Pine Valley Adventure

     I have been put in charge of the over night back packing trip for girls camp this year. Normally that wouldn't be a huge deal, but this year girls camp is stake girls camp. I have been asked to find a place where I can take a HUGE group of girls on an over night back packing trip. In the beginning I was stoked. There are SO many great, beautiful places to go back packing in Southern Utah. But as I started researching everything I found that all of the good places were national forest land and  basically that means the largest group size that I could take was 12 people. That wasn't going to work for me so I did a lot of talking with my dad and finally found a place that may work.
     We found a couple trails in Pine Valley Utah. Don't ask me where it is, I really don't know. It's out in the middle of no where really. Like west of Beryl, but East of Enterprise. Not quite St. George South, but just in a really weird no where spot. Before I took a huge group of girls on this over night hike, I really wanted to make sure I knew the area and know that it would be safe to trek on. Paul and I planned a fun camping weekend where we could go out to Pine Valley, check out the hike and make sure that the hike was going to work.
     Friday after I got off work, we threw everything in the car, and hit the road. We drove to New Castle and Enterprise and kept following the road until we got to Pine Valley. It was actually a gorgeous place once we got there. We drove around trying to find the trail head, and pretty much couldn't find it. So we drove around trying to find a place to sleep, we also couldn't find anything. The campsites were all still closed for the winter. We drove around for probably an hour just looking and decided what we were going to do now that we were here. We did find the trail head, but it was located in a closed camp ground which we didn't think we could get away with sleeping in. In the end, we pulled off to the side of the road and set up our tent. We camped just off the road, but hey, it all worked out. We set up Paul's camp chef and cooked us some hotdogs. Since we didn't have a place for a fire to keep us warm, we just jumped in our sleeping bags and went to sleep.
         In the morning we had breakfast and hit the trail. The goal was to hike it quick to make sure that there was water, to check out the trail, and to prepare myself with the terrain so I wouldn't have surprises. After reading the signs at the trailhead, I did get a few surprises I wasn't prepared for. As I was planning the hike, I was told there wouldn't be bears in Pine Valley, so I hadn't been preparing the girls for that. But when I got to the trail head there were signs posted all over about it being bear country and to prepare accordingly. Also there were multiple signs showing that there were mountain lions and to keep small children in larger groups. Yikes! I wasn't ready for either of those. All morning I just prayed that the bears were still in hibernation, (we didn't have any bear mace with us), and also that we wouldn't encounter any mountain lions. We did see some tracks, but no real animals, so it was all good.
    The trail in the beginning wasn't half bad. It was just flat with a few small ups and downs. About a mile in we realized we had reached the true trailhead, (we couldn't get to it because the road was closed off). So we started hiking and it wasn't bad, but then we hit the switch backs. We went up and up and up. If Paul and I weren't trying to run it, I don't think it would have been half bad, but we were cruising. We went up and up some more and realized we were pretty much climbing up the spine of the mountain. Then we hit some snow.  At first it was just patches here and there and didn't deter us too much. But the higher we got, the deeper the snow got.

     Pretty soon, there was no trail anymore. It was just all snow. We tried to trek around in the snow,
and we were able to re-find the trail several times, but it go to the point where the whole side of the mountain was just snow. We couldn't really go anywhere, and it was dangerous for us to go and not know what we were looking for. A little stressed and discouraged we turned around and headed back down the mountain. We had a little trouble at first because we couldn't remember exactly where we had gone. We had to follow our tracks in the snow, and that wasn't exactly easy.
     When we got back to the bottom we checked out the trail signs and realized that there is another trailhead that leads to the same place I wanted to take the girls. This trail looks like it is less steep and not as hard. So Paul and I decided that we are going to come back in a few weeks and try this other trail. Hopefully the snow will be gone, and we can see what the mountain is actually like.

