Last Boating Trip of the Summer

Last week we went boating with my family and took advantage of the nice and warm September weather that we have been having. We went to Willard Bay so the water wasn't quite as smooth as everyone was used to from Flaming Gorge, but it was still nice to be out for the day.
This is Justin on the wakeboard. He didn't quite perfect his back flip this year, but we are certain that by the end of next year he will have it perfected.
This is Justin after attempting the back flip. Like I said, I'm sure he'll perfect it next year.
Justin has to beg people to ride in the tube with him. I think my dad enjoys it when Justin gets in the tube because then he gets to drive as hard as he wants to. This is Justin and our brother-in-law Brady.
I think that Brady got sick of watching Justin try to show off in the tube and just pushed him out when he was trying to stand up. Dan, our other brother-in-law went in the tube with Justin too, but we don't have any pictures of him this trip. After a while nobody else wanted to ride with Justin so he just went by himself. My dad had a lot of fun this time.

I think my dad was able to get the tube up like that about ten times. Justin never tipped out though.

September

We are a little late on our updates lately. We've had a good month so far. Justin's parents came and spent Labor Day weekend with us. We drove around a lot and looked at the country. Cache Valley is very pretty. I love it here. On Sunday we had a family bbq with Justin's aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a lot of fun. The kids made zucchini boats and floated them down the stream. I didn't have my camera with me so I don't have any pictures of it to post.

On Labor Day Justin's parents left fairly early trying to make it back to St. George at a decent time of day so Justin and I went up Providence Canyon. Well, on our way back down we started going side ways and then we stopped and couldn't go anywhere. Justin got out to determine what the problem was. This is what he found.
When we found it, the jack wasn't already under it. Justin put that there so he could dig out the little rocks under the big rock to see if we could lower it so we could have a chance of getting out. After about twenty or so minutes of digging and placing rocks under the tires we were finally able to get up and over the rock. No damage was done to the vehicle. It was kinda funny. It reminded me of another time when we went up there with some friends who decided to drive through a mud puddle that probably shouldn't be driven through. Good times!
Justin and I also got engaged up Providence Canyon, only during the middle of the winter, so we had fun reminiscing about that too.
We also went to the state fair with my family. It was pretty fun. Justin hadn't ever been before, but it is a yearly tradition with my family. We usually go to the rodeo there too, but we went to The Scarlet Pimpernel at Hale Theater instead. Justin decided to give us our own little rodeo though with his ride on the mechanical bull.

By Request

This is Jillian jumping from the rope swing. Brady doesn't believe she did it, so here is the proof.

Flaming Gorge Rope Swing

This is the video of the rope swing that commented about in the previous post. It was on my mom's camera. It is fun to listen to Justin and his sound effects while he is jumping.

Flaming Gorge

Almost every year my family and some life long family friends go to Flaming Gorge. We camp at Hide-Out Canyon. You have to load all of the camping gear into the boat and then boat over to the campsite where you get to unload the boat and carry everything up to the campsite. It is awesome!!
This was Justin's first year going and the water level was a lot higher than it has been for a few years and we had one of the lowest campsites so he didn't quite understand the whole "haul the stuff up the hill" portion of Flaming Gorge.
I love Flaming Gorge and I think that it is absolutely beautiful there. The weather was almost perfect for us this trip. We got sprinkled on the first night and the last night we got soaked from the rain. It only rained for twenty or so minutes, but it came down hard and out a nowhere. It wouldn't be Flaming Gorge without the rain though.
Justin was quite the show off on the wake board. He was able to jump the entire wake once and the other times he came pretty close.
This is everyone waiting their turn to jump off the rope swing. I think that my brother-in-law Dan loved it the most and we probably could have left him there and come back a few hours later and he would have kept climbing up to it and jumping off over and over again. Justin took a little longer to fully love the rope swing. We have an awesome video of him that we will have to post in the next post.

My dad jumped off the rope swing first and then Justin realized if he could do it, than anybody could. In order to get to the rope you had to climb over on a little ledge thing. That was the hard part.
We of course had to take a drive over to the Flaming Gorge dam, especially since Justin is going into Civil Engineering and he is currently working on some dam project for one of his professors. Of course, lots of dam jokes were told, we went on the dam tour, fed the dam fish, and were just dam enlightened.
The mornings at Flaming Gorge were a little cold, especially when we would get in the boat and drive full speed somewhere. We managed to stay warm though.
This picture is of me and my sister. Jillian is the goofy looking one in the picture.
This is my brother-in-law Dan and Justin. They really got a chance to bond this trip. The had multiple belly flop competitions followed by the most entertaining tube rides I have ever seen.
Justin just laughed the entire time and Dan (who had seen my dad pull people in the tube before) had a more serious look on his face at all times. Justin was the first to fall off, but he was able to get Dan back by bouncing him out the next ride.
My nephew Nathan made sure that everything at camp was clean and nothing got dirty. It's always good to have a neat little guy around when your camping.He also made sure his hair was brushed and done every day too!


