Arizona in August

Alyssa and I decided to take a trip to Arizona to visit her mom and just get out of Provo for a few days before Alyssa had to start school. It worked out perfect because RAH had no scheduled activities for the last week of August so we bought cheap plane tickets and off we went!

We flew over the grand canyon.

While in Arizona we did a whole lot of nothing. It was great. I love vacations like that. Many told me that I would melt in the heat, but the weather was terrific. It was never over 95, it stormed every night, and it was just a little humid, nothing unbearable. We had no real plans, but we did have some things to accomplish on our list... and most of them involved food. Unfortunately on this trip, I was without my camera a lot so I only caught a few of our moments.

We ate at the cheesecake factory. MMMMMM.

We ate ice cream at the Sugar Bowl in Scottsdale.

We attended the beautiful Mesa Temple.

Our friend Mark from our ward up here was also in Gilbert when we were there and he came and hung out with us a couple of times. This night we stayed outside on the porch from about 10p-2a watching this amazing thunderstorm. It was so awesome!

And sadly, that's about all the pictures I have of my trip. The rest of the time we just watched movies, ate good Mexican food, played ping pong, swam, shopped for home decor stuff, and hung out with Alyssa's sweet mom, and her aunt Donna and uncle Ken. It was a really fun time and we were very sad to leave.

Here is the sun setting while we were on the airplane going home. And us on our nearly empty flight back. It's a little dark cuz I didn't want to freak anyone out with the flash...

25 to 26...

So I turned the big two-six this week. And much celebrating went on during the week. Ok, so not everything was celebrated because of my birthday, but we can pretend.

On August 13 when I was still 25, a bunch of us (shown in all the pics above... me, Alyssa, our friend Karen, her bro Dave and his roommates Ryan and Eric, and Karen's other friends K and Stephanie) went to the Jordanelle Reservoir to go boating on Ryan's family boat. I haven't gone boating in a long time and it was a lot of fun. And the last time I tried any watersports was when I was 12... I went kneeboarding. It was traumatic. The board went out from under me, I forgot to let go of the darn rope and was dragged over the water until I remembered, "oh, let go!" Then I got back on the board on my tummy and the task was to get yourself back onto your knees while the boat was going. Again I lost the board and forgot to let go of the rope. Do you see a pattern developing? Anyway, you think that's the end but it happened one more time and since that dreary afternoon 13 years ago, I haven't cared for watersports. Until Wednesday when I decided to try wakeboarding! Dave went first and he was doing some cool little tricks:

Then Alyssa showed her mad skills:

Then it was me. It was awesome and I did pretty good for a first timer. And I remembered to let go of the rope when I plunged into the water. I was able to get up the first couple of times but it wasn't until about the 3rd or 4th time that I was actually able to get up AND going. But after the first time that I got up and went, it was so much easier every time after. So I was fairly successful but I wasn't able to go great distances before I found myself going under water but hey, I was way excited! The people we went with were very patient with me, very encouraging too, and gave lots of good tips.

About to plunge in the water.

Up and Going! Wahooooo!!

Dave helping me get the wakeboard off.

At the start and finish of our boating evening!

When I woke up the next morning, I was already 26 but I felt like a 90 year old. So I don't know how that would feel but if they have aching bodies then that's it! Actually Alyssa and I both agreed that we felt like a truck had hit us. In any case, we went to breakfast at Mimi's Cafe for my birthday. Yum!

Then I went to work. I was hoping that no one would remember it was my birthday. They forgot last year so I had reason to hope. I was sorely disappointed to see a birthday sign on the door, more birthday signs inside, more birthday signs on my desk and a birthday hat on my chair. But later we had ice cream cake which was the best part about work and was delicious. Our activity that day was going to the Utah County Fair in Spanish Fork. Lame. I'd never been to a County Fair before, and I never want to go back. It was hot out and there really wasn't a whole lot to do. This baby animal... I just can't remember what it's called... was the best thing about the fair. After we finally left the fair, we took the clients to dinner at Amber's Family restaurant where the clients sang to me in the parking lot. How kind of them. I didn't actually eat anything there because I already knew that I had to have room in my tummy for...

