Glacier and Bigfork, Montana August 2011

This is the view looking down what we just hiked up. Our camp is down by that closest lake you can see. It might not look like it in the picture but the last part of this hike was literally almost straight up. The dirty white you see is the bottom of the Glacier that we hiked up too. This is in the Shangri La valley.


Here is Rivers getting ready to hike back along the Glacier and then down underneath where you can see the stream that is coming off from the ice melt.And this was just another beautiful section of a different hike that we did up towards Redrock Falls.

This was one of our first scenic stops once we got into Glacier. This is just off from "Going to the Sun" road. The water here is so crystal clear, it is beautiful. I am not used to rivers and streams being so blue and clear.

Here is Rivs looking Good with some of Glacier off in the distance.

Above: Here we are after making thru customs at the border with an expired passport. They were so busy asking if we were transporting things into the country that they must have missed the expiration date on my passport cuz it is a year past due. So this is the Canada side of Glacier. We came up for the day.
Above: Here we are with our friends Matt and Erin just inside Canada.
This is us after a pretty neat hike (and tiring) up to a lake in Waterton Nat'l Park. I can't remember the name.

Above: This is Rivers guiding us down the Swan river. Our tubes are tied together with that little rope and he is helping guide us so I can take pictures and video.

I just wanted to try and get a picture of the two of us on the river but I couldn't quite get a full view of me. It was kinda tricky on the tubes, but I thought Rivers looked so cute I had to post these of him.



Another cool thing is that there is an ATV/Snowmobile trail running all along the HWY so we could ride straight from the property to the market or where ever. This is a picture taken by out friends who are driving down the hwy.

Bigfork, Montana

Us taking a photo op' on the bridge in Bigfork, this is where we came back to jump because Rivers wanted us to enjoy some of the things he used to do while he spent summers up here.











Here is a little bear cub just off the road less than a 1/4 mile down the road from Pentico's property in Ferndale.











Here we are at a dock in town on the river. This is just below the shops and right before the river flows into Flat Head Lake.






We just stopped by to see these adorable mini horses (not ponies). This is just on the way to Bigfork from Ferndale (which is where the property is).




And here is us just getting ready to unload and set up camp on the property in Montana. They have 5 acres and even though the elevation is lower than Hurricane it feels like you are camping in the mountains.

Change of Plans!!!

Well I decided I better send out an update. I have been horrible lately about blogging, everyone asks me to keep it up while we are gone for the summer, but I wasn't even doing a good job at home. So, don't get your hopes up, but here is my attempt to keep people posted about our lives. :)

So far this summer we have enjoyed NO SCHOOL!!! It has been so nice to have Rivers come home after work!! We spent about 10 days out in Virginia with my brother and his family (which I started a post for w/ pics and never finished it). I had some of the cutest pictures of Sammy and Caleb too. We did some fun things, my favorites were the Air show at Andrews airforce base and going to Hapers Ferry. We also got to visit one of Rivers good friends and his wife in Philly. After D.C. we got a nice trip to Hurricane for Riley and Roberts graduations. Then after a couple more weeks it was up to Vernal to go camping with my family. CLICK HERE for more on that. Then came the roller coaster....................

We were supposed to fly out for Shanghai on Monday, but because of the "U" cancelling our program we stayed to try and figure out what we wanted to do. After a couple of frustrating days dealing with the "U" and trying to get into contact with the Nankai University in Tianjin, we decided "what the heck" we quit our jobs and had planned for this for months, so we were going to fly to China with our without a program or group. If we could take classes great!, if not - we would have an awesome time traveling around. Luckily, we were able to confirm an independent study program at Nankai. This is better because we are saving tons of money by going independently and we still get our scholarship, plus we get almost a month to travel.

So where are we now? Right now we are in Savannah, Georgia!!! Yes, Savannah--why? Well because we have time, and no jobs. :) NO MONEY, but oh well. :) We begin route to Shanghai on Wednesday (standby) and we have been stuck in Atlanta since thursday. We decided to take advantage of our stay so we spent Friday around Atlanta. They have one of the longest escalators I have ever ridden on!!! No exagerration. Also, we went to the Aquarium which was really neat. Saturday after not making onto that flight due to an embargo, we rented a car and drove up to Dawsonville to go to the Kangaroo Conservation Center. Really fun and neat to see some of Georgia's countryside outside of the city and real live Kangaroo's and little Joey's (babies). Then we decided to drive down to Savannah. So here we are. Hopefully we will make it to China in the next couple of days. But we have been having fun!!! Anyway, I will try to keep everyone posted. We love you all.

Woo Hoo.. Continued....

