Vacation time :)

I'm back babeh! I've noticed it's been a while, and being super busy has made me lost all track of time on my end. But I do have stories for this one :)

So let me say 11 years ago if you had asked me what would make me feel like the happiest person in the world it would've been to meet my biological dad. I'm sure I've posted on how I've met him and known him and his family for a few years now and how I usually go out once a year to see them. I usually have a blast, we'll go camping or see things I'd have never seen or thought I'd be able to see so it's usually something that once I'm home I talk non-stop about how my trip was.

This year was different though, I never had the typical "father-daughter" relationship growing up so I always thought it was really weird when I saw it in movies, or if I had friends who said they were "daddy's girls" I just thought that wasn't possible. After this visit I finally get it! I get why girls would want to be that or have that relationship. I mean it kind of sucks it took me 23 years to learn it, but I'm glad to have seen what it's like. I don't know when or how it happened exactly, but something hit me with this trip. I actually went to church with the family because I wanted to spend literally as much time with them as I could, and those of you who know me, know how much of a big deal going to church, of all places, is! I was even making jokes that they could kidnap me, I really didn't want to leave. I've always come home with stories, but didn't really have the "I want to go out again, like now" feeling before, I just always looked forward to the next visit. It was an AMAZING trip, by far.

...

Well enough of the mushy stuff, onto the cool part of the trip. So as you might know (if you've read this far back), I've wanted to ride the world's tallest roller coaster, it's been my biggest goal (or at least one of them), so when we made plans for this summer I found out we were going to not one, but two roller coaster park. Being a roller coaster junkie I was all for those plans! Well I happened to check out the parks and find out that the first one we went to, Cedar Point, has the world's SECOND tallest one, and it's pretty much the same roller coaster, minus less than a hundred feet. So I figure if I never get to ride the tallest (knock on wood that doesn't happen) I at least can say I rode the second tallest one. At first I thought it was just the tallest in the country, but when I looked again, it's the WORLD! It's called the Dragster, it was short but so fun! We waited in line for at least 45 minutes to ride it (it was so long because it kind of broke down on us while we were waiting, stubbornly, to get the front of the car). It was amazing! It was also Ariel's and Tori's VERY FIRST roller coaster experience. Tori seemed to love it, Ariel was impartial at the time.

This is the "twirl" you go through as you
go up and down the lift

This is a far view of the Dragster (right)

The other roller coaster park had a roller coaster that had the steepest...decline I guess you'd call it. It was called the Steel Hawg at Indiana Beach, it's such a steep decline that you actually go in a bit. It's a very fun roller coaster. After riding this one Ariel seemed to love roller coasters, too bad we did the more extreme park first :/ but it was still so fun to see all their faces after getting off the rides. In fact, JR and DJ rode the rides and although they weren't for the one that went upside down, they seemed to LOVE the rest of them. I'm so happy to convert them to roller coasters! Best achievement I think I'll make in my life ha ha.

We also did the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, which if you haven't been to it, let me warn you now, it's HUGE! Like really, huge! It took us 2 days to go through the whole thing, and your feet KILL after you're done! But it was fun because I got to see the bears (since we don't seem to have anymore of them in Utah's zoo) and we got to watch a dolphin show and see them do their tricks. I've never seen a dolphin in real life and Larry and I are planning on doing the whole "swim with the dolphins" thing at Sea World in August, so this was really cool to see them and how they act. In fact after the show we went underground to see them swim and we noticed if we waved at them they'd swim towards us and kind of nod at us. It was REALLY cool to see how intelligent they really are.

Oh and I lied, my best achievement, I think, was going and knowing they had no plans to have any more pets (as far as I knew) and somehow convincing them to not get one animal, but 3! Yes 3! They ended up getting 2 bunnies with plans for a kitty. Especially since at first my dad didn't want a cat at all and by the time I left he was rooting for getting one. I'm like an evil genius sometimes ha ha.

