Summer 2K11 Part I

Well it has only been a little while since I posted last.  It has been pretty crazy here at our house lately.  Jaren and I both started school at Utah State again.  Jaren is a senior majoring in Political science and is getting ready to apply for a bunch of law schools here in the next couple of months.  I am heading into my fourth week of Nursing school at the Weber/USU cooperative program.  I made it through the first and second week breakdowns and managed to get a fairly good grade on my first test.  I have been studying basically every spare moment, so hopefully it will continue to pay off. I am taking a guitar class. I am pretty bad.

I am going to recap our summer a bit.  Mostly for memory and scrapbooking sake.

May
We got back from Washington DC at the beginning of May.  We were pretty proud of ourselves that we made awesome time: 2 days to drive across basically the whole country.  We both took alternating 5 hour driving shifts.  I should have never let Jaren know I was capable of driving that long.  Now he makes me drive more on long trips.  We got to see some of the flooding that was happening along the Mississippi River as we drove through.  It was pretty intense.  We stayed at my mom's house in Brigham City for a couple days until we got all of our stuff moved back into our apartment in Logan.  Everything seemed so wide open compared to Washington DC.  I was amazed that 2nd east in Logan would probably be a 6 lane street in DC.  (Ok probably not that many, but it seemed HUGE!)  We love that there are no speed humps here.  LOVE.  It was so great to be home and to see our family and friends again!  We got to meet Andrew James Moncur who was born just a few days before we made it home.  He is so cute and we love him! We both started back at work full time and were lucky to both get our previous jobs back.  That month we played a lot of sand volleyball with friends.  Jaren went undefeated for at least a month and was pretty proud of himself for it, but don't worry he lost a few times once his streak was broken.

Goodbye Washington DC!

Towards the end of May, Kaitlyn graduated from high school.  We all celebrated by going out to Olive Garden for dinner.  She is now going to Utah State as well!  We love having her so close!

 For Memorial Day weekend we went camping at North Fork with my Hanks family.  Its tradition.  (Although, a crazy one.)  We got there and pitched our tents and played with Dalyn's airsoft guns while more of the family arrived.  A big moose kept walking through the field and through the trees just across from the campground.  Dalyn and Jaren got some pictures of it and Moe had to run down to make sure they didn't get too close to the thing. I can't remember for sure, but it seems like we had somewhere between 50-60 people up there all together.  The first night, it was SO COLD.  Impressively cold. But we woke up to yummy pancakes and hot chocolate to warm us up.  That day, some of the cousins and I started playing soccer in the field and soon after we had a pretty good game of soccer going.  It was so fun because the youngest player was probably 6 and the oldest was 24 (Jaren).  Everyone was actually pretty good!  We had a lot of fun!  Aunt Sandy brought her Consecutive Reader boards for everyone to make.  What a great idea!  Saturday night, was even colder than the first night.  It was raining so Moe and Jaren set up a shelter under the shade canopy thing and we all sat by the propane heaters to try to get warm.  We even roasted marshmallows over them to make s'mores.  Jaren and I borrowed an extra sleeping bag that night and we stayed a lot warmer than the night before.  About 2 hours after we had fallen asleep, I woke up to Jaren calling out, "Hello?  Who's there?!"  I was instantly terrified.  And confused.  Our nice new tent was gone and we were in some tiny tent that was very close to our faces.  But then Jaren realized what was going on.  He started to hit the sides of the tent and something started to slip off and fall to the ground.  He started laughing a little because it was snowing and the weight of the snow made the tent twist in on itself and collapse enough to where it was just inches from our faces.  We were awake about every 1/2 hour the rest of the night to a collapsed tent and had to keep hitting snow off the tent.  Needless to say, everyone who was still there in the morning began to pack up and head home early.  Bethany and Dave left during the night with their kids and their poor tent was destroyed by the snow.  The poles had snapped under the weight of the snow.  My mom's shade canopy was completely mangled and everything was a soppy, muddy, snowy mess.  The funny thing is this type of weather isn't an abnormal occurance for us.  We have had our fair share of awful weather at North Fork over Memorial Day.  After 20 years of carrying on this tradition, I think people are finally realizing that perhaps another time and another place might be in order.  But rain or shine ... or snow, we have had some great times and have many memories at North Fork!

Well, in case you haven't heard....

We're home from Washington DC!

Yeah, I really haven't posted anything substantial since the end of April. I started a few posts... but they went something like this,

Oh sweet summer,

we really thought you would never come,
and that would be a bummer.

But here you are with sun and all,

our pasty winter skin will be burned

as we camp and boat and play softball.

Even though you took a while to join us here this year,

we have already traversed up a treacherous mountain

taking brats, cup of noodles and our gear.

We have discovered the true volleyball master,

made a trip to the on call, after hour opthamologist.....

But then I thought that was not that cool. So I thought I would share a story about when I accidently cleaned my mom's bathroom with Shout Laundry Pre-Soak instead of 409 but got bored typing the story.


So, I think it is about time for an update.

We made it home from Washington DC in 2 days. We took turns driving in 5 hour (ish) shifts. We are both SO glad to be home. We missed all of our friends and family.

