New Happenings in the Pettey Family

So, many of you noticed my post on Facebook about Durrant's job.  Here are the details:

Jed Dymock, the apparel buyer at the University Bookstore, who had been at the store for over 18 years decided to retire.  While this would not have been a "step-up" for Durrant it would have been a slight pay increase and, more importantly, it would give him experience buying "soft-goods."  For those of you who don't know how bookstores work there is essentially two kinds of inventory involved - hard goods (i.e. textbooks) and soft goods (everything else.)  In order to have a high-level management position in bookstores you need to have experience in both.  D now has 4 years in textbooks and would really benefit with some soft goods experience.  Therefore, he decided to give it a try.  Fortunately, the effort was successful.

At this point Durrant will continue to work in Textbooks until the end of Semester Opening (2nd week of Sept) then spend the rest of September working with Jed until Jed retires.  He is very excited, nervous, and curious about what is in store for him.  I'm pretty stoked that D and I will essentially have the same job at different stores.  We can send neat designs and clothing ideas back and forth, and hopefully we can help each other get better at our jobs.  This may or may not be the end all be all for us, but for the moment we're pretty happy about things.

Another new happening for us is........ A NEW DOG!!!!  Durrant and I have wanted a dog for a while and just haven't made the jump.  Then, my sister called me.  She has a great opportunity to move to Florida so her son can go to an awesome music school.  The only problem is she won't be able to take her dog with her.  She called and asked if we could give her awesome dog a home.  Of course we will!  So, when we go to So. Utah for Labor Day we will pick up Ivory, a beautiful husky that will be our new guardian.  Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited to have a dog.

Mud Pie Lessons

It's easy, Mom.

First...

You put the water in. 

Then...

You mix it up reeeaaaaallll good.

And...

PRESTO!!!!

And that's how you do it.

Impromptu Vacation Part 2

So I finally found the camera the other day so I quickly downloaded the pics so I could show you the promised evidence.  My brother, who is living in Detroit, made an unexpected visit over the 4th of July.  So, we went against our better financial judgment, and made the quick trip down to visit for the night. 

The first thing we saw when we pulled down the lane was the John Deer with a trailer hooked up to it.  Evidently it would be the vehicle used for Justin's winning baseball team in the parade the next day.  Well, many of you know that Asher is all but obsessed with tractors since his last trip to So. Utah.  As a result, we just HAD to take a ride.  And all the nieces and nephews came along for the ride.  Good times.  You may not see Asher in this picture, that is because he is inside the cab on Grampa's lap.

After the tractor ride and visiting/playing with family Rachel and Mac were kind enough to invite all of us (yes I did say all) over to Mac's parent's house for some good old fashioned fireworks.  I have to be honest, I have never seen a fireworks display like the Urie's put on.  They must have had at least 5 of the big fireworks packages you get a the store, and they would light 4-8 off at a time.  Amazing.  Anyway, here is Asher having fun with his first sparklers.  

The next morning we all got up and went downtown to see the parade.  Durrant mentioned he was surprised we could wait until about 30 min before the parade started before we got our seats.  I guess that's the beauty of small-town parades, the whole town shows up and there's still room for visitors! :)  Anyway, here we are.

Uncle Craig was kind enough to get Asher one of his other favorite things: a balloon!  Can you see the difference in the two photos?  Can you guess what he was more excited about?  Yeah, thought so.

After the parade we walked across the street to the park where they had a bunch of blow-up toys to play in.  There was really only one that Asher could do, but boy did he take advantage of it.  This is him literally bursting at the seams with laughter and joy.  Good camera shot, Dad!

After the parade, blow-up toys, fish pond and walking around Cedar City's park we met the whole family (yes, again that is the whole family) for lunch at the Pizza Factory.  For those of you who don't know, that is approximately 34 people.  Yeah, good times.  Anyway, there were so many of us that we decided to wait outside for our tables to be ready. 

While we were waiting Asher got bored and wanted desperately to go for a walk.  His awesome cousins decided to help him out.  Here is a pic of them bringing him back (I think he was ready to walk back to SLC by the way he took off.)  I wish I could have had one of them leaving, he had at least 5 of his girl cousins holding his hand marching down the street.  It's one of those memories I wish I could download so you all could see how adorable it was. Nevertheless, here is a picture of some of them coming back.  So cute!

 After lunch we had to hurry back to SLC.  I lament that we had to leave so soon, but I have made it clear to our finances that we WILL be home for Labor Day.  That way I'm hoping we will say a little more than hello and goodbye to my awesome family.  Until then, I miss you all!!! :)