Sometimes you have to get out of Provo

Two years ago, I had a spanish class with a girl named Kelly. We were good friends in the class, despite the fact that we were only allowed to speak Spanish and Kelly’s skills were far superior to mine.  It was destined to be an “only-in-class” friendship until one day she called me up to set me up with her and her fiancée's friend.  We hung out a couple more times in the next year and a half, but then she and her husband moved to Pocatello.

They mentioned on facebook that they had bought a house, and were waiting for their first visitor, and I immediately decided that I was going. I didn’t know why, but at the moment I saw that invitation, I knew I was going. Kelly and Steve (Stelly) were nice and not too weirded out by the fact that someone they barely knew was coming to stay at their house, and we actually made it happen. 

Driving up there.  I had great plans of documenting the entire trip, but this ended up being one of two pictures of me the entire trip. Haha.

 

I got there Friday afternoon- it’s a 3 hour drive to Pocatello.  They were both home, so we caught up for awhile and then went to the Pocatello mall.  Or graveyard.  You probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference- there were only about 10 stores, and 50 people there.

I forgot to get a picture of the front of their house- it’s really cute. Here’s the backyard though.

We went out to eat at Costa Vida.  Kelly and Steve are really funny, and our “waitress” or whatever you call her was crazy, so it was a very enjoyable dinner.  Those two are so in-sync with each other.

That night we went over to Steve’s parents and watched the football game. I loved this. The football game was a little depressing- this was the TCU game, but it was fun to be with a bunch of Steve’s family. My favorite was Stelly’s niece Maren, who is eight.  She was exactly like how I think I was when I was a kid.  She kept trying to get everyone to play games with her and tell us about what everything was going to cost in the future.  I never really got bored of asking her the prices of things, and getting all the info she could tell me about the future. You never know when that’s going to be handy.  :)  She’s going to be the president you know.  I forget what she told me my profession was going to be, but it was pretty funny.  At first she told me the price of the Earth was going to be $1000, but kept raising the price when I kept finding ways to buy it and take over the world.

That night, Kelly and Steve introduced me to “Last Man Standing,” the new Tim Allen TV show.  I loved it.  It’s about a father who is a total outdoors man’s man who has to deal with his three daughters.  They succeeded in getting me addicted, and now I spend a lot of time trying to convince Jamie and Matt to watch it, since the Tim Allen character reminds me of Matt.

Making crepes Saturday morning.

After breakfast, we went to Maren’s baptism.  She was really excited that I came, which was sweet.  I haven’t been to a 8 year old’s baptism in a really long time, and it was really cute!  All I really remember from mine was that it was that the actual baptism part was really short. 

   

The last thing we did was go driving to the state park.  It’s like antelope park or something, where they go horseback riding.  It was right outside of Pocatello, and it was so pretty!  Pocatello is in this little bowl, and so outside of it is just long stretches of nothingness, which I love.  It was so pretty, but I didn’t get any great pictures.

I had to leave in the early afternoon, because my stake conference was at 5, but it was a really great trip.  Kelly and Steve were awesome.  Their marriage is definitely one that I look up to, and I hope one day I’ll have one like theirs.  I had a lot of fun talking to them and they treated me like one of their old friends. I’m really glad I went, even though it was a really random situation.  :)

Fishing!

When my hometeachers came over for the first time this semester, one of them, Brent, mentioned that he liked fishing.  I immediately interjected my response of “Oh I want to go fishing so bad!” and asked him if he would take me.  He agreed, and I think I asked him about six more time during the lesson to remind him that I really did want to go. That, along with telling his companion, Cristiano, “you’re feeling pretty awkward aren’t you” (he just got back from his mission. Yes, maybe I was a little cruel, but I think he felt much more comfortable after that- he only checked his phone like 8 more times.  :)) made for a very interesting first visit. 

Anyway, I reminded Brent like 50 more times, and we set a date to go, but it was during the freak snow storm of early October, and we were not about to do that.

Finally, we had a nice day, and we went!  We had to get licenses at Wal-Mart in the morning, and buy some more wire.  Here is Brent telling me how to correctly hold the wire. 

 

The wire was really slick, so I think I tangled it about 5 bazillion times.  Here is Brent untangling wire.  I promise that he did it a couple times too- it wasn’t just me.

Don’t I look like a natrual?  Just kidding.  I wasn’t very good at it.  Well, I started out okay, and then progressively got worse as the hours went on.  Part of it was the wire, but mostly I just had no idea what I was doing.  I had a really good time though!  I had always imagined fishing to be just sitting there with your rod in the water, but this was much more active and exciting.

It was a really pretty day.  I was chilly, but not nearly as cold as I thought it would be.  I brought like 20 layers of clothes, and ended up having to drag them around every time we tried a new spot.

Why did we have to try so many new spots, you might ask?

 

Because no fish wanted to bite anything we had.  Seriously, Brent probably changed the bait 12 times, and nothing worked.  See those pros in the picture above?  They didn’t catch anything either.

These people were the only ones I saw all day who caught anything.  It was pretty rough.  Brent felt pretty bad that we didn’t catch anything, but I didn’t feel bad at all.  My purpose was not to catch fish, but to just go out there.  It was so beautiful and early and quiet!

