Brooke and Taylor Smith

Shore Acres

2012-01-22T11:25:00.001-07:00

While visiting my parents, we went to the coast!!! Coos Bay, Oregon!! I was SOOO excited to finally see the ocean again! I hadn’t been to the coast for 21 months – when we went to the Redwoods/Crescent City with my parents in March 2010! And I hadn’t been to Coos Bay for almost two and a half years when we went for a family reunion in July 2009! We got to Coos Bay in the late afternoon and checked in at our motel. Then we went to Charleston to eat dinner at Fisherman’s Grotto. I ate a delicious salmon burger and yummy clam chowder! After we finished eating dinner, we headed over to Shore Acres State Park! I wanted to see the Holiday Lights there in the gardens. First, Taylor and I went down to Simpson Beach while my parents strolled around the garden. It was starting to get dusky so the light made everything have a hint of such a beautiful blue-ish color!! I loved it! Oh, and it was raining a lot! So I really loved that too! Taylor didn’t love that part at all. Unfortunately, he really dislikes rain! It was so wonderful though to be able to breathe in such fresh, clean air! The waves were so awesome that evening!! They were MASSIVE! I could have just watched the waves there all night! I loved listening to the crashing of the huge waves too! And I loved the feeling of ocean wind blowing and raindrops falling on me!

We went back up to the gardens and found my parents and looked at the Holiday lights with them for a while. They were spectacular! Lights were everywhere! They had so many adorable Christmas trees decorated by different companies as well. We went inside the Garden House and got to drink hot cider and eat cookies too! Oh and they had some trees lit up with pinecone lights! So cute!!

Then we took one last look at the beautiful ocean and went back to the motel. I’ll write more about the next day at the coast later!

Christmas and Crater Lake

2012-01-18T16:56:00.001-07:00

We spent Christmas with my parents! We had so much fun. We took an Amtrak train to Reno, Nevada. We left Salt Lake City late at night on the 22nd of December then arrived in Reno a little after 11am the next day. The train was supposed to get to Reno at 8:30am but it was quite delayed with holiday travelers. We mostly just slept on the way. My mom and dad went to Reno to pick us up! That was so nice of them! It cost us less than $60 each to take the train to Reno!! On the way to my parents’ house, we stopped at an awesome little shop in Alturas and got a bunch of AWESOME yarn!! I knitted some wrist warmers for my mom and for myself with some of the yarn.

The next day, (Christmas Eve), Mom did lots of preparing for Christmas dinner while Dad, Taylor, and I did some shopping in Klamath Falls. Taylor bought lots of yarn in mountain colors and a size N crochet hook at Fred Meyer so that he could begin his first afghan (he finished it in three days – it is gorgeous!). That evening, we watched "A Christmas Story” and ate pizza that we got at Papa Murphy’s while we were in Klamath Falls. Then we opened presents!! We got lots of awesome stuff! On Christmas day, we went to church and then finished getting ready for dinner. The Larsen family and the Perez family came over for dinner as well. We had tons of fun!!

On Monday, the day after Christmas, we went to Crater Lake National Park!! I seriously love that place. It is just so beautiful! Always!!! We walked around and enjoyed the beauty there for quite a while. The colors everywhere were so amazing and very wintry! There wasn’t nearly as much snow as usual for this time of year, so we didn’t even need snowshoes!

So that’s some of what we did during our first four days with my parents! I will write more about the rest of the trip later!

November Snow

2011-12-06T16:48:00.001-07:00

In the beginning of November, Taylor and I went up to Big Cottonwood Canyon to see the beautiful new fallen snow there. It was wonderful to get some crisp, fresh air! We walked up a trail just for a little while and enjoyed the surroundings.

We were on the north side of a mountain. We could see the south side of a mountain from where we were, and the differences between the two were quite striking! The south side of the mountain that we could see looked as if it could be late summer there – sunny and dry! And where we stood looked like winter.

White Pine Lake

2011-11-21T16:38:00.001-07:00

On Monday, October 3rd, we went on a fun hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The trail was called White Pine Lake. It was so beautiful! We loved being able to see all of the changing leaves on the deciduous trees and the gorgeous dark evergreens. The lake was further than we thought, and we reached it just before it started to get dusky. Fortunately, we had flashlights. We spent quite a bit of time [like most of the hike back to the trailhead] hiking in the dark. It was pretty cool to hike in the dark I guess, but we were cold and hungry and wanted to get back sooner. We were planning on going to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner after our hike because it is near Little Cottonwood Canyon and we love eating there. By the time we got back to the car, it was pretty late and they were probably going to close soon… So we went to Taylor’s parents’ house and gobbled up some of their leftovers from dinner the night before [we go to their house for dinner on Sundays]. It was great to warm up while eating yummy funeral potatoes!

A cool thing about the lake is that when Taylor’s grandpa was a teenager, he spent a summer working everyday at the lake to help expand the natural dam. They built the rock wall that can be seen at the north edge of the lake today! Taylor’s grandpa is the one who recommended this hike to us, so that’s why we went!

Oh and there was still some snow!! It survived the entire summer. The old surviving snow from last winter definitely has some fresh snow on top of it by now. So next autumn, the really old snow might still be there with some of this winter’s snow! How neat. Maybe the snow we saw had some snow from last winter AND the previous winter as well?! Awesome!

We had a lovely evening hiking to White Pine Lake and back. We might try to snowshoe the trail this winter!

Month of October

2011-11-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

We had a fun October. We went on a hike to a beautiful lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon, but either Taylor or I will write more about that later [hopefully]. Besides that, here are some other things that we did in October!

We have been knitting a lot! Taylor also taught himself how to crochet and is awesome at it! Now he wants to crochet an afghan. I finally finished a sweater for Alexis that I started in the summer. I gave it to her and she loves it!

I started a new job on October 3rd! I am a sewer at Beehive Clothing! I really like it so far. I do “Beehive Team Sewing” which means I work in a “cluster” with 3 other people. There are 10 sewing machines [7 different varieties] in my “cluster” and they are all on tables that have adjustable height and we sew standing up. The first few days were spent just learning how to THREAD the machines. But now I’m pretty good at sewing on each machine. Someday, I’ll be really fast at it too! Since I’m standing for 8 hours a day now, my feet, legs, back, etc. are always so tired!! Taylor is so nice and often gives me good massages. At first, my feet were killing me, so we went and purchased some nice, comfortable shoes and they have proved to be very beneficial. We wondered if a cat might like the empty shoebox at home. Helen found it and enjoyed it immensely!

Oh and we frequently get to view spectacular sunsets from our windows, of course.

Helen is such a silly cat. She likes to sit in funny positions and/or in funny spots. She recently discovered our coat hanger. She thinks it is so awesome to sit up there. At first, she was really cautious and careful when venturing up there, but now she runs and jumps up there confidently. She likes to sit there to look out the window.

The same evening that she discovered the coat hanger, she decided that hanging out halfway on the TV and halfway on the stairs would be cool and comfy. It looked so funny! She got herself all cozy as if she were planning on staying there for a while. She left though, because I annoyed her by taking photos.

We went to an MLS Playoff game! It was a Western Conference Semifinal. Real Salt Lake played against Seattle Sounders FC. RSL beat the Sounders with a score of 3-0! I was kind of sad… I like the Seattle Sounders [not as much as the Portland Timbers though!] and wanted them to win. However, Taylor was ecstatic that RSL won! He was so hoping that they would!

So, that’s what we have been up to lately! We’ll have to write about the hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon soon. We also went on a short hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon last week and enjoyed some snowiness so maybe we’ll have to write about that eventually as well!

Great Gobbler’s Knob and Amazing Alexander Basin

2011-09-29T22:12:00.001-06:00

On Saturday we went hiking up to Gobblers Knob from the Alexander Basin Trail.

Normally we’ve been pretty conservative when it comes to hiking. We find a trail and explore it at different times of the day and in different seasons. However, we decided to try out this trail, even after reading online that somebody described it as “one of the steepest trails in the Wasatch.”

We first tried the hike out on Thursday after work. The first part is really killer, but once you pass the first switchback it gets better, and then eventually levels out nicely for a while.

However, after we had gone for about 2 hours and made it to a beautiful high alpine meadow, we decided that in the fading light we should head back.

So, we came back on Saturday, arriving around noon. We made okay time up the trail, but it felt like it was taking a lot more effort for me to get up the trail! I was really getting worried that I wasn’t going to make it, but Brooke was amazingly nice (as always) and waited for me whenever I needed a break.

We made it to the place we had stopped off before in pretty good time. It was so amazing! I half expected Julie Andrews to come running over the crest of the hill and start singing! We took a lunch break, and continued on up the mountain. The views were getting more and more spectacular, but the trail was getting pretty steep. Eventually Brooke said, “wow!” ahead of me when she reached the ridge, and I had to run to see the amazing view!

We hiked past the knob, without knowing it, and then turned back around and made it to the top at 10,242 ft. above sea level. It was so amazing up there! We could see almost all of the Salt Lake Valley, and even beyond the Great Salt Lake to the mountains beyond. To the south we could see Big and Little Cottonwood, and the top of Timpanogos. And to the east, I would almost bet we could see Wyoming on a clear day!

When we decided it was time to go down, we started down the trail, but quickly realized that it was taking us the wrong direction! So, we had to cut across country to find the trail, loose it again, and then find and loose it again! We lost it about four times, and had to tramp across very awesome smelling sage and mint plants. Eventually we found the trail, and were no worse for the ware.

On the way down I thought about a passing comment in an audio book I have been listening to lately about the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. There was a very brief reference to a meeting in Yosemite Park between Roosevelt and John Muir, and the remark that Teddy was a bit disappointed in how little Muir knew about the animals, particularly the birds, that lived in the park, and how he was focused only on Trees and Rocks. This made me think about how outdoorsy people are usually either interested in animal and flowers on the one hand or forests and mountains on the other. Sometimes people (like me) switch back and forth.

