Canoes

We had the best weekend ever last week! We got together with Melissa and Justin Schmidt and rented a couple canoes from the Outdoor Rec Program up on campus. It was a total blast! Bryce and I were saying that was the first fun summery weekend we had all summer. With him working so much we were never really able to do that. So it was great!

Cutler Marsh ~ Unloading the canoes

Here we go!

Melissa and Justin

Kaylee and Bryce

Besties! Tender :)

Trying to fish

Such a fun night!

It was actually quite beautiful!

 The next day we decided we had not had quite enough. We packed up again and headed to Porcupine Dam. It was another fabulous day! We parked the canoes and checked out the salmon running up the river, the boys jumped off a huge cliff, and we all really enjoyed the beautiful weather. Could not have been a better day!

Bryce

Justin

Cute right?!

We "let" the boys beat us back to shore.

We are so glad we have the Schimidts as friends! Love you guys! What a great weekend! Life is good!

Feelin' Domestic!

The other day I was feeling pretty outgoing! I had lasagna, fresh corn, and a fresh peach pie on the table before Bryce got home from work! With the way things are in our life right now - BUSY!!!! - we are lucky if we have dinner at all! Let alone a pie!
We were doing good!

I also got my fall decorations up!
I just love fall! It is my favorite season!

I was not the only person on a roll that night! We were given a fridge from Bryce's mom and dad. We coined it the "garage fridge" and decided we could use it for random foods we did not have room for in our kitchen fridge. Well, it worked for a couple hours...then it reset the GFCI outlet. Over. And over. My mom talked to a fix-it man a while back about a similar issue they were having with a deep freeze they keep in their garage. He said it was a quick fix if you just replace the GFCI outlet with a regular one. Bryce went to Home Depot, bought the new outlet, and he and Trevor had it swapped out pretty quick!

Don't worry...he is joking :)

Thanks guys! Now our freshly butchered deer meat has a place to live! We are busy...but we are still getting things done! Life is good!

FHE Tonight

My brother Cole is serving a mission in Peru right now. Today he wrote home and asked for pictures of where he was from. He said the people that he talked to thought he was a "city boy." He wanted to show them pictures of corn fields, tractors, mountains, and the open space that he calls home.

For FHE tonight we decided to get the pictures!

It was fun to drive around and get them! It was good to reminisce about Cole and memories we've made in good ol' East Garland! It really is a beautiful place to live!

The grand prize photo has to go to this one:

God Bless America!

I think it is one Cole would be proud of! This flag flies proudly at the home of Brent and Colleen Shaffer. They own the farm Cole worked on for several years before he left for his mission. I have never known anyone to have more pride in America than Cole! Hee hee! If he saw anything with even a hint of patriotism, he had to have it. It was funny! He usually makes mention of how great America is in his weekly emails home. We sure miss him! But, I know he is on the Lord's errand! He is having a heck of an adventure too! We are thankful to have him serving! 

It was a great night!

Labor Day Weekend

It is true that this post is coming several weeks late! Work and school keep Bryce and I busier that we could ever imagine!Sorry for the delay...this was just one family outing I did not want to leave out! 

We decided to head up to Bear Lake and camp over Labor Day weekend. Saturday morning, me and Bryce, Tyanna and Trevor, and my mom and dad set off for the adventure. What a lovely day it was! The sun was shining in full force and we were all looking forward to a relaxing getaway.

We made camp at the Sunrise Campground, near the new Bear Lake Overlook. The sign said "full" be we took our chances and drove in...Bingo! There was one spot left for us! Nice! That never happens! We got our tents set up and made a quick lunch. We went on a short hike called Limber Pine. It was beautiful. We all laughed and had a great time together. Next we headed down to Garden City to Pickleville Playhouse. I highly recommend trying it out! We saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. It was such a fun play! Bryce had never seen it before so it was new and exciting for him. Have you ever seen it? Remember how the songs are super catchy? Especially the one that goes something like "It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet..." And on and on! Well, you guessed it. We were all singing the songs all weekend :) We ate dinner at Merlin's Drive In.

 The next morning we woke up and went to church in Garden City. My, my, was it a sight! The church was PACKED! I could not believe how many people were there! The locals were ready though. The ushers handles the masses like pros. All the rooms surrounding the chapel had flat screen TVs mounted in them so the service could be broadcast to accommodate more people. Because it was the first Sunday in September, it was a fast and testimony service. It was interesting to hear the testimonies of so many strangers. It was a nice service. We spent the rest of the day finding adventures and enjoying nature. We walked to a spring, crawled into some ice caves, and hiked to Bloomington Lake. Everything we saw was so beautiful! For dinner we had dutch oven potatoes and cobbler. So yummy!