Here is a quick list of what we have been up to since we got home. (In no specific order).
1. Work
2. Marin's dance recital
3. Getting snowed out of our Memorial Day camping trip
4. Sand Volleyball
5. Boating
6. Bombing up Green Canyon Mountain
7. Dinners with our family
8. Andrew's baby blessing
9. Painting my moms house
10. My cousin's wedding
11. Softball (work & ward)
12. New Callings!
13. A Sunday Boxing match.
14. Puddle Jumping
15. Jaren turned 24!!!
16. Kaitlyn graduated High school. Congratulations!


Here are some pictures of our summer so far.



Happy Summer Everyone!

Family Tribute Part 2

I realized I missed a few important people in my last tribute.

1. Kaitlyn
The most amazing girl ever. She's beautiful, smart, funny, and can always make you smile. you better watch out because her nice church girl personality will fool you, once you get to know her your will find that there is a wild women inside waiting to show herself. Every guy envies her boyfriend..


Dwight
Someone who you should fear because of his or her physical power; or more specifically, someone who has a purple belt in karate.




Dalyn
a historical blacksmith with supernatural powers. Or A girl child.




Kennady
pretty dang good lookin, exceptionally clever and strong. Shy yet secretly funny at times. They know how to make you smile and are very hard to stay mad at.


Moe,
A word that was once used to describe a cute anime character. A Japanese name that was popular in the late 1990s. Its meaning, contrary to popular belief, is "young flowers blooming."


Love you guys!

Farewell Dear DC

The latest news goes like this: We are coming home EARLY! Jaren's work informed him that he had reached a 120 day limit and couldn't work more without them getting fined for not giving him benefits, so they basically told him that this Friday is his last day. We feel bad to leave the girls and Pam early, but we feel like the sooner we get home, the better (especially better on our wallet!). So we are starting to pack up and will leave early on Saturday morning!

Jaren's best friend Greg Warby came out for a visit last week. We ran all around the city seeing the museums, Arlington, the Capitol, Potbellies, Good Stuff, Oriole's Park at Camden Yards. . .

Greg and I went to museums all day on Thursday while Jaren worked. We started in the Library of Congress which I was very impressed with. It was gorgeous! We walked by the National Archives, but decided we didn't want to wait in the probably 2 hour line in the heat to get in. So, we went and shopped at a souvenir stand instead. We saw the Natural History Museum, Museum of American History, and the Air and Space Museum. I headed home to work and Warby met Jaren at work and they picked up pizza on their way home.


Friday, we all slept in a bit. When we were awake, we got ready and went on a Capitol tour. We stood in with a group in Statutory Hall and heard the cool acoustic affects. It is still fun to see no matter how many times you go in. Jaren got to go on a dome tour where you have to walk up TONS of stairs, but get to go up on top of the dome and walk around very close to the Apotheosis of Washington and go up outside on top of the dome. See the previous post of pictures that Jaren took. I'm jealous he couldn't get me in!!

Friday night, we headed to Baltimore in the rain to see the Orioles play the Yankees. We had just gotten situated in our sweet red ponchos with umbrellas and our first round of ball park food when the announcement came over the loud speaker that the game was postponed due to the rain. We were sorta disappointed that we didn't get to see the game, but at least we got dinner out of the deal... and we get our money back, so it wasn't a complete loss.


Saturday, we saw the White House, ate at Potbellies, and walked around Arlington for a while. It got really warm in the afternoon and I actually got a little sun on my face! We wandered around the National American Indian Museum and did some more souvenir shopping before we headed home. We made our awesome fried shrimp for dinner. That night, Warby treated us to a great round of cosmic bowling. We walked in and got our shoes and while we were putting them on, we noticed something a little off.... the bowling pins were tiny! We thought that was pretty funny, and then we discovered that the bowling balls were also miniature! A lady bowling with her family on the lane next to ours overheard our surprise at the mini bowling alley and explained that it is called Duckpin Bowling and it is huge here on the East Coast. The rules are mostly the same as regular bowling except you get to bowl three times per turn. It was really really fun, but I was awful at it. We bowled until 1 am and then drove Warby to the airport and got home around 3 am. And then we slept in a LONG time the next morning. We had a blast with Warby and were sad that he left so soon!




Now we are just trying to eat all of the food we still have, but probably won't get through some of it! That's ok though, cause we are coming home in 3 days!! We have had a TON of fun out here and have seen lots of awesome things. We're glad that Jaren was able to get an internship so we could come out and have this experience, and we are also glad that it is about over. We'll try to bring some warm weather home with us!

Pogo

This morning as I was walking up to my house, I saw one of the little boys down the street jumping on his pogo stick. I have seen him jumping on it a lot lately now that spring is here. Another little boy was walking down the hill to join him at the bus stop when the kid with the pogo stick yells up,

"Noah! I beat my record!!"
Noah replied, "What's your record?"
Pogo stick kid, "three hundred and fifty! What's yours?"
Noah said, "Only a hundred and fifty..."

I stopped listening here. I was smiling because I am the Pogo Stick Jumping CHAMPION. I was remembering my younger days when I pogo'd for over an hour on rough, clumpy ground at North Fork camp ground up Ogden canyon. Sure, I couldn't walk the next day cause my legs were so sore... but I did it.

MY record is 1,000 jumps on a pogo stick. I thought of smashing these young kids self confidence and telling them MY fantastic record. . . but thought maybe that was not nice. So I walked into my house proud of the fact that secretly, I am the pogo stick MASTER!

Credits

Just for clarification, Jaren took the pictures that precede the photo of him with the celebrities. I took the ones towards the end. I think we get some good ones. :) We're a pretty great photography team if we do say so ourselves!!! :)