Summer 2008

Summer is long gone, but I kind of took a hiatus and didn't write anything about it. I stayed pretty busy. I often worked 50-60 hours weeks. I also got back into running and, this summer, swimming. I found out that I really enjoy swimming as exercise. Normally I just did it for fun. I went on an awesome white-water rafting trip in Moab and hiked to a lot of the arches in Arches national park. I also went home and stayed at a hotel in Carpenteria/Santa Barbara for a few days. I also bought a car. I guess my approach will be to write more about these things below:

WORK

During the summer I worked at the BYU Library and also doing lighting for EFY. I did a lot of the EFY dances and some of their variety shows and stuff. It wasn't too bad. I was definitely ready for EFY to be over by the end, but I enjoyed creating dance moods/looks and spicing up the lives of the little people.

I got a couple raises at the library, which I am very grateful for. I had to quit my lighting job for the Fall because my library job is so much more compatible with my school schedule. My hours are regular and scheduled and I enjoy the environment.

MOAB

Moab was really cool. I went with my friends Rosalinda and Holly from my ward. We tried to get more people to go, but to no avail. You wouldn't think it would be so hard to get people to go off for a weekend in the summer.

Anyway, we got there the first night and, after driving around to find a camp site, set up our tent (in the dark) and went to sleep. The next morning we got up early to find that we had set up the tent right next to a dead fish and on a layer of sticky tree fuzz. There were a TON of bugs. When we noticed a sign that said $20 a night, we got up, took down camp and booked it. It was not worth that amount of money.

We had to be at the raft tours place by 8 (we were early). The whole day was basically spent rafting down the Colorado River. It was really nice. Fun, exciting, and relaxing. Plus we met cool people along the way. When we weren't going down rapids, we were having water wars with the other rafts. This little girl in our raft had it out for me after I got her brothers wet. She soaked me any chance she got. I spent about half the time in a ducky (inflatable kayak thing).

Me, Rosalinda, and Holly during our lunch break

That night we went into town and went to the little shops. We also found a more suitable campsite (it was free) that was right on the edge of the Colorado River. We built a fire and had amazing foil dinners and smores. There were a lot less bugs here, maybe in part due to the bats that came out at night.

Our tent was just a few feet from the Colorado River

The next morning we got up early and drove up to Arches national park so we could beat the heat of the day. We had tons of fun exploring and hiking to the different arches. We also went and saw some indian rock paintings. The weather wasn't bad at all. It wasn't too hot to handle. We took a ton of pictures and met lots of people. We hiked for probably 5 hours and left around noonish. Then we ate lunch and went to a local river to swim. We had heard that the locals all went swimming there. It was nice. There was a pretty large waterfall and the pools of water where we could swim and cool off.

Photoshop fun- but all the images came from original photos

This is the arch that is on all the Utah
license plates!

Coming around the corner on the way to
see the arch in the photo above

We went exploring in a small canyon of rock.

I took this picture at the beginning of our last hike-
before we knew the pain it would cause

Exploring...

I picture I took in Arches National Park

This is the longest arch in the world- bigger
than the span of a football field

We wanted to do one more hike that was close to our camp. It wasn't in arches national park and so the labeling on the level of difficulty wasn't the same (little did we know). We figured that since the "strenuous" hike in Arches wasn't that bad, this "moderate" hike would be a piece of cake. HA! So we go like we are going to the beach- flip-flops, shorts, one bottle of water. Okay, this hike was forever long. We had to climb through areas of overgrown forest, navigate across a river (multiple times), and sweat on long stretches of shadeless scorching sand, all the while trying to locate the trail we were supposed to be on as it dissapeared in the river or on large rocks and boulders. Holly almost climbed off the edge of a cliff, and rosalinda's feet were a painful, blistery mess. It was fun though. After that we went back to camp and, after being completely dissatisfied with the small amount of HOT water we had left, we went to am/pm and bought armfuls of cold liquids which we all drank in a hurry. We didn't realize how extremely thirsty we were.

We went into town again that night. We ate and went to bed after the exhausting, but exciting day of adventure. We drove back to Provo the next morning.

CALIFORNIA

I went home for a little over a week and a half just before school started up again. It was really nice. The first few days I was just lazy, which I was fine with. It is always good to just hang out with the family and relax. We went to my favorite beach and ate at my favorite restaurants. I also spent quite a bit of time on car lots, which wasn't the highlight of my week, but I bought a 2008 Nissan Sentra and that was cool. I know I got the best deal because I really searched. I spent a lot of time on the decision and I'm happy with what I got.

This is a stock image- But it is the same as my car.

We decided that we wanted to go to Santa Barbara (3.5 hours north of us). What was initially a day trip turned into a 3 day vacation. We stayed at a hotel on the beach in Carpenteria and went to Santa Barbara for the night life. We ate on the pier and walked through the shops and restaurant district. We also went to a botanical garden and hiked around through redwoods streams, rivers, and waterfalls. It was nice. We also went kayaking along the coast which was fun. We didn't take pictures of that unfortunately.

The Family

Stone stairway in the botanical garden

Cool flower picture that my sister took

It was a slice of a Redwood with an explanation of how to read
the tree's age and some other facts on Redwoods. I don't
know why my mom has her arm on it...

A cool bonsai tree

My sister Morgan and Dad

The Pier in Santa Barbra

I went and saw Grandma Adamson and some cousins that live a half and hour south of my parent's house for my birthday. We played gamed and ate cake and ice cream. It was very low key, but fun- I prefer it that way.

So now, I've updated everyone up until about two weeks ago when Fall semester began. YAY!