The eclipse is afoot!

How do you celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime event? Well, I'll tell you how I do it. I party it up!! 

Yesterday in honor of the solar eclipse, Cedar City had an event at the Aquatic Center. There were 10 different stations all about the solar system and the eclipse. They were giving out solar glasses to whoever went to 8 of the 10 stations, so Melody and I went. Of course, by the time we got there, the glasses were gone. We decided to check it out anyways. I'm glad we did; it was a lot of fun. We got to make "rockets" out of pill bottles, antacids, and water. There were presenters on the phases of the moon, constellations, and light pollution. I got to make up my own constellation - I know you'll be surprised when I tell you I choose to make a penguin :) And I got a schedule for Cedar Breaks Star Parties this year. I've wanted to go to one since Dad and I did our National Parks tour two years ago. So if any of you want to join me in this adventure, just let me know! 

While we were wandering through the stations, I decided that I wanted to go to the sweet spot in Kanarraville where we could see the perfect "Ring of Fire". I convinced Melody that it would be a fun outing and later we got Michelle and Jake to join us. Since we didn't get any glasses (despite trying 3 different times at different places around town) we made pin-hole viewing boxes. We were able to round up 3 different boxes for the 4 of us to share.  

Today we met at our house around 5pm and headed down. As soon as we got off the freeway, we saw cars parked along the side of the road waiting for the eclipse. We wondered if there would be space for us in the town, so we started making plan B of where we could come back to if needed. Finally, we made it into town and started looking for somewhere to watch - hopefully next to someone with a telescope willing to let us look through it. The church looked promising, so we stopped there and had a picnic of sandwiches and punch that we had brought with us. Jake went wandering and found Trevor - he joined our group since we are so cool :)

 Here's Melody and me picnic-ing! 

When the eclipse was just barely starting, we grabbed our boxes and headed to the parking lot to check it out. Melody and I decided that we should track the progress of the eclipse on the bottom of our box. So we grabbed a pencil and tried to make the circle stay put long enough to trace it. Apparently there weren't many people who made boxes, so we were an anomaly. We had groups of people come to check out our boxes. One lady after talking to us for a few minutes offered us her extra pair of solar glasses! We were SO excited! We passed around the glasses and boxes so everyone could get a chance to see it. 

 Me, enjoying the cool solar glasses!

I tried to take a picture through the glasses..

you can kind of see the eclipse starting on the right side of the sun.

After 30 minutes or so, a sheriff car drove through and we found out that if we had continued down Main Street that we would have found the media center. Off we went to check out that action! We knew the media would be at the best spot to watch and that there would most likely be telescopes we could look through.

Apparently, the "Sweet Spot" was at the garbage dump...

We were excited to find out that were at least 5 different telescopes for people to look through - thanks to SUU. We quickly got in line for one and found out that we were again the anomaly of the group. Out of the thousands of people there, we were the only ones with boxes (at least that I could see). At least two different people took pictures of us looking at our boxes, someone even took video of us tracking the progress on our box.

 Waiting in line to look through the telescope

 Tracking the progress

 Jake and Trevor holding our boxes and waiting patiently for our turn with the telescope

Why, hello there Jake! 

It was cool looking through the telescope. It was really big and orange! After that we moved off a little ways to get away from the crush of people. The complete eclipse was getting close and we were discussing how we would pass around the one pair of glasses when a guy in front of us turns around and offers us his extra pair of glasses. How blessed we were! So now we had 3 boxes, 2 glasses, one cup - that Trevor somehow found out works decently enough to see the eclipse through - and 5 of us, with just minutes to go!!

 Here are a few attempts of a picture through the glasses:

All the people at the sweet spot:

 We're getting close!!!

People started cheering as the Ring Of Fire became complete. Some even sang the song "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. We passed around our glasses and boxes and celebrated with everyone else. 

