Tifie Orphanage

Here is a picture of one of the girls I visited at the Orphanage here. It is one of many, but I am not going to push my luck on getting more on here right now. This one has taken me three days. The connection here is really slow.

This girl was really excited to show me their lamp. They didn't have any electricity when we visited, so we bought them a little gas to light their lamp with.

Fair Time with Tutu's Hawaiian Shave Ice

Hailey and I having a heart to heart in the booth. That red top canopy really cast a deep shadow on us!
Mom, Nathan, Caitlyn and Tucker working hard at the booth. We had some pretty slow moments, but over all it wasn't a bad year.
Thuey and Hoa helped out on Sunday. Thuey was a super fast learner on the cash register, which was great for me cause I was done with it at that point.
We had about 12 different flavors to choose from. I think Tigers Blood was one of the most popular. What is Tigers Blood, you ask? Funny you should ask, cause so did everyone else who ordered from us who hadn't before. Tiger's blood is cherry and coconut mix, one of my favorites, though I think my all time favorite this year was the root beer flavor with the ice cream in the bottom, tasted like a root beer float.

Every year my family has a booth selling shave ice at the county fair. I missed it last year as I was traveling and so made a special trip out this year not to miss it. I ended up being there everyday for about a week. We had a really good time. We didn't even get in any arguments. I love it when the family can have fun without drama!

Grama's Sunday Dinner

Whose got the coolest Grama in the world? I do!!!!!!!
She looks better in these shades than me.

Every Sunday Grama organizes a dinner for what ever family is in town. The Stewarts are almost always around and I make it once in a while. We also have some other cousins in the area who are doing school here off and on. This is a shot of Grama, Aunt Heather and I at the Stewarts house. We have been having the dinner there cause they have a BBQ grill and Grama is dedicated to having BBQ every Sunday. mmmm, yum, I don't mind it at all.

Oh ya, and Whitney my Cousin always makes an amazingly delicious desert.

All the way Up Timp!

I was walking to the "Toilet" when I snapped this one. The flowers up there were georgeous. This doesn't even do it justice.

We ran into some Mountain Goat near the top. They were super patient with us, probably cause there wasn't really anywhere for them to go, there was too many people on the hike and they couldn't get around everyone. I wonder how long they had to hang out at this spot.

Me at the top, over looking emerald lake.

The marker for the summit! We made it!

There were some really steep spots at the top. I was wishing I had eaten a banana or two as my calves kept cramping up. Happily I am not sore a bit today.

Joshua and Macrun

Tyre, Joshua's puppy. So cute. He might have a little Dingo in him.

Yesterday morning I got up at 4:45 to be at the opening of American Fork Canyon at 5:30. I met up with 6 friends (some new and some not so new) there, to hike Timp. I have never seen so many people on a hike before. It was packed but for good reason. It was actually bearable weather there. It has been so hot in Utah! I am ready to move away from the cold winters and insane hot summers of this desert. One more year!

Eardly Canyon, San Rafael Swells

New Hair Cut

Last weekend I went up to Ogden to join in on a Volleyball tournament with Tucker's family. I filled in for his sister who broke her ankle a couple weeks ago. We didn't do great, but we had the most fun out of everyone. That was Saturday, Sunday we went to Church then drove down to Pleasant Grove to have dinner with one of his friends and his family. We ended up playing wee till 11pm. Then we were up Monday morning at 5:45 to take Tucker's brother to the airport. We took a nap in the Liberty Park in SLC with all the rest of the bums, then drove down to Drapper where we met with my soon to be new boss who took us out for lunch. We were done with that around 2pm then raced down to Provo to get ready for our next adventure.

We were ready and on the trail head of Mt. Nebo down by Nephi by 5:45. We climbed 8,000 feet in 3 and a half hours. I got a bit of altitude sickness and we had left our map down in the car so we were winging it. It was around 9:30 when we realized were were only 2 miles away from our goal and had reached the ridge line. We shoved as many rocks out of the way as possible and jumped in our sleeping bags totally beat.

