the pictures

spontaneity leads to bryce canyon

aaron and i were planning a little camping trip with my cousin melanie and her husband beau for the friday and saturday of memorial day weekend. we packed a little food, even less clothing, a tent, some sleeping bags, and some blankets, but that was about it.

once all four of us got in the car together, we decided that it was too rainy and grey in the valley near provo, so we were going to drive south until the sun started shining. well, that soon turned into us chanting that we were going to california, and the beach, and stopping by the grand canyon on the way. the only problem was that this trip didn't really start until about 6:00 p.m. friday night, and after a few hours of driving in the car, feeling already the warmth of southern utah, the clear skies, and the fact that it was already dark, we decided to stop a little bit before california.

we miraculously found a camp site in fremont indian state park in the fish lake national forest. we set up our tent, got a fire going and set out all our fixings for some foil dinners.

we weren't exactly sure what to expect the next morning when we woke up, since we weren't able to see anything around the campgrounds the first night. but we were pleased with what we found.

we had decided that instead of the grand canyon, we were going to go to bryce canyon. it was just a few hours from where we were, so we packed up our things and headed out to the beautiful red rocks. only melanie had ever been to bryce canyon, so we were all very excited.

again, we were lucky to find a camp site that was open on the busy holiday weekend, this time right in the park. we set up our stuff and got hiking! due to the fact that photos are such a hassle to post on blogger, the pictures will be in the next post. we had a fabulous time and a long hike that included a run in with a rattle snake, getting caught in a wind storm and being continually ambushed by japanese hikers.

once we were hot and tired, we thought we would try going for a swim in a reservoir that we saw on the map nearby. instead of swimming, we found a canoe that had three life vests in it, paddles, and an unopened can of squirt. we hijacked the canoe, went out to a little island in the reservoir, found some goose eggs in a nest, and came back without getting caught.

on our way back, we stopped in the little town, went to the ruby inn and jumped in the swimming pool there, took some showers, headed back to the campsite for hot chocolate and more foil dinners, tried to sleep with the hurricane winds blowing our tent over, packed up the next morning and headed back home. we made it back in time to shower, nap, and get over to the kowallis house for most exceptionally delicious sunday dinner!

it was a complete success of a spontaneous weekend.

a bit obsessed

okay, so we are a little bit obsessed with making movies right now. we stayed up waaaayyy to late making this one:

i want

The Legend of Rock Canyon

Nickel City

inspired

i was inspired by a project that a former byu student started. it is called the nap time dance project. i think it is a pretty awesome idea. the purpose of the project is to give mothers who are also dancers an opportunity to choreograph, dance, and have dance related discussions. interested mommies/dancers submit audition videos to become a company member for a season. people from anywhere can join, because it is all done over the internet. no actual meetings, no live performances, just video projects and written posts.

unfortunately, since i don't have a baby, i can't join the nap time dance project. but i thought, what the heck! i'll film myself dancing anyways!

so here is my first attempt. i know i am breaking several film rules, like keeping your clips between 5 - 7 seconds long, and getting mostly closeups. mostly this was an experiment for me to start to see what i could do. if you are interested...watch it!

in the mood

i feel like posting something, even though i don't have a purpose in writing. perhaps that corresponds to the fact that i feel like i don't have much a purpose in life right now. not in a depressed, self-pity way, but in the way that i only got dressed today at 3:30 p.m. to go out to lehi for one of my dance classes to have a photo shoot.

for lunch i ate re-heated cornbread that is so full of butter and sugar and not really much cornmeal that all the sweet goodness is starting to soak to the bottom, causing the cornbread to seem like it has a butter sauce akin to that of the delicious cake that my family loves called kentucky butter cake. if you have had the cake, you will know what i mean. if you have not had the cake, you should make it. (seriously, if you want the recipe, let me know.) I also ate some left-over broccoli and then an apple an hour or so later.

but why would you care what i ate for lunch today? especially because the meal consisted of only very quotidian and stodgy food items. (yes, i used thesaurus.com to find those words. they are a test for david and adrienne who made known that they are readers of the blog. they are word people, so i thought i'd put some nice words in here for them. if you are thinking you don't know what those words mean, that just proves how superior david and adrienne's vocabularies are to yours, for i would bet my remaining pan of cornbread that they know these words.)

you know, i think my life of late has seemed exceptionally purposeless because it has been insanely rainy in this desert where i live. that means that aaron is unmotivated to ride his bike to work, leaving me unmotivated to ride my bike anywhere at all. hence the coopedupedness. (that one i just made up.)

now on to more purposeful things. there are four things that have got me out of the cold basement this week. each of these things brings purpose and excitement to my life.

