Unbelievable!

I guess I cursed myself somehow by blogging about how I learned how to fix my flat bike tire. That was a week ago Monday, and since then I have had THREE MORE flat tires! Unfortunately, they've all occurred after I got to work, and they happened this last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Consecutively. Today I'm driving the car. Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?
Last night we bought some plastic stuff you can put inside your tires to prevent thorns from piercing the tube, and Zak is going to put that into my bike tires today. If it's done by tomorrow, I might give it another try and see if I can make it to and from work without any flats.
I have a really good husband -- on Monday, he brought me the car and pumped up my flat tire and rode my girly bike with flowers on it home. What a good man! The last two days, though, he's been in class or at work, so I've had to figure it out. Luckily for me, there is a gas station just across the street that has an air machine. I've been able to fill up the tire enough to get home and fix the flat. Anyway... this weekend is the Yellowstone trip. We're excited!

Mantua Lake

Last night we drove up through Sardine Canyon and turned off at Mantua. Those of you who are not Cache Valley natives will pronounce this very differently than those who are: the correct pronunciation (or so I've been told) is "Man-a-way". How they get that from Mantua, I've no idea. Also, Mantua is between Logan and Brigham City, to give you an idea of its location.
You need a little background before I continue with the story: After our Bear Lake adventure, Zak was browsing in a watersports shop while I got a "famous" raspberry shake. Really, he didn't want to wait with me while I got the shake. He was protesting on the grounds that you can tack a "famous" in front of just about anything; it doesn't make it taste better, or even make the item actually famous, it's just a marketing ploy. I guess it's one I succumb to often, and I'm okay with it. It was a pretty good shake. Anyway, he found an inflatable boat that looked like it could probably seat two people, so we splurged and bought it. We had borrowed his brother's floatation device for our Bear Lake trip and had been looking that day for one of our own. So we found one, and that was great.
We've been meaning to test our little boat since then and we finally got around to it last night on Mantua Lake. I was a little concerned that it wouldn't actually float with both of us in it due to the warning about the number of pounds it stated on the box that it was able to support. I won't go into that exact figure here, because, frankly, who cares? You don't really want to know what I weigh, nor do I care to share.
After a five-minute session pumping the thing up with this awesome (dare I insert "famous" here?) double-power hand pump that I bought for $8 at KMart and some tricky manuvering (read: Sarah couldn't figure out how to get in the boat without letting in LOTS of cold water), we were ready to go. We floated out into the serene lake and watched the ducks diving in the water. We didn't see any fish jumping, but we saw a lot of little bubbles where they came to the surface to feed.
As the evening wore on (we got there about 7:30), it got cold. I mean, come on, we're in the mountains, on a mountain lake. We drifted and just sat and talked for a long while - when the stars began to come out, we started making our way to the shore. Now, the interesting thing is, we didn't have any paddles. We hadn't bought any. Zak's flippant comment to the saleslady when she asked if we would like to purchase some was, "I have hands." Thank you. So we're out in the middle of this lake, it's getting dark, I'm freezing (and so is Zak, but he won't admit it), and we have no paddles. Obviously, we knew before we went out that we'd have to use our hands to paddle back in, or get out and swim -- just so anyone reading this doesn't think we're total dopes. So we start paddling. And we paddle, and paddle, and paddle some more. It took a really long time to get back to the shore, and we were COLD by the time we got there. Zak had a great idea after we got home last night. He said that next time (uh-huh, yeah) we'll tie a rope around one of the big rocks on the shoreline and attach it to the boat. Then we'll be able to pull ourselves in when we're ready to go. I think we should just get some oars or paddles.
I had to post a couple of pictures - the one of Zak because he is just so darn cute, and the crooked one (ah, my wonderful photography skills!) of the mountain, moon, and water, because it reminds me of how peaceful it was out on the lake. It was another fun adventure!

