Dan's Picture Tour of the rest of our summer trip

Kristen forgot to mention that while in Utah, I went mountain biking for the first time with her brother Kirk. He was nice to not get mad at me for slowing him down. I hadn't ridden a bike for about 10 years. I think it's fair to say that we pretty much owned that mountain, as you can see from our intrepid expressions above.

CALIFORNIA Pictures

This is the river, and my soap-and-shampoo-free bath tub, behind our campsite in King's Canyon.
This is Kristen next to a big tree. It had pine cones (or sequoia cones?) bigger than her head. But not bigger than mine.
This is a nice view from Morrow Rock/Peak/I can't remember. That's Kristen's brother in the background, not some random stranger.
Kristen and her sister Candice jumping off of Party Rock in King's Canyon. Kristen is fearlessly leading the way. I'll post more pictures later.

SUMMER'S END

Contrary to popular belief (or maybe just one person's belief, Katy) , I am not dead. So here is my post. Dan and I just got back to Charlottesville yesterday after spending 2 weeks with various branches of my family in various parts of the country. Here's the rough breakdown:

First, I spent a few days staying w/ my sister in Provo before Dan could fly out. This way, I could have girl time with my old roomies without feeling like I was neglecting Dan. It was a blast! I got to see three of my old roommates. We went to dinner, went swimming, and just hung out. I wish I could have seen them more! My stay there was entirely too short. They are the best!

While I was still husband-less, I also got to walk around BYU's campus (and south of campus) and take some pictures of places and things that mean something special to me and Dan. The empty lot used to be an elementary school where Dan and I had our first kiss (awww...). Sorry to all of the kids that were at recess when that happened... I think I saw a few lose their lunches. Just kidding! It was after school hours. The second is of our first apartment. So exciting. The third is of my fav type of flowers at the Terraced Garden at the south end of campus where we would often go walking. I love you, Dan!

This shot has no significance to me or Dan, but I've always liked it so I thought I'd take a close-up of it. The first person who can guess what it is wins. You don't win anything, but you win knowing that you won. So deep. After all of that, Dan came in to town so what did we do? We got donuts from Sugar 'n' Spice. They are so good. So much better than nasty Krispy Kremes. We also happened upon a sign from the Quill and the Sword club at BYU. Some of you may not know this, but Dan was the president of the Quill and the Sword club for four years in a row. He changed his major 3 times in order to keep his dictatorship, I mean presidency, going. He always wore a helmet so that people wouldn't know his true identity. And all members of the club had to refer to him as "Dungeon Master." So needless to say, he was very excited to see a poster about the Q&tS (that's what insiders call it) and felt the need to strike an all-too-familiar pose. Get it, Dungeon Master, get it. If any of you who went to BYU had ever seen those guys dressed in head-to-toe red fighting with wooden swords outside of the Wilk on a Saturday morning, you've probably seen Dan. He'd be the last one standing. But back to our adventures...
Those other two are of the spot where Dan proposed to me. He was probably looking something like that. And I was probably looking something like that.

After all of this, my family had its annual reunion at a cabin in Heber, Utah. It was so great to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We hung out the first day, went to a lake for two days, and went to Park City the last day. Dan had never been jetskiing before and he loved it. I am so grateful for such a wonderful family. My dad, his sister, and three brothers were all separately adopted by my grandparents. They've raised them all in the gospel and it's awesome to see how that act of love has had such an amazing impact on so many lives! They are all so fun and loving and kind. As all of the cousins get older, I don't know how often everyone will get to be together so it was really nice. I love them so much!

Well, that sums up the first half of the trip. Sorry this is so long! Maybe I'll save the second half of the adventure for Dan to post. But here's one last picture for good measure.
This was the bandit we saw on our way from Utah to California.

Life's Simple Pleasures

Well, not much new has happened in my life, so I'm going to take a moment to share one of my work joys with all of you. I work for a program that develops lesson plans and teaching resources for K-12 civics and government teachers. It's a pretty fun job. Aside from a nice chair, other perks include a mini-fridge in my office, a window, and a name plate on the door. Very exciting things. But perhaps the best part of my job is surfing school websites. Oftentimes, a teacher will sign up to receive our resources but I have to make sure they're legit before I allow them access to our site. To verify that they are, in fact, teaching, I usually go to the school website and look them up. Most of the time, I just look them up and I'm done with it. Other times, I come across school pictures that just crack me up! So I'm going to share some with you. You may not like these as much as I do, but who's to say until I show you?

First: The Yearbook Pictures

Yes, this is real. All of the other teachers were just regular.

I wish this picture was larger because it's my absolute favorite. These teachers are one-of-a-kind!

Second: School Activities

Cross-dressing pep rally.

I just love the hot dog kid. I only hope our future posterity are half as cool... or shameless. I also like the kid riding the turkey.

I don't really know why this picture was on a school site, but I think it's funny.

And Lastly...

