Blizzard of 2010.......???

Sunday, November 20th

We woke up to head out to church and was welcomed by a foot of snow.  And no, this was a few days before the "Blizzard of 2010". Ha ha. 

The "Blizzard of 2010", as the news called it, was scheduled to arrive on November 23 around 5pm and leave November 24 around noon. It was the talk of the news, tv, town, and work.  Everyone was recommending leaving work early so you didn't have to drive in the blizzard, and the Wells Fargo Center, where I worked, had even said that they might have to close the building all together on the 24th.  Well let's just say that it wasn't all it was talked up to be. I was glad I got to leave work a little early so I didn't have to drive in the blizzard of 2010, but we only got about 4, maybe 5 inches of snow..  We got more snow before, as seen below (12 inches), and more snow a few days after (15 inches), then on the blizzard of 2010 day. 

I really do enjoy having snow over Christmas and seeing how it makes everything beautiful and white, it also brings snowboarding season, but once it melts some, it is just dirty and doesn't look pretty anymore.  It also isn't fun to shovel and it makes driving very scary.  But if you live in Utah, you may as well try to enjoy the four seasons!!!

Trav's 27th Birthday

November 8, 2010

Before Trav's birthday, we went birthday shopping for some clothes.  I ended up buying him a nice Hurley button-up shirt seen below for his birthday. I love the deep red and orange plaid because it reminds me so much of fall and looks so good on Trav. He also bought some other shirts with the money he got from my parents and his parents.  It is always fun when birthdays and Christmas comes around because we have a reason to go shopping.  We don't have a lot of extra money, so we avoid the mall for most of the year to not be tempted by cute, fashionable clothes.

Trav's only request for his birthday was that if Red Lobster was still doing their Shrimp Fest (All-you-can-eat-shrimp) for $16.99, then he wanted to go there.  The Shrimp Fest was still going on during his birthday, and so we went to Red Lobster for the first time ever together. I have never been there before because I don't really like seafood and it is expensive.  Trav had been there sometime in his life, but not in the time since he has known me (5 years).  So he was able to try all their different kinds of shrimp and I was happy with the only chicken entree on the menu, Cajan Chicken Linguini Alfredo. We had a great time at dinner and he LOVED the shrimp.  (Like I said, his only request was Red Lobster, he didnt' want me wrap his gift or make him a cake, but I gave him a birthday card and cake anyway :) ) 

Ater Red Lobster, I quickly whipped up a cake.  He favortie is German Chocolate, but this year he choose funfetti cake and frosting.  I made the cake, and he blew out the candles, and we each ate a little slice, because we were so stuffed from dinner.  But I think overall it was a good birthday for him and we always enjoy the time we get to spend together. I always tell him that he is old, because he is 3 years older than me. But I guess we will wait and see what I say when I turn 27. ha ha

I love that I caught this shot right in the heat of the moment.

Halloween

Celebrated Saturday, October 30th

So we decided that this year we didn't want to pick our pumpkins out at Wal-mart or any other store.  So we went to the pumpkin patch....just me and Trav.  We may have been a little out of place considering everyone had atleast one child there, but we enjoyed finding our perfect pumpkin to carve.  We took them over to my families get together where we all cutted our pumpkins and carved them.  I do have to mention though that we had potato broccoli soup in pumpkin looking soup bowls and yummy homemade breadsticks before the carving began. Very festive (hopefully pics to come later).  We carved pumpkins a few days before Halloween.

I bet you can't guess which one was mine? 

On Halloween Day, we had no plans, so we decided to head down to the spend some time with our nephews. We let them pick out the design they wanted on their pumpkin and helped them carve them.  I thought they turned out really great.  After we got their hands cleaned up from the pumpkin goo, they got on their costumes.  Keith and Colin were ninjas and Camden was Darth Vader.  The picture shown obove is them sitting on stools letting their face paint and black hair dry. :)Next, we were on our way to their ward  Trunk-or-Treat in the rain, so it ended up being inside.  It was crazy how many people showed up.  The whole church was full of anxious trick-or-treaters!  Trav and I decided that we would sit and pass out the candy while Jaime took her boys around.  We saw a lot of cute kids in costumes.  After the boys had their bags full of candy, they participated in the cupcake walk and the haunted house, put on by the YM/YW.

