Fourth of July Camping Trip

Every summer since we moved out here we have made it a point to camping with our buds Rob and Tiff. This last weekend for the fourth of July we decided to drive up to Michigan (add another state to our list of states we’ve stayed in) and try camping up there. Rob had been doing a rotation in Detroit, MI so he just met us at the campground. We looked for a rustic campground so it would be more like real camping from the West coast like we are used to. We lucked out and found a beautiful campground! It was surrounded by large Pine trees and we didn’t have people right on top of us like some campgrounds. Rob got there before we did and it was hilarious as we gave him directions on how to get there and he would respond in typical Rob manner about everything he was seeing. By the time we passed by those same things we were busting up as we realized just what Rob had been seeing. We did get a little worried when Rob saw a sign that said “Don’t pick up hitchhikers because the prison is nearby!” But we all survived and no escapees got us. We left after work on Thursday so we didn’t get there until 2 in the morning. We quietly set up our tent and went to bed.
Then next morning we were all so excited to be camping and out in nature again. It’s hard to describe how refreshing it can be. We decided to head into the nearest town and get some maps of the area and hiking trails. When we got into town we drove around and found lakes and maps but no maps about the hiking trails. Rob got a desire to go fishing and so the next thing we knew we were buying fishing poles, gear, and licenses. We got back to our campground and the boys went fishing in the river that runs through our campground. They caught NOTHING!
It was pretty disappointing. But an interesting dinner of Dutch Oven Pizza and a wonderful campfire made up for crappy fishing. Later that night after everyone else had fallen asleep I was reading a book because I couldn’t fall asleep when I started hearing noises outside the tent. I woke Jason up after a while and we found a raccoon trying to get into our stuff – we scared him away.

Saturday, the fourth of July, was a very busy and interesting day. We left in the morning to go into a town called Traverse City right on Lake Michigan. They were having the national Cherry Festival and I had heard about it in a magazine and really wanted to go. Luckily everyone took pity on me and my quirks and played along. We ate fresh cherries and then had a spitting contest into the lake (Jason won). We watched part of the air show, saw all the booths, tried some cherry foods – some things should not be made with cherries , saw some of the beach volleyball festival, and just enjoyed a wonderful day out and about.


Then we decided it was time to try fishing again. We headed toward a lake we found on the map and by the time we got there we realized that it was extremely resort like and not what we wanted. So Jason kept driving around hoping to find a section of the lake that wasn’t so popular. I had fallen asleep and when I woke up we were turning onto some dirt road. Jason had a blast four-wheeling in the Jeep in the middle of nowhere. He would back up and floor it through the mud puddles just to make sure the Jeep was thoroughly dirty (it was). Unfortunately our trip through the woods didn’t result in any lake – but a definitely interesting drive. We started back to our campground and found more little roads that we explored until we found a place that told us about another campground just a few miles away that had a lake with good fishing. So we headed off to Spring Lake. It was beautiful!!!

IT was extremely peaceful and just beautiful. The boys started fishing as Tiff and I sat and read and tried to get a little sun on our pasty white legs. Before even a few minutes had gone by Rob was yelling at Tiff to get over by him and catch her first fish. Tiff ran over there and sure enough he had a fish. She helped bring that one in and then she was got to catch one by herself. It was her first time fishing and she did a fabulous job!!! Then I wanted to try fishing so I made Jason share his pole with me. Rob caught the first fish of the day, Tiff caught her first fish period, Jason caught the biggest thing (more on that later), and I successfully caught the littlest fish ever! We were catching perch and bass. It was so much fun. At one point I rolled up my jeans and waded into the water to try fishing – it was great until Rob’s hook got caught on something and I went to get it and found myself in water all the way up to my butt…I was a little wet at that point. We were there for hours just relaxing, fishing, reading, and enjoying nature. Finally we headed back to the campground for a delicious dutch oven dinner and listened to fireworks.
The next morning Rob and Jason got up early to go out fishing one more time (Tiff and I stayed in bed and slept). When they got back they were wet, cold, and laughing a lot. Jason kept standing at the tent door waving and saying “hi” – he had his mischievous grin on his face and I knew he was up to something but I was just too tired to figure out what. They told us how Jason caught the biggest – I was so proud – until a few minutes later. Tiff and I were still in bed when Tiff overheard Jason and Rob talking. She asked them “Rob, why are talking like a doctor with Jason? Why do you have the medical kit out? WHAT HAPPENED?” I jumped up and said “Oh, no, what did Jason do?” Well the big fish that Jason caught was himself! He was taking the hook out of a little fish when somehow the hook wound up in his finger instead – and it was in there deep!

