Jack-O-Laterns

I LOVE FaLl especially now that we are living in Utah when we actually have a season to enjoy. I love driving up the canyons to see all the trees changing colors and leaves falling off. I love the unpredictable let it snow one day and then 75 degree next day weather. Most of all I love the Holidays that come with Fall. HaLLoWeeN, Thanksgiving and then of course Winter comes and we have Christmas.

We finally found time this past weekend to get into the Fall Spirit. We carved pumpkins, enjoyed an outdoor play "The Legend of Sleepy Hallow", cooked and ate pumpkin seeds, enjoyed fresh homemade pumpkin rolls and most off all enjoyed each others company. Our friends Cory and Jamie joined us at our house Friday night for a pumpkin carving adventure. It was lots of fun to use our creativity to carve some interesting Jack-O-Laterns.

21 !!! Here we come Vegas

Well, I finally turned 21 last week. Vegas here we come. Matt and I headed down to Vegas last Wednesday night to meet up with my Grandparents. They were so kind to let us use their timeshare for the 5 days we were in town. We had a lot of fun. The first night we met at my Uncle Sid's house and visited with the cousins a bit. They are all so big, one is even taller than me. Then we headed out to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. We ate at the Tenders Steakhouse inside the Luxor. It was a great dinner and a wonderful time to catch up with everyone. Finally at 12 am we made it to the timeshare. Matt and grandpa both felt lucky so at 12:30 the boys hit the casinos and they finally came home about 3am. us girls were already in bed. Grandpa was lucky he won $800 on slots, Matt not so lucky but he had fun. Thursday morning Grandma and grandpa headed back home to So Cal and Matt and I headed out to Las Vegas Blvd for some shopping, walking and to try our luck at the tables. Thursday night we went to Tournament of Kings, which was a lot of fun. Friday was a work day for Matt, he has lots to do and no matter were we go he always has appt with someone. I did some more shopping and then we met up with Brett and Bree. The boys went golfing while us girls shopped. Friday night Jamie and Cory came into town so we went out to dinner and then walked the strip. Lots to see on a Friday night. Saturday us girls enjoyed more shopping while the boys enjoyed the massage chairs they found at the mall. That night we headed to Mesquite were we stayed. We enjoyed swimming, gambling on cheaper tables, and a movie. Finally Sunday afternoon we headed back to reality and home. it was a great break but we are glad to be back into normal life.

Bon Fire with some Friends

We had a blast a few weekends ago with Josh & Jackie Johnson, Josh's Nephews and Cory & Jamie Lewis up Provo Canyon. The boys built a huge fire and we had a great time sitting around it catching up with one another and telling scary stories. It was a lot of fun to be outdoors and the fire was so nice and warm. We enjoyed Tin Foil dinners, s'mores, mint Oreo cookies, watermelon and each other. We hope that we can do it again before it gets to cold and snows.

Above: Josh, Cory and Matt enjoying their fire

Right: Jamie, Jackie, Cash and I

4 days in the Mountains

This past week Matt and I met up with Matt's sister Sara and her husband Russ to go up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains for 4 days to go backpacking. We had by far an adventure ahead of us. We took off from Utah for California only we were not driving the normal I-15, instead we went down the US-6 and there is nothing on that road. A farm town every once in a while, but that was it. We timed it to see how long it would take us to pass a car since there was nothing to look at or look forward to except an occasional hill. It took us about 30 minutes every time we timed it to even pass another car coming towards us. Boy it would have stunk if we broke down on that deserted road. No cell service, no towns and no one driving by to help. Any who, we finally made it to Bishop, Ca 8 hours later. We headed up to find the trail in the dark, such a smart idea, we ended up just sleeping at a camp ground instead.

Thursday Sara and Russ met us in Bishop we packed up our packs which weighed a ton and headed up to McGee Creek. We were psyched to start hiking the 3.5 miles into Grass Lake. Unfortunately it was mid-day by now so it was hot and suddenly I had gained 20 pounds in a pack on my back. The hike was hard but worth it. We got to Grass Lake area about 4.5 hours later and found a great little place to camp and call home for the next few days. We set up our tents and tried to make it feel like home, not much you can do with trees and dirt. The boys build a fire pit while us girls boiled our water for our meal in a bag. Instant dinner only 10 minutes and all you have to do is boil water. We all went to bed early that night we were tired and knew that the next few days would include lots of hiking and adventures. Between the hard floor and the thought that a BEAR or other animal might come visit it was an extremely long restless night for all of us.

Friday morning finally arrived and we headed out for a day of fly fishing. Matt was teaching me because I had never been before, he is such a great husband. I know he was super excited and wanted to go straight out and fish for himself but he decided to give me a quick fly fishing 101 class. He was a great teacher, my first cast I got a little fish and I mean little. Matt, Sara and Russ all had great success on the stream next to us. I spent most of my time catching Trees, bushes and myself with the flies, but it was fun and I was glad to have caught my fish. Later that afternoon we hiked up to McGee Lake, about 3 miles from us. We started out a little late and of course we didn't take the trail so it was like always an adventure climbing up the stream and the rocks. Finally we found the trail which was a lot easier than rock climbing with a fly rod. We reached McGee Lake and it was amazing. We decided to fish the stream on the way home for dinner. yuck fish! Luckily we had lots of potato pearls and dry pack food so I didn't have to eat fish. We made it back to camp right as the sun was setting so we built a huge fire and cooked dinner. Night 2 was a little more comfortable, but the ground was still just as hard.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed out to find Steelhead Lake. We never found it but we found a lot of other places. It was an all day adventure and parts were pretty dangerous. We found several lakes, climbed up the mountain of boulders and ended up on a very tall peak over looking where, but the same lake we went to the day before except we took the extra long way this time. We found several great treasures along the way such as hidden lakes, waterfalls and a lake of boulders that must have slid down the mountain in a huge rock slide. We also found snow and of course several streams and meadows. We were all tired when we got back to camp and went to bed early.

Sunday morning was suppose to be another fishing day, but the fish had become to smart and only the little ones were biting. We decided to head down the mountain a day early since we were all pretty tired and dirty. Plus we were only planning on spending the night to get up at 6am on Monday to pack up and hit the trail. I was thankful we headed down the hill and I think everyone else was too. We made it down to the cars in a little under 2 hours. The parking lot was a beautiful sight.

Sara and Russ headed back to Southern California, while Matt and I decided to take the road more traveled home and head to Vegas for the night and then head home to Utah on Monday. We again traveled some desolate roads until we finally made it to Vegas about 10:30pm Sunday night only to find no hotel rooms. Can you believe it supposedly every room in Vegas was occupied. We finally found a vacancy at the MGM Signature Towers. it was a lovely room and the best part was that the shower was super nice and I was finally clean after 4 days of no showering. The bed was even better. Now that hotel room was my type of camping. We had the best night of sleep and were well rested to get up and head home. Now we are back to normal life, but I am sure another adventure soon awaits.