Birthday Weekend

     I was lucky enough to have my birthday on a weekend this year. Paul and I planned to go to SLC and see our families. Paul's parents wanted to take us to a REAL Salt Lake game and I wanted to go up to see my family, so it just happened to work out that we could go up and do all these fun things on my birthday weekend.
      Paul and I couldn't come up until late Friday night. Paul had an awards ceremony for accounting. He was honored as the outstanding senior in accounting. We got to go to a banquet and wear fancy clothing, smile a lot, and I got to talk to a bunch of people I didn't know. I just imagined myself as an important woman at a charity ball or something like that that you see in the movies. :) We drove to SLC after the banquet and pretty much went right to bed. Saturday morning, I went on a run with Paul's mom like usual, and then we did a little bit of shopping. Paul's dad, Rex, bought me my very first purse. I am not a super crazy girly girl. I have never had a purse before, but I decided that I was going to try it out and see what I thought. So far, I love it. I am still not a fan of myself being a purse girl, but it is so convenient to have everything I need right there with me!
      Later that evening all of Paul's family (except his little brother who is on a mission), went out to dinner, then to a REAL Salt Lake game. It was really fun. I am not a huge soccer fan, but Paul is, and after being married to him for two years, it is starting to grow on me a little. Just a little. We said our goodbyes after the game and went to visit my family.
     We spend most of Sunday with my family. My older brother Tyson and his wife came to visit and we had a great time. We played games and had a great dinner. Previously in the year I told my mom that the only thing I wanted to get for my birthday was a really nice backpack. Thats all I told her, and I told her that everyone in the family could chip in that was the only gift I really wanted. Somehow I lucked out. I got my go-light backpack from my family. Pauls parents got me a stove and fuel canister for backpacking as well. I am so very excited for my new camping items mostly because I need them for at least 3 trips I am doing this summer.
         We had a great trip in Salt Lake and are excited to get the summer rolling. There are only a few weeks left for me, and Paul is nearly finished. We can't wait for our summer adventures to begin.

April Craziness!!

     Not a whole lot of fun adventurous stuff has happened this April, but there are a few thoughts that I want to jot down so that I don't forget the fun little everyday things. April has been pleasantly warm. Cedar City had a day where it nearly reached 80 degrees! That being said we have also had 2 pretty good snow storms, and it currently is snowing.
     Paul is getting excited for graduation. He only has a few more weeks of school as an under graduate of accounting. In 2 weeks he will be graduating Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors of science in accounting. He has also been honored as the outstanding student in accounting, (that means we get to go to a lovely award banquet and I get to wear a pretty dress *tee hee*).We have decided to take the fast track for grad school, which means Paul starts classes a week after he graduates in May! He is not super excited about summer school, but he is very excited how everything will play out after he finishes grad school in December. He will take classes through the summer and fall semesters and then be finished with his masters in accounting. It seems so close, yet so far away. I know that these next few months will be so super crazy and quite busy, but I know that every minute will be worth it.
        My students are getting ready to take end of level tests. It is a good thing the school year is almost over. Once the weather warms up, the kids get restless, and I feel like they are less receptive to what I am trying to teach them. I really can't believe that the school year is almost over. It really seems like just yesterday that the school year started.
        We took a trip to SLC a few weeks ago for General conference. It was wonderful to see our families and go to Paul's missionary reunion. In between Saturday's session we went to City Creek and just enjoyed the break with our family. I was also able to go snow boarding with my dad while in SLC. It was so great to do the things I love with the people I love!
       We started a few of our plants for our garden this year. I love how cute our tomatoes and peppers look when they just start sprouting. I can't wait to get them planted into the ground in a month!

   
     

Easters

       Since Paul and I have been married, we have not yet made it to our family for Easter. It is just too difficult to get up to Salt Lake all the time. Paul's brother Peter, and his wife Jessica didn't go visit family either. We decided to band together and spend Easter as our own little family. I had a few days off of school that Paul didn't, so during my time off I just had to make some cute pinterest cupcakes. They didn't turn out quite as I had hoped, but they were still kinda cute.
       We started our Easter Eve Saturday out right; with ultimate frisbee! I went on a nice 5 mile jog before frisbee. I was supposed to meet Paul at the field but he wasn't there, (he said he got stuck taking a test). I was so impatient that I just had to play some frisbee in my bare feet without cleats. It was quite refreshing! When Paul came with my cleats, I ended up taking them off and playing in bare feet again any way.

       After frisbee Paul and I got the scooter started and went for a ride. We convinced Peter and Jessica to play some frolf with us. After our frisbee golf game the boys watched March madness while I did some scrapbooking, and Jessica did homework. Some how we convinced them to have dinner with us and decorate eggs. We seriously had so much fun trying to design the coolest Easter egg. Peter had a pretty awesome minion egg,  Paul had a great basketball egg, and had a pretty sweet mustache egg. It was great.
       Easter day, we had a great service at church. The YM and YW were combined together for 5th sunday. Our lesson was about the last week before Christ was crucified. It was a really empowering lesson to learn about what he went through for me and everyone else. I am so grateful the gospel in my life.
      After church Paul, Angelica, (our awesome neighbor) and I went over to Peter and Jessica's house for a deliciously cooked meal. Peter and Jess made some wonderful ham and rolls. Jessica made cute bunny rolls. They tasted fantastic, and they were cute. I just love to spend time with family. I am so glad my family is forever!

