My sister threatened me that if I didn't update our blog I was going to be removed from her favorites list. Hopefully this comes soon enough to avoid being taken off the only favorite list we are probably on.
Camping
Being graduated and finishing up some projects at work I finally had time to do fun things with Sharon on the weekends. Since we are leaving the beautiful mountains and desert of Utah we spent most of our weekends in May camping. My brother and his friend Angie went camping with us up Spanish Fork Canyon in Diamond Fork. It was a chili night, but fun. We treated ourselves to pancakes the next morning. yummm.
I guess the next week wasn't really camping, but we were up in the mountains. We volunteered at the Hugh O'Brian Youth leadership conference (HOBY) for Juniors in High School held at Aspen Grove at Sundance. We had a lot of fun with our group of about 10 kids. Each group had a color to represent them and we were assigned Black, which lead to an association with Pirates. Over the course of a couple days the kids went through various leadership exercises, activities, and a series of panel discussions. The most interesting for me was the religion and political panel.
We then spent a weekend in Zion National Park with some friends from high school, Gabe, his friend Johanna, Keith, Emily, and Dave. We did the traditional hikes like Angels Landing, the Weeping Wall, the Emerald Pools, and the bottom of the Narrows. Unfortunately the water was flowing high and fast and the park prohibited us from going to far. The trip was a success. The only casualty was the rearview mirror in the car. We came back from hiking and found it dangling in the car. It wasn't just the mirror that came off, it brought a little chunk of glass with it too. My guess is that the glass heated differently in the sun and it caused the glass to fracture. Gorilla glue did the trick gluing it all back together.
To end our marathon of camping we spend Memorial Day weekend in the church's 'Camp Zerahemla' in Morgan, Ut. My youngest brother McKay was doing his eagle project. We scraped, sanded, and re-painted 40 picnic benches. It was a good time and we were happy to get all the work done that he had planned.
Leaving Provo
After doing some math we decided that it wasn't worth sticking around in Provo past the end of May, for financial reasons. It was a fairly sudden change in plans so we put together a fun Ice Cream party to see all of our friends one last time before we left. Thanks to everyone who came! It was a good turn out and we were able to see and catch up with most of our friends in the area. We were sad to leave all the people we love in Provo. It is a different experience moving away from something that has become so familiar. I guess it's a lot like the mission. We are excited for what the future holds.
Park City
Since leaving we've taken refuge at my parents house. We are grateful for their hospitality. Since coming up we have been able to get out and enjoy the blooming mountains. It's been really nice. In the process we've been getting out to run every morning, which feels good. I have also been able to get out on some good bike rides with my youngest brother. It's also been enjoyable to have some time with my second to youngest brother who just graduated form High School and is getting ready to move to college and preparing to serve a mission for our church, meaning it might be awhile before we see him again. I've attached some of the beautiful flowers we've seen while hiking.
Cross Country
We took a week to fly out to Niagara Falls, NY to see Sharon's sister Joan and her family and to pick up an old car they were getting rid of. Thanks again Joan & Ruben. After spending the weekend with them doing fun things like going to a drive in( my first time ever!), seeing the Niagara Falls, and getting familiar with town, we started our drive across the country.
The first day we went from Niagara to Iowa City, IA with a couple hours detour to Pittsburgh, PA. In Pittsburgh we looked at apartments and found one we liked! Yahoooo. It's nice to know we have a place to live. All we have left is figuring out how and when we are going to get there. After the apartment hunt we tried to straighten out the title on the car and insurance, but meet with a lot of red tape. We hopped back in the car that afternoon a little frustrated and continued our drive through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and part of Iowa.
We were lucky to beat some of the storms and flooding. The only rain we saw that day was a little in Pennsylvania.
We pulled into Iowa City, IA at 2 am and were recieved by Lynne and Brian another one of Sharon's sisters and her husband. They let us stay there a day and rest up a little. I really enjoyed Iowa City. It was a nice town. We got to walk through an old Mormon hand cart camp.
We woke up early again the next day and started the rest of our trip through Iowa. After a brief stop to visit with my cousin Josh in Des Moines we pushed through some rain and never saw more after that. We were lucky to miss all the major storms, flooding, and tornadoes in the Iowa, Nebraska area. Thanks to everyone for letting us stop and say hi and the updates on weather as we made our way through that part of the country. We made it back to Park City before mid-night. The car held up great and the drive really didn't seem that bad. We were in a '93 civic. It is in good condition for being 15 years old and having some 230,000 miles on it. We got about 35 miles to the gallon across the country. It only cost us roughly $225 (the average gas price for us was $3.95/ gal) to drive across the country where our one way plane tickets for two, which we bought months ago, were about $360.
Since we've been back we've been working the car. We got it all cleaned up, fixed a few things, got it inspected, and today, as soon as I'm done with this post we should have it all registered and the title transfered.
I know this was a long update, but I've been a slacker and haven't posted as regularly as I would like. Hopefully the next one will come sooner. We should be in Seattle by then :)
