All over Utah and part of Wyoming.

I got laid off of my second job for the winter, so with my new found freedom I decided to take a road trip.  Saturday October 13th I drove to Salt Lake.  I didn't take very many pictures and the ones I did were from the car window so forgive me that they are not the best.

This was right around Beaver.  It was beautiful that morning!

Somewhere along the way.

When I got to Salt Lake I went straight to my friend Jenny Dompier's house.  She took me to City Creek which I had never been to.  It was so fun to walk around.  We did a little shopping but my favorite thing was when we ate a pumpkin spice caramel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!  It was so good!  

Jenny then called a friend of hers who met up with us and we just sat and visited with her for a while.  It was a pretty chill day.  

Later that night we went and ate at  David's Kitchen.  It doesn't sound like it but it is a Chinese restaurant and it is delicious.  It is one of my brother's Jeff's favorite places to eat so of course I had to taunt him.  I texted him a picture of the menu.  He wrote back with, "Damn you."  Then I told him that the walnut shrimp had changed Jenny's life, because it's his favorite thing and that is what he says about it.  So then he wrote back with, "Damn you both."  Then I sent him a picture of the walnut shrimp and he told me he wasn't communicating with me anymore.

Then next day I went to sacrament meeting with Jenny and then I headed out to Logan to meet up with my other friend Jenny (Tippetts).  She lives in Phoenix but she was in Logan for her sister's baby's blessing. 

On the way to Logan.

 I made it to Jenny's sister's house and their whole family was still there visiting.  It was so good to see Jenny, her parents and siblings.  We talked for a couple hours while watching the cute kids play.  (I should have taken pictures!)  After awhile Jenny, her parents and little Aurora decided it was time to get back to Star Valley and I needed to head the rest of the way to Rock Springs Wyoming.  

 

Bear Lake.  So gorgeous!

I arrived in Rock Springs at my friend Ida's house around 9:30 Sunday night.  I hadn't seen Ida in over two years and had just briefly met her husband.  It was so fun to see her house and meet her little girl Ally.  We had a great time catching up. 

Not the best picture but the only one I took.  I like the look on little Ally's face.

Tuesday I headed back to North Ogden and stayed the night with my friend Natalie.  She took me to do a little shopping and we ate at a great Indian restaurant.  It was good to catch up with her too.
Wednesday I headed back home but stopped in Orem and had lunch with my friend Megan.  It was so fun to see everyone that I did.  I need to go back up that way and catch the people I didn't get to see.  I really did cover a lot of the state, (and part of Wyoming).  I think I put about a thousand miles on my car but it was well worth it and just what I needed!

Good Riddance Summer!

Yep, I said good riddance!  I had a bad summer.  I won't go into all the details but I really didn't like it.  I got pretty depressed and maybe even I don't know all of the reasons.  I'm sure there was a little bit of poor me going on, there usually is.  I spent A LOT of time alone, which I realized is not good for me.  I waited for some of the people in my life, who I thought I meant more to, to reach out and let me tell you not all of them did.  I saw a quote on pinterest that said "Sometimes you just need to distance yourself from people. If they care they'll notice.  If they don't, you know where you stand."  But let me warn you, be prepared for the outcome because it can be a little hard to take.  The thing is, I also realize they were probably going through something too and I didn't reach out either. Anyway, I think I experienced a lot of self discovery.  I think I am through the worst and I am hoping that the change in the season is going to bring some new and exciting things into my life.  Maybe it won't but at least things seem a little clearer.  So good riddance summer! Lets move on to a better season!

Hanging with Celebrities?

Jeff, Erica and the kids came out to Salt Lake from Connecticut for Erica's Great Grandma's 100th birthday at the end of August.  They didn't have very much time so my Mom, Lyle, Suzie, Shelayne and I drove up Friday August 24th to spend the afternoon with them.  On our way up there Jeff texted to ask where we were.  We decided to tease him and we just told him a mile marker.  He wrote back with "Oh so Fillmore area?"  And yes, that is where we were.  I am pretty sure the only people who would know that is truckers and Jeff.  The night before our trip NBC aired a special Rock Center about Mormons.  Jeff's father-in-law had been one of the people that they had interviewed.  We had know it was on but hadn't been able to watch it but my Mom had recorded it.  Here is how the next bit of me and Jeff's text messages went.

