Fall Fun!

So, to get in the fall spirit, I went with some friends to Eckert's Fun Farm and it lived up to its name! We got to pick some delicious Fuji apples and frolick in a pumpkin patch. The had pumpkins of all shapes and sizes and even had green pumpkins! Who would have thought? They had a fun corn maze too and even had some cute little animals to feed! Yes, the wooly little guys had four horns and the goats even crossed the Golden Goat Bridge! (clever name eh?) Needless to say, it was a fun day to get away from the hussle and bustle of Trout Lodge and just enjoy eachother's company. Enjoy the pictures and happy Fall!

SO BIG!

Erin, Brian and Micaiah came up to St Louis to visit for a bit so I got to take some time off of work to spend a few days with them while they were there. It was so much fun to see how big Micaiah has grown in only a few months! She is full of smiles, giggles and is hilarious to watch. We took her to her first trip to Ted Drews and even though she couldn't quite partake in it completely, we could all tell she was a fan. It was so much fun to get to spend time with family and play!

Happy July 4th!

So, working at Trout Lodge means that I do end up working most holidays but that doesn't mean we don't have fun! I celebrated July 4th Trout Lodge style yet again this year and it was filled with good old fashioned Trout Lodge "work". We kept the family fun alive with fun backyard games like ladder golf and washers, encouraged hard core water fights, and busted out some watermelon seed spitting. And of course the only way to get people to really have fun is to join in on the action. After all....that is what we get paid to do right? Man, life is tough. I made sure that I did a few productive things such as test out safety equipment at the boathouse and perform quality control checks when the watermelon was brought out. We ended the night with a fantastic fireworks show that left us amazed. Enjoy the pics! I hope you all had as much fun on the 4th as we did!

Double Trouble

Finally!!! The twins have arrived and are as cute as ever! Yay for getting to go visit the Gurnee area to get to visit and meet my two new nephews. Joshua Andrew and Caleb Matthew were born on June 16th and have been doing well since they have been born. They are extremely tiny and it was super cute to watch their funny faces and hear their chorus of hiccups. Auntie Nora had to go out an buy some premie clothes so they could wear something that actually fit them! Here are a few picture from my visit! Enjoy the handsome boys and see if you can figure out who is who!

Good Times, Old Friends

So after surviving a very LOOOONG month, I was so happy to be able to break away from Trout Lodge to head up to the Rockford area to celebrate in the marraige of my good college friend Ryan to the love of his life, Jenny. It was a great opportunity to get to see people I hadn't seen in over a year and catch up with alot of really great people. It reminded me how much I miss my college friends but also showed me how far I have come and how blessed I am now. To top it all off, we even found time to make our way to Culvers to get some delicious custard. There's always room for ice cream! Yay for fun and yay for great lifelong friends!

I've Been Adopted

Meet Smokey, the wild wilderness cat who seemingly has decided to make me a part of its family. I named it Smokey because I'm not sure if its a boy or a girl and I think Smokey works for either :) It comes to my porch almost nightly, meows like crazy sometimes waking me up and calls me and my curious cats to the window, only to flee at the slightest attempt that I make to get close to it. It only seems to come out at night to visit so I'm not sure where he goes during the day but its very alert and obviously well fed so I'm not too worried about it. I managed to get a few pictures of my newest family member so I thought I'd share my new extended family with everyone. Please welcome......Smokey.

Utah's Dixie

This last week I had the opportunity to accompany my parents and aunt to Southern Utah, the Dixie land as they call it. We stayed in St George, home of the first LDS temple in Utah, central location to many cool National Parks (and forests might I add), location of the most AMAZING breadsticks in the world and the area that Brigham Young sent many Mormans to attempt to grow cotton as they were pushed out of the southern states...hence the nickname, Dixie.

On the first day out, we went to Kolob which was a small part of Zion National Park. Here we experienced just a taste of the fun we were about to have over the next week. We took a short 1 mile hike to warm up our bodies for the change in elevation and drove around to view some of the beautiful scenery. Dad also scoped out the cell phone situation and yes....we did indeed get cell phone reception way up there!

Our next day out, the adventures began. We made our way over to Bryce Canyon National Park. Words cannot begin to describe the beauty that we found here. The striking scenery is definitely what makes Bryce Canyon so unique. Bryce is filled with rock formations known as 'hoodoos', also to be described as a rock column. These hoodoos have been formed over years and years of wind erosion and the uplift of the ground from moving faults. The sandstone cliffs do experience a small amount of erosion from its mere 18 inches of water a year through the 200 freeze-thaw cycles that happen a year. We made several stops around the canyon's amphitheater to see these amazing rock forms and then I took a short 1.5 mile hike down into the canyon to see what it looked like from below. The mud and steep climbs were worth it as I saw some amazing landscape.

We also had the chance to go to Zion National Park and do a day of major hiking. Zion, unlike Bryce, was formed by the uplift from faults and water erosion. Although it is also mostly sandstone, the look of the canyons is completely different due to the difference in erosion. We took several hikes through the bottom on the canyon, to see the Emerald Pools, the Weeping Rocks, through the campground and along the Virgin River which runs straight through the canyon, adding up to about 7 miles of hiking for the day. It was another beautiful day and we even encountered five deer along one of our trails that were no more than 10 feet away from us. Once again, we were amazed with the beauty and creativity that God has placed here for us to enjoy.

On one of our final days out in Utah, we drove to visit Best Friends Animal shelter in Angel Canyon. Best Friends is the largest no kill animal shelter in the United States. They rescue unwanted animals from the streets, people who cannot take care of them, or animals with illnesses that would otherwise simply be put down if they did not take them in. They house over 300 cats, 500 dogs and many other types of animals including horses, birds, bunnies and yes....pot bellied pigs! Angel Canyon was also the location of several western movies from back in the day like Apple Dumpling Gang and Lone Ranger bits.

The day before our trip ended, we spent the day in Las Vegas to see the city, try our luck at some slot machines, and see Cirque du Soleil. We stayed in a castle which was pretty cool. I always knew I was destined for royalty. We saw the Bellagio fountain do its thing and boy can it shoot that water way up into the sky! The show was saw was pretty awesome and to top it off, I left $1.05 richer than when I arrived. Overall....Las Vegas was a success!

In the end we had to leave the warm weather and beautiful blue skies but I know I was blessed by getting to see some of the most unique and beautiful creations that God has placed here on this earth. Its amazing how creative and original He can be. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the extremely long blog!