The Grand Canyon!

So on day 2 we woke up next to the beautiful Grand Canyon! We spent the next couple of days exploring the canyon, playing games, and enjoying each other's company. Here's some pictures for your enjoyment:The husbands overlooking the canyon and the Colorado River:
Me and my Mommy:
Breakfast, Day 3, at the nice hotel nearby:
Me and my sweet Daddy:
The fam (minus Mike on a mission) out on a rock with the canyon two feet behind us!:
My Dad had a birthday while we were at the Grand Canyon! Happy Birthday Dad!
Both my Mom and my Dad turned 52 last month, but let's be honest - They still look like they are 32!!! :)
Beautiful skies - windy - and such a great day at the Grand Canyon:
On Day 3, we decided to take a short hike (maybe the first 3/4 of a mile or so) down into the canyon. The trail continued many miles to the bottom of the canyon and lots of adventuresome people will take multi-day hikes down to the canyon, camp, and hike back up. We decided we were going to do that one day. It really was pretty! Here's part of the trail that they built through the rock:
I sure do love my family. We really did have so much fun!
Inside the Grand Canyon's watchtower near the end of day 3 -- Trevor and I were up on the third floor with my Dad taking this picture from below. Pretty awesome ceiling, huh?:
After lots of good food, playing nertz games in the hotel lobby, and plenty of outdoor adventures and sunshine, we made our way back to Zion National park to see if we could find another hotel. We were having so much fun we decided to stay one more day!! :) We found a hotel outside of Zion's for Wednesday night and then spent another day at Zion's on Thursday. Stay tuned for the next post!!! :D

Angel's Landing

Well, for the last week of April, my PARENTS CAME TO TOWN TO VISIT! :) Yay! I haven't seen them since last July, so you better believe I was excited! I took a week off work and we all went on an adventurous 4-day trip to Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon! Since I have tons of pictures, I've got to spread up the trip into multiple posts.

This post is of the first day, where we visited beautiful Zion National Park in Utah:

We based our day around a hike that we had heard a lot about. It's called the Angel's Landing trail and it is AWESOME! The first couple miles up are a "normal" style hike with a wide trail that is flat at points and much steeper with switchbacks at other points. One of my favorite parts of the hike is a place called "Refrigerator Canyon" and it was cool with shade and a nice breeze, which felt GREAT after hiking in the mid-day sun for a while. We discovered a neat cave (most likely carved by wind into the sandstone) that we crawled up inside and took a picture through the natural "window" that had formed:

The hike really was enjoyable, and this part of it was really neat! It was called Walter's Wiggles, I believe, and it was made up of 20 (or so?) very short switchbacks that carried you up to the top of the cliff fairly quickly. Can you spot us? :)
We finally reached a point in the hike called Scout's Landing. This is the farthest point in the hike that Boy Scouts are allowed to go, and with good reason. The last half mile of Angel's Landing hike really is ridiculously dangerous. Observe the danger sign:
So? Did we decide to be crazy people and risk our lives on small ledges, holding onto chains, with 1000 foot cliffs on either side of us ALL just so we could experience a great view AND so we could say we did it?? Um... yes we did! :) It wasn't even a question in my mind - I HAD to do it! I was so excited and a little nervous!! The next few pictures will show you just how worth it this awesome hike was:
Yes, that's a straight drop off on the right side of that picture above. And this is what you'd see if you looked over that way. Yep. That's a river. And the road.
So, as we carefully watched our foot placement and clung to the kindly-placed chains for our lives, we pushed onward to the top. I love this next picture - it really helps show you the type of terrain we were hiking on. See the thin strip of rock and trees to the upper left hand corner? That's where we had just hiked and we were only getting higher up! Say hi Dad:
But, I am glad to say that we MADE IT! :) We ate our sandwich lunches on the top of a rock overlooking THIS:

Smile! We made it up!

Uh oh... Now we have to go back.. Down!! Gulp! This was the part I worried about. What if I slipped?! It seemed like going down it would be a lot harder to control my speed and momentum, as I was moving with gravity this time! Just take a look at THIS:

But, I'm glad to say that it wasn't as bad as I anticipated and we all had SO MUCH FUN!
Celebration kiss! :) I think he's enjoying it!