All the kids rode in the back of the truck...fun yet bumpy!

The water was really coming out of no where!

We had to CRAWL into this place...I was proud of myself!

Bloomington Lake was totally beautiful!

A small bull moose just chilling in a pond.

Sunday dinner at camp.

We planned to go swimming in Bear Lake Monday, but, unfortunately, the sun decided to never show her face. We drove to the beach but we just could not bring ourselves get out and try the water. So, we headed home. Tyanna and Trevor were with us because, sadly, their truck blew up that morning... like seriously, blew! Bryce and Trevor went out fishing Monday morning and on their way back to camp Trevor's radiator blew. They parked it off the side of the road and we waited for a tow truck. It sounds bad (and it was) but it made it kind of fun because they had to drive home with us :) We went home through Emigration Canyon and Mink Creek and stopped to shoot the guns. I am glad we had them! It was a lot of fun! The Bennington girls were proud to show the boys their skill! Thanks dad and Bennington family for teaching us well!

This is a tomato Bryce blasted!

We can shoot! Oh Yeah!

All and all it was a fabulous camping trip! Might I just add that Labor Day weekend + Bear Lake Parade of Homes + a sold out Pickelville + beautiful weather = a crazy and VERY crowded Bear Lake! It was all so fun though! Thank Heaven for long weekends!

Deer Hunt

Hunting has always been a part of my life. I am happy to say, now that I am married, it still is. Even more so then I could have ever imagined! Bryce is...obsessed is probably the best word choice. Not in a negative way, but he really does LOVE to go all out!

Doesn't he look good in his camo?!

This year we took a couple days off to spend the opening of the deer hunt in the Boulder Mountains. Bryce loves to hunt down there. He went down there with his dad the first time her ever went bow hunting. He has been hooked ever since! I don't really blame him. It is a very beautiful place!

Our camping party consisted of me, Bryce, my mom, my dad (for the weekend only), and Scott Twiss. Scott is my boss's husband and an even more obsessed hunter than Bryce. He was a fun addition to the family outing! 

We had a lot of fun in the Boulders! It rained almost every day, but we still had beautiful weather! The boys had a great time hunting and I had fun relaxing at camp with my parents. I spent some time out on the mountain with Bryce too and that was very fun! I grew up road hunting for the most part. So, spending time sneaking around the woods is not something I have spent too much time doing. We saw a lot of deer (bucks, does, and fawns), some wild turkeys, we got POURED on during an evening hunt, and we saw a double rain bow. I really appreciated being able to enjoy nature with Bryce! He is so much fun :)

Some fun pictures from our hunt at the Boulder Mountains.

Unfortunately, we came home form the trip empty handed. Bryce saw 14 bucks in all and even got a couple shots off, but nothing. I think he really wanted to shoot something, but I also think he was OK with not getting anything because that meant his hunt could continue.

The next time we went out hunting we went up Blacksmith Fork Canyon. The first deer we saw was a pretty nice 4 point. Bryce jumped out and started to sneak. If you did not know, it is hard to be sneaky for deer. Needless to say, between the dry ground cover, the steep hill, and Bryce's not-so-sly way of tromping up after the deer, he was never able to get a shot off. He came back down and we continued up the road. That evening we saw several more deer, shot at one, and came home empty handed again. 

Bryce went hunting up the same canyon the next evening with my dad. They saw the same 4 point buck, Bryce shot at another 2 point buck, and again, they came home with nothing.

One would think at this point a hunter (Bryce) would get very discouraged...wrong! Bow hunting is not an easy task! The hunter must get pretty close to the animal to be able to get a good shot off. If they hit the animal, often times the animal is able to run quite a ways, and finding it then becomes the challenge. Persistence is the key here! Bryce is very good at being persistent! 

The next morning, before school, Bryce headed up the same canyon in hopes to find something to shoot. Well...if you can see the picture below, HE DID!!! The same 4 point he had been seeing was right near the road and he was able to get a great shot off. He hit the deer in the lungs and it dropped right where he shot it!! YAY!

Bryce's trophy buck! Not bad, right?!

Good job honey!

Bryce shot the deer right before his class was supposed to start. So, with no time to get a big project done, he decided to just drop the deer off at a local butcher. We picked up all the meat yesterday! It was exciting to put it in the freezer and know Bryce was the reason we had it :) He was pretty proud! 

The finished product!

The deer hunt was a long and drawn out adventure! It was a lot of fun and I look forward to more hunts to come!