Last First Day of School

Welp. Back at it in full swing. School started on Monday and I hit the ground running. Each day felt like it should have been Friday, but now that Friday is over I am asking myself where this week went? So here's the scoop.

Friday/Saturday: New roomies moved in, love them.

Sunday: A million new people at church, new church time, new church room. I now have sacrament meeting in the Varsity Theater, weird.

Monday: CLASSES!!! I start class at nine every day, which isn't horrible, but definitely not great. I had Worksite Health Promotion, Obesity and Weight Control, Exercise Prescription Testing, and an Entrepreneur Lecture series. They were all outstanding. Then FHE with all the new kids. We played kickball. I LOVE kickball. Probably a little too much, but it is so fun.

Tuesday: Class = Problems in Exercise Prescription. My teacher is crazy but I actually really like him so far. Then work.

Wednesday: Class. Work. Homework. Relief Society. Sleep.

Thursday: Class. Homework. Work. Cook. Homework. Sleep.

Friday: Class. Set up internet with roomies. Relief Society. Work. Play. Sleep. (Note the PLAY part of the day, so fun. I haven't laughed so much in ages.)

Overall, I am seeing a general trend in my schedule, but it's good. I am all done with visiting teaching assignments, I just need to hand them out. Amanda and I were very proud of ourselves for that accomplishment on, yes, September 1st. Record for a new semester I'm sure. This semester is going to be crazy busy with school full time, work full time and Relief Society, but I am so excited about it. I will learn a lot and of course still make time to have fun, I always do. And, the best part is....when I am done with this semester, I am done!!!! Internship then peace out undergrad!!!

Zion - Friends Trip

Ok, so about a week and a half ago I punched vacation time for the first time in my life. Why? Because I was going to Zion National Park for the week!!! I drove down on Tuesday morning with a group of friends from my apartment complex. Once we got there we set up camp and then headed up to hike "Angel's Landing". It was so fun!! I've always heard about this hike but I've never done it. It is pretty steep but totally worth it. For the last half mile of the hike you have to hold on to chains because it is such a narrow steep trail (hardly a trail) and there is an 800 ft cliff on one side and a 1200 ft cliff on the other side. Oh ya, and the ridge you are hiking on is only 3-4 ft wide at points. I don't really know why I liked this hike so much, but I did.

Bryce and Jake coming down.

Notice the ridge they are on.

Climbing up one of the crevices

Some of the switchbacks coming up

A view of looking down the cliff wall.

Notice the river at the bottom.

After the hike we went back to camp and made dinner. Roasted hot dogs and dutch oven cobbler of course. Yum. After eating, we waited til about 11pm for it to be dark and then went and laid in a field to watch the meteor shower!! That's one of my favorite parts of camping, looking at the stars.

The next day, we woke up, made breakfast and headed back up the canyon and hiked The Narrows!! Easily one of my favorite hikes EVER. Basically you walk a mile on a paved trail and it takes you to the point of the virgin river where it just winds through the canyon and there is no land between the canyon walls. You hike upstream and then once you turn around you, obviously, you go down stream. It is actually a really long hike if you do the whole thing, but most people just go upstream til they feel like turning around. I would say we probably went about two-three miles upstream before turning around, but man I could have gone all day, it gets prettier and prettier at every turn, I love it. On the way back down we floated, which I love. A lot of people won't float, but it was deep enough and had a good current that I was happy to do it. It's hard to float without flotation devices, but totally doable, just keep your butt up. Anyways, it was tons of fun and I loved it. After that, we were done and everybody else went home and I went to St. George.

Bryce and Austin

Waiting for a turn to jump. This is a spot where

you can jump of the rock and it's deep enough you won't hit.

Fact. When it gets this deep...it gets cold.

Pretty slot canyon we found

Floating

Lake Mary Camp Out

Oh my goodness, I am so excited that I finally get to post about this!!! It really happened over a month ago, but I've been waiting to get the pictures from John, because it was the one time in life that I didn't have my camera on me. So here is the story/timeline.

2:00 am: Finish playing games at my house with me, John, Spencer, McKay and Checko.

2:15 am: Discuss the fact that we wanted to sleep under the stars. Checko bails and goes home. We were planning on going hiking in the morning anyways, so we decided to go up Big Cottonwood Canyon and sleep under the stars there since it is prettier.

3:00 am: Finally packed and on the road up the canyon

3:45 am: Um....there are no campgrounds up there. Oops. So we finally just found a spot by a picnic bench at Silver Lake. There weren't any "no camping" signs, so we figured we could argue that it wasn't illegal at that spot.

