Campsites

I operate about 3 months in the future. I'm always thinking ahead to what is coming up in the next couple days, weeks, and months. (I'm not so good with years) Sometimes this kind of forward thinking is a bad thing - I am horrible at being spontaneous and "living in the moment." But other times it can be very rewarding. For instance, Monday night I was able to reserve all the camp sites for our vacation in May.

Since I don't have any of my own pics of these places yet I'll have to make do with showing you pics that come up on Google :)

The first night we will stay at the Watchman Campground in Zion National Park.

Then Sunset Campground in Bryce Canyon.
The next night we will stay in a Tepee at the Ruby's Inn Campground just outside of Bryce. We are staying here because they have a pool and showers. The tent sites at this campground are first come first serve so we decided to reserve a tepee. I'm hoping that the girl on the rock doesn't come with the tepee. She looks kind of ornery.
The night of our third wedding anniversary we are going to be camping in Goblin Valley State Park. According to the map the campground is pretty close to the formations. I hope they don't give me nightmares.
The next night we are staying at a place called Ron's Pack Creek Campground. This place has free showers for guests. Which is good because after all the hiking and driving we have planned we are going to need a shower.
Then the next two nights will be spent in Devil's Garden in Arches National Park. I'm looking forward to this campground because it has rock formations right next to the campsites. When I was seven a wore out a pair of shorts sliding down the rocks.

The only night we don't have booked yet is the last night. We will be staying somewhere in the Vernal area around dinosaur national monument. There is a first come first serve campground at the national monument. Brandon wants to live dangerously and just plan on staying there, but I like to have reservations (or is it that I have reservations about not having reservations?) Anyway, if anyone knows of a good place to stay in that area I'd love to hear your suggestions.

My Valentine for Brandon

This is the present I gave Brandon for Valentine's Day. It is the lyrics from Nickelback's song If Everyone Cared. This was the first song Brandon heard the day that we got married. We were driving from the Bountiful Temple to my in-law's house in Tailorsville. We were so excited to be married and we were listening to My 99.5 FM. For some reason I picture us in a convertible, but really we were in our crappy Pontiac. This song came on and it just totally described the moment.

The leaves are from a day back in August 2007. We had been married about 3 months and had escaped Logan for the bustling Metropolis of Brigham City. We found a park there and just laid in the grass under the maple trees for a couple hours. It was one of the moments of pure happiness in my life. Even now when we see maple trees one of us will say, "that reminds me of Brigham City" and we both know exactly what the other one means.

So I put those two happy moments together into a picture. I love the last two lines. They totally describe how I feel about our relationship. "If they could love like you and me, imagine what the world could be."

Romance

For Valentine's Day Brandon and I created our own romantic restaurant in our bedroom. We decorated the room on Saturday and made the meal on Sunday. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I loved smiling across the table at Brandon as we enjoyed the beautiful room we created. I love Brandon a lot, but I especially love him when I get to collaborate with him on projects like this.

We made Lasagna, Rolls, Salad, Chocolate dipped Fruit, and Cranberry Juice.

We bought 16 candles at the dollar store and put them throughout the room.
We also grabbed art from all over the house and Incorporated it in the decor.
Brandon made a label for the Cranberry Juice.
And I hung every single flower I own from the ceiling with fishing line to create a garden feel.
Brandon made this wind chime for me as a present. He had me open it before we ate dinner so I could hang it up in our "garden." Throughout the meal I would reach over and make it chime. It sounds so beautiful and reminds me of the wind chimes in my Great-Grandparents' backyard.
Another pic of the wind chime because I absolutely love it! It still needs to be stained - that is where I come in because Brandon doesn't like staining as much as I do.
Our room was incredibly beautiful. I normally don't like red and pink together, but they looked really good to me on Sunday.
The roses in this picture are actually my wedding bouquet
Don't worry, we had a fire extinguisher on hand in case any of the candles got out of control.

These last pictures are all of the flowers on the ceiling. It was so fun to see all my flowers together like this.

Pre-Valentines Day Fun

Here is a little heart that Brandon put together in a moment of boredness.