The Saturday night I was out there was probably one of the funnest nights ever. We had a total girls night, with face masks, nail painting, hair conditioning, and embarrassing pictures to add to the fun ;) unfortunately I haven't downloaded the CD they sent me with the pictures from it, so I can't (*coughwon'tcough*) put them up on here. But it was a fun night. I joke I had my whole "prom moment" that night because I wasn't planning on going to church so I didn't have anything to wear so my totally awesome sisters had me try on dresses they had (I'm so lucky we are about the same size for the most part) and show them off while they helped me pick a good one.

Larry didn't believe me, I guess, so he made me take a picture of my "Mormon dress" as he called it, I thought it was way cute!

Sunday was just church, going to an animal shelter to see some kitties, and then family pictures. They all turned out GREAT, but there were so many of them so here are some of my favorites:

The whole family, being way too cool :)

Because you know Charlie's Angels are like the coolest
chicks in the world

Aw... ha ha I'm a nerd, I know.

Monday just sucked, I really really really didn't want to come home from this trip. Once they left me at security I just bawled my eyes out. I had to text Larry to keep reminding me why I wanted to go home. But once I was home and saw him and our kitties I was happy again. Getting back into the swing of my schedule still hasn't fully hit, and I've got quite a bit of school to catch up on, but I'm sure by the weekend I'll be back into the routine I was used to before I left. And now a little over 2 more months until the big August vacation (Do you think Larry would mind if instead of Cali we went to Indiana? ha ha just kidding!).

Well until next time...

Kickoff to Summer babay!

So my mom let me know a while back that they had found a new toy to try out...

This be her new toy, introducing the Razr :)

This machine is so freaking awesome that...

My grandma decided she needed one too ha ha.

It got even more awesome when grandma got one that...

OOOH!!!

Ha ha no I did not get this one, but I did decide that this will be mine and Larry's in the future (I call her black widow, yeah!)

So anyways, we went out riding them one random weekend in a little non-city named Dell and had so much fun we made immediate Memorial Day weekend plans to go out to Vernal or Moab or even down to Bryce Canyon to try these puppies out on some different terrain! Well what was supposed to be a 4 day weekend really was only a 3 day one for us because I got the unfortunate task of working, what made it even better, you may ask, oh just a little...

problem tire!

In case you can't see that's a nice tear on the side of it! This stupid tire had been looking weird for days, did I think to maybe ask Larry about it? No. Did I think to keep an eye on it just in case? No! I just let it ride till it got shredded! No way to just get it repaired, so now not only did I have to find someway to get to work, I also had to think of when on earth I'd find time to get a new tire, how I'd afford it, and that I had to wait till I got back from our lovely trip to do all this...major UGH!!!

Anyway, I finally got into work over an hour late, and still had to leave early so we could make it out to Vernal (the decided location) within a reasonable amount of time. So now I had to hurry and get home, hurry and get out of work clothes and into some campin' clothes, and head out. So I did just that and we left early enough and it wasn't such a bad drive. Larry and I rode in the back of my grandma's RV where we could read and relax, me in his lap on the couch...AH! Vacation bliss!

The first day we were out there (Saturday) it rained so there was no way we could pull the razrs out and ride around so we found this Dino museum and a "hike" to some real fossils (I put hike in "" because it wasn't very strenuous so I doubt it could be considered a real hike, but it sure wasn't a paved pathway so it is what it is). I thought that was pretty cool. Some pics of that...

There's a huge fossil (leg I believe) under the arrow
Can you see it?

The mountains from the "hike" I love them
(I realize there are two mountain pics, I can't seem to delete the 2nd one-sorry)




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Does this not make anyone else think of
Night at the Museum?




Some fossilized leaves, pretty wall I thought




A pretty cool petroglyph




Raptor..Arrr!



Big ol Mammoth



So after that we went driving around to look at Vernal's natural beauty, but it's a small town so we made it back to camp pretty early. But that was fine because we were pretty pooped and it was nice to just relax and listen to the rain. We sat outside while just relishing the natural air, then we watched Bruce Almighty in Mom and Will's camper and then made the yummiest burgers EVER!!! We were going to make s'mores that night, but I think we all ended up forgetting and then just started to get ready for bed for the next day.

