Saturday, October 10, 2015



Nathan went mountain biking with Marshall & Kaleb.
We spent the last two weeks driving around the west side of the US. We started by heading to American Fork. We stayed with Marshall & Ashley Merrill, in their new house! It was great, and we got to see so many friends. We had a little get together Monday, and on Wednesday we got to go to Elliott's THIRD birthday. Can't believe she's 3! We saw even more friends. We needed to spend another few days in order to see everyone, and see them for enough time. I definitely did not take enough pictures from this part of our trip..like none. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

Thursday morning, after visiting Nikelle & Hunter on the way out, we were off to California. The drive went quick, and we arrived at Nathan's dad's house in Oceanside around 7:30. We jumped in the jacuzzi and just talked with Michelle, Jordan and Maddie. It was so good to see them. The next day we were off to the San Diego Zoo.


Maddie, me, Nathan and Jordan coming into the zoo. 
They convinced me to feed the giraffe. I'm glad I did, even though it was a little scary. 

Nathan & Jordan with a seal.
Koala's are my new favorite animal. ADORABLE!
That night we went out to dinner where Maddie works. It was delicious! Saturday we went to Oceanside Harbor to hang out at the beach. We boogie boarded, Nathan surfed, and we played smash ball. So fun! And the water was super warm.

Glaring at us after we made her swim in the pool. 


Saturday night, we headed to Vista to stay with Nathan's grandparents a few days. Sunday we went to church with them, then had family over for dinner. Monday we went to the dog beach in Del Mar.




Nathan's plate at Acapulco. We LOVE this place. (my hand is there for reference.) 

Salti protecting the hallway from Ruby.

It was great to see you! 

We spent the next three days driving and camping along the coast. Our first stop was in Big Sur, at Limekiln State Park. I stayed here when the Bird girls and I had our road trip in college. It was fun to be back, seriously one of my favorite spots. :)


There's a deer above our campsite!








The next night we stayed at Standish Hickey State Park. This one was crazy. We were basically by ourselves after we left the freeway, drove down a mountain, crossed a stream and back up the other side. We saw two other people camping. It was almost eerie. But it was beautiful!



On our way to our last stop, we visited the Chandelier Tree in Leggett. I remember on one of our family trips, we stopped here. Our van was towing a tent trailer and wouldn't fit through the tree.

Surprise, we got a new car! (It looks like a toy car here, it's not.) 


Ruby met Sasquatch

Then on our last night we stayed at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park in Oregon, and enjoyed the sunset just in front of the lighthouse. The next day, we slowly made our way home, stopping along the coast, and enjoying some chowder in Depoe Bay. We also got to stop in Portland to see Darcey and Jason! It was so great to see them, even for a little bit.

We had an awesome time, and enjoyed our last two weeks of freedom before Nathan started back up in school.


Monday, June 29, 2015



First, I am so grateful for the temple. We got to go early one morning. 
We went to Hawaii during Nathan's spring break. We spent a week on the North Shore of Oahu, in Hau'ula. We found a little rental on VRBO. We spent the week laying on the beach, swimming, hiking, surfing, eating, snorkeling and relaxing. Here are just a few pictures from our trip.


It's pretty humid...

Sea Turtle. These animals are so fun to watch!


Jurassic Park

At the Polynesian Culture Center, Nathan wearing a lava lava.

This was the beach a few steps away from our rental.
Our favorite place, North Shore Tacos. Their ginger lemonade is the best.

At the PCC.
This is right after I was splashed with a wave. 
Exploring near Hanauma Bay

crash

We went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

Hanauma Bay

Lanikai Beach 

:)

Nathan trying the Loco Moco. Bed of rice topped with a
hamburger patty, fried egg, and brown gravy. Weird.

On our Eco Tour.

On our Eco Tour.
On our Eco Tour.
Our guide on our tour. 

Our guide, Keola after the tour. 

Driving.

Giant Snocone.


Nathan after his surf lesson

The morning we left, we watched the sunrise on our beach. 

