Yaaahooooo!!!

Well, that about sums up how we feel. Stephen found an internship for this summer! It's amazing how everything has fallen into place. We've been searching since October for a job and researching companies all across the United States. After coming so close, but having no luck with any of them...Stephen finally decided to look at a few companies in Utah (if you know anything about Stephen, you know that he's ready to live out of Utah for a while...so this was a big deal) The week before finals, Stephen had four different offers all with companies in Utah. We were so excited and felt so blessed. We know that we're supposed to be in Utah this summer (for more than one reason) And we're going to live it up and play lots!
Congrats Stephen! I knew all your hard work would pay off. :)

The Madness of our March

I can't believe how fast this month has flown by! We've stayed plenty busy and haven't done much blogging. I thought I'd just give a quick update on all of our madness for the month.

{Night Skiing}
The first of the month, Stephen and I decided to take advantage of some two for one ski passes. We hadn't been all season and so we dusted off the ski's and headed up the mountain. It was great! We happened to plan it perfectly with fresh snow from a crazy March snow storm that had hit earlier that day. With lots of powder, it sure wore on us. We realized how out of shape we were when we couldn't move the next day.

{Basketball}

We have a little march madness craze going around our house this month! Every March I look forward to filling out my basketball brackets (Which are mostly a completely random guess) We've been having this friendly competition with my family the last 6-7 years and it's becoming quite the tradition. We all get into it pretty big (even my mom), which is funny because I don't think many of us really follow the teams during the season. But we sure get into it this month and I love watching all the games, especially the upsets! We even have bobble head trophy that gets passed around from winner to winner each year. Stephen won it last year and we've been proudly displaying it! Where will it end up next? Who knows? It doesn't look like either one of us will be in the runnings this year to win, since both of my final teams were out long ago.

{Rex Lee Run}

A few weeks ago I decided to run another 5K. It was kind of a last minute decision...and was really a motivation for me to get up early and run before I go to work. It's a great little run around BYU campus and seems like it's getting bigger and bigger every year. There were over 2,000 runners this year! Thank goodness we had good weather, although it's always a chilly run at 8:00 in the morning, but we survived. :)

{Cooking Class}
I taught my first cooking class this month! Crazy I know...but it was really fun! There's an amazing group of women with the MBA spouses association and I was able to help them out by teaching a freezer meals class. Well, I'm no expert by any means, but I've been trying to do more freezer meals since I've been married, so that meal time can be a little faster. I had fun researching and experimenting before the class. However, now that it's all said and done, I'm very relieved that it's over :)

{Working in the yard}

Just this last week I've been enjoying the warmer weather. Spring has been such a hit and miss so far this year. With one or two warm days and then snow and freezing cold temperatures. But the last few days, I was able work in our backyard and do a little spring yard work! It felt so great to get out and dig in the dirt! I can't wait to plant our garden this year. Everything is still a bit brown, but I do have a few flowers starting to pop up here and there. I love seeing all the tulips and daffodils! It means that spring is here!

{The Countdown}
That's right! We are counting down the day for Stephen to finish his second semester of the program! He's already registered for classes next year and has only about 10 more days left of classes before he dives into finals. He's getting pretty excited to be finished, although we still haven't heard on a internship this summer. He is also getting pretty burned out this semester. It has been way more busy and intense than last semester. I haven't seen him nearly as much. He's taken over 19 credits on top of many other things. (I honestly don't know how's he's done it all!) I'm so grateful for a hardworking husband! We're definitely going to celebrate when finals are done. I just wish I could be done too! :)

{Frogs}

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine and she was telling me how she wanted to get rid of two little frogs. Call me crazy, but I decided to take them off her hands. She gave everything to me for them! My intention was to get these two little friends for my classroom. But I've decided to keep them home for a few days just to make sure that I can keep them alive! (I would hate to have a dead frog and tramautized kids) They are pretty cute and tiny. (maybe a bit bigger than a quarter) We'll see how long I can keep these two frogs alive! :o)

We're On The Hunt...

Or I guess I should say that Stephen is on the hunt right now for a summer internship for his MBA program. We have been eating, drinking and sleeping with this in mind the past three or four months. It's been a crazy roller coaster, I can't imagine next year when we're looking for a real full-time job. We've had a few close calls where he makes it past a few rounds of interviews and than they decide to take other people. He even had a fly back last month to Dallas and was catered with 4 other BYU MBA'ers for a weekend, but still no luck. I know that part of it is just the whole economy thing and that many companies aren't taking interns. And if they are they're only taking one instead of four or five. So I know that we're not the only ones feeling this way, because well over half the people still don't have anything. On the bright side of things, I feel that we're both learning and growing through this experience. We've also looked into companies that we wouldn't have considered earlier, which has been a good thing. But we're still keeping our fingers crossed with a few prospects. We'll see how things go.