We couldn’t take it out because of the barbs and stuff. So luckily Tiff had a feeling to bring Rob’s medical kit and Dr. Rob performed a little surgery on my hubby. He cleaned it really well and then gave Jason a few shots of numbing stuff and then took out a scapel and sliced Jason’s finger right there at the campground. They finally were able to extract the hook and did more cleaning and disinfecting of Jason’s finger. Rob did a fantastic job and we figure from now on we have to take Rob with us on all trips just in case. He wrapped Jason’s finger up good and tight and we set about cleaning up the campground. We made it home that night after a wonderful, although exhausting, camping trip with our buddies!

Some Summer!!

Some Summer!! July 8, 2009
I love summer! The trees are in full bloom, there are flowers everywhere, it’s warm (although not too warm preferably), and there is SOOOOOO much to do! We are already filling our summer up with a ton of stuff – it feels like we have something going on every night. Once we got back from our fabulous vacation in Utah we jumped right back into life here in Chicago. We had a BBQ with a family that we have grown to love out here, the Billings, and it was a blast – the only sad thing was that it rained so we couldn’t go to the pool (we are going tonight instead). We have been golfing a few times and I love it! I honestly never thought I would be into golf but it is a sport that I find so relaxing and fun. Who would have ever thought?
Then last night we went to a Cubs game with Rob and Tiff and Rob caught a baseball! It was a foul ball and it was flying toward us and came down about 2 rows behind us but it ricocheted off the hand of the person going for it behind us and Rob jumped up and got it! It was great!!!! It was a night game which we haven’t done before. It was a little different dynamic then a Saturday afternoon game but it was still a blast! And although my cubbies lost by 1 we still had a great time.
We have also been having fun with lots of friends this summer. We had a BBQ with people Jason works with downtown, my work is having a picnic, we are both celebrating our birthdays this month, it’s just crazy busy and I love every minute of it!

That's what Friends are for!

So while in Utah we set aside some time to visit with friends. It is always so hard to squeeze everything in when we go out there that we never get to see everyone so we have to see certain people on certain trips. Then on the next trip out we visit with other people. It gets pretty crazy to say the least.
This time we spent our first day in Utah running errands and seeing whoever we could. Once we had dentists appointments, haircuts, and shopping done it was time to meet up with friends. Jason went out to lunch with one of his former bosses and had a great time! I took my little brother with me and met up with a great friend from my theater days. We caught up on all the gossip in our lives and then I went with her to the theater where she was holding call backs for the Scarlet Pimpernel. Anne (the friend I met up with) had originally musically directed me in that show and the theater was doing it again. When I saw the director of the show Bruce we both teared up as we hugged. He and I had worked together in many shows during my theater days and he had also directed me in Scarlet Pimpernel. It was so nice to see him again. In addition to catching up with Anne and Bruce I ran into about 3-4 other people that I haven’t seen for years that I used to perform with! It brought back so many memories!
Then I headed off with Bryan to see him perform in Desert Star Playhouse’s show American Fork Idol. Jason met me there with our friends Mike and Kim. And we all laughed and had such a great time as I watched my baby brother perform on the stage. He has turned into quick the performer! I was so proud of him! He did a great job. Then I ran into a couple of people that I had performed with at Desert Star Playhouse – Mary Williams & Scott Holman. It was great fun to catch up and see so many people that I had worked with in the past. It’s hard to explain the bond you make with people when you perform on stage with them night after night. They become like family and you always have these memories and experiences to keep you bonded!
After our return from Yellowstone we had a couple of other game nights with friends. We met with a group of Jason’s friends from High School. In junior high school Jason got to know a group of kids and they all became friends. They remained friends all through junior high and into high school. The amazing thing about this group is that they continued to be friends after high school. They remained in touch although they all moved on with their lives. Whenever someone got married their spouse was welcomed into the group and became part of this strong friendship. When Jason and I married I was amazed at how wonderful these friends were. While out in Utah on this trip they arranged to have as many people from the group get together as they could and it was a wonderful time! We saw all the new family members that had joined families and caught up on everyone’s lives. In addition we had to play a game for old times sake and it was a fun night had by all. We are very lucky to have such a great support group of friends that has lasted through such a long time.
Then the next night we met up with another group of friends. This time is was college friends. We would get together with Mike & Kim Palmer and Courtney & Andrew Gatherum all the time while Jason was still in College. Jason, Mike, and Andrew were all in the Business Program together at Weber State. In addition to working on many projects together we began hanging out a lot as couples. Now families are growing but it was just like we’d never been away once we all got together again. It was fun to joke and laugh and yes play more games 
We had such a wonderful time visiting with our friends – the only bad part was that we couldn’t get together with everyone. We have a lot of friends that we didn’t get to see this trip but will definitely try to see on the next one!