Jeff:  "Are you all nervous to be meeting celebrities today?"

Me: "What celebrities?"

Jeff: "Um..Me, Erica and Ellie.  We were all on national television last night on NBC."

Me: "We didn't watch it but Mom recorded it.  What roll did you play?"

Jeff: "There was a family pic from Daniel's wedding on the screen for like 5 seconds."

Me: "Well we are not just meeting you.  We have already met you."

Jeff: "I know but it's only last night that I became a celebrity.  And it's gone straight to my head."

Me: "Are you buying lunch then?"

Jeff: "I didn't say I had cashed in on my celebrity, so no.  I just meant that I'm probably going to be insufferable."

Me: "We are turning around and going home."

Jeff: "You can't do that to me!!!  I'm Jeff Goulding!! I have a minuscule amount of tangential fame!!  You will come and you will eat lunch with me and my famous family!!

Me: "Well I hope we don't have to cut our visit short."

Jeff: "Your visit will last as long as I want it to."

Me: "Well here is something you can't control.....we are going to eat all of your honey candy (my sister had made for him) before we get there."

Jeff: "How dare you!  You can't do that to me and my tiny amount of fame.  It will be in no tabloids and no one will really care!"

Needless to say we were all laughing pretty hard.  He is such a dork.  A funny one though.  

So here are some pictures from the trip.

Ellie

Shelayne cheesing it for the camera.

Ellie wouldn't let me get a good picture so I had to surprise her.

Adam wouldn't smile.  But he was letting Lyle hold him without crying.  None of the rest of us had been able to do that.

These two had a lot of fun together

This was Ellie when we were about to leave.  I think she was sad that we were.  It was too short of a visit.

This was the final shot of Adam before we left.  He is a sweet little guy.

Quality Family Time

My family was altogether for the first time in four years this summer.  It was so fun to have us all in the same place at the same time.  It gets a lot harder when one sibling lives in Alaska and one lives in Connecticut.  But at the end of June we were able to make it happen. 

Here is just us siblings together. Well with a couple little girls in the background.

My oldest niece had a baby so this is a five generation picture.

Each family got pictures with the grandparents and so they made me too.

Here is me with Trystan, my great nephew.  I know what you're thinking and you are right, I am not old enough to be a great aunt.  This is the first time any of us were meeting the little Alaskan.

This picture is blurry but I had tried so hard to get him to smile and was pretty proud of myself when he finally did.  He sure is a cute little guy.

Ellie and Grandpa Neal having a heart to heart.

This is sweet little Adam.  Since my Mom had been on a mission she had never met this little one either.  He is a pretty chill little guy.

This is Ellie being mean to Adam.  I love that I captured the look on her face right before she pulled him down.  She is a silly little stinker.

Hopefully we won't have to wait another four years for us all to be together again.  We had such a good time meeting new family members and barbequing with extended family.  

Anyone know a good looking, single Wisconsin dairy farmer?

It has taken me forever to get this post done but I finally did it.  The first of June Kyle Adams and I flew to Wisconsin to see our friend Erin Hensel.  She had gone home for the summer and we thought it would be a lot of fun to have her show us her old stomping grounds.  It was a quick trip but we packed a lot in and we had a great time.  We didn't get there until the evening of June 8th so we had dinner (best bratwurst ever!) at Erin's house and met her family and then we did a little driving tour and got some frozen custard.  The next day is when all the fun began.  Saturday morning we headed out to Milwaukee.  When we got there we boarded a ferry boat and did a little cruise.  It told a lot of the history of Milwaukee.  It was a lot of fun.

Most of the bridges lifted up like this one to let us pass underneath.  I thought it was kind of cool.

View of Milwaukee from farther out in the water.

Kyle and Erin sticking their heads out the window.