But what is so cool about Brooke is that she is one of the few people that are unequivocally interested in both groups at the same time! One second she can be admiring the scenery and the clouds, the next she is taking pictures of me for the blog, and the next she is pointing out a butterfly or wildflower a couple yards from her feet. She is constantly absorbing it all (as you can tell from her pictures), because she really does love it all. It’s something you just have to admire in her.

Millcreek Monday with Mom

2011-09-25T19:19:00.001-06:00

Last Monday, we went on another fun little hike with my mom! We hiked up Bowman Fork Trail in Millcreek Canyon.
It was such a nice day! We had a wonderful time admiring all of the beautiful trees, wildflowers, views, and everything!

My mom decided that this hike was a good practice for when she would climb up to the top of Mount McLoughlin in Oregon with Cheryl later that week! They went yesterday and successfully summited! Mom told me about how steep it was and that she didn’t think that she’d be able to summit, but she did and everyone who was at the top clapped for her when she arrived! Taylor and I will have to hike Mount McLoughlin with her sometime. I think that would be fun.

Morning at Music and the Spoken Word

2011-09-23T19:04:00.001-06:00

On Sunday the 18th, we went to Music & the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle on Temple Square with my mom. We had such a wonderful time! Mom watches the live broadcast on TV every Sunday morning at home, so she really enjoyed being able to see it in person this time! She also thought it was really neat that the King and Queen of Samoa were there as well since her parents and grandparents had spent so much time there in Samoa as missionaries.
I could also tell that my mom thought it was fun to see the guy who does the spoken word parts of the program [Lloyd Newell] in real life.
The performance was great! It was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s 4,279th program. The musical selection for it was:

1. Rejoice, the Lord Is King

    Malcolm Archer; Kevin Mayhew Ltd.

2. The Lord My Pasture Will Prepare

    Dmitri Bortniansky; arr. Mack Wilberg; Arrangement Unpublished

3. A Trumpet Minuet (Organ solo)

    Alfred Hollins; Novello & Company

4. Peace Like A River

    African-American Spiritual; arr. Mack Wilberg; Oxford University Press

5. Spoken Word

6. The Sound of Music, from The Sound of Music

Richard Rodgers; arr. Arthur Harris; Arrangement Unpublished

7. Redeemer of Israel

    Freeman Lewis; arr. Mack Wilberg; Hinshaw Music

Each song was performed beautifully! My mom said that she had been waiting for 50 years for the chance to go to Music and the Spoken Word and she was really glad that she finally got to go! I was really glad to go with her and Taylor and to enjoy the wonderful morning there.

Fun at Donut Falls

2011-09-22T18:59:00.001-06:00

On Saturday, after we went on our morning hike to Ensign Peak and then to Sara’s soccer game with my mom, we went home for a few minutes to prepare for another little afternoon hike! The Harts [except Brynn who was at a birthday party for a friend of hers] met up with us at Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was so beautiful! I think it was the most crowded Taylor and I had ever seen it, but that was alright. At least people were out enjoying the wonderful place.
The air was nice and cool and fresh. There were lots of pretty wildflowers to admire. Curtis, Sara, and Kelcie’s friend Zach climbed up to the top of the falls!

It was a such a lovely afternoon!

Ensign Escapade

2011-09-21T21:59:00.001-06:00

My mom came to visit and she stayed with us at our apartment! She arrived on Friday evening and then departed on Tuesday morning. We went to Ensign Peak on Saturday morning! We had never been there before, so it was very fun to see the historical markers, monument, and the beautiful views from the peak. We also met a nice British couple on the trail. They were incredibly friendly! On the way up to the top, Mom pointed out the red berries on the sumac trees and told us about all the health benefits of them. The weather was perfect! It wasn’t too hot and there was a very nice breeze.

After our little hike, we went to Sara’s soccer game. It was entertaining to watch.

Football Find

2011-09-13T21:14:00.001-06:00

While poking around in some old Newspapers (don’t ask me why, unless you want an ear full), I found this advertisement in the October 16, 1931 Deseret News. I wonder if the fans were as excited 80 years ago as everybody seems to be this week?

Wonderful Wildflowers!

2011-09-12T15:49:00.001-06:00

While camping and hiking last weekend, we saw so many gorgeous wildflowers everywhere! I adore them. I wish I knew what kinds of flowers they all are. We also spotted some very neat berries and leaves! I’m not sure, but I think that the dark purple “berries” might actually be Oregon Grapes!

Some happy little quotes:

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. – Martin Luther

Earth laughs in flowers. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Hamatreya”

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes!
– William Wordsworth, "Lines Written in Early Spring," Lyrical Ballads, 1798

Wilderness Weekend

2011-09-08T18:08:00.001-06:00

We went camping in Big Cottonwood Canyon last Friday! We decided to finally go off-trail and camp in the backcountry. We were both very excited all day on Friday to get going. We got home, ate dinner, checked our pre-packed backpacks one last time, and drove up to the Lake Blanche Trailhead. We hiked up a short distance, then veered off the trail into a deer fort. From there, we ventured uphill a bit through the brush and into the treeline. Eventually, we found a nice, relatively level spot to pitch our tent. We put up the tent, tied a backpack [with the food] up in a tree to keep from having any possible problems with bears, and soon discovered that the light was growing dim and it was time to go to bed. It was only after we got into the tent that we realized that the seemingly small incline was actually going to be a large inconvenience since we both promptly slid to one side of the tent. I slept on the uphill side of the tent and woke up quite a few times during the night to Taylor pushing me back to my half of the tent because I would slide down and squish him against the tent wall. It was still really fun though. In the middle of the night, I woke up and heard some soft footsteps and twigs breaking with each step very close by! I’m pretty sure it was a deer. I looked out one of the mesh windows in the tent but I didn’t see anything. We woke up in the morning still kind of tired, so we decided not to go hiking up to Lake Blanche and instead went home to relax and drink some warm tea.

On Monday, we were considering heading down to Alexis & Michael’s place early in the morning to go with them on their quest to climb the mountain to the east of their house. However, we got off to a late start and ended going on our own hike in Millcreek Canyon. We hiked up Bowman Fork Trail and went much further than we had the last couple times. We hiked high enough so that we could see the Great Salt Lake. It was much easier without a lot of snow on the trail! It was so pretty! There was so much vegetation everywhere! The fresh air was so fragrant! I love Millcreek Canyon!

After the hike, we went to Taylor’s parents’ house for a Labor Day barbeque. Taylor’s cousins and Grandparents were there too. Alexis and Michael went later as well! It was fun!

Magnificent Moonset

2011-08-31T21:24:00.001-06:00

This evening, as the sun was setting, Taylor noted that the moon looked really cool. So I looked out the windows and it looked really REALLY cool! The moon was setting along with the sun and it looked beautiful just above the Oquirrh mountains. Now the moon is completely behind the mountains. It was fun to watch the moonset tonight!

Lots of Lightning

2011-08-29T22:08:00.001-06:00

Last night, there was an awesome thunderstorm here. We had some spectacular views of lightning from almost every window in our apartment! It was such a beautiful night with falling rain and blowing wind and rumbling thunder and bright lightning. The cats enjoyed watching the natural display of amazingness from the windows for quite a while too. Around 11pm, I went out and tried to take a bunch of photos of lightning bolts, but it was quite difficult and most of them were blurry. Some turned out to be kind of interesting though! It was fun to be out in the misty rain and breeze and to smell the fragrant rain-air.

Here is how bright everything looked while lightning would strike.

And here is how dark it was without lightning!

It was so nice to have a refreshing thunderstorm!

Seasonal Similarities

2011-08-26T07:34:00.001-06:00

After we went on our early morning hike to Donut Falls last Saturday, I noticed that some of the photos were a bit similar to the last time we went with Alexis and Michael in November. Here are some of the seasonal similarities that I found:

It has been extremely hot here in Salt Lake City lately, so I’m really looking forward to autumn and winter!

Dawn at Donut Falls

2011-08-21T22:29:00.001-06:00

Brooke had to work this Saturday. She had mentioned that fact a few times throughout the week, but being a typical male I had to be reminded over and over again. In fact, I had completely forgot about it on Thursday evening when I suggested that we should go on yet another hike on Saturday. She reminded me (once again) that she would have to work. Needless to say, I was disappointed that my reoccurring wish to return to the mountains wouldn’t work out for this weekend.

However, Brooke is nothing if she isn’t creative! She suggested that we should wake up early on Saturday morning and do a sunrise hike. We both became very excited at the idea, and all day Friday I was smiling at the prospect. We went to bed early, and then Brooke woke up at 4:00 and hopped into the shower while I got some things together to head up into the canyon.

We had decided the night before that we wanted to go up to Donut Falls once again because the hike is relatively easy, and because I remembered a part of the trail that had a meadow that I thought would be good for watching the sunrise.

We arrived shortly after 6:00, only to find that the last 1/4 mile of the road to the trailhead was blocked off by a gate that wouldn’t open for another hour. So, we parked the car on the side of the road, and started getting ready. That’s when we realized that we had forgot to bring a flashlight or lantern! Lucky there was a waning half moon out which was bright enough to light the asphalt underneath us as we walked to the trailhead.

As we started on the path, the light began slowly to grow brighter in the east, highlighting the silhouettes of the trees along the ridgeline.

We finally found the meadow that I remembered. It was much further along the trail than I had recalled, and it had seemed much bigger the last time when we visited in the middle of winter, but it was still really pretty. We found a log to sit on and watch as the sun started to rise. Meanwhile, Brooke got out her camera and we took some pictures.

Eventually we got restless and decided to continue along the trail once it was light enough to see everything. Around the corner we looked to our right (west) and saw the sun just starting to illuminate Kesler Peak about 2,000 feet higher in elevation than we were.

(By the way, I am wearing a new shirt and a new trench coat in these pictures. The shirt is a Field and Stream shirt that we found at Costco and which Brooke talked me into buying because I liked it so much. We bought the coat last weekend at Eddie Bauer, and it was about 75% off! So, we counted it as part of my anniversary present. I love clearance.)

