Babies...

My two brothers wives had babies recently!! My oldest brother, Jason, and his wife Ashley are actually at the hospital right now. They had their second girl, Beverly Rose Powell just a few hours ago. She is so cute! Born at 10:37am, 8lbs 4oz, 20.5 inches long.



And I know this one was awhile ago, but my brother Bobby, and his wife Abbie, had their first kid on Halloween, Major Robert Powell. He is a cutie too. Weighing in at 7lbs 3 oz and 20 inches long with lots of dark hair.



Maybe I'm getting a little baby hungry :) They are just too darn cute to resist!

New Tent

For those who read our random blog when we actually update it, you may remember us telling about our adventure in Coyote Gulch where our brand new tent got demolished by a wicked storm, wind, rain, snow, everything you can possibly imagine. We have been wanting a new tent, but a NICE one, that would hold up in that kind of weather. We have been looking at black diamond, mountain hardwear, marmot, and a few other mountain brands that we love. But those tents are so expensive! We're talking $400+ for a small, 2 person 3 season tent. Are they worth that much money? Defnitely. If we were rich, we would have gotten one a LONG time ago. But we're not spilling money out of our pockets quite yet :) However, we DID find a tent last week! A nice Marmot tent for our backpacking adventures. We are in love. We got the Marmot Crib 2P 3Season tent with footprint for half the price! We were so excited! We love shopping on www.steepandcheap.com For those who don't know, it is a website with daily deals...or more deals by the minute? It is sweet. They will put up a product at an awesome price for a certain amount of time and with limited stock. You can purchase until the time is up or the product is sold out. steep and cheap is more sports and outdoor gear, but there are many other deal of the day websites you can visit by going to www.dodtracker.com
. Well, back to our tent. It has welded seams so water/rain will not leak through, and so much more. We can't wait to use it!

Sweetheart

I just have to take a second to brag about my husband. He is such a sweetheart. Last week, I walked out to my car after work, and he had left this on my windshield.




What a surprise! And we loved the little flowers that took place of the typical baby's breath. I loved my flower(s) and I love Scott. He is so good to me!

Snow Shoe-ing

Well, Scott and I tried to have an adventure to tell the day after Christmas. We rented this yurt for the weekend. It sounded like fun. Snowshoe in a few miles and get nice and cozy with a wood burning stove and a deck of cards to pass the time. We were so excited, so we packed our bags up nice and tight. We even brought our new ultra deluxe Adam and Eve sleeping bag to sleep in to stay nice and warm.

One week before our adventure, I called up the Forest Ranger and had a little chat. It went something like this...

Me: 'Hi, we have a reservation for the Grizzly Ridge Yurt next weekend. I was just wondering, is it easy to find? Is the trail visibly marked? Or would you recommend bringing a GPS?'

Ranger lady: 'It's very easy, just follow the blue diamonds from the trailhead all the way up to the yurt. You won't need a GPS.'

Me: 'Great! And firewood will be provided for the wood burning stove?'

Ranger lady: 'Yes, we even provide lighter fluid and paper to start the fire.'

Me: 'Wonderful! Thanks so much for your help!'

Call ended.

As December 26th rolled around, Scott and I were both feeling a little sick. He was about one day behind me. I had been taking my sudafed, trying to get over it, but it just wasn't happening. I still felt like I had to prove myself, so when Scott asked if I was feeling up to it, I said of course. I had packed 9 miles in one day before. Three miles would be a piece of cake! Yeah right, not when snow shoeing AND sick. We made it about 1/4 mile and I was out of breath. So we stopped to take this picture.

We made it maybe another 1/4 mile and I needed another break. Snow shoeing while sick is not an easy task. But we got a couple of fun pictures.



We kept going, and going, and going. We had been hiking for about three hours, and I was getting tired. This was my view....


Yup. The backside of Scott. He was so patient with me, but I was getting so tired! I could not handle it! We had been following that blue diamonds for who knows how long, and we still had not reached the yurt. So we kept trudging along, following those blue diamonds.

