No More Gold Teeth!!

The sad moment has finally come.... I no longer have any gold (or according to my mom, copper) teeth! I forgot to snap a picture of me with my matching goldies, but I at least remembered this time that I had to make a memory out of this one! So long, my dear, gold, friend!


After braving the dentist for the most painful appointment so far, me and Brett finally got to go to the Tuacahn! It was freakin awesome. Besides getting stuck around all the old men who smelled like the world's worst B.O., we had a lot of fun. We went for their pre-show dinner, which was delicious. (In fact, remembering how good it was is making me wish it was lunch time already!) We saw the Sound of Music which was way good. Neither one of us had been before, and we loved the outdoor theater!


If we thought we were tired the next morning (we didn't get back to Cedar til almost 1 am), we didn't know what was coming today! Ok, so we really did know, but I thought I would try to be ignorant. So after getting like 5 hours of sleep Wednesday night, I tried to sleep all day Thursday after work so I would be able to stay awake through the midnight showing of Batman. Well, even if I hadn't gotten my 3-4 hour nap in before the show, I'm sure I would have stayed wide awake! The movie was freakin awesome and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was after 3 a.m. by the time I finally got to sleep, so today I'm living off of only 3 hours.... Just thinking about it makes me yawn.... Well. That's our life in a nutshell for these past couple days. I'll post most pictures after I turn the big 21 in a couple days!! Woot Woot! Haha.

We Finally Made it to Angel's Landing!

Ever since me and Brett started hiking in Zion last summer, we have been trying to "work our way up" to the harder hikes. Well this last week, we finally made it!!! Since we are moving soon, and have so much going on this month, we determined that Tuesday was our only shot at trying to hike Angel's Landing. The weekend weather wasn't so hot (in fact it was kinda rainy and gross), so we were hoping that we didn't get rained out once we got to the park. Luckily it was a clear, beautiful day and we were able to enjoy getting all sweaty and feeling the burn in our legs! Here are some sweet pictures from the trip.



I used to drive through Toquerville twice a week, and I don't ever remember seeing this tree. As we drove by on the way to Zion, I thought there were just a bunch of birds sitting on it, and as we got closer, I thought it was so weird that none of them were moving or flying away as cars were going by. Once I realized that they were shoes, we had gone past, but I was cracking up so bad that even though me and Brett were mid-sentence talking about something, I had to flip a U-ey to show him what was so freakin funny.



I told you we meet a new friend everytime we go hiking! This time we were just starting on the trailhead and were walking alongside the river when we see a cute little family of ducks just floating downstream on the current. It was so cute!



I have a weird obsession with inanimate objects like bridges, trains, train tracks, etc, so I love it when we get to cross these at Zion! There is just something about them that is so freakin cool! I guess I'm just weird.



Don't jump!





Here is what we hiked up the first probably 1/3rd of our trip... Talk about a burn.



This view was freakin awesome. We just had to stop and stare for a minute.










After going up the first set of switchbacks, we hiked through a little canyon which was so pretty!! There was a lot to see!




This was the biggest fuzzy caterpillar ever! I haven't seen one like this since I was a kid!


Here are Walter's Wiggles. I was a little disappointed I couldn't get a better picture like in the postcards.... Oh well, I guess.







Here was our pretty view from the Scout's Lookout point. It was pretty freakin sweet!


Here's a big crow? raven? big bird? Haha... Whatever it was, we saw like 10 of them as we were finishing the hike and they were squaking at us tauntingly.


The river was SOOO muddy that day, it was disgusting. Good thing we had already hiked the narrows!

I got this picture because the clouds looked totally sweet, but I've been informed that the highest point in the picture is Observation Point which is another of the really long hikes at Zion.

Here is a really tall mountain. Which....we...climbed!


You kind of can't tell what this is in this picture, but it was like a little salamander or something! The top half of him was shimmery silverish gold, and his whole bottom half was bright blue like he had been painted or something. So weird!

Here is what we had to hike up....

Here's looking down behind us.



What a beautiful view!

We finally reached the end and were able to rest!!


More of the gross river.





Here is a view looking over the sheer drop off of the cliff that we sat on the edge of...







Going both directions, this point of the hike was really windy! On the way down, it felt so nice to feel the strong breeze and cool off! Here is a picture of Brett basking in the wind. Haha...



One final view on the way down before my camera died!