As we hiked deeper into the area around the falls the sky began to change color from a dark blue to a pink and then a light purple. Somewhere in that mix I think I have found my favorite color. But I can’t quite identify it in a solid form. Perhaps I just like it when the sky is light up in a gradual and subtle change of colors from one horizon to another.

Suddenly we turned around a corner, and there were the falls. The trail seemed so much shorter than I remembered! The falls were beautiful, and since we were there so early in the morning we had them all to ourselves. Brooke managed to get some stunning pictures while I enjoyed listening to the birds in the distance and the stream running down the falls.

As we left, I took the camera away from Brooke and took some pictures of here. Isn’t she the cutest thing ever?

While we worked our way back, we stopped to enjoy some other spots where the sunrise was particularly pretty. The morning was actually quite chilly, and I was glad that we had decided to bring along some warmer clothes.

We got back to the car just around 8:00 and we realized that we could have done this any day of the week and got back to the valley in time for Brooke to go to work! Perhaps we just might try it sometime soon.

After we left we decided that we had worked up quite an appetite and didn’t want to just eat the muffins that we had brought along. So we decided to head to Village Inn for breakfast. As we drove, I thought how it is very strange indeed that I have seen so few sunrises compared to all of the sunsets that I have watched over the years! I wonder what our great-grandparents would have thought about that! Quietly I decided that I should start trying to be up and active more often to enjoy this amazing, and all to often neglected, part of the day.

Awesome Anniversary

2011-08-14T22:54:00.001-06:00

On August 11th, we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary! We had been intending on going camping for a couple of days out in the backcountry in the Wasatch Mountains. However, we were still recovering from a poison ivy incident which had left our legs itchy, red, and swollen… so we ended up just camping one night at a developed campground. We both were able to get the 11th and 12th off from work so that we could go. We left in the afternoon on the 11th for Hope Campground which is not too far from the mouth of Provo Canyon. There were lots of pretty trees and wildflowers!

We had fun setting up the tent, building a fire, and making dinner. Taylor enjoyed reading the current issue of National Geographic and I enjoyed knitting for a while. Our campsite was so cool! I wish I could just live at a campsite. That would be so awesome! Taylor decided that it might be nice to have electricity sometimes though, which is true. It would be nice to have easily accessible, hot, running water as well. So I decided that it would be extremely awesome to live in an old log cabin out in the middle of a forest instead!

The moon was almost full, so it was a really bright night. I love moonlight! It is so beautiful. We didn’t take any padding with us to sleep on. So we put a blanket on the floor of the tiny tent and used that as padding. Taylor said his shoulders were a little sore from sleeping on a slightly hard ground but I slept remarkably well! Maybe my sleeping bag is fluffier and provided me with more cushioning. I really liked the view of the moon through my mesh window in the tent and the fresh air. The weather was ideal too! I was kind of worried it might get pretty cold during the night, but it was just perfectly and refreshingly cool!

In the morning, we drank some delicious lemon ginger tea. Taylor also ate a large bowl of oatmeal and I ate a poppyseed muffin. We also saw some very beautiful animals!! We saw a deer walking around among some trees. It was adorable. We also saw some wild turkeys [one big turkey and two little ones]!! I don’t think I had ever seen wild turkeys before. They were so amazing!! The big one was ginormous! We also saw several squirrels! They are always cute and fun to watch. There were lots of gorgeous butterflies and other insects fluttering and buzzing through too. The campground had lots of maple trees which looked very pretty in the morning sunshine! There were lots of mint plants too! Taylor ate some of the mint leaves and I used some of the mint leaves as perfume since they smell so good.

We played some delightful games of Yahtzee [National Parks Travel Edition!] then packed up our stuff to get ready to depart from our campsite. After we left the campground in the early afternoon, we headed up a road that looked like it might offer some interesting views. And it did! We stopped at a nice overlook and spotted Utah Lake, Brigham Young University, the Provo Temple, the Missionary Training Center, and many other neat things!

We had a lovely anniversary celebration out enjoying nature. I can’t believe we have already been married for four years!! It feels like it has been only about two years or so. Taylor is the best husband ever. He is incredibly handsome, intelligent, generous, sweet, loving, thoughtful, etc. I am so lucky to be married to such an amazing person!!

Timpooneke Trip

2011-08-08T21:34:00.001-06:00

Last Saturday we went down to visit Alexis and Michael after Brooke finished her weekend work shift. We had been planning to go to visit the Timpanogos Caves all week, but our schedules hadn’t worked out, so we went down to have lunch at Alexis and Michael’s house and then go up to the caves.

We last visited the caves more than three years ago! It was a nice day in May, but it rained a lot. (Brooke says that it was a nice day BECAUSE it rained a lot…) Here are some pictures from our last trip.

Unfortunately, Michael wasn’t able to go because he had homework to work on. So, after a nice meal of soup, salad, and sandwiches, Alexis, Brooke and I set out!

Our luck wasn’t very good though, because the tickets to go up to see the cave had sold out for the day. Instead of turning around, we decided to take a drive and see if we could find any other tempting trails.

After a bit of driving we found a very cool overlook were you could see down the canyon we had just driven up and the Northeast side of Timpanogos.

Next we stopped at a pull-off on the way to the Timpooneke campground and the trailhead to the summit of the mountain. We found a really neat stream and so we took a break to take some more pictures.

After a bit more driving we arrived at the summit of the pass between Mount Timpanogos and Box Elder Peak. There was a stunning view from a scenic pullout so we took some more pictures. The air was so clear on the other side of the mountains, and the view down the valley to Heber and Midway was worth the drive.

After we left the summit we descended on a dirt road called Cascade Scenic Drive to the outskirts of Heber City. It’s such a charming little town! There was also a great view of Deer Creek Reservoir. I would love to have the opportunity to live somewhere like that someday.

The town was having a parade, so we were rerouted through a few neighborhood streets, along with all kinds of highway traffic. Eventually we made our way through the town, and then to the highway leading down Provo Canyon, and then to have dinner at Pizza Pie Café in Provo. After we had stuffed ourselves, we went to Alexis’ house and played some games until way to late at night. It was so much fun! (except the part about the drive home taking two hours because the freeway had been closed down to one lane).

So, I guess that the caves will have to wait until another day. Anybody want to come with us when we go?

Campfire.

2011-07-29T08:45:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, after work, we went to Millcreek Canyon to make a campfire and eat dinner. Taylor packed up several small potatoes and a can of baked beans. He built his “one-match fire” and then he set the potatoes [wrapped in aluminum foil] into the fire to bake. Then we put the baked beans in a saucepan and we set it on a large piece of wood in the fire pit to warm up. The food was absolutely delicious!!

We listened to birds chirping, the water flowing in the nearby river, and the fire crackling. It was fun to attempt taking photos of the fire as the light faded!

We really enjoyed spending some time out in fresh air, with beautiful views, and in solitude.

Delightful Day of Independence

2011-07-12T15:43:00.004-06:00

On Independence Day, we went on a fun little hike with Alexis and Michael. We hiked around Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon and up a different trail for a while. There was still snow on parts of the trail. Taylor thought it was quite fun that he got to hike in snow on the 4th of July! I took my field guide to trees that Taylor gave to me last Christmas and I really enjoyed identifying some trees! After our hike, we went to a picnic area, made a fire, and ate delicious "hobo dinners" that Taylor had prepared and some corn on the cob. We also made s'mores! While we were there at the picnic area, it rained a bit, so that was fun!! The rain smelled so good. I love rain!!!

After we left Big Cottonwood Canyon, we went to our apartment and played a game of Puerto Rico [board game]. It was lots of fun!! I lost though. Taylor won. Alexis and Michael left a little while after that and Taylor and I left to go to a soccer game! Real Salt Lake played against New England Revolution. They tied 3-3! They had a small fireworks display after the game which was fun.

We had a wonderful day!!

Rushing River

2011-07-01T17:21:00.002-06:00

Last Saturday, we went to the Lake Blanche Trailhead again and walked around an area by the Big Cottonwood River that we didn’t go to before. The river was flowing so quickly and the water is much higher than usual. The sound of the rushing water was quite loud too! I took a movie clip of the river because it was so crazy! We also enjoyed all the beautiful wildflowers that were everywhere. We had a very nice little walk. There was a lot of very green foliage. It was so pretty!

Tara is Officially a Missionary

2011-06-29T19:24:00.001-06:00

Tara left to go to the Missionary Training Center today at 1:30pm. She will be there for about 9 weeks! We will be updating her blog for her while she is away. I made a little movie of some of the photos and a movie clip that I took while we were dropping her off there. Her mom and her sister Taci cried a lot. Tara cried a lot too, but as we drove around a corner to leave the parking lot, I saw her walking and talking happily with the two Elders who were helping her with her luggage.

Wandering to Wyoming

2011-06-25T12:42:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday Brooke and I decided that we needed a little adventure. Trying to think of something fun to do, I suggested that we take a drive and see how far we could go in a couple of hours. Thinking about it more we ended up deciding to take a drive up the canyon to Wyoming!

It was a beautiful trip. The mountains were so green and the sky was so blue! We really enjoyed ourselves in the quaint town of Evanston.

Once we had arrived we found a fun visitors center that had a ton of little Prairie Dogs, some Elk, an old wagon and a “Welcome to Wyoming” sign.

(We had a bit of an adventure when the sprinklers turned on while we were taking a picture!)

Before coming home we stopped at an AWESOME little ice-cream parlor called “The Scoop”

Brooke got Rocky Road and I got Pecan. It was great fun.

Splendid Saturday

2011-06-23T12:25:00.001-06:00

On Saturday, Alexis and Michael came over! Alexis had an appointment to get a haircut at her favorite salon. So we played a game of Vikings at our apartment then they left to go to the salon. They got back about an hour later and then we all went to Tracy Aviary! We had a lot fun there and saw lots of awesome birds.

There was a really cool new section in the aviary called “Owl Forest”! There were some very adorable little owls and some beautiful large owls. I loved them all!!!! They were my favorites.

