Adventures in the Big Sky State

     The next big adventure of the Burnett family was a trip to Montana to visit my cousins. Sadly, Paul missed the first half of the trip because he was in Las Vegas doing an externship for an accounting firm.  
     Paul went to Las Vegas for 3 days for a crash course/ overview of the accounting firm McGladrey. He got to have an inside view of what it would be like to work there, he did a lot of networking with the employees, and he got to see the major differences between the auditing side of accounting, and the tax side. Apart from all of the "work" that was getting accomplished, Paul did go bowling, went to dinner several times, and did a fun service project.
     Meanwhile, back in Montana, I went with my family on a backpacking trip. Every year they go on one in various parts of the Western United States. This year we chose a hike that was near Bozeman, Montana. After the hike we would drive about 30 miles to Livingston Montana for our Blatter family reunion.
     Our hike started on Monday July 23rd and we planned to hike out Friday the 28th. When all of us arrived at the trailhead and put on our back packs the clouds looked like it was going to rain soon. About 20 minutes into our hike lightning started striking all around us and the thunder began shortly thereafter. About fifty minutes into our hike it started to downpour like crazy. Because we had started our hike around 4:30, we figured it would be a good idea to start looking for a place to camp. We found a small campsite meant for maybe two tents, but it was all we could find. Somehow we managed to stuff 5 tents into a tiny site. The whole time we were setting up tents it was raining hard. We had to hold up our rain flys over  our tent in attempt to keep as much water out as possible. After all was said and done, my tent only had about 1/2 and inch of water sitting in the bottom. Thankfully we were prepared with a few small towels to dry out the tent. After we all got our tents set up it stopped raining (how ironic), but we realized that we had left a bunch of things back in the car. Since the trailhead was only 1.5 miles-ish away, my cousin, little brother and I decided to take an evening jog back to the car. We got back to the car no problem, but on the way back to camp, we just happened to stop running for a minute to look around and we saw a baby grizzly bear about 10 yards away from the trail. First thought was cool a bear, quickly followed by baby bear = mama bear = trouble. We kind of took off running and didn't stop for a while.

     The second day of our hike was pretty gruesome. It was all up hill. We had a huge elevation climb and it wasn't super fun. We did find a pretty neat water fall that we stopped at, but other than that it was just hill after hill, climb after climb until everyone was ready to crash. We finally got to the lake we wanted to camp at, but we found a sign saying "No camping near lake" frustrated and tired, we decided to hike a little ways to the next lake. It wasn't that far to the next lake, but we had another steep climb to get there. Finally we got to the upper lake and found a good camping spot.
   
 Day three was sort of an adventure day. We kept our campsite from the previous day as a base camp and just hiked up to one of the other lakes. We hiked out several miles and found the lake, but it was pretty pitiful. My dad wanted to hike even higher to see another potential lake, but half of our group was tired. The other half of our group (me included) went with my dad to hike a little higher. We were in a hurry, so rather than follow the trail, we basically scaled the mountain and climbed up a rock slide. Once we were at the top, we had a lot of fun rolling rocks down the hill seeing if we could make them either jump really high, or roll all the way down without breaking, (we did get a few rocks to jump 40 feet or so in the air). The view from the top was fantastic.  You could see everything it felt like. We found that my dad had a few bars of cell service, so just for kicks and giggles I called Paul from atop the mountain. When we got back to our base camp it was still pretty warm outside which meant that it was time to play in the lake. Even though it was warm outside the lake was pretty chilly. I got my hair washed and my clothes washed, but I couldn't bring myself to jump in. It was just too cold.
   
 Day four we hiked out and headed down the trail. The plan was to hike about 10 miles and camp, then on Friday we would hike out the last 3 or so miles. After singing lots of trail songs we got to the spot we figured we would camp and half our group decided they wanted to just hike the last 3 miles out  and just be done with the hike. After a vote, it was clear that we weren't going to be camping in the wilderness again. We pushed on to get to the end of the hike. Five miles later (not three) we got back to the car. We were all pretty beat from pushing ourselves so far today. We got in the car and drove to a family members house in Livingston to take a REAL shower and have some REAL food. Because there were 12 of us all trying to use one shower, I had to wait about 2 hours before I got a turn. Thankfully the water was still warm! We pitched our tent in the yard and camped out on the grass for a night.

     Day five (Friday) is the first day of our Blatter family reunion. This was not just my grandpa and his kids kind of reunion it was my grandpa and his brothers and sisters and all their kids, and all their kids! It was pretty neat. We got to stay in a massive horse arena and do all kinds of montana things. We tried to set our tent up outside but the wind was so bad it pretty much blew our tent down. Since we could tell the storm was only going to get worse, we set up our tent inside of the horse arena (it was indoors). All the cousins had a blast visiting with each other and getting reacquainted with the other relatives we don't see very much. Paul flew in from Las Vegas today also. It was so nice to see him after pretty much a whole week  of being apart.

