Valley of Fire – the Landscapes

Way back in March our family went on a camping trip to the Valley of Fire in Nevada (you can read about the trip here).

We stopped at Cove Fort on the way to Valley of Fire. It was nice and sunny and snow had fallen only the day prior to our visit. The result was quite breathtaking.

In this post we’ll share some of the stunning landscape of the park.  The image below was made just before dusk.  The mountains were completely shaded and the sky was still full of light in comparison.  The wind was very, very strong at the time which probably gave the clouds a stretchy quality.  :)

The next image shows the expansive and sweeping space so akin to our western national parks. 

The rocks of the Valley of Fire sometimes seem to climb out of that expanse as shown by the panoramic image below made near sunrise.  See it large here or full size here.

It is really fun to try and find shapes in the various rock forms. The rocks in the image below look like E.T.

This last image is one of my favorites because of the visible “mixing” of the rock layers.  Amazing!

If you’d like to see the rest of the images and several videos we made check out the gallery.

Jungle Jim’s Playland

Last week while carpet was being installed I took the kids to Jungle Jim’s Playland with my sister and her kids. It’s a little old (I went there when I was a kid) and small (only a few rides) but still a blast for little ones.

I forgot my camera but my sister got these two shots on her phone.

 

 

Yesterday morning I woke up to Madeleine standing at the top of the stairs crying frantically. From what I could understand it sounded like she had a dream that we all went to Jungle Jim’s and left her home alone. She was super sad!!!

They’ve been asking to go back and luckily we’ll be returning for a cousin’s birthday party next week.

Tidbits on a Tuesday

 

Things have been pretty busy around here. Here are some tidbits of information.

The house is coming along. It took almost 3 weeks to get the tile in but it looks so great. The painting is half done, we get carpet on Friday, and Saturday will be spent cleaning the outside of the house and planting flowers. Then we’ll be ready to officially put our house on the market. We so excited and nervous at the same time.

I’ve only looked online so far for houses. I keep going back and forth between newer and older homes. They each have advantages and disadvantages. Newer = Less remodeling/decorating, young children as neighbors for the kids, and possibly a nicer neighborhood. But also “cookie cutter” neighborhood, houses are close together, unfinished basements, and small yards with virtually no landscaping. Older = just the opposite of those things.

We’ve been pretty busy with our photography. In our queue to be blogged are: Valley of Fire landscapes, Smith & Edward’s junk yard, my niece’s bridals and wedding, a high school senior session, some missionaries, and portraits we took of Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah for Utah Business Magazine.

We watched “Bright Star” a couple of weeks ago and it was so good. It is Jane Austen-esque and oh, so romantic. It is only rated PG so it really is romantic, not lusty like so-called romantic comedies.

And here are some random family pictures from February, March, and April.

Rob’s mom’s birthday party:

  Miscellany:

Easter:

Wanna Come?

We’ve decided to go camping for three days/two nights over Memorial Day weekend. Does anyone want to join us??

This is our itinerary:

Visit the Bonneville Salt Flats

2 nights camping in Great Basin National Park

Lehman Caves

Visit Little Sahara sand dunes

Visit Eureka ghost town

Doesn’t that sound fun? Let us know if you wanna come!

Bowling Buddies

I’d been trying to think of something fun for Nate to do regularly over the summer to help fill the VAST amounts of time. Everything costs a fortune and we may be moving anyway, so I was a little discouraged. But then my friend, Kelli, emailed me a link to sign up for FREE bowling!! PERFECT!! If you’re interested in signing up your kids, go to KidsBowlFree.

We went this morning with our kids and had a really good time. The place was empty, the kids had a blast, and it’s always a sanity-saver to hang out with a friend.

I hadn’t taken any pictures for a while so I thought it’d be a fun thing to photograph…and it was. But it’s really hard to take pictures of little kids bowling. Obviously.

What every girl does in a bowling alley…it’s completely normal…

    

Madeleine looked so cute in her little bowling shoes!

After Madeleine got bored she wandered into the arcade and I followed towing Kelli’s baby. It was fun to have a new subject to subject to my flash. Family can see more here.

Here’s a sneak peak at the arcade shots I took. I’ve always thought arcades were creepy and this proves it. To see more, click over to our photography blog.

Julie’s History Questions 8-12

When and where did you meet your husband?

January 2002 at choir practice my first Sunday in a student ward. Then again a couple of weeks later at the ward’s FHE he came up and introduced himself to me again. He hadn’t remembered we had already met and chatted for a few minutes before.

When and where did you get married?

December 17, 2002 in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. 

Where did you go on your honeymoon?

The first night was at the Marriott in downtown Salt Lake. Then the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas for a couple of nights and then to an uncle’s vacation home in St. George for a couple of nights.

Where was your first home?

Rob’s parent’s basement for 10 months.

