Dinner at Texas Roadhouse

Thanks for a great time everyone. Can't wait till next time.

Breaking Dawn

I can hardly contain my excitement for Saturday! Breaking Dawn finally comes out and I will be doing nothing but reading all day. Yeah. If you haven't read the Twilight series I highly recommend them. They are among the best books I've ever read.

Rodeo

Ryan jumped into the Rodeo every night of the Ogden Rodeo. He jumped the I-Fly canopy with the Utah state flag flying behind him. We had perfect weather conditions every night too so it made for safe landings. I did ground crew every night as well. I would always arrive early enough to see the Muttin' Busters. It was a lot of fun. Some nights we also saw kids doing a kids version of bull riding and horse riding. It was fun to see. I still have a hard time watching because I feel so bad for the animals.

Cedar Breaks

On Thursday my parents and I headed down to southern Utah for a fun, adventerous weekend. On the way down we stopped at Cedar Breaks. It's a lot like Bryce Canyon. It was really pretty.

Angel's Landing

On Friday my parents and I went to Zion's and hiked Angel's Landing. It is a 5 mile round trip hike and you ascend 1500 feet. This is what it looks like from the bottom. This is a poster showing the switchbacks and the ridge you hike up to get to the top. It doesn't do it justus. It was a pretty hike and something you gotta do at least once in your life. I would not take any kids, they should at least be 12 I think before they should go. At least one person falls and dies a year on this hike. But it is sooooo cool. The pictures make it look scarier than it really is too. I never really got scared but there were a few places where it was a little scetchy.

Pictures from the hike up and back.

The amazing view from the top.

We found this cool hole in the rock and thought it was a fun picture spot.

That night we went to Tuachan to see The Sound of Music. It was the coolest weather we have ever had there. I didn't even use my personal mister and fan that I usually use non-stop when we have gone in the past. There was also thunder and lightning throughout the play. It was really neat. They didn't even have to use sound effects for the thunder right before the "My Favorite Things" song.

3 Pitch Rock Climb

Saturday, the last day we were in St. George we did a 3 pitch rock climb. Three pitches is where you climb to one set of chains, sit on a ledge and wait for everyone to climb to that pitch and then do it over till you reach the top. We were so lucky to have a cooler day, it was only about 80 degrees and overcast. It made the climb even more enjoyable because we weren't sweating to death from the heat. I know only 80, but when we drove into town on Thursday it was 113.

Climbing up the first pitch.
Sitting at the first pitch ledge.

Climbing the second pitch.

Sitting at the second pitch. (getting higher)

Climbing the final pitch.

At the top, what a view!

Ready to rappel back to the bottom.

On another note:

So while we were in St. George I found some Roxy luggage at TJ Max for $80. It came with a carry-on, duffel bag, and a backpack. I was so excited. But with buying new stuff you have to get rid of the old. I have been traveling with this peice of luggage for 11 years. It has been to two islands in the Bahamas, Cozumel Mexico, the Channel Islands on a live aboard boat twice, Hawaii, California several times, several overnighters at too many places to list and probably a lot of places I can't remember. The stablizer on the bottom that makes it not tip over has been gone for at least 2 years, it has several holes and the zipper started to not work, so I decided it was definatly time to retire it. So long good travel buddy.

Vernal

Yesterday Skydive Ogden had a demo (where they jump into a rodeo or anywhere that is not at the drop zone) in Vernal. I got to due the ground crew. We flew down in a our little Cessna 182, it is only a 4-5 passenger plane. We landed at the Vernal airport, someone from the rodeo picked me up to take me to the arena and get things set up for them to jump, they jumped and then we headed back to the airport to fly back to Ogden when we all jumped in at sunset. It was a nice flight even though my butt fell asleep. It was an hour flight. We flew over the Uintahs. I was so mad that I forgot my camera, because it was so pretty to see the Uintahs from above.

Snow Basin

My parents and I took the gondola up to the top of Snow Basin today and had lunch. Then we went on a little hike to the ridge. We had to hike through snow to get there. Crazy, huh? It was so pretty. It's crazy to see snow and then even higher on the mountain to see wild flowers. There were so my pretty wild flower photo-ops I couldn't past it up and what a view from the top. On the way down we "shoe-skied" down the snow instead of hiking down the trail. It was a lot of fun.

A little note about walking poles: when I first saw my parents with them last year I thought they were kind of silly and only for older people. They told me that with them it takes a lot of pressure off of your lower body especially your hips and you also burn more calories using them. Well they talked my into getting some for a hike next week to Angel's Landing, so I tried them out today. Wow, I really like them. Usually when I hike my hips hurt really bad because of my scoliosis. They didn't even feel tight or hurt today. They also really helped when we were hiking in the snow.

Also, check out my cute shirt. I had some fun with iron ons and made a couple of shirts with them. This is one of them. I was in a crafty mood yesterday.