Fourth of July

I love the 4th of July. It's one of my favorite holidays. I love the BBQ's, parades, and especially the fireworks. Oh and I love the USA! We didn't go to any parades this year, but we went to two BBQ's, watched fireworks, and swam at my sister Cori's house. Yeah...it was a great 4th of July!

At the North Canyon fireworks:

 My nephew Charlie loved the raspberries!

Swimming at Cori's house:

Brant did this awesome trick where he put the basketball between his feet, did a front flip,  let go of the ball and actually made it into the basket!! I tried to get a picture of the actual flip, but only got the beginning and the end. But put the two pictures together and you can get the idea...

Camping in Payson Canyon

A few weekends ago, we took a little couples' camping trip with our good friends Tyson & Jessica. We tried to get more people to come, but it ended up just being us four. And it was a great time!

We got started a little later than planned since apparently Brant & I have to pack a week's worth of things for an overnighter. Seriously...the car was PACKED! It looked like enough stuff for a family of 5 to be gone for a week. No joke. I tried to get a picture of what our car looked like, but it was too full to get a good one from where I sat in the front seat. And I forgot to take one before we unpacked. But you can kind of tell from this one.

We also almost had another delay when we almost locked our keys in the car when we were at the shop getting the chainsaw sharpened. Luckily, somehow my door remained unlocked so we were safe. But it was kind of a foreshadow for later on in the trip...

Anyway...after driving down to Payson and after searching for a while for a good campsite, we came upon a decent one and we set up camp. Here is the group setting up Brant's hammock. It wasn't the strongest of cord holding up the hammock & it broke when Brant tried it out for the first time. So after stringing it up again, he was a little hesitant climbing in. But it held. Though I wasn't too eager to try it out.

Despite the wildfire danger and the no fire signs we passed on the way up, we headed out in the woods to cut up some trees for a good nice fire to cook our dinners with. And of course so we could roast mallows & starbursts.

Isn't my man so sexy with a chainsaw?

Tyson helped out with the chopping of the wood while Jess & I just watched. We helped carry it back though. Then let the men do their work while we got dinner ready. We had tin-foil dinners. Yum!!

That night, we just hung around the campfire for a while until we got tired. Which wasn't that late since we have all become old married people who like to go to bed before 10. But we stayed up late that night. I think we got in our tents around 10:45. Rebels!

The next morning after a healthy breakfast of eggs & sausage, we did decided to ALL try out the hammock. Remember how I said the cord wasn't very strong? Yeah...it definitely didn't hold 4 adults. If you look closely you can tell that we're actually sitting on the ground in these pictures.

At this point we decided to pack up the cars and head down to the Payson Lakes. Tyson & Jessica didn't bring their swim suits and couldn't stay long, but we thought it'd be fun to at least hang out there for a little while and walk around. So we got all our stuff in our cars and shut the doors while we stood around and chatted for a bit. Then I went to get my water from the car and found out that the doors were locked. With our keys in the car.

Yep! We locked our keys in our car. Up a canyon. Where there is no cell service.

Luckily our friends are awesome and were willing to drive us down the canyon so we could call a locksmith to come open our car up. But the locksmith was in Provo. He said he could be there in 2 hours and it'd cost us $85. We decided to call the cops instead. The Sheriff that was called followed us up the whole canyon back to our camp ground (without knowing that he was following the people he was coming to help). He was very nice and with the help of his awesome car-unlocking tools, he got our car unlocked in just a matter of minutes.

Sadly, all that time we took going down the canyon and back up meant that Tyson & Jessica didn't have time for the lakes. So they headed back home and Brant & I headed to the lakes for a swim in the very cold water.

Despite the cold water, we had a good time just relaxing out in nature. Well...he relaxed as I spent the majority of the time swatting bugs (mainly bees...eek!) away from me.

Since we hadn't really expected to stay all day up the canyon, we hadn't packed food for lunches. So we didn't stay too long at the lakes. It was just a couple of hours before our tummies started rumbling and we headed down the canyon to get food from a little burger & shake place.

On our way home, Brant started getting tired. So to wake him up, we stopped at Cabella's. I'd never been there before (I KNOW!!), so he had to show me around the whole store. I must say it's pretty amazing! And we couldn't leave without buying SOMETHING. And since we plan on going backpacking soon with Brant's dad & brother and neither one of us have fishing poles to take...we got two red fishing poles. I contemplated getting a pink one that lit up as you reeled in your fish. But I'm pretty sure I'd get sick of the green and yellow lights after only a short time. Plus the red ones we got were cheaper.

Comforting Arms

Remember how when I first got engaged I had these horrible dreams that Brant called off the wedding? Probably not. But I sure do. They were AWFUL! I had to text/call him a couple of times in the early morning hours to have him reassure me that they were in fact just dreams.

Well, last night that dream returned.

