Our Upcoming Adventures

So I'm in the laundromat down the street from our house... I feel like I should be in a movie or something, since there are so many scenes in laundromats. Anyway.........

Sam and I are leaving for vacation tomorrow after church and we won't be back home until August 30th!! We're SO excited!!!

Tomorrow we're heading off to Jenny Lake in Yellowstone. We're going to wake up early on Monday morning and take the ferry across the lake to a place where we can hike to the top of the mountain and look over the whole lake!! After we spend a few days hiking and camping we're going to Adam and Marci's in Gardiner, Montana to stay a night. It'll be fun to see them again, even though we only saw them last weekend! :)

Then we'll be heading to Salt Lake City. While we're there we'll hopefully see Tucker at BYU but that's not for sure since he has finals.... We're going to spend a couple days with Ben and Melissa - we might go to Lagoon but we'll see! Then for the next week or so we'll be babysitting 3 of Sam's cousins. It'll be so much fun!

After Salt Lake we'll head to Mesa to see my family. We don't have too many plans or anything, but I'm sure we'll be swimming a ton! I'm definitely looking forward to getting some sun.

Then after 10 days in AZ we'll head to Placerville to see Sam's family. So far we've planned a trip to San Francisco since neither Sam nor I have been there before. We also might go to the beach, which will be fun! We're just bummed since Elijah has a football game the day we leave so we'll have to miss it!

But we're definitely excited to see everyone! We'll take lots of pictures to post later.

********* And this is a happy thought from earlier today. Sam and I were at the grocery store stocking up on stuff for our camp out when we saw this really old man looking at cards. We got in line and he got behind us. Sam asked him if he'd found the right card because it looked like he'd been looking pretty hard. The old man said with emotion in his voice, "I sure hope so. She's turning 78 and we've been together almost 54 years."

Random Acts of Kindness

Last night Sam and I had no food in the house, so we decided to go to Subway for dinner. We were standing in line behind a big family group and then a man that was all by himself. The man was probably 45-50, he was dressed in a big t-shirt, cameo pants and a baseball cap, and he looked a little scruffy. When it was our turn to order we asked the lady making our sandwiches if it would be cheaper to get two 6-inch sandwiches or 1 12-inch. She told us, and we made our decision. We each said what we wanted on our sandwich, and got to the cash register at the end. When we went to pay, the girl ringing us out told us that the man before us in line had already paid for our food. We were surprised but extremely grateful. He was getting his drink, and the only thing we could think of to say to him was thank you. He turned around and said, "You guys have a really good one," in a sincere voice.

Sam and I kept talking about this as we got in the car and drove away. The man didn't look like he had lots of money, but he still took the time to pay for a couple of random college kids' sandwiches. I was very touched by this small act of kindness. It made me want to be better. He doesn't know our names, what our life is like, what we are majoring in, or how long we've been married. We don't know his name, what his life is like, what he does for a living, or how many kids he has - but we do know just a little about him by what he did for us.

I am truly grateful for the reminder a random man in Subway gave me of how to be a better follower of Jesus Christ.

Our Date Weekend

The weekend started with our ward camp out at Heise Hot Springs just about an hour from Rexburg. Sam and I both got Friday and Saturday off of work, so we were ready to do all we could with the time we had!

Here's our little tent! We put our pillows and a couple quilts in there and we were ready. We didn't have sleeping bags, so good thing we didn't get too cold! I did sleep in sweat pants and a hoodie though... That might have had something to do with it.

After we set up our tent we went down to the river and Sam attempted to teach me to skip rocks... again. He's a great teacher, but for some reason I just can't get the hang of it. Maybe one day!

The river was so pretty. These pictures don't do it justice!

There were tons of cotton trees around our camp site and the wind was blowing like crazy! It almost looks like it was snowing. Good thing the wind stopped before we brought the food out.

In between these two pictures we had an amazing dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, chips... You know, all the good camping stuff. Then for dessert we had cobbler - apple, blueberry and cherry. YUM!! Our bishop (he's AWESOME) also talked to us a little bit around the campfire. After that we played this hilarious game that was kind of a mix between telephone and charades. It was so funny to see each person go out of his or her comfort zone to act things out - the bishop as Michael Jackson, The EQ president as Lady Gaga, the 1st counselor's wife as a Klingon, and the RS president as Big Foot. We all had so much fun getting to know each other better!

We woke up early the next morning to a breakfast of cereal with candy and fruit add-ins. Apparently that is a tradition in the bishop's family. You should have seen some of the guys' bowls! Cap'n Crunch and Reese's Puffs with malt balls, chocolate chips and strawberries... It was great.

We got back to our apartment, cleaned ourselves up, and drove down to IF for some more adventures. First stop: the Idaho Falls temple! We had such an amazing experience there.

After the temple we went to see Toy Story 3 with a gift card we got for our wedding. I had heard it was a tear jerker, but I didn't think so! It was just really cute. I recommend it!

These are some pictures from when we went to Ross and TJ Maxx to look around. We just messed around and had some fun!

And the crown didn't so much fit me...

We went to Outback with another gift card after that. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) Sam got steak, and I got this pasta. It was super good, but a little too spicy! It was great because we had Sunday dinner too.

On Sunday afternoon we went to the gardens on campus and read a few articles in the Ensign and enjoyed watching families with little kids. All in all it was a great weekend! I can't wait for the 7 week break to start (two more days!!) so we can have even more adventures before school starts in the fall!

Saturday Adventures - Bike Edition!

We've been looking to get bikes for awhile, and last week we finally got some! And we decided to go on a little biking adventure on Saturday. Sam said he had a place in mind, so we set out with some powerade and granola bars. This is us toward the beginning of the day.

And this is us being intense bikers... or pretending to be at least. :)

This is a stop we made along the way. You can't tell, but there were elk by that big, dead tree...

Here's Sam posing with the elk.

This is a picture that Sam took, and I thought it looked cool. :)

Here's some flowers we saw. See the nice seat cover? I wasn't sore the next day because of it. Yeah, it's great. :)

And this is our ultimate destination... Except it wasn't supposed to look like this. This is where Sam went to elementary school, and when we got there they were tearing it down. How sad!!!

Here's a shot of the whole thing. See the big crane thingie on the left? It looked like it had just been scooping off one side of the school.

Our ride ended up being 19 or so miles, so we were outside for a good few hours. We were BURNED!!! Sam's sunburn turned into this nice, golden-y tan and I'm peeling so bad I look like I have leprosy, I'm not kidding. :) But, needless to say, we both have some pretty sweet farmer's tans now.

I didn't get a picture of Sam doing the thing he did a lot of the time - put my chain back on! He's amazing, what can I say?