Another favorite kind of bird was the Elegant Crested Tinamou. There were several of them in different exhibits and they were all so sweet and friendly and happy to see us! I’d stick my fingers in through the fence and they’d come running over excitedly and peck at me. They’re native to southern Chile and Argentina. In the “Destination Argentina” exhibit, there weren’t fences all the way up to the ceiling… so Alexis was able to pick up a cute little tinamou! We didn’t know if that was allowed or not, but it sure was fun! I would love to own tinamou someday!!!!!!!

Around 5pm, the aviary was trying to close for the day, so we had to leave. We decided to go to a nearby Middle Eastern restaurant called Mazza for dinner. Taylor and I went there once before and it was AWESOME. So we were excited to go again.

After we ate, we went back to our apartment and played Apples to Apples. We also watched a soccer game online as we played. The soccer game was Real Salt Lake vs. D.C. United. They tied with a score of 1-1.

We had a very enjoyable day!!!

Landscape and a Lake

2011-06-18T15:40:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was a great day. I went down to the Timpanogos Temple with my mom and sister Tara for the wedding of my cousin Anna. It was so awesome to be there and to see lots of my extended family! Congratulations to the happy couple!!!

Later that afternoon Brooke and I went hiking up in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Lake Blanche Trail. I guess that we have recently got the hiking bug. I wonder what could have inspired that…

At first, I thought that I was going to die. I quickly figured out that while Brooke and I can go the same speed over a gradual incline or flat ground, I end up going a lot slower when it’s steep.

We didn’t take many pictures on the first half of the trail, but once we had gained some elevation we had to take out the camera to get some pictures of the amazing view!

About half way up we noticed that the pine trees were giving way to birch. Just above where we took these pictures there was a big grove where a large group had set up camp. Brooke was so jealous and wanted to go camping with them!

However, we decided that while chatting with campers might be fun, it would be even better to make it to the top of the mountain and to the lake that we were looking for. At about this point we ran into a couple on their way down who told us that the end was about 20 minutes up the hill (actually, it was more like an hour, but that’s okay. I was glad to hear that we were almost there!)

After a while we made it out of the tree line and found out where winter had gone. He hasn’t left, he’s merely retreated to his mountain stronghold!

Once, we looked back and noticed that you could see all the way to the Great Salt Lake! I was amazed how high up we had gone.

Finally we made it to the top to see the lake! To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. Here it is almost the height of summer, and the lake was still a frozen pond. I guess that just means we’ll just have to come back when it looks more like the picture below.

[Picture from Flicker]

After we left the lake, we quickly figured out that no matter how hard climbing up a steep snowy field had been, going down it gracefully was nearly impossible. It took us about half the time to go down this area, but most of that was accomplished by sliding down on our rear ends!

On the way down our cold and wet rears and tired legs were rewired by a series of stunning sunset vistas. We made it to the parking lot five hours after we had set out and just as the light was almost gone. We did look at the trailhead sign, which had this interesting notice on it, along with other information. [Lions and Snakes and Lightning, Oh my!]

At first I have to admit that I was slightly chagrined that it took us three hours to reach the top when the trail was only 2.8 miles. Averaging less than 1 mph. That means that if we were going any slower we would have been going backwards! However, I took some solace in the fact that we nearly doubled our altitude during that time! (SLC is just over 4,300 feet, and the lake was at about 7,000!) In fact the internet guides I looked at today said that the trail should take about 4.5-5 hours, so we’re well within the target range.

As I was hiking on the trail I was pondering (which I frequently do on such trips - maybe that’s why I enjoy them so much?) about the symbolism of the “straight and narrow path.” I thought to myself how interesting it is that, while it is clearly defined in terms of width and direction, there is no mention of whether the path is steep or level, or whether it is long or short. I guess that things like that are left up to us to discover for ourselves as individuals.

All in all, I guess that the following quote rings true after days like yesterday.

Tranquil Taylor

2011-06-16T20:02:00.001-06:00

I just went into our bedroom a few moments ago and found Taylor sound asleep. Hector was next to him under the covers as well, so I had to take a photo!

It was just so cute!!

As I was taking photos of the scene, Helen entered the room and felt left out. So she jumped up on the bed and made herself comfortable between Taylor’s feet.

So now the three of them are contently napping.

A Happy Hike

2011-06-10T22:46:00.001-06:00

We went on a hike in the Millcreek Canyon today! We took the Bowman Fork Trail (we went snowshoeing there earlier this year!). It was such a beautiful afternoon! There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground in some higher parts of the trail. The weather was so perfect! Not too hot, not too cold. The mountain breeze was amazing!! The air was so fresh and crisp! The smell of trees and wildflowers was magnificent! The sounds of birds, wind blowing through the trees, and water rushing down the mountain were amazing! We heard a woodpecker working on drilling a hole and as we got closer and closer to the sound, I spotted it on a tree! It was so fun to watch it for a while until I accidentally scared it and it flew away. We heard other woodpeckers as well. We also heard chipmunks and songbirds.

Pretty leaves were everywhere!

During quite a bit of the trail we got to hike along a gorgeous creek. The water is so cold, clear, and refreshing!

Beautiful tree tops!

The view from the crest of the hill that we went up to was incredible! Taylor said that when he first glimpsed the view, his breath was literally taken away. When I got to the view (I was busy taking a picture, so I was a few yards behind), I agreed that the view was quite breathtaking as well.

Month of May

2011-06-05T21:23:00.001-06:00

Last month was very eventful!

* we started growing some cute little plants from seeds

* I graduated from the University of Utah

* I also had fun collecting some pinecones from the campus during the last few weeks of classes

* Helen turned two years old

* we went to some Real Salt Lake soccer games

* I knitted my first sweater

* Taylor knitted his first pillowcase

* he also got some new glasses

* Alexis and Michael got married [more photos here]

* we went with family members to decorate lots of graves

* I went to a concert [The Dodos]

* we have been enjoying fresh flowers in our vases

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T12:57:00.001-06:00

I woke up early this morning to watch THE wedding on a live feed from YouTube. Actually, I woke up kind of late (with some prompting from Brooke who was asking me if I was actually going to get up). She slept through it, but she wanted to make sure that I could exercise my inner Anglophile. The computer took forever starting up because it had some updates to set up, so I missed everything before the point when they left the church. At first the connection was slow, but then it sped up.

Right after the couple arrived at Buckingham Palace I realized that I could take some screen shots for the blog! I felt like a photographer as I poised over the keyboard, waiting for the right moment to push PrtScn and then paste it in another file!

The Royal Family on the Balcony of Buckingham Palace

Waving to the Crowd

The Happy Couple

I did manage to get a really good shot of the Kiss!

Waving goodbye!

Now, I have to admit something that probably is not very popular: I am something of a secret monarchist. Not that I want to impose one on our country, but I feel like those who have one should keep it if it is reasonable to do so. There is something important about the tradition and strength that comes from having a person or family that embodies the spirit of a nation, and a separation between the head of state and the head of government does wonders for the respect due to the former and the imposition of constraints upon the latter.

As for the argument that something is equally achieved by the election of a person to fill this role in the German or French model, I would argue that there is something significantly, and ironically, democratic in the hereditary nature of the monarchy – the strange notion that anybody with some proper training can lead the hearts, if not necessarily the heads, of a nation, and perhaps in the end the accident of birth might prove to be more fortuitous than the machinations of party politics. At least that is how I see things in light of the actions of the monarchs of Thailand, Spain, Japan and Italy to prevent extensive bloodshed and restore civil government. (Of course others disagree, but that’s okay with me – I’ll leave it up to much more able apologists to defend the world’s crowned heads, I’m just offering my own option).

Finally, it is in this, namely having somebody who is a national figure that is above politics, that the key advantage of Monarchy lies. Sometimes I feel like I would rather have the Queen and the Royal Family than the Hollywood hoodlums and pop princesses with which we Americans have so desperately tried to fill the gap! (On the other hand, having watched with interest the careers of our current and former first lady, I would have to give them credit for trying to pick up some of the slack where they can.)

Anyway, back to the wedding! After the ceremony was over, I went back and watched some of the “highlights” on the official wedding website. I was really struck by how profound the sermon given by the Bishop of London was. Since it’s not too long, and since it is so thought provoking, I decided I’d quote it here.

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.

Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.

William and Catherine, you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

And in the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to each another.

A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.

It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. And people can dream of doing such a thing but the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.

You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.

Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up in a pithy phrase:

“Whan maistrie [mastery] comth, the God of Love anon,

Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon.”

As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive, we need mutual forgiveness, to thrive.

As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

I pray that all of us present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your joy today, will do everything in our power to support and uphold you in your new life. And I pray that God will bless you in the way of life that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you have composed together in preparation for this day:

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.

In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.

Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Not much can be added to that! Best wishes to the happy couple!

Helen’s Hobby

2011-04-03T09:04:00.001-06:00

A few months ago, we found Helen working hard on a Sudoku puzzle. We thought it was pretty cute and funny!!

Also, it’s snowy today!

Alton Adventure

2011-03-29T22:03:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday the 16th, right after I got off of work at 4:30pm, we headed down to St. George, Utah because the next day (Thursday the 17th), Taylor was going to present a history paper at a the Southwest Social Science Association in Las Vegas, Nevada. We got to St. George late on Wednesday night and stayed at my sister Cheryl’s awesome house. Then, the next morning, we got ready to go to Las Vegas and left. I really enjoyed the drive from St. George to Las Vegas! It was such a typical desert with mesas and cacti and dryness. My favorite part of the drive was the small part that was in Arizona. Some of it was like through a little canyon and it was so beautiful!

In Las Vegas, I had fun listening to Taylor and another guy present papers and a “well known” historian that I’ve never heard of give comments about their papers at the Riviera Hotel & Casino. Taylor did a great job presenting his paper!

Taylor had fun listening to papers for a while more and I looked around at Circus Circus which was just across the street from the Riviera and then later I went shopping at Fashion Show Mall and purchased some cool clothing. After Taylor was finished with listening to presentations, we ate a delectable dinner at Maggiano’s.