Now that I'm 30...

Last Sunday was my birthday...and yes I'm now the ripe old age of 30. I think somewhere along the way I've miscounted. I certainly don't feel old enough to be entering a new decade. However, it was a nice and relaxing day. We took naps and had family over to our house for dessert. (I've decided that I really love having a birthday land on Sunday!) We really did most of our celebrating when we were in New York the week before. It was a wonderful day and I couldn't have asked for more.

Here are some of my most memorable top 30 things I've been able to see or do in my last 30 years!

1. Married my best friend
2. Earned my B.S. Degree in Special Education at Utah State University- Go Aggies!!!
3. Taught in 3 different school the past 7 years
   
4. During those 7 years, I've been able to associate with some amazing people (kids, parents, and colleagues)
5. Learned to play the guitar
6. Snorkeled with Sea Turtles in Hawaii
7. Started blogging. (Just another crazy addiction)
8. Saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace in London
   
9. Received the Crystal Apple Teaching Award
10. Had surgery on my knee followed by 6 months of therapy
    
11. Started running...and still love it!
    
12. Raced in over ten 5K or 10K races the past 4 years
13. Sailed in the Caribbean on a catamaran sailboat.
    
14. Went to my 10 year high school reunion
15. Became a big fan of the T.V. show "The Office"
    
16. Went to 4 different Olympic Events in SLC 2002 games
    
17. Volunteered as a coach for the USU Special Olympics basketball team
18. Saw the musical "Wicked"
19. Swam through some jellyfish :) (This was purely by accident!)
    
20. Flew in a small 2-seater airplane just me and my hubby
    
21. Was able to take over the controls and fly that small airplane myself high over the mountains
    
22. Been scuba diving
23. Became a True Aggie! :)
24. Received my ELL teaching endorsement
    
25. Saw the Eiffel Tower and ate delicious pastries in Paris
    
26. Swam in the great lakes...brrrrr it was freezing
27. Lived in 5 different cities all within the great state of UTAH!
28. Put in our own backyard...cement and all
    
29. Harvested vegetables from my very own garden
30. Bought my first home

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from all my family and friends!

Our Adventures in New York

Stephen and I decided to take a last minute trip! We had many good reasons why we should go...(a.k.a. our justification for spending the money while we're living on a student budget)

1. Stephen needed to do some networking for internships and prospective jobs.
2. We needed to see my brother and family...they've lived in New Jersey for almost 2 years and we've never been!
3. Who could ask for a better way to spend Valentine's Day and celebrate my birthday all at the same time.
4. Plus we found plane tickets for way cheap!

We bought tickets just 2 weeks before we headed out and we had an absolute blast! There's nothing like a last minute trip and although it was a chilly time of the year to visit, it was so good to get away from everything for a few days. We had a wonderful time and loved staying with my brother and his family. They are so darn cute and I realized how much I miss them. We stayed at their house and they live just around the corner from a train station. We would hop onto the train and ride about an hour into the city. We ended up spending 3 of our 5 days in the big apple. The first day, we spent the morning at the Museum of Natural History. (which looks nothing like in the movie, Night at the Museum) Then we headed 'downtown' to Wall Street where Stephen had an interview. While we were down there we saw ground zero, some amazing cathedrals, NY stock exchange. Then that evening we spent some time at the Manhattan Temple. It was neat to do some work and a great way to end the day in the busiest city ever!

Saturday morning was the coldest ever. It chilled us to the bone. We had tickets to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. After we headed to China town, where they were getting reading for the Chinese New Year, and had some authentic Chinese for dinner. After being outside almost all day, we decided to head home early. Even being bundled up we were frozen.

Our Valentine's Day was great! We certainly spent it with the ones we love :) Our cute nieces and nephews were sure excited. It was fun to be able to celebrate with them.

We headed back into the city on President's Day now thinking that we're pros at getting around. We walked through Central Park and down 5th Avenue (where we saw some ritzy stores...my favorite being Tiffany's :) Rockefeller Center and over to Times Square. However, the most exciting part of the day was when we we're able to get tickets to a taping of David Letterman for that evening.

