Camping Trip

Posted on August 29, 2016 by KristynL

When I was little my dad had a really cool tent- but we never really used it for camping. We only ever used it in our back yard for my birthday party, and watched movies, and stayed up late in there- but none of us could make it through the night haha.

When we realized that Sheldon had Saturday off of work this week SO, Sheldon took me on my first real camping trip. His cousin Kelsey and her husband Scott also came with us. First thing we did once we arrived in Bloomington was find a cute little place next to a quiet little stream and we set up our tiny tent. We didn’t have any trouble with that actually and we made it cozy with lots of blankets and sleeping bags inside.

I was in charge of food, so I cut up veggies and potatoes and hot dogs for tin foil dinners. AND I remembered a delicious 4- ingredient peach cobbler from girls camp that you can make over the fire, so I brought that too! And how can you have a fire without s’mores? You can’t! So we made sure those ingredients were available as well. Scott brought something that changed the color of the fire so we enjoyed a blue-green fire most of the night. Pretty cool.

4- Ingredient Peach cobbler: Add the ingredients in this order, but do not stir them together so it can crisp up a little on top. Bring it to a boil to cook off most of the liquid, this takes awhile to cook on the fire, so just keep checking on it. It is really good to eat with vanilla ice cream, but we ate ours with thick whipped cream. still yummy!

1 large can peaches (do not drain)
1 package yellow cake mix
1 can of soda
pinch of cinnamon

We really chose the best place to camp- the stream provided nice white noise and the views were beautiful! It was a little chilly at night and the ground was a little hard, but we actually slept pretty well.

The next morning we packed up camp and went to play in the lake! (Blomington Lake, not too far from Bear Lake.) The water was cold, so I only got my feet wet, but my crazy husband jumped in with the rope swing! He loves that.

Kelsey and Scott hadn’t been to Minnetonka caves, so we did that tour again. Our guide was very intelligent and though we just did the tour last month we learned a lot more this time around.

*Unrelated to the camping trip- We are sure playing hard these last few weeks of summer before school starts. Earlier this week we also did another razor ride up Mt. Baldy and we went skeet shooting. I was so impressed because I actually hit a clay pigeon! My grandpa would be proud.

July ’16

Posted on August 1, 2016 by KristynL

JULY IS GONE! Summer 2016 is going too fast! I am finally catching up with the blog, I’ve been so behind. Sorryyy. Here is the low-down of what our summer has been like so far.

After we returned form our 4th of July trip to Utah- We rode the Razor up the side of Mt. Baldy (thank you selfie stick) we were able to recreate one of my favorite pictures of us taken 3 years ago. It is a beautiful sight that overlooks the valley. We also caught the sunset for a romantic ride back down.

The very next day we joined Sheldon’s Aunt and Uncle for another ride up to Soda Point on the opposite end of the valley. Another gorgeous sight to see that overlooks the Alexander Reservoir. I’ve decided that I really like Grace. There are plenty of excuses to get outside and enjoy the beauties of Idaho!

One weekend we joined Sheldon’s Brother and family for a spontaneous day trip. We went to tour the Minnetonka Caves. It was an impressive cave, chilly, and still has many formations so see in it. Our tour guide was pretty phunny and very passionate about rocks. Haha. After we did that drove to Bloomington Lake where we were able to hike around a little bit and Sheldon got to play in the water- his favorite thing since he was little was to jump in with the rope swing.

Another spontaneous activity is that we were able to get free tickets to the Preston Fireworks show for the 24th. We made it a double date with some friends. It turned out to be quite the evening, the fireworks were very impressive, but probably too close for safety. There were even some fireworks that jumped across the far bleachers we’ve never seen those kind before. The 24th Parade in Lava provided for a very Happy Sheldon- his favorite candies are Bit ‘O Honey and he collected a bunch from all the parade people. That evening we went to visit Sheldon’s Grandpa because he isn’t feeling so well. A bunch of the cousins all helped out around their house and we picked peas in their garden! There are SO MANY peas there. Also I just HAD to take some pictures of the Idaho landscape as we are getting closer to harvest in the valley.

When we found some old poles in his parent’s basement we decided to go fishing. Not only once but we are committed enough that we bought Idaho fishing licenses! We haven’t been successful so far- aka havent caught anything… BUT how can a girl complain when her husband takes her to watch a beautiful sunset along the water’s edge? Some of the prettiest sights and funniest stories come from our evening fishing adventures. Fishin’ really isn’t that bad.

Fair Week! This past week was the week of the Caribou County Fair in Grace. We spent so much time on the little fair grounds. It seems like everyone in the town spends the whole week there since there is so no admission fee. But that also means we ate quite a bit of fair food. #healthy….

I helped to work the craft building and entered in a few things. I ended up just helping to set up then just sitting around a lot. BUT the lady I was helping said that there are a lot of categories still open and that I should submit some of my crafts. So I ran around our house looking for some things I made, and ended taking some decorations off our walls. I entered 4 things; a felt flower wreath, an acrylic portrait painting, a floral cross stitching thing, and a string art of the temple. I got 3 blue ribbons and a red. We ate quite a bit of fair food, all delicious and not so nutritious.

