The holiday is over

My little vacation to Yellowstone is over sadly :( Time with my family just goes too quickly. It seems to go even more quickly now that we know we are moving to another state. On Monday as we were driving away from my parents house I fought and lost a battle against tears. I tend to be really dramatic about things like, "the last time I could be driving away from my house before I move". I have known we are moving for several months and have been pretty excited about it however it is just now hitting me how hard it is going to be to be so far from my family. Growing up I always wanted to move away and live in a different state but now that I am older, more mature, and have better relationships with  my family I just want to stay and be with my family forever. Ick, these grown up feelings are hard to deal with. Even tho I am struggling with this sadness I am staying positive and looking forward to the fun times Caleb and I will have in Spokane.

Okay, back to Yellowstone. We stayed in Big Sky, Montana for the first time. My mom found us a great cabin that we rented right on ski resort. Caleb had never been to Yellowstone so I was really excited to show him the place that I had been going to since I was a baby. I think he liked it. He seems to like everything and he never complains so it is sometimes hard to tell if he really likes it or if he is just being the first-class person that he is. I believe the place that Caleb liked best was Midway Geyser Basin. He liked walking through all of the steam. We visited many popular places in the Park including Midway, Norris, Old Faithful, West Thumb, and Canyon. Sadly we didn't have time to do everything but we hustled our butts everywhere as fast as we could to see all of the sights. Each night we returned to our Cabin exhausted and ready for the hot tub. We also stopped along the way to see Big Springs in Island Park, and Earthquake Lake. A few of us (myself included) saw a bear. Other wildlife we saw included moose, elk, dear, bison, birds, bunnies, and a fox. The fox, who my niece Lily named Ripper, was a very friendly fellow and as we were hot-tubbing one night he came within five feet of the hot tub. We got snowed on twice in Big Sky which was really unusual feeling but Lily certainly seemed to enjoy eating snowflakes out of the sky!

While in Big Sky one night my brothers and I planned out a backpacking trip we are going to do in July. This will be my first time backpacking and I am really excited. Caleb and I got each other backpacking supplies for Christmas so we have been preparing for this for awhile. I am terrified but super excited as well. Caleb and I also have a trip to Moab planned in June. So, before we move we have a few more trips planned. The other day I was feeling pretty sad about how much money we had made last year and the lack of it I had currently. Then I started thinking of all of the fun things we had done the last year: went to Lake Powell twice, a two week vacation to Canada, Moab, Zions twice, Atlanta, St. George, and Yellowstone all in one year. That's nearly one vacation per month! I don't feel so bad about being broke anymore.

And now it's time for the pictures! Lots of pictures; I couldn't just pick a few.

Big Springs after a long drive and an early morning 

Caleb at Excelsior Geyser

The steam at Midway

Although I don't like all of the people at Old Faithful it is absolutely a must see

Morning Glory pool was one of my favorites from this trip

At Earthquake Lake. The history of this area is so sad and made me really appreciate being with my family the whole weekend 

My older Brother, GR. His wife must have escaped ALL of my photos

Chan, Ricky, and the only grand baby in the family

Lower falls. I am not near as young as I was the last time I was here. For two days after this hike my calves were screaming at me. 

The two that started everything :) My parents

Check out my funny old-fashioned looking hairdo. Pixie cuts sure do grow out awkwardly

I believe this is Grand Prismatic ??

The two lovebirds! For real. We may have been married for nearly three years but .... we are still pretty nauseating to be around. Sorry world

Norris. Note Caleb and I both representing awesome shirts: Fezzari and Brand New. Two of my favorite things

This was the part in our vacation when Blair lost it. He misses the days of being the baby of the family. Sadly, he pushed Lily out of her stroller, stole her cat, crawled in the stroller and began to suck his thumb. Sad, but true.

And that was our trip!  

Whhoooaaaa!!!! I almost forgot to do Rose Bud Thorn and boy do I have a thorn to tell you about. 

Rose: I just blogged. I feel pretty successful when I do.

Bud: Caleb gets off early today and we are going biking

Thorn: Guess what Caleb found out about Spokane? They play BROOMBALL there. 

Excited!

Hullo there,

Tomorrow we are heading to my parents house for the night before we head to Yellowstone for a fun family weekend. Excited you ask? Yes! Anytime with  my family is great: Anytime away from work is great: Anytime going on vacation is great: therefore this weekend should be great to the third power.

I'm also excited because we heard from an apartment we want to live in and they have an opening in August. This is such great news! I have been really stressed lately about the move and if I could at least figure out where we are going to live I would feel a lot better. However, I have to call the apartment place tomorrow and that terrifies me. Anyone else afraid of talking on the phone? I wish it didn't paralyze me so much but it does. I get really anxious and tongue tied whenever I have to talk on the phone unless it's Caleb, my mom, sister, or brother. Anyone else and I get a bit clammy. This is probably an issue I should work out but I've got more important issues to figure out :) (Don't we all?)

Pretty short post tonight. I will hopefully have stories after this weekend!

Diamond Fork Hot Springs and goal updates

Moving has its ups and its downs. One of its downs is that we have to say goodbye to all of our friends and all of the places we love here in Utah. Last night Caleb and I went with some friends to the Diamond Fork Hot Springs. It was so nice to just text some friends and go. We didn't have to worry about awkward car rides with people you don't really  know, asking someone to hang out and not knowing if they really think of you as a friend or not, or choosing music that the other party either hates or finds offensive. I am really nervous to start over with new people and try to make friends. I am so comfortable where I already am and I don't want to start over.... sigh. Dang trials that are supposed to make you stronger.

Ah well... enough with the whining ( see my previous blog post ) and here are some pics of our adventure.

Pretty place huh? It was pretty stinky but totally worth it.

Okay part two of today's post.

How have I been doing with my goals.

 Goal number one: Complain less. This one I haven't been doing well with. Last weekend I worked a lot, and I mean a lot. I worked ten hours Friday, eight hours Saturday, and sixteen hours Sunday. I repeat, sixteen hours on Sunday. I complained a lot on Friday when Caleb decided to go to Broomball. Broomball is basically the bane of my existence (future goal: Be less dramatic in my writing). I really wanted to spend as much time as possible with Caleb since I would be at work the majority of my weekend and I complained a lot about him going to Broomball instead of hanging with me. One day I will be a big girl and just go with him and be happy about it. Unfortunately, I will probably be living in Spokane by that time and maybe, just maybe, Broomball doesn't exist in Washington.

Goal two: I have been doing better with my dishes. I might not get them done every night before bedtime, but they are getting done a lot sooner and piling up less! Woot woot.

Goal three: Spending less on food has been pretty hard... I am going to go ahead and give me and F on this goal and I will continue to work on it.

and lastly Goal four: If you read the first part of my post you would have noticed that we invited friends to hang out with us! This is a huge deal! We are actually inviting people over or asking them to do things with us. Since I wrote my goals I think we have invited friends to do something at least four times. In the three years we have been married we haven't done much of that so this is great progress for us. Hopefully we can get so good at being social this summer with the friends we already have that when we move we will have developed good enough habits to continue with complete strangers. I'm hoping so anyways!

So yeah, I am working on things anyways.

And now to end. I used to have a coworker that introduced me to something called, "Rose, bud, thorn". This is where you announce something good that is going on now (rose), something you are looking forward to (bud), and something that is difficult (thorn).  Maybe I can end with that and I'll make it a thing for all of my blog posts. We'll give it a shot.

Rose: Caleb and I found a new biking trail!

Bud: Going to Yellowstone soon with my family.

Thorn: Still haven't found an apartment for Spokane or a job.

Bye mes amis!