4 Wheeling

Yesterday, I went down to Aurora, Utah with Kevin, his dad, and a family friend to go 4-wheeling in the mountains. This was my first time 4-wheeling, and it was fairly enjoyable, although dirty. My arms also got fried, but luckily they are not too sore. The ride was actually fairly pretty. I have always been under the impression that Central Utah is just full of sage brush and cedar trees, but we rode through areas that were quite forested with pines and quakies. We mostly saw cows, but we also saw a few ground squirrels, and even a herd of wild horses (which I didn't think existed in this part of Utah). Kevin did most of the driving, but at one point he let me drive for about 10-20 minutes. It was kind of fun, even if I didn't go quite as fast as Kevin did.

Hopefully, I will get many more opportunities to go 4-wheeling, it is much more enjoyable than I ever thought it would be. Although, if I go again, I am definitely not forgetting the sunscreen!

Here are some pictures from our day:


Kevin's dad made a nice seat made out of cargo bags and a gel cushion that I mostly sat in, but since I am a midget and my feet couldn't reach the foot spot, it was not extremely comfortable.

Beehive peak

Me and Kevin

Me post ride. The dust made it so I couldn't breathe through my nose, so my teeth were super gross. My hair was as gross as it feels, and I am still getting dirt off of my face, but it was fun enough to be worth it.

More Family

Friday was my cousin Annie's wedding reception up in Park City. It was supposed to be outdoors, but the weather was not very cooperative. Luckily her aunt has a big enough house that we were able to just hang out on her couches. Unfortunately Kevin and I were unable to hang out too long because I had to go to work the next morning. Lovely six am start time.

Sunday, we had another family gathering out at my Uncle Weldon's in Duchesne. Since I only see my Aunt Della and cousin Tami about every few years or so, I decided that the trip would be worth it. We had hamburgers and other such barbeque essentials. Most of my Uncle Weldon's family was there, plus some of my Aunt Marlene's family. We stayed there for about three hours, so we got home pretty late.

I always enjoy seeing family, especially family that I see rarely. I am glad that I have such a tight-knit extended family, even if we are a bit kooky. And yes, I include myself in the kooky category.

County Fair & Family

This past weekend I went home for the Summit County Fair. My cousins, Shayle and Wilder were showing our lambs. They ended up doing well with their two heaviest lambs, placing 15^th and 17^th overall.

It was fun to watch the show, and I miss showing sheep in some ways, but in some ways, I don't miss it. I miss the interaction with all of my livestock exhibitor friends and raising the sheep, but I really don't miss the pressure and the stress. We always did fairly well, so there was always pressure to win or place really high. However, the exhilaration of winning always made that stress melt away.

One of my favorite memories from the show ring was winning the show the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. It was an intense and grueling battle, but I came out on top. As a side note, after winning the show, I got a red ribbon in showmanship (where you are judged on how well you show your lamb) because I was unable to trade my wild champion sheep for my much calmer lamb. It gave me a taste of humble pie for sure.

Another favorite memory was placing in showmanship at the state fair my last year. It was good vindication after never winning at the county fair, especially considering there were a large amount of competitors in the show ring. I displayed my ribbon proudly in my dorm room.

Here are some pictures of my cousins showing their lambs. I was unable to get any closer pictures.

Saturday, after we finished at the sale, Kevin, my dad, and I went shooting 22's. This was my first time shooting, and I was able to hit the target three times despite how shaky I was. I was pretty proud of myself. Later that evening my Aunt Marlene, Aunt Della, and my cousins Rocky, Sarah, and Tami ate dinner with us. It was fun seeing them. I don't think I have seen my Aunt Della or Tami in two or three years, and Rocky and Sarah since I was in high school. They are in town for my cousin Annie's wedding on Friday, so hopefully we will get to see more of them there. Today I was able to go to the new church in Francis for the first time. It is really nice and an upgrade from our previous church building, which was built when my dad was a kid.

Roommate Reunions

My old roommate Nicole was in town the past few weeks. I haven't seen her since she left for Ohio in November of 2007, so it has been a long time. Her visit also coincided with the birth of my other roommate Shannon's baby boy. On the 26^th of July, we gathered at Shannon's parents' house for Sunday dinner, which is always an event in and of itself. Bethany and Kristy were also there. The next Saturday was Shannon's baby shower, and I was able to see our other roommate Kellie. It was fun to see everyone again, especially since, with the exception of Bethany, I have not seen any of these girls for a year, and with both Kristy and Nicole it has been much longer. It was also fun to hold Shannon's baby since I didn't have to worry about his temperature or when he ate like I normally have to for babies. It was just fun to relax and hold him, which I did a lot of at Shannon's parents' house, since no one came out and asked to hold him. It was also fun to introduce Kevin to everyone, since only Bethany had met him. Hopefully we can continue to see each other every so often because these girls were some of my favorite roommates at BYU.

Posting Frustrations

So I finally realize why some people get so frustrated with Blogger sometimes. I have my first "I want to throw this blog out the window" moment while posting my Everett post. I had carefully crafted it in Microsoft Word over the past few weeks whenever I have had time, and I was feeling pretty efficient and good about myself. Well, apparently Blogger doesn't like it when you do that. I don't know why, but it was driving me crazy.

Okay, I am done with my tirade, I will get back to catching up on my posts.

Everett, Washington Trip

The Drive There

We left West Jordan at nine or so at night, and we drove until about two or three in the morning, then we stopped at a rest stop in Oregon and slept until seven or eight. There really weren't any highlights from this part of the drive, other than seeing various towns near Boise where my friends and family members were from.

