Happy Independence Day!

After getting in so late from the AFC tour I was so glad to have a bank holiday where I didn't have to get up and work on a Saturday! I slept in and it felt great. Christine was in town for the weekend and Mom wanted to go up the canyon and see the wild flowers so when I finally did get up, we took off.
Tony Grove has become a family favorite. It is a beautiful lake with lots of fun trails. Christine, of course, took the chance to do Yoga in the beautiful scenery. I think she should do a Yoga video: Yoga with Christine at Tony Grove.

This is me and my awesome dog Ryker! He is becoming quite the hiker! I found our dog pack the other night and I'm going to start working him on that. It I do it right, I might not have to carry a pack. Just kidding, I'm not sure he can carry that much!

And I consented and joined Christine in some Yoga. I almost fell off the rock on this move!

When we got back from Tony Grove, Christine and I decided to float the canal. The boys have been playing in it over the last few weeks. It was a great float and very refreshing. We felt like little girls with our inner tubes. Lots of fun!

After dinner, Christine had an old friend who had invited her out on a date tonight and he set me up with his roommate! So the four of us took off and had a fun evening. We started it by watching the "Drive In" parade. There was a huge car thing going on at the fair grounds this weekend and part of it was this parade showing off all kinds of cars. It was pretty fun. There were a few that were coolers than others. It was a relaxing way to get to know our dates. I'm glad we got to spend the evening together. But what came next was the best part. We went to a rodeo! Christine had never been to a rodeo before and I think we got her hooked!

Plymouth is this little town with a little rodeo but that is how I like them best! It was a perfect night for a rodeo and I couldn't resist pulling out my camera and taking some pictures. It is moments like this when I really wish I had a better camera and could really capture what I am seeing. The sunset made a few of these shots really cool. Oh, and the horses were fun to watch too! :) There was one wrangler I was really impressed with. His horse was CONSTANTLY bent at the poll. For those of you who are horse people, you can appreciate a horse that will give you their head like that. And if you don't know horses, don't worry about it. It just means the horse was really well trained. It was fun to watch him work. I think I'd like to be a rodeo wrangler some day. That would be fun. The whole day was the best way I could have spent my 4th, even though I didn't see any fireworks! Oh well, I have Pioneer Day in Utah right!?

American Festival Chorus Tour

Being part of the American Festival Chorus has been a really rewarding part of living in Logan. Dr. Craig Jessop is amazing and even when I don't feel like going to our long Wednesday night rehearsals, but the time 9:30pm rolls around, I'm glad I choose to be a part of it all. This was our opening season and every concert we had in Logan was sold out. Pretty sweet record if you ask me and we love singing to a sold out crowd! Well we went on tour this summer with Maureen McGovern. We started in Logan, then on to Idaho Falls and finishing in Sun Valley. It was a cool experience.
Our Idaho Falls concert was not well attended and that was disappointing but my good friend Sarah Murray came up to watch the concert and knowing she was in the audience made all the difference for me. After the concert I went back to her house and we stayed up late talking and catching up since our last meeting.
In the morning I got up earlier than Sarah and her husband Ben so I spent some time in their beautiful backyard. I had fun playing with my camera.




Sarah and her husband Ben drove me back up to Idaho Falls to catch my bus with the choir. The drive to Sun Valley was pretty. I was able to sleep a bit and catch up on the lost sleep from the night before. When we got into Sun Valley the storm clouds were threatening and within minutes we had a all-out down pour! My plans for walking around the small town and maybe hiking part of a mountain were washed away with the rain. I had some lunch and then spent more than an hour watching some ice skaters in an indoor ice arena. It made me want to get back on the ice and had I not been wearing a skirt, I may have rented some skates!
The Sun Valley Pavilion is a beautiful performance hall with great acoustics! It was by far my favorite concert on the tour.

After sound check and before the concert we had some time to eat dinner and get ready for the performance. Maria joined me on a quick hike up the mountains since the rain had stopped. It was wet but so refreshing! We got back and combining our packed dinners with a few others, had quite the feast for dinner.
Here are the beautiful Soprano ladies. The concert was great but the drive back down to Logan afterwards was LONG! I was so glad to be back in my own bed! But now I've been to Sun Valley, ID! Probably the furthest I'm going to go this summer! No I take that back, Chicago in August will be further!

Friends, More Fishing and Climbing!

