It's about time...

Wade and I have had an eventful seven months!!!  Even though I haven't been blogging about it regularly.

I know this is a big step into the past but I told Megan in December I would post this super cute Nativity scene that she gave me for Christmas.  It's so cute and I love it!!!!

On to the New Year in January Wade and I took a quick trip to Sunny Arizona.  We went to Tucson Arizona and had so much fun!!!

I had no idea that these Saguaros are so huge!  I've only seen them in Road Runner and Wiley Coyote cartoons.  Since Road Runners are only about 12 inches tall I think the cactus are Slightly miss represented in those cartoons.   See this is Wade next to a not really big Saguaro.

 

This is me in the Saguaro National Park.  I was completely fascinated by the skeletons of these guys.  The cactus right next to/behind me is a dead skeleton of a Saguaro.  When they die they fall a part and have these stick and twig skelitons that are just crazy looking. The other ones are all quite old. These things live 100 years before they even get their first arm.  There is one that died and isn't there anymore, but we saw pictures, it was more than 40 feet tall and had 52 arms,  and was probably more than 300 years old.  We went hunting for the current "big one" but never found it.  But these puppies are huge even if you don't find the biggest one!

One day while we were there we drove a couple hours south down to Tombstone Arizona... The town too tough to die!  Tombstone is where Wyatt Earp had the famous shootout at the OK corral.  We saw a shootout show and walked through a hundred shops...There were scorpions every where in this town... not living ones, ones you take home as souvenirs... as a matter of fact the whole state had this problem.  In a gas station in Flagstaff and in Tombstone I saw the most horrible thing I've ever seen! A stuffed animal in the shape of a scorpion! WHO THINKS THAT IS CUTE?!?!!? Scorpions are horrible grose crawly things that kill people!!! Why would you make stuffed one???? How does that make any sense?
We also went to the Bird Cage Saloon.  It is supposedly haunted and the crazy thing was is that you could see litterally10's of bullet holes in the walls just standing in the entrance way.  It was a fun town and it was cool to see what was there to see and how they have preserved this old mining town.  I regret a little that we didn't see a few more things while we were there.  We should have spent more time in Tombstone. 

Now if you look at a map you'll notice that Tombstone is a mere 30 miles from the Mexico Border.  So we had the fun opportunity of going through...

Border Patrol and yes we were stopped by border patrol on our way back to Tucson.  That was an adventure!!  But no big deal they let us go quickly.... It might have been the Pink Subaru that got us through?...

When we decided to go to Tucson we decided to look up restaurants that had been on food network on

our favorite shows like Man vs. Food and Diners Drive in's and Dives and tried some of those restaurants.  I don't have any pictures of these events and sadly we missed the cardiac arrest burger in Chandler AZ (Southern part of Phoenix)... but we aggree that of the restaurants that we made it to the Sonoran Hot dog was our favorite!  It was a hot dog wrapped in bacon and then covered in pinto beans, salsa, onions, SOOO Yummy!

We went to church in Tuscan too and I just want to say we can all take a page out of the books of these people!  I have visited plenty of wards in my life but I have never been so welcomed in a ward as I was in this one. They introduced themselves and talked to us and helped us with our classes and were completely genuine in their interest in us.  They were awesome!

So after a few days in the sun in the south we decided we should head for home.  We made a few stops on the way home... we picked an off the beaten path to come home by... we went to Snowflake AZ to go to the temple and spent the night in Holbrook on the actual Rout 66.  We stayed in a Wigwam.....  

Yes this was our hotel room at the Wigwam Motel.  I swear these are what the Kozy Kones are based on in the movie Cars.  the room was round and was complete with a small bathroom.  It was much colder here than it was in Tucson but it was still fun and worth visiting. 

We went looking for breakfast after this and found our all time favorite restaurant ever.  Jo and Aggies Cafe Just down the street on the old Rout 66.  It was started in 1943 and is still run by the 3rd generation of the same family.  It was so good!

After that we went through the Petrified Forest and up through the reservation to Monticello where we spent a few days with my Grandparents.  We had a wonderful time spending a couple days with them.

Then we headed for home but we made one last stop in....

 

Arches National Park In January! It was so cool to see the arches covered in snow. We only stayed for a few hours but it was the nicest time I ever spent in Arches nice and cool!

It was a fantastic trip and we had so much fun!!!!

Since we got home we have been working on our living room.  This is a picture of our new couch in our new living room. We painted and sanded the floor down and really Wade did most of it because I was always studding and not helping as much but it is beautiful and I love it.

