St George Easter

Garrison was told last minute that he had to go to Australia for a work project over the week of Easter, So, Bayli and i decided to join my sister and her husband as they traveled to St George to visit his family down there. I was a little anxious traveling while being so hugely pregnant, but my sister's father in law is an OBGYN, so... if anything bad were to happen i would literally be sleeping in the same house as the person who could help the situation the most. so, really there wasn't anything to be afraid of.

we spent our time with them eating, and watching general conference, and having political debates, and Easter egg hunting, and playing with their dogs, and drinking coke from their soda fountain, and going to candy shops, and walking through the St George art festival. The weather was warm, we wore shorts, and we got sunburns, and needed ice cream and smoothies to cool off, and basically it was the best thing that could have happened in order for me to distract myself while my husband was away in Aus-freaking-stralia. (i was only mildly jealous. if i happened to go into labor while he was gone, we totally would have had to name our baby girl Sydney or Aussie or something. haha.)

Anyway, a huge thank you to my sister and her in-laws, the Ott's, for hosting us. We enjoyed ourselves so much!

Birthday Boy/Camping Trip

This handsome man had his birthday a long while ago, But, due to my laziness with writing on this blog, i'm only now getting around to writing about it. We decided to go camping in our almost done camp trailer (we just have to paint the exterior) so that we could test it out, and to have a little vacation before the weather got too terrible. We decided to go to Vernal, Utah and see the dinosaur museum with Bayli. due to our truck breaking down we never got there. but it was surely an adventure! that's what birthdays are about anyway right? adventures and testing your limits? well, i guess because we FINALLY got our truck back last night after it was in the small town mechanics shop for over a month i can write about it now and not have an anxiety attack. :)

The Camping Trip From Hell

it started out with garrison planning on leaving work early so that we could get a head start, he got home around 3, then got phone call after phone call from co-workers stressing out without him, so he had to work from home in order to calm everyone's nerves and finish helping with their project, so after that and packing, and hooking up the trailer... we left late. but, the drive wasn't bad. the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful because the sun was setting as we were driving through the canyon with the changing leaves on the aspen trees. we got to a small town called Duchesne which was about 40 miles away from Vernal when Bayli started acting tired so we just pulled off into a small neighborhood of vacation homes/cabins and parked on the side of the road. luckily no one drove by us that night or we totally could have been in trouble. it was here that we celebrated Garrison's birthday, opened presents, blew out candles, that kind of thing. i surprised him by making his mother's recipe for birthday cake which luckily handled the ride perfectly and he was so surprised when we pulled it out to eat at our trailer table for our first meal. :)

then we cleaned up, put the table down and made bayli's bed. while she slept we put our headphones in and watched a movie in the dark on our bed excited for the morning when the rest of our adventure would begin. the next morning we played around for a bit, bayli found a lizard that was still too sleepy to run away from her. after breakfast we loaded everything back up and started towards Vernal.

we got to a small town called Roosevelt when the truck wouldn't shift gears. so we pulled into the mechanics shop and hoped it wouldn't cost too much or take too long to fix. he said the issue would probably be fixed within an hour or two. so we went to the town's library which was in a double wide trailer, which was next to the old library which was now their fire station. and then walked back through the town to the shop hoping for good news. well, it wasn't. the mechanic said he was going to try replacing one more part, but if that didn't work then it meant the issue was the transmission. after replacing that part failed we were informed that in order to get a new transmission it would need to be shipped from salt lake city which was a few hours away and it would need to be replaced in the morning after it had been overnight shipped. so, we ordered the transmission hoping that we would be able to finish our trip and go see the dinosaur museum the next day after the transmission had been replaced. we spent the rest of the night with our camp trailer parked in front of a church. we went to the park which was across the street (which was nice because we had to use the park's restrooms since our camp trailer doesn't have a toilet) We watched more movies and tried to not look too suspicious to all of the townsfolk that couldn't help but stare at us in our situation. camping in the middle of their town.

well, the next morning we went over to the shop to see if the transmission replacement worked, they had gotten the transmission, but apparently the one they sent was bad so, we had to have my parents come get us and tow our trailer home, by the time they got to us it was too late to finish our trip and reach vernal which was only 20 miles away, because the dinosaur museum had already closed. there were many more things that went wrong on this trip, but for the sake of not turning this into a completely negative post, we'll just leave it at that. :)

bayli was so confused, the entire weekend we had talked about going to see the dino's and how much fun it would be once we got there. and then all of a sudden we were home. no dino's.

well... fast forward 6 weeks and about 4 more bad transmissions and we finally got our truck back. garrison had to drive the 3 hours there and back in order to go pick the truck up, but oh well, hopefully this means the truck won't have any issues anymore now that we have replaced basically every part (we had to replace the engine when we were remodeling the house a year ago) i guess only time will tell. but, either way. we'll just go to the dinosaur museum that is just 15 minutes away instead next time. we have officially made a vow to avoid the town of Roosevelt at all costs. it's like our own personal kryptonite. but.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Family Forward Blogging Retreat at Zion Ponderosa

a little over a week ago, i had the opportunity to go on a mini vacation down to Zions Park, more specifically Ponderosa Park which is just outside of Zions. i went down there with some other blogging friends of mine, and we had a wonderful time being taught all weekend long by the powerhouse couple aaron and rachel coleman from the popular kids show "signing time" bouncing ideas off of each other and learning from each others mistakes. taking tons of pictures and videos. and of course, the epic "excursions" that we did every day, mine included going horseback riding, flying in a helicopter, taking a tour in a jeep unimog, and skeet shooting.

it's been just over a week since i went, and i am missing it terribly, the location was awesome, the food was great! the houses...cabins...mansions we slept in were breathtaking, and the company was better than it all put together. this was the first "blogging" thing i've ever done, besides literally blogging. i haven't gone to any of the conventions, or joined any of the facebook groups, or anything, so i literally dived in head first into this one. but i made so many connections, and learned so much, and created so many memories, and made so many friends. it was just awesome. anyway...before i kill you all with another lengthy and wordy post like my last one, here ya go!

Sunset Photo Walk

 ^^ my friend Briton from rad mom cool kid. we call her rapunzel.

 ^^ Stephanie, who also writes for Rad Mom Cool Kid, she and i are literally soul sisters. (more like soul twins.)

 ^^ me trying to be as cool as them. :)

 ^^this is that powerhouse couple, Aaron and Rachel, their height difference just made this picture series too perfect not to share.

Horseback Riding

 ^^rachel, your right, whilst on a horse, one must hold hands high in the air with the closest person. it just makes the picture so much better.

^^this was seconds before the horse bucked off his rider on the far left. not gonna lie, that was pretty awesome. good thing he is a bull rider and used to it. 

Flying in a Helicopter

 Jeep Unimog

 ^^the wind up at Pine Knoll was crazy, that darn hat almost sailed away like a kite more than one time. but hey, i didn't get sun burnt the entire trip, so i'm chalking that one up as a win.

Skeet Shooting

Other Fun Things...

 ^^ice cream sundae competition.

 ^^a photobooth. cause we're bloggers, so that's obviously necessary. :) once again, my buddies with me in this pic are Brit and Steph from rad mom cool kid.

 ^^didn't i tell you they were mansions, ugh, this pic doesn't even do it justice.

 ^^a list of our sponsors. they were so good to us the entire time, surprising us with gifts in our rooms every morning, and they were also the ones who hosted many of the smaller events through out the weekend. they just spoiled us rotten basically.

^^you guys, how beautiful is that view?!? it was super hard to leave, but seeing this scenery on the drive home made it a whole lot easier.