Josh Turns 27

It was Josh's 27th birthday on Tuesday! Instead of having a party, like we did last year, we decided to stay at home, open presents, and have chili cheese dogs and German chocolate cake.

[Josh's presents -  Thanks everyone!]

We also had Brodee overnight which was a lot of fun!

[Brodee helping Josh open his presents]

[Just hanging out]

[Matching shoes!]

[Feeding dad]

[Josh's favorite meal!]

[German chocolate cake]

[Josh and all his presents - he's starting to collect vinyls]

 

[Brodee loves his Packers bear]

[Rockin' out!]

Happy birthday Josh!

Utah Archaeology Week - Cedar City Celebration

To close out Utah Archaeology Week, we had a large celebration at the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum on Saturday (May 12). We had a lot of booths and activities and a huge turn out of people from the Iron County area.

[WSA's booth - Coloring page for the kids, artifacts and a slideshow from our most recent excavation, and brochures about our UNEV project]

[Elenor - Cradle board demonstration] 

[BLM - Split twig figures]

[Rug making]

[Rope making]

[Face and body painting]

[Barb Frank from the SUU Repository - Tie painting]

[Artifacts from the SUU Repository]

[Adobe Brick Making]

[WSA's mock excavation]

[Piute structures]

[Atlatl throwing]

[Fry bread]

[Leather working]

Overall the day was a lot of fun and a huge success!

Brodee's First Birthday!

Today (May 8th) is Brodee's first birthday! Happy birthday stud!

Over the weekend Josh and I went to birthday BBQ party for Brodee. He is so big, so cute, and so loved!

[Brodee on his new ATV]

[Playing in the tent]

[Brodee and me]

[Brodee sharing his new toy with a friend]

[Josh and Brodee]

[Brodee loves the bouncy balls]

[The traditional cake eating]

[Brodee with all of his presents]

[Me, Josh, and the birthday boy]

A special thanks to Lane and Sara for throwing a great party!

Trip to Salt Lake City

May 5th through May 12th is Utah Archaeology Week. To kickoff the week there is a big Open House in Salt Lake City on the 5th and then to close it there is another Open House in Cedar City.

Since I had to go north for the Open House I decided to take Josh with me and make a weekend trip out of it.

On the way up north we stopped by the BYU Field School. They are currently working on an excavation at Wolf Village. The site is amazing and according to my old professor the site has the largest known Fremont pit structure AND 10% of all shell artifacts ever found in association with a Fremont site came from here. I'm excited to hear more about what they find.

[Wall and hole associated with a partially excavated feature]

[Me and Katie Richards (my old partner in crime)]

The next stop on our trip was Provo. Here we stopped by to see my cousin Cheryl and her 6 kids! I was excited for her to met Josh (since we had been together for 14 months!) for the first time. 

Later that night Josh and I went to hang out with the Neilson cousins: Tiersha and Josh, Tahnee and Tyler, Kasey and Preston, and Karilyn, John, and Eli.We went to J Dawgs for dinner, Cold Stone for dessert, and then to Tahnee and Tylers place to watch the NBA basketball games.

It was so much fun to see my cousins and to catch up with everyone!

*Why didn't I take any pictures?!*

The next day Josh and I headed to Salt Lake City to see the new City Creek Mall. It was full of really expensive stores that we can't afford to shop at but it was still fun to browse.

Later that night I went to a baby shower for my cousin Natalie. At the shower I was able to spend some time with my Stringam family: Bekah, Michelle, Cheryl, Natalie, Aunt Clarese, and Aunt Karen.

*Again, why didn't I take any pictures?!* 

The next day, Saturday, was the Open House for Utah Archaeology Week. 

The Open House consisted of a lot of booths from various CRM firms and a lot of activities (face painting, coloring pages, decoy ducks, Navajo tacos, corn grinding, atlatl throwing, etc.). I was also able see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time including Lacey, my roommate from my Freshman Year at BYU!

[All the booths]

[Sam at our company booth]

[Fremont figurine cookies]

The day was a HUGE success!

On our way home, Josh and I stopped by my Aunt Karen's retirement party. Here Josh got to meet a lot of my Stringam family. I think he was a little overwhelmed but my family made sure that he felt welcome!

It was a very busy weekend, but we had a blast!

LAKERS!

Yep! The Playoffs are here! The Lakers are currently up 2-0 against the Nuggets in the first round! Hopefully they can keep it up!

[A special thanks to Josh for being such a great sport!]

Go Lakers!

Bring Your Boyfriend to Work Day

I had to go out to St George for a few days to excavate a small, deep site and since Josh wasn't working I decided to drag him along for the ride.

When the digging had to be meticulous, I had one of the archaeologist do it. But when we needed to move large amounts of dirt quickly I brought Josh in. The guy is a pro! 

Originally, I thought I would just bring him in for the heavy lifting but he became so comfortable with the whole meticulous-archaeology-thing that he was able to dig like one of us.

(*Side note: I love my boyfriend but I hate how he is good at EVERYTHING he does)

[Sam, Tommy, and Josh digging]

[Josh digging]

[Josh cleaning up the unit]

In the end, we were able to finish the site on time (Is your mind blown?! It should be!) and to celebrate we went out and got sushi!