Now this is quite a funny story....when we found out the day before that we had tickets we were pretty excited. We stood in line to pick them up at will call and somewhere along the way they told us that we must have impressed someone and they upgraded us to the first 2 rows of seats. We couldn't believe it! Things like this just don't happen to us. We had about 45 minutes to kill before we needed to be back to be seated and so we decided to walk around. When we were heading back we got mixed up and turned around, well I guess I should say we got lost. We were running up and down the blocks trying to figure out where to go. (which I'm sure was quite the sight to see) So needless to say we didn't make it to the "front row seats", but we still make it to the taping and were able to see David Letterman in person. It was fun to see all the behind the scenes stuff, but we were sure disappointed we didn't get back in time.

Can't I teach already...

All I have to say is I'm sick of doing sub plans. I've been out of my classroom five days the past two weeks. Don't get me wrong, it's all been great to be on vacation, attend a conference, and have other district meetings... but it definitely is so much more work to get things ready for a substitute. It was crazy how all these things came all at the same time. I was able to go to a literacy conference on Thursday and Friday, with about 10 other teachers/administrators from my school. It was a really good conference despite the fact that they kind of ragged on special education as a whole.
However, I'm definitely not used to sitting in a chair for 7 hours of the day. I have to laugh, because all I could think of was what happened to one of my little boys last week. I turned around to write something on the board and when I looked back towards the class, he had literally turned upside-down in his chair with his head hanging down to the floor and his feet kicked up high into the air. I admit I'm becoming more and more ADD like my kids at school.
I really miss my kiddos and am ready for a week of the normal chaos that goes on in my little room #107.

3 Years Ago Today...

We were married for Time and All Eternity.

This was the best decision I ever made!

I love you Stephen!

Motivation? ... or the lack there of

So...I always wonder how to motivate myself to exercise during the winter months. I don't know if anybody else has this same problem. The summer months make it so easy. I go running 3-4 times a week plus all the other summer outdoor activities, hiking, water skiing, ultimate frisbee, or taking walks with Stephen after dinner. But this time of year it's just so stinking cold that I lose every ounce of motivation. I'm always so drained after a long day of teaching, getting home around 5pm making dinner and dishes....I'm about ready for bed after all that. We do have a small exercise room at our complex that I need to take more advantage of. But it's hard to get myself even outside with these freezing temperatures. Well, Stephen found a way to help with this dilemma...it was the perfect Christmas gift. Thanks sweetheart!
I absolutely LOVE it! It really gives me a good workout. I'm using muscles I haven't used in a very long time. After a few weeks of using it I feel great! Working out during the cold months....bring it on...well in the comfort of my own home! Yea! Now for the rest of my New Year's Resolutions.....I'm still working on those.

2010

Happy New Year!!! I can't believe it's January and we're heading into a new year. Well, actually a new decade...time is going way to fast these days. I look back 10 years ago and what were we doing back then....?

Emily was...

• A sophomore at Utah State
• Enjoying the college life with roommates and friends
• Working towards applying to the special ed program and hoping to get in
• Left the teen age years and feeling more mature being a whopping 20 years old.

Stephen was...

• only 6 months into the mission field serving in Argentina
• still trying to figure out how to speak the Spanish language fluently
• hard at work :)

The world was...

• scared to death by the whole Y2K thing and had everyone in a panic, which really amounted to nothing.
• had just elected George W. Bush to office and didn't realized what this man would have to deal with during his term in office with terrorist attacks and our country going to war.
• reality shows on T.V. were just starting to come about
• the internet was something most of us still dialed-up to connect and was mainly used to check email

Crazy what we're you doing 10 years ago?

Our Christmas

It's crazy to think that Christmas has come and gone. With so much anticipation leading up to it...it's sad to see this time of year come to an end. We were definitely blessed to have had a wonderful holiday this year.
We spent Christmas this year with my family. It was nice not to have to travel very far for the holiday. We headed up on Christmas Eve where there were lots of Christmas festivities waiting! Matt and his family visiting from Texas and we were able to spend some time with them. We did our usual family traditions, baking Christmas goodies, eating a yummy dinner, singing Christmas songs as we set up the nativity, reading from the Christmas Story and opening up our Christmas P.J.'s.
Christmas morning was so fun with my brother Matt's little kids. I love seeing how excited they get. Cute Kayla was set on leaving Santa chocolate chip M&M cookies(which we specially made) and 9 carrots. It was darling to see her expression when she woke up and found them all gone and a special note left for her. We all had fun pulling out our presents and trying them out.
The next day, my brother Ryan and his family flew in from New Jersey and we were able to have our annual family Christmas Party. We are getting to be quite the group when we all get together. There are now 18 grandkids and then all the adults, it fills up my parents house pretty fast. We always have a great time together laughing and catching up.Grandpa reading the Christmas story on Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning...I love this contagious smile!
Opening our stockings...and yes I am a big David Archuleta fan!

