Update on Utah post

Well this is just great. I just read a follow up article on the Fremont Indian settlement site in Utah. Hikers have already made it into the sites and have already started taking things. Yeah sure maybe now it's just an arrowhead, but they'll talk and tell people and show pictures which will get more people who don't care about science and will just "take one thing" pretty soon the whole damn place will be destroyed before any more work can be done. Argh...Ok i feel much better now, just had to vent for a moment.

Ahhh Midwest summers!

Oh how I love the Midwest in the summer time! Right now as I'm typing this blog I am sitting on my balcony, making use of our wireless card. It is almost 8pm and it's still perfectly light out, still nice and warm with a gentle breeze. The rest of the year I'm not a big fan of the Midwest, especially winter. It's probably best I did not know of blogs then, because every day would have been blogs loaded with four letter naughty words about the cold and wind. But lets not talk about such unpleasentries.
I just finished watching the Princess Bride, oh I love that movie. I even have the "special edition" so it has pretty recent interviews of most of the original cast. They had a whole part of that interview dedicated to Andre the Giant, I don't think anyone else could have played the part of Fessik(sp?) Ah, watching that movie gets me in a happy romantic kinda mood, it almost gets me to want to put my wedding dress back on and feel like a princess again....almost. Today I've also been watching the 4th season of South Park, which was released yesterday. That's got to be one of the funniest cartoons around. Yes it's foul, but those are the funniest dang 4th graders, its just too bad that we don't have cable, I miss the cable channel so badly!
The quest of changing my name continues. I'm waiting for my new social security card to come in the mail, so I can finish changing the name at work and at school. I also found out that I never had a real birthcertificate also, so I had to pay $7 to get a new one shipped to me, so that'll take forever. I just wish that like at the signing of the papers at the wedding *poof* all the name stuff would be changed. OH well.
Well I just got off the phone with my friend jenny, to those of you who knew me in high school, you may have known Jeni. She was a grade up from me, and we lived next to eachother. Anyways she is 9 months pregnant and due on Friday. Good luck Jeni!
Well I'm rambling now, so it's time to end this. Later!

Awesome discovery in Utah

I read a great article on Yahoo news about an ancient Indian settlement found in Utah. The rancher who owns the land has been keeping the settlement protected by placing gates at both ends of the canyon that the settlement lies in and has kept this site virtually unheard of. Here in this canyon is a settlement from the group named Fremont, there were standing structures, items like arrowheads and pottery all over the ground and perfectly preseved mummies. I think that it is absolutely amazing that 1) that he was able to keep people out of the area so well 2) was able to keep the place quite to keep the looters out and 3) didn't sell out, by letting some collector come in and destroy the place. He sold his ranch to the San Francisco Trust for Public Land. Now hopefully that basically the whole world knows about this site, that it will still beable to be kept intact. I'm just worried that looters will find a way in. Archaeologists have barely started working on the site yet, they said that there is so much stuff/buildings on the surface that it will take them quite some time to document all of that before they even start excavating.
While on the same subject here is something I forgot to bring up while I was talking about my Honeymoon. We were walking around in the Luxor, and we walked into a store that had replicas of egyptian statues and other such stuff. Well They had about three glass cases full of stuff so I started looking and here these were real ancient egyptian artifacts! One was full of coinage, then the other two were full of small statues, necklaces, braclets and some other small things. Now there were signs in each case saying that these were all purchased legally and that both the U.S and Egypt allowed these artifacts to be put up for sale. But it just seemed wrong, sure maybe these are common items found but there are probably some smaller museums around the world that would love to incorperate some egyption atifacts into thier collection.

Britta, Tammi (in more comfortable clothing) and I. 

Kris and I jammin' to the music. 