Family, Family, and more family!

So I accidently lost the pictures on my memory stick for the rest of our trip but luckily I saved it on my moms computer before we left so I will add pictures when she sends them.
Jason and I just returned from a fantastic trip out to Utah to visit our families! We flew in late Wednesday night, June 3, and the fun began. We had to make a quick run over to Diana’s parents home since her brother Marc, was unexpectedly there for one night. His flight to St. George got reroute and he had to spend a night in Salt Lake – lucky us! We had a fun time laughing and talking as a family.
On Friday, we spent the day with Jason’s family. We went and saw his nephew at his 6th Grade Graduation and then surprised the other kids at school. It was so much fun. We went out to lunch with all his siblings and their kids at Rumbi’s (super yummy food) and then went back to the house and enjoyed spending time together. Jason went golfing with Diana’s brother-in-law (which since it was golf Jason was in heaven). We ended the night by playing games with the family. We had 2 different tables of games being played and the nieces and nephews were loving every minute of it.
Saturday was another fun family day. Jason started the day off golfing with another brother-in-law (can I say this was turning into Jason’s dream vacation with all of the golf outings). Then we met up with Jason’s family and went to the Air Show up at Hill Air Force Base. It was fun – except that Jason and I missed the ThunderBirds because we went to the game store and bought a couple of new games to bring home to Chicago. We finished the night off by hanging out with the Bowler family and having a nice big dinner and of course played games 
After our Yellowstone trip we spent some more time together as family. On Friday night Jason’s parents took Jason and I out for our Birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Then we went over to his sister’s house to play Rock Band on the Game Cube. It was a lot of fun and eventually I got pretty good at being the drummer – what fun is being the singer when you can instead play the drums. Jason was rockin’ at the guitar! We had so much fun.
On Saturday morning we met up with both the Bowlers and the Dayleys (Diana’s Family) to drive down to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. Before they dedicate a Mormon Temple they let anyone who wants to see it go through the temple. So we took all the kids and went through the temple. It was beautiful inside and out. It was also a great reminder that families are forever!
Sunday was bittersweet for us as we had to say goodbye to everyone. We went to church with Diana’s family and then visited with Jason’s grandmother again. We said goodbye to everyone and that is always a hard thing to do. Jason’s little nieces & nephews were all over him wanting to play with Uncle Jason one more time! It was the cutest thing ever! We are so lucky to have such wonderful families that love us and that we love so much!

What a Wonderful World!

