Zion National Park

Our last camping post of the summer. This trip is one we were really looking forward to and, for the most part, it didn't disappoint! I'll get the annoying part out of the way first and then I can just go on and on about how awesome everything was.

The annoying part:
This was our longest camping trip yet--Thursday night to Monday afternoon--so I really had to plan our meals carefully. Especially since our cooler is teeny-tiny. Luckily we got a camp stove, so we were set!
The first night was going to be tin foil dinners cooked over charcoal, since campfires aren't allowed in August, but we found out that in the national parks charcoal isn't allowed either! We decided to just fire up the stove and cook the foil dinners in a pot. Everything was pre-cooked, it just needed to be heated. But as soon as Matt lit the thing, flames started spewing out of a random piece that we were 99.9% sure wasn't supposed to be on fire. We tried it again, decided we didn't want to explode or die, and decided the thing was toast.
This left us with three potentially dinner-less nights ahead of us. We picked cold potatoes from the foil for dinner the first night, and we were in a private campground the second night so we were able to cook over charcoal, but by the last night we had resorted to the lowest, most desperate of measures. We ate cans of chili that we had left on the dashboard all day to cook in the 100+ degree heat. We also made instant mashed potatoes from a water bottle that was left in the car all day too.

The most disgusting part? After hiking all day long in the blazing heat that sun baked chili actually tasted kind of good!

Other than that little blip, it was a pretty awesome trip. The heat drained us pretty quick, so our hiking stamina was down, but that didn't stop us from seeing some incredible things.

Of course, we had to do Angels Landing. That was our first hike of the trip. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, this is apretty treacherous trail because you're one step away from falling to your death on both sides and all you have is a burning hot chain to hold on to. You can kind of see the chain trail in this picture:

But we made it, in all of our "Y" pride and glory. It's certainly not the highest summit but the view was breathtaking. And there is a lot of satisfaction in climbing to a spot that the pioneers swore was only accessible to the angels :)

The next day we hiked to Observation Point. It was very long and hard and hot (can you see my sweet sweat straps?) but worth it. You just don't get a view like this every day!

We also hiked up Hidden Canyon a little ways, which I would highly recommend. Once you get to the canyon there's no trail so you just pick your way over rocks and through trees and stuff. It's super green and almost foresty, not at all like the trail we had just been on.

Here's Matt at Weeping Rock. This was a cool jungle-ish place too. The water also brought the temperature down a few degrees which was nice.

The Emerald Pools. Not a hard hike, but we were absolutley melting at this point and feeling a little dead. I was so sweaty I didn't even want to take my backpack off. But it was still awesome!

There were lots of tadpoles and friendly squirrels. (Matt's face in this picture cracks me up every time. I'm even laughing as I type this.)

The sun cooked our chili but killed our bananas. So weird. So gross.

On our way out of town we stopped at Kolob Canyons. Holy cow! It was so cool! And it was just 5 minutes off the I-15. Well worth the stop. These pictures don't do it justice, but the mountains were so beautiful and red, and it was nice and quiet because hardly anyone was there. It was a great way to end the trip!





Goblin Valley

A few weeks ago we went to Goblin Valley with our friends Matt and Brittany. We had such a blast! Don't get me wrong, Matt and I love camping together when it's just the two of us, but it was really fun to go with friends. We ate some pretty good camping food, went on an awesome hike through a slot canyon, and had tons of fun climbing on the "goblins" and exploring the nooks and crannies of this super cool place!

 Hiking through the slot canyon was, by far, the coolest thing we did on this trip. As you can see, it's just a canyon that's been carved out by the water and when it's full it's pretty much impossible to pass through. We felt so adventurous traipsing through tight passageways and climbing over the stretches of water. It was pretty awesome--even though I was absolutely terrified that a flash flood would come through and kill us all.

 

This picture of Brittany wasn't posed, by the way. I tell ya, hiking like this for a couple of hours will make muscles sore that you didn't even know you had.

