Weekend Trip Part I: Bryce Canyon National Park

After a crazy whirlwind of a weekend, I can happily say that I am back in Springville still alive.  Yes, still alive.  Because there were a few moments on that trip that I actually feared for my life and my two friends who I went with.  Let me explain.

Nicole and Mollie are avid hikers who love exploring nature.  For Mollie's birthday they decided to head down to Utah to see me and to explore some of the state's awesome parks.  Since I hadn't been to either Bryce or Zion, I was totally pumped to go with them.  What I didn't know was that 1) I would be hiking over ten miles every day 2) I could potentially fall to my death on SEVERAL of these trails 3) They are crazy.

Our trip started with us heading to Bryce on Friday.  We got into town early enough that we were able to head into the park, go to the visitors center, get in a walk along the Rim Trail and drive along and stop at all the scenic view points.

The views from the top of Bryce were spectacular.  The Rim Trail takes you along several viewpoints around the amphitheater.  Every one takes your breath away.

If you couldn't tell, the day we got there it was SO COLD!  We had about four layers on each.

After we hiked the rim, we took a drive along the rest of the 18 miles of scenic viewpoints, ending at Rainbow Point, elevation 9115 feet.

On the way back we stopped at a few other points, my favorite being the Natural Bridge.

 The next day started off early and we got a beautiful view of the sun coming up over the canyon.

We decided to combine three of the main hikes, the Navajo, Queens Garden and Peek-A-Boo Loops, to go on what is called the Figure Eight.

The trails were very nice and easy to follow.  

Views were spectacular.  Around every bend it was a new treat.

With lots of horse poop...

Since it was Duck game day, we had to get a few more O shots in.

A treat we happened to notice along the way was that there was a prize if you took your picture or got rubbings from three benchmarks along the trails.  In total, there are nine throughout the park.  We just so happened to pass three on our journey to get that prize!

The end of the trail was marked by two giant pines.  On our way out we got to see the sun peeking through.

Then we came to this nutty uphill of switchbacks.  Notice most people are heading down.  Whoops.

And our final view of Bryce after making it back to the top.

We managed to be on the road by mid afternoon and head down south to Zion.  You may have noticed there were no scary tidbits in all of that hiking.  That's because there weren't.  Get excited for Zion.

All in all, we got very lucky with our weather...little chilly, but beautiful blue skies.  Would definitely recommend a stop in Bryce if you are ever on the road in the area!

First Anniversary!

Yes, I know, there is much to catch up on, but I thought I would skip ahead a bit remind everyone that Chris and I just passed our first year mark five days ago on September 15th!  Yahoo!

It's been awesome and stupendous every step of the way.  Now only 59 more to go to catch up to my grandparents...

We decided to take a quick trip up to Park City in honor of our mini honeymoon and to also see if we could use that amazing hot air balloon ride my uncle gave us as a wedding gift.  Although it was a no go due to the weather, we still had a great time cheering on our Ducks against Tennessee at the Collie's Sports Bar & Grill.

On Sunday we had breakfast at The Bridge and dined on french toast and mimosas.

Then we hit the Park Silly Market and wandered about checking out the booths.  There was a mini farmers market even, where I managed to snag a pound of garlic to plant in my garden.  Success!  They have some great entertaining and food booths there also.

We managed to get someone to snag a few pictures from up on the bridge before we hit the road.

And one selfie of course!

Instead of heading straight home after, we headed to Salt Lake City to check out the Leonardo Museum's latest exhibit which featured 101 Inventions that changed the World.  Gotta say that it was a bit disappointing.  Usually they are much more interactive, but this one was basically a video that ran through all the inventions and their creators.  Whomp whomp.

*Sidenote: There was also a recycling exhibit upstairs though, which prompted me when I got home to look into our recycling program here in Springville.  Guess who is finally signed up?!?!  And to everyone who is questioning why we weren't in the first place, they were going through a change in companies...hence why I got a crazy I have no idea when you can sign up/if ever answer when I called last year and got extremely confused.

After the exhibit we toured a sculpture garden tucked away in the middle of the city that was pretty neat.  Forgetting how long Salt Lake blocks were though, we found ourselves tired and hot from walking and decided to do an early dinner at a nice Italian restaurant near Trolley Square.  Originally we wanted to do a nice dinner at a restaurant called Chef's Table in Provo.  We did Valentine's there a few years back and it was wonderful.  However, wouldn't ya know, they are closed on Sundays.  Hmmppff.