We just had the most wonderful week up at my sister’s family cabin outside of West Yellowstone – in Island Park, Idaho. We’ve been going up there numerous times every summer for the last 16 years and every time has been wonderful! This summer was quieter than normal since we only had Jason and I, my parents, my little brother Bryan, and my sister Athena’s family. I drove up with my parents and brother-in-law on Sunday and Jason and Bryan came up the next day. It was so relaxing!!! That’s the best part about going to the cabin. It is right on Henry’s Fork River so you can go canoeing, kayaking, fishing (lots of fishes), or take walks by the river. We did a little of everything except the kayaking – it was only in the 50’s temperature so it was a bit chilly to try Kayaking.

On Tuesday everyone piled into the vehicles and we drove into Yellowstone Park. That is always one of my favorite things to do. We saw a bear, lots of Elk, a bald eagle, buffalo (they walked right next to the Jeep – I could have reached out and petted them), Antelope, a couple of Coyotes, but no Moose. The cabin Moose that I see every year didn’t even show up this time, although we saw his droppings and prints all around the cabin. We had a great time in the park!
Jason always complains that he is not the best fisherman so I was really hoping that this year would be different. My sister Athena and I had found a great little fishing hole that we were catching a ton of fishes at so I took Jason out to it. I caught the first couple of fishes but nothing for Jason. So we moved down a little and boom – he was catching them like crazy. We started having a little competition to see who could catch the most and ended up tying. It was pretty funny because one of us would catch a fish and then minutes later the other person caught one and it was tied again. We had a lot of fun. When we went out the next day Jason’s luck wasn’t as good and I ended up being the fishing champion – although his fish were bigger than mine. My 10 year old niece beat us all by catching the largest rainbow trout of the trip. It was a good 10 inches bigger than anyone else’s fish. She was so proud of her big fish – it was so cute to see. My nephew and sister also caught 2 big fishes but they were white fish which we don’t really like.


The hardest part of the time up at the cabin was seeing my dad not being able to fish. The high altitude affects his breathing and he really struggles to breathe while we are up there. But he really wanted to go up there with us and so he did it anyways. It broke my heart to see him up there and not able to fish as much as he wanted to. But the time we spent together while there was priceless! I was flooded of memories of my dad teaching me how to fish on that very river, my dad running into the house every year declaring that the Moose was outside the window or chasing him on the river. My 6 year old niece thinks that the best part is playing the game Pit with Papa while up at the cabin. The evenings at the cabin are filled with game playing and movies. We all laugh and play. That’s the best part of going up to the cabin every year – the memories with family that we make.

We also added a new memory this year while up there. We went over to Mesa Falls (only a few miles away from the cabin). It has a beautiful water fall and a very nice visitor’s center that has the furs/skins of about 20 animals that you can touch and feel. We had a good time looking at everything and taking a little hike down to the waterfall.
Overall it was a wonderful vacation with my wonderful family!

Nauvoo Weekend

Ahhh… yet again another wonderful Nauvoo Memorial Day weekend! Last year we were invited to go to Nauvoo with a few members of our church and it was a great experience. We were lucky enough to be invited to join again this year and it was a blast!
Jason and I left after work on Friday and picked up 3 of the teenage boys from our ward. I was a little curious to see how 3 teenage boys would be in a car for 4 ½ hours but they were great. We listened to music the whole way down with all of us singing along! We stopped for dinner and met up with the Billings family at Subway. One thing that did make me laugh was how much those boys send text messages I thought that was a girl thing – boy was I wrong!


We got to Nauvoo at about 10:30 and the kids immediately wanted to play games. We got unloaded and I tried to go to bed at midnight to no avail. Around 3 am I finally fell asleep – only to wake up at 6 am to help with breakfast. Jason went golfing with some of the other guys in the group and I worked on my dad’s history and took naps. The weather was gorgeous!!!! We ran into a member of our Stake Presidency and visited with him for a little while. Then Jason and I had the opportunity to do a session at the Nauvoo Temple.

