Yellowstone National Park

We got the chance to visit Yellowstone with my parents last month. They were in town for my cousin's wedding (he also got married in Mt. Timpanogos!). So after the wedding we headed to Yellowstone and spent Saturday and Sunday driving through the park. It was a busy and fun weekend.
Touring through Yellowstone gave me a chance to use my snazzy camera to practice my nature photography :) I had fun getting pictures of all the awesome animals we saw.By far the most exciting thing that happened to us at Yellowstone was the BEAR THAT CROSSED THE ROAD RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. I was excited. I had been wanting to see a bear the entire time - we had seen one before this, it was super far away but still cool. Then, a little bit later - there (s)he goes, waltzing by right in front of us! Can you say perfect timing or what? We saw the snake as we walked the trail down to this area where the warm water runs into the colder water making it a great temperature for wading around. We had fun walking around in the water and finding 'hot spots' and 'cold spots' and spots where you could have one leg in the warm water and one leg in the cold water. The photos from that weren't on my camera... I'll have to post them if I get them. And the Bison were Everywhere and we got crazy close to them a few times. We were also able to get out a couple of times and walk the trails through the hot pots AKA stinky pots :) Those were fun to look at once you got over the smell.


There were also places to get out and look at waterfalls and other geographically magnificent views. The top picture is from the 'Grand Canyon' of Yellowstone, and the lower photo is the view from another trail.

And of course, you can't go to Yellowstone without seeing Old Faithful - the most famous geyser of them all. I'd seen Faithful before while on a ward trip, but here is Kyle next to the grande geyser.

And that is pretty much the sum of our trip. Thanks to my parents for having us along!

One Year Anniversary!

Kyle and I have been married for over a year :)
For our anniversary we planned a road trip to Boise. The road trip was centered around about a dozen disc golf courses. We would drive a little, stop and play a course, drive a little more, stop and play another course. We drove to Boise and stayed 3 nights there. Then we drove to Lake Walcott state park in Rupert, ID and camped for two night. Finally we ended in Pocatello for a couple of nights. So here is a little about what we did in those places:

Boise
Of course played a few disc golf courses. We also made it a point to eat at a couple of the local places where the Man Vs Food guy had visited.

at Rockies' Diner (you can see the man vs food photo behind us)

and at the Flying Pie Cafe - REALLY good pizza! When Man Vs Food went he ate the spiciest pizza - but we played it safe. We got to fill out comment cards
which they had framed all over the place - we tried to make ours good
so they would make it into the frame :)

We also got shakes from Fanci Freeze, not because man vs food when there,
but because Mark and Natalie had told us they had the best shakes. And they weren't exaggerating. Yum! Dad, you would be jealous.

We also went to Zoo Boise. It was a pretty small zoo but it was fun. When we first got there we were at the marsupial exhibit. There was this one lady who was calling out the baby marsupial's name (which I can't remember.. we will call her Bouncy) "C'mon baby, c'mon Bouncy, get on out so we can see you..." Then when the baby would peek his head out of mom's pouch the lady would get really excited and run to go tell the different clusters of people, "Hey guys, Bouncy is poking her head out you should come see." . . . Kyle and I were a little confused by this ladies enthusiasm. We pictured her visiting the zoo everyday with her season pass and giving all the animals names she liked for them. Well, we came to understand her enthusiasm when she ran over to Kyle and I to tell us that the leopard (again, she used he leopard's name) was "sitting really pretty in a sun-beam right now" and we had to go to get a good view. She then followed us to the leopard's exhibit and gave us a 15min history of the leopard's life and explained to us how she was a Zoo volunteer! So she was actually using all of the animals real names. That made it kind of a cool Zoo experience - whenever we ran into her we pretty much got a detailed tour of the particular animals. I have never even imagined such an enthusiastic zoo volunteer before - she knew the names of all the goats in the petting zoo and Everything. It was cool. One of our favorite animals were the meerkats.
Initially, I was where Kyle was and he was where I was. When the meerkats noticed me they got really scared and split in every direction - this gave Kyle a good laugh. So, I stepped away for a little bit and then Kyle and I traded places so I could see the meerkats run off. . . . Well, Kyle must have a way with meerkats because they were just chilling. And when they noticed him they didn't even care. Hehe. I promise I wasn't even trying to sneak up on them or anything. Oh well. While we were staying in Boise we also took a day trip to Idaho City- an old, abandoned, touristy "ghost town." It was just an hour or so away from where we were staying.