In other news... Stephen and I have both been enjoying a little break from school. It's been such a relaxing week for both of us and has been so nice to have time together at home. He's starting to get geared up with the next semester of the MBA program. Currently, he's signed up for 19 1/2 credits. (Just too many good classes to choose from, I guess) I'm worried that he'll burn himself out pretty fast. Let's cross our fingers that he'll drop a class or two.
We've been filling up our time with hanging out with friends, attending our fair share of Christmas Parties and get-to-gethers, reading books, deep cleaning the house and laughing along with Stephen as we watch old episodes of 'The Office'. Why does this relaxing break have to come to an end?

Thanksgiving in Illinois

We decided to be adventurous this year and take a road trip to Illinois. Most people would call this crazy, but we were excited for the trip! Stephen's sister lives there and it was about 8 hours shorter than to drive all the way to Michigan. So everyone met up in Illinois. Stephen has two siblings out here, going to BYU. So with four drivers, it made it a lot more do-able. On the way out, we left at 2 am and drove all through the day. We didn't stop for anything but gas and food and we got there about midnight that evening. We had a great time and kept busy in the car watching movies, playing games, sleeping, reading and chatting about anything and everything. Once we were there and caught up on our sleep, we had a fabulous time. It was so fun to spend time with the Holden's. I am so grateful to have good in-laws. We don't get to see them too often, but we always spend so much time laughing together. And not to mention the good Thanksgiving food and yummy pies! We brought our camera, but played so hard we didn't even take a single picture...oh well. We headed back Saturday afternoon for the long haul. I would have to say the the 22 hour drive to Illinois wasn't so bad. But four days later, the 22 hour drive back to Utah was long and hard.

In the spirit of the holiday, here's the top 10 things I'm Thankful for this year...in no particular order!

1.My sweet & patient husband, Stephen
2.Temples and that I know families are forever
3.Moments when I have the clarity of thought to acknowledge that I can’t control what happens – only how I react
4.The sunshine!
5.Good health...knock on wood
6.My job
7.The Freedoms we have and all the many comforts I live with
8.Trials...in all shapes and sizes
9.My parents and their example to me
10.My kids at school who make me smile and tear my hair out all at the same time.

Kicking off the Christmas Season

I'm usually one of those people who will NOT listen to Christmas music, get out my Christmas Tree or do anything of the sort BEFORE the Thanksgiving holiday. I just think that Thanksgiving gets lost in all the craze of Christmas and what a better way to bring in the Christmas holiday than to remember what we are Thankful for. Well, this year I have to admit I did get a little excited. The weekend before Thanksgiving my mom had bought a few tickets to the Nutcracker. She enjoys taking all of her grandkids to the ballet (brave... I know!) So this year, I got to tag along with all my nieces and nephews. It was so fun to get all dressed up and go to a real ballet. It had been a very long time since I'd been to the Nutcracker. I love the music and the story and epecially seeing how excited all my nieces and nephews were. Cute Emma (who is 4 and has been taking ballet the past few months) kept shouting out "look there is a real ballerina! It was a great way to bring in the Christmas spirit and got me excited for this wonderful time of year! I will admit after seeing the Nutcracker, I couldn't help but braking out my Christmas music!

Halloween Fun

I know it's been a week or so, but I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! We sure did! We did all the traditional holiday festivities....and enjoyed every minute of it! With Halloween being on Saturday, we had more of a busy Halloween weekend. Friday was the big day at school. Most teachers dread this crazy day of the year, but as hard as it always is, it's so fun to see the excited little kiddos all dressed up in their costumes. It was a busy day and I came home and just crashed on the couch for almost an hour before we got back into our costumes and met up with my family that night. We always end up doing a family Halloween party because we have a few birthdays around this time of year and celebrate those. It's fun for all the little cousins to see each other dress up. My mom is the one who probably gets into it the most....which is really funny because she never did anything like this for us when we were little. It must be the grandkids! :) We had a delicious dinner and then the kids played some fun games including the traditional bobbing for apples.


