Sudden Hawaii Flashback

I can’t say that this is an uncommon occurrence, but I have random flashbacks of different times in my life, especially of Hawaii. I’ve seen a lot of old Hawaii friends lately, I just heard that a Mike friend of mine recently moved back to go back to school, and it seems as though everyone I know decided to post old pictures of BYUH on Facebook all at the same time, so I’ve had a lot of these random flash backs lately. I just had another random Hawaii flashback, and it is not that this one is particularly worth noting, but I thought I would share.

It was way back in the very beginning of my BYUH experience when I was living in Hale 3 with Becky. We decided one beautiful Saturday morning that we needed to make the rather long bus ride/adventure and go to the Swap Meet. (For those of you that have never made said trek, when I say long, I mean it takes ALL DAY to get from Laie to pretty much anywhere in Honolulu and back with only a few hours to spend in between). So, after prepping for a long day of spending (very little) money we made our way to the bus stop. All of the time I spent sitting at bus stops has all meshed together, so I honestly don’t know if we’d been there minutes or hours, but these two girls pull up in a white, beautifully clean, topless Jeep. (Also for those that have never experienced Hawaii/the Hawaii bus system: You almost need to sterilize everything when you get done with the bus unless you’ve given up on being super clean. Giving up is an important part of living on a hot, sticky island, but you never really feel clean after spending hours on the bus). I’m pretty sure I looked at them funny, ‘cause who in a car pulls up to a bus stop? Anyways, they asked if anyone would like a ride. Mind you, these were not questionable looking characters that so generously stopped to offer a ride. They were about our age and just with a glance one could be 99% sure they were also BYUH students, just like us. We hesitated a moment and said something to the effect of “Heck yes!” I mean, it wasn’t the bus, it was a comfy automobile, it was faster, and IT WASN’T THE BUS! I didn’t think we’d make it much further than Hauula in our new mode of transport, but anything was better than nothing! So, all excited, we climb into this beautiful Jeep and head off. I’m sure we chatted a bit and I know they asked us at some point or another where we would like to be dropped off. We told them we were headed to the Swap Meet, so as far as they’d like to take us would be great. Well, low and behold, they were also going to the Swap Meet!!!

My flash back pretty much ended there, and you'd have to ask Becky about the accuracy, but I am still enjoying thinking about the feel of the warm sun and the breeze from driving along the ocean, as well as the beautiful blue sky, green mountains, and blue ocean that was beheld on our adventure in the topless Jeep. Thank you random girls that so generously gave us a ride that day! Almost 6 years later and I have obviously not forgotten. Good times, good times!

4th of July

We had a lovely 4th of July this year. We decided that we were well overdue a trip up Payson canyon, so we gathered a little picnic, Teddy, the camera, and headed up. We drove up the canyon for a bit, with a few treks off the main road, in search of a nice picnicking spot. After driving for a while we decided on a lovely open field with a clump of trees and some nice sitting rocks in the middle.

Nate and Teddy. Teddy found some cookie crumbs where he is sniffing and was obsessed with that spot the rest of the time.

Chillin' with the pup.

After our little picnic we headed out of the canyon to go home and smoke some ribs. Mmm! Later that night we went and staked out a spot on a hill in Provo to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks and eat some watermelon. I have to admit we got a cool spot! It was at the top of a hill in S. Provo, so we could see all across northern Utah county and all the fireworks everyone else decided to spend their money on. Good times!

I had to make a birthday cake! Happy Birthday America!

Here is a picture or two from our trip to Oregon and Washington. I didn't realize how few pictures we took until now, but here you go. I guess I just don't find pregnant pictures of me worth taking.

The view of Mt. Rainer from the wedding. Very pretty! My favorite parts of our quick trip were seeing family, getting out of Utah, and things being GREEN. I miss green!

Road Trips with Trees!!!