Owl-Keith, Cat in Witch Boot-Colin, Traditional jack-o-latern-Camden (compliments of Keith).

We brought them some balloons to decorate and for them to play with.  They definitely know how to strike a pose for a picture.

After the trunk-or-treat we headed back to our house.  Considering the fact that we live in a basement of house, we figured that we wouldn't get any trick-or-treaters.  Well we put our 2 pumkins outside and lit them and turned on the light by our door, in hopes that someone would come.  Well we ended up getting about 20 trick-or-treaters!!! I was so happy when I heard the little knocks on the door.  Granted it only ended up being 2 groups of kids, but I was more than happy to give them candy!  Halloween can't be found on my list of favorite holidays, but we defnitely had a great time!!!

Sunday Drive

 A Sunday in October

I kept telling Trav that I wanted to go for a drive and see the Fall leaves.  I would always says it after we were both home from work and it was too dark.  So on Sunday he said let's go for a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  So we did.  As we were driving and stopping to take pictures, I was shocked by how many other people had the same idea.  The whole canyon was full of "fall sightseers". Usually we get to see the fall leaves as we drive through Spanish Fork Canyon to visit his family, but this year he was the only one that had gone through the canyon during Fall to go hunting with his dad.  So I was super, super excited to go for a little drive.  I sometimes complain at all the seasons that we have in Utah, but I love Fall.  I love all the different shades of orange, red, yellow, and green!!! It was just gorgoues and I'm so grateful for this beautiful world that Heavenly Father created for us to enjoy.

The picture above is the first picture we took as we started up the canyon.  I was so excited to see the bright red tree and the fall colors that I took a picture immediatly, worrying that it would be the only bit of color we would see, but I was definitely wrong. 

My shirt with palm trees does not match the fall weather, but ya know, it was a Sunday.

I would have never guessed that I would take a piture of green evergreens and yellow tress, but I found the golden color mixed in with the dark green was so pretty.  It expanded over a vast part of the mountain.

This last one is probably my favorite!!!  I'm so glad we took an hour out of our day to view the simple beauties of the earth.

Utah vs. UNLV (38-10)

9/11/2010

My parents have had season tickets to the U of U football games for a few years now.  This year my dad invited me to go to the Utah vs. UNLV game.  He had orignially invited me and Trav, but Trav declined because he wanted to watch the BYU game that was going to be on around the same time BYU was playing Air Force.  My dad wasn't planning to come along, but he took Trav's spot.  We had a great time watching the Utes roll over the Rebels to win 38-10.  I always enjoy going to games, cheering really loud and hoping to lose my voice. We all sported red to support our team!!!  I go to the BYU games a lot and have a good time, but there is nothing like cheering on YOUR team to a victory!

Me, Shannon, and Josh

Had to make sure we got my dad in a picture.  I love how green the field is and how good the UTAH in the endzone looks :)

Sisters!

I love the UtAh UtEs and always will!!!

Just for history's sake.

2010-2011 Main Utah Players

QB-Jordan Wynn and Terrance Cain

 RB- Matt Asiata and Eddie Wide

WR-Shaky Smithson and Jereme Brooks

 Kicker-Joe Phillips

Random

We took the time to take a picture of our completed puzzle, so I thought I should write a little about it.  One day, I think it was this summer, Trav and I were trying to decide what we could do for fun.  We decided we would go walk around the dollor store and just see what we could find for cheap entertainment. We have made trips to the dollar store and the DI before looking for cheap entertainment.  Well we ran onto these puzzles and took about 5 minutes discussing which one we wanted to buy and what picture we liked the most.  We bought it and headed on our way home to do the 500 piece puzzle.  When we took all the pieces out of the plastic, we realized that all the pieces were the exact same size and shape.  I knew there was a reason why they could sell it for $1.  But we had a lot of fun putting it together and it filled up a few hours and was fun to spend that time together.

 

4th year hike

July 26-28

YW 4th Year Hike

I teach the 13-old sunday school class and Travis is the Ward Chorister, so you are probably wondering why in the world we ended up going on the 4 year Young Women hike???? Well this is the story.

