Back to School

Today was Chris' first day back to school. The important thing about this back to school, is that it is the beginning of Chris' LAST YEAR OF SCHOOL (not that i'm excited or anything). The first day went well so far, and he had a meeting with a school councilor to discuss his possibilities of entering the grad program after he graduates next May. They seemed optimistic that he could be accepted in, but it's going to take a lot of hard work on Chris' part. I know that he can do it, and I'll try my best not to distract him while he is supposed to be studying and doing homework. I'm very proud of Chris and how well he has done at school in the past, and what he'll do in the future. We're in the home stretch!!

Model Man

My older brother Brett, gave Chris a great surprise the other day. He came over and presented Chris with a beautiful red and silver Mustang model that Brett had made for Chris. Not only did he build the Mustang, but he built a garage with car posters and tool boxes to keep the car company. It turned out AMAZING!! I have to confess, I was totally in on the surprise. I picked out the colors and gave my opinion on the car in progress! Well Brett, Chris was extremely surprised and he LOVES IT!! Thanks your all of your hard work, it really paid off!

Thomas' Birthday Celebration

This week, my brother Thomas was home on leave from the Air Force, so we decided to celebrate his birthday. Some of our family came over to my parent's house for cake, ice cream, and presents. He got a good array of presents from Converse to Kool Aid (oh yeah). He gave me, my cousin Amanda, and my cousin Liz a spin in his new Ford Mustang which was a lot of fun. We also watched a funny show called Top Gear (which my family loves) and we had some laughs. At the end of the night, we took some family pictures and the top picture is my favorite. Happy Birthday Thomas! You're awesome!!

Geo Cashing

At the beginning of August, Chris took a man-cation (a manly vacation) to go jeeping with some of his buddies from a jeeping forum that he subscribes to. The jeeping trip was held in the Uinta Mountains and Chris said that it was absolutely beautiful. Apart from taking in the nature, Chris had fun driving the jeep around and camping under the stars. He had a lot of fun, but I was glad when he came home. I missed him!

Mt. Timpanogos

So far, out of our four years of marriage, Chris and I have gone on a hike up to the Mt. Timpanogos caves (in American Fork, Utah) for three out of the four years. It is usually a hike filled with both pain (the hike is really, really steep) and awe (the caves themselves are worth the painful hike to visit). This year we were joined by my brother Brett and it was a blast!! We hiked up to the caves faster than I ever have in my life! We took almost no stops and it seemed like Brett was almost running up the steep incline. Once we endured to the end or top of the hike, we were so early that we had to wait over an hour for our appointed time to take our cave tour. I was really surprised to see how many families with very young children were attempting this hike, especially due to the steepness that is the climb up. The caves themselves are spectacular! I can't describe in words how beautiful the cave formations are, but I am always awed by them even though I have seen them many times. The hike down was fairly quick and we grabbed a bite to eat once we made it down to the bottom. Thanks for coming with us this year Brett! You made this trip really special!

P.S. If you ever go on this hike, here are some words of advice:

Go early in the morning

Try to go on an overcast day

Bring LOTS of water

Bring a sweatshirt for the caves, they get pretty cold

Denver Roadtrip

So, a couple of months ago, my best friend and cousin Amanda and I decided that it would be awesome to have a girl's weekend out. We decided that it would be fun to go to Denver since it was close, we couldn't take too much time off of work, and neither of us had visited much of downtown Denver. To show that we were serious, we booked our hotel. That was a big step. So, now it's several months later and our epic road trip is over. We arrived in Denver on Friday and we walked around for a while before going out to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. It was really good and we both left with souvenir glasses. While we were walking back to our hotel, a man stopped us and wondered if he could have our leftovers from our dinner (we were carrying a bag from the Hard Rock Cafe which had our souvenir glasses, not food) and we had to gently let him know that sorry, but we have no food. It was really weird. On Saturday, we toured Molly Brown's House (as in the Unsinkable Molly Brown) which was a really neat experience. We then went to the Denver Downtown Aquarium where we saw otters eat, a weird mermaid show, and a statue of Sponge Bob. That's right, Sponge Bob. After we left the Aquarium, we visited our Aunt Sylvia, Uncle Kevin, and Cousins Megan and Alex. When we went back to our hotel, we got a huge shock. We were waiting for an elevator and when one arrived out stepped about 5 Drag Queens in their full regalia. It was quite shocking! We were so stunned that all we could think to do was just say hi. It was awesome. On Sunday, we went to the Denver Art Museum where we saw a King Tut exhibit which was phenomenal. It was probably my favorite activity this whole weekend. When we were done, we went to a Butterfly Pavilion where we took many pictures of butterfly's and we got to hold a tarantula! It was really cool!! Afterwards, we had lunch and headed over to our cousin's Matt and Mindy's house where we visited for several hours (as well as playing the wii and watching some of Top Gear). Today, we had to face the reality that we would have to go back to work. Bummer. Our ride home was pretty uneventful accept for the two tornadoes that we saw and the piece of tire that bounced off the car and scared us pretty bad. Overall, this was an awesome road trip!! Thanks Amanda!!

Doughnut Falls

This morning, Chris and I got up nice and early-ish for a hike up to Doughnut Falls (located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah). We started the hike with the thought that it would take about 2 hours, yeah, it took us 20 minutes. We were a little started that we got to the falls so quickly, but we had fun climbing up around the falls and taking pictures when we got there. We also managed to get slightly lost on our way down and found an alternate path to get back down to the parking lot. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun (even if we got home far sooner than anticipated).