Floatin' the Provo

Plan C.
Since Plan A and Plan B fell through this week, I went to Plan C and Chad Hudgens and his crew of avid floaters really came through for me. This is, apparently, a weekly thing for them in the month of July, but I convinced them to start a little early since the next month is booked. The water in the Provo River was pretty high so the current was fast. We jumped in our little two man rafts and paddled through mini rapids. The 100 degree weather made the splashes of 40 degree water almost refreshing!

Photo of the Day

Strawberry Days Rodeo

Why does this guy's horse look so much smaller than the others?

We had dirt bike jumpers for the half time show this year... so much better than the one-armed cowboy from last year.

Lesson One: Flowing Water

My new Nikon 18-200 lens arrived today, so I immediately called up Rob (my local Mike) and we went up the canyon to try it out. Today's lesson was capturing flowing water. I actually feel like things are starting to sink in. I'm a slow learner, but it sure is fun.

Manti Miracle Pageant

This was my very first pageant ever... well, except for the Miss America Pageants we used to watch on TV. This was totally different though. It was well done, but a little long. We skipped out in the fourth quarter once it was clear who was going to win. There's only one single lane road in and out of that tiny little town so we didn't want to get stuck in traffic. As it was, we didn't get home until after midnight. It was a fun night, though. I think the Manti temple is the most beautiful LDS building.

Silver Lake

My bad knee is acting up, my forearms are sore, my skin is sunburned and my room smells like campfire. Yep, it was my kind of weekend.
We went up to American Fork Canyon to camp on Friday night. It was a cold night and I forgot to bring any socks, but once the sun came out in the morning, I got a couple of hours of good sleep before we headed off on our hike.

We went in roommate pairs: Bryan and Will (sides), Steve and Dave (middle), Kristin and Alli (ones taking the picture), and Brooke and I (center front).

We hiked up to Silver Lake, which as you can see is still covered in snow. The 90 degree weather balanced it out, though.

We ended the hike around 2:00 and headed home to hit up the pool. I was only there for less than an hour before I got the invite to got climbing. So with my bum knee, I limped back up the canyon to practice lead climbing with Matt and Dan. We finished off the evening with fireworks at Orem Summer Fest. Great weekend!

Ok, so I was pretty excited about the remote I just purchased, so while we sat around the campfire, I took long exposures of the sky. This was the only one that turned out half decent before my battery died. I'm anxious to power up and go try again.

Houston

Andrea and I flew to Houston this week to teach two classes at CKU (Creating Keepsakes University). They were "extra curricular" classes that people could sign up for in addition to their core curriculum. We were only there for the beginning, but it was long enough to see the forming masses of middle aged women acting like freshmen. I wonder if their husbands know what kind of maniacs these women turn into when grouped into "dorms" of other scrapbooking fanatics? Matching outfits, dorm cheers, decorated roadtrip vehicles... I felt a little bit like an EFY counselor.

We got in on Tuesday afternoon and went to the front desk of our Hotel at the Galleria Mall. "We're new to Houston. What should we go see while we're here?" She looked at us blankly. "You don't want to shop?" She asked puzzled, "That's all we really do here."
So shop we did. We covered one floor of the Mall and ate at the Cheesecake factory before retiring for the evening. The next morning, we covered another floor, taught our classes in the afternoon and then went out for BBQ in the evening (it seemed like a Texas thing to do.) Then we went back to the Mall and shopped some more. The next morning we were able to cover the last floor of the Mall before catching our plane. Phew... my job can be so exhausting sometimes.

MOAB

Our ward had a ward "campout" this weekend. It was a little more like a ward slumber party since we all just threw our sleeping bags on the lawn of Bryan's home. It was definitely a party though. At around 12:30 am, Bryan, Megan, Will, Brenden and I snuck away for a midnight hike to Delicate Arch. The stars were amazing and there was definitely some potential for some seriously amazing photos if I could have figured out how to keep my shutter open for longer than 30 seconds. I was definitely frutrated since I had even remembered to bring my tripod. I almost called Mike, but it was about 2:00 am by this time. We all lied under the arch for about an hour giggling about things that are only funny at 2:oo in the morning before we headed to Denny's for... breakfast? We got back to "camp" at 5:00 am and crawled into our sleeping bags. It was already starting to get light and those pesky birds were already chirping. I managed to sleep until 7:00 am anyway and then got up with the rest of the ward for real breakfast. There were all kinds of activities to choose from, but our group went to "Honey Comb Rock" where we scrambled, climbed and spelunked until we were exhausted and sunburned.