Happenings of our lives

Well, Emily didn’t post about our new camera so I will. We got the Canon SX200IS. It’s their line of cameras that are in between SLR’s and point and shoots. We love it. We test drove it this weekend on the White Rim Trail (post to follow with pictures) and it did such a good job. We also bought a tripod from REI for real cheap that we like as well. We’d recommend the camera to anyone looking for HD video and great picture quality but not quite ready to make the jump to an enormous SLR camera.

On July 4th, in an attempt to get away from all the crazy 4th of Juliers and their “parade”, Emily and I along with Justin and Julie and four little ones went backpacking up lightning ridge. We started from Rock Canyon Campground making the hike a little easier; however, the trail from that part on is really steep. I was impressed that Justin’s kids made it the whole way up (well, Aspen had a little help from Julie and I carried Ronan sometime) but mostly they did it by themselves. At the meadow where we set up our tents, there were hundreds and hundreds of caterpillars which greatly occupied the kids, especially Aspen. She was scared of them at first but once she started to play with them, she couldn’t get enough. We had to take her current little friend away after getting smashed a bit and would quickly replace it with another little friend. We tried to watch the fireworks from our campsite but our angle was off just a little and so missed them. If we had gone to the very top of the ridge, we would have been able to see them. Emily and I the next morning went to the top of the ridge; it’s so beautiful. We hiked back down on Sunday and made it back in time for church… Darn it…

On June 27 of this year, I went hiking with Mark Delorey, a friend from my old branch in Wisconsin.  He lives in Provo and works full time.  We hiked from the base of rock canyon to the top of lightning ridge.  We were originally going to go backpacking overnight to the same place but Mark didn’t end up being able to so we just went on a day hike instead.  It’s such a pretty hike and Mark was a good friend to go with me.  He had just ran a marathon a couple of weeks before so he was worn out but we still made it to the top.  Pictures are below.

Culinary Crafts was invited to a picnic sponsored by Sysco.  Kaleb invited us to go with them and so we did.  I hardly ever turn down free food.  It was actually pretty good food too.  It was a quick but fun afternoon adventure.

Emily and I went to Logan for our second anniversary (we went on the day, June 23rd).  A while back we went to a charity auction with some people from Culinary Crafts and paid 50 bucks for a hotel stay at the university’s hotel as well as a 40 dollar gift card to Hamilton’s steak house which was a really nice restaurant and had some really good food.  We also at the time we got a nice gift basket but had already eaten everything in it…  We had a fun time.  We had a king suite so the room was really nice too.  All for fifty bucks.

Our camera broke this weekend. We’re so sad, we love taking pictures and that’s kind of hard to do without a camera. What was so funny is that it broke right after I was telling Justin and Julie (Jordan’s brother and sister-in-law) how much I wanted to buy a new camera (an SLR). I took it apart Sunday and tried to fix it (I’ve had pretty good luck in the past with this). Well, after several hours of trying to diagnose the problem I figured out that the gears that bring the lens back in to the camera don’t turn anymore. So, we decided to get a new one. We’ll post more about it on Wednesday when we get it.

Curtis (an undergraduate who works in the lab that I do) went hiking with me on June 20th of this year.  We were going to go backpacking but he ended up bailing out on me because he was going to get back really late from taking his fiance to the airport so we did a day hike instead.  We went from the base of Rock canyon to the top of lightning ridge.  It’s such a beautiful hike and it was a lot of fun.

So my best friend, Chase, got married on June 13th to Amy.  It was a fun wedding.  I was a groomsman.  They got married in the Salt Lake Temple.  After the wedding at the temple, they had a luncheon for family and friends and we were invited to it.  They had some good food there.  Then after that, they had the reception which Emily and I stayed the whole time for so we could see them off.  The next morning, Emily and I went to the airport and met them there before the flew off to CA for a cruise.  We took their car back to Orem (to their Mom’s house).  A week after that, I went to the airport and picked up Chase (Amy stayed in San Diego because that is where they are going to live for a while) and took him back to his car.  He’s a good friend; we’ve already played a lot of xbox together…

From June 6th to June 10th of this year, Emily and I went to Anaheim CA for the 2009 IFT conference.  We had a blast.  We originally weren’t going to go; however, way long ago I found out that Dairiconcepts people would be there and I wanted to meet up with them since it had been so long.  We went to Six Flags during the week with everyone from BYU.  It was fun but honestly, maybe theme parks aren’t for me anymore.  I just left feeling sick; the rides were fun though.  The most fun thing we did was go to the beach with everyone from BYU.  I had fun playing frisbee with Josh and Brennar from the Nutrition major.  We also played “500″ with a wiffle ball and bat with them and Reed and Trenton (other graduate students).  IFT itself wasn’t that much fun; we got lots of free food there.  We also had breakfast with Pete (my immediate supervisor at Dairiconcepts) one morning and another morning we had breakfast with Kris and Pete (Kris is Pete’s supervisor and the vice president of R&D at Dairiconcepts) so my wish to meet up with them was fulfilled.  We had dinner a couple of times at the Cheesecake Factory in Anaheim; I think it was my first time going there.  Their cheesecake was almost as good as the cheesecake I make… and the food was good too.

On May 18th (yeah I know, it’s July and we are just posting on it) went on a little picnic with Justin and family.  We just went to a little park next to where they live.  Emily and I rode our bikes to their house and then we all rode bikes to the park.  There is a busy road that separates their house and the park; poor little Ronan barely made it across.  I had to help him.  We had hamburgers and hot dogs, grapes, and drank crystal light.  It was fun.