Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Christmas Benefit Concert

December 22nd we are holding a Christmas Concert to raise money for Adoption and an awesome organization called The Goodfellows!  They help those in need locally and at this time of year they are helping make sure families in need are receiving Christmas Gifts.

It will be a wonderful night filled with music and the spirit of Christmas.  We will be featuring several different local artists and groups including:
Serendipity (Shauna Williams, Jennie Zundel, & Coleen Crystal)
BYU-I Faculty Barbershop Quartet
The Rick Hansen Family
Ballet Arts and more...
Join us on this special night!!

Christmas Is....
December 22nd @ 7:00 pm
in the Madison High Performing Arts Center
Tickets are $3  or $10 for a family
All proceeds will go to The Goodfellows and Doug & Jessica Hansen's Adoption.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Our Thanksgiving Adventure

So this year was Thanksgiving with my family.  No big deal right?  Travel for about 9 hours and spend the holiday in wonderful weather!  Oh how wrong I was!  It was a storm from Rexburg to St. George!! It took us about 14 hours to get down there (not including the few hours we stopped and slept).  The roads were awful and it didn't help that Burley is terrified of the rumble strip on the side of the roads.  When there is snow and ice all over the road its like you are driving on a constant rumble strip.  He shook, whined and about hyperventilated most of the time.  I gave him some benadryl just to help him be drowsy and it helped a little but he never went to sleep, poor guy.

Once we got there our holiday was fabulous!  We played games with family, ate amazing food, and visited.  I love when we all get a holiday off to just spend time together!  Instead of hitting the stores on Black Friday my dad drove us out to the Grand Canyon.  We had never really been before so it was amazing!  Heres a few pictures.



Now this drive was extremely bumpy and lurchy, but this time Burley just hunkered down and went to sleep.  I don't understand him at all!! He was seriously bouncing off of my lap most of the way and yet he still slept!

We took a good family picture with who was able to be there.

We got to skype with Tyler and Janae and Baby Gavin, who was only 4 days old.  He is so so cute!  Here are a few pictures of him and their cute Christmas picture.



It took about 13 hours to get home because we drove in a storm again, all the way from Cedar to Pocatello.  Not the most fun drive, but at least Burley slept about 90% of the time!  We decided next time we are flying!!

Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  Not because I like to be scared.  Most definitely not because I like to be scared!  Just ask Doug if he will ever be taking me to the Haunted Mill again.  I love it because of the fall colors, the pumpkin carving, dressing up and seeing all of the cute little kids.  Not to mention the candy! Heres a few pictures of some of my favorite decorations I put up!






So this year Doug and I dressed up as 'The Guitar Hero' and a singer in the band. I think we pulled off 80s punk rock. Pretty good huh?  I was tempted to give Burley a mohawk and spray it red or something, but I didn't want to torture him that much.  So we made him a ghost costume.  He's probably the cutest ghost I've ever seen!



We carved pumpkins, played in leaves, and had a fun Halloween dinner. We also enjoyed the Halloween concert.  They are so fun and entertaining!  So that was our fun holiday!







Our Hiking Experiences

This summer we were able to go on some really fun hikes!  I've already wrote about our hiking with Brittany in Teton Canyon and climbing Table rock with my dad.  But I'll include some of those pictures anyways!

#1 - Our first hike of the summer on the Huckleberry Trail with Burley.  We kept him on a leash and it was a good thing too!  The trail maintainer/ranger guy came down the trail with a backpack on and an ax in his hand.  Burley went crazy barking and growling!! I think he was ready to protect us from the 'big animal' coming towards us.
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#2- Teton Canyon hiking with my sister Brittany.  We enjoyed the beautiful scenery!  There were waterfalls everywhere and everything was so green.  We had a picnic by the river and enjoyed the great weather.
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#3- Table Rock with my dad.  It was an awesome hike!!  The weather was perfect and there was hardly any wind on the top of table rock.  It's a hike we have to do every year.
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#4- Pack Saddle Lake hike.  Doug was getting ready for school to start and just had to have another day outdoors befor that happened.  So we planned a picnic, grabbed our coats and drove out towards Driggs.  I had never been to Pack Saddle Lake before and so I was excited.  We decided to let Burley off of the leash to see how he would do.  He was awesome!! He never tried going off the trail and would run ahead then turn and wait for us.
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This is what we found when we got there!  It was just beautiful!!
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There was a rope swing hooked up too!  Of course we had to swing on it and I'm sure if it had been 20 degrees warmer we would have just let go and jumped in the water.  It was an unusually cold day even though it was sunny and beautiful.
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#5 - Hiking around Cave Falls and to the Bechler River.  The Saturday after my birthday we went out to see the collapsed cave at Cave Falls.  Again we packed a lunch and brought Burley along.  We were very glad that Burley never jumped in the river.

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The Falls were beautiful but the fall time colors were even more amazing!!  Everything was yellow, orange, and red!
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We weren't really planning to hike, but we just couldn't resist the beauty surrounding us so we jumped on a trail that followed the river.  After a while the trail took us a little away from the river and I suggested we turn back.  Of course Doug being who he is said, 'Lets just go a little bit farther.  Then we can have lunch and turn around.  I just want to see what's up around that corner.'  And boy I'm glad we did just see what was around the corner!
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#6- Backpacking from Bechler River Ranger Station to Old Faithful.  Ok so I'd never been backpacking before in my life....until harvest vacation this year.  Doug got me all excited to hike to Old Faithful so I insisted we still do it, even though the weather might not be amazing the whole time.  So we rented some gear from BYUI and bought our freeze dried meals.  It didn't really cross my mind how far 30 miles really is, especially when you are carrying a pack!

We did it in 3 days and it was awesome!  Yes I was sore when we got done.  I hobbled around on sore feet for a few days and had some knots in my shoulders and back.  But I would do it again in a heartbeat!!!  I loved being out alone with Doug and in a place you could only get to by hiking.

The first day was beautiful!  It was sunny and the hiking was easy.  We went across these huge meadows.  I'm glad it wasn't really wet other wise we would have been hiking in a lot of mud.  We had to cross the river 3 times.  It was pretty freezing and up to my mid-thighs!  Thank goodness we brought our chacos!


Just after the last river ford we found our first camping site.  We got our tent set up and dinner made just before the clouds gathered and it started to sprinkle.  We tied our food up on the bear pole and snuggled in for the night.

Unfortunately it rained all night long and continued in the morning!  So we had to pack up a wet tent and it was quite chilly.  We got going and started up the first real climb.  We passed waterfall after waterfall!  It was beautiful even in the rain.  We also passed a lot of thermal areas that were steaming in the cold weather.



When we got up on the ridge passed three rivers junction, it was like we were just up in a cloud! We couldn't really see off the side of the ridge or the mountains surrounding us.  It was amazing!  It began snowing where we were supposed to camp up at the top of the mountain....so we decided to come down the other side and camp in a lower campground.  Luckily that campground wasn't already taken by anyone.

And our last morning we were trudging along (me in front) when around the bend came a BIG buffalo.  I gasped and jumped off the trail and Doug didn't know what to think at first.  Once he realized it wasn't a bear he was happy!  We grabbed a few pictures while he walked past us like we weren't even there.  Our one and only wildlife encounter on this trip.

This picture doesn't do him justice!


Lone Star Gyser


At the end-Yes our smiles look a little strained and I'm standing like my feet are killing me, well because they were!