Further updates.

I know what you are thinking! Sandy is blogging twice in one week? It must be the end of the world. Not the end of the world I just am sick of homework.
So this summer we went camping with my family to Panguitch lake. Like we do every year. This year for the first time in 12 or 13 years I had a fishing license due to a fishing trip with my dad that was blogged about in February. So I pulled myself out of bed a couple times and went fishing on the party barge which is my uncles boat.
This is the party barge we had so much fun fishing on that thing! Thanks again Uncle Scott!
Anyway the day I took this picture...actually at this exact moment when I took this picture Wade, My mom and I were fishing from the shore. The fuzzy grey like in the picture is actually Wade's pole. After I took this picture I brought my camera down just in time to watch Wade's pole litterally jump out of the holder on his chair. I'm sure I said something ingenious like "uh oh" and then his pole just took off. Shortly it was out of sight to me. Wade not to be beat and knowing he had borrowed that pole (I'm sure if it had been his he would have just let it go) went zooming in after it. Wade went running into the water when he got to about knee deep he stooped down and snatched his pole out of the water and started reeling. He was able to reel it in fairly easily so we were thinking that some minnow had just tried to snatch his pole.
We Were Wrong.
This is Wade's "little" pole snatching fish. It's a rainbow trout and weighed about 4 lbs. That was it for him though I didn't see him touch a pole after that.
This is part of our catch for one of the days! We haven't had such a good fishing year at Panguich for years!
We had so many fun times we took 4 wheelers this year and that was really really fun.
Wade bought a new rack for his truck. He thought loading the 4 wheelers was the most fun he could have! Not really. One day we had them out and we got rained on, and by rained on I mean poured on. So we raced back to the campground and sat in the truck for a while until the rain stopped then we still didn't want to try and put them on the rack so we toad them back to camp. We weren't allowed to drive them in the campground.
This is me at the 24th of July parade in Panguich town. An ambulance went by and threw out candy taped to band-aids the kids all kept their candy but they all gave me the band-aids because see that white band-aid on my head, that's right I cracked my head open on the new 4 wheeler rack. I saw stars and it dropped me to the ground and gave me a whopping headache and now I'm sporting a little scar but it's all good, battle wounds you know.
We had a great summer soo much fun!
Now like I kind of promised pictures of the Cutest Tucker kid in the whole world.
I took this at great grandma Schaugaard's house when we were down there for the hunt.
This is Mr. Tuckers Halloween outfit. He was Charlie Brown if you couldn't tell, and so cute! He's a smart one too. He almost convinced his parents that a real live beagle would be a good addition to his costume.
Tucker Likes to eat!
He is Messy but happy.
There you go I'm all caught up.

Homework Avoidance

So it has been a few months, I'm in the middle of my homework that is due tonight and I am looking for distractions before I go crazy.
Yep that's right Sandy is back in full time school mode. What am I thinking? Well I'm thinking I could have my bachelors in my made up degree (literally they created one for me because I had too many credits but no direction) by spring YAY!! But as it stands my 13 credit hours keeps me pretty busy.
So anyway a quick update on my life. First of all for those of you who don't know I am an aunt. My brother and his wife had their baby clear back in May... I never said I wasn't behind on a couple things

