Day 217-- holy shnykies

I have been terrible about taking pictures and about blogging! Cole and I have been up to a lot. I wish I would have kept better track. It's been two months since the last post!!

Here's everything that's happened...

1) My parents and youngest brother came to visit us. They stayed in our house for the first few days, and then in a hotel in Waikiki for the second half. Based on their visit, a week is not enough!! It came so fast and made me realize how much I miss family. We had a blast. They all came scuba diving with us and were great sports. My mom kept floating to the top- good thing we weren't very deep- it was hilarious. Both my dad and my brother kept themselves down on the bottom :) Afterwards, Taylor asked if they were certified now. Pretty cute.

2) We went dirt biking on a big track they have up on the North Shore in a place called Kahuku. Why they put a track in the rainiest part of the island where the clay turns to glass when it's wet, is beyond me, except that it is so much fun when it's not wet!

3) Cole spoiled me for my birthday. Homemade ice cream cake, volleyball on the beach, dinner at my favorite restaurant, and gifts. My parents also took me to Cheesecake Factory for my birthday which was great.

4) One year anniversary. Cole surprised me with a dinner cruise to watch Friday Night Fireworks on Waikiki

5) We are planning to move to California to work in the Bakersfield office. The time frame is unsure, but since we have to be ready to move, we ended our lease, shipped 80% of our stuff, and moved in with friends so we could leave at a moments notice. This has been super stressful, but we finally got everything situated except for the move itself.

6) We went to Kauai for a weekend. Legit. It's so different there than here. THAT is the island experience. Although Oahu is fun, you don't find much peace and quiet. Cole and I went with our boss Blake, and it was difficult to get us all to talk much. We just relaxed and layed on the beach almost the whole weekend. Except when I made the boys go on a hike with me. It was the only thing I wanted to do there before we left.

7) I died my hair blonde

8) We are about to have the third 3 day weekend since moving to Hawaii-- and already we have scuba planned and dirt biking. I'm so excited!

9) My sister had the first grandbaby on my side!! She's adorable and wonderful and has a big dimple just like me :) She's so cute, I'm in love. ( and no, Cole and I aren't having kids yet or for a long time, lol, I knew you'd ask)

We're excited to potentially see a lot of our friends and family soon! We'll keep everyone posted.

Day Three Into Our Trip

Day one was the toughest of days, to begin our trip. Cole and I woke up to Logan and Lisa asking if we wanted to go to breakfast one last time before we left. Logan had texted us the night before and it seemed it had finally hit him too that we were really leaving. So Cole and I pulled ourselves out of bed with tired and sore bodies from going to the dunes the day before and got ready from our already packed clothes to go to breakfast. We met the next door Smith's at Jim's. What's funny, Jim's Family Restaurant is the first place I ever went to breakfast with Logan and Lisa when Cole and I first started dating. It was Halloween morning of 2010. So almost 2 years to the date we recreated our first breakfast with them. Full of laughing and staring at Addie (which is really hard not to do) we put off the plans of leaving that day.

After breakfast, we all went back to the house. Although Cole and I had been working for weeks to get ready to go, we still had some essential cleaning and packing to do before we could leave the house. To my absolute happiness, Lisa volunteered their help! As soon as we walked in, we put on sweats and put our hair up and began to work. Lisa was the lady of the hour. She cleaned everything in the kitchen that I hadn't been able to get to, worked on cleaning the bathroom with me, and wiped baseboards for at least 2 or 3 hours. It saved us so much time. Logan went to work too--also helping with the bathtub scrubbing, and loading the last bit that needed to go to the storage unit and letting us borrow his truck. As soon as everything was packed, and only the floor had left to be mopped. We loaded up the truck and made the final trip to the storage unit with our bed, the quad and just a few other things. Upon getting back home, mopped the floor, put the final bags in the car, and vacuumed our room. Then we slowly started turning off lights in the house. It was so sad! I was tearing up but not wanting to actually cry the whole time. Cole and I stood outside the car and agreed on one final look, so we went in and stood in the doorway for a few minutes, turned around, and locked the door for the final time. We passed a big for rent sign in the yard and sat in the car.

You see, we hadn't planned the rest of our trip yet!! We knew we wanted to meet our friend Marcos in St. George and camp with him, but the plans weren't 100% set yet on anything! So we drove over to Logan and Lisa's to say goodbye. We each held sweet little Addie and hugged Logan and Lisa. We then got into our car, and drove away.

