I made chocolate chip pancakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream. I also made Jake some peanut butter cups. He loves Reese’s cups! He ate them all.

Not much else to report. We are still washing, photographing, etc. Hopefully we will finish with it in the next 2 weeks or so. Jake and I are feeling a bit of cabin fever….yeah, I said it. We are really tired and are praying the next month goes by quickly.

So, we are still here. No more earthquakes, at least not this week. No volcanic eruptions. We are still waiting to hear about where we need to take the artifacts when we are done. Jake is waiting to hear from about 5 people on various things and none of them have emailed him back. We don’t really want to lug these artifacts all over the country just trying to figure out where they go!

We are so happy to hear that the Shafer family (Sam, Mary Jane, Bow Harrison, Kate-lin Mae, and Noah) made it home safely! We are sad to miss the big homecoming. He looks so stinking cute! We can’t wait to meet him and see all of you!

Mandy & Jake

FIlling it all back up

Friday of last week we finished up the digging portion of the project. After you finish digging, you have to do what is called “back filling”, which is basically just putting all the dirt you took out back in and packing it down. There were 3 large trenches and one smaller trench. Jake and I filled up the smaller trench by ourselves when we went to the site alone one day last week. The guys that are working for Jake filled up 2 of the large trenches over the space of two days. Then the finial trench that produced so many features was the last one to be filled. Jake was gathering soil samples and recording a few things in that trench up until the last day. Friday morning we gathered some old tree trunks that were piled up on one side of the field we were in. The site is on a cow ranch and they had pulled up a lot of trees when they first started about 30 years ago. We gathered 2 truck loads and heaved them into the trench to compensate for what we took out of the soil and to help pack everything in tightly. It took all 5 of us almost all day to fill up that trench. Jake figured we would be done by lunch time, so I didn’t pack us a lunch… Luckily I had left 4 peanut butter crackers and a smashed Gansito (basically like a little Debbie snack) in the truck and we were able to split that as our lunch. The guys thought it was so funny that I was working as well. They even took photos of me shoveling dirt. I love Jake, but my back and leg muscles were not very happy with him and haven’t been for a few days. We finally finished at about 3:00pm. Even though we have finished this part of the project there is still a lot to be done before we can come home.

The museum in Temuco was assigned by the Consejo (the government department that gave Jake his permits) to take all the artifacts that Jake found. Well, Jake got in contact with the museum to let them know that he was done digging and needed to know what he had to do to correctly submit the artifacts. They told him that due to the earthquake the storage location where they keep all the shard artifacts was damaged and they couldn’t take his artifacts. Everything that Jake found was shards, not a single intact piece. So, Jake contacted the Consejo to see what he needed to do, we are still waiting for them to get back to him. Jake was planning on using the tools at the museum to analyze the artifacts. Now he will have to analyze them here in the cabin and hope that he can borrow or buy the right tools he needs to do so. The Consejo decides where everything that it discovered goes so they may say that the museum in Temuco has to take them anyway. They could say for him to take them to another museum or they could tell him he can take them to the US and analyze them there, giving the museum in Temuco time enough to repair the damage and take the artifacts. We have no idea at this point. For the next 3 weeks or so we will be in the cabin working with the artifacts. Ugh.

We finished the digging at the right time, because the rains have returned in full force! It has rained no stop since Friday afternoon. We will be so happy to return to the states where it will be Spring and hopefully sunny!

Happy Birthday to AJ and Sofia this week! Also, my brother Sam and his family will be traveling to China this week to pick up Noah Benjamin! We pray that they will be able to travel in safety! We can’t wait to meet him!

Mandy & Jake