This is Tucker J Schaugaard at about 3 hours old or so he is so blasted cute I can't stand it.
He's much cuter now and I tried to steal a picture from My Sister-in-Law's blog but was unsuccessful. I'll have to work that out for another day.
We had a terrific summer we went camping and spent lots of time with Family. Sadly My card isn't working on my other camera so I can't get a lot of my pictures to work and I don't have time to keep fighting it. So we are going to do the boring version.
This fall I was able to go muzzeloader hunting with my dad, my grandpa, my uncle and a couple cousins. This was the first year I drew out so it was pretty exciting. It's actually a really funny story. First you must know that I hadn't seen a deer at all on this trip, also because of homework I didn't make it down to Monticello till later in the week. I also had never shot the gun I was using I hadn't even looked down the sights to see how they worked. I pretty much had myself convinced I was just camping. There was no way I would actually get anything.
On the last night my dad and I went up to sit by a spring hoping at least to see a deer on this trip. I don't think either of us thought we would see anything we could shoot at. So there we sat for 3 hours or so. About 30 minutes before sunset my dad whispered "SANDY! look" I looked and I didn't see anything. I looked and looked and nothing. I thought he must be seeing things. I looked over at him and he was looking but it seemed he couldn't see it anymore either. So I sat back and kept looking but not so intently. Then I heard my dad say "SANDY, Take him" I looked at my dad and he had his gun up. I whispered "I don't see him" He gave me a look like What? and said he's right there. I looked and holy crap right in the middle of the clearing, maybe 50 yards away, not a bush or leaf between us was the biggest deer I've ever seen! I pulled my gun up and took aim and hoped the sight wasn't off or something and fired. That deer took off so fast I couldn't believe it, before the smoke cleared he was way gone. My dad had fired immediately after me but knew he missed. We were both so mad. First he could have shot it at least 10 times before I had taken my shot, he also said he had never had a shot like that in his life. I couldn't believe I had missed. I was so mad! He decided to go check for blood before we went back to hunting so down the hill he went. After a few minutes of poking around he came back to where I could see him and motioned me down. He found a blood trail and we followed it till ... Holy Crap I'd got him. A big 3 point, I'd hit him right through the lungs. It was well after dark before we got off the mountain but we were so excited!
This is the rack he was a pretty bloody deer so I decided against posting pictures of him.
Other than that it's life as normal. I'm still subbing and working at the Bakery. Wade is also as always working at the bakery. Besides work and School our lives are pretty boring.
Button keeps us pretty entertained though.
Here she is just hanging out and watching TV while she plays with her toys.
She is so helpfull.
Tonight she is helping Wade get some bakery work done. He needs the supervision.
Anyway that is the update. Not much but something. I make no promises about future posts. But we are loving married life and staying busy.

It's About Time

So I have decided to finally catch up. But I've decided to catch up bit by bit because all at once could be a little overwhelming.
So we'll start with the biggest news of the last few months: The Wedding!!!
Yes it is official, We've been married for two months now and we Love it.
Here are some of my bridals! It was kind of a crazy day it ended up raining and snowing all day so we ran out the second it stopped just in time for the sunset.

I love my dress!!! My Cousin made it for me and it was perfect and beautiful and there is no way I'm ever going to be able to pay her Back! Thanks again Ape.

So April 25th 2009 dawned cold and got wet and colder as the day went on. I love my ring the wedding band and the Engagement ring puzzle together. The sapphires were actually dug out of the ground by Wade. He and his Sister Stefanie went on a trip and found them in a mine the summer we started dating. It's beautiful and I love it.

The Drapper Temple, it was beautiful!

Everybody that came to the wedding



Wade, his dad and Sister made the cake. It was beautiful!

The rain let up for the last couple pictures. It was a beautiful day when you got passed the cold.
Wade and Sandy Backer Est. April 25 2009!

February

So my life hasn't been just wedding plans and no fun February was a really fun month.

This is what Fish Lake looks like at 7:00 in the morning. I'm taking this picture from about the middle of the lake. My dad is out in front of me. I went ice fishing on Feb 7th with my dad , my Grandpa, Brother Gary, Sister in-law Megan and my sister Katie. We had a lot of fun and all caught our limit. Then I had to become a fish chef for the next couple days, I didn't do to bad if I do say so myself.

On Valentines day weekend Wade and I went to his families home in Delta. We had lots of fun playing with his parents and his brother Tygh and sister-in-law Ally.

Little 4 wheeling.

A little Horseback riding

"The Backer Boys"
Marty, Tygh and Wade


This is the "Baby" of the family.
That's Mom in the Background.

She's Almost 2 years old now, she doesn't look like much of a baby these days.


The Whole Heard...Almost.
Sunrise, Annie, Pretty Boy, Olie and Ginger


Tygh and Ally's Dogs Cody and Gracie.
Both are labs.

Gracie is not quite sure what to think about this.
Pretty boy is focused on his treats I think she'll be OK so long as she doesn't touch the bag.

It was a really fun weekend just relaxing and playing with family. It was a beautiful day warm and sunshiny and just a perfect day. Horses, dog's, 4 wheelers and of course my wonderful fiancee will do that for me.

Wedding Plans Have Ceased Elopement Plans Are Under Way

Planning a wedding has proven to be quite a bit more difficult and frustrating than I had anticipated. The Elope Plan has become quite appealing. :) Is the Goat offer still on the table, Couches? Does anybody know if the Temple in Vegas has a drive through?

Wedding plans are underway.

We are getting Married at the Draper Temple on April 25th. Keep the day open!
(Please notice the date has been changed due to scheduling difficulties sorry for the inconvenience)