The first exciting site of our trip to Everett was seeing the Columbia River. The biggest river I had seen previously is probably less than a quarter of a mile across and very swallow, so the Columbia River was very impressive. At first I didn't believe Kevin when he told me it was a river. It just looked like a lake. I was also amazed by all of the windmills. I thought they had a lot along I-80 in Wyoming, but the windmills along I-84 and the Columbia River put those to shame. I even texted my mom a picture of the river, I was that amazed. The freeway followed the river until we reached Portland, so I had quite a bit of time to be amazed by it.

The Evo and I at a view area next to the Columbia River. My hair actually behaved itself, despite the fact that I attempted to sleep in Kevin's car., and at this point I think all I had done to it was comb through it with my fingers.

Kevin wanted to show me one of the dams that are in the Columbia River, so we stopped at the Dalles Dam Visitor Center. It ended up just being a little museum with native fish and a history of the dams on the river. We had wanted to go inside one of the dams, so that was slightly disappointing, but it was kind of cool anyway, plus it was nice to get out a stretch our legs.

My mom's sister Marilyn and her husband, Blaine, live in Vancouver. I have never had the opportunity to visit them while they have lived in Washington, so this was a good opportunity to. They happened to live just around the corner from English Racing, the car tuning place. When we got there, Kevin and I were both exhausted, and Kevin was soon out cold on the floor and snoring. I was going that way too, so my aunt and uncle told me to just get some sleep, since we weren't very good entertainment anyway.

The sister missionaries were also invited to dinner, so it was fun to talk to them. One was from Sandy and the other from Wisconsin (I think), but she had gone to BYU prior to her mission, so they were both familiar with Utah, so we had some common ground to chat about. In my twenty-four years of being LDS, this was my first opportunity eating with the missionaries, and it was both fun and spiritual at the same time.

Soon after finishing our meal, we were on the road again. We were now driving in the more lush parts of Washington, and all the greenness amazed me. We arrived in Everett around 9 or 10 and promptly went to bed. We stayed at Kevin's friend, Marina's, house.

Old Friends

My friend Kelli Arnesen from Nursing School lives near Everett, so we went to visit her on Friday. I haven't seen her since we graduated from nursing school. We became friends after our Medical/Surgical Clinicals at the University of Utah hospital. We also had ethics together and went to Maryland together last Spring, so we were fairly good friends. She works at the Emergency Room up there, and works crazy hours. Luckily it worked out so I was able to see her on our trip. It was kind of cool to be able to see my friends too. We also walked around one of the piers in Seattle and visited Kevin's hometown of Clearview before calling it a night.

Port Defiance Zoo

Our main activity on Saturday was going to the Port Defiance Zoo and Aquarium with Kevin's old roommate, Leo, and his daughter Katarina. It was a really nice day, and it actually got kind of hot. On the way there we once again got stuck in traffic in Seattle. I think the traffic is Seattle will stand out the most for me just because it was always so horrible. The zoo itself was actually kind of small, I think the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake is a tad bigger, but it was fun to go to the zoo since I haven't been for a long time. They had quite a few animals and since it was fairly good weather most of them were outside so you could see them.

Boeing Tour
Boeing is huge in Everett. It was also on one of our main routes that we took a lot while there, so Kevin and I decided that we should take a tour and visit the museum. The tour took us to the various hangers where they make airplanes. It was interesting to see how refined their airplane making processes were. They are able to turn out a lot of airplanes in a relatively short period of time because everything is so organized. The building where they make the airplanes is the largest building in the world, and before they installed a ventilation system, it even produced its own weather. The museum was pretty cool too. It just had various airplanes, engines, and other stuff. Kevin and I even took our picture in the cockpit of an airplane. There are a huge amount of instruments the pilots have to be aware of, so I am glad that I get to sit in the back and just worry about the ventilation controls.

Drive Home

After Kevin was finally able to get me out of bed and ready to go, we left Marina's house around seven or eight. (Kevin had wanted to leave earlier, but I didn't want to get up, plus he wanted to buy some sandals he really liked at Fred Meyer, which no longer exists in Utah.) We had decided to visit the Grand Coulee Dam, so we had planned on our trip home taking a bit longer than usual. However, what we didn't plan on was the Evo breaking down, again. When we were twenty miles from our destination, and in the middle of nowhere, it started losing power, so we turned around and went back to a gas station in a tiny town about ten miles back. Kevin pulled out all of the spark plugs, but couldn't find anything wrong with them. At this point, he just wanted to get home, so our plans to go to the dam were cancelled, and I have to admit I was not feeling the most congenial towards the Evo. A few miles down the road, the car started sputtering and would not go anymore; however, the computer finally tripped an engine code, and Kevin was finally able to diagnose the problem. I guess the injectors had been rattled loose by the dyno and that was what was causing the problem. After we fixed that we didn't have any more problems.

These pictures are of the Columbia River and us in Eastern Washington. It was a little view area that we got out at to stretch our legs.

This is a picture of the Snake River just a little after sunset at one of the rest stops we stopped at in Idaho. I thought Kevin did a good job taking the picture, so it gets posted. He used settings on my camera that I didn't even know I had.

We continued driving until 2:30 in the morning when we pulled over at a rest stop just past Twin Falls, Idaho. Kevin just didn't see the point in driving anymore, and I was already pretty much asleep and useless at keeping him awake, so we slept for awhile. We started driving again around eight in the morning. We only stopped briefly at the McDonalds in Tremonton, Utah, and arrived home around noon.

Overall, I think this trip was a huge success, and I hope that I can return to Everett to see Kevin's "people" again. He has very cool friends up there, plus I loved the greenness of everything. Now if I could just find a remedy to the huge worsening of my allergies while there…