To Cali and Beyond - Vacation Part 2

When our TN time came to an end we packed up our car and headed across the country to Sunny California!  We camped a couple of nights on the way.  We camped the first night in Missouri where I got bonus points for having chosen a campground with a neighboring Disc Golf Complex!  3 courses in one park - it was pretty awesome.  When I made our reservations I  had no idea that the campground had disc golf  complex but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise and Kyle got to add Missouri to his list of states that he has played disc golf in.

 

We camped the next night in Nebraska where we woke up to our tent being leveled on top of us by a wind storm.  It was pretty crazy.  I was planning to take a picture of our campsite before we left but the wind sort of stopped that from happening.  After Nebraska, our next stop was Utah where we got to attend my friends wedding!

Jade & Chris

Jade's mom and my mom were mission companions in Taiwan and are still best friends today.  Growing up, our families would take turns visiting each other in Utah and Tennessee.  Jade and Chris got engaged while we were living in West Jordan and I had the honor of taking their engagement pictures!  It was a ton of fun to be able to also attend their sealing and celebrations.  I love weddings! They are so fun!  Of course I had my camera with me so I got to snap some fun shots... I've decided I'm ready to photograph weddings!  It wasn't as scary as I'd thought it would be.  Of course I was taking photos for fun and not for real, so there was no pressure.  After the reception we drove up to Panguitch where we picked up this cutie:

Pepper

Kyles aunt Tracy's dog had puppies and this one was promised to April, Susan and Brian.  We got the honor of driving her to her new home.  When we got to Kyle's house we took her to the back yard, let her loose and then waited at the side of the house until we heard April say "Um, mom. . .there is a dog in our backyard"  :)  I can't wait till Kyle and I are no longer renters so we can get a cute little puppy.

Our time in California was packed with lots of adventures.  April got to take a day off from school and the 3 of us went to . . .

It was the first time Kyle and I had been to an amusement park together and we had a lot of fun!  April was a great tour guide and made sure that we got to do all of the best coasters.  The park was busy but not too bad and the lines weren't too long.  One of our favorite rides turned out to be the Perilous Plunge which actually had the longest/slowest line and looked really scary so we weren't sure if it would be worth the wait.  But it totally was

April took this of us - the drop for the Perilous Plunge is directly to my left

If you don't get wet enough on the ride you can stand at this overlook and you'll get a good spray every time the ride goes.

We also spent a day with Susan at the Wild Animal Zoo Safari Park.  I love zoos.  We got to watch a show where they brought out one of the cheetahs and set it to chase after this toy.  Before they had the cheetah run the track they had a dog and a kid run the track so we could get time comparisons.  The cheetah was soo much faster.  It was cool to watch.  The zoo safari park also has a safari ride you go on witch takes you through all of these exhibits where the animals are living together in wide open enclosures like they really do in the wild.

A baby giraffe we saw while on the safari ride, we also saw a baby zebra

Right at the end of our day at the zoo we checked out the Gorilla exhibit.  We saw a cute baby gorilla out playing around and we saw Half of a Giant daddy gorilla. . . hehe.  The opening to the "gorilla" cave was half taken up with the daddy gorilla.  He didn't move the whole time we were there watching.  It was slightly scary but I think if he had moved it would have been terrifying. :)

While in California Kyle and I also got a groupon to go on an ocean kayak tour.  That was also a lot of fun.  We were lucky and went on a day when the water was pretty calm.  We left from La Jolla shores and paddled out to some ocean caves and back.  I did not take my camera because I didn't know if we'd end up getting knocked out of our kayak or not.  Before our group left we watched some other groups coming and going and saw several people flip over.  Getting through the waves breaking close to the shore is the hardest part and that's where a lot of people went down.  Kyle and I ended up making it out and back without flipping though and I totally should have risked taking a camera out.  Next time we go to Cali I'm just going to have to get one of the water proof disposable cameras for us.  If we lived in California I am pretty sure we would end up owning a kayak, it was fun.
And now I want to share with you one of my favorite tickets we used while in Cali. . . .

Tickets to the Flea Market!!

:)  We went to the flea market a couple of times while we were there.  It  happens every weekend and it is so awesome!  Here are a couple of our great buys:

An awesome bonsai tree and a great Ninja blender!

Isn't the bonsai tree the coolest?  We got the 2nd smallest size available but they were selling them in all sizes and it's going to look even more awesome in about 15 years.  And we love our Ninja blender too!!  We ended up getting our Ninja for $50!!  They were asking $80 each but we talked them down to 2 for $100 (one for us and one for Kyle's family).  At the store the version we got costs about $150.  It blends like nothing else and we make great fresh fruit smoothies!  And while we were there Susan used hers to make cinnamon rolls!  Yum.  Flea markets are awesome and I wish Pocatello had one.