Idaho City

don't I look cool with my camera :)

Idaho City seemed pretty cool. I guess we got there a little late to really get a good understanding of it's significance though. The visitors center was already closed and pretty much no one was around. So we just wandered around the old buildings and I practiced my photography by taking Lots of pictures of Kyle, hehe.

this was on a little stage set, so i guess they have performances sometimes.

And here is a photo of what the buildings kind of looked like (taken on my new camera- it turned out quite nicely I think) Everything was really dusty. When I would have Kyle sit down for a picture he would stand up and be dusty, and when I would sit down for a picture I would stand up and be dusty. But it was neat and the drive to get there was through a really scenic canyon. So that was fun.

Lake Walcott

Kyle selected this place for us to camp because it has a disc golf course. :) It was a really pretty area. We were one of just a few campers. We ran into these scout leaders one night who gave us their tasty leftover homemade french fries - so that was cool. It was a little bit chilly the first night. Thank goodness for our winter-weather-ready sleeping bags (compliments of Mitchell - thank you!). The second night wasn't really that cold.

so here is the view from our campsite! our tent is right behind me.

We also tried to go fishing. We didn't catch anything :( But Kyle got to go out on the dock and practice his fly fishing! He has to cast a line back behind him and then kind of whip it to make the fly 'dance' on the water in front of him.
Do you see the sunglasses he is wearing? He got those at a kiosk in the Boise mall. The guy selling them was Asian. I felt like he was Chinese. He tried to make sales the same way I remember the Chinese people would try to sell me things "Oh, those look Very Good! Make you look very handsome/beautiful," hehe. So I asked him where he was from and I was right! I got to tell him about how I taught in China. It was fun. And of course, he gave Kyle like a $10 discount on his sunglasses. And then after he had bought the sunglasses the guys told us he was also Mormon and that he wanted his daughter to go to BYU! That was fun. Chinese people are cool.

Disc Golf Adventures
There were so many photos of disc golf from this trip that I had to combine them all into one. We took a picture at every disc golf course sign, or if there wasn't a sign for the course, at the basket, etc. We also have pictures with views of the neat areas we got to play in. And pictures of me knee-deep in mud trying to rescue a disc Kyle threw across a creek. . .that was fun :) But I got a disc stuck high up in this bushy tree and Kyle had to try for 20min to use this long PVC pipe to poke it out. Overall we ended up losing one disc :( But in the adventures to recover our discs that we threw off-course, we ended up finding two new discs! So we came home with one more disc then we left with. Pretty cool.


And that pretty much sums up our recent adventures! In Pocatello we just relaxed, played some disc golf, and Kyle took the GRE. It's his last semester and he will be applying to graduate schools in a few months. He got a great score for the physical therapy schools he wants to apply to. He's really enjoying his internship at Rexburg Rehabilitation. I'm still working and am now also having fun doing photo shoots for people :) Still for free so I can build my portfolio but one day I will bring home the bacon with my photography! Well, maybe not but it can at least be a 'hobby job' :) That's all for now!

Snow Adventure Galore

We got in one awesome adventure this winter . . . Kyle and I went with Mark and Natalie to go cross country skiing for a day! Neither of us had gone before but Mark and Natalie had and they were excellent teachers (and I suppose we were pretty good students too. . . hehe).

The trails were pretty scenic - we got to go around a big lake (which i thought i took pictures of but i guess not...). We stopped to eat our packed lunches at the "warming shack" where we met a cool old couple who were cross country skiing enthusiasts. They taught us that back in the day people used to x-cty ski in their Levis . . . this meant that when they fell their Levis dyed some of the snow blue. To this day they call the spots in the snow where you can obviously tell someone had fallen a "sit-mark" (cause it used to look like someone had been sitting in the snow. . . i actually just looked it up it is a "sitzmark"). Pretty cool, huh? Well, between the 4 of us we made our fair share of sitzmarks. But we had a lot of fun. No Major crashes. . .
UNTIL. . . Suddenly. . .
Kyle took a spill. He was fine (thank goodness!!). But his rented BYU-I ski boot was another story. The binding broke making it impossible for Kyle to snap into his left ski. We all used our creative juices to try and tie his ski back to his boot - at one point we thought we had it, too. But to no avail - whatever we tried would just slip off when he tried to go again. SO, Kyle had to go the last couple of miles on the BLACK DIAMOND (forgot to mention that earlier...) trail with one ski. Pretty much, he would put his left foot down, which would then sink about knee-deep in snow, and then some how push off so he could glide a little on his right ski. Crazy. But, he made it!! I don't think I would have made it... And at the end of it all Kyle said he wanted to go again! What a trooper. And, as for the boot, the rental place said they weren't going to charge us because the SAME THING had happened a few other times . . . Um, why were the still renting those boots out if they knew they were faulty? . . .