All in all we had a great time. It was hard to come back away from the constant relaxing and playing and start working again. Dad says this was out last year going, but he has said that for the past few years so I guess we will just have to see what happens.

First Half of July

Well, once again I have been a slacker at updating the posts. Things have been busy for us still. Justin is on a softball league that plays every Tuesday. We usually have visits with the Relief Society or Bishopric on Wednesdays, and on Thursdays we have a stake softball league that we like to go and play on too. Our summer has definitely kept us going.

For our stake softball league, each ward is in charge of providing dinner for the entire stake one night. The week that you are in charge of cooking is the week that your ward has a bye in the games. It is great to not have to cook on Thursdays.
This is Justin smiling when I asked him if he was excited about the home run he hit at one of the games. I think that he was excited. However, I would bet that the catcher on the other team wasn't as excited for him. Here's what happened. Justin hit the ball way way way into the outfield. There aren't any fences or else it would have gone over. So he realized that he had a home run hit. He started around the bases at full speed. Well, the catcher (female) was trying to cover home plate (even though the ball was still in the outfield and a play wasn't anywhere near being made at home plate). Well, the catcher decided to stand her ground (keep in mind she was half the size of Justin). Justin realizes that he is going to fast and can't stop so tries to slide instead of running her over. The result: Justin banged up knee and catcher claiming to have dislocated shoulder.
The picture doesn't really do it justice. It was bleeding quite a bit. He is going to end up with a scar from it too. Poor guy! Don't worry though, because I made sure that he got all bandaged up.
Good thing for the first aid kit I have for the horses. He was a little hesitant about wanting me to wrap his leg with vet wrap (yep, the stuff I use on the my horses when they get cut up) but I told him that if it worked for a horse he should be fine too. He suggested that I learn how to fix people. I thought it was a good idea.

For the Fourth of July we didn't go anywhere. It was the first weekend all summer that we didn't have any plans and it was nice to just relax a little. We went and watched the fireworks that Logan does on July 3rd (weird- they never do them on the fourth). They were pretty good. They had them synchronized to music and everything. On the fourth we went to the Cache Valley Cruising. It was cool for like the first five minutes. But hey, it was something different, right?This is the first car that we came to so Justin had me stand by it to get my picture. I do think that out of all the classic vehicles I would probably like one of the older trucks the most though.But this is still my dream car. One day I am sure I will be able to afford it too. Yeah, keep dreaming. I wouldn't dare drive it.
I made a deal with Justin that if I could get my dream car that he could finally get a bike, only I got to pick it. He didn't really seem to like my pick. I think he had something a little different in mind. The car show was successful though because I was finally able to see a version (although a year older) of one of the cars that my dad used to drive when he was a teenager. It was a Chevy Impala he named Chester.
I was under the impression that Chester was a car, not a boat. That thing is gigantic. Holy buckets!!

In the midst of our busy schedules, we were able to squeeze a celebration in for Justin's 25th Birthday!!!! Yes, he is a quarter of a century old.We celebrated on the Sunday before with my family. We were able to have some "oh my gosh" steaks (Justin has a special marinade seasoning he puts on to make them "oh my gosh stakes") along with some good ol' fashioned birthday cake. Justin doesn't really like the traditional cake so I experimented and made him an ice cream cake. I think that it turned out pretty good.
I got Justin new gear for his dirt bike. He got new boots, new pants, a new jersey, and new socks. Doesn't he look good? Happy Birthday Justin!!! You're the best ever! I love you!

Last weekend we were able to go to Leeds for the Stirling reunion. This is Justin's mom's side of the family. I didn't have the camera with me because I kept forgetting to take it with me. We were able to get to know that side of the family better which was a lot of fun. His grandma had put a lot of work into planning it. We started on Thursday and did some touring of Leeds and the Leeds museum and then Santa Clara where his grandma grew up. We then went to Pine Valley Mountain to see an old church that looked like an upside down boat. After that we went to the Mountain Meadow Massacre memorial. On Friday we spent the day at Quail lake. We had a few boats of there and some jet skis. It was nice to relax. Saturday was a hike up Red Cliff Canyon (Justin and didn't do the hike though because we had to go and get my grandma's car from her because we were pulling it back to Logan for her) and then we spent the afternoon up Oak Grove getting ready for the good ol' dutch over dinner. It was a lot of fun. I feel bad for not having any pictures thought.

All in all July has been going pretty well for us with more excited to come!

Catching Up

So obviously I haven't posted in a while, so this is going to be one big post to catch up for all the events in June. It has been crazy busy with always something to do.

We had the Whitmer Family Reunion in Paragonah. Justin's family all gets together and they rent a great big cabin. It was a lot of fun. However now Justin thinks that we can decorate our home how the cabin was decorated.
I guess we can decide how to decorate after we actually have a house. Until then we will just let him keep dreaming!