While in California Kyle and I were also very good about running and training for the upcoming 1/2 marathon (stay tuned for a future post about that!).  And we got to celebrate Susan's birthday before leaving California!

But the fun doesn't stop there!  We left California for the Ranch where we had a great 4th of July reunion with more of Kyle's family.  On the 4th Mitchell, Kyle and I took the boat out to Panguitch lake and had a Fantastic time fishing!

Showing off our catches

The fish were biting like crazy.  Mitchell got a 16" fish which was by far the biggest.  I think I hooked like three 20+ inchers but they all broke off the line before I could get them into the boat.  Seriously. I fought with some Big ones but they never made it in.  We had one of the only successful boating trips that happened while at the ranch.  Mitchell, Kristy and David took the boat out another time and the engine died on the . . . then Kyle and I tried to go again later and the boat was flooding - someone had taken a stopper out that we didn't know about. Then when we realized what was happening and tried to put the plug back in we ended up losing the plug all together.  Hehe.   But, the boat didn't sink and hopefully there will be some more successful boating/fishing trips in the future. 

We also took a day trip to Bryce canyon and got to do a couple of hikes. 

Here we are at the top of the canyon

Walking through some arches

The whole Bryce gang: David, Kristy, Susan, Kyle, Myself, Mitchell, Tom

Some of the "Hoodoos" (awesome rock formations)

And we found these Hoodoos in a tree!  

A whole section of a trail that we did had these man-made Hoodoos hidden around.  It was pretty cool and we made our own to add as well.

We also spent a day walking around the town of Panguitch.  Of all the times I had been to the ranch before this was the first time that I got to walk around Panguitch.  Kyle is not a big fan of walking through little town shops so he hadn't taken me before.  Luckily Susan, Kristy and April were there this time and wanted to walk around town too.

Me as a Panguitch Cowgirl

Taking turns in Panguitch jail. . . I was the only happy prisoner

Panguitch also recently restored their old movie theater and we got to go with Kyle's family to see The Amazing Spiderman there.  It's a fun theater with a game room and ice cream parlor. 

We also went on a 50+ mile four wheeler ride.  Brian had always wanted to ride from Panguitch to Parowin and get a hamburger and then ride back.  So while he was with us at the ranch we made that happen!  We rode up and over the mountain and down through some back roads into Parowin.  When we got there we ate some burgers and headed back.  All together the trip took about 4 hours and was a little over 50 miles!  I didn't take any photos on the trail. :(  Before we started the ride though I spotted this little guy:

 It's a horny toad lizard!

Before going to the ranch Kyle would tell me about how he always caught horny toad lizards when he used to go to the ranch as a kid.  He had decided that the lizards just weren't around as much as they used to be.  But then I found this one . . . and his younger cousins were finding them all over the place too.  

And finally, before our vacation ended, I had to get these two pictures:

A picture with Pepper, Pepper

and

A picture with Kooz

Some of you may recognize Kooz from the back window of our car.  Kyle and I won Kooz on the way home from my first trip to California with him.  We stopped at a gas station and decided to try our luck at the claw machine game.  We got Kooz on our first try!  We were jumping up and down celebrating and the rest of the people there thought we were crazy.  But we knew we were just cool.  While we were in Cali for that 1st trip there we had gone to a Padres baseball game and one of their better players was Kooz.  So when we won this guy we knew just what to name him.  He decorated the back of our car for a couple of years and got a little sun faded in the process.  We finally retired him to the toy bin at the ranch for the kiddos to enjoy while they are there.

Thank you to Kyle's wonderful family for all of the adventures in Cali and at the ranch!!  That pretty much sums up our travels for the summer.  We had a great time!    We are now in wonderful Pocatello, ID and things are going just fine.   