That temple means so much to me – I don’t know if it’s because my ancestors helped build the original and went through the temple there themselves or because the saints sacrificed so much to have the temple built and then had to turn around and leave it. For whatever reason, I really love that temple and get such a great feeling every time I see it. We finished the night by going to see a group perform Polynesian dances (wow!!!!!) and then more games (of course). Rob and Tiff arrived later that night and Jason was in heaven to have his buddy back!
On Sunday it was another beautiful day. Jason and I went to church and then we explored and enjoyed nature with Rob and Tiffany. We went on a walk around Nauvoo so I could get some pictures and enjoyed watching the sun set on the Mississippi River. Nauvoo is so quiet and peaceful that I felt so relaxed the entire weekend.
Monday we headed home and Rob and Jason went golfing again. Tiff and I drove home together and the boys went home together. Before we left we took the two youngest Billings kids – Cameron and Kristin out on a “date” to get ice cream. We had promised them earlier in the week that we would take them out while we were in Nauvoo. They are great kids!


It was a fantastic weekend although I was completely exhausted when we got home. We got very little sleep because of all the games and fun! We tried some new games that I will have to buy – KuhHandel & Wacky Sixes. Those were a lot of fun!

What a weekend

What a weekend we’ve just had!! It was definitely packed with a lot of fun – some adventures – and many hours spent with each other and friends!
We went house hunting after taking a month and half break. We saw 10 houses and found one that we really liked. We are now in the big debate of “Do we make an offer?” and even more so of “If we make an offer, how much do we offer???” I hate that debate! While house hunting we had some interesting things happen. Our realtor Rose is the sweetest person ever (and super patient with us) she brought her 5 year old daughter Lexie and her husband Greg, who is a member of our church, with her and we all had a great time together followed by a yummy pizza lunch. One of the houses we went into started out really great – I had great possibilities for it and loved a lot of the things they had done to it. When we went downstairs to see the basement the lights going down the stairs didn’t work – but that can’t stop me…I was in the lead and started down the stairs and into the basement. A few steps into the basement I suddenly realized that I was now in water – up to my ankles!!!! We have had a lot of rain recently and apparently that particular house doesn’t handle water well. We quickly left – me with a wet foot!
I thought that would be the extent of our “Fun” for the house hunting expedition until we saw another house that raised a few eyebrows. The owner is an older gentleman that we discovered is originally from Germany. He loves Porsche’s and actually had a few on his property that his son was restoring. So we enter the house and I go into the master bedroom. I quickly came out with a shocked look on my face. Jason looks at me and all I could say was “Look at the picture hanging on the wall above his bed.” Jason bursts out laughing and comes back to me with an incredulous look on his face. This gentleman had a nicely framed picture of Adolf Hitler hanging in a place of honor in his room. WHAT?!#(%^#) That is insane!!!! Did he miss the whole WWII thing? Needless to say we didn’t put that house on our list of possible….I was in too much shock – we all were.
Some other great things for this weekend included a CUB’s baseball games. A friend of Jason’s from work has season tickets and invited us to join her and her husband for the game. It was incredible weather and we loved it! There is such a great feeling of excitement as you are sitting there surrounded by 40,455 other cub fans! In addition we saw Ron Santos and Jason and I saw our first Grand Slam. Bases loaded and POW! He hit one out of the ball field!! It was great!

And last but totally not least was our new acquisition – bikes! A couple that we have become friends with is preparing a move out to the Seattle area and decided that they were going to bring as little as possible back with them and offered us their Trek Bikes. We jumped on it and got an amazing deal (and no Tiffany we did not rip them off – they will be blessed)! We got 2 bikes one for me and one for Jason, a thing that attaches to the hitch on the jeep to transport the bikes, helmets, a computer thing to calculate speed and distance traveled, an indoor trainer for the bikes, and repair stuff. So on Saturday night we went on our first bike ride in ages! It has been so long since I rode a bike and I absolutely loved it – although my butt really hurt afterwards. We’ve made a goal to try to go bike riding every night. Along our bike ride we saw my second favorite spring thing next to tulips – baby geese and ducklings. They recently hatched and they are all around the ponds and are just so darn cute! I love spring!!!!