We also drove around a little bit before we left for the night and looked at funny Las Vegas hotels and casinos. Then we left to go back to St. George for the night.

Then the next morning (Friday the 18th) we went to Denny’s for breakfast and then went to a town called Washington a bit north of St. George. We found one of Taylor’s ancestor’s graves and took some pictures.

We left to go back to Salt Lake City later that afternoon and we took Highway 89 just for fun. We drove through Zion National Park! That place is SOOO awesome. I love it!

We wanted to find another gravesite in some little town before we got to Zion National Park, but we must have missed it or something.

We didn’t mind missing that gravesite because we’ll definitely visit Zion National Park again and we had some other ones we wanted to find further north on Highway 89.

The next gravesite was in a tiny remote village called Alton. The town has a population of less than 150. We saw a a post office that was in somebody’s house, a small town hall, an even smaller fire station, and a large LDS church. The rest of the buildings we saw in the town were houses.

We also saw quite a few of these homemade stop signs. We thought were REALLY cool!

So we drove around and kept an eye out for the cemetery. We saw the road that we thought led to it, but it was a muddy path down someone’s field… We drove around a little more and decided that the muddy road must be the right road to take because there was no other way to get the cemetery! So we started driving down it… and the car kept sliding all over the place! Then there was a 90 degree right turn! It was scary enough just to get to that turn, and we didn’t want to get stuck in the mud! So we decided to turn around and we ALMOST got stuck! Mud flew all over behind the tires and the wheels were spinning and spinning and we didn’t move! Then we did move a little and then we got out and drove back to the paved road. Then we thought maybe that wasn’t the way to the cemetery so we drove around a little more and decided to stop by the city hall to ask where it was. The city hall was dark and empty looking so we assumed it was closed. We saw a lady across the street in her driveway so we were going to ask her if she knew where the cemetery was located. As Taylor was getting out of the car, a big pickup drove by and saw him and they turned around and pulled over to see if he needed any help. So Taylor asked them if they knew where the cemetery was and they said that they weren’t sure but that the lady across the street probably knew. So Taylor went to ask her and she gave directions to get there. The directions were to go down that muddy road! So Taylor said thanks and got back in the car and we pretended to go that way so she would think we were going there but then we turned at a different road to head back to the highway because we didn’t want to get stuck in the mud.

So as we continued our drive, it got later and duskier! We went through several interesting small towns. We went through Manti and saw the temple there!

Just a bit north of Manti was a town called Ephraim and I was hungry so we went to a pizza place and I got a yummy pizza. It was hard to find something that was still open! It was almost 10pm on a Friday night and most of the places were already closed! I feel sorry for the kids that go to Snow College… it seemed pretty boring there!!

Eventually, we made it back to Salt Lake City and I was very tired. I fell asleep when we got to Provo and then went straight to bed when we got home while Taylor went to Smith’s Marketplace to get some almond milk so we could have cereal the next morning and gasoline for the car.

The end.

Fleet Foxes

2011-03-14T23:20:00.001-06:00

Last summer, while listening to a music podcast, I heard a wonderful song by a band called Fleet Foxes. So I had to get their albums as soon as I possibly could (at the library). I love their music SOO much!! They’re great.

Here is one of my favorite songs by them!!

I really love their nice, soothing, acoustic sound. They are probably the band I listen to most frequently! So, that probably means that they are currently my favorite! They will be releasing a new album in May, so I’m excited to listen to it!!

Another awesome song.

Fleet Foxes is also from Seattle, so that makes them that much cooler!! :)

Some food for thought on the topic of Utah Public Education Spending

2011-03-04T21:49:00.001-07:00

Warning: this is a boring blog post. If you get bored, feel free to close it.

We here all the time that Utah is last in the nation in terms of per pupil spending. We also hear all the time that we have the largest class sizes in the country. A while back I heard somebody trying to explain this in terms of the larger than average family sizes in Utah, but I got curious about the facts, so I turned to the Census Bureau and an Excel Spreadsheet. Here is what I found…

Utah is indeed 51^st out of all the states and the District of Columbia in terms of spending per student ($7,228.58, with a National Average of $11,562.01). But, what’s more shocking perhaps is that we are 46^th in spending per non-student (Total Population minus student population. We come in at $1,702.47, with a national average of $2,224.57), and 30^th in terms of % GDP spent on Education (4.96% compared to a National Average of 5.26%). Admittedly, 30^th is a lot better than 51^st, but still since we are so far behind on the other measures, we can surely bump that up? Finally, in terms of class size we are 51^st (at 21.18 students per teacher, compared to a National Average of 15.03).

But, what if we were to try and fix this? What if we were to try and be average in any of those categories, what would it do to the other categories?

If we were to try and be average in spending per student ($11,562.01), we would have to increase spending on Education by about 60%. In the process we would become sixth in the nation in terms of spending per non student ($2,723.08), and 1^st in the Nation in terms of % GDP spent on Education (at 7.94%).
If we were to try and be average in spending per non student ($2,224.57), we would have to increase spending by about 30%. Yet, we would only be 44^th in the Nation in per student spending ($9,445.34) but we would jump to 3^rd in the nation in terms of % GDP spent on Education (6.48%).
If we were to try and be average in terms of % GDP spent on Education, we would have to increase spending by only 6%. In the process, however, we would become 50^th in the nation in terms of per student spending ($7,669.96) and we would only be 42^nd in the nation in terms of spending per non student ($1,806.43).
If we were to try and have average class sizes, we would have to have 32,057 teachers, which would mean an increase of 36% in the number of teachers that we have.

Now, demographically, I get why we are last in the nation in spending per student. I even get economically why we are lower on the totem pole for per-non student spending (we don’t have a lot of oil revenue or capital gains tax income). What I don’t get is the % GDP spent on Education. Surely we can at least increase it to become average (number 3 above). And maybe we can even match our neighbors in Wyoming (who are second behind Alaska- and I don’t really count Alaska because they don’t really pay state taxes). If we did that we’d be second in the country at 6.72% GDP. Sure, we’d still be 41^st in the country in per student spending ($9,790.90) and 12^th in terms of per-non student spending ($2,305.95). But at least we’d be really trying.

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest after crunching the numbers. What do you think?

(By the way, this only refers to K-12 education. I took the Census Data from 2006 and 2007 to compile this information. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet, I’d be happy to e-mail it to you, or you can click here).

Weeklong Worldwide Birthday Tour

2011-02-27T11:28:00.001-07:00

For my birthday, Brooke entered me in a contest to win a week long tour around the world! Here are some of the pictures from our trip.

Rome

Paris

China

Egypt

Russia

India

It was such a blast!

(And, in case I actually fooled anybody, what she actually got me was some new photo-editing software!)

Genealogy Gravesites on Google Maps

2011-02-04T23:44:00.001-07:00

Ever see something on the internet and wonder “when on earth are you going to use that?” I recently stumbled on the fact that if you have a google account, you can make your own google maps and share them with others.

Now I’ve been using google maps for a long time to get directions. I’ve even used it with Brooke to play a game we call “google earth” (it’s really rather simple: you put the street view onto location and while the other person isn’t looking, and then you cover up the address on the top left corner. Then you see how many guesses it takes them to find out the state (or country, or Canadian province) that is shown on the screen. Brooke loves this game!)

But I recently found a new, and kind of unique use for the feature. After documenting my ancestors graves in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and California (which only takes about an hour for each of the five branches that I did [one for each of my grandparent’s ancestors, and one for Brooke’s mom- see below]), I found the cemeteries on maps and got the pins as close to them as I could. Here is a picture of what you can see for my ancestors!

You can customize the color of the pins on the map, and you can place them within about 10 yards of any particular point that you want when you are zoomed in all the way. You can also label them with a title and a paragraph or so of information about the location. Finally, you can click on them and get directions from any location- kind of handy if you only have a short period of time to try and find that graveyard your grandpa told you about three decades ago somewhere off the main road!

Naturally I need to verify as many of these as I can, so I’ve visited a couple of graveyards nearby to see what I can find. The Salt Lake City Cemetery is huge, and a bit overwhelming and difficult to navigate, and I wouldn’t recommend visiting on a cold and muddy day when you’re going to end up walking the length and breadth of it! The South Jordan Cemetery, on the other hand, is a bit cozier and has an interesting mix of older and newer graves. I’m thinking that I want to be in a smaller cemetery and make it easier for my great-great grandchildren to find me!

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, here are the links for the lists that I have done. If you see any corrections you’d like to make, please e-mail me and I’ll add you on as a editor! Also, if you are interested in helping me to expanding these maps beyond the Western USA, I’d love to work with you on that project!

Smith Family Graves

Barber Family Graves

Beckstead Family Graves

Pierce Family Graves

and from Brooke’s side of the family:

Argyle Family Graves

[P.S. I think that the links might be going a bit haywire, so if they aren’t working, and you’d like me to e-mail them to you, leave a comment or send me a note and I’ll send them on to you]

What do you write with?

2011-01-15T22:35:00.001-07:00

We sometimes talk about the two deaths: spiritual and temporal. I recently heard a Church Historian and Genealogist talk about a third death- Historical. We can die, as far as our descendants are concerned, if we don’t leave any records behind. I was pretty intrigued by this thought, and in pondering it I started to think a lot about creating records and documents, and the process which we use to make them.

So, what do you use to write?

1) My trusty old keyboard. This one is from my laptop, and you can see where the different keys have been worn down. I have no idea how many hours I have spent working on my computer keyboard, typing out things from the serious to the silly, and the simple to the sublime. Things like this Blog, letters, school papers, and some journal entries are things that I will use my keyboard to write. Sometimes I have no idea where I’m going to end up when I start typing on here! I can predict, however, that I am going to spend a LOT of time at the keyboard this semester as I try and write my masters thesis. Wish me luck!

