Our Vacation, Part Three: California

We left Reno around 11am on Wednesday and headed over to Sacramento, CA. We wound our way through town, compliments of the GPS and found the zoo. We forked over the admission and stepped into one of those places where time doesn't exist. At least not until 4pm, when the zoo closes.

We wandered through the reptile house and the bird aviaries
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Past the lions, tigers and... no, not bears, but zebras. AJ was almost mesmerized by the giraffes and I have to agree. They really are interesting, graceful animals... especially for how big they are.
My favorite was probably the gibbons, a small species of apes. They were so fun to watch. So energetic and playful, swinging through their cage and eating the leaves. I also liked the orangutans. They were just goofy-looking, but in a loveable kind of way. It was fun to watch them just laze around in the warm sunshine. It was awesome to just wander around, hand-in-hand, not worrying about anything but what we should go see next.

After we left the zoo we braved rush-hour freeway traffic and headed for the nearest Best Buy. We were looking for a couple filters for our camera for our trip to the beach. On our way the rental car started getting too hot, hot enough to worry AJ, so we parked it and went into Best Buy. But as luck would have it, we had no idea what we were looking for and ended up returning the filter we bought there. We were told about a camera store in a mall across the street and decided we might as well, since we couldn't drive our car, as it was still overheating. We still had no idea what we were looking for and we ended up returning that filter too. This time we used a couple brain cells and took the camera in with us and asked for help from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. We finally got the ones we wanted and that actually fit the camera.

We got back out to the car and AJ decided we should just get another one that we wouldn't have to worry about. He made a couple calls and then we headed out to the airport to exchange our overheating engine. The first car they gave us was another Sonata, but when AJ opened the door he nearly choked on all cigarette smoke that was just waiting for an escape route. So, he went back in and got a different car. They must have been trying to punish us for being so difficult or something, because they gave us a Chevy HHR. Not only was it the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life, it was the most uncomfortable car I have ever ridden in. And the visibility was horrible. AJ likened the windows to portholes on a ship. And it didn't have any of the fun little extras our first Sonata had. So, in a nutshell... I would never, ever recommend a Chevy HHR to anyone. Ever.

After we spent an hour at the airport, enough to make us sick of it, we pulled out the GPS and started for my grandma's place. To make matters worse, the computer running the GPS died and we didn't know where we were or where we were going. Luckily, AJ pulled out his phone and used his Blackberry Maps to get us to our bed. We finally found Hotel Grandma and Ruth and the service was impeccable. We were fed and entertained and then we blew up our air mattress and caught a few short hours of shut-eye.

At 5am we drowsily rolled outta bed and somehow into our clothes. AJ figured out where we were going and we got on the road. AJ drove and I slept our way across western California. I woke up just past Vallejo and we slowly made our way in rush-hour traffic to San Francisco. We stopped just before the Golden Gate Bridge and took some pictures. After that we worked our way down to Pier 39, found parking and walked along the boardwalk. There were some old Navy vessels that we went and looked at.

At 10:17am we bought tickets and made our way into The Aquarium of the Bay. AJ had never been to an aquarium before and it was neat to watch him. Our favorite part of the aquarium, though, was the Touch the Bay. They had three tanks with different creatures in them and we got to touch them! It was so neat. In one tank, they had Bat Rays and Skates. I didn't touch the Skates but the Bat Rays were silky and smooth, almost like wet velvet. In the second tank they had Leopard Sharks. They were rough and scaly, but they looked sleek and soft. It's neat to be able to say "I've touched a shark!" And in the third tank there were sea stars, sea urchins and a couple little fish. The sea stars were hard and bumpy. The sea urchins were spiny, hard and bristly. They moved their spines toward your fingers when you touched them. It was kinda cool. My favorites were the sharks though. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed playing with all the neato animals.

After the aquarium, we drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge and took a few more pictures. We decided we were starving to death and stopped at In-n-Out. Oh boy, it was so delicious. We made our way over some amazingly twisty-turny roads and up the pennisula to Point Reyes Lighthouse. You have to park and walk about a half-mile to the lighthouse. On our way, we saw a deer standing just off the road in the brush. It was pretty neat that she was so close. We had to take some pictures. Before we got to the lighthouse I had warned AJ about the 308 steps to the lighthouse, but apparently I built it up too much and he was a little disappointed. He was expecting an East Coast lighthouse. But alas, we walked down those notorious 308 steps and took a couple pictures. We were lucky and they actually opened the lighthouse and we were able to go inside and see it. The park ranger explained how it works and everything. It was pretty neat. We decided to head out to the tidepools and that meant the crazy, strenuous 308 steps back up to the top. Whew! What a workout!