Justin & I on our wedding day, June 12th, 2004 

The Wedding day

Hey, so I said that I would talk about "The big day" so here we go.
The wedding day was Saturday, June 12th but everything started on Friday. I checked into the hotel room that the girls and I would be staying in for the night, then mom and I headed for Herbergers where we met Britta for a makeup consultation. After the makeup lady made us look fabulous we went to the park and did a quick test run of how the wedding would go. That went great and then we headed to a restaurant for the grooms dinner. We had pizza, and drinks and had lots of fun. My fams old neighbor Jim from WA was there and he made two embarrassing posters of pictures of me and pictures that I had made him.
Us girls, me, michelle, tammi, and Britta headed back to the hotel not long after the boys left. We headed to AppleBee's which was right next to the hotel and I preceded to have too many Long Island Ice Teas. Our friends from the dino dig, Brad and Peggy showed up, Leah, another dino dig friend, had shown up earlier that day. The guys left at midnight and we left soon after. Tammi ended up staying in Martys room, and Britta conked out right away. So that left Michelle and I, we both couldn't sleep so we ended up staying up till about 3. The alarm went off at 7am, and we were up and out the door. We ate at the yummy continental breakfast, mom picked us up and we got purtied up at the makeup counter and at the hair salon.
We were almost late for pictures, YIKES! But we made it it, pictures were fun but I don't remember awhole lot. The day was absolutely gorgeous, fluffy clouds, bright sun. There was a slight wind that occasionally turned into gusts, but that's ok, it kept the bugs away. Right before the ceremony all these dragonfly just seemed to come out of no where and were flying about. After the wedding someone told me that dragon flys are considered a sign of happiness, hurray! The wedding was so emotional for me. I was trying not to look at my cousin Tammi, cause when ever I did I would almost start to cry. I finally did cry when we were reading eachother our vows, even Justin cried! That I was amazed with, I don't think I've ever seen him cry before.
Justin & I ushered everyone out of their seats, so we were able to say hello to everyone then everyone lined up and we ran through the group as they through little hearts at us. (Don't worry, I made sure that they were environmentally friendly) There was a limo waiting for us in the parking lot, the groomsmen and bridesmaids all piled in first then we got the back seat. By then it was about 3, and we didn't' have to be at the reception until about 5, so we had a gorgeous ride around lakes country. Not everyone had their ID's on them so we couldn't stop anywhere for a drink, but we were really hot so we stopped at Dairy Queen instead, Michel bought cones for all the girls and someone bought for the boys. I loved the limo ride, but I'll tell ya my dress was not made to be sat in. The top of my dress was very fitted and tight, plus I had a body bra thing underneath that, holy buckets, I could barely breath cause the side of the dress we bunched in. Yikes did that hurt. So after the fun limo ride, we arrived at the Eagles Club in Fergus Falls where the reception was going to be held.
The dinner didn't start for another half hour so some of the fam was just milling around making sure everything was set up and ready to go. Dinner was really yummy....Well at least the small portion that I was able to fit into my stomach. Lets see we had porkchops and stuff, mashed potatoes, corn, salad and the yum cake my aunt Beckie made. There were a lot of good toasts given, especially by Britta and Michelle who did the "Costa Rica" dance in front of everybody.
The dance was absolutely fabulous, the DJ's were amazing. Justin and I danced too KC and Jojos (I probably spelled that wrong) "all my life" oh it was so fun, but that song was way longer than I remember. I suppose it's that justin and I never got any dance lessons, so we were basically slow dancing like how we did at high school dances. Just hold eachother and kinda rock back and forth LOL. We played lots of fun games, the DJ had Jason (bestman) and Tammi (maid of honor) spill change all over the floor. This game was to see what justins cleaning abilities were like. He was then given a broom, and I got to sit in the middle of the floor holding a hat to throw the change in. I think justin had about 3 min. and boy was it funny to watch him scramble about trying to sweep up the change. We also did the dollar dance, which I had a longer line than Justin hehe. The garter game was absolutely hilarious, it was played in a way I was not familiar with and it's too complicated to explain, all I can say is that my 2 year old ring bearer Kyle ended up winning the garter. Since he was too young to take the garter himself, Justin ended up doing it...With his teeth. I have to give Justin major props because I was wearing major clunky shoes and I never thought he would get it around my heel! I have some great pics of that from Britta, so I will have to post a bunch.
The night ended around 11pm when the DJ was done, but by then I was so tired and my feet hurt that I was looking forward to bed. That was the most wonderful night, I was surrounded by people who loved me and that was just the best feeling ever.

