Saturday, October 29, 2011

Remodeling . . .

My dad is remodeling this house & he just finished redoing the tile in the entrance hallway and stairs down to the kitchen. Just today he started ripping up the carpet in the family room & tile in the kitchen to where the counter is. Brian & I got to help jackhammer & buff the concrete. It was pretty fun.

First two are me using the buffer, Dad said that there is an actual Diamond underneath it and that is what makes it work so well.





Brian jack-hammering.



Erin jack-hammering. I was doing fine but after a while it starts to get kind of heavy and the noise gets to me. It was really cool to do though, I actually ripped up tile today & then buffered out concrete. Cannot say that everyday.



Alabama/Tennessee Trip

I went to Birmingham, AL to visit Josh Bowman. We camped & hiked in Stone Door, TN which was beautiful & toured Auburn, AL, didn't get any pictures in Auburn.
Josh took all the pictures but one, so some are little silly. . .

These were so pretty the way the sun hit the leaves, it really brought out the beautiful colors.







I really like this picture with the light by my face, especially because I am looking up. Makes me look kind of angelic.





This is Josh & I at the Stone Door, which is what the hike is named after. It was so cool, I love Rock structures and it always amazes me the beauty of nature and how lucky I am.





These next pictures are over-looking a really beautiful look out point. The colors in the trees was breath-taking. I truly could have stayed there for hours and just looked out. It was a cold day at first, but as the day went on even I got a little warm.





These two pictures are actually where we started our hike, it was a little loop that took us to this little water fall. That is why I am in my jacket & Josh's jacket, I was cold in the shade. But it was fun little loop that was literally less than 1/4 of a mile.





It was a great trip, I loved all the trees and grass & thankful for the beauty of the Earth. Autumn is my absolute favorite season and as great as Arizona is, there isn't much or any leaf color changes. So I was very sad to say goodbye to Alabama and it's beautiful season.

Trip to UT for General Conference

I went to Utah for General Conference with my friend Andy & best friend Dave. I get really restless so we had to make a few pit stops along the way. Here are the boys in front of John Wayne.



We were in some small western town & the boys were in heaven, I tried to be a good sport, but this is as far as I really took it.



There was this rock formation that looked really cool & it had been a little over 2 hours the last time we stopped so I asked that we check it out. We ended up going a mini hike up the rock formations. It was pretty cool.





Our Last big stop was to see the Manti Temple. It was so beautiful & the grounds were amazing! I loved it there.




This is me in front of the SLC Temple, just before we went into the Saturday Morning Session. It was crazy how many people were there.



We looked forever to find me pretty fall leaves, while the guys were at Priesthood Session I went with my Aunts & Grandma to the Canyons by there house in Mapleton & found Beautiful Fall Foliage!

Camping Trip Two

These happen once a month, usually the Friday & Saturday before I teach on Sunday for Relief Society. This time I got to invite two of my girlfriends to come along, Raila Hansen & Kayla Patridge - who technically works with Dave and was his friend first but I count her as my guest.

This is around the campfire that took Dave over an hour to build, it was pretty funny how mad he was getting about it. But he was stubborn and got it going in the end. And Madeleine the blanket is the one you picked out for me, I take it everywhere, thank-you!



There is usually some kind of hammock shot, we hiked to a lake and Dave took a nap for most of the afternoon while us girls played around the lake.



We went on our own exploration and found some cool paths and had fun :)



In the lake there were some pretty big crawdads, Kayla even caught a few, this was one of the smaller ones. She got cut on one she caught, she is very adventurous.



Raila & I on a rock we bravely jumped to, by-the-way the water was really cold.



Okay, this is big, I slept in a tent. I generally refuse to sleep in a tent, but Raila told me that was her condition if she came camping. She slept like the dead, I did less well.



The end of the hike back from the lake, it was so much fun, I have some seriously great friends!

My Camping Trips this Summer: One

My Best Friend Dave & I went up to Flagstaff, AZ to camp & hike at Christopher Creek.
This is me on Dave's hammock, to be honest they are not that comfortable, completely couldn't sleep on one, and I refuse to sleep in tents so I slept on a tarp with my sleeping bag.



This is during the hike, it was very pretty, and the weather was gorgeous. Sure beat the crazy hot heat in Mesa.



The end of the hike, oh my gosh I am out of shape, I was so sad how hard it was to go up the mountain. Going down was fine, a little slow because I didn't want to fall but going up sucked!!! Dave was pretty concerned which annoyed me even more but it was good to finish it, that felt good.


It had rained the night before so Dave made sure to drive through all the mud puddles to get my car good and dirty. I may never wash my car again.