FLoAt TrIp 2009

This past weekend we went on our annual Float Trip down to the San Rafael Swell. It's a big group of friends that get together to float down the San Rafael River on tubes and drink beer. It's a lot of fun and this year was better than last. The river was much higher than last year (no picking your tube up and walking to the next part of the river) and flowing much faster. Last year it took aroudn 3-4 hours to get down to our camp and this year it took about 2 hours.

The first couple videos are of the Slip N Slides into the river. Of course, the dangers of sliding into a river are rocks, landing wrong, and just plain fun (atleast for boys). It was pretty damn funny to watch them go down it. They were trying to do flips and some were sliding down and going through tubes before hitting the water. No videos of that though!

Of course the first day we are down there my allergies decided to knock me flat down. I think I had almost every drug known to us for allergies in me and yet still couldn't control them. It all started on the drive down and continued to get worse as the day went on....Zyrtec, Claritin, Benadryl, no help! I did actually float the river that day and did okay on the water but as soon as I was out of the water, the runny nose and sneezing came back. I pretty much just layed in my tent away from everyone and kept my tissue box by me. I hate allergies! Stupid wind, dust and cotton from the cottonwood trees! Of course as soon as I decide to go to bed on Friday night, our zipper on our tent decides to stop working. Well at that same moment, the wind picked up and was blowing dust everywhere. Needless to say, we were not happy with the situation. I didn't get any pics of our day on Friday due to the above situation. So the rest are from Saturday and Sunday.

Below is my brother after our first trip down the river on Saturday.

In the far back a game of horseshoes is going on. I, of course, sat under my sunshade out of dusts way so I could watch the game. Mindi and Dom doing some sunbathing. Wish I could do that....but I am tan for my coloring.

Steve enjoying some pasta salad while watching the game.

Sitting in the shade! This year I decided to man up and drink some beer down there. I enjoyed myself and had a lot of fun. I do open up a lot more when I drink.

This was our beautiful view. It was beautiful all day long and then decided to get stormy later on.

Brett and Juice aka Julie

Loaf, Jon and Luke

Brett, Allison, and Bug aka Jocelyn

Luke and Big Jugs aka Becky

Steve pregnant with little Jesus

Beautiful rainbow after a little bit of stormy weather. We didn't get rained on though.

Our drive home in our hot Taco! Love that snorkel....oh yeah and the driver! My brother was in the back seat not feeling too hot from his partying the night before.

Allison, Becky and me

All in all, we had a fabulous time. I enjoy seeing all these people once a year. Some I see more than others but it was a lot of fun. Our first day we floated down the river, I was the last to get down the river. I don't know why my tube decided to be so slow and hit the dead parts of the water but it did. The next day we floated twice. We decided to go down as a group and actually hold on to each other. I think that makes you go much faster. My brother has a raft he goes down in and I swear I thought it was going to pop when the group hit a tree branch sticking out of the water and he happened to take the brunt of the impact. Half the group had to go one way and the other the other way just to get around the tree. The second trip down the river, Becky and Allison had arrived so it was fun to have them on the river too. Poor Becky, her tube popped half way down the river. But we all survived the trip...except for Drew's truck.

Maui 2009

Aaaahhh vacation! My family went on a week long vacation to Maui last week. It was splendid. My grandma decided that she wanted to do a nice family vacation one last time since she is getting old....she's 89! So our vacation started out on Sunday May 3 at the Salt Lake Airport. My family met up at the gate to start the fun. 

As you can tell in all these photos, we LOVE the sunsets! They are incredibly beautiful and so different every night. So I am sorry if I bore you with the sunsets. The first day we dropped our stuff off at the house and hit the beach. We went to Big Beach first where Steve and my brother Brett did some boogie boarding. Jana and I attempted to do it but our swimsuits were not suitable for it. We were going to make Big Beach a nude beach. Of course the first day I forgot to put sunscreen on my face so I got burnt! 