Fun times in St. Jizzle

Last week me and Brett went to St. George for a dentist appointment, and beforehand we thought we would go explore some more in the caves (since Brett wasn't able to come with me and my friends last time). We went into the same cave that I had already been in, so we were done with that pretty quick. It was the world's hottest day that day, so we just snapped some more awesome pictures of the red rock before we split. We ended up going to the St. George pool for like an hour to cool off in the water and to kill time before I had to get my root canal. We need to do that more often! I hope some day we are rich enough to have a pool in our backyard down there... Ha! Ya right.

I love how you can have the black lava rocks everywhere, and then you turn around and it's nothing but these big beautiful red mountains! It's amazing.

Last summer we wanted to go to Tuacahn, but never really made it down there. We decided that since we are moving, it's now or never! In high school, I was in the Sound of Music, and both of us and our families loved the movie growing up, so it worked out perfectly that they are showing it this summer down there. Since we were already clear out at Snow Canyon, we decided to go buy our tickets. This rock formation on that drive reminded us of the Fiery Furnace at Arches.


The light was a little better that day than when I had been with my friends before, so we got a few really good pictures which captured the bright red-ness of it all.

Here are some of Brett making the crazy climb out of the cave. He hates it when I get these fun pictures of him.... Muahahahhaha!


Since Dixie is partnering up with the U of U (don't even ask me how I feel about that unless you want an hour long rant about it....), I decided I better get a picture of the stadium before they erase years of memories for the Rebels. This stadium sure held some fine times with my and my friends, and even if they freakin change everything about it, I will be one "Rebel" who will always remember the good ole days!


After getting my awesome root canal, we took one of my best friends of all time out to dinner for his birthday. While the food is pretty fantastic, the service sucked at Texas Roadhouse once again, but we tried to make the best of it. In honor of the new Batman coming out soon, we decided to watch the first one (since I have yet to see it all the way through) after dinner at Brent's house. After that was all said and done, we were pooped, so went straight home! But not before getting this awesome picture of the moon and the temple. Brent lives just down the street from it, so walking to our car, this caught our eye. Or, eyes, I guess.... :-)

Pondering in the wake of a lightening storm

So, I just felt like posting something today, because the past few days have been kinda fun. Last night me and Brett were able to go to the park for dinner (even though it was kinda cloudy and had rained earlier). We were able to try out my amazing new Alfredo recipie (thanks Missy!) which was quite delicious if I do say so myself, and then we layed on the grass and watched the clouds go by. I must say that life does not leave much time to do such fun and simple things anymore. It's kind of sad when you think of what we are all missing because of our busy schedules. We are going to have to MAKE more time in the future to keep going to the park, because every time we have lately, I've loved it. Maybe next time we will actually get to just read our books together and chill out. As we were driving back to my house as the sun was setting and nightfall was approaching, I kept seeing the coolest lighning at the south side of town and kind of over Leigh (Lay) (Lei) Hill. I made Brett pull over in SUU's stadium parking lot so we could just sit and watch it for awhile. It was so awesome! We were able to just kick back and reflect on what life is going to be like after we are married. For those of you who aren't in the loop, we are getting married next Spring. I think we are pretty much settling with May 15, and I'm so freakin excited. Whenever people find out that we are engaged, the first thing they ask is "When's the big day?", and then they proceed to tell me how ridiculous it is that I'm waiting a year. "How are you gonna be able to wait that long?" "Oh, no! You might mess up" or just "What in the world are you thinking??". It has been one of my biggest pet peeves, because I don't think it is anybody's freaking business but mine. People should just save their freakin judgements for themselves. I think people who have dated for a month, engaged for three, and then rush into marriage are retarded, so PAH! There's to you! No, but really, I am excited that even though 10 months is still pretty far in the future, we are starting to figure things out now. I kept bugging Brett all night to help me figure out what we are going to wear in our engagement pictures. I think we chose a photographer, which means we will be doing our engagements pretty freakin soon! I'm so excited. For over the last year I have collected ideas and changed my mind about so many little details, that I can't wait to LITERALLY plan this freakin thing. It makes me all giddy inside, and hopefully I can hold onto that and not let the stress monster out. Anywho, I guess I'll keep you posted as things keep unfolding down here in Festival City, USA.Here is a crazy picture I got of the sprinklers on SUU's lawn as I was trying to take a sweet picture of the moon that night....