Tennessee Time - Vacation Part 1

I'm pretty sure that you've all heard that Kyle got accepted to Idaho State University's Physical Therapy program which starts in just over a week!  Well, before his spot at ISU came up (he was 12th on their waiting list), we were planning to move to Provo for a PT program there that started in May. So, we had made all of the arrangements to move and then his spot at ISU came up and we ended up with a few months off since ISU doesn't start until the end of Aug.  Time to vacation and visit family!  Our first stop was Tennessee.  We spent our first little bit of time in TN helping with projects around the house and at my parent's rental property.  We stained a deck, painted a shed, refinished a table, did some landscaping... kyle got to help move some heavy furniture so the carpets could be cleaned :)  And after our projects were over we got to play.  First off, we entertained company.  My aunt Delsa came down from Memphis to visit for a bit!  It is always so fun to see her!  And I got to meet my great aunt and uncle, Jorma and Liisa, from Finland!  When Sarah graduated high school she and my dad went to Finland for her senior trip and they stayed for part of their vacation with Jorma and Liisa.  It was a lot of fun to meet them and spend time with them.  They are two fun people!  While company was here we went on a lunch cruise on the General Jackson river boat.  It cruises down the Cumberland river, which is also the river that you can see from my parent's backyard in TN.  We cruised the other direction though and got to see downtown Nashville from the river.  It was a cool little lunch cruise and during lunch we were entertained by a comedian and some musicians. 

Liisa, Jorma, My dad as we were boarding the General Jackson

 

Here we are on the General Jackson with the Nashville skyline as our backdrop

Kyle and I also got to spend a night at my aunt and uncles' in Hurricane Mills, TN (just about an hour and a half from home).  They have a beautiful farm!  We went with Joyce (my aunt) to visit the Amish - something Kyle had never seen before.  We bought some of their tasty baked goods and got to meet an Amish family that's really close to Joyce and was also close to my cousins while they were growing up.  So that was neat!  The Amish are very friendly people.  We also got to spend an evening playing baseball with Davis, my cousin Nikki's boy.  He was quite the ball player.  And Troy (my uncle) took us fishing in his ponds.  With our first few catches, he taught us the camera trick to make our fish look bigger.

Same fish, but doesn't it look so much bigger when you hold it out in front of you? :)

Isn't it a beautiful lake?

The next day we went fishing again and, well, let's just say there was really no camera trick needed :)

They were both HUGE fish but I'm pretty sure the one I caught was bigger.  My arm felt like it was going to break from just holding the fish out for the picture. I'll have to improve my upper body strength for next time. Hehe.  Also while we were visiting, Joyce treated us to some scrumptious food at the Log Cabin restaurant. The restaurant which my grandpa built and Troy and Joyce now own.  I remember always loving to eat there as a kid and it had been forever since I'd been there. 

 I stole this photo off the internet since I didn't think to take one while we were there

The food was just as yummy as I remembered.  We had a lot of fun and it was good to get to spend some time with Troy and Joyce!

While in TN we also got to spend some time in Gatlinburg.  It's a touristy little town up in the Smoky Mountains.  We got to do some pretty hikes up to different waterfalls. 

On this particular hike, Kyle and I were ahead of my mom and dad when we spotted this fallen tree that made a perfect bridge across the water.  We got on and scooted out and waved to them as they hiked up.  We really felt like we had scooted out a lot further than the picture shows.  It was a little frightening though so I'm not surprised that we hadn't made it as far as we thought. 

At the top of this hike there was another falls that we could walk behind

 

And on the way down we posed for a group photo

We also did a hike up to a water fall called Laurel Falls.  It was 1.3 miles to the falls.

Here we are at the top.

Pretty much right after we started back down from laurel falls a Huge rain storm hit.  Hehe.  We went over a mile in the Pouring rain.  It was actually pretty fun to get drenched but then I was cold on the car ride back to the hotel.  :)

Pausing under some branches during the downpour for a kodak moment

There were also some trails to some historical sites; old churches and farm houses.  While driving one of the looks with the historical sites we saw some baby black bears!!  Sadly, I took photos of them on my mom's camera and forgot to get the photos before we left.  But I did get this photo:

Hehe.

There was actually a gigantic spider in there that I climbed up to look at after Kyle.  It was the size of a baseball. Freaky. Back in town Kyle and I took the ski lift up to the smoky mountain look-out.  

 This is the lift we rode, it was Really steep

 We didn't buy the expensive souvenirs up top but we did opt for the 25cent binoculars

While in Gatlinburg we also spent a little bit of time in Pigeon Forge, it's another touristy town probably 20 minutes outside of Gatlinburg.  In Pigeon Forge there is an outlet mall and there are also some of the Coolest go-karts I have ever seen.  I'm talking two-story go-kart tracks with spirals up and spirals down and little "hills."  My dad, Kyle and I got arm bands for the go-karts and the it felt more like we were driving on a roller coaster track.  Pretty sweet!  Gatlinburg sure is a fun little town and the smoky mountains sure are grand!