     Saturday was packed full of activities. Half of the family got inner tubes and tubed the Yellowstone River. I was lucky enough to have swollen tonsils so I didn't tube the river, but I canoed it with Paul, my little brother Tallus, Dad, Mom and Kessla. We had so much fun trying to hit as many rapids as we could. My parents had to bail out their canoe a few times because of all the water from the rapids. After Canoeing was horseback riding. I chose not to ride horses because I wasn't feeling well at all. Paul had a blast running and trotting around. That evening we had a family devotional type thing. We learned more about our heritage and swapped stories and got to know our relatives a little better.

     Sunday morning we all went our separate ways and headed home. The trip wasn't too bad, but after the 8 hour drive from Montana, Paul and I had to drive another 3 hours to get back to Cedar City. We got back to Cedar around midnight, but driving the extra three hours was totally worth it to sleep in my very own bed for the first time in over a week!

Small Town 4th of July

In attempt to save money Paul and I decided that this year we would spend our 4th of July right here in Cedar City. We didn't really have any huge plans, but we banded together with some of our other married friends that were staying here and had ourselves a party!

Wednesday morning (July 4th) Cedar City put on a cute little parade. Paul and I went along with our friends Shay and Ray Martel and Ada and Dion Munk who also brought their cute kids Madi and Dory. I am used to big town parades with real floats and lots of cool stuff, but this year the parade was way smaller than I thought it would be, but it was really fun to come and support the small town community. There weren't any big snazzy floats but there were dance companies and baseball teams and lots of familiar faces. I think I could get used to small town festivities. They just feel so friendly.

 Paul had fun with Madi and Dory. He took them into the street with the "big kids" to get candy and sprayed with water. They thought it was so cool to get candy thrown at them. Some of the bigger kids were actually thoughtful enough to share some of their candy with the little kiddos.

One of the nurseries here in town passed out plants in the parade. We jumped on that opportunity and snatched a yellow crookneck squash to add to our garden. Paul and I just had a crookneck die at our garden so this one should be perfect to replace our dead one. 

After the parade was over, we debated on what we were going to do. We had planned a hike, but with time constraints we couldn't manage a hike. We decided to go to what we call the baby lake. Some how  Shay and Ray convinced Ada and Dion to come swimming with us so we had a great ole time. For once the wind wasn't blowing us away. The weather was somewhat nice, and the water temperature was actually quite pleasant.

Paul jumped right into his old habits of swimming lessons and worked with Madi on coming deeper into the lake. Ray and I tried to start a water fight with Paul which turned into Paul and Ray wrestling with each other. At that point I just let them have at it. I joined the girls on the beach to dry off.

After the lake, we planned to have a small BBQ with as many neighbors as we could get. Paul was excited to show off his grilling skills again. When dinner time came around we had a pretty good amount of people show up. We were expecting to have maybe 4 couples come, but we had at least 15 people and eat some grub with us.

After dinner we played some Jungle Speed and waited around for the firework show. Because Utah has had so many fires, and Cedar had a fire scare a week ago, there were restrictions on our fireworks. They had to be in a parking lot during certain hours and only on certain days. Since we knew everyone would be doing fireworks at the park or school parking lot we decided to save money ourselves and watch everyone else's' fireworks. We set up camp at one of the high schools with hopes that it would be a good spot to watch the big show that the town would put on. The firework show was better than I expected. When the town show was going on, other people were shooting of arial fireworks to try and compete with the "big guns." Despite not having and immediate family to share our 4th of July with, it was better than I expected it would. Paul and I have been blessed with such amazing friends that have really added to our experience here in Cedar City.

A Week Apart

The last week of June the Burnett family took a little road trip "Up North." Up North is what us Southern Utahans consider anything further North than  Fillmore. Anyway, Paul's youngest brother Jonathan was giving his farewell talk in church on the 24th of June so we went up to visit.

I do just need to add that on the 22nd and 23 of June Paul and I played ultimate frisbee in the Utah Summer Games with our SUU team, the frisbee militia. Anyway, after like 11 grueling games spread over those two days, we placed 3rd in the tournament and received the bronze medal! That basically made our day. It was fantastic.

Anyway, back to the trip up North. So we go, and visit Paul's family and say bye to his brother, then Paul gets on an airplane to fly to Texas for the week. He got to go with SUU's PBL (professional business leaders) club to a national competition in San Antonio. They had to present a project and get judged on it. While Paul was in Texas I didn't want to be alone at home in Cedar so I stayed with my parents in Riverton and we had a few little adventures of our own. 

Monday: Paul arrived in Texas at 12:00 AM Monday morning, then had to wake up at 6 AM to get ready for his presentation. He practiced with Randi and Johanna at 7:30 and presented at 10. After getting that huge load off of his chest, he walked the river walk and visited the shops in San Antonio. That evening he had a lovely dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe, and goofed off at the pool.

               I woke up early to work out with my mom and get stuff done around the house. We loaded all the girlies in the car and went to Joann's in search of a sewing project to work on that week. We found swimming suit material and decided that all the girlies were going to make our own swimming suit top. When my dad got home he made all of us do bench pressing and curls, but it was great to have a hard workout.