Well, stay tuned! There's more to come! If you ever go to Zion National Park, and you aren't afraid of heights, then you MUST go on the Angel's Landing Hike. AND... no chickening out for that last half mile. It's SO amazing and totally worth it! Just talking about it makes me want to go back and do it again! :)

Thank Heavens for Spring!!!!

Oh! What a wonderful time of the year! It's been warm this week (almost summer-ish warm!) and FINALLY the trees are starting to bloom and make the Earth so beautiful! I'm grateful for spring for so many reasons, the most important being:

1. Pretty flowers on the trees in wonderful colors
2. Trevor and I have our anniversary coming up on May 3
3. No more school for the hubby for a while! (After finals)
4. Warm weather
5. Driving around with my car windows rolled down
6. Wearing capris and shorts!! :)
7. Smell of fresh cut grass
8. Provo's population lessens dramatically - to the extent that I actually enjoy living here because it's not so darn crowded!
9. The beautiful, exciting feeling of CHANGE!

Speaking of change - I got a new haircut! With bangs! I was feeling a little brave so I went for it... and I'm actually loving them! This picture was taken the night after I got it done, and my hair stylist did a great job styling it! To keep myself busy and entertained while Trevor's been swamped with finals, I did a little shopping and purchased a cute new skirt and headband for church. So, this past Sunday, I sported my new hair and clothes to church. While Trev and I were taking a quick walk around the church, he snapped this shot with his phone... Proof that the trees ARE blooming! Hooray! The pink cherry trees are always my favorite and they always smell so good!I'm also so excited because my parents are coming to town on Friday night and they'll be here a little over a week! I'm SO excited because it's been since July of last year that I saw them! Yay!

Happy Spring everyone :)

Skookies!

So the other night Trevor and I stopped by Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick up a birthday gift for his mom and we found this little treasure:We've had them over at Dave and Heidi's house before and OH MY they are so good! :) So I had to buy a set for us! Each of the two skillets makes a 5-6 inch cookie that you can top with ice cream and other deliciousness! I made the first one tonight and it was pretty darn delicious.

Shout hooray for easy, delicious desserts! ;)

Friends for Life :)

Well, my wonderful, challenging, and rewarding yoga certification is over! It was so much fun and I've made some life-long friends in the process! It was great to have such a small class and I wouldn't have had it any other way!

From L to R: Camille, Nadine, Stacey, Erica, Marcus, and Me! :)

This next picture has our two main instructors in it... Amy is the one on the left in the white tank, and Monica is in the green tank near the right. We are all doing our favorite poses :)So... if you ever want to do yoga, I'll bring along my spare mat and we'll have some fun! :) Plus, I need a bit more practice before I start to charge... so come get me while I'm free!!!

Still Alive!

So I promise we're still alive! I've just gotten so busy with LIFE. Full time job, part time job, new calling, Trevor's health situation, and then I started my yoga certification! It's been hectic, but tomorrow is my last day of certification, so I'm sure things will slow down somewhat for a little while!

Sooo let's back up about a month! February was a much better month than January! One of the main highlights was Valentine's weekend when Melanie came down to visit from Idaho. We skiied, we shopped, we watched movies, we played! It was really quite fun, in a nutshell and I'm glad to have a friend like her! Here we are up at Brighton in our ski gear:And of course, since I had a friend in town on Valentine's Day, Trevor and I celebrated the holiday of love - our FOURTH one, in fact! - a week later. This year we broke the tradition of going to Park City to eat dinner *sniffle*. BUT! We went to a really quaint, nice Spanish restaurant in south Salt Lake. It was recommended to us by Dave and Heidi. I had their famous steak smothered in a bleu cheese sauce. Talk about an explosion of flavor! Wow, it was good.

Just for fun, here are a couple of pictures of Trevor and I on our way out the door to dinner. We attempted to take a good one, and never quite reached a *BINGO* picture, but hey, they are entertaining, no? Oh wait - I just realized that the second one would be cute IF Trevor weren't making that face. I guess that's what happens when I say "smile big!".

