Summertime smatterings

Justin got a new toy! He's been hemming and hawing about getting it and then one day he finally did! He got a nexus 7 tablet. It's basically an Ipad but with Google instead of Apple. ( Justin is kind of anti apple. ) 

He's been having lots of fun with it, playing games mostly but also doing some writing. I have been having fun with the games as well. Sometimes...Justin will even let me take it to work. 

This little bro of mine had a birthday and turned 15. He's is getting so big and tall. I used to be able to win any argument by taking him down, I don't think I can do that any more. =) He's a fun and energetic brother. We love him.

This was by our mailbox one day. I love it for so many reasons. The spelling of lemonade, the attempts at how to spell house, and the fact that I have no idea where "lizzy house" is. Got to love all the kids in the neighbor hood. Our neighborhood has been great. We've had our lawn mowed twice by secret service neighbors. We are so grateful. 

My sisters and I worked on one of my mom's summer bucket list items. To summit Mt Timpanogas! It's different then the cave hike, it's on the other side of the giant mountain. It was a really pretty hike, but very long about 6.5 miles round trip. I was surprised by how green everything was in July especially since it was when all the fires were happening. 

Yeah....we were going to go to the top of that bad boy.I was kind of being a wimp and had to take lots of breaks. I was sorely out of shape but we still had fun.

When we got to the almost top we saw cute little mountain goats. Just hanging out. In all my hikes around Utah and other places I have never seen a Mountain goat in real life. So I thought it was pretty cool. By the time we got to this part we were all so tired and really didn't want to summit. But the views were still pretty.

We had fun and were super tired. We came home to an awesome dinner made by Justin. We've been having fun this summer and hope that you have too!

Hikin'

Last week my work rearranged my schedule to give me a Thursday night off with the rest of the weekend off Justin decided to take Friday off so we could play. I have been wanting to do some hikes and other summer fun so that's what we did. We started out the day with a short little hike up to Ensign Peak near the Capital in Salt Lake city.

It was a fun little hike. It's really steep but it's short so it kind of makes up for it. 

The view from the top the southeast view

The southwest view. This one was fun because you could see the planes taking off and landing from the top.

Me checking out the peak.

Me trying to get Justin and the peak all in one.

It's a pretty cool landmark and story of how Brigham Young and other church leaders hiked up there to survey the land and to choose that spot to make it an Ensign to the city. As we were going around Salt Lake I was reminded of all the cool history of that town. How the city was founded by Brigham Young and other church leaders. I am glad that Temple Square is there to share that history with all the visitors.

When we got done with Ensign Peak we were all pumped to try another one. So we attempted to find and hike a trail called " The Living Room" near the University of Utah campus. We got kind of lost and didn't know where to turn and got an another trail. It was fun but really steep and I had to pee the whole time. But it was a fun view of the other side of the city.

That's the hospital and other buildings for the University.

This was a fun little jaunt. It's called hidden falls up the Big cottonwood canyon. It is seriously like 50 steps off the road. But it was fun and no body else was around.  We had to do a little climbing to get there so that was different.

To end the day we had a cool sunset show as we were driving to Logan. I thought this looked really cool.