Football with the guys

Last weekend

(October 24-25)

I went with my brother, my nephew, my cousins, their sons, a couple of their guy friends and my uncle to a BYU football game in Boise.

My niece was also there with her boyfriend...

we were the two token females.

I felt super excited just to be invited!

We won't talk about the game.

Because, if you follow college football at all, you know that it was an embarrassment.

But, the experience.

That is worth talking about!

It was a five hour drive in my little tiny car.

Me, my uncle David, my brother Daren and his son, Jared

(you can see him sitting next to me in the picture above)

I can't even express how happy I was to get to go on this trip.

The boys go on these get-aways on occasion

and I usually hear about it from a long distance away

and I feel jealous.

Cousins Delos and James hamming it up in the background.
Love these guys!

I hope that now that I've attended one of these events

I will be automatically invited to the next one.

We'll see.

The highlight of the trip was...

the drive.

Yep.

10 hours in the car with my Uncle David and brother Daren

(Jared was nice too, but honestly he was very quiet)

We talked and talked 

and heard old family stories

and just enjoyed being together.

I remember looking at my GPS and being afraid that we were getting close

(meaning the ride would be over)

and when I saw that we still had 2 hours to go

I was relieved.

Whew, I still get two more hours!

No kidding.

When my brother, Dion, heard that I was going to be driving up with Uncle David

he said, "Wow, 10 hours in the car with Uncle David! That's going to be awesome!"

and it was.

Lunch with Mom and Dad X2

For lunch on October 16th

We went to Cabela's.

If you don't know what Cabela's is,

its a big sporting goods store here in Utah

(might also be in other places, but I do not know enough about Cabela's to help you out there)

It's really a big place

and is full of all kinds of things

like, for example,

taxidermy.

Lots and lots of taxidermy.

It's not really my thing.

My mom really likes how they have it set up very realistically.

They did a nice job, I admit.

But, yeah, taxidermy.

But there were also big fish tanks (live fish) which were very cool.

I prefer live animals.

Carter was off school for Fall Break so he came along as well.

One of the things my Dad likes about Cabela's is that you can get cool, interesting foods at their diner.

In the spirit of things, Carter got a buffalo (I suppose it's bison) burger.

I got regular beef.

I'm really not that into trying new things.

Afterwards we went to the outlet shops next door so that Carter could go to the Van's store.

He's had his eye on a certain pair of vans and hasn't been able to find them in his size.

The outlet had one pair

and it was a size 11!

It was a miracle.

So, of course he snatched them up.

In case you can't tell,

they have stars on one side, stripes on the other.

We also hit the chocolate store because,

why not?!

Another successful lunch!

______

Today, October 30th, we went to 

The Garden

A beautiful restaurant on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City

Gorgeous view!

It's one of Dad's favorite places.

and the food was delicious!

We walked around a bit outside

and the weather was completely gorgeous.

I want some pansies and whatever this other orange flower is.

I want my front garden to look like this.

But without all the digging in the dirt.

Is that possible?

Finally, a skill I can use

I recently visited my Aunt and Uncle

and saw some nice changes they've made to their house.

I noticed that my Aunt and I have very similar taste

and she's done some things that I have been wanting to do.

She said that every single day

she sees these changes and it makes her happy!

I know I would feel the same way.

Whenever I mention changes that I'd like to make to the house,

Frank turns off.

I can see it in his eyes...

He doesn't want to know

Doesn't want to hear it

Doesn't want to do any of my projects.

It's frustrating.

He doesn't realize that these things would make me happy

every single day.

And if he truly believes

"happy wife, happy life"

then you'd think he'd be on board 100%, wouldn't you?

I asked my Aunt how she got her hubby to finally see reason

and make the changes.

My uncle said that she had learned an important skill that she used.

It is called "gentle pressure, relentlessly applied"

Now there's a skill that I can use!

I informed Frank of the wise words of my Aunt and Uncle.

And warned him that it seemed like a good time to begin using my new skill.

He's super excited.