Well we sure are goofy. That about sums up our relationship as of late, but I love it. I'm fairly certain I've rubbed a lot of my nerdiness off on Trevor since we've been married, and it's fun to have a fellow nerd around the house!

In other news:

• Trevor finally had his colonoscopy to find out what the problem is in his intestines. Afterward, we had to wait for the doctor to come in the room to tell us what he found. As he was walking through the door, literally before he could even find a good place to stand in the room, he had informed us that Trevor most likely has Ulcerative Colitis (UC), which is an auto-immune intestinal disease. Much to my excitement, we were also given pictures of the inside of my husband's colon. Why this would ever fascinate me so much, I have no idea, but I really enjoyed getting to know my husband on a more "internal" level. Pun intended. :) So, anyway, I'll give more updates on this later. So far, since the beginning of the year, he hasn't had any flare-ups, and we hope to get him on some medication to prevent future episodes. Right now his symptoms are fairly mild, comparatively, and we hope to keep it that way! Thanks for all the prayers through this process!
  
  
• Hmm... any other news? Nope. Just finishing up my yoga training certification! I've learned so much and I really do love it. Be warned - if you ever start up a conversation about yoga with me, you may be in for more than you bargained for. I could talk about it for hours, and poor Trevor has been such a trooper to listen to me blab on :)

Sooo anyway, hope this is a good enough update for now. And I'd like to leave you with a bit of inspiration for the day. My brother quoted this quote in his last letter home, and it really has stuck with me. It gives me hope for the world and all the good that is here!

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Mahatma Gandhi

January: An INTERESTING Start to 2010...

Well, 2010 came, and with it came many surprises. And by surprises I mean trials. I had a feeling they were on the way because life had been pretty peachy for a while, and sure enough! They came a'knockin' on my door. Hence the lack of blog posting for the last month.

Trial #1: A very sick hubby. Trevor started feeling sick (again) on January 1st. Long story short, he's had intestinal issues for a while, starting before our cruise to Mexico last July. After the cruise, he had a rough couple of weeks but some anti-bacterial drugs helped out until he felt generally better. Then, since August, he's felt generally fine, but just not completely back to his normal, regular self. Then, on the 1st, for some unexplained reason, the terrible symptoms came back with a vengeance! The antibiotics made him MUCH worse. He was so sick for about 3 weeks that I couldn't stand it anymore. We had to put him on a temporary no-milk, no-gluten diet until he could feel good enough to function. He's now currently feeling much better and can eat normal foods, but it's just a matter of time until this happens again. Test results from his samples showed nothing, so now we're waiting to get a colonoscopy that will hopefully shed light on what is plaguing this poor man. Anyway, needless to say, I played nurse for most of January, and there were much prayer and fasting in Trevor's behalf. Still a waiting game now...

Trial #2: One of the six apartments that I manage had a flooding incident, caused by this tiny little nut:This nut attaches the water supply line to the base of the toilet. Apparently it got old and tired, and decided to split apart in the middle of the night and start spraying large amounts of water into one of the two upstairs bathrooms, most likely for hours before one tenant woke up at about 4:30am and heard the noise and was able to shut the water off.

So, when I got the 4:30am phone call, you can imagine that I really had NO idea what to do, especially when she explained that the water was POURING down through the ceiling into their living room, and there was now a hole in the ceiling (onto the brand new sofa, too!!):So, that's about the time in my life when I learned about "restoration" companies, and gained a huge appreciation for the 24-hours-a-day ones! They were able to get over to the unit by 6:15am to start the cleanup process. Here they are, working on ripping up the sopping wet carpet padding:
A few hours later, still working on things, slowly discovering that they'll have to keep ripping out any drywall that was no longer dry. We were all pretty shocked at how much had to come down, and at the fact that puddles of water kept falling out of the ceiling as they ripped out more and more of the ceiling. That water got EVERYWHERE!
What it looked like, 7 hours later:
Well, the good news is, it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since the initial phone call, and we're just a few steps away from having everything back together! The living room carpet padding needs to be re-installed and they are bringing in brand new carpet for replacement! Here is a picture I took about a week ago when they were finishing up the mud for the drywall:They have since textured and painted everything! Hooray! This journey is almost wrapped up!