Since we had no plans, we stopped by at Target. I was still in sweats from cleaning all day and I didn't want to unpack anything, so I bought a new outfit. Or outfits. I found two shirts, a pair of jeans (miracle), and a hat. Lasted me the whole road trip-plus some. Awesome. After the Target trip, we began driving. After going back and forth on what we should do, we ended up deciding that we would stay the night in Vegas. We got a room for $23, and we pulled in around 8--I think. Time and days are very lost to me as we haven't had jobs to help me keep track! The hotel we stayed at was right off Freemont Street. So the first thing we saw when we stepped out was this:

After people watching on Freemont Street for a bit, we hit the craps and black jack tables-- and I hit Jackpot Party, my favorite slot machine, but that's all I'm going to tell you about my slot addiction. We played for 3 hours I think before realizing it was no longer going up, but steadily going down. So we went up to our room.

The next day, we got up and hit a buffet (a must in Vegas) where we saw cowboys everywhere! It's the National Bull Riding Championship today in Vegas and the cowboys were all just arriving. I don't know why but a girl loves to see cowboys! After breakfast slash lunch, we drove the rest of the way to California. That night we hung out with Cole's parents and went to dinner and a movie. Atlas Shrugged II--unfortunately I have to recommend you don't see it. It has a great message, but was done so badly that it's really not worth your time. Just read the book.

Tuesday Cole and I went to Huntington Beach and had breakfast at the Sugar Shack for my first time. The french toast was wonderful! I had this egg thing will Hollandaise sauce that was to die for also. We did a little shopping and riding our bikes around, and hit the beach for a little relaxing.

After Huntington Beach, we went straight to Adrienne's house up in LA to hang with her and the boys. Truman instantly fell in love with Cole! We aren't sure if it was because Tyler has been gone or if he truly does love him, but it was adorable. Thatcher had us reading spanish books to him right off the bat. Since he's in Spanish emersion school, he gets to read Spanish every day at home. None of us, including Truman, knew what was being said and we wished Logan was there to pronounce everything correctly, but it was still fun.

Before going to bed, the boys came out with their toothbrushes and had us brush their teeth! Haha it was pretty funny watching Cole brush Truman's teeth :)

Today we woke up and went to Universal Studios! Cole had never been, and I only went about 15 years ago once with my family. I remember the Jurassic Park ride vividly, but nothing else. So today, we did the whole park. It's actually a pretty small park-totally doable in one day. 

Tomorrow starts day four, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up the days of our adventures all posted here on our blog.

A Trip To St. George

Last weekend was the second (my first) Smith girls only trip. Super well planned, as expected, and an all around good trip. I regret not taking more pictures! Sunny, Lisa, Addie, Janae and I all traveled together to meet the California girls, Adrienne, Barabara and Amanda. It was weird when we reached them--because there were no children around! Some part of me still expected to see them once we got there (even though we were missing all of Sunny and Janae's kids). Let's not ask how my brain works, because I'm pretty sure it's a moving target.

The first day we got there, we played racquetball. Cutthroat style. Adrienne, Sunny and I were the first match-- um hello Sunny, your serve is amazing. I could barely keep up with them, if you even call what I did keeping up. Adrienne's pregnant and was still holding her own. -- No I didn't hit her with the racquetball on purpose. I was probably going blind from losing, but it wasn't on purpose. :)

After racquetball, the girls wanted to swim. I didn't move from one spot on the pool chair. Just laid there until we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  PS I love Texas Roadhouse. It was an awesome choice ladies.

Saturday we hiked at Zion's. Lisa had an extra heater on her front (named Addie) that didn't make the hike super easy. But it was a good hike and a great way for us all to hang out in the sun.

Sunday was the Brigham City temple dedication. The girls all went, and I stayed home with Addie. Cole and Marcos came to hang out with me, and we took Addie down to the racquetball courts and took turns playing racquetball or playing with Addie. That little burrito is adorable!

That afternoon, Lisa, Sunny, Marcos, Cole and I all played tennis. Again, Sunny you totally wooped everyone. Nice job :) And that night we had Peach Kuchin! Which has become my very favorite dessert and vice. I saved myself all weekend for that dessert and didn't hold back.

We can include a lot of other things in here: shopping, staying up late talking to Amanda, going running, and lot of other little things--but hey, it's a girls weekend and I'm not going to spill everything!