On Thursday we worked at the Grace Stake Steak booth. Haha. It’s like a fund raiser. So Sheldon was making fries and I was making burgers all night. It was actually so fun because it was a fun group of people working together, and we got some free food. Friday night we attended a rodeo- The last one I went to was probably like 12 years ago in Oregon. I was really impressed, I think my favorites were the barrel racers! SO fun!

So my summer job has been working at Caribou Highlands Golf and RV Park. It has been the perfect job while I worked on online classes. I’ve learned a lot about golf and we even had the curiosity one night to try it out. It hurt our arms and we aren’t so good at it but we enjoyed ourselves! The golf course has been way busier than I ever expected in such a small town. Great experience though!

We have been able to enjoy lunches together and SOMETIMES I am invited to his work BBQs on Fridays. Once we made kabobs, it was a lot of work but they turned out pretty good. (Brandon suggested I include this on my blog- so this ones for you.) If colorful BBQ kabobs don’t say “summer” I don’t know what does.

Lastly we have been able to enjoy our neighbor’s kittens. there are 5 of them and they are so tiny and precious. Sometimes we will sit on the back patio and play with them. Adorable!

Yellowstone in October

Posted on October 26, 2015 by KristynL

So its been on our bucket-list for awhile, and we needed to make it happen before the park was closed for the season. We decided to make Yellowstone a group adventure. I had tried all week to coordinate rides and times and people with everything but it was just one impossible logic problem. It just couldn’t work for all of us to leave at the same time as a big group (like 18 of us) so we had a staggered schedule. My group left at 7:00 a.m. but we still had the goal to all meet up with everyone at Old Faithful at 3:00 p.m. as the last destination before leaving the park.

I was able to bring my dad’s old camera to play around with. It was a fun place to practice photography, that’s for sure. So everything on this blog post (except for the map- thank you google) is taken from Dad’s Nikon, or Sheldon’s phone.

We drove in through West Yellowstone and followed the main red circle path (on the map where it says “Yellowstone” in green) up then around to finish up at Old Faithful. Fun fact is that there were 3 states involved in this trip (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming).

First Views of the park- through the West Entrance:

Not long after paying the entrance fee we saw a herd of elk off to the side of the road, one really big one with quite the impressive antlers, well of corse we parked and walked over to take a picture. While walking back to the car we realized that there was one elk right there in the parking lot! SO close! I knew it would be a good day!

Stop Number 1: Natural Hot Pools

Okay this place was a nice first destination. The lighting was perfect and there weren’t any other tourists there but us. I love the fact that we came in October, I was able to capture some beautiful muted natural tones.

Stop Number 2: Gibbon Falls

Okay this place was beautiful! It was just right off the road, there was a little walkway; but come on, people will hike for days to see this stuff. So good. This is nature at it’s finest. Also, selfies with a real camera are hard… But you can’t exactly take a bad picture of this place!

Stop Number 3: Norris Geyser Basin Hike

This is just the towards the parking lot, we did a good portion of this hike though to see the geyser basin.

Heavenly Father is the best artist, I mean look at His creations. Nature is so cool. I took some “Dad inspired pictures” of different paths around the park, and also paid close attention to the different textures.

We also found this pretty little lake off the beaten path.

Next Stop: Upper Falls

This is the place. I remember this beautiful sight very clearly from my family vacation back in 2007. Pictures really do NOT catch the awe factor. The sun is starting to shine pretty bright here though so some shadows are dramatic. Sheldon said that if he didn’t see a “yellowstone” he was going to sue… haha, good thing we made it this far. The park lived up to its name.

And the (partial) group photo:

Along the drive to the next spot we pulled over a few times for some classic Yellowstone photo-ops like these. We also saw a baby bear, but I didn’t get out of the car. Let’s remember this is October, it is getting pretty cold here.

Next stop: Snack break at the Bridge Bay pull off.

I loved seeing the variety here, all different landscapes in one park! Its really amazing. The sand here is made up different rocks, I personally like the black sand from volcanic rock. Also lets just appreciate the crackle texture on this old log. The friendly bird was workin’-it like he wanted to become famous.

Animal Sightings: Baby bear, elk, bison, squirrel, friendly fuzzy birds, and big ugly black birds….

Surreal landscape of Yellowstone Lake.

Last Stop: Castle Geyser and Old Faithful

We didn’t really plan ahead too well because we only brought snack foods expecting there to be a place to eat along the way… Well now we know that there are places, but they aren’t open for off-season. Upon arrival we saw the very end of the eruption of Old Faithful… we missed it. Well because it is SO iconic, and important to everyone to see, we waited another hour to be able to watch Old Faithful go off. So while waiting we walked through the gift shop, and the little museum, then decided to walk the loop to see other smaller geysers. Luckily we were able to watch Castle Geyser.

Old Faithful was a little late, not sure of that means he’s unfaithful or what…. but the miracle was that the timing worked out so that I could see everyone of our giant group at the Old Faithful Geyser at 4:00. We all met up for a few minutes, perfect!