Southern Utah Rocks!

I decided I really live in one of the coolest places anyone could live who loves doing things outdoors. Last week I went sport climbing at Kolob Canyon and went back on Saturday to try it out with Casey, my mom, and Aubree who was home from school for the weekend (yay!). It is gorgeous there. Due to the New Harmony fire the sky was all gray but it was still really pretty.

It's hard to tell from the pictures but the crag we climbed on was really overhanging. It was so steep there were no places to rest your arms unless you jammed a knee (or in Casey's case a head) into one of the larger holes. Let's just put it this way, when you were lowered from the top you would end up about 20-25 feet from the cliff face where you started. My arms got sooo tired!It was pretty high and yes I got pretty scared! Casey was very good at using his head when it came to finding creative ways to get some rest!

A couple of weeks ago we went to another cool place, the Mammoth Caves. We got pretty dirty from army crawling through!

I'm officially back in school! I wasn't sure if I was ready for summer to be over but it's been a lot of fun socializing now that most of our friends are back. We had a fun weekend before coming back though so this is an update of that!
Saturday morning we moved the cows on the range. Funny story! Before we got the horses unloaded from the trailers there were a couple of cows by Panguitch Lake so I volunteered Casey and I to herd them on foot through a fence and across the road. We got them through the gate and everything was going great. They were going kind of fast and we needed to get around them so I started jogging. I was talking to Casey over my shoulder, while jogging....not a good idea for me to do that much multitasking I guess :), when all of a sudden my foot caught on a sagebrush. It probably wouldn't have been a problem if my other foot had realized what was going on and hadn't tried to keep running. I ended up flat on my face. Well not quite flat on my face, luckily I had just enough time to sort of put my arms out first. It was quite graceful. Casey described it as looking like I "dove" into the dirt. It was so so funny looking! Actually I have no idea what it looked like, because it was me of course, but it felt very funny looking.
Other than that everything went smoothly and a fun time was had by all!

I may or may not have gotten (is gotten an actual word?...something is telling me it's probably not) a little bored and started taken pictures of random things. I had a really interesting thought process going on about the things that seem really common place to me that I see a lot, that would be completely foreign, fascinating, and maybe even disgusting to someone else. Like a dried up cow pie for example.

We found the cutest little horny toad I've ever seen! It was so tiny.Later in the day I got to try out my new climbing shoes!! They are so cool. I got to design how I wanted the rubber to look and what colors it would be and everything. Not only are they very cute, but they are also very helpful and effective to climb in and I got them for 60% off their normal price!I took a quite a few pictures of Casey bouldering and I couldn't decide which one I liked best so I just put them all on here. This is the face of intense, hard climbing.

Next time I'm thinking I should probably try the tongue thing. That must be the secret to success.

On Sunday afternoon I was privileged to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Utah temple dedication.

I am so grateful I got to go. The spirit was amazing, especially when the prophet walked in, during the Hosanna shout, and when we sang the Spirit of God. It was truly like a fire was burning! I love the feeling of determination and passion for the Gospel that fills my soul at special occasions like that. It makes me want to go out and shout from the rooftop so that everyone knows what a truly amazing and wonderful thing the gospel is! I think I needed something like that before starting back into a busy school schedule. Something to charge my battery a little I guess. :) I also am so grateful for the Priesthood and for my dad. My dad is an amazing man. I don't think he gets enough credit for all he does. Every year he gives us a back-to-school fathers blessing and every year it amazes me how it is so perfect for what I am feeling. I'm glad that I have a dad who lives so that he can bless me with what my Father in Heaven knows I need. I know that Heavenly Father is aware of each one of us and cares about all of our hopes, desires, worries, and situations. I've had so many little miracles in my life that teach me that is true. I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life! I am so blessed, way beyond measure.

Celebrate!

I'm working on uploading pictures of my very exciting adventures, but I took a break to see if my Praxis scores were posted early by some chance and they were! And I passed!! I'm so relieved I don't have to pay for it again. Surprisingly enough I did really good on the math section...wierd, but I'll take it! I just thought I would share my exciting good news!

sending my summer out with a bang!

Well it's time to face the textbooks and lectures again, but I've been busy the last couple of weeks cramming lots of fun adventures in.

First I went on a fishing trip with my family to celebrate my brother Mason's birthday. We camped at Pine Lake Reservoir.There's a really fun 4 wheeler trail there that mom, Aubs, and I went on.