Our goal was to wake up the next morning at 4am to get to the top and back down in time for my . . . . . hair appointment. I had set an anointment with a good friend Julie who is at the Paul Mitchell hair school and 10:30 am on Tuesday was the only time I could get an appointment this week and next week I am in Oregon, so I was not about to let my qewtip of a hair dew grow into a cotton ball! Tucker was pretty amused that I would move so fast to get a hair cut, but I showed him. We turned a 12 hour hike into an 8 hour hike and ran the whole way down to the car.

I forgot to take my camera along on Mt. Nebo, but my proof for this one is in the hair cut. So there you go.

Mt. Timp

Tucker was supposed to fly in around midnight a couple of Fridays ago. His flight was late, so he didn't get in till around 2:30. I picked him up, we drove to Provo, got some food at walmart, picked up Lucy dog and drove to the trail head. Neither of us were able to get any sleep, but we were bond and determined to hike Timp like we had planned. We weren't able to get on the trail until 6am. We ended up getting to right below the peak of Timp and we took a nap. Then we stomped up some snow, till we couldn't get up any higher. Lucy as usual was a great hiker. All three of us were dead tired afterwards.

A Tribute to Jenn and Dann

Here are my friends Jenn and Dann. Jenn who I have known for 2 years, and Dann for a month. They are getting married on the 13th of September!!!! They met, dated after a couple of days and then were engaged after a couple of days. Kinda crazy, but they sure do look good together.

Chocolate Cake Taste Testing Party

Leilani, Maria and I had a conversation one night about who had the best chocolate cake in Provo. We have had some really good chocolate cake over our time here and although we were all pretty sure which we liked best we decided to put them to a true test. Leilani and Maria bought all the cakes the night before. Magglebies, Art City Trolly Cafe, PF Changs, and . . . . Rob's chocolate cake from his own recipe. We invited a lot of friends over and blindfolded them. We cut up apples so that between every bite they could all cleans their pallets.

Then we took a vote. And whose cake won??? Rob's, the best cake in Utah! It is amazing, melts in your mouth, dense chocolaty goodness made without wheat. Amazing!

Ani DeFranco concert.

I flew into SLC on Saturday afternoon the 21st of June just in time for the greatest concert of my life. Ani DeFranco puts on a great show. Too bad there were so many same sex attracted people. I have never been checked out more in my life!

Smith Rock

Tucker took me to Smith Rock for two days. On our second day we got to watch these hard core climbers do their thing. The one guy in the blue shirt was climbing on his own, with a new thing I just learned about called aid gear. He belayed himself. Pretty crazy to watch. They were both at least 300 ft up!

Nieces Dance

I made it back to Oregon in June to see my nieces perform in their recital. CC is the second from the left. The twinkies, Ava and Bri are the two little blonds in pink on the front row. I somehow missed Kennedy, but she was a pretty damn cute sailor girl. The whole recital was a blast. Too bad I didn't get any sleep the night before because of the garage sale.

REI Garage Sale

One of my favorite things in the world to do is shop for gear. The REI garage sales provide me with the perfect opportunity to buy a bunch more gear that I already have but that I might just still need.
This is Hung Tao our friend staying with my family this summer. He came with me at 4 in the morning to wait in line at the garage sale. We thought we would be pretty close to the front of the line, turned out there were 86 people in front of use who were a little more hard core than we were. I still managed to get some of the best deals of my life!

Nikki's Birthday Party

Last year for Nikki's birthday I threw her a dance party in the Ghana Stake Center. We had Mango, and Pinnapple and about 5 cakes that were all gone in a matter of minutes. Then our friends had an intense dance off.

This year Nikki's friend Dina made the best Egyptian food I ever tasted, probably the only I have ever tasted, it was amazing. Then we danced. Here is a picture of Nikki and her niece, Kelly and Jarrod.