How many moves have you made during your married life? Where?

Four. West Salt Lake, avenues in Salt Lake, student housing at the U, Layton Utah townhome.

I’m Healed!

I’ve been having headaches almost daily for maybe a couple of months now. I’ve blamed pregnancy hormones, which could still be partly true. But at the same time I also had a terribly stiff neck and shoulders, especially in the mornings after waking up. Rob had to give me daily massages (not complaining about that!) but it was just getting so frustrating.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that as much as I love sinking my head into a big, soft pillow at night, maybe I need to try one of those contour pillows to see if it helps. Last week Rob had to run to Walmart and out of the blue picked me up just a cheap memory foam contour pillow to try and see if it helps. I woke up the next morning with NO stiffness in my neck and shoulders and I haven’t had any since which translates into NO headaches!!! WOW!!

A few details:

• I usually toss and turn at night, but since getting the pillow I’ve noticed I only roll over once or twice.
• This particular pillow is small. It’s probably too small for someone who isn’t petite. I have seen other brands in bigger sizes, though.
• It’s also the cheapest one you can buy (since it was an experiment). Sometime we’ll invest in a more expensive brand. But for now it’s working just fine.
• We also have a memory foam pad on our mattress so I haven’t tried the pillow on a firm mattress.

If you’ve had the same tension headache issues I had, try a memory foam contour pillow and see if it helps. It was TOTALLY worth the 15 bucks!

Home Improvement Disdain

I (Julie) don’t like home improvement. At all. I blame it on the fact that while growing up my parents had a large home improvement project every few months. At least it felt like every few months. I enjoy watching home improvement shows because they always make it look so easy, fast, and fun. But, boy, it sure isn’t. It’s dusty and disgusting and messy. It’s expensive. It’s muscle-tiring work. It takes 3 times longer than your best estimate. It makes me grumpy. Rob does all the hard labor and I complain when he asks me to go to Lowe’s for supplies.

We are currently replacing old tile, linoleum, and a strip of carpet with new tile. We (by we I mean Rob) started taking out the old stuff on Thursday night. This continued Friday afternoon and night, and allllllll day Saturday. Just to get 300 square feet of old flooring out!! That doesn’t include installing the new stuff!

I kept asking Rob to tell me what I should do to help. He gave me 4 different jobs and I wasn’t able to do any of them. I’m small and pregnant…so it didn’t go so well. Finally he said I could chisel out some of the old tile adhesive that was as hard as concrete. I sat there on the floor chiseling away (barely) and steaming mad about how I’m not a slave in ancient Egypt so why am I doing this??!! I told this to Rob and he apologized saying he didn’t know my “chisel capacity” when he assigned me the job. I told him he expects too much of me when it comes to home improvement. He told me not to worry…he doesn’t have any expectations of me when it comes to home improvement.

So now the floors are concrete, appliances are all over the place, and tomorrow is Monday. Great. We considered working on it today but then Nate asked us what day it was and that he thought we weren’t supposed to work on Sunday…

But Rob’s worked very hard and we can tell how great this is going to look when it’s finished. Here’s to finishing!!

Tennis, Anyone?

Rob and I used to play tennis…by “play” I mean we used to try to play tennis. We never got very good, but we always enjoyed practicing.

I found these pictures from a year ago that we never posted. They were taken as part of Liz’s senior portrait session. She was on the tennis team at Taylorsville High School. Over the summer after senior year she started dating her now fiance! We took their engagement portraits a couple of weeks ago (they’ll be posted soon) and in a couple more weeks we’ll be shooting her bridals.

Anyway, these are just kind of fun.

My Tape Gun Makes Me Miserable

…and other things that annoy…by Julie

• The constant headache that follows me around every day.
• The fact that I have to tell Rob “I actually did clean today” because by the time he gets home everything is a mess again. I remember my mom complaining about this when I was young.
• We’re too busy to go on a day trip I have planned.
• Every morning until about noon I get lightheaded and dizzy every time I stand up. The blood rushes to my head like I just got spun around in a bucket.
• I can NEVER find a pen. I remember my mom always complaining about this, too.
• I don’t sleep very well, especially while pregnant. This makes me…
• CONSTANTLY tired. Even more annoying when I have some free time but am too tired to do anything fun.
• The tray extender on the printer always gets pushed in so whenever I print something, it falls to the floor. Extra points when the document is 20 pages.
• Kids sitting on or pushing their elbows into my belly.
• When I think I’m going to have some quiet time when Nate goes outside to play but then Madeleine wakes up and wants to go outside, too.
• Forgetting to defrost/rise/prep dinner before 5:30pm.
• Smelling whatever is in Nate’s toilet that he forgot to flush.
• No new episodes of my favorite shows.

Reading back on past posts, I’ve noticed that most of my “annoyance” posts occur when I’m pregnant. Coincidence, I’m sure.