Nater Eats a Worm!

I really didn't think he was going to do it!

Last weekend and this weekend we drove up to Panguitch for a family reunion. We couldn't stay the whole time due to work...etc. As you can see there was a lot of fun, fishing, and rain (just like every other year). We were sad we missed out on the reunion at Bear Lake but glad we got to go to Panguitch.

Panguitch 2008

Sand Castle Cake Party

Before...

After!

Nicole and I have been talking about making a cake for a while. We even played with the idea of starting a cake business. You can see just how well we can make a sand castle cake (too bad two of the towers fell later that day and we had to fix it with toothpicks). When we were done we realized that we needed a party so everyone could eat the cake because there was no way we could eat it all by ourselves. We had some friends over that night and had cake and ice cream. Everyone was wondering if it was someone's birthday. Turns out that Gina's birthday is this Saturday and they are going to be out of town. So we looked for some candles, and all we could find that would work was a 50th birthday candle. So here is Gina blowing out her candle representing her 50 years of life that she still has to live.

P.S. This cake was made in loving memory of our dear friends, Jeff and Jenna Foster, who no longer live in St. George. Jeff has made numerous cakes and helped inspire the making of this cake. We miss you guys!

The Story Behind the Bryce Canyon 5K

So we had a family reunion at Panguitch Lake to go to this last weekend, and our good friends, Tyler and Nicole, were running a 5K and 1/2 Marathon in Bryce Canyon with some of their other friends but staying in Panguitch for the night. Since it was so close, we decided we would go run with them.

So someone reserved a place to stay with two beds for $100 a night, so we thought it would have a pool and be all sorts of nice. We got there and the place looked like Barbie's house, and what's worse is that it wasn't much bigger than Barbie's house too. There was no pool or anything nice about the place, and only one bed. So there was this big ordeal, and the managers, although they knew we didn't, said we reserved a room with one bed. Then they said we would all be fine because a king size bed is like two beds anyway. We debated whether to stay there but it was late so we thought we might as well since we had to get up before the break of dawn. As we brushed our teeth that night, we also found out that the sink leaked all over your feet when it was on. Fun. So needless to say...all four of us huddled onto that bed, and by morning Gary had ended up on the floor. We hardly got any sleep but when 4:50 AM rolled along, we were all up and getting ready to go.

The race was pretty fun. Nicole did the 1/2 Marathon, and the rest of us did the 5K. Gary's time card got back and it said he ran the Women's 5K, but that he got 2nd place! After they got his card fixed, I got bumped up to 2nd place and got a little silver medal. It was exciting; I'll just ignore the fact that all the other girls my age were running the 1/2 Marathon...and that there were only two girls in my age group running the 5K (that is what I figure anyway). Tyler got a bronze medal for his age group. Basically, I feel that we were all winners. Especially Nicole. 13 miles...wow. Gary once said he wanted to run a Marathon and after this 5K he said never mind. I admire those who do, but don't exactly want to be them.

P.S. After the race, we went back to the Barbie house to shower. Nicole and I were outside for a minute and some people walked by and asked us how our room was. They then proceeded to tell us that they used to work where we had stayed, and that they quit because the place got bed bugs and the sheets never got washed. Good to know the day after we slept in an infested bed. 

• Registration for 5K or 1/2 Marathon and a sweet T-shirt: $25
• Barbie house lookalike in similar size for one night: $100
• Gas to get to Panguitch: $50
• Food during the trip: $30
• Sleeping in a bug infested bed with three other people the night before the Bryce Canyon Races: priceless

Bryce Canyon 5K!

Some Photography

This is just an old baby buggy we have at our house that I thought was awesome and I took a picture of. We forgot to get a picture of Lily in it! Maybe when she is older and can sit up...

Since I don't have a photography blog up and going yet, I thought I would post some photography I did recently on this blog. On Wednesday I took some pictures of Kody and Trish's baby Lily. She is such a cute baby! 

A Handful of Fun!

We had April's (Gary's cousin's) kids, Emma and Jake, over on Sunday to spend the night at our house. They found all sorts of stuff that we didn't know we had in the house. The list of their accomplishments include: made a video about pirates, painted, read stories, watched movies, went swimming in their pajamas, and were constantly cleaning up the messes. Luckily, when Gary had to go to work, Ashley came over to help out. Jake found an old game of Monopoly and pretty soon there was Monopoly money falling from the loft all over the living room. They also found one of those little exercise trampolines and the next thing we knew, they were stacking couch cushions up so they could get high enough to jump off the railing onto the little trampoline, which was like a 15 ft. drop. Luckily they were stopped just in time. They were a handful, but a lot of fun too! 

Swimming in PJs!

Homemade Stadium Seating

So this weekend was pretty fun. On Saturday, Gary decided that our 1 ft walkway to the bathroom in the basement just wasn't going to cut it. So Gary and I headed to Home Depot and bought supplies for Gary to build stadium seating for the upstairs living room so that one of the big couches downstairs could go upstairs to give us some more room. When he was done, we invited a bunch of our friends over for pizza, ice cream, and a movie. 

Ice Cream Toppings

I was not lying on an earlier post when I said we have a plethora of ice cream toppings. I only have one final left and then this semester is over! Who wants to have an ice cream party to celebrate?

If You Could Hike to Kolob

On Thursday night, Chris & Sara Poole and Gary & I drove up to Kolob Reservoir. We were supposed to meet up with Tyler & Nicole, who had drove up earlier that day and already found a camp site. It's a good thing we weren't hiking because we drove forever and could not find them. We drove on some crazy bumpy roads, looking for a bridge that meant we were close. We found a bridge, but it looked like it would fall apart the second we drove on it, like the ones in National Treasure. So we drove some more. We finally gave up and pulled off to the side of the road and camped there for the night. 

We roasted some mallows on a couple of charcoals. It wasn't quite like having a real camp fire, but I guess there was a rule that we couldn't have one. The trick is to get close to charcoals, but not quite touch them with your mallows...not the most effective way to get smores.

We had our good camera with us and got some good pics of the stars and then some other stuff the next morning. I love that camera. Some car lights messed with this one, so it had some weird light in it, but it kind of looks cool.

The next morning we found Tyler & Nicole. They had actually gone over that crazy bridge; it turned out that didn't look so rickety in the daylight. It was then that we found out that they had had a visitor that snuck in their tent the night before...a huge skunk! Luckily no nothing was sprayed.

During the day, I hung out on the beach with Sara and did some homework, and everyone else played in the water. Later on in the day, I joined them for the fun, and we took some awesome pics of everyone jumping off some rocks into the water, with Tyler & Nicole's waterproof camera (sadly the camera drowned the next day when they went to Gunlock).

We were going to stay another night, but we decided it was unpatriotic to skip out on fireworks, so we went back through Zion and stopped to take some pics on the way back to St. George. 

When we got back in town we found a good place to watch the fireworks, set up our camera, and then came the fireworks. It was a great 4th of July!

Graffiti is Art

I am writing a research and position paper on graffiti in one of my classes. I am actually secretly addicted to tagging random locations throughout St. George. Of course I am kidding, but I do find graffiti to be very creative and beautiful in the right situations. Here is a little something I did on www.graffiticreator.net. It only took me a few minutes, and I needed a break from all the writing. I justified taking the break from my homework to do it, by the fact that it correlates with my paper.