 The Ring of Fire through our 2 different glasses

Melody tracking the Ring of Fire 

The Ring of Fire in Jake's box 

 Jake, so excited for the Ring of Fire!

 Trevor looking through his cup

 All of us, what an adventure!!

After the Ring of Fire became the Pac-Man of Fire, we headed back to the car - stopping along the way to track the progress. 

 Awesome shadows from the eclipse

Our completed tracker!

This was certainly an amazing adventure! I'm grateful for friends that were willing to join me on this crazy escapade to a small town in Utah and for the random people who graciously shared their glasses and telescopes with us. It made the whole experience even more special!

The move

After a very long day, everything is out of the old house and into the new! Just don't go thinking that there is actually room for us to move around..case in point:

My Room

 It was adventurous trying to find clothes for work this morning. My pants were in one part of the room while my shoes and shirts were in another. It was a miracle I even knew what box to look in!

The living room

 We plan on putting our movies and games in this awesome built-in cabinet 

 The living room is about a third of the size of our last one - we could easily fit 3 couches in it - so it's quite the adjustment learning how to live in such a small area again. I didn't get a picture, but there's a huge window to the left which makes it very bright in here pretty much all day long. 

The kitchen 

 The fridge is loud, there's no dishwasher, and not a lot of room for a table, but I like it.

The incomplete half-bath

 The landlord is in the process of finishing this room. When he's done there will be a toilet to the left - it's probably easier to see where in the next picture - and the washer/dryer next to the sink.

 Oh, did I mention that the second-hand washer/dryer doesn't work just yet? That's also on the landlord's list of things to do.

The complete full bathroom

Melody's room

Beth's room

Kami's room 

 I don't know if you can really tell, but her bed is surrounded by all of her stuff, kind of like mine!

Stairs in Kami's room to the basement

 The door to the right leads to the backyard (pictures of that to come later, it was night when I snapped these). Kami doesn't have a closet, so she'll use some of the storage downstairs as hers. 

The basement (aka the library, Kami's closet, our random storage)

 Melody and I both have a LOT of books, so what we can't fit in our rooms will be put down here. 

We'll most likely be putting some of the bigger kitchen stuff that doesn't fit upstairs down here too. As you can see, we are not in need of storage space :) 

Look, Harry Potter could come live with us! :) 

This room was a big selling point for us, we LOVE storage!

I'm excited to get everything put away and organized. First on the to-do list is to finish cleaning the old house. Luckily Nilla is staying for another week in that house so we have time to do that. Next will be organizing the kitchen so we can eat, then our rooms and the living room. I'm guessing that it will take us at least a week to get it all done. Once everything is complete I plan on throwing a house-warming party to celebrate this next adventure!

I do indeed believe in miracles.

Today confirmed that yet again.

For those that aren't aware, I'm moving from my current place into a new one on Monday. It's a cute little house that I'll be sharing with 3 other girls - update with pictures to come once the dust has settled. The only downside to the whole experience has been the stress over the amount of money needed for the deposit and first month's rent. I don't make enough money to cover that amount without serious pinching and saving. So needless to say, I've been somewhat of a grouch lately as I've been stressing. I knew that everything would work out because Heavenly Father told me so, I just had no idea how it was all going to happen.

Taking the old adage to heart, I prayed as though it all depended on the Lord and went to work as though it all depended on me. I made sure to never miss a day of work, I went to Bishop and asked if I could go to the Bishop's storehouse, I had a yard sale with some friends, no fast food or entertainment that wasn't free, we stopped getting Bountiful Baskets, and many other things that helped to either make money or save it. Then at the end of every day I would get on my knees and pray to my Father that what I was doing would be enough to make this miracle happen.

Moving day is in three days, the money is due when we move in, and I got paid today - the exact amount of money that I needed to cover the deposit and first month's rent. Yes, without a single doubt, do I believe in miracles. As assuredly as I believe in a loving Heavenly Father who looks out for me and loves me far more than I can imagine.