Peter's super cute minion egg!

This is our awesome array of eggs. Don't they look so cute?

Trouble In Vegas Tournament

        Because Paul and I like to play frisbee so much, we go with the SUU club team to tournaments just to get some disc time in. We just recently played in the Las Vegas tournament "Trouble In Vegas." Now just so you know, ultimate frisbee is a big deal. Playing in a tournament is an even bigger deal, mostly because we get to play against some really bad bum ultimate players. Most of the tournaments I have played in have not been mixed, which means that the other team does not have to let girls play. They usually play all guys. For a girl like me thats a little challenging. Its fun, but guarding all guys all the time wears me out fast. This year the tournament actually had girls for me to guard.
         We got to play in 3 games on Saturday. Sadly we didn't win any of them, but we had so much fun it didn't matter. Frisbee just makes everything better whether we win or lose it always brings great happiness to my soul. While we didn't win, I had some AMAZING dives. I am not a huge diver, but I have been really trying to lately. Every time I think about that tournament, I just see visions of myself flying through the air. Man, it was great. Paul had a great time too. I just want to say that I am so very grateful I found an activity that I really enjoy that paul will play with me. It brings us together in an oddly competitive yet loving sort of way.

This is my awesome skid mark after my stellar dive!

Us just being content in between our games

The frisbee family. I just love these people!

These are some of the greatest girls I know! They are also amazing frisbee players!!

       

Presidents Day with the Blatters

This year for Presidents' Day I some how convinced the Blatter clan to come down to good ole Cedar City and visit. Tyson and Yulia, (Tyson's wife),  even came down to visit us. They got to our place late Saturday night. Thankfully my parents got themselves a hotel for the night because having them stay, plus the two kids, and the married couple, on top of Paul and I would have been one crowded apartment!

Sunday we all just took it easy. We went to church, and the basically celebrated my dad's birthday. My mom and I cooked some awesome Indian cuisine for dinner. We made balti beef and chicken tiki masala with naan. Holy cow was that food good. Baked a couple of pumpkin pies for the celebration, and then decided that we were going to experiment with what we had and make some ice cream. The ice cream turned out great. It literally tasted like the vanilla frostys you get at Wendy's. Boohya for raw whole milk and actually having some on hand!

Monday we planned to go skiing and snow boarding as a family. My school was given a stack of passes to Eagle Point resort in Beaver, and I was lucky enough to receive a few of those passes. We got to the resort and got ski rentals and passes all sorted out. My little sister Kessla had never been skiing before so I was given the responsibility to teach her how to ski. My mom had only been once before so dad got to take her under his wing. Tyson and Yulia did their own the most if the time. Paul and Tallus pretty much did their own thing as well.


Taking Kess down the first run was a nightmare! I had never taught real skiing lessons before, just the wee ski kids, (who are like two years old) . We had trouble getting down the first time it literally took us 45 minutes to make our way down the bunny hill. Kess was getting frustrated. I was getting impatient. It was not a joyful experience for either of us. Thankfully a saintly ski instructor saw us struggling and offered some advice. She also gave us the little clip thing you put on the tips of skis to keep them in pizza. From that point on we did so good. Somehow I magically had more patience with my little sister, and suddenly she was confident and able to ski all the way down without falling.

We went down the bunny hill about three more times before it was time for lunch. We actually had a lot of fun. Kess would practice her turns and follow me from side to side down the hill. She even smiled on a couple of the runs. Looking back on it, I am so grateful I got "stuck" helping my little sister. We aren't as close as I am with Kalena, so it was so cool to get to know Kess a little better and build a better relationship with her. I am excited that she had fun skiing. Now we have something in common that we can do together.

After our three other runs, we met up with the family for lunch. Mom had taken a wrong turn somewhere sending her skiing down expert runs. She said she was done for the day because her experience hadn't been all too pleasant. After lunch Tyson and Yulia went off on their own to ski the bunny hill some more. Surprisingly, Kess went by herself on a couple of runs. Dad, Tallus, Paul, and I had lunch then ventured off of the bunny hill to hills that were a little more challenging. We hit up the terrain park where Paul hit his first jump on a snowboard, and landed it! We did some expert runs on the other side of the resort, wore ourselves out and called it a day.