So Trav answered the phone on Saturday, July 17th, right before we were going on our camping trip in the Uintahs(July 21-25).   I hear him talking on the phone and I hear him say "Girl's Camp" and "I'll talk to Michelle and let you know."  So I am thinking, well maybe they needed a priesthood holder to go up to Girl's Camp for a day.  Well he gets off the phone and explains to me that it was Bro. Alston (2nd Counselor in Bishopric).  Trav continued to tell me that they had had a couple lined up from our ward to go on the 4th year hike, but the guy ended up needing back surgery and they wouldn't able to go.  So he told me it was going to be for 3 days (July 26-28) and that we would go on the 4th year hike with the girls.  We talked about it and decided that I would have to check to make sure I could get work off, but most likely I could.  My thoughts:

Well when I went to Girl's Camp on the 4th year hike, they just took us on a longer hike then the rest of the girls.  It wasn't too bad.  I think I can handle that.

We are going camping this Wed-Sat, do we really want to pack up and head out again Monday morning?

Atleast I get to go with Travis.  That will be fun.

I wonder where their Girl's Camp is?  I hope it is the Heber Valley Camp. 

Hopefully it has showers and flush toilets, atleast they will have outhouses if nothing else.

They always make Girl's Camp fun, it won't be that bad.

Travis said he sounded desperate....who else will they get if we don't go?

So after discussing everything, we decided we would tell Bro. Alston the next morning before church that we would go.  So on Sunday we met with Bro. Alston and said that we were 99.9% sure we could go, unless for some reason I couldn't get work off.  He was very grateful!!! VERY!  Then he proceeded to tell us exactly what it was....I thought Trav already knew, but apparantly not.  We would meet early in the morning on Monday and would backpack 3 1/2 miles to Island Lake, camp there for 2 nights, and then backpack out on Wednesday.  We would be over 3 girls in our ward.  Okay, so not only is it not "Fun" Girl's Camp, but there are no showers and NO outhouse!  You have to pack on your back everything that you need (no extra stuff)  And we already agreed to this. :( He continued to explain that they were having a meeting that night for all of the leaders who were going on the hike so we could get all the details then.

We walked out of the room and I was like, "that was a little different than I expected".  Trav was like, "ya, but we can do it".  I'll just note that he always had a good attitude about the whole thing, while I, on the other hand, struggled a little bit.

So we went to the meeting that night and found out even more great information.  We were in charge of a devotional, some of the camp certification, and all of the food for our 3 girls. Well considering we basically had Monday and Tuesday to get this figured all out (because we were going to be gone camping Wednesday-Saturday) we were in, to say the least, a whirlwind.  We were running to Wal-mart, Big-5, Sportmans Warehouse, and my parents house, trying to gather everything we needed.  We were making calls to borrow equipment from family.  Let's just say, we had a lot to put together in 2 days.We left on our camping trip with my family, completely not ready for the 4th year hike and had a great time.  When we got home we were running, running, and rushing to get ready.  We got it all together by about 1 o'clock the morning of when we were supposed to meet at the church at 7am.  But I guess atleast we made it.



Me and Trav with our gear.  Mine weighed about 38 lbs. and his was about 40 lbs.  Luckily we had the backpacks with the metal framing which really helped, but my was it heavy!!



I believe this was the first lake we past.  We actually got to see three lakes.  2 on our way and then Island Lake.

Chandler, Megan and Hannah all ready to head out. Chandler and Megan were 2 of our girls.

In the middle of the hike in. Darcy and Chandler. We were happy to have a seat on the ground to take a break.





So when we got to Island Lake, all the girls were hungry  ready to eat.  They all pullled out their sack lunches that they had brought and we enjoyed a nice lunch.Right after that we figured we better get camp set up.  We all worked together to get everyone's tents put together.  Literally 5 minutes after everyone's tents were set up it started to rain, then pour.  Trav and I hopped in our tent to stay dry, but as you can see in the picture above, the girls thought it would be fun to run around and rain dance. Some of them atleast put on a poncho, but there were 3 girls that just got drenched. Then it became even worse....hail started to beat down on our tents.  I think by that time, all the girls had got in their tents even though most of them were soaking wet already.We all just continued to wait out the storm.  Our tent is a pretty good tent, especially compared to some of the ones the girls brought and ours w as starting to leak at the seams and it had rained so much it was soaking through our rain cover and dripping from above.  It rained and hailed for a good 1 1/2 hours before it finally stopped.  After we got out of our tents to access the damage, we saw "tent set up"(picture below) and asked what happened?!?  This was another couple that were leaders.  They had borrowed a tent from a friend and apparently it had been to one to many boy scout camps and had little tiny holes all over it from ashes that had hit it.  The couple was soaked...one from trying to get the tarp over their tent in the pouring rain, and two the whole bottom of their tent was filled with water. All of their stuff was wet including their sleeping bags, which was the case with a lot of the girls as well.  Now this all becomes a really big problem when you are far away from using anything that you didn't bring with you. They usually only had 1 spare change of clothes because you didn't want to carry too much. In the end, we survived, but we did have a lot of wet clothes and sleeping bags that needed some sun to dry out.