So, yay for Goblin Valley! We'll definitely be coming back here someday. Maybe not in the middle of July though...

A Little Summer Catch-Up

Wow, these last couple months of summer have felt like a whirlwind. Here's a quick rundown  of what we've been up to:

We painted our apartment! Well, Matt and Janet did most of it. They did a great job and now everything feels warm and cozy and less hospital-like (even though Matt swears that it looks the same...). Hooray for "sienna sand!"

My family moved to Hawaii last month (I know, right??) and before they left they took a trip up to Utah to see us! I wish I had taken pictures while they were here...there are some on facebook I think if anyone's interested. We had tons of fun hanging out with them and, bonus, we also scored some sweet stuff that they didn't want anymore or weren't able to take.

More books! These are the fancy ones that earned a spot in the front room. This includes our first leatherbound, and a first edition of Little Men--what a great start to our collection!

They also gave us a little charcoal BBQ! I kind of snuck up on him to take this picture...I mostly wanted to remember how pretty and green our yard is right now. The meal was delicious by the way. Real charcoal grilled food tastes so much better than the indoor grills. Sorry Mr. Foreman, but it's true.

What else have we been up to?

Enjoying affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. I snuck up on him for this picture too haha. He looks so content, doesn't he? I've never seen anyone tackle that huge of a piece of watermelon at one time.

Birthday surprises for Matt. His birthday isn't until tomorrow but he got his presents a little early this year. He is so hard to surprise because as soon as his bday rolls around he's on a mission to predict/guess all his presents. But I totally got him this year. Yahoo! Any name suggestions for the fish? Right now his name is "fish."

Quilting! I've been wanting to make a BYU t-shirt quilt for quite awhile, but I never had enough. But with our powers combined, and a trip to DI, Matt and I came up with about 25 t-shirts. With the help of Janet and Brittany, it's finally finished! I'm just sewing the binding on now. Phew! By the way, it's huge. I don't know if you can tell but it's big enough to cover a queen sized bed.

We've also been

• Playing lots of board games--Puerto Rico, Dominion, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride
• Going to local farmer's markets
• Attending the weekly outdoor movies at the Scera Shell 
• Mowing and weedwacking the lawn. A lot. Every week. Four lawns (front and back of ours, front and back of my dad's duplex). My farmers tan is awesome. 
• Growing herbs in our kitchen window. The basil is the only one that actually grew, but that's the best one anyways, right?
• Learning ASL (Sarah)
• Filling out med school applications (Matt)
• Planning out an excellent 8th grade English curriculum (Sarah)
• Killing spiders. Apparently spiders like to come inside during the summer. Yay for basements!
• Watching Tangled, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2, Alice in Wonderland, playing Disney SceneIt. . . my husband loves me :)

And of course, camping! Our last two trips were Goblin Valley with our friends Matt and Brittany, and Zion. I'll do separate posts for those. Adios.

Bryce Canyon

Another successful camping trip! We had so much fun in Bryce Canyon--it's an amazing place. We practically killed ourselves with all of the hiking in and out of the canyon, but it was worth it for the incredible views we got. There is also a great sense of satisfaction at counting up the number of miles hiked at the end of the day. Although, I have to admit that there were a couple of moments on this trip when I asked myself why anyone would hike for fun...but it was fun! And it's so cool to have discovered another great summer vacation that is affordable, close by, and equally fun for me and for Matt.

This first picture is one of the only ones we have together, thanks to two very kind French hikers, but it makes me laugh because we look so exhausted! The night before was very, very, verrrrry windy and between the flappy rain fly and  the street light glowing on our tent we didn't get much sleep. I was actually relieved when morning came.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful landscape

Switchbacks anyone? This section of the trail was called "Wall Street." Going down was hard enough. I don't know if I would have made it going up.

This one is called "Tower Bridge." Does it look familiar?

I just think that's crazy.

Ok so this one's not of scenery...but I think it's funny.

Next on the list: Goblin Valley! Woo hoo!

