Happy Halloween 2010

We had our 2nd annual Halloween party this year on the day before Halloween, since the actual day fell on a Sunday. There were a bunch of trick or treaters this year and we had fun getting dressed up too. No dry ice bombs however! Here are some pics :-)
Excited party goers!!!!

Camping in true roughing it style...

Last weekend I made my yearly camping trip (as much as I like to camp it seems like I only manage to pull it off about once a year). This year we did it the hard way, meaning no running water and no toilets...not even a stinky little pit toilet. The only thing that convinced me to go was that I'd been to the same camp area six years ago and I knew how beautiful the area was. We were on our way to Boulder Mountain, in Southern Utah, and we were holing up in a place called Kings Pasture. Here was my home for 3 days and two nights...

And I managed to put up my tent all by myself, no one had to help...I am a camping wiz...

Oh and I found these delightful boots, my souvenir at the True Value Hardware/gas station in Loa...

This year I was the one to cook the dutch oven dinner, my mother did mix up the food, but I cooked it just right, steak and veggies with blueberry cake ;-)...



While we waited for the food we enjoyed the fire...


And John got ready for the big hunt (the next day was the beginning of the bow hunt)...

There was a beautiful sunset, and moonrise that night...




The next morning John wasted no time and was already back to camp with this sad little guy by 9:30...

So he took us on a seven mile round trip hike with some beautiful views...




Just to get to this lake (by the way there was a mama bear and cub just passed the brush in the middle of the picture while we were there) so we could catch these...

We were very tired when it was over, and I was very sunburned...

But the next morning we got up to climb another mountain...

Find a valuable cow skull...

And witness the beauties of nature...




With a final stop by the tree my brother Greg and I had carved our names in six years before (except I had to re-carve it because we didn't cut deep enough then)...

And on the way home we saw these precious guys...


And on the drive down the mountain we stopped to take one last look at the amazing view from the top of Boulder Mountain...

A Family Reunion ~ of sorts...

So when I reflect back to my teenage years I have so many sweet thoughts...I know that isn't necessarily common but for me it is true. I can attribute it all to the wonderful friends I was blessed with at the time. I suppose I should give some credit to my parents because when they decided to make their last move they recognized that their children were about to enter some of the hardest years of their life. I was smack dab in the middle of 7th grade (the worst year of anyone's life I believe) and Jason was in 6th...Greg was only in kindergarten so he had many "good" school years ahead of him. My parents got the ball rolling by checking out the various wards of their church and picked one that had a strong group of youth. Of course they were very disappointed when the ward was promptly split and we were sent off to the "new" one, but that was where the blessings began. The kids that landed in that ward were incredible people and my teenage years were rich and full of fun because of them. I won't begin to go into all of the adventures that we had together, but it is a time in my life that I will always cherish. Shortly after this splitting of the ward my soon to be bestest friend, Joy, moved in to that ward's boundaries. My life would not have been the same without her, and yet once we reached adulthood our lives diverged and we drifted away from each other. A few years ago she made the effort to track me down and to reconnect...Thank you Joy for doing so. This past week, after more years than I can even remember (somewhere between16-18) we finally got to be together in person. We connected again at Music and the Spoken Word so that we could also visit with another of our childhood friends, Ryan (he grew up to be the Associate Music Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). I've always wanted to attend this show so I was excited for that alone, but to catch up with my long lost friend Joy was so exciting. What we didn't know was that another of our childhood friends, Nate, and his father(who was the member of the bisopric over the youth program as we were growing up) had happened to pick the exact same performance to attend. It was a wonderful surprise. These people were part of my extended family growing up and it was a wonderful surprise family reunion.
Left to right you have me, Joy, Bro. Lytle, Ryan, Nate, and his youngest brother Seth. Sunday was a wonderful day and I'm so glad I got to see everyone. Thank you Joy for taking the time to come and hang out with me on your family vacation. I was so glad to catch up and let's not let it be another 15+ years! I love you :-)

4th of July hiking - Silver Lake

Notice that I'm in none of the pictures...nobody needs to see my overheated out of shape form hoofing it up the side of a mountain ;) You can see how high we climbed in a later picture because the lake in that picture is the same lake as this one here...