We did a snorkel cruise to Molokini Crater and Turtle Town with the entire family. My poor grandma got seasick on the way out to Molokini. She got better when she finally listened to me and one of the boat crew on drinking some water with ginger in it. Although she did not get in the water, she eventually enjoyed a little bit of the cruise. As soon as Jana and I got in the water to start the snorkeling adventure, we stuck our faces in the water and there right below us was a SHARK!!! It was so EXCITING! Everyone but poor Steve saw the shark. It was a white reef shark, I believe.  At Turtle Town, I only saw one turtle. On the cruise back to the marina, we enjoyed lots of beer and Mai-Tai's! 

On Friday, Jan, Jana, Steve and I did the drive to Hana. It's an amazing drive to the town of Hana. Incredible how fast the locals drive this 2 lane road. It is full of blind turns, one-way bridges and narrow roads. I drove due to the fact that I get carsick on that type of drive and it worked...no sickness! It was very beautiful but long. It's about 55 miles from the airport but it takes you about 3-4 hours to drive it because there are so many places to stop and the craziness of the road in general. Check out the tree in the picture below. It has red, green and brown type of bark. It was so beautiful but I don't know what kind it was. 

Once again, we visited the beach where we were married, Secret Cove. My grandma wanted to see it, unfortunately it's not a beach to swim on. But we enjoyed the beautiful ocean and lava rock. There were lots of urchins on the rocks. 

Yet another reason I want to live in Hawaii....the FLOWERS! They are so incredibly beautiful and vibrant in color. Everywhere you go there is bright pink flowers, and yellow hibiscus line the streets as though they were rose bushes. These flowers were in the yard of the place we stayed. I love plumeria and the various colors they come in.

This was our last day on the island so we had to get a real GROUP picture. After we cleared out of the house, we split up into two groups. The young ones- Steve, Brett, Jana and me. The old ones- Mom, Dad, Jan, Meryl, and Grandma. We did lots of shopping in the little outdoor shopping areas. Then around 1:30 we headed over to Hot Rod Ink for some artwork on our bodies. My cousin Jana had a Bird of Paradise tattooed on her inner left arm. And I had plumeria and turtles on my foot. It hurt like hell! But it is so cute.

The rest of these are put together from multiple peoples cameras. Enjoy!

And last but not least, I have really been researching the Travel Nurse companies. I really would like to do an assignment over there and find out if I could live there. It is such a hard decision because Steve wouldn't be able to come with me since he doesn't have that much vacation time built up. But most assignments are 13 weeks long and you can extend them if they need you to. I think that would give me an idea of whether I would like it or not. I will have to really decide if I can be away from friends and family for 13 weeks or not. I love Maui!

Maui

Hey everyone....here's some pics for now of our trip. Having way too much fun to sit and post stuff now. 

Denver Again

I flew to Denver on Wednesday to visit my friend Marie. I wanted to go visit her since she just had a baby in February and has a one year old also. It was nice weather for the most part out there. I always knew that babies and kids were hard work but being out there with her...made me realize how hard they are. Maybe I am not ready for the little ones! 

First, I am a creature of habit. I have a routine every day that I do and have a routine for when I work night shift. That went right out the window there. Helping Marie out with Ava was simple but trying to help with Everett was almost impossible. He doesn't exactly know me that well and he is in the stage of clinging to Mom. Whenever Marie would leave the room or run upstairs he would burst into tears. Not much I can do for him...he didn't want me. 

Ava and I were sleeping buddies. She would easily fall asleep on my chest which then would make me fall asleep. We slept in til noon one day. I could hold her off on eating until Marie was done with Everett. 

Everett has so much energy and great running legs. I got him out of the stroller at The Children's Place and he took off pretty fast. Too bad he wouldn't stick by Marie and that's why he has to stay in the stroller. I bought Ava the cutest little yellow dress from Janie & Jack for spring. 