After we all left the condo, Cole, Marcos and I left to drive up to Brianhead by Cedar City. Once there we rented mountain bikes and had the rental guy drop us off at the top of the mountain with a map to Panguich 13 miles away, and we took off. Yes yes, it was my first time. And I want to do it again and again!! I was glad the boys were patient with me, it definitely was a learning experience. I would definitely compare it to snowboarding. Super hard in the beginning because you don't have the skill to go fast, but going slow is actually harder than going fast once you learn how. It's not the same as when you go snowboarding your first time, you're on your butt all day. I only fell twice and they weren't that bad. One fall actually knocked my shoulder back in place as it was kinda off since a bad collision in soccer. Kinda funny. The ride was beautiful! Cold at first, freezing actually... I was wearing sweats and a pair of jeans to keep warm. The boys chose snowboarding helmets instead of bike helmets to help with heat. But after the first 20 minutes or so, we were definitely warm.

Once we were done mountain biking, it was off to Dixie National something or other, where we were going to camp for the night. While we were setting up, we had to keep taking breaks for thunder storms to pass over. They were really cool to watch, and thank goodness they passed over quickly!!  Cole tried to take pictures of the storm with his camera. This picture turned out great, even though it wasn't of the lightening.

Camp fires are one of my favorite things!! We stayed up late around the fire, finally crashed in the tent, and then finally headed home that day (Tuesday) around noon. Overall, it was a great weekend warrior trip.

Don Pedro Reservoir-- Smith Family Vacation

I think if I called this a much needed vacation, there might be a little bit of eye rolling. I sat down the other day and thought about all Cole and I have done this year and these are the trips I found:

• Return from Tennessee
• Hawaii
• California
• Moab
• Pizmo
• Park City Cabin
• Seattle
• California
• Vegas
• Cancun
• Vegas again
• Bear Lake
• Don Pedro Reservoir

I feel pretty good about our adventures this year :) However, I still say Don Pedro was a much needed vacation! It came just at the right time at the end of the month, right after I hit my sales quota at work. So perfect!

Don Pedro Reservoir is past the Yosemite National Park in California. While deciding how we were going to get there, I became our navigator. I decided that going through Reno was the long way, and that instead we should go south across the 6 and through Yosemite. The trip started off great. It took several hours to get to the 6, but once we got there I started looking everywhere for UFO landing spots or tourists traps (in case you don't know already, HWY 6 is known for its UFO activity) BUT I never found anything so that part of the trip didn't get anymore exciting. Around 8 or 9 we arrived at Yosemite. It was beautiful!!! We were only about 120 miles from Don Pedro and hoping to get there by 10 or 11. The last thing we saw before the sun set was this beautiful basin lake sitting underneath gorgeous mountains that were black because of the setting sun and purple and pink skies above them. Then the windy roads kicked in. It took us 3 and half hours to get to Don Pedro-- or something close to that. I was so glad we weren't hauling our jet ski trailer behind us. THAT would have been awful.

But we arrived safe and sound.

We stayed on Tyler's, our brother in law, parent's house boat. Thank you Pittson's! The boat was perfectly named, The Pitt Stop :)

Here's Cole and me, happy to be anywhere but work, and lucky enough that it was on this houseboat in Don Pedro!

I was trying so hard to learn how to jump the wake!! I never made it fully across, but I had one close one... followed by a pretty gnarly crash that I'm pretty sure caused the wakeboard to hit me in the back of the head. A vein in my foot actually popped because the board was ripped off my feet, and my entire big toe was completely purple with blood. I thought I was going to have a massive bruise there, but after about 10 minutes all of the blood had gone somewhere else, and my foot was back to normal. Weird.

Here's Cole catching some major air! He came SO close to landing a flip this trip! He pretty much landed a few of them but then fell. He'll get it. It was so much fun watching Cole and Tyler. Tyler is legit-- his wake boarding abilities are definitely refined.

Barbara and I on our last ride in the boat! This lady is amazing

Logan and Tyler. The best drivers on the trip :) Tyler was a stud and drove every single time the boat went out. 

Sun bathing beauties: Seirra, Brookie, and Hayley

Truman did not miss a single boat trip!! 3 years old (we actually celebrated his 3rd birthday while we were in Don Pedro)  and loves the boat! Every time we left, there was Truman. It was adorable. 

It may just look like Cole is doing a backwards dive into the pool, but he's doing a back flip :) I just couldn't get it on video because the camera had no more space left.

On the way back from Don Pedro, we drove through Yosemite again. We were originally going to try going back out through Sacramento, but this ended up being better and faster. The windy part was easier this time because it was in the day light and the first part of the drive instead of the last.

Aww so cute! 5 days no showers.... lol. Unless you count the 3 we took in the lake every day! That hat didn't leave my head unless I was sleeping, or wake boarding.

Well after this picture, there was a lot more driving, and then we were home. The next day, we were back at work. On to the next month! Thanks Smith family for an awesome vacation!