Copper Mine!

A few weeks ago Emily and I headed to the copper mine with the boys. I hadn't been there since high school and it was really neat to see how much it has changed.

I may be the only person who thinks the copper mine is beautiful, but I absolutely do! Every morning the sun shines on it making it all golden and pretty.
(This is not a good picture, check it out in the morning!)

I totally remember having my picture taken in front of the big wheel when I was little too!

Hayden and Tyson got some new rocks to remember the trip by! Lucky boys!

#1 Antelope Island

Did you know that there are 43 State Parks in Utah? We do now and plan on visiting every single one! First up... Antelope Island at the Great Salt Lake. I think this may have been our first visit to Antelope Island and we were lucky enough to have Emily, Hayden and Tyson accompany us! We had a great time exploring the Island... We had a picnic lunch, walked down to the waters edge (where Ty was brave enough to test out the lake), drove to Buffalo Point to look around, checked out the visitors center and then decided that the Ranch house would have to be another trip. Maybe this summer when we can swim we will go back and check out the rest!
Stay tuned for our future adventures!

 

 

 

 

In the kitchen...

Thank you to Emily, Whitney, Mom (and Robby, for entertaining the little naughties) for making my dream of putting some decorations in my house a reality! I need to tweak them just a bit (mostly I need to get my pot and sauce pan back!) so that they look perfect but so far SO GOOD! You guys are the best!

so we found it...

Jace and I have decided to buy a house. So we found one! We close on Feb. 24th and are very much looking forward to making our new house a home! Here are just a few pictures of our new house. I will post more when we actually move in!

To Hayden and Tyson...

I know that sledding with me isn't as fun as going super fast on the snowmobiles, or being pulled behind the snowmobiles but I sure am glad that you'll sled with me anyways! I love you guys!

Christmas

Me in my Snuggie (!) and new Googles!

Jace in his new BYU hat with his new gun lighter!

I have the best husband ever! He got a bonus this year for Christmas and surprised me with my PINK KitchenAid mixer and a cute cake plate I had been coveting! I had no idea! Thanks Jace!

Gingerbread Houses

Thanks Family! It was a wonderful time :)

Before Christmas...

Jace and I went a little crazy in November... we bought a really nice new camera the day after Thanksgiving (I know, there is no excuse for 6 months between posts now!) But we also made another purchase that is much more exciting! We bought two used (but new to us!) snowmobiles so that we can go snowmobiling whenever we want! Although Jace's promptly broke we have enjoyed them very much! After we fix the one we will hopefully be going to the mountains alot more! Thank you Bryan for helping us find such great deals!

Yellowstone

Jace and I took a trip to Yellowstone over the 24th of July weekend. I had never been before and was very excited to see what everyone is always talking about! Before we made it all the way to Yellowstone we stopped in Idaho Falls to go boating with Jace's brother Chris and nephew Josh. Something interesting happened on the lake that I had never seen before... there was a moose in the middle of the lake! It was just swimming along! Of course none of us had a camera (because it was raining!) so you'll just have to take our word for it! Anyway, we entered Yellowstone from the west entrance which means we drove in through Montana, very exciting for me since I can now cross Montana off the list of states I've never been! We set up camp and cooked up our favorite camping dinner, salmon and asparagus, yum yum! After dinner we checked out Yellowstone Lake. The water was like glass and Jace kept talking about how he wanted to go wakeboarding on it (of course). Unfortunetly the lake water has a max temp of only 60 degrees, and it hadn't reached that warm yet! So Jace was able to live without wakeboarding on it :)

The next day we headed out into the park to see all the touristy things. The plan was to pull off the road at anything on our generic yellowstone map! So the first stop was the West Thumb Geyser Basin. This was by far my favorite area of the geysers. For the most part they were all really blue and pretty.

Jace is in front of the Black Pool at the West Thumb basin.

Bluebell Pool at West Thumb

Kepler Falls, which is inbetween Old Faithful and West Thumb

Of course there was Old Faithful! It was pretty cool to see all the people who sit and wait an hour for this to go off! There were so many! We walked around the Old Faithful area while waiting for the big show. We did see another smaller geyser go off while we were waiting too. My favorite part of this area was the beautiful mountain river that runs throught the middle of all the geysers. I found it amazing that you can have a typical mountain terrain in the middle of all the dead terrian that surrounds the super hot geysers and springs!

This is the Emerald Pool, I think its pretty famous because I know I've seen it before :)

Of course there were tons of Bison. And tons of people stopped in the middle of the road that got out of there cars to get a closer picture. It does kind of amaze me that people don't realize that the bison can kill them!

They are huge animals!
I can only assume that because we slept in a tent it had to rain! Luckily we got a beautiful double rainbow!

Water

Okay, I know I am a nerd but has anyone seen the reservoirs lately? They are FULL!!! Yesterday Jace and I went for a drive to buy a state park pass and I was so excited to see water coming down the spillway at Deer Creek! Yeah for the rain!!! I'm ready for the warm weather now so we can enjoy all this water!!!

Camping? Do I do that?

So growing up the only times I would go "camping" was girls camp. I remember enjoying these trips, but as a family camping was the cabin and the houseboat (or the lodge at bullfrog.) You could say that camping isn't my thing. So when I convinced Jace that camping at Goblin Valley over Memorial Day would be a great idea, I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into! We bought a new tent, an air mattress and got together all of our camping supplies... Our plan was to drive down to Goblin Valley on Friday, hike Little Wild Horse canyon on Saturday and come back Sunday afternoon. We were all ready for a nice, warm, relaxing weekend... It rained instead. When I say it rained, I really mean that it rained, the ENTIRE time. The rain started while we were looking for our campsite and continued all through the night and the next day. It really rained the entire time! Despite the cold we had a great time... and I keep bugging Jace to take me back down (we really wanted to hike that canyon!). Unfortunately it really hasn't stopped raining since! But as far as "do I do that?" I'd like to!

Our little campsite

At this point we had decided to go home, that is why the food is in the tent :)

A view from our tent... that is rain, not fog!

We were so cold and wet, but happy to be together!

What do you do in Vegas?

Why get married of course! Congratulations to Bryan and Whitney on making their marriage offically forever! We are super excited for you! We are so grateful that we were able to share in your exciting day, again! We also want to say thank you for getting us out of Salt Lake for the weekend!

Jackson Hole!

Last weekend we went to Jackson Hole with Jen, Quint and Jade. We had a blast! While the boys went snowboarding Jen and I had a chance to walk around downtown Jackson. I have to admit it wasn't really what I was expecting. I thought the town would be much bigger than it actually was! My favorite part of the trip was the wildlife tour we took early saturday morning. We got the chance to see elk, sheep, bison, coyotes and lots of moose! We also got to stop in Idaho Falls on our way home and have lunch with the Bonnesen's that live up there. It is always nice to see them! Overall we had a great weekend and were excited to just relax!