Heather, Yes-if I would have had time to write a longer post I would have mentioned how I was reminded of how much I didn't like scott and how I wish Alexis would have made it to the top 10.
-I thought bikini girl was ridiculus, but hey she is just happy she got a free boob job.
-If Kara is going to rip open her dress like that, atleast don't act like a tard after and try to do the crossed leg, folded arm hide.
-And Finally, I don't think it was about liberal vs. good christian boy. I think that both Adam and Kris were amazing and would have been happy with either one, but come on... Kris is just too cute/sexy.

Yay!!! Woo Hoo!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am super excited that Kris is the new AMERICAN IDOL! I wanted so badly for Kris to win, but I was sure that it would be Adam (and that would have been okay too). I was soooo surprised when Seacrest said Kris's name. It seems to me that he was pretty shocked too. Anyway, I think Adam is set regardless, and I just think Kris won the hearts of America with his good looks and good voice. :) I told Rivers that I wanted to go to an American Idol tour concert this year-so we will see. Anyway, way to go KRIS ALLEN!!!!!!

Monster AMA Supercross

Saturday night Rice Eccles Stadium hosted the AMA Supercross. As an effort to break out of our dinner and a movie routine (even though there are some good movies that are coming out) we decided to take Seth and Pete and go watch the racers. It was a ton of fun, and it reminded me of what I used to love!! The crowd, the smells, and the noise...it is so fun. Thanks Seth and Pete for coming with us. Next time we will have to catch the freestyle.

American Idol

Where to start??? Poor Rivers, doesn't even watch the show yet he has to hear all of my rantings and ravings about it. Finally, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic and untouched by the amazement and wonder of Scott's ability to play the piano and sing (kind of) even though he is blind; I have to say "SCOTT'S GOT TO G0!!". I mean Come On!!! How many other people are going to get kicked off even though they can sing better -and btw despite what Kara says this is a SINGING competition and not a pity party. (Yeah, I can't stand Kara) We all know Simons critique, although blunt and brutal at times is "Spot On", so why do we need to waste time and sit thru one more judges opinion.

Anyway, back to the more infuriating issue. Why does America think that keeping Scott on is doing him a service. He is blind and not deaf-as such, he has probably realized at this point that he does NOT compare with the other's, don't you think that he is starting to understand that he is getting sympathy votes. And even if he has a disability - who wants to be patronized like that on National Television. I would have much MUCH much rather seen Alexis Grace in the Top 10 and on tour than to have to listen to Scott. And, Matt Giraurd in the bottom 2!! For real, does America even know what a good voice sounds like. Bottom 2 should have been Megan Joy & Scott. Just my opinion. Lucky for you I didn't have time last week to post anything, because don't even get me started on Adam Lambert-- Uuuggghhh!!!

Love: Allison, Danny, and Kris (he's so cute!!)
Like: Anoop, Matt,
Don't Care either way: Lil,
Has to go: Scott, Megan
No category: Adam

Picture Tag.....

Okay, I guess I will give in and do this picture tag. My sister Lisa tagged me and since it has been awhile I figure this is a good little post to update my blog. Things have just been a bit busy and I have not had as much motivation lately to check blogs. So here we go...........This is the 6th picture folder in and the 6th picture.

This is a picture of me standing out on our little (very dirty) balcony at our hotel in Rome. Because our flights didn't get in when we expected, we had to cancel our reservations and then when we got to the Termini train station in Rome we found a phone and just started calling down the list in our Steve Ricks guide book. Luckily we found a hotel that was within walking distance to most of the sights like the Colosseum and Trevi fountains.

Okay so I tag...
Julia
Natalie
Amy (because I always love your pic's)

Update!!!

I realize it has been awhile since I have posted anything very interesting. Sorry, this is probably not going to change that trend. :) For those of you who don't know, I have gone back to school. Yay me---kind of. Right around Halloween I started thinking about going back, some of my reasons...1) We don't have kids 2) Rivers is gone most evenings anyway 3) I have accepted the fact that we will probably be living in the Salt Lake area for another 2 years 4) and finally, I have been feeling lately that I needed to do something to help me grow and progress. My sister keeps telling me that I just need to have kids, but I don't think that is the kind of "growing" I am ready for :) Maybe, after I have a few more adventures. Anyway, here is what I think so far:
-I really like my International Relations class and can deal with the basic political theories we are learning about.
-I don't think it is right to place a high percentage of your individual grade on a group project.
-I can't figure out why I am paying $400 dollars for my Econ class through the "U" and my teacher can't even speak English. (Shouldn't we get some kind of discount?)
-I am surprised at how I was intimidated to go to the "University of Utah" as an older returning student, thinking that I would not be as smart or whatever, here are some of the genius statements I have run into from fellow classmates. " Vladimir starts with a V", (don't ask) "I am so glad that we live in a country where everything our Government does is legal", "Our Government would never lie to us, and we have a free Media that is not controlled", " My degree has an emphasis in Chinese, me: oh cool, ni hao, classmate: huh?" (ni hao is Hello in chinese, funny that he is emphasizing in Chinese and hasn't learned that yet), "So where would I go if I needed to exchange my money for Euros?" "Where do we keep all of the Gold to back up our money?" And so on, remember these are now mostly upper division courses. Needless to say, I think my feelings of inadequacy were unwarranted.
Mostly, I have learned an appreciation for Rivers and his ability to go to school full time and work full time for the past 2 years with no breaks. I hope I can stick with it like he does.