TUCANOS! Yum! If you've never been there and you like meat, it's worth a try! It's an all you can eat Brazillian Grill, lot of delicious meat, pineapple, and grilled veggies too. They have a salad bar but we don't recommend it. Just eat the meat! The roomies and I went.

Alyssa informed them it was my birthday so they did their birthday thing and had the birthday people in our area stand and dance (there were 4 of us in our area). I was the only one dancing. Those other people were lame. Or maybe I was just the one looking like an idiot. There were like 8 other people in the restaurant with a birthday... well maybe it wasn't their actual birthday but maybe it was their birthday month. Who knows.

I also got this shiny new bike for my birthday!

HA! Yeah right. Look at it with all that pink and all those hearts... EVERYwhere! It suddenly appeared at the apartment next door, but no one lives there. Anyway, everytime I walk past it I think, what the? What IS that thing?!

Anyway, on Saturday we spent all day cleaning our apartment as we are all moving out and our landlady was coming to do cleaning checks... which in reality consisted of her coming in, telling us what to do with our keys, asking if everything still worked, giving us our last gas bill... and yeah, no checking of our hard work. Oh well. At least we have a clean apartment. Alyssa and I decided that our bathroom won the award for most improved.

So we're moving. To where? That is yet to be determined... We should have something finalized this week. Wish us luck!

More Summer Livin'

So the ward BBQ last Saturday was fantastic, and there was a slip n slide which was amazing as usual. Slip n slides seem to be an annual activity at Rock Canyon Park for me the last 3 summers. I came home dirtier and with more battle wounds than last year. But it was a jolly good time. Here's me at the bottom of the slip n slide. Actually I went down face first on my tummy but at the end I flipped around so that I wouldn't slide face first in the mud and rocks.

The aftermath.

On Wednesday, we went on another RAH hike, but this time we rode up the chairlift at Sundance, got off at the top and hiked around a bit.

It was a much more successful hike compared to last year when we did the same activity and got stuck on the mountain for almost 3 hours. Last year we rode the lift up and hiked down. This time we were smarter and more prepared with water. No shortages this year! And no one threw up this year either. We just rode the lift up, hiked around, and rode the lift down. We had a few slips and trips, but no one fell off the edge and there was no blood. The views up there were awesome and it was so green!

We planned to do a short loop of about a mile. But then some people wanted to go to Stewart Falls. So half the group rested mid loop while the rest of us went to the falls, which was an extra mile one way. We came to the falls from a different direction than a couple of weeks ago when we hiked to the those same falls. On the way back, we saw this on the side of the trail:

Can anyone identify what this used to be?

Anyway, on Thursday RAH went to an Orem Owlz baseball game and they did much better than last time. When we left at the top of the 9th and final inning, the Owlz were up 5-0. I'm assuming they did win. Alyssa also went with some friends. We didn't sit together, but she did come and find me and sat with me for a few minutes.



The first few hundreds of people who came got free wooden mini bats. Everyone in our group happily accepted their bats, unlike last year when we were all too late to get any.

Hiking, Baseball, Painting and Other Events

One Wednesday afternoon, RAH did a hiking adventure to Stewart Falls up at Sundance. It was my first time there. It was a pretty easy hike about 2.5 miles (or something like that) round trip. There were some tricky rocky parts for our guys, but they all prevailed and made it!

Our hiking line. My coworker, Davey, and me at the falls.

One Monday night, our ward did a ward FHE to the Orem Owlz baseball game up at UVSC... actually just recently UVSC was changed to UVU... Utah Valley University. Anyway, we went to the baseball game and were highly disappointed. By the bottom of the 3rd inning, the score was 14-3 for the Mustangs from Billings. We left after the 5th inning.