Trial #3: My laptop finally died. It has made its way to laptop heaven where it can rest from daily usage forever. I turned it on one day at work and all I got was a black screen with a white cursor. Not even "safe mode" could bring me to my desktop. I took my Dell to the GeekSquad at Best Buy and they said this was caused by either a "bad hard drive" or a "bad operating system". Okay... so what you're saying is... it's basically not ever going to be of use again. Sweet. How much is this going to cost?, I think to myself. Well, not TOO bad, considering I had to purchase an external hard-drive and then have them transfer every document and program on my computer to this device the size of a regular iPod. At least I have all my stuff. Even if it's just sitting there, in a device in a box in the corner, collecting dust. I still have the insides of my Dell!

Trial #4: I was called to be Ward Music Chairperson and Choir Director of my ward. Okay okay so this isn't REALLY a trial because I really do enjoy directing choir and spreading my love of Christ through the medium of music. The trial part came when I was informed that one week from being called to this calling, we were having Ward Conference, and the Stake Presidency wanted for the choir to sing. Ok. 1 Week! I can do this! And... I did. AND... It was probably the best choir number ever performed by a choir that I was conducting. We sang "How Great Thou Art" and I really believe that every person in that room could feel the Spirit. So, Trial #4 becomes a blessing! :)

Trial #5: Struggling with work. Needless to say, from all the stress of everything else going on in my life (even with my extreme yoga skills that help me cope with stress better), I began to struggle at work and had a hard time completing a project I was given. I essentially felt like a failure, and yet couldn't lead myself to become a success. This is not who I am! So, I'm working now to turn myself around and go forward on the right foot. February is going to be a good month! :)

Trial #6: In the course of trying to fix Trial #1, I have found out that my new health insurance is not as awesome as I thought. Apparently, when I asked my insurance company if the IHC hospitals and facilities in the Utah Valley Area accepted my new insurance, I was told that they did! This was when we were signing up for the insurance. Little do I know that, SURE, they "accept" our insurance, but they are all considered "out-of-network", therefore changing our coverage and discounts if we choose to go there. At least there's one in-network hospital in Orem that we can go to, but SERIOUSLY!?!? ... I wish I had known this before I signed up. Because I wouldn't have. Blah. Oh well, we'll make it work. Guess if I ever have a baby in Utah I'll be having it at Timpanogos Hospital because I don't really have another choice.

Trial #7: In the midst of my main apartment flooding issue, I also had to deal with these other apartment issues that popped up in January: wet spot on carpet in another unit, lower heating coil in oven burst and had to be replaced (I did this MYSELF, mind you!!), and a toilet that overflowed with really really nasty smelly stuff (aka poop). Loooovely.

Okay, so this is a long post, and enough about trials!! Now, I want to talk about the Blessings that came to visit me in January:

#1 - My love and concern for my husband's well-being grew, A LOT.
#2 - I learned a whole bunch about fixing damaged walls in homes. I also learned how to install a heating element in an oven. I learned to make sure to unplug the oven before you do so, or you could get an electric shock that's worse than a car crash (don't worry, I didn't learn this from experience, whew)
#3 - I re-learned my love for music, and was able to experience a wonderful performance by my choir.
#4 - I now spend less time on the computer when I'm at home! Yay!
#5 - I got to go shopping for the ENTIRE day with my best friend Chris last Saturday. It was very therapeutic, and seriously wonderful!
#6 - At least I have health insurance, and we can afford it.
#7 - I've been able to re-evaluate my life and decide who I want to be and what I want to do moving forward.
#8 - Trevor did laundry for me TWICE in the last month! I love that man! :)
#9 - Most of these trials have been (or will be, very soon) completely resolved!!!
#10 - I've drawn nearer to my Heavenly Father through prayer and scripture study.

I definitely believe that trials are hard, but they bring blessings. Good night! :)