Spring Break!

Fact: BYU does not give us a spring break.
Fact: I NEED a spring break, so Melissa and I took one anyway!

We went to Snow Canyon State Park which is just a few miles North of St. George. We were hoping for slightly warmer weather than we got, but it was still warmer than Provo would have been!

We camped at Quail Creek reservoir and really enjoyed it despite the nights being really cold! Keep that in mind (we're talking 32 degrees or less) when I tell you there was a guy in the camp next to us who slept on top of the picnic area . . . thing, and he was wearing long johns. Yes, JUST long johns.

We made delicious dutch oven pizza!

Making my mark at the sand dunes. :)

Some of the spectacular scenery we saw on our hikes!

The longest hike we went on was called Three Pond Trail. This is the third pond. The ponds themselves weren't really worth the long hike through mostly loose sand, but then again, I might have enjoyed it more if I wasn't coming down with a doozy of a cold . . .

The sand that had accumulated by the end of the Three Ponds Trail. I had no idea loose sand was so difficult to hike through!

This cave was one of our very favorite parts of the park. It was about twenty degrees colder at the mouth of the cave and it totally gave off this creepy vibe. Melissa is still certain she saw a cougar in there!

We had to climb down into a big pit to get to the cave and this is the view from the bottom. This actually makes it look much deeper than it was, but it was still pretty cool!

After we camped out a couple of nights and explored the park, we headed for St. George. We stopped by Brigham Young's winter home which was actually way cooler than I anticipated! Seriously, go take a tour sometime.

A kind, fellow tour-goer offered to take a picture of us in the mini orchard at the back of the home. If we look sleep-deprived, it's because we were. We also smelled a lot like campfire smoke. We even heard a woman and the end of the tour wonder what was burning. Next time, we're going to go to civilization before we go camping!

After getting Mongolian BBQ and Coldstone, and painting masterful watercolors at the St. George Art Museum, we headed to Enoch to visit Tyann and fam. We really appreciated the showers and the delicious food she fed us! Not to mention playing with the kiddos. Melissa has some pictures but my camera died almost as soon as we got to Enoch! :(

Anyway, we have decided to make spring break an annual tradition whether BYU gives us an official one or not. Next year, we're thinking Bryce or Arches!

Because Yesterday Was My Birthday

I could (and maybe should) write a post about how fun Christmas was, or how school is going, or even my feelings on current political issues (that would take about three sentences), but because yesterday was my birthday and I feel like I still have some leftover "birthday rights" I'm not going to blog about any of that. Instead, I will show you my new shoes:


You're very welcome.

Hooray for Christmas!

Lots of fun things have happened this season to get me in the Christmas spirit! Of course, that doesn't take much. :)

Me and Melissa decorated our room:


We went to Riverwoods (gorgeous!):




And Bree and Carson helped decorate the tree while we watched the First Presidency's Christmas devotional:



I love this time of year!

One Thing I Like About Halloween

I know it's much closer to Christmas than Halloween, but the pumpkins me and Melissa carved this year were AWESOME, so I had to share.

My Beatles pumpkin!

Melissa's Hunger Games pumpkin!

The two of us being happy!

Melissa EATING raw pumpkin! Bleh.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

. . . or pictures. Here you go:

Dreams

Today in Statistics 121, the girl sitting next to me asked me if I was a writer. I was a bit startled by the question, until she gestured at my notebook where I had been writing snippets of a story instead of taking notes. I found myself nodding and smiling in answer to her question without hesitation. We both turned our attention back to the lecture (mostly), but I keep thinking about what would have happened if she'd asked the follow up question: "So, what have you written?"

Uh . . . Well, I have a blog. And the margins of most of my notebooks have random bits of potential stories. I have a few short stories floating around from my high school days, and once upon a time I started writing a young adult novel, but I'm only five pages into it after five years, so . . .

That's how I would have had to answer the girl in my stats class. So while I think of myself as a writer, I have to wonder if others would think the same if they knew that I haven't ever finished anything that could be considered worthy of publication.

When I got home from stats, I stumbled across this article which made me wonder if I've stopped reaching. In high school and even before, I wrote all the time, and I'm not even counting the stuff I wrote for school. We're just talking about fun stuff here! I made a dedicated effort to take writing classes and tried to improve. I wrote every day. Now, the only writing I get done is in the margins of my stats notes.

So, I guess the real question is, how do I maintain a concerted effort to be a real writer and still get everything else done that I need to? And don't suggest that I should drop out of school to become a writer, because I'll do it as soon as someone gives me permission. ;)

Arches

I just barely realized that I haven't blogged about one of my favorite vacations ever! In July, me and los parentos went down to check out Arches National Park, and it was incredible. I have a billion pictures, and none of them really do that place justice. I highly recommend going!

We dubbed this formation the Black Pearl because we thought it looked like a pirate ship.

Mom and Dad at Balanced Rock. It was definitely Dad's favorite; he couldn't stop talking about it!

This Indian guy insisted on taking our picture at Double Arch, and he was going all crazy and lying down on the ground to take our picture. I like the wacky angle of this one though, and it's one of the few pictures of all three of us together.

The famous one! Delicate Arch was my favorite, despite the long, 7 AM hike we took to get there. It was so worth it! It was seriously one of the COOLEST things I have ever seen. And a lot bigger than I imagined, too. If you look really close, you can see a couple of tiny people under it if you want to get a sense of scale.

Mom and Dad pretending to be ol' homesteaders at the cabin of one of the original settlers of the area. They're the best. :)

A spectacular view of the canyons created by the convergence of the Green and Colorado rivers. SO awesome! It was really almost as good as the Grand Canyon.

Anyone know what kind of flower this is? It was so pretty, and probably about eight feet tall! I was standing right under it when I took this.

My delicious gnocchi! We had dinner one night at a fantastic little Italian place in Moab, and I was so hungry after hiking around all day, that I ate this ENTIRE thing!

Mom insisted on ice cream or milkshakes every night, and this little tiny shack thing is apparently the place to go for milkshakes in Moab. They were quite delicious.

I was in love with all the funky trees in the area. They seriously grow in the weirdest places and into such unusual shapes. Mom and Dad kept laughing at me for taking pictures of trees instead of rock formations. :)

Dad being a Native American(?) at Delicate Arch. I really liked the hike to this one because it was easy and there was an abundance of really cool things to look at.

For the life of me, I can't remember what this formation is called. I think it's one of the Windows, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it was cool because it was one of the few that you can actually go right up under.

I believe this one is Turret Arch, but you can't really see the part that looks like a turret in this picture. This always reminds me of something funny. We were walking back from this one, and this guy behind us was like, "Look! Red sand!" and literally ran off the path (which is forbidden in that place), freaking out about the red sand. Now, you have to understand that ALL of Arches is red sand. Literally. That's all there is. You can understand why we didn't stop laughing at that guy for a couple days. :)

This trip was a little different because it was just me and the parents, and we kept saying how we need to bring Neil and the grandkids to see it, but it was really quite nice to have a chance to hang out with just my parents. We had a lot of fun!