It started out as something harmless...I was on a date with a guy who had dark hair and 2 kids. We were sitting on the beach having a picnic. Then it switched to my brother-in-law telling me that he had talked to my date who said he'd had a great time and wanted to go out again. At first I was excited. But then the most terrible feeling came over me and I remembered Brant.

I doubled over, gasping for air as my sister tried to comfort me and tell me to forget about Brant. Yeah...like THAT would happen. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there. So I ran down the hall past this wall full of all Brant & my wedding plans. I completely lost it then.

Luckily at this point I woke up.

But it wasn't a nice waking up. I woke up gasping for air, shaking, crying, and not knowing what was reality or dream. It took about 30 seconds to remember that Brant should be in the bed with me and thankfully he was there, sound asleep.

I grabbed onto him so tightly it wasn't long before he woke up asking what was wrong. I stammered out that I dreamed he had left me. And I can't even describe the feeling I got when I enveloped me in his arms and said he was there and not going anywhere. I just laid in his arms and wept. It still took me about 15 minutes to calm down and I never got back to sleep. But those arms wrapped around me kept me in reality.

And my reality is that I have a husband who loves me. And honestly, that's all that matters in the world to me right now.

Picture Update

So Brant and I have been busy the past 4 months. (Can you believe it's already been 4 months!!! I sure can't!)

To celebrate the end of tax season, Brant & I headed down to Zion National Park for a little R&R. We first stopped off in St. George and stayed with my friend Whitney Harris. I didn't get any pics with her, but we had a great time with her & her family.

In Zion, we took it pretty easy and just did one hike - Hidden Canyon. Before leaving, I purchased new hiking sandals (Chaco's). I was super excited about them, but learned quickly the benefit of breaking in hiking shoes/sandals. About 1/3 way through the hike my feet started hurting and I had blisters. So Brant & I did the majority of the hike barefoot. I had a good reason to, but Brant just thought it was fun. We had such a great time in Zion and it was just what I needed after a stressful busy season.

For Memorial Day, Brant's family scheduled family pictures on Saturday morning. On our way down to Provo for the pictures, Brant and I decided to do a spontaneous trip up to my family cabin in Island Park, ID. Well, pictures took a LOT longer than we expected and we didn't get home until 6:30 pm! But we decided to throw caution to the wind and quickly packed a bag and the car and started the 4.5 hour drive. We got there just in time for it to start snowing (ugh!). We quickly turned on the heat and jumped in to bed. The next day we headed in to Yellowstone. On Monday we hung out in West Yellowstone and ate at my family's favorite pizza place.

Needless to say, it's been a fun 4 months! But I'm very excited for summer and all the fun new adventures we're going to go on.

What's On My Mind

Oh hey blogging world. Remember me? That's if anyone still reads this thing... But guess what...I'm sitting at work right now (my new job!), no one is in the office besides me, and I'm having a lazy day. So I am going to blog. Woot woot!

So here are things that are on my mind...

~ I wish I were still hanging out at the park with my sisters. We met up for lunch today and it was very hard to get myself to come back to work. I feel like my sisters get together a lot because their kids play with each other quite often. So it's nice now that I work closer to them we can do fun things like meet up at a park for lunch or something. I love my sisters. They're the best!

~ I don't want to invoice clients for work we did yesterday right now. I do that everyday and I need a little break from it. Plus remember how I said I'm having a lazy day? Yeah...doesn't really help with my desire to invoice.

~ How is that I've only been working here for 3 weeks and I'm already looking forward to the day I don't work anymore. I guess that shouldn't really be a surprise as we all know how badly I don't want to ever work another day unless I really want to.

~ Speaking of...I've been SOOOOO baby hungry lately. And I swear baby's are EVERYWHERE! I can't escape them. And that doesn't help with the whole wanting one thing. Nor does it help with my desire to not work. Seriously, I would absolutely love to be a stay at home mom right now. Not because I think that job is easy (I have 5 sisters and plenty of friends who have taught me otherwise), but because I know that would make me happy. But I also know that I need to keep working so that we can actually have something to live on.

~ Brant & I planned a camping trip for this weekend with some friends, but now it's supposed to be cold tomorrow and rainy. I'm hoping he won't still want to go. But I have a strange feeling that we're going to end up being cold and wet in the mountains tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

~ I just misplaced 3 day sheets (in other words the work that 3 employees did yesterday). We searched for them for ever before I found them. I was kind of freaking out. But crisis averted!

~ Today just isn't my day... I went to replace the ink in the printer, and it exploded ALL over me. As in all over my hands, my dress, my leggings, and the floor. Thank goodness I'm wearing all balck so you can't actually see the ink (except for on my hands). I think it took me at least a full minute (if not longer) to start doing anything aboaut the spilled ink. I was in such complete shock over the situation I just sat there with black hands not sure what to do next.

~ I'm ready to go home to B now. Thankfully it's 5 so I'm out of here! Until next time blogger friends...