Zion's Trip

If you haven't heard the story about our Zion's trip, well, it's a good one. But more fun for us to tell in person when we are interrupting each other to add little here-and-there details, so call or come over and we'll tell all. But here are the pictures! Well, before it got dark anyway...

"Daddy, I want a squirrel."

We saved this little guy that had been washed down by the flash floods earlier that week.

We named him Newt. He is a salamander.

Right after we got into the second canyon. Absolutely beautiful.

Trevor and Whitney after we got out of the Narrows. They have the picture of Sean and me. Go figure. 

So basically, Sean and I wanted to hike the Narrows, and we invited Trevor and Whitney along. They had done these really cool rappels before so we figured hey why not? and decided to do that. We got a later start than we wanted but figured we'd be okay. The rappels took a few hours but we had to set our own anchors which took up time. The pictures above are mostly from the rappels. The rappels were in Birch Hollow Canyon. That met up with Orderville Canyon after the rappels, which pictures start right after the salamander we saved. Orderville is 7 miles long, and it was complete mud. Each step took twice as long because of the weight of the mud and rocks on the bottom of our shoes. The sun set towards the end of our time in Orderville which got kinda really scary. We had 1 headlamp for the 4 of us because we were supposed to be done hiking. Anyway, we finally met up with the Narrows and had a mile and a half left, most of which was in knee deep water. And it was dark. We finally got out of the Narrows at 11:30, walked the mile path to the shuttle station (which we had completely missed) so we ended up spending the night on the floor of the mens bathroom because it was cleaner than the girls. The shuttle came at 6:30 the next morning and was an extremely welcome site for us tired, cold, blistered hikers. It was quite an adventure! What we saw when it was light out was absolutely beautiful, the rappels were super fun, and we had a good time telling the "how we met/started dating" stories back and forth. I think I even want to do it again next summer, but get there at like 7am to start. 

Floating the Provo River

I have wanted to float the river for years now, and for whatever reason when people were going I either had to work or was out of town or whatever. Finally this summer we went! Sean and I met up with Cameron, and Trevor and Whitney, and off we went!

Cameron borrowed his cousin's inflatable boat/raft/thing.

Trevor and Whitney bought two twin mattresses from Walmart to float on. Awesome! 

"The sun was in my eyes, Astrid!"

   

I had a cold. Hopefully you can't tell.

It seriously was a gorgeous ride!

So fun! I can't wait to go again next summer. Mainly because Sean and I bought this:

Our own raft! $40, normally $80. There was a sweet deal at Parks Sportsman right near our house.

Crafty

I saw this idea on Pinterest forever ago and have wanted to make it. I finally got paper to do it (ignore the fact that it was the paper wrapped around the potted flowers I bought to make a bouquet for my bridal shots 7 months after I got married, no big deal) and I really like how it turned out! The one on Pinterest was a bit fancier and not as blah, but I like mine too. It's not as girly. Not that that would be a bad thing, but girly and Halloween just don't go together in my book.

Super easy. You just take old cereal boxes, cut them to the size you want, and then print the letters. I used size 350 font. No joke. The bats I found on google images, and then used ribbon to tape them all together. Probably only took me a few hours to print, cut, tape and glue everything.

popsicles

Kelly and Glen asked us to babysit. We played outside a lot after dinner, and our upstairs neighbors shared some popsicles with us. I thought this picture was really cute.

I don't know for sure if Kelly and Glen have trained James to sit and stay put while he is eating a popsicle, but he planted himself on the doorstep. Then Ethan went to sit by his new friend :)

I look terrible. I was getting over a cold. Anyway, love babysitting those kids! And then the next day Ethan got home and told his mom, "I'm going to play with my friends", and got a little sad when he realized they weren't there to play with him again. 

Bike ride to Bridal Veil

After that Sunday walk at Bridal Veil I posted about, Sean and I decided it would be fun to ride our bikes up to Bridal Veil and have a picnic. So that Saturday, we did!

We made it!

Bridal Veil Falls

Then we decided to see if we could go further because neither of us were really that tired. So we biked up to Vivian Park to have our picnic, then biked back to our house. It was 16 miles round trip!

After we ate dinner. Love him!

July 29: Sunday Walk at Bridal Veil Falls

I love how many fun trails, hikes, waterfalls, nature spots, etc. there are in Utah. Summer is my favorite! Bridal Veil is beautiful, so one Sunday before dinner we decided to go for a walk.

Scottish Festival: July 14, 2012

How long have I lived in Utah and have never been to the Scottish Festival here? Rachel, how did you even stay friends with me?? Kidding..

Sean's family loves going so we went!

New earrings!

I don't remember who made him try this hat on.

A little bit creepy...

I'm so tough.

First time trying shortbread. Yeah, we bought that tin. Yum!

Sean's family comes from the MacThomas clan!

We watched some of the games

And watched the pipe bands. Lots of fun!