Baby Abey Turns 3

How can you not adore this kid?

Mona Rope Swing

Isn't this little froggy so cute?

We always have fun at the rope swing: fishy water gets up our nose, some stranger always belly flops, people always get rope burn because they lack the upper body strength to hold on so they just slide down the gross rope ... However, this trip had some unique instances.

• Boys threw eggs at each other as they did tricks off of the rope swing. One boy got hit right in the tender bottom.
• A girl who stood for a good 15 minutes trying to muster up the courage to jump out of a tree ended up slipping and falling and landing back first in the water.
• A crazy dog ran around barking and growling at us. The dog's owner had shark teeth.
• Found the above froggy, a little boy might have smushed it trying to play with it.
• Tried out the mini rope swing, not so fun. Em tried to swing on it in a circle back to shore with no success.

Lava Hot Springs - Ward Trip

I love this picture. What the crap am I doing? Hilarious. Jon is the boy on the far right, and he and I tumbled down one of the waterfalls. I surfaced laughing and unscathed, he had a big cut above his eye. Sorry buddy. Sure was fun though.

The waterfall we tumbled down.

What a great trip! Our 3 hour drive took us about 5 hours due to a two big rig accidents, but I didn't mind too much because I loved rolling down the window and thanking the construction workers and making them smile. I rolled down my window when we passed the firemen, but they were super hot and I got really intimidated so I just smiled and kept my mouth shut.

We rolled in at about 10 o'clock at night and were greeted by a spectacular bbq. I was really excited to go to the hotpots, so a big group of us headed on over. I swear I burned my bum in one of the super hot pools, but it was fun being ridiculous and pretend flirting with tattoo boys to make our group laugh. Turns out I don't really like the heat in hotpots, my heart was racing. I swear they're not good for you. We saw speedos, massage trains, old gross men, rule breaking bikinis, it was a blast.

We came back and played games. Anyone played Ligretto? Well, it's Whacky 6. No one had ever heard of Whacky 6 and I took a lot of guff for it. I also learned a new game called Lucky Duck. More like Lame Duck. My dad graciously let us borrow his mattress pads so we camped out in the Tolbert's garage. I slept like a lamb as usual.

Floating the river was a blast. I regret not going down in Taylor's three man raft. A lot of people had major cuts and scrapes from getting rocked on the waterfalls. Other than Jon, our group did great. Poor Jon. I had so much fun I slept almost the entire way home: Sure sign of an excellent trip.

Dreams Come True

Yesterday was a glorious day. I got up and headed over to my school to continue decorating my classroom. I have really worked on matching colors and what not. I have never put so much effort into my room, but it feels nice. Feel free to come visit me, but I'll need to you to say you love everything.

Last night I had plans with my hilarious college friend Camille. Oh how I love my Camille. We decided to start with hitting up the batting cages. In college I would come home from a crappy day of waitressing, dump my saved quarters on the bed, turn to my Camille with, "Had a hard day, want to go hit some balls?" We had the best of times. Unfortunately, I'm not as good as I once was. Last night, I was swinging and missing every time, Camille told me to scoot back, it was the difference I needed. I ended up hitting one of the cute worker girls who ran to the middle to work on one of the machines. One in a million shot doc, one in a million shot.

We headed to dinner afterwards and chatted it up at Paradise Bakery where I reminded her of my obsession with purchasing a little kid bike. So Camille drove me over to WalMart and encouraged me to ride a few bikes around. I couldn't stop smiling. There's something about bikes that cheers me up immediately.

I did it, I bought a neon green and black boy trick bike. I asked Camille if she wanted to stand on the pegs at the back so I could give her a ride to the front of the store, she encouraged me to calm down a bit.

We drove to Camille's house and raised the seat and pulled off all of the stickers. We decided to bring our old bike gang back to life, (in college we used to ride over to James and Jackie's place), so Camille pulled her bike down from the ceiling in her garage, then we rode about 4 miles round trip to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple then back to her place. I probably embarrassed Camille as I waved to everyone as we passed by. We jumped curbs, bunny hopped, laughed, dodged glass, and I even did a trick for the line of cars as we crossed Bangerter.

Once back at Camille's, I confessed I was a little sweaty. I told her I might as well ride my bike home. She loaned me a backpack, and sent me on my way like a little kid on his way to school. Turns out, it's kind of far back to my place, but I just took 10600 South the entire way and it's basically downhill. I loved it. I promised Camille I wouldn't jump any curbs, and I'd play it safe. A little over 1/4 mile from my apartment I thought, "Holy crap! It is so hard to pedal... Oh no!" I jumped off, my new bike already had a flat tire! So I dug in my backpack, gulped a lot of water, pulled out my cell phone, and started walking my new bike home.

I called Camille and told her I made it home safely, then I called Emily to relay my amazing adventures. Then I got scared to haul my bike upstairs and confess to my classy roommates that I really did purchase a little boy's bike. Thankfully they just laughed.

Granite Flats Continued - Cascade Springs

I think these two pictures of Eli are hilarious. He looks so bored; but we actually laughed a lot.

Eli and Toby

*Some day I'll type up funny stories from the trip.

Emily Ferrell

Look at the treasure I just found on Emily's desk. I will laugh for weeks.

Em - You always know how to put the spring in Springfield.