Happenings of our lives

As I said yesterday, Jordan and I wanted to visit our favorite places in Provo before we left. We really don’t eat out very much, but there was a restaurant on Center Street called Ottavio’s that we had been to before that we really liked. It was the first restaurant that we went to eat at together (the PenCourt in the Eyring Science Center doesn’t count) and it is the same restaurant that we ate at right before we got married. So we decided to go there. Well, much to our dismay, we got there and it had been closed. So we decided to go to Gloria’s Little Italy (it was right down the street). We also tried out our new camera.

Jordan got gnocchi and a house sauce and I got Tort elloni alla boscaiola which is basically tortellini in a mushroom sauce. Overall, it was pretty good, we had a good time and it gave us a break from packing.

Well, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted, but I’m going to try and recap on all the things that have been going on in our lives since the middle of July. We wanted to try and to all of our favorite things and visit our favorite people before we left Utah. So, the next couple of posts will be about that.

On July 18 we drove up American Fork Canyon with Justin and Julie to go camping. We took a 4-wheel drive rode and drove up to the top of the road to a really great camping spot. We checked the weather forecastbefore we left and it was suppose to be clear skies all weekend (there was a 20% chance of rain). This was very important because the place we went camping was pretty near the top of a mountain and when we got there there were several trees that were obviously struck by lightning in the past.

So, we got there and walked around with Julie and the kids and took some pictures.  We got back to the camp and decided to make dinner, we had hot dogs. Ronan wasn’t really interested in eating, he just wanted to pretend his hiking stick was a gun and shoot things.

We made some awesome smores with nutella instead of chocolate bars (it is totally better and doesn’t melt like chocolate). The best thing that happened was that our camera broke after we tried to take some pictures. At the time it didn’t seem like such a good thing, because we love to take pictures and anyone that knows Jordan knows that he loves to look at them so he can remember things (I like to look at them too).  So the pictures kind of stopped there.

This camping trip was really eventful because we woke up in the middle of the night because we heard thunder. We looked outside our tent and then we saw some lightning, then heard thunder pretty soon after. So in the middle of the night we had to pack everything up in the car, and go back down the mountain to go home. Justin did a great job of driving down the mountain and not having us fall off the side.

(just click on the picture for the link to the gallery)

Well, we have officially moved into our new apartment in Springfield Missouri. We’ve (mostly Emily) have been unpacking since Thursday. We really like our new apartment but are still excited to buy a house. I start my new job on Monday which I’m really excited about that. We’ll have some pictures up later; we have lots!

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.