Okay, so here's some more catch up. Went out to dinner with some friends in the ward and it was really nice. I don't know very many of the girls super well so that was nice to get to know them better. This crowd I especially love.
I went down to Provo for a Saturday to hit two friends' wedding receptions. One of the weddings was two friends from Jerusalem who got married. It was great to see all the JC folk and catch up. The other was an old friend that was in the RS presidency with me. I love to see friends get married!
Sunday four of us from the ward drove up to Bear Lake. Morgan Hall, Doug Hunsaker, Stephanie Talbot and I. Stephanie is just visiting and Morgan is new in the ward so it was fun to get to know them better.
Here's my hand at cemetery shots again. I haven't been walking in there for a while and I just couldn't find a good angle this time but it was relaxing being there.
I went fishing again up Temple Fork with Nathan and Mike. These boys are crazy fishermen! We hiked pretty far up the canyon to find some Beaver Dams. I was glad in the end I caught one and then we hiked back in the dark and got home way to late. Always fun fishing though.

I got this picture while I was off fishing by myself. Look close and you'll see something cool. You don't see hummingbirds land very often. It just sat there while I took the picture and then flew off!
Here's the little fish I caught. We tried to release him but I guess the shock of being caught was just too much and he went belly-up. So we took him home!
Went climbing again with friends. I seem to take someone new each time I go but I enjoy it every time. I feel like I am getting better. So that's the run down!

Moab!

When I first moved to Utah four years ago I remember hearing about all the amazing National Parks Utah had to offer. During my stay at BYU friends would come back and tell me about the great time they had down in Moab, or Zions or in the St. George area. For some reason I chose to travel elsewhere and until this summer had yet to experience the wonder of Southern Utah. Well I made it a goal to get down there this summer and excited when Deborah agreed to join me on this adventure! The drive down was long but fun. We found out all too late that the heat in the Passat would not turn off so we had the windows down the whole time in an effort to stay cool in the 95-100 degree weather. We had tunes and plenty to keep us occupied. I only wish Deb would learn how to drive a stick so I didn't have to drive the whole way!
We finally pulled into Arches National park around 1pm on a Tuesday afternoon. We explored the visitors center and planned out attack route! There was so much to do in the park and we only had a limited amount of time. There is no way to really describe what we saw. Some of the rock formations and arches are simply amazing! Its pretty humbling to see what nature can do.

Balanced Rock
Shade!
The rock in this area is made up of several layers of different kinds of rock. In these pictures you can see it clearly. The bottom layers are composed of a sand stone while the top layers, while still sand stone are much harder. For this reason, the bottom layers ware away much faster, creating the arches and rock formations that you see today! (I sound like the informaitional video at the visitors center!)
We made the three mile hike up to the Delicate Arch and that was fun. It was SOOOO hot though! We were dying half way up this huge rock face that we had to climb. When we got near the top we found this cave/arch that was in full shade at that time! It was so nice to chill in there and cool down with the wind blowing through the arch. From there we had a straight shot view of Delicate Arch that was pretty sweet.

Here's our attempt at taking a picture with the Arch directly behind us. Oh well, we tried!
View from the shaded cave/arch.
Delicate Arch


We ran into a professional photographer up by Delicate Arch and he took our picture for us but it was on Deborah's camera so I don't have the shot. It was fun playing up there and seeing something in person that I had only seen on posters everywhere in Utah!

After Arches we headed into Moab city to gas up and check out the town. It was a cute, happening place. I was dying of thirst and a giant lemonade was the highlight of my Moab visit! :) We then headed to Horse Theives Campground located on the road to Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point State Park.
Here's our fearless car!

We made the best foil dinners in history! I had BBQ chicken and Deb did Hawaiian chicken. While they were cooking we biked down to the ridge and tried to catch the last of sunset. It was beautiful.


Dinner was filling and dessert was great too. We got to bed around 10pm because we wanted to get up early to try and do sunrise down in Canyonlands. After we got comfortable in the tent it was quickly apparent early sleep was not going to happen! It was just too hot! Then it sounded like a storm was blowing in so we put the rain flap on but then it was even more hot and when the storm did hit it turned out to just be a wind storm that almost blew our tent in! I think the storm blew down and we finally fell asleep around 12:30am. Needless to say, we did not get up in time for sunrise but enjoyed a relaxing morning in camp and then headed out.
While driving into Canyonlands we find out that there is no water in the National Park. So we detoured to Dead Horse State Park where we could replenish our water supply and do some mountain biking. We got about 5 min down the trail when my bike broke! :( It was the same problem I had just got repaired and I was not happy. I packed the bike back up the trail to the parking lot and waited til Deb did a shorter loop then I did it on her bike. Sadly that was all the biking we got to do on this trip! But we look hot in helmets. At least we had that goin' for us!
We played around Dead Horse for an hour or so more and saw some pretty amazing views down into Canyonlands.






Early afternoon we were done with hot Moab and headed home. We pulled out the map and found the biggest body of water near or route home! It turned out to be a reservoir just past Price. It was the break we needed. The water was freezing but refreshing!


The perfect end to a disastrous yet fun trip. I dropped Deb off in Provo, jumped in the pool to survive the drive home and then made the 2 hour drive up to Logan in time to stop and play some ultimate frisbee with friends. So now I can say I have been to Moab!