We tried to do a little photo shoot with Ava but she definitely didn't like it. She likes to sleep in peoples arms so when you try to put her down she gets fussy. Then when she is awake she moves all over the place. Here are a few pics. I bought her these bows in SLC and we tried to find more but the 2 malls we went to didn't have any. Might be a Utah thing.

Marie planned to come out to Salt Lake when I came home. She booked the same flight so each of us could hold a baby. She took Everett since he is more work and I took little Ava. Ava was perfect even if it was hard to get her to suck a binky so her ear drums wouldn't pop. Everett was all over the place, jumping, laughing, but not taking a nap like we planned. It was definitely work to get our luggage and 2 kids and all of their stuff here...but we did it.

Ophir Mine Exploration

Steve and I joined a group of people for an exploration of a mine last weekend. The mine is in the town of Ophir which is on the other side of our mountains between Tooele and Lehi. The mine is privately owned which turns out to be pretty lucky. Apparently the federal government is trying to close old mines permanently by collasping the tunnels for good. Back before the 1970's it was a full functioning mine, but the company ran out of money so it was bought for the price of the back-taxes owed. So this person that bought the mine, bought the whole mountain for which the tunnels are beneath. The tunnels add up to about 22 miles. Our tour was given to us by Mohave Underground, which is a company that is trying to protect these mines from destruction and to try to save history. They are fighting the federal government over these mines and the ones that are privately owned are safe but the rest are at risk. 

These pictures are of the old carts and mine entrance. It's pretty cool seeing all of these old things. We learned that to create these tunnels would take a long time. Each shift would come to work and move forward 8 feet. They would use dynamite and then have to remove all of the rubble which would take an entire shift. Then the next shift would come and start all over for the next 8 feet. So you can imagine how long that would take to get these tunnels created. They would follow the metal in the walls and that's how these tunnels were made. 

Most of the tunnels are very safe as it is solid rock around you. But there were parts that they told us not to touch any of the wood that is supporting the walls and ceiling because they were not sure of how sensitive it would be. You would look at the wood and you can tell that part of it was rotted out from the moisture in the tunnels. The picture in the bottom right corner above is of a ladder that went over a hole. We had to climb over that to get into another room. It was sure a little scary because you have no idea what's below because it is so dark. All the light we had was from our headlamps. 

These pictures above were found where the main cables were. Most of the tunnels has lights strung throughout. They had pin-ups of women on the wall to look at. Back in the day, they believed that it was bad luck to have women in the mine. So I guess being stuck in there all day with men, they atleast had to have pictures to look at. 
To bring the carts of rock up from the bottom of these tunnels, cables were used to pull them. The men that operated the cables were elected into these positions because the men in the tunnels had to trust them. From the bottom of the tunnels which could be 400 to 1000 feet below, the men would use a system of bells to communicate with the cable operaters. The operator had to have very good hearing and a good grasp of how to work the cables. When the men were done working, they would ride up in the mine cars. 
Above is a picture of one of the old electrical converters. These are massive compared to what we are used to today. Inside some of them is oil. They told us that this oil is no longer used due to it being highly carcinogenic. This picture is of different things we found in the tunnel. The middle is of Betty Crocker chocolate pudding. The label started to flake off when the guy picked it up. It was so cool to see the things left behind. Old magazines and newspapers were everywhere. We found this eggshell still intact. The miners would bring eggs in to eat but not how we would eat them now. They were raw and the would tap the tops off and suck out the egg for protein. 
The blue stuff on the wall is some sort of calcium. The top right picture is of water that filled one of the tunnels. The spots on the picture is dust that was in the air. A lot of our pictures had these spots which was unfortunate. The sign "this way out" led to the tunnel with the water. There was another sign in the water that said "this way out". There are a few emergency exits that they posted like that. In one room, we all turned out our lights and it's incredible how dark it is in there. You can't see a thing, not your hand an inch from your face. I couldn't imagine if you lost your light and had no one around you. You would be in trouble and would either have to wait for someone to find you and try to crawl your way out. 

We really had a lot of fun touring this mine and learning about the history of mines.