Up to Date

Okay. This is not Erin. And I also have no idea what I'm doing. Or something. Occasionally Erin thinks about getting caught up on the blog, but then I see her eyes glaze over when she realizes how much time has passed. I figured I'd help her out. Just this once.

July

Erin and I both had birthdays. There was a party. People came down. Fireworks. Look! Pictures!

Behold Travis' shame at losing the pushup contest.

The always adorable Rowan.

Don's enviable camping chair.

We also went up for a Smith family reunion. See?

Erin wanted me to add the pretty one, but funny faces trump all.

August

Erin's sister Cindy came to visit. We were all invited to cruise down the river. It was the first time Erin and I had gotten on the river in the 3 years we've lived here.

Not actually us, but you get the idea.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Two cute ladies and a really ugly guy.

 There were also some hikes or something...

Notice the picture in the bottom left hand corner where Sean slips and falls into a giant pothole. What a loser!

My first experience with quicksand. And scorpions the size of my hand. I prefer quicksand.

September

Erin (who is really hot) got me climbing gear for my birthday, so we were able to go climbing several times throughout the summer. There is even photographic evidence!

That is definitely me. Not Forrest.

And then we went to Boston for [insert long, boring, unimportant story], but we were able to stop by the temple while we were there.

I like how the flash brings out my eyes...

October

Apparently nothing happened in October.

November

We were able to go down to west Texas (eww gross) and east Texas (oooh nice!) to visit family and friends. Good time was had by all. Except for the Turkey. Cause it was dead.

The Jay Gowen Family. We visited them. In Texas.

Jay and Shauna were fabulous hosts. And they make surprisingly good gumbo. We spent an entire day trying to find pig trotters. I'll leave the rest of that story up to your imagination.

December

Ya know...Christmas

January

Our super good friends, The Gales, came up to spend New Years Eve (it turned into New Years Week) with us. There was a slug* of appetizers. It's always a party with the Gales around. No picture evidence of this event, though.

We also decided to adopt a dog from the local Animal Shelter. His name is Jack (or Jak; we change the spelling at random (because it's funny)). Here is a picture of him and Erin falling asleep together on the floor. Aren't they adorable?

I don't know how they look so cute when they sleep. I look awful.

February

Erin got a job at a local credit union. Here's a random picture of someone working that I stole off the internet.

This could totally be copyrighted, so let's keep this between us, m'kay?

Wow, I really started running out of steam at the end there. That is the last 9ish months in a nutshell (Why do people say that, anyway?).

If you have any questions or complaints please direct them to my facbook account and I'll get back to you next time I get on The Facebook. Bwa ha ha!

*Slug: unit of mass in standard units. Approximately equal to 32 lbs. Stupid SI units.

Spring in Moab

This spring, we were able to fit in some fun activities. We got to go backpacking with the Sparks! It was the perfect weather, and super fun:

I got to hang out with the Woolfs! They were so fun to play with, and the California was lovely:

I was able to got to BYU's Women's Conference, and be an usher. I got to hang out with my two girls Heather and Karalee. They were in the mood to do a little shoot, and we had fun catching the end of the sunset:

We went exploring with the Greens:

We did some hiking for work at Fisher Tower (Forrest and Craig tagged along), Donkey Canyon, and Corona Arch:

I got to play with Carter at the park to celebrate him turning 2:

Sean went to work in Carlsbad, and the Gales were able to come up. We explored the massive Cavern:

We also had the Gowen's come for the weekend. We set up a tent for the boys to sleep in, and we went on some fun hikes with them:

First Half Marathon

Moab has a First Half Marathon and Other Half Marathon every spring and fall. Natalie was one of the participants, and brought Ian down for the trip.

After we dropped her off for the run, we checked out Wilson Arch:

We saw Natalie cross the finish line for the half marathon. She did amazing!! Plus, she looks fantastic. She kinda just finished a half marathon!

In the afternoon, we headed to Arches to see some of the sights. Spring was letting its presence known with a vengeance! We were thankful to have jackets and ear protection. We all came home a little gritty.

It was really fun having some more visitors. We enjoyed the time we got to spend with family and the chance to create more memories!

Friends in March

Heather and Karalee came down for a visit during their spring break! We got to explore a bit and had a lovely time together. 

Some issues with wardrobe and health changed our schedule a bit, but it was still really nice. They even got to experience a bit of the Moab wind that is a sure sign of spring!

 

We enjoyed some yummy food too!

 

 

It was some fun times with the girls. Thanks for coming down on your break!

Making January Productive

I was feeling a huge need to unclutter our home after Christmas. We talked about it, and it was decided we should rearrange our home!

Here are some before and afters. Mostly befores.

Second Bedroom - This was used as our guest bedroom. Through December, it became the whatever room. The door was closed most of the time. It wasn't a happy place.

First Bedroom - This was used as our bedroom. Slightly more spacious than the other room, and a lot more closet space.

Front Room - Yep. You guessed it. This is the first room you enter when you come over to our house. Please notice the pretty tree and collection of Christmas cards hanging out on the closet door.

Now today, we're only focusing on the First Bedroom. We had fun moving things around.

And it was time for the wall vinyl to come off. It just wasn't going to work between the two bookcases, and it would clash with the theme of the new room.

Now, here is the First Bedroom. It's not completely finished, but it is done enough to share.

 

The First Bedroom is now the t.v. room / library. I love having The Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights framed! I also love having page 3 of the Constitution modge podged onto the frame and the picture of us in front of the White House! I never thought I'd love having a rifle displayed on a wall, but I do. (It's a Gowen family ancestor who used it to settle the frontier.) I love being able to display the crystal vase, my first purchase from my days at OC Tanner.

Sean is so patient with my zest for this country. It feels like an actual room now! Hooray!

That's all for now. The move helped January to feel productive.

Hiking Season Ends.... Mostly

This morning, the sky was blue and the world still snow covered and frosty! Now that the roads are mostly good, I can enjoy it a lot more.

These are pictures I took this morning. As you can see, our roof forces the snow to melt in a creative way. You can also see the snowman I helped create yesterday. He started melting, and froze again. It almost makes you want to put props on the left side for him or something....

We had some hikes to finish up for work. The easy hike was Faux Falls:

 The hard hike was Spring Canyon:

Our friends Tommy and Tyler were able to come visit before Thanksgiving. My battery ran out after one hike due to me dropping my other battery, but you can see some of the fun. Since it had just snowed, it was very muddy on the trail. We hiked close to a Canadian group on the Delicate Arch trail who were entertaining.

For Thanksgiving, we had our friends the Gales over! Much fun was had and we ate a lot of delicious food. I think I was pooped after making food, so no pictures of how beautiful the skin was on the turkey. Trust me. It was beautiful and delicious. (Having paper plates the whole weekend was the best idea ever.)  But. We did go exploring on some hikes, and those were documented.

The last hike for work, the medium one, was Courthouse Wash:

Then we hiked Hidden Valley, and saw some very cool petroglyphs. We're holding hands in one picture because that's what the people on the wall are doing.

Then we ventured off to Faux Falls again. Can you see the human skull in the rock formation? 

We enjoyed seeing family and friends this last month. Not all visits were documented, but they will definitely be remembered. Thank you Tommy and Tyler, and Jeff and Brittany for visiting!