Hot Springs Adventure

Because I am so lazy, these pictures are not in the best order.... One day I will get it right, but until then, I will just have to stifle my anal-retentive, OCD tendencies. Anywho. Here are some pictures from our most recent trip up north. We took a few days off of work so we could go to Warped Tour in Salt Lake, which was pretty awesome! Because of our bad luck with cameras at the last big show we went to, I just took pictures with my disposable camera, so the pictures from Warped will come up later... As for now, these ones are of Me, Brett, Antonio, Sarah and Natalie (aka the gang) on our last excursion up Spanish Fork Canyon. This one turned out to be a real adventure. Read on...


Chillin in the car. And look at these huge windmills at the base of the canyon! SO COOL!!



Ok, so the hike up to the hot springs was an adventure in itself. We left Sarah's house mid-afternoon and figured we had plenty of time to do what we needed to before going up the canyon. We went to Macey's and bought some hot dogs and treats, and things to make a fire for our dinner. After driving through the canyon a little ways, we got up to a nice spot where we found a campsite to start our fire... We spent quite awhile there roasting our hot dogs and relaxing while we just sat and enjoyed ourselves.

Antonio and Natalie, getting our fire started...


Cool shades, girlfriend!




Natalie kept throwing her diaper wipes off the table and onto the ground, and she was giggling SO much, it was freakin adorable. I just had to get some video of her.


Before we started the hike, Natalie still wasn't quite sure who Brett was, even though he had hung out with us before... She knew my name (Sa-na-na), but by the time we got done with our campfire, her and Brett were buddies. (Come on, Bett!) They chased each other around and had a fun time. He is going to be such a cute daddy!

Here's Mae Mae in my hat and glasses being a goof.

After fully killing the fire (it took Sarah and Antonio a walk down to the river, and Brett an awkward bathroom moment), we finally got back in the car, in search of the trailhead. Since none of us but Sarah had ever been to this place, we weren't quite sure where to find it. It didn't take us too long before we got there, but by then it was probably around 7 or 7:30 at night, and we had a good hour or longer hike...

Here's a cute shot of Natalie cuddling up to Antonio. It was sooo sweet!

On the drive up the canyon, Sarah warned us that sometimes there are naked people up at the springs. My parents had already told me and Brett that a lot of skinny dippers have been known to frequent the area, so we were fully warned. Sarah told us though that they are mostly hippies and weird people, but Antonio kept joking all night that he was so excited for the naked people. Once we got to this bridge, there was no denying it. "Nude Bathers at Springs". Oooh. Haha

We got some really pretty pictures of the river which ran alongside the trail the whole time. It made the air really humid, and the mosquitos were pretty abundant. Here's a good one of Natalie, wrestling away from Antonio. The girl sure knows how to have fun! I loved how red these flowers were!

By the time we got up to the hot springs, it was pretty late. It was getting close to 9 o' clock. There was a small group of people who were leaving just as we got there, so we had the place all to ourselves! There was this huge waterfall which blew me away! It was so pretty, it was the first thing I had to check out!

Me and Brett had fun climbing up the slippery rocks behind the waterfall, and sitting in the little cranny between the rocks and the water. It was SO cool! Not to mention, it was the perfect makeout spot. :-) Here are some pictures of the actual hot springs! And boy, were they hot! There were a few cooler spots, but for the most part we were toasty warm! They were freaking pretty, but they smelled really bad (aparently like Sulphur--however you spell that). It was worth it to sit and relax for a minute though.

The adventure back down the trail was the most thrilling part of our night. When we finally sat in the springs, it was getting dark, and I thought I saw a trace of clouds starting to come over the mountain towards us, but didn't really think much of it. That is, until we heard a loud thunderboom and it started getting even darker. We tried to stay just a minute longer, but once we saw lighting, we were out of that water pretty quick. We threw our clothes over our wet swimsuits, just in time for it to start pouring rain. The drops were huge, and by then it was totally dark, so we were freakin out a little bit. We thought the trail was going to be washed out, and there were some pretty scary parts where the trail was very narrow and the drop down toward the river was steep. Oh, and did I mention that we only had one TINY flashlight for all five of us? Yeah, so it was quite a trip. Fortunately the rain stopped pouring and it only sprinkled most of the way down. Once Antonio stopped trying to freak us out by telling us people were gonna pop out of the woods to kill us, we were able to make enough conversation to make the trip down pretty fast. It had taken us almost 2 hours to hike up, but coming down was only about an hour. Once we got to the car, we sure were glad! The rest of the night was much less eventful and we made it down the canyon just fine.