Tuesday: Since Paul had done so well with his presentation his team made finals. They practiced early in the morning and presented for finals at 9:30 AM. After finals they all took a little river cruise down the San Antonio River walk as well as a trip to the Alamo. Since everyone was so tired they basically all took a nap then had dinner at a delectable BBQ restaurant. 

                 I had decided that Tuesday was the decided sewing project day. We pieced our suits together and worked on them for most of the day. No big adventures here. 

Wednesday: Paul had a lovely meeting to go to, but thats ok, because after the meeting he got to go shopping around town. And of course, he had to watch the soccer game for the Euro Cup. Wednesday was the closing ceremonies for Nationals, so that evening, thats were Paul was. They announced that Paul's group had gotten 1st place in his competition. 

                    Today my mom declared that we needed to chop down an apple three in our  backyard. I enlisted my youngest brother Tallus to do all the sawing of the large branches, then Kalena, Kessla and I all chopped off small branches and stripped them of their leaves. Surprisingly we got the whole tree chopped and stripped of leaves in less than 2 hours. Because we felt we had labored SO hard in the back yard, the kids decided we deserved a water fight. We picked up some squirt guns and water balloons and filled up our little kiddie pool in the yard. Kalena and I had the water balloons so we decided to join forces. Together we dominated Tallus and Kess in the water fight. They were totally soaked by the end. In their defense they got us real good too, but we got them better. While we dried off, all the girls decided to draw with chalk on the sidewalk. It was so joyous. Wednesday night my family introduced me to the movie Thor. I had never seen it before and it is fabulous! Right after we finished it we just HAD to rent Captain America from Redbox and watch that one (because I hadn't seen that one either). They are both fantastic movies. Now all I gotta do is watch the Avengers. 

Thursday: Paul got on a plane at 6 AM to fly back to Utah. He had to catch a plane from SLC to Cedar but not until 5 in the evening so we planned to spend most of the day together before he had to go. He landed and came and got me from my parents. We visited his parents for a little bit then went to play ultimate frisbee with my dad's coworkers. It was really fun, and real nice to see Paul after 4 days. Once we finished frisbee, we picked my dad up from work and went to Paul's house. The plan was to play some FROLF (frisbee golf) but the course was kind of taken over so I said my goodbyes to Paul and left with my dad. Paul had to go to work the next day and take a test in Cedar so he couldn't stay up North with me. 

               After Paul left I got to go and do some horse therapy with an autistic boy in my mom's ward. We took the horses up to Dimple Dell and rode for almost two hours. It was a really humbling experience to hold that cute boy in my arms and kind of see the world through his eyes for those 2 hours. I decided that one day when I am not teaching anymore, I would love to do horse therapy for cute kids that need it. 

Friday: Paul had to work and to take his motorcycle test (which he passed WOOT WOOT)! Then he went to the ward picnic and started a water fight with the youth in the ward. After his appearance at the picnic, he taught our really awesome neighbors Shay Martel, and Taylor and Aaron Remer how to make one of his favorite sandwiches, the samoan. 

            Some how I convinced my family to float the Provo river on Friday. We recruited a few rafts from neighbors and fixed the holes in our rafts. When we got to the river the sun was shining, it was super hot and we were all so excited to float the river. Kalena and I decided to take a two man raft and try to survive together. We figured that together we were either smart enough, or dumb enough to survive the trip down the river. As we started floating the river, the sun just kind of disappeared! It got a little cold outside too. We kept going though. Kalena and I hit a few

 patches of white water rapids and some how survived. About 1/4 of the way down the river we got high centered on a rock and put a hole in our raft! We immediately started freaking out and waving our hands in front of our face like little girls tend to do. Just a little ways up Kess was in a four man raft with our neighbor Rachel. We begged them to let us join their boat and thankfully they let us. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful until my dad started a water fight. It was SOOO cold. But we got him pretty good, so we all felt good about it. By the time we got to the end of our river run, the sun had come out again, we only had one hole in all of the rafts and no one got seriously hurt. Needless to say, it was a success! So, as most of you know, Utah has been burning to the ground the past week, and when we were driving home from our river trip, we could see that ANOTHER fire had started in Herriman. Crazy! 

Saturday: Paul had the luxury of helping another family move out. After that he basically just loafed around the house to wait for his wonderful wifey to come home to him. 

                Today I was planning on going home to Cedar again. My parents were going to just do a little overnight road trip, but all the kids wanted to come so it turned into a sweet little family deal. by 12:30 we got on the road and headed down to Cedar. The trip was relatively uneventful. When we got to Scipio, there was another fire that had started. At one point the flames were seriously over 100 feet high. I really do hope that all of Utah doesn't burn down. We got to Cedar around 5 ish and my parents wanted to go and see Cedar Breaks before it got dark so we kind of unloaded the car then loaded it back up with people (Paul included) and went up to Cedar Breaks. Afterword we had pizza factory and made paracord bracelets while we watched a movie. 

After a whole long week of being apart, it was so lovely to be back with the hubby. We both had so many wonderful adventures apart, but I definitely think that they are even better when we are together!

Until next time!!!