Bryce Canyon

For Memorial Day weekend we took a much needed vacation to Bryce Canyon National Park. We had been there a few years ago, but it rained (we got drenched!) and so we didn't get to hike through the bottom of the canyon. (It's a lot like a mini Grand Canyon, but with very different formations.) So we went back. And it rained. Yes. Their chart said that it rains an average of five days in May. So we took the ranger's advice and just hiked along the rim (on top) the first day. Here are a few pictures, and then a slide show. I know it's hard to believe, but there are even more pictures than this. :)

We came prepared for rain.

This is the clay that stuck to our shoes. We were glad we weren't at the bottom of the canyon.
After an hour of so of walking in the rain we gave up and went back to our room. Luckily, the weather on Monday worked out better and we got a gorgeous hike in that morning (more pictures to come).

One Day More...

Did anyone catch the allusion? I'll give you a hint: think military (kind of).

Anyway, ONE more day of school! This week I feel like I've taken a beating. But when I see my principal, I guess I'm doing okay. On Tuesday he said he felt swine flu coming on and would be back in a few weeks. Hah. I have a lot of amazingly wonderful kids, but (especially in the last week of school) it's the difficult ones that require 95% of my attention. Oh well, usually only the good kids show up on the last day. :) And today I got to read them my favorite math book: The Math Curse. If you've never seen it, you should definitely check it out!

Happy Birthday Erica!

This is a bit late (2 weeks?), but better late than never, right? Happy Birthday to my amazing sister! Here are some great fun photos:

I love this picture of Erica and me when we were little.
Can you tell who is who?

Making Christmas goodies

At our niece's sealing with our sister Katie.

Restocking Our Wardrobe

Life is freeing up some more time as Chris is ending one round of classes and trading it in for another round of classes, but this round is easier than the last one. This weekend we decided that we would go to Park City and return a pair of pants that we purchased for Chris and hopefully find another pair that fit. Chris thinks that they are starting to make guy’s pants more like women’s because you almost can’t fit anything into guy’s pockets either. He has to search around for a pair of pants that will allow his PDA and wallet to fit into the same pair of pants without giving him a serious carpet-like burn that rubs the hair off of his legs. Anyway, while at the store to return the pants, we had some success in finding a pair for him and some clothes for Jamie. Not having spent much time shopping, we thought we might try our luck elsewhere while we were there and see if we could get some more shopping done. We don’t shop very often so when we do, we try to get whatever we need to get done, in the way of shopping, done for now and later because there are other things that we would rather do than spend a whole day at the mall. Besides, doing that all the time can really eat up your cash in the bank account, and you could end up with a bunch of stuff that you would give away just because you don’t have room for it in the house. Well, after a few visits to the stores and in less than two hours time, we found a total of 4 pairs of pants, 9 shirts, and 2 pairs of shoes for less than $200 dollars. That is under $14 per item, can you believe that? We have never found stuff for that cheap before! It must be the sales or the economy or something? It is the week before Memorial Day so perhaps there was an increase in sales in anticipation of the holiday shopping that takes place during any holiday for the retailers.

Star Trek Movie

(Don’t read unless you already have seen it or you don’t care if you hear about it.)

Later that evening we decided that we would go to a movie, it had been a while since we last went to one and Jamie really wanted to see the new Star Trek movie that came out, and Chris wanted to see it too. A lot of the time, we go to the dollar theater but this time we went to one that shows those movies that have just come out—something we will probably do when the next Harry Potter movie comes out as well. Jamie liked the Star Trek movie but one of the flaws she noticed in its story was that Kirk became captain of the flagship right out of the academy. How likely is that? They also created this alternate reality, which seems to foreshadow the making of other Star Trek movies in the future without any responsibility to remain true to the characteristics of the previous Star Trek’s. Chris thought the plot was rather simple, but then Jamie reminded him that the plots in Star Trek are usually quite simple. Shoot the bad guys and save the world, duh. Kirk was quite the womanizer, they could have left some of the development of his character out of the movie. With all of the alternate reality stuff going on, it could be fun with two Spocks in the story. One was weird enough, but two will about double the logic in the world. Are Spock and Kirk suppose to be alter egos?

The Craziness of Life!

So I know I've been a slacker and haven't been on here lately. I can't believe that school gets out in just two weeks. But, true to form, it's racing to the end (kind of like slamming into a brick wall!). I promise that when I get my life back (JUNE!!!) that I will get more on top of things!