The Spiral Jetty

I learned about The Spiral Jetty in an art class during college. I have wanted to see it since learning about it, but it has been covered up for a while. On Memorial Day, Mark and I went with my parents to see the Jetty because it was uncovered. We decided it would be fun to do before the baby comes. Here is a little information about The Spiral Jetty from Wikipedia.

"The Spiral Jetty, considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson, is an earthwork sculpture constructed in 1970. Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth, and water on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah, it forms a 1500-foot long, 15-foot wide counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake which is only visible when the level of the Great Salt Lake falls below an elevation of 4,197.8 feet.
At the time of its construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low because of a drought. Within a few years, the water level returned to normal and submerged the jetty for the next three decades. Due to a drought, the jetty re-emerged in 2004 and was completely exposed for almost a year. The lake level rose again during the spring of 2005 due to a near record-setting snowpack in the mountains and partially submerged the Jetty again. Originally black basalt rock against ruddy water, it is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation and lower water levels."

It was a really fun trip aside from the 15.5 mile dirt road we had to drive on. This was a little hard being pregnant...just a little bit too bumpy! I should have found a bathroom before getting on the dirt road. The pictures from the trip are posted in a slide show above this post.

Picture Tag

A while ago I was photo tagged by Shelli. I was finally able to get some of my pictures on Mark's computer, so now I will do the tag. This is the 6th picture in my 6th folder.

This picture is from our Honeymoon last year. We went to see the musical The Sound of Music at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre in St. George. It started raining during the musical but the show still went on.

This was our stop before we drove to Pinetop, Arizona for the rest of our honeymoon. Thanks for helping me remember Shelli!

Life at Edge

As many of you may know I am a professional car nut and have been working at Edge Products in Ogden, Utah. Occasionally I will travel to truck shows and this year I was able to go to a 4 Wheel Parts Truck and Jeep show in Puyallup, Washington. I had a great time with the reps from R and R marketing, and the inside sales rep from Revtech. During my stay there I was able to find some new customers and plant some seeds for those who were looking to buy performance products for their trucks in the future. I was surprised at the amount of people that wanted to buy our products. Last week I became the new Inside Sales Rep for my company and I am very excited about helping potential customers find the product that best suits their needs. I will miss working with my friends in the Technical Support department but think that this will be a good move in the right direction for me. If you would like to learn more about our products go to http://www.edgeproducts.com/.

It's been a long time...sorry!

Well...it's been a while since we found out we are having a little girl. We have been to register and it made it seem even more real. I think Mark is getting more excited that it is a girl!

On the day that we found out we were having a girl, my sister had her baby girl. Lucy Jean Warner had to stay in the NICU for almost one month with an over active pancreas and trouble swallowing. She was born at 9 lbs. 9 oz. Lucy got to come home on April 11th. The day we were celebrating my birthday. Jon and Katie brought her over or about an hour. What a perfect gift...it was nice to be able to hold her without her feeding tube.

Mark and I were able to go see Wicked on my birthday. That was also a nice present. It was just as good as when I drove to Denver with some friends to see it. I'm glad Mark was able to experience it with me. We had been given some gift cards to The Outback Steakhouse, so that is where we went for dinner before the show. I had a nice birthday this year. I was also given a gift card from the ladies I work with to buy some maternity clothes. What a blessing that was.

I have gotten bigger since we last posted as well. This picture is when I am about 27 weeks along. I can't believe how fast it seems to be going. I am going to be 30 weeks this week. I am feeling the baby move more and Mark has even been able to feel her some. She has a pretty good kick.

The bookcase in the background was refinished by my dad. It was a bookcase he made a long, long time ago. They were going to get rid of it and decided to see if I would like it. I jumped at the chance, since I have so many books. I think I could probably fill up three bookcases this size. Thanks mom and dad, it looks great.

I have also been busy being crafty. I embroidered a wall hanging for Mark's mom for Mother's Day, and one for Lucy. Those both had to be finished up this week. Mark helped me paint the frames. I think they turned out very nice.

For a Relief Society enrichment activity I started making an apron which I will have to finish once school is out...14 days and counting! This is a picture of The Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt that my mom is going to help me make for our baby. I think it is super cute and it is one of my favorite Eric Carle books. I hope I can make it look half way decent. I'm not so good at using a sewing machine.

This last picture is from Friday night. Katie, Jon and Lucy drove to Denver early Saturday morning. Jon will be working in Denver and my sister is gone. I sure will miss them...good thing we have phones. Mark is great, he let me spend the night just being with my sister. I probably held Lucy for a good hour and a half. Can't wait till we can go and visit them, but it will probably have to wait until our baby comes. We don't want to take any chances.

I will try to be better about posting. School is almost out and I might have a little bit more time then (for a few months anyway.) I can't believe I have been teaching for six years. It's been a good journey and I have learned so much. Hopefully some of what I have learned will help me be a good mom.

Barbies or Hot Wheels

In our last post we asked many of you whether our first child would be a girl or a boy. The time has arrived and we now know whether our child is going to play with Barbies or Hot Wheels, or both. I was secretly hoping that it was going to be a boy and Jana was hoping for a girl. A couple weeks ago I had a feeling that it was going to be a girl and ever since then I have thought that it was going to be a girl. I bet you are all itching to find out what we found out. Our first child will be playing with Hot Wheels, even though she is a girl!

Boy or Girl?

This week we were able to inform both sets of our grandparents that we are expecting a new addition to the Hayward family. Now that we have told them we can publicy make it known that we are pregnant and will be having a baby this Summer. We found out that we were pregnant around Thanksgiving and it was confirmed around Christmastime when we had our first appointment with the doctor. We were very excited to hear the heartbeat for the first time and look forward to having more of these experience as the baby matures. We do not know whether it will be a boy or a girl yet but will know within the next couple of months and will definately keep you posted. Jana wants it to be a girl because she says that there are so many cute things to dress girls up in and she thinks that girls are cuter. She is also the oldest child in her family and thinks that it would be neat to share that common experience with her first child. I want it to be boy so that I can have male bonding moments and wear matching sweater vests to church. Honestly we will both be pleased with either one and are hoping that it will be a healthy baby. What do you think that it will be?