OUR QUEST

Ever since our sojourn in Houston began, Dan and I have been on a quest of great importance - a quest to find Houston's best chocolate milkshake. We searched high and low and have yet (in my opinion) been able to locate the ultimate shake of this large city. We've tried Beck's (this great burger place that everyone swore was the best), 59 Diner (known for its shakes), some preppy bar-type place called 17, Fuddruckers (we know it's not a local place, but we don't have one in C-ville), and a local ice cream hangout called Amy's. Unfortunately, I haven't come across one place that was just amazing, but in my opinion, the winner is....

Amy's was the closest to a nice, thick, chocolately cup of pure joy... Dan liked Fuddruckers.

How about you guys? Which is your favorite place for a chocolate shake? P.S. I'm back in VA on Monday - who's up for a taste test???

SATURDAY FUN EXTRAVAGANZA

Saturday, we had a day of fun-filled excitement. We first drove to Space Center Houston. We were greeted by a guy in an astronaut outfit, which we thought was pretty cool, but the novelty wore off when we realized pretty much everyone wore an astronaut outfit. You've gotta feel bad for the astronaut that goes through all that schooling and elite astronaut training just to be stuck on parking booth duty.

They had some pretty cool stuff there, like old astronaut helmets that you could try on to see how cool you'd look on the moon. With astronauts this good looking, who wouldn't put on a diaper just to be able to drive 500 miles without stopping?!

We went on a tour of the astronaut training area, which I thought was pretty exciting. You can see how good looking Kristen's bangs are in these pictures.

After all the excitement at the Space Center, we continued down the road to Galveston to go to the beach. I went in first, and waited while Kristen took pictures on the beach.

It was pretty nice out, but the waves aren't quite big enough to go boogie boarding or anything.

I just wanted to write a quick note to remind all of you who live by 7-11s that today is 7/11! Free slurpee day! Houston doesn't have a single stinkin' 7-11 so I must live vicariously through you...

Keith Urban - Aussie Rocker/Country singer/Husband to Nicole Kidman

I don't think Dan did the Keith Urban concert justice so here are a few more pictures for you to feast your eyes on...

I see a striking resemblance...

I'm getting my hair trimmed in 3.25 hours. Should I get bangs?

A POST BY DAN

This has been a pretty busy week --



Monday I went to the doctor and she told me I had GERD, because I was too stressed out. I actually think it's mostly because my pants are too tight now that I'm packing on the pounds. Luckily, I have a couple of pairs of stretchy pants.



Tuesday we went dancing. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. And I figured it might help my GERD. Also, Bracewell & Giuliani treated me to a game of cosmic bowling and "Live Free or Die Hard" during the work day.



Wednesday we visited the Houston zoo because it was free. It was surprisingly good. I've sort of been disappointed with a few of the cultural attractions here, but it pretty much had all the animals you like to see at the zoo -- elephants, tigers, giraffes, baby mole rats, etc. I think they were just missing hippos. We saw Ratatouille in the afternoon, then watched fireworks.



Thursday we went to the Keith Urban concert. Kristen swooned every time he walked by us on the catwalk. But she got to take several good photos of his back sweat.



Friday B&G planned an Amazing Race for us summer associates. I was in it to win it, but my team came in 4th. Out of 6. But we got to ride in limos all around town, and at the end of the day, a limo took me home. Kristen came down so she could be in a limo once in her life.



Saturday we went to the movies to see Transformers, but it was sold out. So we saw Oceans 13. After the exhilaration of Oceans 11 and then the devastating disappointment of Oceans 12, I was hesitant to see it. Not because I was afraid it would be lousy, but because I was angry that I had been tricked into watching 12 simply because 11 was so good. But I rose above that vengeful attitude, and actually thought 13 was alright.

DANCING MACHINES
This picture pretty much captures our emotions prior to our Ballroom Basics dance class. As you can tell, Dan is thrilled. I love it!

The class was pretty fun - about 7 men and 7 women. Most of them had been there before but each week we learn a different dance so we didn't feel too out of place. We were also some of the youngest people there. You've gotta give props to the middle-aged men who show up alone to learn something new... or maybe they're just looking to meet some ladies. We had a good time. We learned the samba. Next week, if Dan is willing to take me again, we'll learn the salsa!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Dan and I recently celebrated our third anniversary! Last Tuesday, June 26, we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in the Houston Galleria. I had only eaten there once before and it was Dan's first time but thanks to Amanda's recommendation, we went! We split a really good chicken dish and then split a piece of cheesecake with strawberries. So DELICIOUS!
Dan got me flowers and... tickets to the Keith Urban concert this week! I am SOOO excited! I got him some CDs (boring, boring, I know!) that he had been wanting.
After dinner we went to take a ballroom basics dance class (Dan is too nice to me!) but we got lost and didn't get there until the class was half over (maybe he planned that) so we're going to give it another shot this week! Very exciting. Thanks, Dan for a great anniversary!And as a last piece of news, about 10 minutes after the FedEx man delivered our concert tickets, I got an email from KeithUrban.net saying that I had WON a pair of tickets to the exact same concert! TOTALLY AWESOME! Poor Dan... I loved his present, though! Now we're going to take my brother and sister-in-law, too.