Hot Stuff

Joshua never ceases to amaze me. The other day he came into the pool with a bag full of food. He then told me the story of how he bought 2 pounds of carne asada, rice, beans, salasa and tortillas for only $5. When at the little Mexican market nearby, he began telling them how he loved the little peppers and could eat tons of them. Well, the store manager was standing nearby and challenged Joshua to a pepper eating contest. The winner? My husband! The store manager ate 3 and Joshua ate 5. After that, the manager told the people there to give him that food for $5. Also, while there, they feed him a tamale and a ton of other foods to see how good he really was. I knew I married the right man. His talents never cease to amaze me. Now, we just need to take him out to eat with Grandpa Ronnie and let them have a chile eating contest. I think Grandpa would really be impressed.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!

To celebrate the Fourth, Joshua and I went to the Freedom Festival in Downtown Provo on Friday. We went in the morning and than again in the evening. There we enjoyed looking at art and all of the vendors merchandise. We saw an animal show, with a nasty huge snake and comedy shows too. In the evening, we decided we would buy coconut rings so that when I go out on trail I can have another ring to wear instead of my wedding ring, and Joshua could just have one because they are so awesome. On mine, we had engraven Te Amo. The man even put little hearts on each side of it. There we also shared a Carmel apple and dippen dots.

On Saturday, Joshua and I celebrated the Fourth by doing laundry, grocery shopping, homework and then finally we made hamburgers, watched one of the original Pink Panthers and then had some friends over. Jessica Wenckus and her boyfriend John Talbot came and joined us for the fireworks. I set out a vinyl tablecloth (yes, mom you would have been proud of me) in front of our apartment complex early in the evening. Once it became dark we joined everyone else who had lined the street to watch the Stadium of Fire firework show.

With good friends we enjoyed the show, took funny pictures, all as we ate strawberry shortcake (it was delicious!). I am truly grateful for the freedoms which we enjoy in this land and the ability to worship in the way that I choose, gain an education in that which I choose and live each day in peace.

Escalante - Yes We Did

Escalante means scaling or climbing...and that is just what we did when I went with the girls group at my internship to Escalante, Utah. With 6 awesome young women we hiked in the middle of the night from Egypt (picture at the left) into and out of Fence Canyon, across the desert and down into Glenn Canyon were we camped near the Escalante River, which is a river that flows into Lake Powell. In this area there are many slot canyons to climb and scale through, however due to weather we could not go in them. Our original plan was to go explore Ringtail canyon and upper Neon Canyon to rappel down through the Golden Cathedral into lower Neon. If there is any chance of rain though we do not go into the slot canyons.

*Pictures on left and right are of lower Neon Canyon*

So instead, we spent a day hiking up the Escalante River to Fence Canyon to explore, and on two other days we hiked down the Escalante River, up lower Neon Canyon and swam in the pool of water under the Golden Cathedral. It was heavenly!
*Picture on the Right*

After 4 days there, we hiked out in the middle of the night. We had spent the day at the Golden Cathedral siesta-ing in the shade because it was so stinking HOT! We started hiking at 9:30 p.m. and finally got out at 3 a.m. I have to say though, the group of girls that I had and my co-guide Nick ROCKED! They had such great attitudes even though it was so late and they were so tired that night. I must admit my little secret, I was dying of fatigue but had a bottle of Five Hour Energy (an vitamin B energy drink). After chugging that, I was set to go, singing camp songs, and as peppy as a cheerleader at the BYU vs U of U football game.

Once we finally made it out of the canyon, we slept as long as we could in the shade, then moved our sleeping mats under the small bushes that covered that barren land by the Egypt trail head (check out the picture at the top of the page again) while we waited till that evening for our vehicles to arrive to take us home.

On Tuesday, I we went to Rock Canyon to climb at Tinker Toys. There I taught about figure eight knots and how to properly clip in, followed by Nick teaching how to properly belay.

A cool sayings that help me remember how to do a correct figure eighth knot is:

Make an alien head,

Lasso it,

Poke it in the eye.

For Belaying if you remember PLUS you'll make sure your doing it right:
P- pull down with non dominate hand which is highest on rope above the ATC.

L - Lock of with brake hand - the lower (dominate hand) under the ATC.

U- Under slide - move the hand that pulled down to below the brake hand

S - Slide - Slide the brake hand up closer to the ATC.

Oh the fun things I am doing, seeing, teaching and learning!