New Years 2011

I can't believe it is 2011. We stayed in TN until after New Years which gave Kyle the chance to shoot off some fireworks for the first time. We had fun. And so did the dog. . .

Crazy dog. I'm surprised she didn't get hurt. Aren't most dogs afraid of fireworks?


This is Kyle shooting his first bottle rocket!



And, the grand finally! Happy New Year everyone!!

We are back into the swing of things now. It was nice to be relax and be taken care of for a while though.

Our First Christmas

We went to Tennessee for Christmas this year and we actually had a white Christmas. The first time in 8 or so years that TN has gotten snow on Christmas day. So that was neat. We never got a tree but before leaving I tried to do some decorating in our little home.

We also had tinsel with ornaments hanging in the corners of the room - those kept falling though. . . but for as many times as they fell we only ended up with one broken ornament.

This is Mr. Thrifty. He is a to-scale model of the human skeletal system that Kyle got for one of his classes last semester. He uses is to study the bones (obviously). Anyway, Mr. Thrifty became part of our Christmas decor thanks to Kyle and I's Christmas tradition that we started. The tradition works like this: We make a paper link chain, 25 links long. On 1/2 of the links I write some type of activity for the day and on the other 1/2 Kyle writes an activity. Then, each day of December before Christmas we pull a link off of the chain and do the activity. Dressing up Mr. Thrifty like Santa was one of the activities. Some of the others were: read " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas," go get hot cocoa, watch a Christmas movie - simple things like that. It was fun. And I think we will have to dress Mr. Thrifty up all of the holidays from now on. . .

So, Christmas Eve came and we made it to TN where we finally had a Christmas tree :)

It was so nice to RELAX for a while. We played games.

We played Risk - which I was excited about because my recollection was that I conquered the world in this game. As it turns out, I was the first one to be conquered. Oh well. It was still fun, Sarah became the ultimate world ruler. We also went ice skating:
You can see the rink in the back ground, right? It was fun - we managed to have a game of tag. I only fell twice while trying to speed skate away from Kyle or to catch Kyle - hehe.

We also played lots of disc golf! Thanks to a little camcorder that we got for Christmas, I can post some videos of our disc golf adventures.

this is us putting it into the basket.


my throw. Notice how I've gotten my arm down! If you remember from the 1 picture of me playing in Jackson Hole.


Kyle's throw! When we play I usually throw 2 throws to his 1 throw. :)

There were actually quite a few courses near by so we got to check out a few. These videos are from the course that was the nicest.

WInter Fun

We have done a few snow activities this winter. We have gone sledding a couple of times- the second time we went the hill was mostly pure ice, we could hardly get up the hill without slipping. I really wanted to get a good run in though so that the trip wasn't for nothing. We ended up with bruises because the ground was so hard. . . hehe. Not the best idea to sled on icy hills I guess. Anyway, the 1st sledding trip we took was a success - snowy hills and no bruises. Here is a picture of us from that:

We also ventured out to build a snow man one evening! The snow was finally right for making a snow man. Here he is:

Do you like how he is in a wheel chair? I felt creative :) Kyle added the mo-hawk hairstyle

Kyle's Birthday!

Kyle is 24! We celebrated some on the 9th - I made him a big breakfast and he got to open his gifts from me. But it was in the middle of finals so he was pretty busy. Our big celebrations happened that weekend. We went with Brittany and Andrew to Famous Dave's BBQ in Idaho Falls.
We ordered the Huge platter and split it between the 4 of us. It was delicious. After that we went to an arcade and played some games for a bit. Sunday night we had friends over for ice cream cake. I made him an ice cream cake with his favorite ice cream. It's from a dairy here called Gs Dairy, it's called Gorilla Munch and it it banana flavored ice cream with Oreo pieces and peanut butter mixed in. . . does that sound odd to anyone else? I actually thought it was pretty tasty in a cake though.

Kyle and his cake - he got all the candles out in one blow! Way to go!

Us and the cake :) The picture is a little smoky from All those candles, hehe. Just kidding!

Happy 24 Kyle!!!