4:00 am: Settled in our spot and drifting off to sleep

Spencer

McKay

Me and John

5:00 am: Sun starts coming up and we fight it and try to keep sleeping.

5:45 am: I wake up and freak out that somebody is going to walk by on the boardwalk and see us so I make the boys get up.

6:00 am: We are out of our bags and two old fishermen walk by and look at us like we are the strangest creatures.

6:15 am: Have nothing else to do other than to start the hiking Lake Mary even though we weren't planning on doing it til 8.

I was freezing, so yes, I hiked wrapped

up in a blanket

Pretty pic

River

7:00-ish am: Got to the lake. I'm not really sure what time it was, I quit looking cause it was too painful.

We just kicked it up at the lake for a bit which is EASILY one of my favorite places on the face of this earth. It is so peaceful and beautiful. We had a great time goofing off and being sleepy. These boys are so good to me, I'm lucky to have them around to go do these spur of the moment crazy activities with me!

Picture of Lake Mary

Group shot at the lake

We look so pathetically tired.

Embers

This evening was one of those times when you think deep about life. As I thought about a bunch of things that occurring in life at this point of time, it made me realize that things don't leave life. Period. I am going to use the analogy of embers. If you let a fire die down, it leaves embers. A lot of the time the embers are still warm, even if they don't look red anymore. However, if you blow on them, they turn red again. And if you blow hard they start to glow. If a breeze blows or you start fanning the embers and toss in some kindling, it becomes a full fire again.

Welcome to my life. I have been enjoying the bliss of summer and of life in general lately, and it has been absolutely fantastic. But there are certain things dealing with family and friends right now (that I don't necessarily want to mention on a public blog yet, once it's burning down the house, then you'll know). However, these events have just taught me that you can't just put something on the back burner forever, whether by choice or by force, sooner or later something will happen to it. Those embers get fanned and BAM! you have a fire. Right now the embers are just starting to glow again, but I feel the fires are coming. Multiples. And they are going to be big.

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!!

After reading this post, some of you may say "Did she really just do that?" To you I say "Yes, yes I did."

I just want it to be known that this last weekend Ellie and I celebrated our one year anniversary together. Ellie being my fantastic Toyota Yaris. I treated her to quality tune up, oil change, safety and emissions, you know, the works, and she treated me with a great road trip to Zion National Park. Yes, we love each other. Hahaha!!

But really, as silly as it is, there are so many times when I think about how grateful I am to have a car that I can call all mine. She is so good to me, she doesn't break down, she gets great gas mileage, (I have yet to pay more than $30 to go from empty to full), she is always there for me and ready for adventure. She has gone to California, Lake Powell, St. George (several times), Zion, Heber, Murray, etc. She goes camping with me and does just fine on the dirt, and she also excels in the snow for such a small little thing, so she loves our snowboarding trips. She keeps up with me and I am so glad she is mine. Every time I drive past a UTA bus TO THIS DAY, I think to myself how grateful I am to have my own car that is convenient, sanitary, and creeper free.

Best Willey Night EVER

Ok, so yesterday I was working in Customer Service at work. It's the best place to be on Saturdays for sure. It is usually killer slow. Exhibit A.

She didn't even have to stand up to answer the phone

Katherine and I playing sorry. That's how slow it was.

Thus, the best night at work. SOR-RRRRRY!!

Baby Dallin

Ok, so I am trying so hard to not get behind blogging again. I still have lots of things to post, but I refuse to get any further behind. So yesterday, we had another special day in my family. My sister Melanie had her second baby around seven pm. She was in labor for 12 hours, which is probably one of the shorter labors out of my sisters, so that's a plus. He was 21 inches I believe and weighed in at 8 lbs 15 oz. Yes. Practically 9 pounds. Good work Melba. Luckily I was in town and able to see him just after he was born. He still looks a little alien-ish in these pictures because his skin is still getting out of the prunish stage (you know, like if you spend too long in the shower, or you are washing dishes for a really long time and your hands wrinkle. Gross.) and he still has goopy stuff all over his eyes, but he is adorable nonetheless. I went back to visit him this morning and he is just PUH-RESH-US. Love him. Oh ya, his name is Dallin McKay Morrey. Hopefully Rylee (his big sister) loves him, haha, we'll see how that goes. Congrats Melanie and Josh!

Josh trying to comfort him while the nurse

checked his vitals

Notice how his hand is still purplish

Once he was cleaned up some and started sleeping