Birthday Adventure? I think so.

I would first like to thank my neighborhood for having multiple garage and cutting down a huge tree this morning at 8:00 am. I'm super sleepy from Jackson's birthday adventure, but it was a pretty good day. Jackson requested Pepsi, Mandy wanted to play a game and I wanted to ride a ride. Jackson suggested the Heber Creeper, but we ended up on a Ferris Wheel. I'll take it.

We drank Pepsi:

We played Laser Tag (and forgot to take pictures):

And frolicked in Liberty Park:

We then stopped taking pictures...but! we played a game, ate sweet potato gnocchi, watched Winnie the Pooh (which may be Jackson's new favorite movie) and ate cheesecake.  Winnie the Pooh may be the best movie I've ever seen. Here are a few good moments.

 

Speaking of the Cheesecake factory, I think this is my new list:

1. Chocolate Mousse (specifically the dark chocolate stuff on top)

2. Godiva Chocolate

3. Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Swirl

Who's Adam, because we should eat peanut butter together? A friend recently told me that there are at least 1,500 calories in each piece of cheesecake. I wonder if they could get anymore in there? Calories are so good.

Anyway, It really was such a fun birthday adventure! See y'all next year.

Michael and I are off to Iowa and Illinois with my family. I'm so excited to show him corn fields. fireflies, Casey's General Store, you know.

Sunday Dinner, Minus One

Michael's family has the glorious tradition of eating together on Sundays. They let me come, even though I don't eat meat which force them to make a veggie-friendly alternatives. It's one of my favorite parts of the week and one of the things I miss the very most when I'm away at school. Each Sunday I get to play with Michael's nieces and nephews and chat with his family. I love it.

 

I was driving home from Michael's parent's house today and thinking about how silly Sunday dinner will seem without Stephen. Who's going to ride the longboard, dish out the food, and beat the children at videogames? Stephen and I are somewhat different...I admit, but we both like to beat Micheal up and that's a special bond indeed. The first time I came to eat dinner at Michael's, Michael failed to mention my vegetarian status. Stephen jumped up and made instant mashed potatoes. That might sound like a little thing, but it sort of felt like "welcome to the family" to me and meant a lot. He's going on an LDS mission to England. I think he'll be top-notch, lovely, bloody brilliant and all those other British expressions.

 

He'll be gone for two years, with a few calls home on Mother's Day and Christmas, some emails, and letters as the only means of communication. I have to say that I've known some people who just stumbled into going on a mission, since it's part of their culture and family tradition, but Stephen's too independent to stumble into anything and I respect that about him. I'm glad he's going for the right reason and I'm glad that he'll be forced to give me a bang-up tour of England someday when I can afford it.

 

(I took this sneaky picture at Christmas of the boys and their mom. It's not the most artistic photo I've ever taken, but the three of them were walking in a line while Michael talked with his hands, Becky laughed, and Stephen smiled and shook his head at whatever ridiculous thing Michael said--that pretty much sums up their relationship.) 

I thought I'd gotten good at missing people, but I guess not. I know you won't have a chance to read this before you hop on a plane, with your name tag and all, but dinner won't be the same without you Stephen--and who's going to do this to Michael?

Note: this is after three minutes of fighting, which was edited due to Michael's somewhat unseemly language. Also, it was a few years ago and Stephen was in a "texting phase."

Birthdays and such

Happy Birthday Mom! We celebrated by receiving tennis tips and a game night. Check out these action shots, I was like Ashton Kutcher in that camera commercial.

He wishes.

 Go big or go home.

My parent's oldest friends invited their youngest friends over to their house to play croquet and open presents. Once again, I got to use the sport feature on my camera.

 I'm not sure why you're so sad, Derek. It sort of looks like the beginning of one of those "get your life back" commercials for urinary dysfunction, hemorrhoids or yeast infections. You're selling that chair though.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Take that Uinta Mountains.

We don't need a trail, we'll just bushwack.

 (I think I got bush-wiggity-wacked.)

We don't need nice weather, we'll just walk through the snow.

We don't let trees get in the way of photo opportunities (at least Greg doesn't).

We're not scared of a little rain--in fact half of our group slept in a puddle of water...

...and then built a waterproof force-field of strength around the tent (so they didn't have to sleep in a puddle again).

We're so manly that we teased bears. 

We swam in a lake full of ice chunks.

(Ok, we didn't swim, but we threw some really heavy rocks into it.)

We didn't roast marshmellows, like Skippy Doodles--we roasted shoes. 

We broke the will of our machines, by using the self-timer feature on our cameras.

We brought hammocks, to mock the mountain with relaxation.

I trapped a bear and ate it's heart; Michael wore nothing but mud and ate only raw fish and beetles; Greg pulled an eagle out of the sky; Rusty (the person) gave birth to twins; Rusty (the dog) exchanged his "woof" for a lion's roar. We didn't just survive the trip--we taught that mountain a lesson. Ha!

I really need a nap.

Backpacking, Doggy Style

The title of this blog post was not intended to be innuendo-ey, but it happened and I couldn't alter it in good conscious since I believe that accidental puns are the best kind of puns. Par example, I was working at Papa Murphy's on halloween in high school--the holiday where the entire world comes into the store to get a free spoon full of cookie dough--and a naked (or somewhere near there) cowboy came in. I muttered "Holy cow," to a coworker. She then laughed hysterically. My little comments don't usually go over so well, so I began looking for the source of the problem. Eureka! I found it. An elderly man had just walked in the store in a giant inflatable cow costume. Accidental pun! If only he'd been wearing a rosary...

I'm getting my final things put together for backpacking in the Uintas with Michael and a few of his friends. Yes, I'm going camping with three boys again. One of them is nicknamed Rusty, which might get confusing. I hope he doesn't think I'm bossing him around all the time. "Rusty heal; Rusty, go lie down; Rusty, leave that dead animal alone..." Maybe he'd like a belly scratch though. Speaking of my dog, check out his sweet pack:

They had two color options, Khaki and Rusty. What a stud.