The cute kids all dressed up!


My mom as a "deviled egg"


Bobbing for some apples!

On Halloween, we decided at the last minute to go hang out with my sister Camille and her kids for the evening. We headed up to Kaysville for the night and Stephen even went around trick or treating with the little kiddos. Boy were they hyper. They came back with their bags full of candy in one hand and something unwrapped and half eaten in the other. Camille and I stayed and handed out candy to the little ghouls who came by. Living in a young neighborhood they had lots of visitors! After the kids went to bed we stayed up just talking. We sure love hanging out with our family. Thanks guys!

Sick and Tired

Today, as I sit here, I'm home in my bed sick. Yuk! I've been sick for a month now and it's just not getting any better. So I finally broke down and went to the doctor who loaded me up with a bunch of drugs and I'm feeling better already. It's nice to have a day off of work and relax. So since I have some time on my hands I thought I'd catch up on some blogging that I've been meaning to do for a while now. We've been really busy around our house...but busy is good right?

My little brother was in town the other weekend from Texas. It was so good to see him, his wife and his darling little kids. We had fun catching up and laughing lots. We spent some time at the cabin to celebrate his birthday and listen to conference. I can't believe how big his kids are getting and how much I miss him being around!


I wish this picture turned out better! Here's Matt with his kids who love and adore him.


Stephen's catching a quick hug from little Preston!

One last chance

So it's taken me a while to get around to blogging about this, but I thought I'd still include it. Over Labor Day weekend, Stephen was able to have one last chance to go flying. His pilot's license expires in a couple of months and to keep current he has to spend so many hours flying a plane. Well, with going back to school and having our monthly income cut in half we no longer have the budget to support this expensive hobby. Flying is such a passion of his and he is like a little kid when he get behind the plane. It's so fun to see him so excited! This time he took his brother James and I to Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Well, you might be asking yourself what's in Fort Bridger? Answer: nothing....it was just a place to go, land and walk around for a bit before heading back home. However, we did meet a nice cowboy looking man at the airport. He was the only sign of life for miles around. :) It was a beautiful flight flying over the Uninta mountains and seeing all the glacier lakes. It was quite the view. Of course we took tons of pictures, but here's just a few of the best ones!

A great view of the lakes from the air!


Brothers flying up in front.


Our stop at Fort Bridger.

Salsa Salsa Salsa

Every September the past 3 years my mom and sister Allison have taken the goods from our garden's and combined them together and had a Salsa making day! We get into it good and are chopping and dicing all sorts of things. It's kind of funny because we just make it to taste and use the recipe as just a basic guideline. It turns out differently each year, but I would have to agree that it gets better and better each time. I love hanging out with my mom and sister and love learning how to make salsa. I think I could do it on my own, but it's so much more fun with them around to laugh with. This year we had lots of tomatoes and peppers. I think we set a record and did 4 different batches which made over 70 jars of salsa. That's a lot of salsa to eat!



Yep..It's pretty much a staple food at our house!

Loving the Great Outdoors this Summer

Yes I know, most would say that we're well into fall. With the cooler temperatures and leaves changing colors all around us. But Stephen and I have been trying to squeeze the last of summer fun in before it gets too cold! We've really been able to enjoy the outdoors this summer! Once again we made it a goal to go hiking each week and find some new places. And once again we did pretty good the first month. We went almost every weekend, considering the cold and stormy June we had. We were on vacation most of July, we've been able to go a few times in August and even a bit this month. We've made some great memories with our fun adventures. We were only caught in one hail/lightning storm, saw many beautiful waterfalls, ran into a moose, had a picnic in the snow, saw amazing sunsets, found a favorite camping spot miles from anyone around, heard a coyote in our camp(so this may not be such a favorite spot anymore), fell into a river, and made sure to do lots and lots of bird watching. Just to name a few...

What a great summer! Both Stephen and I love being outside and enjoying the beautiful mountains around us. We're sad to see the summer months go.

Green Thumb

Well, we sure learned lots this summer... being our first with our own back yard and garden. I would have to say it was so fun...once all the hard work of putting in the yard was done. We absolutely love having a little place of our own. Here's a few things we'll keep in mind with many future years ahead of us.

1. Having a lawn mower like this really can have it's benefits...although now that I think of it, we've been so busy since school started, I don't think our lawn has been mowed. mmmmm...we'd better get on that one.

2. A little fertilizer can go a long way! This is what it did to one half of our garden....
This is what it did to the other! oops! I was sad about the tomatoes, but I guess you live and learn!