Another couple of hours pass and what do we see?!?! The yurt?? Nope. The road. We were so bummed! What had happened? We followed the blue diamonds and never saw the yurt. Did we miss it? Did we follow the wrong trail? We were so confused, had no idea what had happened, only that somewhere along the way, I was so exhausted and thought I was going to die that I broke down and cried. We made it back to the car and found the trail head map. Sure enough, the map states to follow the blue diamonds to the yurt. But there were not one, not two, but THREE sets of blue diamonds. They all start as one, but then split off at different times along the path. Instead of the 3 mile hike to the comfortable yurt, we had hiked about 6 miles, back to society.

By this time, we were so exhausted, and even more sick, that we headed home...never reaching our yurt. So, we attempted to have a fun, relaxing adventure. Ended up having a long, tiring adventure instead. And oh what an adventure it was! I'm just lucky I had Scott with me to keep me going the whole way.

I forgot my camera.

I am so sad! I have either forgotten my camera, or my memory card for my camera the past three trips I have been on! Over Halloween, I went to Vegas to visit my mom, sister, and her two daughters. It was a lot of fun! I had fun seeing them, it had been awhile. But I forgot my camera! I didn't get to take pictures of the pumpkins the girls painted, or of them dressed up in their costumes. Or pictures of us at the Nevada day at the Old Mormon Fort. I missed so much that weekend!

Then, a couple of weeks later, Scott and I headed down to Vegas for Thanksgiving. Again, no pictures were taken :( We had fun too! We made pine cone turkeys and pilgrim and indian bookmarks. We saw Planet 51 (it was funny) and did a little shopping. And don't forget our delicious dinner, thanks to Michelle.

And this past weekend, I headed out to South Carolina to watch the kids while my parents were in Leavenworth, Washington. They are getting so big! I flew in Friday afternoon, and drove myself to my parents house, to find my little brother, James. Immediately he starting showing me the sweet new gun they just purchased. I have no idea what kind it is, but James explained every little detail to me and it seemed pretty neat. If only I knew what he was talking about:) A few minutes later, Sarah, William, and my cousin Megan got home. We all sat around and just chatted for a few hours, then headed to the high school to pick up some fruit that they had ordered through a fundraiser. From there, we headed to dinner and went home to watch 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

The next morning, we headed out to the shooting range to shoot some guns. One of the dogs snuck into the car and we couldn't get her out, so she tagged along. And boy, did she regret it! She hates loud noises, so we left her in the car, curled up under Williams sweatshirt under the front seat. Don't worry, she is fine. Somebody stayed with her at all times. But it was fun to shoot guns, even if the scopes weren't sited in yet. After that, we dropped James off at a birthday party and headed to Krogers to get gingerbread house kits! Plus some Blue Bell ice cream, but we forgot to eat the ice cream:( I'm bummed I missed out on that.

Then we got James from his party and raked a guys yard. It was freezing outside! But we got it done! Then we ate dinner and built these...








I know I forgot my own camera, I got these from James. But we worked on this for about four hours. They took forever! But they were so much fun to build! We loved it. Except that it made us extremely tired, and sad because I was leaving the next morning.

Which, speaking of morning, was very chaotic. The electricity shut off around 5:30 in the morning. When we tried to wake up at 7am to get ready for church/the airport, we had no light and no hot water. So I sent the kids back to bed, but let the three dogs outside. Then I head back to bed. At 8am, I wake up, get ready, and hear TONS of barking out back, so I go outside to find that one of the dogs had escaped from the backyard. Luckily she came back when she heard me calling her name, but a morning with no electricity and a missing dog? I was already exhausted. Good thing for long flights to sleep on:)

P.S. I even got to eat at Chipotle on my way home. It was delicious.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Check out the link below to an MSN article I found:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33830268/ns/health-mental_health/?GT1=43001

Just reading up on some news and discovered that Utah is ranked the happiest state in the USA. Sometimes it really does feel great to live in Utah. And yes, I just admitted that I enjoy living in Utah.

much needed MAN TRIP

Scott is a man. So he needs man time. I make him go:) This time around, he and his buddies, Nate, Ryan, and Steve, went down near Moab to do some repelling. They had tons of fun. Or at least that is what they tell me. Since I wasn't there, I can't give you too many details, so here are the pictures Scott took. Enjoy