Learning New Tricks

For FHE last night, Zak taught me how to fix a flat bike tire. I picked up a thorn some time Friday or Saturday and on our way out the door to church on Sunday, I noticed that my back tire was totally flat. I, of course, was a little distraught. Zak thought that I was a little nuts. I mean, c'mon, it's just a bike. And it's fixable. In any case, I went through the whole process of taking the rim and tire off the frame, pulling out the tube, finding the hole (which was pretty easy since the thorn was still in the tire), and patching it. Zak was a great teacher and helped me get it all done. I rode my bike to work again today after my forced one-day vacation from it yesterday. It's riding smooth as ever! And now I know how to do it on my own if I need to.
I don't think I've blogged since last week, so I'll tell a little about our fun Monday and Tuesday. Last Monday, I came home from work and Zak asked me if I wanted to go to dinner and a movie! Of course I did, so we went to Angie's (a great local place for those of you not familiar with Cache Valley) for a bite to eat, and then we saw The Bourne Ultimatum. We both really liked the movie -- I think it's the best Bourne yet, and I own the other two. So I'll probably own this one, too, once it's available to own!
The next day was Tuesday, my day off during the week since I had to work this past Saturday. Zak and I went to Bear Lake and had a great time. We borrowed a raft from his brother Rhett and alternated between laying on the beach and floating on the lake. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm - so relaxing! It was just what we both needed. Unfortunately, I got a pretty bad sunburn on my back despite putting on copious amounts of sunscreen. We decided that the stuff we have isn't very effective, so I guess we'll have to buy something new before we go out in the sun again. Zak also got a bad sunburn--on the tops of his feet (not that anyone but me would know that, right, Barb?). He told me that next time he'll listen to me when I say that he should probably put sunscreen on his feet since they never see the sun. All in all, it was a great day!
Other than those fun activities last week, life has been pretty normal. I am back to work in the dungeon and Zak is relishing his last few days of freedom before school starts on Monday. I can't believe the summer is almost over!

Our Exciting Summer

Our summer hasn't really been terribly exciting, but as I looked back over the previous posts, I realized that I hadn't said much about it. I seem to have been dwelling on Zak's adventures.
A little bit about the summer: Zak has been taking his last English class since June 11th - Shakespeare. He's done after he takes his final today, and he is SO glad. He hasn't enjoyed Shakespeare very much. He had another two-week-long secondary education class in July that is over. He's also been working a lot with his dad on a home they're doing finish work on in the Smithfield subdivision.
I have been working lots, as usual, and dealing with the scheduling problems that came up when a co-worker left to have a baby (three weeks earlier than planned!) and another co-worker left (for two weeks) to get married. I thought summers were supposed to be more relaxing than this! Really, though, I'm grateful to have a good job, despite the occasional scheduling problems.
Some of the highlights of the summer include:
*Zak took and passed his first Praxis test!! (This is great because it means that he can student teach for sure in the Spring 2008 semester, and then he will graduate in May!!!) Congratulations, Zak!
*Zak's sister Nikkol and her family have moved back to Logan! Hooray! It is fun to have them here - we love playing with Beck, Kaiya, and Crede (and their new puppy, Steele).
*We were loaned a washer and dryer by Nik and Corey, so I can do laundry at my own house for the first time in three years! It is wonderful.
*The house hasn't burned down yet due to the jimmy-rigging of the electrical in the basement - Zak had to run a larger wire in so that we could hook the dryer up. We stay home while we run it - just in case.
*We finally gave the basement a really thorough cleaning. I wasn't going to do laundry down there until we got it cleaned up. It is a really creepy basement, complete with old coal chute and everything. We put down some of those sticky spider traps and have caught some really huge beasts. Zak discovered something that's really disturbing last night. His thinking was that we should cut the edges off where the spiders have been caught so that other spiders will go into the middle. He thinks that if the spiders see other spiders stuck at the edges, they will know not to walk on the sticky paper. (I guess this is along the same lines as leaving a dead, petrified mouse in a Mason jar with a baseball on top down in the basement to serve as a warning to all the other mice....) Zak started to cut the end of the paper off and the spiders started moving. They are still alive on that sticky paper, and some of them have been there for two weeks. That gives me the chills - yuck!
*I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Wednesday! (Started it on Tuesday.) I had to re-read the last hundred or so pages three times - loved it!
*I got to see my parents, my sister Wendy and her family, my brother Michael and his girlfriend Sarah, all within about a week and a half in July. It was great to visit with family!
That's about all for the summer to this point. We still have one more month left - so maybe I'll have another post in a months' time, telling about all the fun things we did in August. We are planning a trip to Bear Lake, and maybe a quick trip to Yellowstone if things work out. I hope you are all having a good summer, too!