We drove to the parking lot of McClure's Beach and began our hike down the mountain to the beach. It's kind of a steep little walk and my calves got yet another work out. When we got to the bottom of the mountain it opens up into the beach. AJ had never been to a real beach before and I absolutely love the way it opens out onto the beach. This is my favorite beach in the whole wide world. The tide was already starting to come back in and so we didn't find a whole ton of tidepools to play in, but AJ did find a couple crabs and some sea anemones to poke with sticks. He's such a boy. He did find three sea stars in a crevase in the rocks. He pulled one out, cleaned all the grass and stuff off of it and I took pictures. We then climbed the rocks up to the top formation, one I have dubbed "The Thrones" because they look like three chairs. We spent close to an hour and a half sitting up there watching the waves roll in and the sun sink lower in the sky. It was absolutely perfect.

We decided we probably better get headed back to Reno as we had quite the drive ahead of us. We started hiking back up the mountain and AJ spotted some elk in the brush. We watched them for a while. We finally reached the top and headed back down the twisty roads and back east to Reno, still spotting more elk. I fell asleep just as we started up Donner Pass and the next thing I knew we were pulling off the freeway in Sparks. We tried to quitely creep inside and up to bed and some much needed sleep. It was a long day. An amazing day, but long nevertheless. And despite all that, it was perfect. All a girl could ask for.

Our Vacation, Part Two: Reno

So, we were supposed to spend Monday on Temple Square, but by the time we left Tavia and Seth's it was rainy and windy. Not exactly what we wanted to go walk around in. We hit up the VF Factory Outlets instead. I can't complain, I got two new pairs of jeans for $20. Yay for new pants!

Tavia and Seth introduced us to a few games this weekend and so we decided that we'd check out a few malls and see if we couldn't add those games to our collection. We visited two different malls and three different stores before we found one of them... specifically at a price we were willing to pay for them. We spent our time wandering around the malls and just enjoying being together.

OUR CLOSE CALL: I decided to include this because we are greatly blessed and it was a little funny... after the fact. Quite a while after the fact. We were just getting on the freeway in Salt Lake. There was a full-sized Chevy Tahoe in front of us and a highway emergency vehicle in front of them. AJ was looking over his shoulder to merge into the next lane and the Tahoe in front of us slams on it's brakes. I frantically start tapping AJ's arm to get his attention, he looks and in a split second slides us into the other lane. We were probably less than 6 inches from the Tahoe. So, I'm sitting there having a heart attack and AJ goes "yellow". We play the slugbug game. I looked at him incredulously and said, "I'm sorry, I'm having a heart attack. I can't play right now." We were super blessed and it was a little funny that my husband's adrenaline didnt kick in until after he'd called (and got points for) the slugbug.

Back to our trip. We got on an airplane at Salt Lake International and got off in Reno around 5 o'clock, Reno time. We rented our first rental car (a Hyundai Sonata that came with all the perks) and drove to my parent's house. We had Wendy's for dinner and watched Psych. Just hung out and chilled.

On Tuesday, we went up to Virginia City. It's an old mining town that has a train ride you can go on. We walked up and down the main street and looked in a few over-priced shops. AJ's favorite part, hands down, was the train ride. The Courthouse has one of the only Lady Justices that isn't blindfolded. It was supposed to signify that justice wasn't blind in this rough mining town. After a few hours we headed back to Reno and spent the evening with my family prior to attending Institute with Andrew. We then made a sweet tooth dash to Sonic and discovered their cranberry slushy. Most delicious!

We'd had to make adjustments for our California plans so that we had a free hotel... a.k.a. Grandma and Ruth's house. So, when we got back home we hit the sack in preparation for our trip to California the next day.