SUNDAY! Oh lovely Sunday, it was sunny and warm and that was the day to ride razrs! In our adventurous state on Saturday we saw a huge range that was full of hills that we thought would be fun to try them out, and I guess we found out there was another track about a mile away from the campground so we decided to try the one we saw on Saturday first and then around lunchtime move over to the other one. Oh my goodness, these razrs or SO. MUCH. FUN! We rode this way, that way, up here, over there, everywhere! I rode with mom once and she was saying she was too worried about going on some of the steeper areas so I went back with Will, who I knew would not let back if he could help it and would be more of a risk taker, so worth it by the way! He will go pretty much anywhere! Some pictures of that...

There really are hills in this picture...

...and here, in this picture too. I promise!

ridin' time :)

we pooped the doggies out (they got to come and relax too)

So after being there for so long Larry pointed out my arms were getting a little red so we decided to head out, grab some lunch, drop off the dogs, pick up some sunscreen for me, and then head to the other track. Once we got there we saw there was really only one good part of this track...

I refer to this fondly as "Death Mountain" when we first got there we all saw this VERY steep mountain (this picture really doesn't do it justice) and everyone said there's no way the razrs could make that. So I was the first to say if anyone dared to drive it I'd be the first to be the passenger on that trek! This is where I have to say that I LOVE that Will is adventurous, we definitely tried it! Now the thing about this hill is about half way up it's not just a gradual lift it goes STRAIGHT up! So as we're going he tells me I needed a helmet because "this isn't a smart thing to do at all" (his own words). So we get halfway up and I realize just how steep this thing is and all I can think is how I'm going to land when (not if) we flip over, because as you get to the top the front wheels literally come off the ground and you just rely on your back wheels to push you up the rest of the way.

We make it up, phew!

We turn around...omg we're going BACK down it??? I didn't know that part of the deal! So we go down and then there's a part where you can't even see the track and your front wheels come off the ground and you rely on just landing on them, again I was only thinking of how we were going to crash, I was that certain.

Luckily we came out alive and well, but not without meeting a new friend...

Yes, this random dog just decided to follow us down the mountain and she was INCREDIBLY friendly. We called her owners to let them know and they said they were used to her being out there so they didn't seem to care. So we let her hang with us, she was the best lap dog, she loved the attention. Her name was Dacey, and when I took this picture I had to save it, Larry looks like such a gansta and the dog looks so special, it was too funny!

After we were done riding around (Mom and Colby rode Death Mountain too-we even got some video but I'm having a hard time getting it off my phone, so hopefully I can get it up soon) we went back to camp, made some yummy chicken dinner and then finally had s'mores! All before the rain hit and we had to head back inside to watch Couple's Retreat.

Monday morning sucked just because we had to pack up and head out and come back home. Luckily once we arrived home I was reminded Wal Mart was still open so I could get my tire fixed and with minimal costs, so that's up and running again, Mom came home to the best surprise: her new bathroom they just finished sprung a leak and leaked ALL WEEKEND LONG! So needless to say she has extensive carpet and linoleum damage, not to mention they had to rip apart the freshly painted walls in the bathroom. It was pretty hectic, poor mom. So now she's living in her RV outside her trailer, total redneck ha ha.

The best part of this whole thing was this was our first official getaway for the year, so I feel it kicked off our summer and it was a really good one! Now in June I get to go visit Don and family (aka my fasha ha ha) and I couldn't be more excited about that.

I've also been busting my butt in my medical coding and billing classes, having SO much fun now that I'm in medical filing and terminology and will be starting anatomy next week...eesh! I can't finish some of the classes early because they are scheduled a certain way, but I've been trying to pass off as many as possible and my instructors are being so awesome and working with my vacation schedule and their schedule so it's been an awesome experience! I'm probably at the halfway point already and it's only been a month so I'm really happy with the progress I'm able to make on it so far.

In closing, some last pics from the weekend, my favorites:

I love this boy with everything I am. We have some tough moments but we always find a way to work them out and come out much better than we were before! He made me laugh so much over the weekend and I joke after 6.5 years he's been initiated into the family because he finally made jokes around them. Luckily he has our sense of humor :)

Hope everyone else had an awesome weekend and fun summer plans! Until next time...