I apologize for the lack of pictures at the moment and I would like to warn you this is rather long, so if you are in a hurry feel free to skip to the last paragraph where I will sum up. :)

Last weekend we took a fun trip to the Northwest. After working a half day Thursday we were off to see my family in Eugene. It was noon, almost on the dot, when we left Nates work in Orem. So, Nate, Teddy and I made our way with the goal of making it to Eugene by 1-ish that next morning. That gave us 13 hours to make a trip that Google Maps says should take 13 hours and 42 min. Considering we had a puppy and a pregnant lady, I was well aware how ambitious (and totally law abiding) of a goal that was.

Considering there was a rather nasty accident just south of Salt Lake and that cut I-15 down by 2 lanes, I believe we made pretty good time. Until Boise... We were trying to be cheap and decided to fill up at Costco. I had the exit, but we got kinda distracted by what all was at that exit, so we didn't see Costco and ended up driving around for like 20 min before we finally found it. Really, it was ok. No big deal. It was towards the end of rush hour anyways and we figured we just didn't have to sit in as much traffic. Right? Right... Little did we know that a few miles up the road there was construction AND a VERY nasty accident. (I really hope everyone survived that!) So, it took us FOREVER to get out of Boise. Anyways, after that we did pretty well again. I have lots of stories about our lots of stops and evil cops that like to hang out in Easter Oregon (we didn't get a ticket or anything), but I won't bother you with them now. When we finally got to Portland (around midnight) we were rather low on gas so we stopped at a conveniently off the interstate Chevron. All I have to say is that I was actually grateful for Oregons stupid "You're too dumb to pump your own gas" laws. We pull up to the pump, the guy starts pumping our gas, does an EXCELLENT job cleaning our bug covered windshield, hands us our receipt, and walks away. We then try to turn on the car. Didn't happen... Try again. Didn't happen... CRAP!! We are WAY too tired to mess with this! Well, here comes our handy-dandy Chevron worker to the rescue carrying a battery charger. After a few attempts the car starts!! Wahoo!! We decided we were not turning the car off again until we got home! We made it to Eugene at a time which I do not remember because I was way too tired. I just know it was after 2. It might have been 3.

Friday was spent in Eugene hanging out with my family (minus my Scotland visiting sister). It was really nice to see them even though we didn't get to stay very long. While we were there Nate and Daddy replaced our dead as a doornail battery, Mama, Chelsie, and I went shopping, then the whole family attempted to go to their ward bbq (we were 20 min late and missed it due to rushed bbq-ness because of double booking with the local singles ward). We then went back home and chilled for the night. It really was fun to be home for a day.

Saturday we got up semi-early and drove up to Washing to go to a friend of Nate's, Nick's, wedding. Before the wedding we had a chance to go see Grandma Talbert, which was nice. After visiting for a bit, we went and got ready for the wedding, went to the wedding, and enjoyed. The wedding was outside at a golf course with a beautiful view of Mt. Rainer. (I will post pictures as soon as I get them off the camera). After the wedding we chilled at Nate's house and visited there. It was also nice to see them for a bit and not be rushing to the next leg of our trip.

Sunday we got back in the car and drove home only we went through the center of Washington, Yakima, way. It was fun to have a change of scenery for a bit and I am happy to say that they drive home was much faster (due to more strategic bathroom stops) and much less eventful. We did stop to see Grandma and Grandpa Dixon on the way home. You can't drive by Grandma and Grandpa TWICE and not say hi once!!! We didn't stay very long, and I would have loved to, but we did have to work Monday morning and our goal was to make it home before Monday. We made our goal and made it home at 12, on the dot.

You might ask how Teddy did being in the car this much, seeing so many people, and meeting so many new dogs (Purdy at my parents, the dogs across the street, and Lady at Nate's house)... he did very well! He slept most of the way there, up to Washington, and back and made friends just fine. (Except Purdy. Teddy wanted to play with her, but she didn't want to play with him.)

****HERE BEGINNETH THE SUM UP****

It was a quick trip, but it was nice to get out of Utah, have a change of scenery, see both of our families, and go to Nick's wedding. Thanks Nick for giving us the excuse to get out of town! It was a lot of driving in 4 days, especially for a pregnant lady and a puppy, but it was totally worth it! We saw things outside of Utah, trees, family, a wedding, old friends, evil cops, then Utah again. Good times! Perhaps someday I shall post a few of the few pictures we took of this trip.