Celebration Day!

Today is a great day. A monumental day. A day for celebration! Why, you ask? In two hours I will be turning in the last scholarly paper of my college career. Wahoo!!! 11 pages of perfection.

One more ASL class and I'm done done done!

Some Summer Highlights

First noteworthy event, a trip to Arches National Park! We spent 3 days there and did every single trail except for one that needed reservations and was completely booked 2 weeks in advance. We'll hit the fiery furnace next time :) Some of you may remember my trip to Arches last year. I assure you that this trip was much more successful. Plus it was me and Matt's first trip together since we've been married! (Not counting our honeymoon). We were so excited to use all of our new camping stuff and have our own little adventure. Plus it was awesome to find such a cool place only 3 hours away from our home.

Our poor, smoky little fire. At one point we smoked out the people next to us! I apologized profusely...we felt so bad, but what are you going to do??

 Even though it never really got to be the kind of fire we wanted it to be (we blame the wood) we had plenty of fun with lighter fluid, poking sticks, and cardboard. Our fire on the second night was a success though so we still feel sort of hard core. 

Here's Matt near the beginning of our big, 10 mile hike. We took the "primitive trail" which basically means that in a lot of sections there is no trail. We were scrambling over giant rocks, sitting down and sliding down slippery rock faces, and weaving through these amazing canyons. This hike was definitely the highlight of our trip even though we had trouble walking the next day.

 I promise I didn't wear the backpack this way the entire time. But this little hydration pack deal is one of my new favorite things! Sucking water out of a little hose is just so much more exciting than drinking out of a boring old bottle.

Now that we know how much we enjoy the whole camping, hiking, national park thing we have a nice long list of all the places we want to visit this summer! Up next weekend is Bryce Canyon, end of July is Zion National Park, and we are hoping to squeeze in Canyonlands or Goblin Valley somewhere.

Here's what else we've been up to:

Our flowers are growing beautifully. These orange dahlias are my favorite. I've been trying to upload this pic horizontally for about 20 min and I can't so just tilt your head a little bit :)

 This is the cute little flower box that Matt built for me. Love those "little purple pansies!"



Matt and Janet drove all day long out to Arizona and back to pick up this dining room table from Matt's great aunt. This table belonged to his great grandmother and it is gorgeous. It's in perfect condition and it fits perfectly in our dining room. We're so lucky to have such generous family.

Last but not least, I thought I'd share my newest "most embarrassing moment" with you. A couple of weeks ago, Matt and I hiked up to Timpanogos Caves with Rick and Brittany (his dad and sister). Since they can only take 12-15 people through the cave at a time you have to sign up for a ranger led tour and can only go through in your designated time slot. We got up to the top an hour early and a nice ranger girl gave us all junior ranger workbooks to keep us occupied while we were waiting. I was the only one to completely finish the workbook, and I did a perfect job on everything except for the "interview a real ranger" part which I was too embarrassed to do. I amused myself making up stupid answers about what a ranger does all day--play bungalow, eat bananas, and sing to yourself--and put it out of my mind. I carried the thing all the way through the cave and all the way down the mountain thinking it would be funny to get the little patch or badge thing.