Moab Day Two

*picture heavy post warning*

Day Two in Moab!

First, we went to church, since it's Sunday.

I remembered to pack a skirt but somehow my shoes didn't make it into my bag...

so I went to church in a skirt and running shoes.

I am awesome that way.

Our first order of business was to go see a couple of the arches we didn't see the first day.

Day One was overcast but Day Two had the most amazing blue sky.

Both days we had perfect weather.

We saved a few arches for our next trip out

but we did go to the Windows section of the park which has the famous

double arch.

spectacular!

And here we have Frank

catching up on his email...

Then we were off to our 4 wheeling adventure for the day:

Shafer Trail in Canyon Lands National Park

This trail included some gorgeous scenery (of course) and was a less intimidating trail in general.

Parts of the scenery were very unusual...

made me think of Mars

A very cool, balanced rock

My view through our bug encrusted windshield

We were struck by how much the scenery reminded us of a typical "Western" movie

This spot reminded me of Lord of the Rings for some reason...

It looked like a castle on top of the mountain:

There were a few scary spots.

Narrow shelves over high cliffs.

The "goose neck" section of the Colorado River

More scenery:

Penis Rock
(not its real name...but seemed fitting)

One famous point along the drive:

Thelma and Louise Point

(here is a composite, panoramic view from Thelma and Louise Point)

Then we entered the 

"intimidating but easy" Shafer switchbacks

These pictures do not do justice to how picturesque

and also

terrifying

these switchbacks were.

Do you see that little yellow jeep there in the picture below?

It's there. Right in the middle.

We just passed that jeep a minute before.

And we were on the outside.

by the EDGE.

I almost lost it.

seriously.

Driving along...trying to distract myself by taking pictures

and also trying to show HOW CLOSE we are to the edge of a huge cliff

The view as we reached the top:

After the drive, we headed home.

It was a fun, tiring, enjoyable, thrilling, scary, interesting, beautiful weekend.

Moab Day One

*picture heavy post ahead*

We decided to take a little trip to Moab this weekend

to try out Frank's new wheels.

I'll start out with the quote of the day:

"Well, I only hit one tree today!"

We went to Arches National Park

and did some off-roading using a book of trails that Frank got.

The trails we did this first day were:

Tower Arch and Eye of the Whale Arch
(I think the roads have other names but I can't remember them right now)

We did a bit of driving around the park first.

Wow, that place is amazing!

Then we headed out onto our "off road" trail.

It started out as basically a sandy road

but soon we turned and saw

a steep hill made up of rocks, boulders and a bit of dirt.

I would never, in my right mind, call it a road.

That was the beginning of our first off road experience.

And it was fun!

And beautiful.

And at times a little nerve wracking.

And as Frank was pointing out some gorgeous scene in the distance

he did, indeed, hit a tree.

A smallish tree.

and he sort of side swiped it more than rammed right into it...

(that's because I yelled)

First scratch-we got that over with.

In the middle of our trek

we got out and hiked to the Tower Arch.

We had a great time hiking all around

getting sort of lost

climbing over boulders

and into crevices

Me taking a picture of Frank taking my picture

A very small crevice! too small it turned out...

until we did eventually arrive at the arch.

We made it to the Arch!

Frank trying to get a good shot

From inside the arch

We were quite tired at the end of the day.

Before we left,

 we went into the visitors center to look around

and when we sat down to see their little 15 minute movie about the arches..

we both fell asleep!

So we decided to call it a day at that point!

However once we got back to Green River, where our hotel was,
we decided to go out on a short, easy trip to see
the Crystal Geyser.

It's supposed to be kind of cool,
and easy to find.

Of course we started out at dusk
and it was soon very dark.

We drove on some surprisingly rough roads
and...
never found it!

Frank was beside himself and didn't want to give up.

We did enjoy some AMAZING stars out there in the middle of no where.

No camera...so no pictures.
But it definitely made me want to go back out in the boonies to
enjoy those stars again sometime.

It was a nice end to the day
(other than the frustration Frank felt for never finding the geyser, that is)