Catsup, Ketchup, Catch Up

(The title of this post has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that I'm slowly catching up on our life.)

Jon and I hung out with Brad and Marissa last minute one evening a few weeks ago. We went mini golfing (we love mini golf- we did this the last time we hung out with them!), ate pizza and bread sticks, and watched Heavy Weights. It was good seeing them again since they will be leaving at the end of this month for Nebraska. So sad!




As I've said plenty of times, I babysit my niece twice a week. I love it. I miss her when I don't get to babysit her. I don't know what I'll do when we leave Utah... I also like to take pictures of her because she is just too funny!

That's her "what?!" reaction to me taking a picture of her.

She's so cute, huh?

Jon and I did our usual thing of walking to Provo Center Street/University Avenue for the Fourth of July festivities. You would think that we would stop doing it since it's really not that exciting after the first time. But oh well... it gives us something to do for free (as long as we don't buy anything- like food or merchandise). And since the fourth was on a Sunday this year, in Utah, it is celebrated the day before. So these were actually taken on the third of July.

We saw these old cars and thought Jon's Dad might be interested in seeing them.

See that paper in the window? Look at the next picture to see what it says...

We went searching for the people dressed in the colonial clothing (there were some walking around, and they had an area last year near the Indians- Jon wanted to see if they had a cannon). Unfortunately, they didn't seem to have a spot set up this year. So I guess the people were just walking around? Anyways, this is the Boy Scouts area. Jon wanted to saw the long like the kids were doing. He pretty much has a dream of being a logger now.

The Indian tepee setup near the Boy Scout area.

On the actual Fourth of July, we headed up to my sister's place in Herriman to set off some of our own fireworks and play with sparklers. It was probably the first time I've done that. (Fireworks, sparklers, etc. are all illegal in California. Although, I do vaguely remember being at a neighbor's house, who was playing with some small fireworks... and I have done small sparklers at my parent's house.) Anyways, Ry was too funny about the fireworks. She was so excited and loved every second of it. I have some videos that are pretty dark, but you can hear her excitement and funny comments. I'll put some at the end of this post.

Jon and I went mini golf again (What can I say? We love it!), but this time we went with our other friends, Joseph and Julieta. They will also be leaving at the end of this month to head back to Arkansas. So at least we will be able to see them (and their baby!) during Thanksgiving when we head out there to visit Jon's family (and, of course, the Herb Family).




We also did the batting cages. Jon and I love those too. We just need to find some good ones close by, and I think we might go a lot.


I have more pictures of things from this past weekend that maybe I'll get around to posting this week. But seeing how this whole post took me a week to finish, don't count on it.

Here's the videos (Again, they are dark, and you can't see much. They more so just show my niece's excitement):

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!