So, I go into the visitors center and take my workbook to a nice looking ranger lady at the desk, thinking that she would glance over it, laugh at me a little bit, then give me a patch and I could go. Oh no. This woman was insane. First I had to raise my right hand and make the junior ranger pledge (inside the visitors center that is full of people). Then she went through every single page and checked every single answer. I was doing ok until she got to my forged interview...this is where I learn the importance of being 100% honest. She was visibly upset at my answered and started interrogating me about who I had interviewed. Unbeknownst to me, there are certain answers that the ranger's have to give for this interview and whoever had given me my answers had just incurred her wrath. I was too scared to tell her that I had totally made it up so I just said it was the guy with the beard (they all had beards). She speculated with another ranger lady and when they had both decided who it had to have been, she marched over to the copy machine to scan my workbook! Like she was going to use it as incriminating evidence against this poor kid! I finally admitted that I had just been observing the "guy with the beard" and that he hadn't actually given me those answers, but now all of her wrath was directed towards me (does this woman need a life or what??) After berating me for not conducting a real interview, she made me interview her which took about 10 minutes. Finally that was over, she wrote my name on the certificate in careful calligraphy and then grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the center of the room. I had been hoping to make a quick getaway, but no. In her loudest, most official ranger voice, and still gripping my arm so that I couldn't leave, she announced "Everybody! This is Sarah, our newest JUNIOR RANGER!!!" Matt, Rick, and Brittany were hysterical with laughter, I was near tears from trying to hold my laughter in for so long, and I don't think I have ever been that red in my entire life. She even perched a little ranger hat on my head asked if anyone had a camera...I honestly thought I would die.

Was it worth it? No. But it's a good story to tell, and the patch does look pretty cool.

California Trip

Last week Matt and I had the opportunity to go to California to see my family! We had such a fun, relaxing, amazing time. Mom and Dad were out of town until Saturday night (we got there on Thursday) which was kind of a bummer--we would have loved to have had more time with them. But we had so much fun hanging out with just the kids for a couple of days. Matt especially enjoyed some quality bonding time with his "in-laws." It's so fun for me to see how well he fits in with my family. It's like he's always been part of things over there!
We played a lot of Wii Olympics, Matt and David bonded over Lego Star Wars, we made exploding Calzones, watched Michael in his track meet, watched Michael and Stephen win their semi-finals church basketball game, played some basketball of our own, played Sorry (one game was plenty), jumped on the trampoline, and watched a lot of Chopped (which we're now obsessed with).

My biggest regret is that we only took three pictures...but hey, we'll do better next time. And thanks to the internet, you can still get a visual of our trip :)

On Friday morning Matt and I took an adventurous trip to LA while the kids were in school. I found an awesome interactive map on the USC website and was able to put together a little walking tour of a little piece of LA. I grew up less than an hour away from this city, but have never really been a tourist there. So it was fun to explore it together! We started in Pershing Square, then made our way to Grand Central Market. The market was probably our favorite place. Crazy food and tons of different cultures all mashed together--it was definitely our scene.

We had so much fun wandering around and looking at all of the different types of food and things they had for sale. We bought some mole at a Mexican market (which we had for dinner last night...AMAZING), and shared the most delicious pupusa ever.

From Grand Central we took a ride on Angels Flight, and ended up in the California Plaza up at the top.

Our last stop was the Los Angeles Public Library. This is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen, and you all know how much I love libraries :) The children's section was the best. You can't really tell in this picture but the ceiling was all painted and the walls were covered with murals. Combined with the beautiful wood, lamps, and the original glass windows, it was a sight to see!

The rest of the library was very ornately decorated as well with mosaics and large murals. You can just stick your head in for a second, or spend an hour wandering around. It's a free, must-see for anyone who's in the area!

 On Saturday we packed everyone up and headed out to the beach! We spend a long day at Huntington and had so much fun playing games in the sand, building sand castles, and braving the freezing cold water. Mom and Dad came straight from LAX and met us for a bonfire which lasted long into the night. We roasted hot dogs and made s'mores, told corny jokes, and had the biggest fire ever. It felt like old times, only better, because now I was sitting next to my husband!

Easter Sunday had three major highlights. A delicious turkey dinner with my favorite neighbors, the Jacobsons, and a crazy Easter egg hunt. Matt and I hid the eggs and I have never been more entertained watching the kids search for them. There were a couple of "magic money" eggs that provided great motivation and even the too-cool-for-school 15 year old was running around like a little kid.
But the most important part of the day was remembering our Savior and the sacrifice he made for us. It's easy for this holiday to be overshadowed by the chocolate and Robin's Eggs, but we watched an amazing video in Relief Society that really stuck with me. Watch it if you have time. Happy Easter!