But it would have been cool to feel the fish bite.  I guess.  :)

March is only 4 months away!

It took me a long time to read these books.  And in the end, though I didn’t worship them, I really enjoyed them. 

Even the end, which was almost as controversial as Cloverfield’s.

I especially loved the first one
(no surprise. pretty much everyone agrees that one was the best).

This trailer made me real, real excited, as trailers often do. 

Conversation with Kaitlan after seeing this trailer.

Kaitlan:  anticipation is often better than the real thing
me: yes!
Kaitlan:  almost always true with movies and kissing

hahaha.

Hee Haw Farms

Kate and Kaitlan’s ward had a ward activity to Hee Haw farms, so naturally I went.  I’d never been to any sort of Halloween activity in Utah, so I was pretty excited, but held no expectations for this particular arena. 

 

First was the Hay Ride to the haunted house or whatever it was.  We originally didn’t get tickets to the haunted becuase Kate H. and I are pansies, but we eventually decided it wouldn’t be that bad because this was a family park and I finally consented. But my indecision caused us to miss the first hay ride, and we had to watch all our friends ride away without us.

But, turns out, this wasn’t so bad because near the waiting area were some really strange things. For example, here is some goat tower thing that we would have missed out on!

 

We also played on the tractors and trucks.

This truck was nasty, so we didn’t sit in it.  We walked around for a minute longer and found a nicer truck.  Kaitlan and I got in it, and then started to see some suspicious items: an iPod, a jacket, and it reeked of cologne.  We realized it was someone’s actual truck and not a prop just as the hay ride was coming back and tried to get out, but there weren’t any lights and I couldn’t find the handle to the door. We figured it out, but the lights came on when we opened the door and I was scared that the driver of the hay ride was the owner of the truck and we were going to get kicked out or something.

  

Some of the members of their ward.

 

The Kaitlyn’s (a mix of the spelling of their names) and I.

Kate looks like she jumped super high in this picture.

The haunted house wasn’t too bad, but that’s mostly because I was always third so I wasn’t the initial scare or the person they followed.  I also get really annoying in haunted houses because I get jokey and sarcastic as my defense mechanism against getting scared.

Most of the people who were in the house/maze thing were high schoolers, but they did a pretty good job!

And Look! A family!

There was also a corn maze, but we got bored of it pretty quickly and wanted to go home and watch Hocus Pocus so we only went a couple hundred feet in and then turned around.

Coach Jamie

Matt and I went to one of Jamie’s volleyball games. Here are some treasures demonstrating Jamie’s coaching style.  :)

 

This was a nice little sequence.  This next picture was taken at 5:19:23 and the one after was taken just 3 seconds later, at 5:19:26.

Lastly,

Coach Jamie

Matt and I went to one of Jamie’s volleyball games. Here are some treasures demonstrating Jamie’s coaching style.  :)

 

This was a nice little sequence.  This next picture was taken at 5:19:23 and the one after was taken just 3 seconds later, at 5:19:26.

Lastly,

Alpine Loop

If you have ever lived in Utah during the Fall, you have probably done the Alpine Loop.

This year I did it three times.

Alpine Loop Take One

The first time was on a blind date that Jeff set me up on. As you can see, it was really pretty, but very, very green.

That date was pretty much a disaster. Not a single person on that date was even a little bit interested in their date. My date and Jeff’s date were second cousins and just talked the whole time about their third cousins-next-door-neighbor’s-best-friend’s-dog. Or something like that.  They really had their family history figured out.

As we were laying out the blanket for the picnic, my date decided to try and lay it on these bushed that were about 3 feet tall.  Now the whole place was covered in underbrush and stuff, but there were definitely spots that were not already occupied by bushes.
He explained his actions by saying that he thought the bushed could be padding.  Weird kid.

The best part of the date though was when we were getting dropped off.  We had to drop Jeff’s date somewhere else so she could get to Salt Lake, and as she got out of the car, she said “nice to meet you” to Jeff and I and then thanked Brigham. It was weird, but then my date drove to the Elms and dropped Jeff and I off- not even getting out of the car. It was so weird.

And before you get all skeptical, I promise you that Jeff and I did not act like we were on the date together. Even when they were swapping storied about their first-cousin-once-removed’s-first-grade-teacher, we did not start talking to each other about our mutual friends.

Alpine Loop Take Two

The next week, a group of friends and I went between the conference sessions on Sunday.  As you can see in this picture, we were not the only ones with the idea.  There was practically a traffic jam up there. 

Still a whole lot of green, but some of the leaves were changing!

Since there were so many cars up there, we didn’t get out in time to get home for conference, so we stopped at a park on the way back and turned it on in the car.

I’m not sure how effective that was…

Alpine Loop Take Three

The next Sunday, Jamie, Matt, Kristin, Mei Ling, and I went up. Jamie told us to wear fall colors, and then got mad at us when none of us brought a scarf.  :)

The colors were much more brilliant this week though, even though my camera got a little funky with the colors in Jamie and Matt’s pictures.

Anyway, so it was cool to see the progression of the leaves. I’m glad the loop is so close to Provo!