3. Harvest time is wonderful. We've enjoyed cucumbers, squash, lettuce, beans, and peppers.:)
4. Earwigs and slugs are very hard to get rid of.
5. We've loved grilling and eating on the back patio with friends enjoying the view of the mountains!

A Whirlwind...

I can't believe that it's the last day of August! We've had quite the month! We returned back from Michigan and found out about 5 days later that Stephen's Grandpa passed away. So we hopped back onto the airplane and headed back out to Michigan. We had a quick trip to visit with family and say our goodbyes. It was good to be there and we were so grateful we were able to see him just a week earlier, when we were out there originally. I'm sad I never knew him when he was in his prime, but I've loved having a grandpa again even if it was for just a few years through marriage. He was such a happy man, even when things were hard and his was very sick. He always greeted you with a big smile and a positive attitude. Something I want to do more of! :)

In the midst of traveling to a funeral. I tried to unpack my classroom and get ready for the little kiddos to start school. I would have to say, I would much rather move my house than an entire classroom. It was such hard work and took tons of time. My poor husband didn't have a wife for about a week straight. Sorry sweetheart! I've been back to the grind and busy as ever, since the kids started school a week or so ago. I have a great little class this year. There's only 10 of them, but boy they are such a handful. I am so grateful I have two full-time aides in my classroom this year. I don't know if I could do it without them. They are truly lifesavers. I'm sure there will be many more funny stories to come with this group. One of my little boys struggles a lot with language and keeps calling me "Mr. Holden" Hey...at least he has the last part right. We'll work on the rest!

Also, Stephen is back doing the school thing too. Only he's at BYU working on his MBA.He finished his last day with his "real job" this month and traded in a brief case for a backpack full of books. In a small way, it made me really miss the college life of classes and being on campus. But only in a small way. I guess I now have to become some-what of a cougar fan with him getting his MBA there. However, I'll always be an Aggie at heart.

We also have his little brother James living with us for a semester. It's been fun to have him around too. He's a great kid and just got back from his mission this summer. So we're easing him back in to "real life" and are very excited to have him around.

What a crazy end to such a relaxing summer! It was a good one though and we're enjoying life and all that it brings!

Memories Made in Michigan

I'm feeling very relaxed as I soak in my last week of summer vacation! We were able to spend a few weeks with Stephen's family out in Michigan. We had a great time with the WHOLE family, now that his little brother James is back from his mission. We played hard and were able to travel around the great state of Michigan. I really got to see everything. I'll try not to make this too long, but we packed everyday with something fun!

We spent a day up in beautiful Riffle River. (a favorite family place their grandparents always took them camping) We played on swinging bridges, climbed amazing trees and waded in the river.

We also drove down to the big city and did a session in the Detroit Temple. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive each way and truly gave me a taste of not living 5 minutes from the temple. And yet they feel they are so close and are grateful they don't have to make the 8 hour trip to Chicago or Toronto. I love the temple and it was neat to do a session with the Holden's.


The next day, Stephen's uncle and cousin's came up from Ohio and we all drove up north to Mackinaw City which is right by the U.P. (aka...Upper Peninsula). Where we spent some time and then took a ferry over to Mackinac Island. It was beautiful with all the sailboats and lighthouses on Lake Huron. Mackinac Island has banned motorized vehicles for more than a century and remains a living Victorian community. So we rented some tandem bikes and rode around the island. It's also famous for being the place where the old classic movie "Somewhere in Time" was filmed. And of course we had to get some of their famous fudge!

Then off onto another road trip where we drove down to the Au Sable River. We rented canoes and kayaks and went 10 miles down the river. It was so green, I realized how much of a desert Utah really is. We had a great time catching frogs and saw lots of mink and turtles in their natural habitat. A first for me!

Stephen's brother Jeremy is starting the Police Academy next month and just got his gun. We decided to go shooting and brake it in. They also had a small 22 rifle for those who were too chicken to use the 40 caliber hand gun.(Like me!)

We also went paint balling to some field in the middle of all these Amish Farms. It was really a random place, but we had a fun time. It brought out the kid in all of us, but I had forgotten how much those little balls hurt when you get hit. Both Stephen and I were sore and had many bruises all over our body, one of which on my
leg was blacker than black and bigger than my hand. It was crazy and a good thing that was towards the end of the vacation.

It's always hard to leave and to live so far away. We had such a great time laughing and hanging out with each other.