Cougars, Cabin and Snow

Wendee and I have have a bit of a tradition, we like to go to my family's cabin in Midway before the BYU football games. Going to the cabin, gives a chance to get out of town for a day or two and traffic going to the games from the Heber Valley is a lot better than coming down from Salt Lake.

We usually take it pretty easy when we go there. We mostly watch movies and eat snacks on Friday night, and then sleep in and go for a four-wheeler ride on Saturday before going to the game. This weekend though, was a lot colder so we built a fire and stayed inside, then Saturday morning it snowed. (It snowed so much on Saturday that my brother who went up Saturday night, couldn't come home and had to spend the night which he hadn't planned on.)

We then went to the game. We were expecting bad weather, so we took our ponchos and parkas and gloves. It was raining slightly in the first half and the sun even came out the second half, but toward the end of the third quarter it started snowing like crazy. We were fine for a while but then the wind started blowing the snow right in our face. We endured that for about 30 seconds before we decided it was time to leave. By the time we got to the car we were frozen solid and soaking wet. But as Wendee reminds me, 'we're hard core fans', so I guess that means all our pain and suffering was worth it since the Cougars won.

PS- All the snow this weekend reminded us we're not ready for winter at all!!!

Provo

Today I had a doctor appointment in Provo. Please no jumping to conclusions - just a yearly checkup. I just haven't gotten the courage to find a new doctor closer to home. I decided to go check out the bookstore while I was down there. We go to Provo for the football games; however, Nate thinks it is a game to get home fast and beat all of the traffic so we don't ever stick around. It was so weird being on campus again. I used to tease my mom because whenever she'd come down she'd say that so much has changed since she was at BYU - but I have to say in just two years a lot has changed since I was down there! The new alumni building is huge and they've started construction on expanding the Tanner building, my home away from home. I felt so OLD as I walked around!! So many of the students are so young! I kept thinking I would see someone I know, but I didn't see one familiar face. I used to run into someone I knew practically everywhere on campus. So many memories came flooding back to me. I walked into the Wilkinson Center by Jamba Juice where Alyse and I used to get a Jamba Juice after our aerobics class. The smell of the Cougar Eat reminded me of when I would reward myself for a long day of studying on campus with a wrap or rice bowl. I even had to grab a copy of the Daily Universe just for old times sake.


Today reminded me of how grateful I am that I decided to go to BYU and stick it out. My first semester wasn't the greatest and I was very close to transferring at the end of the semester as my roommates will attest. I am so glad that I didn't. I learned so much while I was there about the world, the gospel, and myself. I would have missed out on so many great friends and memories. Plus I would never have met Nate and for that I am eternally grateful!

I thought I'd post an old picture of a group hanging out at the Riv!

Vacation!!!

Finally we got some time off of work and got out of town. Nothing major but the change of scenery was much needed. We headed down south to Zion National Park to do a little camping and hiking and then to St. George for a little R&R. We had a lot of fun in Zion. Perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold. We had fun hiking and enjoying all of the beautiful scenery. The highlight of Zion was on one of the hikes we went on. It ended on the top of a cliff where you can look back up into the canyon or out into the city of Springdale. It was a really pretty lookout spot. While we were looking around we heard a loud crash and looked across the canyon and saw a big rock slide coming down. (Only a little unnerving being hundreds of feet above the canyon with rocks falling and at least a half an hour away from being safely on the ground!!!) It was literally perfect timing. I'm sure rocks fall like this every once in a while - but it was a nice reward for hiking up the mountain and to have such a show put on for us by mother nature.

St. George was good - especially because of the nice warm shower! Neither of us had spent any extended amount of time there. It's usually just a pitstop on the way to Vegas. We went to a play at Tuacahn and enjoyed the outdoor theater. The rest of the time we just spent relaxing and enjoying having some time off from work.

Now it's back to reality. Thanks to all of those excessive banking holidays we still have a few days off before heading back to the grind. Nate always teases me and says, "Who celebrates Columbus Day?" and I always explain to him that I do. I celebrate by not going to work! Happy Columbus Day!

Blogging

Well, while Nate's off working hard at the restaurant I decided to try my hand at this whole blogging thing. Apparently it's the new thing and well if all our friends are doing it... I'm not sure how dedicated I'll be to this where we really don't lead exciting lives. We pretty much work and go to church. Exciting stuff! It might be a good thing for me to get the hang of so we can keep in touch with everyone. So - here goes nothing!

This summer we thought we'd try our hand at the whole gardening thing. Nate's 92 year old grandpa who lives in our ward offered to let us plant some veggies in his garden. We did the planting and he waters it for us. It's been a good trade. It's been a lot of fun watching things grow and seeing the fruits of our labors. The only problem is we don't have much time to go and work on it these days. We make it over there about once a week and the vegetables that are just starting to come out one day are HUGE the next week! I think next time we won't plant as much stuff. But it's been a fun learning experience.