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!!! :)

Jill's Epiphany about Life

I had an epiphany the other day about life. For the longest time I have had a slight struggle with putting church and real life together. They were almost two completely separate lives for me. Not that I was different in on or the other, I just had a hard time equalizing the two. How did one really fit into the other, and what does it really matter anyway?
Well, as I was talking to Durrant about this late one night I was able to somehow put it all together in this parable: This world/life is like a school. Church is the classroom, and life is the lab where we go and try out all the things we learned in class. Then, after school is out, we can go home and report our progress. Some of us will have progressed further in our schooling than others, and a few of us will still be stuck in detention.
However, the classroom is critical. If we don’t have the instructions for the lab, the lab can get extremely frustrating and discouraging. We also have lots of instructors to go to when we get confused; prophets, parents, and other church leaders. And, (coming from someone who works in a college bookstore) school wouldn’t be school without textbooks: Scriptures, modern rev elation and personal inspiration.
But, keep in mind, the classroom is irrelevant without the application of the lessons learned. Why go to class if you can’t put the principles to work? Sometimes you don’t really see the point in the lab until weeks after the particular exercise, then it all comes into place and there is clarity. Other times you can’t possibly see how this particular experiment works, let alone how it could turn out okay. But somehow, if you keep following the guidelines from class, it all works out – usually better than you could have dreamed.
Yes, I realize this little parable of mine is probably full of holes. But it helps me put together two separate worlds in a way that makes sense. It also helps me realize that this life isn’t just now and that’s it, it is for eternity and what we do here really does matter.

Impromptu Vacation Part 1

So, a few weeks ago, Friday morning, I got a call from my father-in-law.  He wanted to know if we would be interested in going to Fish Lake.  This being the place where Durrant built most of his wonderful childhood memories it took about -5 seconds to say, "Uh, YEAH!"  Turned out that Bryce and Elizabeth were not able to join us, but we did catch up with Warren and Amanda while we were there.  Here is the evidence:

 The water was ICE cold (amazing that a melted glacier's water would be cold) but Asher didn't seem to notice.  I think it was because he was numb after about 5 seconds and couldn't feel it.  It was nearly impossible getting him out, he loved it.

We stopped at the dollar store and picked up some cheap water guns for the boys to play with.  HILARIOUS.  Durrant was very patient and kind showing the boys how to fill them up with water.

After playing at the lake we decided to head to the cabin for a nice warm shower and dinner.  This toy was at the cabin and Asher took it everywhere with him, he even made up sound effects for the different figures.  And, although it looks like he is naked, I promise he does have a diaper on... :) 

The next morning Asher could hardly wait to get outside and explore.  He was in his element, he could go anywhere and touch anything.  Who needs a candy store when you have the big outdoors???  Anyway, we discovered that he would find the big rocks and run to stand on them and shout "happy day."  It was so cute I had to record it.

You thought I was kidding when I said he was a climber.  Not so...

Chillin' with Dad in the hammock.  Gonna be a good day.

And the tradition of Penny Rock holds true for one more year.

I have great hopes that I will be able to install the second edition of Impromptu Vacation very soon.  However, you now have the teaser, enjoy.

Lawn Mowing, "Tawah Building," and Book Reading

The day we brought Asher home from his surgery he we pretty drunk, like I mentioned before.  However, it didn't take him long to bounce back.  Dad brought out the lawn mower and Asher was bound and determined to help him out.  I thought it was so cute I had to get some photos.  

You can see that Durrant has his earphones in.  Asher will usually insist on taking one of D's headphones and listening to music along with him.  That usually leaves D to hold Asher in one hand so they can both listen to music, and mow the lawn with the other.  By the time they are done, Dad is DONE. :)

 Some very dear friends of ours were kind enough to bring Asher a get-well gift.  He LOVES it.  Here is a photo of him building his "tawah (tower)."  Now, his favorite word in the mornings (walk) has grown to two favorite words.  We do a lot of tower building. :)

I took this photo this morning before church.  I thought it was very appropriate for Father's Day.  Nothing like layin' on the floor reading books with Dad.  Awesome.  

 

Asher's First Surgery

We made it!  It was rough going for a while (at least for mom) but we are now home and are ready to get back to life.  The surgery went well, only took about 20 minutes, and the doc said everything looked really good.  At the moment we have a kid drunk on pain meds who has the munchies and listening to Pink Floyd and Yellow Submarine (courtesy of his dad).  We are pretty entertained. :)

Anyway, here are some of the photos of the day:

Dressed to impress!!! :)

They have some pretty cool toys here, Mom.

Right before they took him back, looking drunk on drugs. :)

Made it through, and snoozing in Mom's arms.

Attempting, and then successfully taking off the band-aid from the IV.  He didn't like it so much.