1. driving aaron to work when he doesn't want to ride his bike but i need to car later in the day. if aaron can be a purpose, then he is a pretty great purpose. he decided he wanted to ride his bike to work. well, his bike is a terribly old, chunky mountain bike that, until we were able to get a leftover brake handle put on it, had one broken brake handle. i don't know how he rides it, but at first he didn't care. it takes him 30 minutes to get to work on that thing, all along the way seeing dudes on road bikes zooming past him. i think he is starting to believe me that he would be much happier on a road bike.

2. going out to pull weeds. i have joined a community shares garden, though it is still unofficial because i haven't paid yet. this garden has a "garden intern" program. we pay $35, and then put in 5 hours of work in the garden per week, and then we get our produce shares when harvest time comes. if you are doing the math in your head, yes it would be cheaper to just buy a share and do no work. but going out to the garden gives me something to do, and i have been wanting to learn how to garden, so i thought this would be a good step. even though all i do is pull weeds and water, i like it, and i can't wait for the produce!

3. i went to my first ever, paid-for yoga class. i have done yoga plenty as a dancer, but i have never really gone to an official, public yoga class that was in no way associated to dance. it was pretty great to move my body and stretch, breathe deeply, and feel some sore muscles the next day. i am hoping to make yoga classes a bigger part of my summer, and future.

4. driving all the way out to lehi for a half-an-hour photo shoot for my little class. again, not really the most economical use of my time, but i love those girls i teach. they are so much fun and they will try any strange thing i throw at them. it is great to just go feel of young people's energy, especially after being inside the apartment all day.

on a completely different note, you know when you feel like something happened while you were sleeping but it is so vague and fuzzy you aren't quite sure what was real and what was a dream? last night, i was startled awake by aaron breathing loud, fast, and desperately. my reaction was to start shaking and hitting him. it took him a second, but he finally stopped and said "whoa....what happened?" at that point, i was already becoming unsure if i had really witnessed my husband being possessed by an evil spirit, or if i had been responding to a dream of my own. luckily, i don't have dreams in which i vigorously shake and slap aaron's face. after a moments pause he said that he thought maybe he was having a dream that he was being possessed. creepy.

so this was a very random, rambling blog post. i will stop rambling and continue reading "independent people" by halldor laxness. my comparative literature teacher last semester said it was his favorite book of all time, so i got it from the library.

oh that's another thing! i got a library membership. we live a whole block from the library.

spawn of mucus

writing this blog, i never know if anyone really reads it. however, there was on blog post that brought me more feedback than ever before...master mucus. so if you liked that story, i'm hoping you may also like this one.

aaron and i return home from a picnic in the park one evening to find "a huge spider". aaron is the one that saw it. i refused to come out of the bathroom until he killed it. actually, he said, it wasn't as big as master mucus.

aaron and i have two different methods of killing spiders. mine is more instinctual. i try to find something to throw at it or stomp it with. aaron, however, is much more creative. as you learned from the pouring of comet on master mucus in attempts to stun him, aaron had another brilliant idea. the stituation, however, was a bit more tricky, because during the time that aaron was plotting the most cruel murder, this spider scuttled into a small hole in our wall.

aaron wasn't going to let him go that easily, though. so, as the tradition follows to kill spiders with cleaning supplies, aaron grabs some "awesome cleaner", exclaiming that he would "bleach him out!"

once i heard the spider was hiding in a hole, i came out to review the situation. i wasn't fully convinced that the bleach had totally killed the spider, so i suggested we smoke him out. aaron looked at me like i had just announced that we had won a million dollars, and quickly lit the tip of a pencil on fire and shoved it in the hole. we heard some sizzles, and aaron swears there were bug guts on the tip of the pencil. we smoked him again, just to be sure.

and we haven't seen the spawn of mucus since.

it's about time...

for a byu graduation

and a honeymoon to cancun...