On Friday we had a chocolate fountain pot luck at work. This was probably the stickiest - yet most popular potluck ever.
Then Friday night we went to our stakes annual Valentine's Dinner and Dance. The dinner was great.And so was the dancing. It was fun to get dressed up and have somewhere free to go.

Feb 13th Hike

This week we went up Dry Canyon. It is up above all the "rich"houses in Logan. It was the first real hike we've done in a while, meaning, we actually went up a trail instead of walked on a level sidewalk. As we huffed and puffed up the trail we realized just how out of shape we have become this winter. Still the scenery was beautiful.


If you look closely at the center of this picture you can see USU's Old Main building off in the distance.

Sweet Peas

My Sweet Peas are growing really well. They love the sun that comes in through the window.

Last Monday Brandon and I made this awesome trellis out of kabob skewers, the straw from a windex bottle, pop sickle sticks, and string.
The peas are loving it. The tallest one is over 12 inches tall now.
And here is the smallest one. This was the first one I got to see sprout. All the others sprouted over weekends.

Happy 25th Birthday

I turned 25 on Sunday. I keep thinking about a quote from Anne Hathaway that I read three years ago. She said about the day she turned 25: "I realized I would never be precocious again." I don't know why I keep thinking about that quote. I haven't considered myself precocious for about 10 years now.

Honestly, I am really excited to be 25. I feel a lot like I did when I turned 21, that is, I feel like my physical age has caught up to my mental age.

As usual, Brandon spoiled me rotten. Sunday he gave me the movie, "Get Smart" (Maybe that is why I've been thinking about Anne Hathaway) Then on Monday I came home from work to this wonderful candle-light dinner.

Brandon was the chef, waiter, busboy, and date for the evening. He did a great job with everything.
He served Elk stake, mashed potatoes, and homemade bread sticks. He even bought grape juice and put it in one of our old sparkling cider bottles.
I was so surprised. I knew I was getting a dinner, but I had no idea it would be this elaborate.
Brandon even made me a birthday cake from scratch - including the frosting.
I'm so glad that I could be married to such a wonderful person. He has gone out of his way to make my past four birthdays truly special.

Feb 6th Hike

Up until now we have been hiking at places we've already knew about. This week we didn't really know where we wanted to go. So I got out the phone book and looked for parks within Logan that had trails. I found one that looked good and we went to check it out. It was Denzel Thomas Nature Preserve Park or something like that. For those of you who know Cache County it is on the south side of the Island right below River Heights. (Logan is the only place I know where the river is "higher" than an island)

Anyway. It turned out to be a very pretty park next to the Logan river.
It isn't a regular park with swings and picnic tables. Instead it is a sort of nature preserve. We saw lots of Deer Tracks.
We ended up on a trail that lead us out of the park and up into River Heights. There was a big field and an amazing view of the Temple.
In this picture you can see the foothills of a mountain as it disappears into the fog. (I promise Logan gets sunlight . . . it just hasn't happened on a Saturday for a while)
Here I am showing off my new boots.
A macro shot of some moss.
The sun, trying to shine through the clouds.

Benson Marina

Before you say, "Not another winter hike post!" All I have to say is that if you think this is boring you should hear about the rest of my week. I could tell you all about the intricacies of doing my taxes, auditing properties, finding errors (in my taxes and the properties), and the joys of utility billing. But honestly as fun as that is for me, I KNOW you'd rather hear about the hikes. (I do have to say that we had a really great time babysitting my cousins on Saturday. Who knew our apartment could be so fun?)

This week we went to the Benson Marina and trudged through the deep snow out there.

These are dead sunflower plants that are now covered with snow.
The hike was really eerie because the whole valley was covered in snow. Usually you would be able to see the Wellsville mountains behind Brandon in this pic.
There was a lot of really cool looking grass.
Here is a cute little bridge for when water runs in this ditch.
Here I am in the middle of some field next to the Marian. It felt like we were in Antarctica.

This causeway runs across the Marina. I think that it used to be a railway causeway, but I could be wrong.


We didn't really know where we were going on this hike so when we got to this bridge we decided it was the end and turned around.