Friday, April 17, 2015

Welcome to the T H E  L O F T at 1 9 0 9. Sounds like a sweet new club right? Kind of. More like, our home. Here's a photo tour. Sorry it has taken me so long. I keep getting text messages from friends asking what our place looks like. So here it is!

This is actually the view from the downstairs bathroom.
But you can see our front door and the stairs. 

Downstairs bathroom. And the glorious tub.

Coming out of the bathroom. 


Ruby's hooks. Yes, she has two leashes. 

The living room. 

Kitchen and Dining Room

View from table. Everyone always asks why our tv is there. It's on a swivel, and we
really don't watch it that much, so it made sense to stick it to the side.

Bedroom. (The cardboard on the left side of the bed is to cover our windows at night.
We don't have blinds yet. But it keeps it super dark...which is nice.)

My office from the beside the bed. 


Saturday, February 14, 2015

Today is Valentine's. Give your love a kiss, or eat some chocolate. Or both. Today we made breakfast burritos for my family, and also took some to Nathan's parents since they are sick. Then we went on a little walk in the Chamna Trails. We talked about our bucket lists, made some plans, and Nathan showed me where he crashed his bike. (by the way, he has a follow-up appointment on the 26th. Right now he's on a 10b weight limit for 2 weeks.) This is our day so far!


We woke up. 


We saw this creeper owl.
It was legitimately really scary. 

Ruby got in some good sniffin'
We took a selfie. 
And later, we're going to a Pawn Shop. How romantic. (I want to see if I can trade in my camera for one that also does video.) Happy Valentine's Day!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Nathan was recently called into the Young Men's presidency. He's 1st counselor, which is over the Teachers. He loves it! And he gets to do their fun mutual activities. This past weekend, they were going to do a day trip to the snow to...do whatever you do in the snow when you're a boy scout. I guess...not freeze or something. Well, with the ridiculously warm weather, the snow was pretty melty, and it was raining. So they cancelled the snow trip, but still wanted to do something fun. So the teachers decided they wanted to do mountain biking.

It was a scramble to get everything organized on such short notice. And there needed to be two leaders. Problems with bikes and scheduling, that took a little time. One of the boys didn't have a bike, so they had to borrow one from Greenies. The morning of Nathan was a little stressed trying to make sure everyone had a bike, a helmet, knew where to meet etc. I said, maybe you should just cancel it, as they didn't have a second leader until about 20 minutes before the activity. But they got it figured out, and off they went to the Chamna Trails down by the Yakima River.

It's just a cool little nature reserve with some biking trials, and jumps. This is how I understand what happened. Nathan took a jump and landed it, but then his foot slipped off the pedal as he was coming to a double jump. He got his foot on, mostly went over the first jump, but because there was a second right away, his front tire went down, back tire up, and flipped him over. He hit his head and shoulder first. (Thankfully he was wearing a helmet!) Then the bike landed on him. ha.

He said it hurt obviously, but thought it was just because he crashed his bike. He was able to keep riding, and continued the activity. Later on that evening, the pain and swelling continued. We iced it for awhile, but decided to go into urgent care. We met with a PA there and they did a bunch of testing, moving the arm and shoulder all over. They did X-rays of both shoulders to compare, and there was obviously a difference.



One his left, you can see the clavicle touching the shoulder blade. (AC joint)
On the right, they are not touching. 


From what I understand, it's actually nothing to break, it's all ligaments. So they hopefully just got a little extra stretched. The PA said his case is worse than mild, but not terrible? He had us make an appointment with the orthopedic doctor. We have an appointment today at 1:00. We are hopeful that he will be able to continue his schooling with clinical. Both his instructor, and supervisor for work said he needs to be totally cleared in order to work or participate in clinical, which includes lifting 50 pounds.

I am hoping it's a few weeks off in the sling. He can make up clinical, if he's cleared before the end of the semester. As far as work, he does have what's called Health Streams, which are basically computer type training that he can do. They needed to be finished before April anyways, so he'll just do them now.  I'll update after our appointment today! Cross your fingers! (and toes.) (and pray) :)

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