Finally, since we were in TN for most of the month of May, we were there just in time to celebrate Sarah's 21st birthday!  WOO-HOO!!!  We actually celebrated a few days early since her true birthday isn't until June 1st.  But I was glad we got to celebrate with her!

 Sarah and her yummy carrot cake

So, that was our month in TN!! If I left anything out it was purely accidental.  I think next time (in several years or more. . .) when we get to go on a long vacation I'll have to blog while traveling and then just go back and insert the pictures later.  But it's been fun to go through all the vacation pictures and write up the stories. So that's it for today but there is still more to come!

Last Little Bit of West Jordan, UT

Before I post about our last few months of vacation I figured I should say a little blip to cover our final few adventures while living in West Jordan!  We attended a couple of sporting events downtown and made use of the public transportation on those nights.

Here we are on the Trax

The first event we went to was a Utah Jazz B-ball game.  Before the game they flew this blimp around the arena to advertise, I thought that was pretty funny. 

The players are down there warming up and the blimp is flying by

 

 And this is both of us :)

They played the Oklahoma City Thunder and they Won! So that made it extra fun. Then, a few weeks later we went to a Utah Blaze arena football game.  We had a groupon for this game so we got a free shirt - Kyle is showing it off below. 

This game was not very crowded at all and after the 1st or 2nd quarter Kyle and I walked down a few flights of stairs and claimed some new, much closer seats . . . hehe.  No point wasting the closer view with empty seats.  I don't remember if the Blaze won or not that night but it was a close game which made it a good one to watch. 

I also got crafty and made us some new accent pillows for our couch.  I was getting tired of all brown.  They turned out very cute but they are definitely a little lop-sided. . . I've got to practice keeping the stitches strait on the sewing machine, I just get really excited/anxious to finish, and want to go fast, hehe. 

 

This is how they turned out!

I tried to do a good job of securely sewing those buttons down but I still get paranoid that one of the buttons is going to pop off.  Hopefully that won't be too soon :) And there is always glue.

Kyle and I also managed to get a hike in before leaving Utah.  Just one though (sad, I know).  We went to the area planning to do this one hike that was supposed to have a waterfall but that hike was on the side of the Mt that was still too snowy to go on.  So, we started up the trail on the other, less-snowy side.  It was a good hike and we were getting close to the end when all of the sudden Kyle was like "Hey Sharon - that looks like a bear."  I stopped and looked and then Kyle was like "oh man, that REALLY looks like a bear." And sure enough there was something big and dark moving across the way... When Kyle originally said he saw a bear he was trying to play a trick on me and thought it was just a rock or something that resembled an animal - But then it MOVED.  We watched it for a few minutes and finally could tell that it was a moose and not a bear.  But that was a scary few minutes.  And when we realized it was a moose we ventured a little further down the trail and it was still scary because that was a big ol' moose. 

Even in the picture it sort of looks like a bear, huh?

 

After we passed the spot where we spotted the moose we didn't get to go much further because we had reached the snow and a little creak/run-off and the ground got mushy.  But after we survived the hike we decided it was pretty awesome that we got to see some wildlife on our one hike. 

And most importantly we celebrated our two year anniversary!  Time really does fly and I already feel like April 17th is just around the corner again.  For our anniversary we played some putt-putt. It was a pretty neat/elaborate course. But the best part was that we were with each other!

:)

More to come SOON!

New Furniture

It's been pretty beneficial to have a husband who works at a furniture store :) We've gotten Great deals on a tv stand and a new kitchen table lately. Our favorite place to shop is the damaged section.

Here is our awesome TV stand!!

Do you like it? Can you tell that we had to fix it up a little bit? When we got it a glass panes had been busted out of one of the doors. We were originally thinking we could get another piece of glass for the other door but then we realized we could really do whatever we wanted in the middle of the doors. I found these cute little tile-ish things (they are made to be wall hangings_ at Michaels and we put 4 together in each door opening.

I'm still debating if I want to do more to it (maybe put some trim in there like used to be on the glass). But for now it is good!

How it used to be

So we got this stand for about one third of retail price and then spent $12 bucks to fix it up! A fun little project. And then most recently we got a new table. It's a cute little square counter-height table. We are enjoying it!

Comic Relief

At the end of January we got to cash in on one of our Christmas gifts from my aunt Delsa. She got us tickets to Brian Regan's show in Salt Lake. We went out to get some sushi and then headed to the show.

Waiting for the show to begin!

Here he is!

We had a lot of fun. He and his opening act (can't remember who it was...) were both really good! Thank you much Delsa!