Our Vacation, Part One: The Utah Wolffs

We started our vacation Friday night by driving down to American Fork, with a slight detour. We went through Logan, UT and stopped at the temple. I was born there and so the Logan temple has always kinda been 'my temple'. We stopped and took pictures with our neat-o camera. And the exciting part: We found the temple we want to be sealed in! YAY! We'd been thinking about it for a while, but AJ had never seen it and after our little stop it became official. We've found our castle. So... February 10, 2009. Logan, UT temple... be there. =]


Anyways, back to our vacation. We arrived at Hotel Mathers around 10:30pm. That's my sister-in-law and her hubby. Seth had already gone to work so we hung out and talked with Tavia for a while and then got our much-needed beauty sleep.

On Saturday we braved BYU football game traffic and went up to the Provo Temple. After we walked around the grounds and took a few pictures we ate at Tucanos for my other brother-in-law's birthday (which is next weekend, but why not celebrate all week?). After that AJ and I hung out at his sister Jewelia's house. We watched the end of the BYU football game and I took quite the great little nap. We then went shopping for today's pot luck dinner and my honey bought me an ice cream cone cuz he loves me. I got some great pictures of the kids, their dad, and AJ playing in the yard. It's true: boys never grow up. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's one of the things I love about my husband. He'll be a great dad some day. Seth and Tavia came over and we had a game night at Chris and Jewelia's. It was a lot of fun. I really do enjoy spending time with my in-laws.



Today, we went to Church in Pleasant Grove and got to watch our adorable niece and nephews in their Primary Program. It was so fun. After church we went up to the Mount Timpanogos Temple. There are so many beautiful temples in this area and I love the Spirit that is there. Even if you can only walk around the outside of the gate. We got some gorgeous pictures and then we went and drove the American Fork Canyon Alpine Loop. It so gorgeous. The trees are just starting to change to beautiful fall colors. It was a great reminder of how beautiful the world really is. AJ's favorite part of the drive were the six motorcycles in front of us... He was pretty jealous. I could nearly feel the adrenaline and testosterone coursing through his body from clear across the car. =]



On the way back we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. It was gorgeous. I got to play with shutter speeds on the water and to spend some amazing time with my husband. AJ enjoyed climbing up the falls and playing in the water... on accident. But it was yet another reminder of some of the many things that I absolutely love about my husband. We came back to Hotel Mathers and had dinner with the family.

We are going to spend the day in Salt Lake tomorrow. There are a few things we wanna do around Temple Square. And then tomorrow evening it's off on part two of this vacation: Reno. Ready or not, here we come!

What a Weekend

We had decided to ride the bike to Idaho Falls for date night Friday. I had to ask a couple times, but I knew AJ would never turn down a bike ride and I was stoked to get to spend some time at the temple, even if it was just a walk around the grounds. I'm sure AJ enjoyed that too, but the motorcycle ride didn't hurt my case. We ate at Subway for dinner and then spent some time on the Idaho Falls Temple grounds, taking pics with our fantabulous camera. We even ventured to the other side of the river for some of those shots with the river and the temple in the background. I was excited that I got to play with shutter speeds on the waterfalls. It's really quiet neat what you can do if you know how. We watched the sun set over the river with the temple in the background. We are really excited for February and hope, pray and work so that everything will be in place so we can finally be sealed. What a relief and blessing that will be.

AJ is one of those people that hops up outta bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as soon as dawn cracks. I, on the other hand, am not so fond of any hour before 9am... especially on a Saturday. So, he went out and ran some errands while i caught up with another hour or so of my beauty sleep. Eventually, we both were outta bed and running a few errands around town. AJ had the bright idea to call a couple friends and see if they wanted to come to Craters of the Moon with us. It's about 100 miles from Pocatello. I had never been and it had been about 10 years since AJ had. We met up with them around 1pm and set off on our little road trip.

The scenery was so unique it was breathtaking. As AJ put it, "it's not somewhere I'd want to live, but it definitely makes you stop and look." We walked a couple trails and hiked up this huge cinder cone. This is the part where I fess up and admit that AJ carried me the last few hundred feet. I was already sore and my legs started cramping so my knight in shining armor whisked me on to his back and carried me. I consoled myself by telling us both I was helping him train for his PT test. Lol. And don't worry we've already worked out the argument of telling our kids they are too big to be carried when they get older, especially when they see daddy carrying mommy. =]

The cinder cone caught my interest and was one of my favorite parts. The rocks were black, but they had this glittery look. I don't really even know how to describe it, but it was very intriguing. I'm a girl through and through, all sparklies draw my eye and this was no exception. This doesn't look so bad and that's exactly what I was thinking... what you don't know is that it keeps going up another few hundred feet that you can't see. And by the time you can see it, you're already panting for breath... or getting muscle cramps as was my case.