The place where the cabin is located is perfect because there is a place where all the little kids can ride around on their little dirt bikes and four wheelers, there are lots of trails for the big kids (or adults) to take off on their somewhat larger dirt bikes and four wheelers, there is a place to shoot clay pigeons, places for paint ball wars,
and most importantly places for just hanging out.
The best part was the dutch oven cook-off. We had dutch-oven beans, vegetables, potatoes, chicken, ribs, turkey, and most importantly cobbler. Good cooking!
The reunion was fun. We are looking forward to going again next year.

Our next event in June was my little sister's wedding. We were all able to go to the temple with her on June 18th when she took our her endowments, and then it was time for the big day on June 27th. She got married in the Salt Lake temple and she had her reception in West Valley.We had family fly in from Chicago and my brother and sister-in-law came in from Tennessee. It was a lot of fun to be able to see everyone and to have time to visit and socialize.
This is my Uncle Dick from Chicago and my dad waiting outside the temple after the ceremony. I'm not quite sure who my dad was trying to get a hold of.
The happy couple. Aren't they so cute??!!?!
This is my dad saving the stairway for Jillian and Brady to have their group pictures taken. All of the guys holding Jillian up. I think that Justin was being as helpful as Nathan was (my nephew, the little guy underneath her).

The weather was perfect for them. It had been pretty rainy the day before so we were excited to see the sun and the blue skies. We had the reception at a stake center in West Valley. It turned out really nice too.
Our most wonderful refreshment crew, Joan Rohner and JaNae Ferrante.
Along with Mike Ferrante, and Jay Rohner. Thanks guys! We appreciate your hard work and all that you do!We had a lot of fun. They had a band at the reception so there was lots of dancing and fun times! And when all was said and done, I think my mom was exhauste and glad for it to be over.

We ended up the month by hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law. We started the day off by going to Bear Lake and hanging out fo a little bit, a little shopping, and some good lunch.Nathan was doing all that he could to keep out of the water. He didn't want to have anything to do with it!
However, he was content to sit on the cooler and eat the bag of Cheetos. Some kids are just more picky than others I guess.
Unlike Nathan, everyone else was able to handle the water. The lake was higher this year than I have ever seen it, so there wasn't a lot of "beach" places.

After Bear Lake we stopped at Tony's Grove and walked around the lake. It was very pretty there right now.
This is Justin after winning the chicken fight against my dad.
Okay, so they didn't really have a chicken fight, but I think that they should have. I would have liked to see who would have won.

All in all, June was a crazy busy month, but we had fun and got to spend a lot of time with family on both sides of the family which made it extremely nice.

Here is the video of Providence Canyon. This is the beauty of having an old 4 wheel drive Tacoma, not too many worries about scratches. Plus it is a PURPLE Toyota, how cool is that!

Memorial Day Weekend

We started this weekend by leaving work a little early on Friday and heading up Providence Canyon. We weren't able to go all of the way through the canyon because the road on the other side was still closed due to snow. Luckily for us Justin had researched it out before we went up there so that we didn't go all that way and have to turn around and head back. Justin will post a video later with pictures of our drive.

On Saturday we went on a hike with my dad (my mom was in Phoenix for a wedding) and their dog, Hollie. We walked up the Wellsville mountains (the Mendon mountains if you live in Mendon) to a lake called Cold Water Lake. It wasn't really a lake, but Hollie enjoyed it all the same. The view from up there was amazing. Everything was extremely green. It wasn't a hard hike, but still a lot of fun.Hollie and Dad also enjoyed themselves on the hike.
Hollie had to be in the lead almost the entire time. The only time she would slow down is when I stopped to take pictures and she had to make sure that I was still coming.
On Monday my sister came up from Salt Lake and we went on the same hike again. This time it was a little more adventurous. We took two vehicles to get to the trailhead so we would all fit, Justin's truck and my mom's Yukon. Dad was driving the Yukon and we'll just say he needs a little more practice in the mud.
Luckily Justin was there to pull him out. The weather on Monday wasn't as nice as Saturday. We got rained on a little bit when we were pulling the Yukon out of the ditch (which the picture doesn't show justice to where he was stuck) and we also got rain a few times on the trail.We were able to get some good family pictures (we are missing Matthew and Lisa though because they are in Tennessee and didn't think a family hike was worth coming to visit for).This is my mom and dad. Kind of looks like an engagement picture.
This is Cammie, Dan, and Nathan (Nathan is the little, cute guy).This is Justin and me. Justin is the cute red-headed one.
This is Jillian and Brady (the happy soon to be married couple)

We had a lot of fun. Cammie had brought her dog, Aspen. Hollie and Aspen both had fun playing in the water this time.The rain actually made it nice because it made the view even more clear.