yee haw

This past Monday we headed out to the Spanish Fork Rodeo with our good friends Blair and Sara who we always have a great time with. I can't believe those guys have the guts to ride bucking bulls or horses. Crazy. It cannot be good for your back...or the rest of your body for that matter. Unfortunately the zoom on our camera isn't so great and for some reason the picture quality isn't as good when uploaded to blogger, but I did take some video of the steer wrestling, mutton bustin' (little kids trying to ride sheep), and bull riding--you just have to look closely.

camping

We've had the opportunity to go camping a couple times this summer--once in Payson Canyon and once in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. In Payson Canyon we hung out around the camp fire during the evening and went hiking during the day. We ventured off the trail a couple of times before we got to where we were supposed to be headed. And people wonder why so many hikers get lost out here, some better signage would have been nice. In Lava Hot Springs we soaked in the hot pools, played poker at night (not for money, don't worry), and tubed down the river. There were some minor injuries but we had a great time. We also spent some time just hangin out with friends in Provo Canyon having tin foil dinners and playing botchi ball. I can't believe how fast the summer is going. We've had a lot of fun spending time with great friends before we head out next month.

We wish we could've gone camping more this summer because it's one of the things we're going to miss about Utah. We love having the mountains right here so we can go camping and hiking whenever. We could find a great camping spot in the mountains just 20 minutes away if we wanted to. It's too bad that I've been out here for 4 years and have never experienced skiing in the Utah snow (the best snow on earth, so they say--i say keep it in the mountains and not on the roads because it makes the utah drivers that much worse, but that's a story for another day).

Optomap

So normally I wouldn't write about our optometry appointments, but I'm making an exception in this case. Jeff & I are taking advantage of our health insurance, which we're finding out isn't as great as we thought, by making appointments to get our eyes checked, getting new contacts, going to the dentist, going to the dermatologist for my regression into my teenage years (what the heck), etc. before our move.

Anyway, while at the optometrist office we were given the choice of getting our eyes dilated (blurry vision for the rest of the day, no thank you) or getting an Optomap, a high-tech picture of your eyes. Jeff, being his inquiring, informed, money-saving self, declined both after talking with the doctor who said we were young enough and our eyes were probably healthy enough that the procedures were basically unnecessary. I, on the other hand, being my suckered-into-anything self, when offered the choice, said (after inquiring about the price), "A picture of my eye! So cool! Let's do it!" Although if you know me you know I rarely talk in exclamations, except with people I know really well. So it was more like, "Oh, a picture? I'll do that I guess." But inside I was all about the exclamations. I was also concerned that I might have a tumor or something on my eye that would otherwise go undetected. I then felt guilty after Jeff didn't accept either the blurry vision or the cool picture. However, when Jeff saw the picture of my eye he said, "You should put it on the blog." We did meet in anatomy lab, afterall. So it wasn't such a bad choice in the end: I have the peace of mind that I have a healthy eye--we won't mention the fact that my eyes are almost twice as bad as they were 2 years ago--and I get to share my retina with all of you. So here in all its glory is my eyeball. Enjoy.

The yellow spot is my optic nerve and the dark spot to the right is my macula. You can also see my eyelashes at the bottom.

Owlz

Jeff has recently taken on a second job. He is now the Official Scorekeeper for the Orem Owlz who, for those of you who don’t know, is the short season single-A team affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels.

You might be saying to yourself, scorekeeper? What an easy job! Well, let me tell you, it’s a lot more difficult than you might think. He’s the one who decides hits, errors, earned runs, not earned runs, who the winning pitcher is, etc. Baseball has about a million rules so this is not as easy as it might seem. Jeff even has to look up rules at times and he’s been playing the game his whole life. He also has to write down what happens during each play of the game so he can call into minor league baseball every half inning so they can update their stuff, and he has to record everything in the scorebook (I think that’s what it’s called) as well.
During BYU's baseball season Jeff worked the score board while I put up the names of the batters with their averages. We figured since we'd probably be at all of the games anyway, why not make some money and be warm doing it (we got to be in the press box with a nice heater right under our feet).

This was our view from the press box

Why has he taken up this second job, you might be wondering? Well, mostly for some experience working for a professional team, and it never hurts to have some extra moolah, especially for our expensive trip across the country next month (dang gas prices).

Speaking of which, we’ve decided to forego the U-haul with the car trailer and save ourselves almost a grand in gas (crazy!). We’re now going with U-Pack where we load all of our stuff into a portion of a semi and they drive our junk out to Tennessee for us.

We’ll have to drive both of our cars out there but we would’ve had to drive separately anyway with the U-haul. This way we’ll actually be able to go the speed limit and we’ll save on not driving a gas-guzzling truck. If you would like to donate to our gas cause (the kind that goes in cars, we have enough of the other kind around here), we accept all major credit cards, checks, and cash. Just kidding...sort of.

We would've had to start way earlier, but we would've saved a TON if we had tried moving this way:

Maybe next time.

Independence Day

A good friend of Jeff’s family did the sound for The Stadium of Fire (I think his official title was Technical Director) so we were lucky enough to get hooked up with some backstage passes and tickets to the show. With our backstage passes we might have stalked Miley Cyrus just a little bit, even though I'm only familiar with one of her songs, but she is the who’s who among preteen girls and I could probably pass for a preteen girl (sad, I know), so it’s okay. We did happen to get this footage of her after she finished singing and was headed back to the motor home:

We were hoping to get something signed so we could make a boat-load off of it on eBay but she was surrounded by people the whole time and went pretty quickly from stage to motor home. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that this is a 15-year-old girl with more money than I could ever imagine having and when she goes anywhere she has to have an entourage because all the tweeners love her. When I was 15…well, we won’t get into it cause it’s not even a close comparison and I don’t wish to relive those days. What a strange life.

Anyway, we had a great 4th of July. We spent the day at Seven Peaks (which is a waterpark for all you non-Utah people) with friends and stalked Miley Cyrus at night (oh, and watched the show). I love the fourth because of what it celebrates and because it is to me the essence of summer in America—barbequing, being at the pool/lake/beach/camping/or some other family-friendly activity, and just hanging out with friends and family. I’m very grateful to be a citizen of a country that allows us so many freedoms and possibilities.

Parachuters

Glenn Beck wearing a BYU hat

Miley (sorta) and a guy's neck

Glenn Beck and his kids (I'm assuming)

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a clip of Miley Cyrus singing. We actually weren't super impressed, but we aren't preteen girls...thank goodness. (ignore the part where I try to go to the jumbotron cause it didn't work out so well and I don't know how to edit movies):