We went and walked around the spatter cones. AJ had a picture taken the last time he was there in the spatter cones and we got a similar picture of him and then the two of us. I had scrapbooked the picture of AJ in our scrapbook I did for our wedding (I did a scrapbook instead of a slideshow, like some people do). It was fun to take that little step back into the past. And to take one of the two of us... kinda a glimpse into the future. Can you see us?

AJ's favorite part was the caves. The first cave we went into we actually took quite the claustrophobic climb in. I don't suffer too bad from it, but I was really glad I am as small as I am. I figured if my 6'3" husband could make it through that little corridor I probably could too. It was an adventure, partly 'cause I didn't have a flashlight. There was one in front of me and one behind me, but when they both turned away it stopped me dead in the dark. The parallels of light and dark vs. the gospel and apostasy didn't escape me. I am very grateful for that amazing blessing in our life. It was quite a workout and I'm still a little sore, but what's that they say? No pain, no gain? Well, it was definitely worth it.

So, we had quite the weekend. Ok, it wasn't really anything super spectacular or anything but when your husband has been glued to the army for three out of the last four weekends (not to mention the two out of three weeks he was gone in August...) just having him home is quite something. I never knew I could miss someone so much. I know I just set off the gag reflex of nearly everyone with that. It has made me think though. One of the reasons we got married when we did was so that we would have time together before AJ deploys. I wanted to kinda get a handle on being a wife before I have to be the wife of a deployed soldier. All this time he has been gone lately has made me just that much more grateful for the time we have had together. I am so very glad we got married when we did, I'm glad we'll have a spousal relationship to fall back on while he's gone and not just a dating relationship. It'll be hard enough as it is and I''m glad we have those deeper bonds to rely on.

It has also made me want a forever sealing more than anything in the whole entire universe. I can't imagine losing him, losing part of me. The part that makes me happy, beautiful and whole. I always thought it was dumb when people would say their spouse made them whole or completed them. It wasn't until I got married that I realized I don't necessarily need the love of my life to live, but he sure makes things a million times better. I'm happier and life is better with him here. In a way, he does complete me.

We sometimes joke that he's my other 2/3 because of our height differences. I don't believe in 'soul mates' being that one person somewhere in the world that is your perfect match, but being that person you chose to build a life with, the one that makes you happier than you've ever been. The one that you never want to leave, even for just a short time. The one you love to come home to, that you tell all your secrets to, that you're always thinking about. AJ may not be my perfect match, but he is my soul mate. I sure love this man.

Another Army Adventure

Last weekend was drill weekend again. AJ was sent to Rexburg, Idaho to run the ID card machine (his normal job he does during the week) for the drill up there. We actually had to stay in Rigby because half the population of BYU-I was being dropped off by their parents... Luckily, I got to go with him this time. I was really getting tired of spending my nights alone. He was gone two out of three weeks in August. Sometimes, this army wife thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Anyway, the hotel we stayed in wasn't much of one, but I would trade my memory foam mattress for a night next to my husband any day

My favorite part of the whole trip was our date night. We hadn't really planned much of anything but ended up deciding we couldn't spend the whole evening in the hotel room. We decided on a movie (Kung Fu Panda... so cute) and a trip up to the Rexburg Temple at sunset. We recently got a new (well, new to us...) digital SLR camera. We've had a lot of fun playing with it, and it was great to have new subject material. You can only have your picture taken so many times. =) It was the first temple we've gotten to take pictures of, but if I have anything to say about it, it won't be the last.

I spent most of Sunday sitting in the Jeep out in front of the Armory while AJ did his ID thing, but alas, I came prepared and by no means ran out of things to do. Altho I was a little stiff yesterday morning... Oh well. And even better, AJ had yesterday off. It marked the 7th month of our marriage and was awesome to spend it together. He even took me out to lunch and we had dinner/FHE with the neighbors, so I didn't have to cook at all! What a perfect day.

Happy Seven Months!
Best 7 months of my life.