2) My 1910 Underwood Typewriter. This was my Christmas present from my in-laws in 2009. It weighs far to much, and still could use some more lubrication (the letter bunch together on the right side of the page, and the e key still sticks a bit). Shortly after I got it I cleaned it up and fixed it up, and even bought some new ink tape for it (they still sell a generic spool that fits it!). I love my old typewriter. It actually takes me a bit longer to type on it than it does to hand write a note, but it makes a pretty cool effect. Since my handwriting is pretty bad, I enjoy sending cards and envelopes typed up with my typewriter because it makes it legible, but still personal. If you ever get a note from me typed up on my Typewriter, know that you are pretty special!

3) My pencils. Pencils come in all kinds, from my favorite mechanical pencil (on the top) that I use to make small notes in books and write things that pens and other pencils are too blunt to do, to good ol’ reliable #2 pencils that are great for taking tests, having on hand in case you don’t have anything else to write with, and for pulling out do do a crossword or a Sudoku. Now, while pencils are great, they are made much better by the fact that they often come with a little thing called an eraser. I have no idea what I would do without an eraser- it’s like a delete button that you can carry around with you in your pocket! Now if I could only figure out way to install a spell checker on my pencil…

4) My pens. I have lots of them, actually far too many of them. Some of them are pretty nice (like the ones on the side), and I like to keep them where I can find them [Note: Brooke lent me some of these for the photos only. I had to turn them back in right away]. Others are just pens that I use to write whatever I need to. There are pens with caps on them (my least favorite), pens which click (fun, but I drive people nuts because I tend to click them repeatedly when I get nervous), and the best kind (pictured on the side): twisting pens! Someday I hope to get a fountain pen (maybe I’ll buy one as a graduation present for myself), but for now I’ll just stick with my trusty mid grade ball pens.

By the way, have you ever heard the story about the “Space Pens” that NASA developed during the heyday of the space race? Apparently, ballpoint pens won’t work without gravity (that explains why I have problems sometimes when I’ve left them upside down too long), and fountain pens live up to their name a bit too much in zero gravity. Confronted with this challenge, NASA engineers responded in very American fashion- they refused to give up. They spent lots of money to create a pen that could write in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in extreme temperature ranges. The Russians, on the other hand, just took pencils! [Note: after typing this up, I read the article here on Wikipedia and found out that it’s not entirely true. But, I’ve already typed it up, and it’s pretty funny, so I’ll leave it up to you to find out the more accurate, though less amusing, story].

5) Now for the thing that I wish that I would use more in my writing: my Journal. Sometimes it is so easy to keep ourselves caught up in the moment and momentum of our lives that it is easy to forget that we will probably forget what it was like. I wish that I had kept a better journal as a missionary, as an undergrad, and now as a married graduate student. Heck, I’ve only written in it once so far this year, but it shouldn’t be hard to beat my record last year of 10 entries! Sure, letters on my computer, blog posts on here, etc. kind of count as Journal Entries of a sort, and I really should compile them so that they are all together. But in addition to these, I’d like to make my resolution now to record something at least once a week of what I’m doing, feeling and thinking.

So, what do you write with? And what do you write about?

Snowshoeing Saturday

2011-01-09T20:16:00.001-07:00

I woke up early yesterday morning. Not that this is entirely unusual, but it is somewhat irregular to see me out of bed before 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning.

Getting out of bed was complicated by trying to slide away from Brooke, who had wrapped her arm and leg around me. Normally, I would be more than willing to cuddle, and normally, Brooke would protest enough at me trying to get out of bed before she was willing to let me, but I had a specific goal in mind, and she was still in the middle of a pretty bad flu and didn’t notice me getting up.

The idea for what I was going to do had come to me a few days before. I was getting a bit stir crazy from being out of class for a couple of weeks, so I decided that I wanted to get up into the canyons to do some snowshoeing. Part of this can be attributed to plain old cabin fever, and part of it can be chalked up to the strange phenomena of increased physical activity among Americans shortly after the first of the year. But I would not be totally honest if I didn’t admit that my recent Teddy Roosevelt kick didn’t have something to do with a desire to lead a more strenuous life.

This inclination was magnified tenfold by the inversion. For those of you who have never spent a winter in the Salt Lake Valley, an inversion is when a cap of cold, high pressure air traps all of the warm air inside the valley, forming a bubble that rapidly fills up with fog, dust, car exhaust and industrial pollution. It can last for weeks, blotting out first the view of the mountains, then the view of the city, and finally obscuring in the sun. Breathing becomes more difficult, especially for people who are sick, and everybody, even perennial snow haters, start waiting and praying for the next storm to come clean out the air.

I had decided that I had to get out of it. We originally planned on Thursday, but Brooke wasn’t feeling well enough, so we postponed the trip until Saturday. Unfortunately, it was clear by Friday night that she wouldn’t feel well enough the next day, so I decided that I would go on my own. Clearly, I needed to go somewhere close by, with enough other people so that it wouldn’t be dangerous to go by myself. After doing some reading I decided to go to Mill Creek Canyon.

So, at long last I ate a good breakfast, made sure that Brooke was all set up comfortably with everything that she might want near at hand, and set out for the trail! I was wearing my new scarf, thermal underwear, a cozy sweater, and my trusty hiking hat, and my mp3 player with an audiobook about TR. I packed my emergency kit that I got from my dad when I was 12, including a first aid kit, two sets of flint and steel, two compasses, two signal mirrors, three pocket knives, band-aids, smelling salts, water purification tablets, other miscellaneous items, and a new sheet with Morse Code signals and Trigonometry conversions (yes, there is a practical use of trigonometry in an emergency, you can calculate short and intermediate distances with a compass. Trust me, I’m enough of a nerd to know).

Mill Creek Canyon is only about a 15 minute drive, and easily accessed from the freeway. All of the sudden I was passing all of the old Cub Scout camps at the mouth of the canyon that I had gone to as a young boy. I couldn’t help but feel 5 years younger just being in their vicinity.

I drove a way up the canyon, and finally found a parking place that advertised a ski trail. I carried my snowshoes up to the snow and put them on and crossed the bridge leading to the promised area.

At first, I was pretty disappointed. I felt like I was in a playground. The snow was packed, and the ground was level. However, I started to look around and realized that it was pretty cool. I decided to head left, and broke a new trail next to that which was used by cross country skiers and people on sleds.The creek that gives the canyon is name runs right through this area, and it was so pretty to look at! The water pooled up behind small waterfalls and ice dams, making several small pools in a row, and the white snow made the water almost look black.

In addition to being beautiful to watch, the creek was very nice to listen to. There were several small waterfalls, and some of these had frozen over on top, producing a very different kind of water fall sound, and some cool photos.

Another thing that was great to look at was the snow on the trees. If you look closely, you can even see some blue sky in one of the pictures! I was pretty excited to see that, given that I hadn’t seen blue skies for at least a week!

I did get to the end of the area, and the fence came down towards the river. There was one set of snowshoes going past the fence, so I decided to follow it. Probably not the smartest thing, but boy was it fun. I hiked along the side of the river, and then saw a hill rising at about a 45 degree angle. I decided that it needed to be conquered, and with much huffing and puffing and kicking I made it to the top! I still don’t know how I got up there, and it was even harder to get back down without sliding down.

Next I headed back, and noticed that I could go to the right after passing the original bridge I came across. I started going up from that side up a hill. At a bend in the trail I paused to use Brooke’s Tree Guide to identify and check off a Blue Spruce and take some pictures. Looking across the canyon I noticed that the south side (where I was) had lots of beautiful evergreens (mostly spruces, although there was some Juniper), while the north side of the canyon had lots of seasonal trees that didn’t have leaves in the winter.

One thing about Mill Creek Canyon is that dogs are allowed in the area (the streams from other canyons are used for drinking water, so, as you can imagine, dogs wouldn’t be a good idea). There were lots of dogs, I’d guess that at least half of the people I saw had dogs with them, from little yappers to dogs that probably weigh more than Brooke. There was lots of yellow snow and piles of brown bombs on the side of the trail, and at first I was pretty disgusted by it all, but gradually my opinion mellowed as I saw how happy some of the dogs were.

I ended up going up the Bowman Fork Trail trail after hiking the 1/4 mile up from the road (in the summer you can drive). I have no idea how far up the trail I made it, but I’m thinking that I went at least two miles judging from the comparison to how long it took me to get back from the trailhead.

Along the way I took some pictures and had fun contemplating, occasionally talking to myself, and observing the trees and birds.I had just finished my audiobook, and with nobody around I had to find a way to keep myself engaged. Luckily decades of walking by myself to school have made me quite good at this. One of the things that occurred to me as I was walking was a new view (at least for me) of the Parable of the 10 Virgins. We often focus on how the foolish five didn’t have enough oil, and the wise five could not share with them. While I think that this is the main point (that we have to become spiritually self-sufficient), I thought about how easy it is to share fire, but how difficult it is to share fuel. The wise would probably have been more than willing to offer a light, when they couldn’t offer the oil. A modern analogy might run along these lines: I’d be happy to give you a jump start, but I kind of need my car battery for myself.

As I was contemplating, I was trying to decide how this fits in with the saying “you can’t live forever off borrowed light” that seems to derive from this parable. Off course all of our light is “borrowed” in some sense, since, as Paul says, “how shall they hear without a preacher?” so I decided that the responsibility we have is to feed the flame, not necessarily to kindle it, which can be done by others (provided we have prepared ourselves for that too).

My doctrinal revelry was broken when I turned around a corner and found that the path was blocked by a group of tress that had fallen across the path! There were pine needles scattered everywhere, and I was wondering if that meant that I would have to turn back. Then I saw that there were some tracks going under the branches, and that the trees were firmly braced on either side, so I decided to continue on.

Just after I passed these trees, a family that had been behind me caught up to me in a clearing where I had stopped to eat a snack. It was a young couple with a baby on a backpack and a big yellow lab. The dog was very excited, running about twenty years in front of it’s family, turning around and running back, and then turning and repeating the process. Seeing how excited that dog was made me change my mind about dogs in the canyon being gross, and made me happy for them.

