Camping over Sterling's Birthday

All of our feet are surrounding a dinasoaur foot print that has been fossilized in the sand stone. It took us an hour to hike out to it, which we weren't expecting, so enjoy the picture!

Sterling's 5th Birthday!

I can't believe Sterling is 5. He's growing up so fast and it amazes me how grown up he acts somtimes. The day before his birthday, Brad took Sterling to Lagoon, just the two of them. Sterling rode on all of the scary rides including Wicked! I don't even think I have the stomach for all that, but he loved it. On his birthday, the 22nd, we packed up and drove outside of Vernal to stay at Red Fleet State Park for a few days. We had a picnic table birthday party and it was alot of fun in spite of the blasting wind. Sterling is pretty infatuated with Iron Man, as you can see from the pictures. Transporting the cake I made from our house to our campsite, 5 hours in the car....took alot of ingenuity, but it managed to keep. The rest of the time we swam at the lake, went to see dinasouar bones at Dinasoaur National Monument and took a tour of Flaming Gorge Dam on our way home. We had a good time. The best part was when we drove into Vernal on Sunday to go to sacrament meeting looking like vagabonds and reeking of campfire - fortunately the bishop was nice and no one offered to take us to a homeless shelter afterwards.

San Diego

Sunny San Diego

Brad and I got to go on an amazing trip to San Diego in August. Brad won airline tickets through X96, the local alternative rock radio station if you can believe it! To win the tickets you just had to send an email to the morning show crew and tell them why you deserved to win the tickets. Brad said he was being deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to take his wife on a trip before he left, and so he won!

Anyway, we stayed 3 nights and tried to pack in as much stuff as we could (including mid-day naps). We went to a bontanical garden, Sea World, The Gaslamp District, and spent alot of time at the beach and exploring the little beach towns. We loved Del Mar and Coronado Island. To celebrate our anniversary we went to Hotel Del Coronado and ate at 1500 Ocean which was practically right on the beach. We chose to eat outside and even though it got a little chilly, it was worth the view and ambience. We got a chance to see the San Diego temple during the day and at night - it was SO beautiful. Anyway, we had a great time. It was very romantic and we hope to get back there in the future.

Summer Days

well, summer has been alot of fun for us. We've gotten to do some fun things and visit with alot of family. Now that things are starting to wind down I thought I'd share some of our adventures.

The second half of June the kids and I spent almost 2 weeks up at the cabin for the Halford family reunion. Halford is Brad's mom's side of the family. We spent alot of time just relaxing and visiting but we also went to Yellowstone a few times, we went driving around looking for moose, fed the fish at Big Springs, swimming at the river and ate way too much!

After the renuion, for the 4th of July weekend, Brad and I went backpacking in Idaho's Sawtooth range while Rich and Donette took care of the boys. We had alot of fun but didn't get as far as we'd planned. When we reached about 8000 feet, there was snow! Since about 1/3 of our planned trip was well above 8500 feet, we ended up staying at a gorgeous little lake the last 2 of three nights before hiking out the same way we came. The scenery was magnificent, there were wildflowers in full bloom and the weather was perfect. It was a little hot (about 90 degrees) hiking in the first day, but as soon as we got up high in elevation it cooled down quite comfortably.

When we returned from backpacking, my mom was waiting for us at our house. We spent about 10 days with her just doing fun things around home. We took the kids swimming, went to the park, got to see Gabe and the day before she had to leave my mom and I hiked the Indian trail here around Ogden Canyon. Since we only had one vehicle we looped back to the trailhead we started on by walking down through the canyon on the road- that was a frightening adventure! The road is very, very narrow with a cliff on one side and a river on the other and extremely windy, so you can only see until the next turn ahead. We made it though, and it was fun in spite of the torturous uphill march in the blazing heat at the end.

We've had a great summer - lots of fun, lots of sun and good times with family.

The three of us

Kathryn, who drove up from Las Vegas with her mom and kids, came up to my house with Melinda for an evening. We had a nice time - we got dinner at Bajio and brought it back to my house for a couple hours of "girl talk" and going through the cute baby clothes that Kat brought up for Melinda. Halfway through Melinda's pregnancy, she found out that her baby girl is actually a baby boy - ooops. So this will probably be the last time we will be able to hang out, all three of us, before Melinda moves to Hawaii and China for the next two years while her husband, Jeremie, gets his MBA. It's the first time that Kathryn has been to my house and the second Melinda had been - I just commented to Kathryn that it just seemed so normal though. They're both such a part of my life, even though we don't see each other all that often, that it seemed perfectly normal for them to be sitting in my living room, like they're here all the time. Anyways, thanks ladies, I had a nice time. Love you both!

Just a quick correction - I had to leave 2 Wendy's salads outside, not 3. We weren't THAT hungry.

Well, a much anticipated evening came and went much too quickly-but it was alot of fun and I won't forget it. Melinda got us tickets to go see Stephanie Meyer in person at Thanksgiving Point for The Host booksigning. Poor Melinda had to wait outside in the sun for hours before the door opened, while I battled traffic through Salt Lake. I got there a little after they opened the doors at 5:00pm and fortunately we got some great seats in the 3rd row. The most inconvenient part was I had to leave 3 perfectly delicious Wendy's salads outside and eat nasty nachos from their concession stand as an alternative. Well, a small sacrifice to pay for my Twighlight and Host loves. I giggled too much, talked too much, smiled way too much - I was a like a teeny-bopper at a New Kids On The Block concert Anyway, it was a fun experience. We talked alot about the books and the characters - until the ladies in front of us said they hadn't read The Host yet and could hear everything we were saying. Who goes to a booksigning without having read the book? Ok, so I've never been to a booksigning before, but I would have felt like a student going to an important lecture for an important class without having read the assigned reading - and then having to fake it during discussion time. Whatever.

Since we were in the 3rd row we got our books signed fairly quickly, within 40 minutes after she was done speaking. Hearing her speak was nice - she's just a normal person, like anyone else you've ever met, but of course very pleasant, obviously talented and it was nice to hear answers to fans' questions. The one I really wanted to know, which I considered asking her when I was on stage but thought better of it, is WHY did she choose Wanda as the name for Wanderer? Horrible. Well, she was very nice to sign the 6 books I plopped on the table, so I just told her thanks for coming and signing books for us, to which she replied "Well, thanks for coming" She sounded sincere, like she was surprised people showed up. Right. She's amazing and her books are fantastic. It was such a great time. Now, I can't wait until August 2nd for Breaking Dawn, and hopefully we'll get to read more about Wanderer and Ian in a couple years.

Well, here's the proof, I finally did it.

Graduation was actually really fun. Rich & Donette drove down from Idaho, my sweet mother flew all the way from Alaska and I had some dear friends and family around to celebrate with me. The night before walking we had a nice dinner at Camelot Village, where Melinda lives, which was the main celebration. Except for ending up having to buy pre-cooked, pre-sliced ham because the pork loin was still raw by dinner time, everything went smoothly. ( ; I don't have too many pictures of the dinner, but a few of graduation ceremony the next morning (which came very, very early the next day). Thanks to everyone that helped make this accomplishment possible in my life! I love you all.

Happy Birthday, Jackson!!!

Here are a few pictures from Jackson's 2nd birthday. He had alot of fun trying to blow the candles out - it took several tries but he finally got it down. He loved opening presents, his favorite were the vellum helium balloons from the dollar store, of course.

More vacation pictures

More Oregon and California pictures - enjoy!