From there we went to a Brewers game.  There is a sausage race part way through the game that we decided we would bet on.  The different sausages were out before we got into the stadium so we picked the one we were going to cheer for and got pictures with them so we couldn't change our minds.  My brother had warned me not to pick the Chorizo because the sombrero created to much wind resistance.  So I chose the polish sausage.

Aren't we a cute couple?

Even though we had been warned, Kyle still chose the Chorizo

Erin chose the Brat

Here they are getting ready to race!

As you can see, Erin won, I came in 2nd and Kyle came in dead last.  He should have listened to my brother. Kyle and I paid up by buying Erin some nacho's.

Right when we first got there we had found our seats and I had gotten my phone out to take a picture of where it said "Miller Park".  I was going to take a picture to send my brothers and brag about where I was.  Right as I was doing that the three of us appeared on the Jumbo tron!  I love that I got a picture but too bad my phone is in my face.  We were pretty excited though! So then I sent a picture text to my brothers and told them to look really close because there was something extra cool about the picture.

The Brewers didn't win, too bad.  Afterwards we went to Erin's favorite pizza place.  It is called Barbiere's. 
It was really good.  The garlic bread was different than any other garlic bread I have had.  I really liked it.
On our way back to Green Bay, we decided to take a detour into this little place called Cedarburg.  It was a charming place and kind of made me want to move to Wisconsin.  A lot of people were out on the streets and I don't think they were all tourists.  It was great to see people out enjoying the evening. 

There was a place that sold caramel apples.  I bought one even though I was so stuffed and couldn't touch it until the next day.  It was hard to eat but delicious.

The next day, June 10th, we drove up to Door County.  That is the thumb of Wisconsin.  One side is the bay and the other side is Lake Michigan.  On our drive up there we saw beautiful picturesque dairy farms.  It kind of made me want to marry a Wisconsin dairy farmer.  But just for his land of course.  

Driving through all the coastal towns was fun.  It is so beautiful there.  

One of the first things we did was rent some bikes and rode them up this trail that led to this lighthouse in Peninsula State Park.                                                                                                                                   

Then we stopped and played in the water.  It felt good because we were hot.

We climbed up this tower and saw some beautiful sights.

Then we saw the famous grass roof restaurant. They put goats on the roof to eat the grass and that is how they keep it mowed.  But the goats were not out that day.  We were sad we didn't get to see them.  It is a Swedish restaurant.  Kyle and I had met some people at the airport that said they knew a lady that worked there.  They told us to tell her hi if we went.  We didn't eat there but we did go in to see if the lady was there because we thought it would be really random to tell her hello from these people.  She wasn't there but we left her a note.                                                                                                                                              

Kyle and Erin were good sports while I searched for a decent priced, cute hoodie.  I finally found one and then we headed over to the Lake Michigan side.  It was cold there and our new hoodie's came in handy.

Kyle found out the water was pretty cold.

It was windy and the waves got pretty powerful.

Here's Kyle, being Kyle.

Kyle confessed his undying love in the sand.

On our way home we found a piece of Door county famous cherry pie.  We also stopped in Sturgeon Bay for dinner.  We had fantastic fried cheese curds there.  We were tired when we got back to Erin's house but had a wonderful time.                                                                                                                                

The next day, June 11th we went and toured Lambeau field.  Home of the Green Bay Packers!  That was my second stadium tour and I actually quite enjoy them.  It is interesting to find out the history of the teams and the facts about the facility.                                                                                                                     

Needless to say, Erin is a big fan.

Kyle decided to be a cheese head at least for the day.

After the tour we went across the street for a famous butter burger at Kroll's.  Pretty fattening but it was good.  We also had fried cheese curd again which I have decided I quite like. 

That day was also the day we had to leave.  I had strict instructions to bring cheese home or my brother might have disowned me.  So Erin took us to buy cheese before she took us to the airport.
For only being there three days we packed a lot in and had a really good time.  Now I just need to find me a handsome Wisconsin dairy farmer and then I can go back. :) Although I would have a hard time with the humid summers.