A ways past the clearing I came on a very beautiful area of the forest and stopped to enjoy the smell of the pine and the feel of the cold air on my face. Thinking about how much Brooke would have enjoyed this, I decided that I missed her and that I had been gone long enough (about four hours at this point) and I wouldn’t want to be out so long that I didn’t enjoy the return trip! So, I started my decent.

Now, strictly speaking, my snowshoes weren’t exactly necessary on the trail I was on. It was hard enough packed that it would have made easy going in a good pair of boots. In fact, on some of the five or six narrow bridges that cross the stream on the way up the trail they proved to be more of a hindrance than a help. But, on the way down I was very glad to have them, especially the grips on the bottom of the shoes. I think that there were several places where I would definitely have only been able to descend by a combination of slipping and sliding if I didn’t have them with me.

On my way back I noticed a pink plastic sippy cup at the point where the trees had fallen over the trail. I assumed it belonged to the little girl that I had seen with her family earlier, and I was tempted to turn around and try and take it to them. However, I decided to just leave it on top of one of the trees in the middle of the road and hope that they found it. I saw them again at the bottom of the trail and I asked if that was theirs and if they had found it, and they had.

I also noticed some really cool ice crystals on the bottom of a log. Although I took several pictures, only one really turned out cool.

Finally, as I neared the end of the trail I turned around a corner and got a great view of the canyon walls. It was breathtaking and only wish that the picture I took could do it justice.

But, once I got to another bend I saw something that made my heart sink. Looking to the left I could see back into the valley and the cloud of dense smog that was lingering there. I almost wanted to head back up the mountain at the sight of it!

Instead I sat down, finished off my lunch, and went down to the beginning of the trail, snapping one last picture of the snowy landscape before I left.

Now, for all of my life that I have lived in Salt Lake City, I have heard unhappy transplants and sycophantic locals complain about how boring the city is, and how there is nothing to do. Lately I’ve grown sick enough of hearing complaints that I’ve started asking people what they would like to do for fun that they can’t do here. Usually they can’t come up with an answer, or the answer doesn't make much sense to me, like wishing that we had multiple pro basketball teams (who does?), or have clubs that celebrities frequent (do you seriously think that they’ll want to hang out with you? And why on earth would you want to hang out with them?). Sometimes there is an answer that I can respect- go to the beach (and no, the Great Salt Lake doesn’t really count. I really do feel the lack of a beach, though not as keenly as Brooke. Maybe we could just figure out a way to split California, Nevada, and Western Utah into a new continent so that we can get to the Pacific easier?)

Anyway, now I have an answer for all of these naysayers who just want to hate on my hometown: go up into the canyon! Yes, you can go year-round, and yes, it’s only a short trip. Even if it’s just for an hour or two, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it [Provided that the fresh air doesn’t make you pass out].

Finally, I made it back to the car, chatting with some snowshoers and skiers who were just arriving and wanted to know what it was like up there. I took off my gear, counting out the three dollars to pay to the man in the exit booth, and started to head back. It was just starting to snow as I left.

I've just got one question...

2010-12-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

Christmas Time!

2010-12-19T21:11:00.001-07:00

Taylor took a cute picture of our baby tree with a little ornament on it! We got the tree from Big Cottonwood Canyon in October. It’s the cutest little tree ever!! I love it!

I was going to wrap up some presents today but I can’t seem to find the wrapping paper from last year! Maybe we used it all up and I forgot? Anyway, I had saved some brown paper from something so I decided to use it as wrapping paper! As I was wrapping presents, I would put the finished ones in an area and then they turned out to fit together to make a cute little square!!

We set up our artificial tree and started listening to Christmas music on the day after Thanksgiving!

Taylor thinks I should write about my favorite memories of Christmas on here. So I’ll write about one Christmas that I got a cute little guinea pig! Alexis got a guinea pig too. After we had opened all of our presents, my parents sneaked up a box with them in there! They had kept them in the basement, I guess. My guinea pig was a long haired kind (the breed is called Peruvian) and she was SO cute. She wasn’t named yet so I named her “Joy” since I got her on Christmas. Alexis’ guinea pig was already named “Selena” so Alexis just kept her name as that.

Joy looked a little bit like this one.

And this is kind of what Selena looked like.

When I was 12, Alexis and I each got a horse! I was so excited! I had suspected that I was going to get a horse. A few days before Christmas, in the morning (and for SOME reason it was EVERY morning until Christmas) when I would wake up, my mom would let me know that she had already taken care of our pets outside so we didn’t need to worry about going out in the cold to take care of them. So… she was trying to hide the horses!! So on Christmas morning, we opened up all of our presents and there weren’t any horse kinds of presents! I got lots of other great presents though so I was still happy about that and my birthday would be just a couple of weeks away. So after we finished opening presents, my parents suggested that we go take care of our pets… I knew right away why they would suggest such a thing! So while Alexis went in to the barn to feed her bunnies, I ran straight out to look for a horse!! And I found two of them!!! I was SOOO excited!! I called for Alexis and was like “Alexis!!!! We got HORSES!!!” I petted them and decided that I liked the dark brown one a lot because she was licking my hand. So she was mine. I named her Midnight. Alexis’ was really cute grey and white and her name was Pepper. My parents came out and thought it was funny that I went to look for horses right away. After we petted the horses and stuff, we went back inside (probably to eat breakfast). When we got inside, there was a saddle, bareback pads, leashes, bridles, other horse supplies, books, etc.! Later, we rode our new horses while my mom and dad would lead the horses on leashes. Then we rode them on our own using the bridles and it was so much fun! I REALLY wanted a horse for Christmas that year and I was so excited that I got one!!!

Another Christmas, when I was probably 8 or so, Alexis and I got a very cool aquarium!!! I don’t think we asked for one, but we were VERY excited about it!! Dad helped us get it all set up that day and had it prepared for new fish. We went to a pet shop (the same pet shop that Alexis and I got our first guinea pigs “Sara” and “Esther” when we were 7) and had lots of fun choosing lots of different kinds of fish. We named them all and could even tell the difference between two that we got that looked very similar to each other. We had fish in that aquarium until we moved away from that house!! When we moved, we gave the remaining fish to some other people who had a giant aquarium at their house.

So I just noticed that the three Christmas memories that I wrote about all have to do with receiving new pets!! Funny!

We have a cute Christmas candle holder.

I made this nativity set a long time ago!

I put vinyl letters and things on this decorative clear brick thing. There’s also a blue ribbon around it and a bow on the top.

We purchased a cute snow globe when Christmas decorations were on clearance. After we bought it, along with lots of other clearance things, we noticed that it wasn’t extremely discounted like all the other stuff. But it’s still cute and we don’t mind!! It even plays “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” too!!

My adorable tiny pinecone wanted its picture to be taken as well… So here it is!! Isn’t it such a cute lil’ thing?!? I found it in Big Cottonwood Canyon, of course!! It lives on our bookshelf by a bowl of seashells, a bookend, and a globe now.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Movemeber Madness!

2010-12-08T22:11:00.001-07:00

I just read a blog article on the BBC of a guy who participated in Movember. For anybody who doesn't know November has become “Movember” in an effort to raise awareness (and in some cases money) for Prostate Cancer by growing out a mustache.

One in six American men will be diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, and more than 32,000 die from the disease each year. The really sad part is that it’s not something that people are willing to talk about very much. So, in order to get myself and those around me out of their shell, I decided to participate in “Movember”

Here are some of the pictures:

Week 1: Just a little bit scruffy, and it itched a lot!

Week 2: Started to not be as itchy and scratchy.

Week 3: Found out that the beard is really good for cold weather

Week 3.5: Right before I shaved for Thanksgiving. The beard’s high tide

1862: Hopped into a time machine and found out what I would have looked like as a Civil War Officer

Thanksgiving: the ‘Stache from a photo on Brooke’s cell on the way to Thanksgiving dinner.

Week 4.5: The last day of the Mustache on December 1

It was different. I don’t think that people treated me too differently because I had a beard, although I got lots of jokes about Luigi when I had the ‘stache. Lots of people were even sad that I shaved it off!

Snowy Saturday Hike

2010-11-23T16:43:00.001-07:00

On Saturday Brooke and I went on a hike with Alexis and her boyfriend Michael. We drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon and hiked up to Doughnut Falls. The road up to the trailhead was closed, but it was pretty easy to hike up there.

The snow had just started to fall when we got up there, and the overcast sky made it look so pretty! The flash on the camera made the snowflakes show up on the pictures.

About two thirds of the way up the trail there was a stream with a bridge over it. It was pretty cool looking. Brooke took the picture above! Then we took some cute couples pictures on the bridge.

Right before we got up to the falls there was a short drop of about 6 feet that we had to take to get down. Michael jumped down, Brooke and Alexis slid down gracefully, and I somehow made it down without breaking my neck in the process (although I made everybody laugh while I was trying to not fall on my face!).

We took a break at the top of the falls and had a snack. And we took some pictures!

(And for those of you who are wondering, yes I do have a beard. I haven’t shaved since Halloween in honor of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. If you want, you can see more pictures and get more information).

Brooke helping Alexis with her mascara. Make sure you see Brooke’s smile at the end!

While we were at the top I got this hilarious video of Alexis and Brooke. Good thing that they didn’t notice I was taking this!

On the way back, the wind started to pick up and blow the snow around. Brooke took these pretty cool pictures.

It looked like something out of a movie!

Part way back we took some more pictures, and then we started a snowball fight. Now, I have been involved in a handful of snowball fights in my life, but this was probably the best one in a long time!

And here is a video of the beginning of the snowball fight!

Finally we made it back to the road. Before we finished, Michael dropped a snowball and it started rolling, which gave him the idea to make a snowman. So, we all worked together, and despite the snow not being very helpful, we made a pretty cool snowman.

It was a pretty fun hike! I am looking forward to a lot more winter hikes now that we have enough snow for snowshoeing season to begin!

Delicious Dinner

2010-11-13T10:38:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, Taylor and I made a really yummy dinner! We had his parents and sister over to eat it with us too! I found all of the recipes on the Whole Foods website. I had made a dessert called “Pumpkin Chocolate Cake” the day before. So first, we decided to make an appetizer called “Creamy Cucumber Chive Cups” which were really simple and fun!