You can see some girls in their bright colored ponchos across the way. 



Darcy and her friend were always perched on this rock overlooking the lake.

All the girls by the campfire trying to warm up.  We did hold severl sleeping bags over the fire the first night to dry them out so atleast the girls could sleep semi warm.

Make shift fire.

Our camp from across the lake.

After all of our excitement of the first day, we ended up really enjoying our second day.  The views were just gorgeous.

The leaders had discussed before going if we should allow the girls to bring swim suits.  We thought it would be safer and we would have less liability if we didn't let the girls swim.  Well of course on the second day, all of the girls wanted to swim. So because they didn't have swimsuits they created them out of large black plastic bags.  We had one leader who had brought his swim trunks so he would taxi the girls across the freezing cold water on the log. (You can see him above on the left of the picture).The girls loved it and had a blast. The stake leaders had brought of 4 horses for the girls to ride.  That was a big hit as well.

Enjoying our blow-pops.

For the most part, our food consisted of Moutain House Meals.  Bascially you had hot water and let them steam cook for about 10 mins.  They were edible and tasted pretty good, but it is nothing like real food. 

Overall, it ended up being a lot of fun.  A little inconvienent to have the wilderness as your outhouse and to purify any water that you drank, but it was a really good experience and something I won't forget.

Camping by the Lake

Moosehorn

 July 21-24, 2010

My family really enjoys going to Moosehorn to camp because our campsites are right by the lake, so it makes it easy to get good fishing spots and plus the weather is cooler in the high Uintahs and it's beautiful!

Trav fly fishes and I use power bait.  I know that mine isn't really "real" fishin', but I enjoy just sitting by the lake, anticipating a tug on my line.

Trav standing on a rock fishing with the view of Bald Mountain (Mt. Baldie) in the backdrop and his tackle box sitting on a log....just plain awesome!

We went four-wheelin' a little ways down the canyon at Soapstone.

I'm not a great photography, but I love this shot.  The views while four-wheeling were breathtaking.

The family clan ready to go hiking to Fehr Lake which is right across from Moosehorn.  The Wilsons came along with us.  The hike has 2 lakes on the way to Fehr Lake.  It said they were each 1/2 mile apart, but it was totally off!...so we were shocked when we got to the first lake in like 10 mins, but didn't get to second lake for another 25 mins. They must just guesstimate. On the way, I was thinking this is a nice hike, well on the way back, I was thinking, this isn't so easy.  Reason being....the whole way there it was downhill and back was uphill.  But it was all worth it because all 3 lakes were beautiful!

Trav was skipping rocks with my little bro and cousin Josh.

Chillin' by the second lake. 

Little bro and my dad!  I love them both tons!

In between our fishing and hikes we played a lot of games.  Risk seemed to be the hit for this trip as well as the usual Nertz.  All the girls were getting ready for "National Dance Day".  What I mean by this was the tv show "So You Think You Can Dance", was pushing for National Dance Day.  They had someone put together a dance and they wanted all of America to learn in by watching YouTube and then have your own dance day.  Well Amanda and Brianna had studies the dance and were able to teach the rest of us.  It was a lot of fun groovy in the wilderness.

Provo River Falls

It is a tradition that we now bring frisbees, water balloons and balls to throw up into the waterfall and then watch them cascade down and then race to grab them before we lose them down the river.  The water is freezing though.  It makes your feet go numb, and then it's fine.

As you can see, our fam and the Wilson fam, line up along the shore for fishing.

I only catch the fish.  Shane, my dad, or Trav take it off the line for me.  I look happy and Shane looks like he is concentrating really hard.

Well we definitely enjoyed our time up at Moosehorn, like always!  Thanks Mom and Dad for always inviting us and providing a shower!