Our new Obsession!!!

This probably isn't the best Christmas Spirit inducing activity, but what can we say-were addicted. It is almost as bad as our 24 obsession that we had when we were first married. Some may be thinking "duh, this show has been around for years now" but we never got into it our gave it a chance-until now. Mostly, we just don't have time to devote to weekly episode rituals. If we try to follow the current season we just get frustrated at having to wait a whole week, and then missing the episode because of some class or other activity that came up. So instead of letting a show monopolize a particular evening for an entire season, we just wait til we can get it on DVD and then waist 20 hours in one weekend. :)

With Rivers having a break in school we figured he needed some down time. Scofield and Burrows have been about the only characters that have graced our small screen the last 6 days. I even missed out on CW's Privileged last night. We plan on finishing the 2nd season this week and starting the 3rd. Hopefully we will carve out some Christmas shopping time. You know it's sad when your trying to get out of your tithing settlement early so you can get home and watch more. :)
Also, refrain from the big intake of air, but I think that Scofield's tat's are pretty sexy. Any votes for Rivers getting some more?

"Twilight"

Just a quick post about "TWILIGHT".

Disclaimer: If you loved the movie and choose to continue reading, don't get offended by my opinions!

Where do I start? The books, okay I admit I was drawn in by the books and wanted to see how the story would play out. If you just don't put a whole lot of thought into the books and like cheesy romantics then it was pretty good. There is a side of me that was pulled into the whole falling in love with the "bad guy" theme. However, the cheesey, overdramatic, and martyrdom-ness of Bella was annoying. I always liked Jacob better than Edward, until the fourth book. Anyway on to the movie.

We went Saturday night at 10:50pm because those were the only tickets that we could get. Maybe, I was too tired after an entire weekend of football, or maybe the hype was just that, hype! My over all thoughts of the movie.....LAME!! For the first hour of the movie there is very little, and if any very shallow dialogue between Edward and Bella, and even less between any one else in the movie. Basically, the entire depth, plot, storyline of the movie was presented by....SILENCE.....SEDUCTIVE STARES........NARRATIVES.......SILENCE..........SEDUCTIVE STARES..........MUSIC.........MUSIC.........SILENCE........and so on. I guess it is kindof hard to portray such immortal beauties as the Cullens in real life, because in real life Vampires don't exist. Even so, I have seen much prettier actors/actresses and better digital enhancements in other movies. I could have done without the white powder, lipstick, and eyeliner to try and differentiate the Cullens from everyone else. Hated the casting for Edward, Jasper, Carlisle. Okay casting of Esme, Rosalie. Liked Bella, Charlie, Jacob, and Alice.

Sorry, to say I didn't even think the movie was somewhat interesting until the baseball scene. And even then it was just mediocre. I hated the biology scene, and the meadow scene. There was just no depth to any of the characters. So, yeah they tried to portray Bella as being clumsy, but did a horrible job. Anyone who didn't read the books would have no idea of what was going on. Alice was supposedly being graceful as she made a grand entrance into the Cullens kitchen by balancing on a branch, and then because there was no creativity in the writing of the movie she had to just announce that she and Bella would be great friends. Oh and there eyes, if you hadn't read the books who is supposed to get the whole eye turning from a golden brown to black? Bella points it out in the movie but then it is just left dangling.

I could go on and on about the inserted comments on drugs and sex, to the kiss, to the under developed story, to the ridiculos actions of her friends....etc. But I will keep that to myself. I figure I have already wasted enough energy on the Twilight Series.

In closing if you are thinking about seeing the movie, save your money and watch the trailer. Every scene that had a split second of interest in it is in the trailer. Who knows, maybe the will get a better director for the next movie. Sorry Catherine Hardwicke, you had your shot, and the only thing that saved you was the hype leading into the weekend.