So of course we decided to extend our anniversary for one more day and went on Monday.  It was amazingly delicious.  I dined on the most scrumpcious steak I've ever had in my life.  The blackberry sauce was TO DIE FOR.  Near the end of our meal we got the pleasure of eavesdropping on Utah governor Gary Herbert at the table next to us.  It was quite inspiring.  *COUGH*  Wouldn't ya know though...I forgot to take a picture of us all dressed up!!! We looked very fancy, let me tell you!

Now only 360 days until I get to treat myself to that steak again...oh and celebrate with my loving, amazing, handsome husband!

I'm SUCH a Liar!

I know, I know!  I'm a brat and lied to you about posted the patio pictures OVER A MONTH AGO.  Sorry!  I find that whenever I go on vacation I tend to quit posting for awhile.  Not good.  So, anywho, I am back and ready to share those awesome pics with you all.

One of my favorite facts about the patio is that we weren't even planning on doing it when my parents showed up in late June.  In fact, it was supposed to be the fence that would be going up.  Upon my mother's first look at the backyard, however, she declared that we really should be doing a patio as well.  Here's a pretty before picture so you all can agree with her.

Before digging up anything we had to weed the entire area.  What a pain.

Dwight was a very good supervisor.

Weed, weed, weed.

Looks good, right?  Yeah, I know.  Their are so many things wrong in the above picture.  Only half of which is now corrected.  The other half is yet to come.

After the weeding, the boys got busy digging out all the gravel and the dirt so we were six inches deep.

Mr. Mean Mug.

We ordered a dump truck to bring in gravel to fill the first four inches and sand to fill the top two inches.

Gravel done.

Bright and early the next morning we rented a Home Depot truck and proceeded to make FOUR trips back and forth to get the compacter for packing down the gravel before putting down the sand and stone, and 9,000 pounds of pavers.  The trucks have a 3,000 pound weight limit.  So fun!

Papa John compacted while Chris drove to get more bricks.

Chris' friend, Alex, happened to be stopping by for a visit from Oregon at just the right time for him to help us unload the pavers.

Funny side note, when Chris first moved to Utah and started the landscaping, his friend Brandon was with him and helped unload a few thousand pounds of bricks as well.  Just an FYI to any of Chris' friends who come visit, you may end up hauling a lot of stone.

Dwight was still supervising on Day 3.  Hard worker, that one.

If you happened to notice that brand spanking new wheelbarrow was different from the last Dwight shade structure, then you get an A+.  Papa John decided to throw a giant rock into the first one and it just so happened to fall right through the bottom of the tray.  Whoops!  It was quite a trip getting the new one home too.  Who would have thought that it would take a half hour for the store employee to find tools at Lowe's to take it apart so it would fit in the car?  Craziness.

Our ever growing pile of pavers.

Once we were finished unloading everything, Chris and Alex got cleaned up and I took them to the airport to go New Orleans for their friend, Jake's, bachelor party.  Lucky brats.

The next day we got started on the paver laying.  It was a little slow going at first until we got a nice process down.  Mama Karen did paver picking, cleaning and organizing so we would use an equal amount of all the various shapes.  I was the designer/layer-outer person.  And Papa John was the hammer-downer person.  I think the rubber mallet in the garage has officially taken first place as the cheapest, yet most used tool in there.  That baby got a work out!

Here is progress after the first paver day.

A few more days of paver placement ensued in the hot, summer sun.  Next we rented a brick cutter so we could make the edges of the patio flow with the shape of the retaining wall and the grass circle (where we will eventually have a fire pit...gas line already all hooked up).  I think this was the extra step that really makes the patio look awesome.  

After waiting a few days for our Amazon edging to arrive (we found out after the fact that Home Depot DID carry it, the employee I asked apparently just wanted us to suffer two agonizing days of no work), we finally got it in place.

Last step was to take some paver set polymeric sand and brush it with brooms in between all the cracks.  Five buckets later we hosed it down to set it in place.  Four rounds of hosing later we had a finished patio!

Here is the first magnificent addition to our backyard.

SO AWESOME!

Three days later I was able to put the table and chairs back on it.

Yes, those may be fence posts you see in the background...

And below is a sneak peek for another project that I'm currently working on.  I'll give you one guess.

Chris and I absolutely LOVE having our patio done.  So nice not tracking in all that gravel anymore.  

Next spring/summer we are going to tackle one tiny addition to it to make it a little more fluid with the rest of the curved yard by extending it just to the other side of the air conditioning unit and curving it around the grass a bit more.

Slowly, but surely, this yard is coming along!