Ryan and Rachele's 4th of July

So Ryan and I went camping with his parents and a couple of his siblings. We camped at the best site in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The camp site sits along side a beautiful river and our site was next to a mini waterfall. We bbq'd steaks, cooked up some s'mores, and sat around the campfire. In the morning we went on a hike to White Pine Lake. It's an 8 mile round trip hike, and it was pretty difficult. We climbed from 7100 feet to 9300 feet in about 3 miles. The first mile was easy, which was very deceiving. The final destination was worth it though. It was the greenest trail I've ever seen. There were tons of wild flowers in bloom, and you walked along streams and rivers the whole way. It was great fun. We're now getting ready to go to the Freedom Festival in Downtown Provo. We were going to see Live Free or Die Hard, but Ryan's family wanted us to show them around the Festival, so we'll just have to wait to see the movie. Well, enjoy the pictures.

P.S. Notice in one of the photos that I'm wearing my Life is Good Shirt. I got the picture for you mom.

Las Vegas & The Grand Canyon

Our mini vacation to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon was so much fun! Except we are worn out now and need a vacation to recover. We flew in Sat. morning and immediately felt the effects of the 110+ heat. Luckily there is never an air conditioned building far away. So basically our trip consisted of eating yummy food, shopping, a tiny bit of gambling (I'd lose on the slots and John would make up the difference on the poker machines) and seeing some great shows. We had tickets to "The Blue Man Group" on Saturday night. If you ever have a chance to go see it, don't hesitate. It was pure entertainment...funny, great percussion, and clean! Sunday we were able to get tickets to see The Beatles "Love", Cirque du Soleil production. It was amazing! Again, I'd highly recommend it. From start to finish it was just pure music and the amazing acts that you'd expect from Cirque du Soleil. On Monday we took a day trip to the Grand Canyon with a quick pit stop at Hoover Dam. This was a highlight for me. John's been several times, but it was my first trip to see it. I was absolutely in awe. It looks unreal. We only had a couple of hours there so we didn't get to hike or explore too much, but to be honest between the heat and the altitude, that was ok. I definitely want to go back during cooler weather so we can hike or plan a raft trip or maybe ride the burros down (seriously!). It was so beautiful, it's almost indescribable. I was just standing on one of the lookout points and thinking this is just so amazing.

Summer Time!

I'm so excited! I will be going to NY tomorrow night for an entire week! This is gonna be great! I will post more when I get back, pictures and all! Not being in school rocks!! :)

MY PUG!

I will be getting a pug puppy on July 19th. Here is a picture of my puppy with his eyes open. Right now he weighs nearly a pound! He is so cute!

Flower Power

TGIF People! So whats the plans for the weekend everyone? I'm going to go play golf tomorrow morning and then probably hang out by the pool. It's a tough life but somebodies got to live it. Sunday is of course Father's Day so Happy Daddy day to all. I'm hoping to get some crafting time in as well, but that remains to be seen. The garden could use some TLC so I may end up just focusing on that area. Speaking of which, check out the amazing flower to the left. This is from my red palm that I've had for three years. I never realized the darn thing blooms. Pretty amazing huh? I moved it under the gazebo when we had that really cold weather and the plant just took off, it's now about 5 feet tall and blooming for goodness sake. Just goes to show how little I know about gardening and how much of my efforts are truly by luck. Oh and my jasmine is blooming again which is really strange because it has only bloomed once a year since we planted it and now it's blooming again. Go figure? Don't really know whats going on out there but I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the view.

PJ's Graduation Visit

Bri and I just came back from a weekend trip to visit with PJ and watch his graduation from High School. The weekend was great. We flew into Portland and drove down on Friday to Roseburg. Saturday, we visited the UCC campus in the morning to see where he'll be going in the fall (did I mention full scholarship, I'm just so dang proud). We then ran around all over town, shopping for graduation clothes, meeting up with his friends at various bbq's, having dinner at his current place of employment (Red Robin). Sunday was graduation day. It threatened rain, but we lucked out. It seems the entire town of Roseburg comes out to watch the seniors graduate. Gotta love the small town atmosphere. It was actually pretty nice to see signs plastered all over town giving kudos to the kids for their success. Later we dropped him off at yet another party and then picked him up again and headed out for a celebration dinner. He checked into grad night at the high school around 9:30pm and we put on our jammies and called it a night. It was hard to say goodbye on Monday, I really just wanted to pack him up and bring him back home. Luckily Brianna is always available to offer advice and explain to me that all of my children must live there own lives in there own environments and that this is the way it's supposed to be.

My Garden

I wanted to show you what I've grown so far. I wish you lived closer so that I could give you some of the leafy greens that we have. Click on each picture to see the notes I've written.

Here's what you'll see in the photos. Broccoli, Swiss Chard, Red Leaf Lettuce, Carrot Tops, Beet Greens, Pepper Plants, Tomato Plants, Spinach, and Basil.

In all I have about 16 lettuce plants, lots of beet greens, lots of spinach, not sure how many carrots, 6 Roma plants, 6 pepper plants (only 4 are doing well), 3 different varieties of basil, 1 rosemary plant, 3 broccoli plants (only 1 is producing), and 15 Swiss chard plants.

One of the pictures is of a very pathetic looking pepper plant, swiss chard plant, and broccoli plant. The truth is they were thriving, but Kitty decided she loved the way it felt to rip into the leaves. Anyway, this isn't the first time she's ripped the leaves off those plants, and they've come back strong each time she does it; maybe she knows something I don't. You'll notice that the broccoli is planted too close to the peppers, and that's because I didn't think it'd come back to life after Kitty destroyed it the first time. Now I'm torn because I don't want to rip it out of the ground so that my peppers can grow, but I want my peppers to grow. I may risk transplanting the peppers, especially since they don't look they're going to make it after what Kitty did.

We're also trying to grow pole beans and melons, so we'll send photos when we get them to come up.

Finally, I cooked the beet greens, swiss chard, and spinach into a side dish for Sunday dinner, and it was gross-too slimy and mushy. I'll stick to eating the spinach and swiss chard raw, and cook the beet greens in a lot of butter for Ryan.