The only required ingredients were cucumbers, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, chopped chives, pepper, and olives!

We also made some “Smashed Potatoes with Stilton” and they were also very easy and fast!! It also had some walnuts on top and that was really good!

We used red potatoes, milk, butter, sea salt, Stilton cheese, and walnuts to make it. The Stilton cheese was very interesting!! It has a very strong smell and is very flavorful! It’s British. We looked up Stilton cheese online and found some funny rules about it!

To be called blue Stilton, a cheese must:

Be made only in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire from local milk, which is pasteurised before use.
Be made only in a traditional cylindrical shape.
Be allowed to form its own crust or coat.
Be unpressed.
Have delicate blue veins radiating from the centre.
Have a "taste profile typical of Stilton".

Then we made some soup called “Carrot Bisque with Ginger and Mint” and it was really good!!

It had vegetable broth, carrots, onion, fresh ginger, nutmeg, garlic, milk, butter, pepper, and, fresh spearmint.

That’s me chopping up carrots for the soup!

We also made “Fresh Fruit Salad with Creamy Yogurt Dressing” for serving of fruit in the meal. It was really good too!

There were lots of yummy ingredients in the fruit salad! It had plain yogurt, raspberry-apple frozen juice concentrate, poppy seeds, apples, bananas, blueberries, kiwi, peaches, and strawberries!

The only thing we had that we didn’t make ourselves were the Lion House Rolls!

It was so much fun to make a delicious dinner!!! I wish we had time to make yummy dinners more often!!

Richmond Trip

2010-11-05T23:49:00.001-06:00

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Richmond, Virginia to present a paper for the Classical Association of the Midwest and South. The paper was about the Junior Officers of the Roman Navy during the First Punic war, and while it went alright, it could have been much better. However, I’m not going to bore all of you with the details of the conference!

First a little bit about the adventure that I had on my way to the conference. I rode the bus to the airport, which meant that I had to leave quite a bit before I was schedule to take off. After walking around downtown with my duffle bag and full backpack, I started to feel a bit like a bum. Finally I made it to the airport, and the electronic check in informed me that I would not be able to fly out because my flight to Chicago had been delayed and I would miss the connection. I spoke with the helpful, though obviously stressed, lady at the counter and she checked me in manually and said I should be fine because the flight out of Chicago should be delayed too.

Well, I made it to O’Hare Airport. But we were way late and stuck on the tarmac until we could get to the gate. Luckily, in institute we had discussed President Uchtdorf’s talk on patience, and I had decided to, well, be more patient! Luckily I didn’t run off like most of the people who got off the plane, and because I was not running full tilt, I noticed that they had extended the shuttle to go across to the terminal where I was supposed to meet my other plane! (see the map below)

I made it just as they were starting to board the plane for Richmond!

After landing I took a taxi into town and checked into my first hotel (the hotel where the conference was being hosted was full the first night, so I could only book the second night there). It looked pretty beat up on the outside, and in the hallways, but it was awesome inside! In fact, it cost 35% less than the second hotel, but it was at least twice as good!

Here are some pictures that I took to show Brooke what she was missing out on.

it was quite a site for sore eyes after a long flight. (And yes, that is a bidet on the left!)

I have only been to the outskirts of Richmond once before as a Boy Scout on my way to the National Jamboree in 2001, but I had never made to the city before. It’s really a neat place!

The highlight of visiting Richmond was the Virginia State Capitol.

This magnificent building was built in the Greek Revival Style on designs made by Thomas Jefferson (and when they added the visitors center addition, they played up the Acropolis Theme quite a bit!)

It was quite an experience to be in a space that people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Robert E. Lee stood in.

In the rotunda they have the statues of all of the Presidents of the United States who were in Virginia. There were eight in total! (for those of you who are curious who they are, look at the pictures below, and I’ll list them at the end of this post).

Of course, they couldn’t leave out the Confederate Heritage (especially on the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War!) But the statues of Lee, Jeb Stuart, Longstreet and “Stonewall Jackson” are in the old House of Representatives Chamber.

(I guess if you loose a rebellion, you get a bronze statue instead of a marble one. Unless you are a cavalry general with a massive beard, then you can have whatever you want)

Oh! And just in case you forgot why I went, here is a picture of me presenting my paper.

After I presented I went for a walk down by the James River. There is an excellent exhibit on the evacuation of Richmond in April of 1865 when it was finally captured weeks before the end of the war. The pylons of the bridges that were destroyed at that time are still found in the river.

On my walk I got a few really cool pictures of the sunset, including the obligatory backlit cannon picture. I also saw the Virginia War Memorial, which was pretty neat. Eventually it started to get dark, and I had a early flight so I turned in.

A few hours later I had my last adventure of the trip. I woke up later than planed, and dozed off in the cab on the way to the airport. I woke up to hear the driver swearing in what I assume is some Balkan language driving along some obscure country road. Somehow he’d got lost, but we made it back to the freeway, and eventually to the airport (despite the fact that we were almost out of fuel!) and I hurried through security just in time to make the flight to Washington D.C., and then on to Chicago and finally to Salt Lake City!

Altogether, it was a great trip, although I wonder if I would do it all over again without Brooke going with me. But, then again, if she went with me she would have fallen in love with such a charming city and now we’d be figuring out how to move there! Maybe it worked out for the best…

(The Eight Presidents are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson)

Breathe Owl Breathe

2010-11-02T00:54:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a music podcast, and I heard an awesome song called “Dog Walkers of the New Age” by a band called Breathe Owl Breathe. I thought their music was so cool so I looked them up online and I saw that they were going to perform in Salt Lake City!! So I decided right then that Taylor and I would definitely go to their concert!

So their concert was tonight! And it was amazing!!! I think Breathe Owl Breathe has become one of my favorite bands now!

Two local bands also performed! The local bands were: Paul Jacobsen & the Madison Arm and The Rooftop Bandits. Paul Jacobsen & the Madison Arm was a very nice band!! They were my second favorite musicians tonight! The other band was good too, but not quite the style that Taylor and I like a lot. Paul Jacobsen & the Madison Arm has a nice acoustic sound. They were the first performers for the night.

[Paul Jacobsen & the Madison Arm]

[The Rooftop Bandits]

And Breathe Owl Breathe!!(There is also a drummer behind the guy singing.)

Since it’s the day after Halloween, they all wore face paint! They were so funny and entertaining! They’re from northern Michigan.

I also took some movie clips if you want to hear how they sound!

Dog Walkers of the New Age!

This movie clip is kind of long… but it’s still awesome!

A Nice Autumn Day

2010-10-26T20:14:00.001-06:00

Today was a very fun day.

I woke up like at 7 and it was kind of cold so I put on some cozy knitted slippers that my mom made for me and my nice soft fuzzy warm robe. Then I ate some yummy cereal with delicious almond milk and drank a mug of hot chocolate and listened to music. After that, I took a nice warm shower and got ready to go to my classes. Then Taylor and I went to campus and attended our classes. When I was walking to meet Taylor after our classes were finished, I gathered lots of beautiful fallen leaves! I love all the different colors and how unique each leaf is. So Taylor and I went home together around 2:30pm.

When we got home, Hector and Helen were excited to see us so I said hi to them and petted them. Then I was hungry so I ate some roasted red pepper & tomato soup and we watched the an episode of the cartoon “The Fairly Oddparents” on Netflix. While we were watching that, Alexis came over because we have Family Home Evening with her at our apartment on Tuesdays. She watched the rest of the episode with us then she gave a little FHE lesson and then Alexis and I ate some ice cream while Taylor drank some pumpkin spice eggnog. After that, we played our super fun “interactive dvd game” called Planet Earth. Taylor won! The cats were really funny while we played the game so we laughed at the cats a little bit too. Then Alexis went home and Taylor & I went shopping at Costco!

Taylor just recently acquired a Costco card so we finally decided to try it out! We had lots of fun looking at almost EVERYTHING there! My legs are kind tired now from walking around there so much! We got quite a few things and saw tons of awesome stuff. The coolest things we purchased were SNOWSHOES!!!!!! We’ve been wanting snowshoes for a long time and they are such a great deal at Costco!! They even come with telescoping poles and a carry bag! We’re SOOO excited to use them as soon as possible!! We also got a couple of other exciting things like a huge bag of frozen blueberries to snack on and some hummus.

So when we got home, I decided that I’d write about the very fun day we had on our blog and that’s what I’m doing right now!

Oh, another awesome thing about today was the weather!! This morning it snowed lightly a little bit, it rained, it hailed, it was windy, it was sunny, AND I just saw lightning out the window. Very cool!

Well now I think I’m finished with writing about the day!

Pioneers and Dinosaurs

2010-10-23T20:52:00.001-06:00

Brooke and I got back from visiting St. George a week ago today. We stayed with Brooke’s sister Cheryl and their family.

Here is a list of all the things that we saw and did on our trip:

Hiked Angels Landing in Zion National Park

Went to a Choir Concert at Tuacahn High School and saw Hunter’s Madrigal Choir sing
Went to the St. George Temple with Cheryl
Toured the Brigham Young Winter Home & the Jacob Hamblin Pioneer Home

Ate at some pretty cool restaurants
Used the Kanenwishers awesome hot tub!
Went on a hike to see some Petroglyphs near Santa Clara

Saw the Dinosaur Discovery Site

Saw closing night of Tarzan at the Tuacahn Theater!
Went to the Visitor’s Center at the St. George Temple

Toured the St. George Tabernacle

Visited Cove Fort on the drive home

We had such a great time! We can’t wait to go back! Thanks again Kanenwishers for letting us come visit!

On an entirely different note, I was thinking about a scripture that has been coming to my mind a lot for the last several years. It just happens that we were going over this verse in Isaiah in Sunday School last week, and I decided to finally sit down and write on it a bit. If you’re interested you can see what I wrote here. [I make no promise that any of my notes are free of doctrinal, grammatical, linguistic, or spelling errors].