One Thursday evening, RAH went to the Scera theatre in Orem to watch an outdoor play at the amphitheatre. Footloose was the show. The movie I've never seen and maybe am not that interested in seeing either. My roommate Kendra and neighbor Andrea came that night too, and set their blankets next to our group which was fun for me!

On Pioneer Day, Alyssa, our friend Tyler, and I painted the office/lab where Alyssa works on campus. While it's not necessarily permissible to paint rooms on campus, we were given the go ahead by the boss of the office, whose name I will not reveal at this time. Alyssa and I prepped the room in the morning and in the afternoon we painted and it only took a couple of hours. I'd say we did a pretty good job, although Alyssa wasn't keen on the color by the end, so we may be changing it... we'll see.

Almost daily it seems, Alyssa wakes up feeling like she has puffy eyes. So how does she help them? Well, get some spoons out of the freezer (because who doesn't keep spoons in the freezer?), pop an ice cube in your mouth and hold the spoons up to your eyes for 5 minutes. I don't know how this helps but she says it does so we'll believe her. She didn't know I was going to take this picture but I couldn't resist. I also just wanted to post this other picture for fun.

Thanks Alyssa for being a good sport and not kiling me for posting the most random pictures of you.

Last picture. We are having this ward activity tomorrow, which involves a BBQ. So one of the posters posted around the complex about the activity has this great picture of a burger... with a special tribute to me. It made me laugh a lot. I'm happy to represent!

Got Milk?

Well, we do!

So RAH volunteered at the Freedom Festival breakfast over the 4th of July weekend and ended up with the leftover milk. There was so much milk that after the fridge and freezers at RAH were filled, most of the staff took some home as well. No one really drinks milk in my apartment (although since Saturday I have been drinking about 3 cartons a day), so I gave half of the milks to one of the guys apartments... and we still ended up with about 35 half pints of milk. So you do the math and that is how many milks were in the fridge when I took this picture. All crammed in there. Milk. It does the body good (and for some of us, it does something else to our bodies...)

It's Wedding Season!

This last weekend, I took a trip down to Cedar City for Kim Walton's (now Kim Stubbs) wedding. Actually, it was in Springdale, UT which is right by Zions National Park. It was a beautiful setting for a wedding. I drove down with two other girls and we all had a fun time. We stayed at the Majestic View Lodge and mostly did wedding stuff the whole time we were there. I was one of 6 bridesmaids and when we got there Friday evening, we had a rehearsal of the wedding and practiced walking down the aisle. Pretty simple really. The wedding was on Saturday evening and all that morning we helped with decorations and setting up. Mom Horspool (Kathy) was there doing the flowers and so I helped her with the arrangments... I was told I did a great job. However, I thought most of my arrangements were kinda ugly. But Kathy fixed them right up and suddenly they were lovely. She's AMAZING. Besides the centerpieces that I did which I was pretty much amazing at (hahaha), I think I only liked one or 2 of the other arrangements I did. Well in the end, everything turned out great and all the decorations were awesome. We also got to see Rachel (Adams) Nichols and Matt who came out as well, which was great since I hadn't seen Rach in over a year! It's always nice to meet up with old friends. Besides the stinkin hot weather we were having, the whole wedding was very nice and the dinner/reception afterwards were great too. Those Walton's sure know how to throw a party! Anyway, we are all happy for Kim and Phil and they were just beaming all evening.

Everyone trying to help Kim in one way or another.

Tiffany, Me, Kim, Rachel Nichols. I was actually sewn into my dress because the dumb zipper was broken! Kim's sister also was sewn into her dress and Rachel's dress wasn't even zipped up all the way, but she was wearing a black top underneath so you couldn't tell. Crazy dresses.

The master, Kathy Horspool, hard at work.

One of the arrangements we did and one of the centerpieces

At the reception, Rachel, Kathy and me!