My family had to drive back up to Salt Lake so we said our goodbyes and sent them on their way. Paul and I just had to drive back to Cedar, which was nice that it was such a short drive. Usually when we do stuff with my family, we are the ones that end up driving the furthest, so it was nice to have the shorter commute for once!

Arizona!!

        Paul has a really awesome cousin that lives in Arizona, and we have frequently joked with each other about Paul and I moving to Arizona to live by them. I always thought it would be fun to live there. Its warm all the time, I wouldn't have to worry about snow, and I would live by Summer and Tyler, (who wouldn't want to live by them?).

       Well in order for us to live there, we would have to get jobs there, and the company Paul would like to work for does have an office in Phoenix, but they don't recruit from SUU, so his chances at getting in aren't extremely high. Paul was able to set up and office visit with the McGladrey firm in Phoenix to meet some of the staff and see if he would fit in at their office, (it would also get him a leg up in the hiring process). We set up the visit for over MLK holiday to give us some time to play with Summer and Tyler.

       We got to their place at 1:00 AM Saturday morning. Of course we were wiped out so we went right to bed and slept in pretty good. In the morning, Paul, Tyler and I went for a hike while Summer stayed at home to write a talk, (Summer is eight months pregnant and figured that going on the hike would be a little much for her so she stayed home to get other things done). We hiked a little mountain hill thing called Camel Back. I wish that I would have remembered my camera, because the landscape in Phoenix is pretty interesting. The valley is so very flat, but there are random mountain hill things that rise up in the middle of nowhere. It is really neat looking. Also they have tons and tons of saguaro cacti. I had never seen a saguaro cactus in real life, only in the cartoons, so I really hoped I could take some pictures of them too, but alas, I forgot the stinking camera. Anyway, back to the story, this hike we did was pretty neat. It starts out as an easy dirt trail, that progressively gets more challenging until you are practically bouldering to reach the top. The view was spectacular. You could see for quite a ways in every direction.

      After we got back to Summer and Tyler's place we got all cleaned up and went out for dinner. We went to this cool pizza place called "Oreganos." They specialize in thin crust pizzas. Paul and I went out on a limb and tried their mexican pizza. It was actually quite fantastic. We didn't expect it to be so good, but it sure was. After dinner we went swimming and hot tubbing for a little bit, then went to our traditional dessert restaurant, BJ's. Every time we have gone to California with Summer and Tyler, we would always get a pizookie at BJ's, so it just stands as a tradition that we have to have one when we are together. If you are wondering what a pizookie is, it is the most amazing dessert ever! Its like a half cooked cookie with a scoop of ice cream on top and whipped cream. They are fantasticly delicious goodness! After dessert we came home and went to bed.

       Church was church. Summer gave a great talk, we went to classes, then came home. Paul and I were a little tired so we took a wonderful nap outside, in the sun, in a hammock, AND got a tan. Oh yeah. The 75 degree weather was just about perfect. After our nap we played some games with Summer and Tyler and cooked dinner. For dessert, Summer planned a really fun game. We were split into girls vs boys teams and we had to cook a specific dessert, but Paul and I both had to be blind folded. Summer and Tyler could only tell us what to do. It was supposed to be a competition to see who's dessert came out tasting the best, but they both ended up tasting pretty great. Paul and Tyler finished before Summer and I did, but our food tasted just as good as theirs did.

       Monday morning Paul had his office visit. My plan was to go for a long run come home and do a little shopping with Summer. I went on my nice long 5 mile run, came back, and got ready to go with Summer. By the time we got to the store, Paul was already back from his visit. When we got back from our errands I got all the details out of Paul. He said he loved the offices, and the people and he could see himself working there! Yes! Plus for me! We did talk about how it would be hard to not have grass or seasons, and life would be paced differently in Arizona, but we are just keeping our options open, and we will go where ever the Lord wants us to go.

     Before Paul and I left to head home, we went out and played a nice round of frisbee golf in the beautiful 80 degree weather. I just never imagined being so warm in January, but I loved every minute of it. I did not win of course, but I had fun trying to keep up with the guys. After our game we headed back to Tyler's, packed up and headed home. The drive was quite long, but I didn't fall asleep once!! That is a big deal for me. Every time we drive, I always crash and leave Paul to fend for himself, but somehow I managed to stay awake for the whole 7 hour drive!!

      We don't know where we are headed in the next few years, but I certainly wouldn't mind moving to Arizona. Guess we will just have to see where life takes us!