Canyon Fun!

So in the past two weeks:

1. I babysat my niece Tuesday of last week. Afterwards, my sister and brother-in-law took me to dinner at the Mayan Adventure. I had always wanted to go there because it looked like fun. There are several different levels of seating areas, all surrounding a big rock structure and waterfall/pool. While you're sitting, two guys come out and dive off the rock structure into the pool. It was interesting to watch them climb back up and dive right back in again. It seemed like each time, they topped the dive they did before... going higher and higher. We were seated right in front at the lowest level (those tables on the bottom-right side of the picture). It was a fun experience. Maybe I'll get Jon to go there with me someday.
   



2. On Wednesday, Jon and I were supposed to go into the Canyon to have a BBQ and hike, but he got called into work. So my sister called me up and asked if I wanted to go to Thanksgiving Point with her and my niece. I met up with them, and we walked around the museum for a while. We watched the 3-D dinosaur movie, which wasn't that great. My niece was really scared through half of the museum and most of the movie. I had always been curious to check out the museum, but now I realize that it is just really overpriced for what it was. Oh well, I guess...



3. Jon didn't get called back to work on Thursday, so we were able to do our BBQ and hiking then. It was so much fun! I love BBQing! We just went cheap and simple with hot dogs. We'll for sure have to do hamburgers next time though. Jon wants to start doing a BBQ once a week, but I don't know if that will actually happen yet. Maybe if we had our own BBQ grill.
   We were going to try to hike into Rock Canyon, but the road was closed. So instead we just found other little trails off of Squaw Peak Road to hike around on. This was a really neat area, where people obviously come to have bonfires on the mountainside.
   
   We found a little trail that took us to the top of a mountain!
   
   It was quite the view of Provo and Orem. It's too bad I did a terrible job with the panoramic on this picture. I usually don't do too bad. I guess I was just hurrying. Although, I don't really find the Utah Valley that impressive (really flat and wayyy too many buildings/people all in one place), it was nice to be up in the mountains away from all the busy people down below. The mountains are definitely my favorite place to be in Utah (except during the winter).
   
   We started driving back down the mountain after this, where we saw a wild turkey! It was the only animal we saw up there besides small birds you see everyday in the valley. It was neat because I had never seen a turkey in the wild before- only at the Hogle Zoo. He was kind of funny because he ran in front of us twice. We stopped at a overlook area on the way down, and we had just barely missed a guy take off paragliding. We got to watch him slowly float down to the ground. It was pretty crazy! I don't think I'd ever have the guts to do that!
4. Oh and the last exciting news is that Jon got the promotion we've been waiting for!!!! We're both so excited. He totally deserves it, and now he'll get paid better. So he starts training for that a week from tomorrow. Everything just seems to always work out for us even when we don't think it will. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father has blessed us so much this year!