Honeymoon Adventures part 2

The flights from Vegas to Lake Tahoe went pretty well. I had window seats so Justin leaned over me and we looked at the geology of the area. Unfortunately, most of the Sierra Mtns were covered by clouds, but we did get to see some of it and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was really bizarre though cause on the Vegas side the mountains had hardly and vegetation on them. I am used to looking at the Rockies and seeing tall pine trees, but here it was totally dry and barren. Once we got to the other side there was more vegetation but still not a lot.
Renting a car was quite the adventure. Apparently since we're not 25 we are not responsible so it took a few trys to find a car rental place to take us. Our car is a 2004 Dodge Stratus, very nice and lots of kick which we needed to get up to the house. There are a lot of sharp corners and steep inclines, all at night unfortunately so we had quite the time trying to find the house.
Once found, we settled into this gorgeous house and fell asleep. Today we explored Stateline (yes that is the name of the town) Not surprisingly we are right next to the California border. Stateline has lots of fun casinos, but just being in Vegas, I'm kinda casinoed out. So we explored a lot of the strip malls today, taking in the local feel. We found the rock shop of the area and got some cool stuff, plus a thank you present for Brad and Peggy whose house we are staying in.
Well I think we're off to see a movie..Harry Potter 3. I think next time I'll try to write about the actual wedding.

Honeymoon Adventures

So here I am in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. We got in last night around midnight. But before i get talking about Tahoe, i'll start with Las Vegas.
We arrived in Las Vegas on monday evening. We took a cab(my first cab ride ever) and we're pretty sure he took us the long way to the Luxor. Checking in was a hastle because even though there were like 10 check in lines there were still many people waiting in line. Our room was pretty cool. Since we were in the pyramid, instead of the tower we had a sloping wall and sloping windows. But unfortunatly no cool view, all we had was a wall and the Manalay Bay towers, but thats ok cause we were hardly in our room. We had only gotten about 6 hours sleep total the last two days, so we passed out around 6:30 and didn't wake up again until 6am! It was much needed rest, and i felt so energized I wish i could sleep that well all the time! So on tuesday, we ate breakfast at the Paroh's (i know thats spelled wrong) Pheast buffet, way yummy. Then we walked "The Strip" for about the next 5 hours. We hit almost all the major hotels/casinos. My favorite was of course the Bellagio, which is where the stars and majorly rich people stay. They had an amazing botanical garden, and a sweet wave pool and a ride kinda like the river ride at Wild Waves in Washington. The Strip was cool, but it was really dirty, there were cards everywhere on the side walks. In Las Vegas, prostitution apparently is legal as long as they are registered at get regular STD checkups, so at night these guys stand on the strip and hand out these trading card size cards with a picture of one of their girls and a phone number. Ugh it was really disgusting. They were not our during the day when we were walking about, but there were guys trying to get you to pay $500 for some kind of tour and dinner. The weather was absolutly gorgeous, 100 degrees everyday and very dry. At night we saw the Blue Man Group at the Luxor. We were way in the back, but could still see perfectly which is a must since the tixs were $100 per seat. The show was too amazing for words, afterwards justin and I got to take a picture with one of the blue men. If i can figure out how to do pics, i'll try to post it later. Wensday we just bummed around the Luxor, Excaliber, and Mandaly Bay since all three were connected by trams. We had caricatures done of us, dressed as egyptions. We left via taxi around 3, he went a much shorter route and we only paid half of what we paid on the way there.
Well i'm getting anxious to get outside and enjoy the mountains, so maybe tonight i will continue my story!

So it begins

Oh so the real stress begins. I have been home since yesterday and i've been doing so much stuff, that i'm allready worn out at 10pm. Well Dad is watching Return of the King, so hopefully i'll time to write tomarow.