One evening we rode our bikes around the lake and saw the most beautiful sunset! The sky was glowing orange and the lake looked like it was glowing. I tried to capture it with my camera but it didn't really work. You can sort of tell it looked really cool though.There are so many pretty wildflowers everywhere this year!

Dad was the most successful fisherman, catching 3 at Pine Lake and a huge one at the Willowbottoms we hiked to later on in the weekend.

We spent one day at Bryce Canyon hiking and enjoying the scenery.

The water in our camp trailer was coming out a little pink but we didn't think anything of it until Aubree experienced a huge mysterious growth spurt!! I knew she shouldn't have used it to brush her teeth! :)

Woops! Should've put that sign a little sooner on the trail!

Our last day we went on a short hike to the Willowbottom lakes in the Boulders. Very green!

Mom, Dad, Aubree, Cam and Miralva all caught big fish! I unfortunately didn't catch anything.

I got a little bored with my lack of success but got this cool picture of my view from where I was laying on the grass.

On our way home the trailer brakes started smoking so we had made a little stop in the middle of nowhere. Aubree and I kept ourselves entertained by taking pictures.

The next Monday we headed to Vegas! We got to stay in a hotel which I loved just because I love staying in hotels. Also because there were towels folded so fancifully....

....the big screen t.v. to watch in bed....

...the most comfortable mattresses and pillows ever!...

...and a swimming pool!

The reason we went to Vegas is all thanks to my very awesome Aunt Cherene. She is honestly one of the most generous, kind, funny, Christlike, amazing women in the whole world. I hope someday I can be the kind of teacher, aunt, friend, and person that she is! She bought us all tickets to see the Lion King musical at Mandalay Bay for our Christmas presents.

We had fun mimicking the masks. hee hee

Don't tell we took this picture but you have to see how incredible the costuming was! Look it up on the internet because it is amazing and you will never see anything like it. We loved the show!!!Since we were already there we made a stop at the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. They had this really cool sign projected on the wall that rippled like water when you walked in front of it!

They gave us these little radio type things that looked like tv remotes and at every exhibit we could press the corresponding numbers and listen to information about the animals. Very cool.

We got to pet stingrays! I was surprised at how soft, smooth, and almost velvety they feel!

And then I got to go on my first legit backpacking expedition! Casey's family planned a backpacking trip to Kings Peak, the highest mountain in Utah. I was kind of nervous about the hike because the only backpacking I've ever done was my 4th year hike for girls camp and we only went 10 miles. I am so glad I went though because it was incredibly beautiful.I did ok with the 3 days of hiking and I was only sore for a day!

We started off the adventure in beautiful, hot, sunny weather worthy of shorts and t-shirts.

Pretty soon the rain gear came out of the packs! We ended up stopping a mile earlier than planned to set up camp on the first day because it was storming so bad. We found a great little spot sheltered in the trees with a stream close by so it worked out great.

The second day we made our journey to the top! We were slightly worried about storms but it ended up being a perfect day of weather.

The rocks there were so cool!! They are kind of a purply color with white stripes through them. Some had black stripes and green spots but I liked the white striped ones the best! They were very cool looking. I seriously considered dumping all of my gear out and leaving it so I'd have enough room and strength to carry one home for Grammys rock garden. :) She would've loved them!

This is the one I wanted to take home. I probably could've managed it in my pack right? :)

Rocks everywhere!! This is only about halfway on the second day. I wish I would've taken pictures of the rocks at the top because there are so many you just have to climb over them. The trail disappears and there are just giant rocks everywhere!

This was the first steep section we encountered. See the little people way below?

The last mile was like a giant stair stepper. Talk about a workout! I was exhausted after climbing over all the rocks but at last we made it and the view was breathtaking.

This is a view of the valley where our base camp was. We took a shortcut down through the pass you can see starting at the bottom of the picture (it's called Anderson Pass).

It's hard to tell from the pictures how steep it was.

This is a view looking back at the pass we came down.

There were streams and lakes everywhere. Probably because it rains so much! It was really, really pretty. I wish everyone could go there and bask in the beauty of it. That night I hardly slept thanks to the lightning lighting up my tent, the thunder clapping, and the wind howling. When we woke up it was foggy and freezing so we hurried to pack up camp and hike out of there! We had a cold but very beautiful hike back in the hail and snow. I have to admit I was kind of glad it stormed because it looked so pretty and really only added to the adventurousness of the trip. :)

Approximately 1337.3 miles of driving later, I think I'm about ready to settle down and start school.