This site makes me sick

Well I just found this site, just a minute ago and it just makes my sad. I discovered the site on a banner for my blog. So i clicked to see what it was all about. This is a site devoted to selling museum quality dinosaur eggs and fossils. I'm going to quote the awsome Indiana Jones, "This belongs in a MUSEUM!" I go on a dinosaur dig every summer, and we dig hadrosaur eggs so to see these beautiful specimins on SALE, where they will be put into a private collectors collection is Disgusting. Yes I bet they are quite the conversation piece, but scientifically they are so important! But now that they are out of the ground, probably poached no less, they are worth zilch. Yeah this site lists where they are found, but only a broad region. In the ground, these eggs could have revealed so much information, distances between nests, the numbers of eggs in a clutch, paleoecology, how large the nesting area was, how many nesting horizons there are, oh a paleontologists dream! It looks like all these come from China, which is not much of a surpise. The finds that have come out of that area are amazing. But it is also thought to be a forgery factory. Remember awhile ago National Geographic has on its cover the missing link fossil from reptile to bird. This fossil had come from China. Soon after the publication, it was discovered to be fake. It was two different fossils stuck together.
This is not an uncommon practice. Our geology club every year has a rock sale right before christmas break. The trilobites we get are usually a joke. Eyes will be added on, or this shiny mother of pearl stuff will be added, but people still buy it. My fiancee and I were at the Science Museum in Saint Paul for Society of Vertebrate Paleontolgy last fall and we were in the gift shop looking at their amazing specimins of trilobites for sale (which i'm not a fan of either)And next to us we found out was a man who studied trilobites for a living, he said that more than half of the trilobites in the case had been altered in some way to make them more appealing to buy.
I'm not saying its wrong to own fossils, or I would be the biggest hypocrite out there. The dig that my fiancee and I go on every year allows for some collecting. At the end of the dig we all go to places called micro-sites, these places were once rivers. In the cutbanks the water would slow and things that were too heavy for the water to support fell. Some of the things collected at micro-sites are fish scales (especially in our area, Gar scales), bone fragements, shark teeth, fish bones, some carnivore teeth, and hadrosaur teeth, and more. So we have quite the collection, but none of these things are very important. Important stuff, like hadrosaur eggs stay with the Vickie, the paleontologist.
Well i'm still angry but i feel better. I may continue this later, depending on how much more i think about it.

5 days and counting

So the wedding nears. Geeze I hope i'm ready. All day my mind runs with lists, people to call, honeymoon packing, stuff that i need for the wedding, things that need to be picked up still, on and on. OH why didn't we do a destination wedding? I wouldn't mind getting married by Elvis or on a beach with flowers in my hair. No i had to take the long and painful way, to please the family and to get more presents (horrible isn't it?) I hope this is all worth it..Iknow marrying Justin is worth it, but all the extra stuff that goes along with it is sufficating. Only 5 days....then i'll be on a plane headed to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. I can make it..only 5 days.

Alive and well

I survived the feared Bachlorette party! I barely even have a hangover..just a upset stomach. I had a really good time last night. Got to Brittas around 7:30, ate, drank and played an evil game that i was no good at so i ended up consuming many shots. We left for the bars at 10, I was adorned in a creative veil. By creative I mean, a viel made out of dino print fabric with condoms and suckers attached to it. Also attached to me was a sign on my back that said "Help Me" then listed prices for various things, $1 hug $1 sucker I think $3 condom and $3 kiss. I only made four dollars, 1 sucker and three hugs. OH well. So we went to various bars and ended up at the O.B to dance for the last hour. thankfully i didn't have to wear the veil while i was dancing. But i felt quite stupid with the sign on my back. OH i also had a little bouquet that was very cute that my cousin made for me.
In other news, my brother has just moved in down the hall from me. It's interesting knowing that he's so close. At least I'm not living with him....we would end up killing eachother. So he's living with his friend Stephanie, whos boyfriend is in basic training right now and will probably be sent to Iraq. So it makes things kinda interesting\confusing. Here at this apartment is Stefanie & Justin down the hall is Stephanie & Dustin. Dustin and Stefanie are brother and sister, and Dustin just told me that we're distantly related to Stephanie! Whew! did you get all that.

Should I be scared?

Well tonight is my bachlorette party. I am worried. What will my bridesmaids do to me? My maid of honor, is getting married in September and i'm her Maid of Honor, so she knows that whatever happens to me tonight, can come back to her doubled. But the other two dont have that worrry, so they have no fear. I am suppose to arrive at Brittas around 7 tonight, we're gonna eat, start drinking then do a bar crawl around downtown fargo. Plus tomarow my brother is moving across the hall from me and my parents are coming over. So i'm just going to have to grin and bear the hangover i will probably have and take whatever jokes i get about how horrible i look. I will try to report tomarow on how things went. Let the party begin!

Laundry at Mom's

Well yesterday I went home and took all three heaping baskets of laundry with me. Mom and I finished up alot of wedding planning, which is good considering it's in a week and a half. I took a walk around the yard today, we have a huge 45 acre property with rolling hill and small ponds or sloughs, so i went walking around and when i got back i found like 20 ticks on me! Yuck, ticks are the nastiest little things. Thankfully none of them were stuck in me yet they were still crawling around.
News in the Paleontology world, acouple footprints were found in Sweden, the first ever there, pretty neat!
Well i need to wake up in 6 hours for work, so i better go. Good night.