Our Much Needed Vacay

Scot and I just got back from our long awaited and much needed vacation and we had a blast! Last Tuesday we left straight from work to drive to a little town a few hours away called Pagosa Springs to stay for the night. On Wednesday morning we left our hotel in Pagosa to drive to Mesa Verde just a few miles up the road. Mesa Verde is where a bunch of cliff dwellings are where Indians lived with their families in small communities. These "towns" on the cliffs are pretty amazing but even more amazing to me is that this place can legally have you do what it takes to get to some of these places. When we got to Mesa Verde we stopped at the visitor center to get some maps and ideas of where to go because there are a few different places you can see. Well of course the cool ones that everyone wants to go to cost money and the only way you can get to them is with a tour guide so we bought tickets to go see a place called Balcony House (That should have been my first clue) and the other one was called Cliff Palace. We had some time to spare before the Balcony House tour so we went to another small dwelling
and walked around and took a drive and then it was finally time for our tour. So we met up with our group and the tour guide and let's face it he was long past retirement so I was thinking, How hard could this be? So he is telling us about this and that and about a little old ladder and a place where you have to crawl through a hole. I was kind of half paying attention to be honest and not thinking much of it. So now before I go further I want you to see the footwear I was wearing and mind you before we left on this trip I asked Scot if I would be OK in these kind of shoes and he says to me "Oh ya, you will be fine, it is all really nicely paved, you don't need to worry about it." Great! This is my kind of place...

On the left you will see the proper footwear for this type of thing and on the right you will see what I was wearing...NOT GOOD.

So we get to walking down this path with some steps and it's pretty steep let me tell you but that is nothing compared to what I am about to encounter. Soon before me is a GINORMOUS ladder on the side of a steep cliff. Ya not appealing. I kind of looked at Scot like, is this a joke? There is no way in heck they can have people and CHILDREN climb that ladder. I am deathly afraid of heights so this was not good. Here is what I saw...
Pretty much, I wanted to cry and I was not exactly excited about wearing those shoes on that scary ladder... So here I am trying to look happy as my turn gets closer and closer...

So I did make it up the ladder...barely...I was shaking like crazy and I dropped my sunglasses so someone had to get them for me. Whoops but I made it...Hurray! and it was so worth it.

These places are just so amazing. Amazing that they are still here after all of these hundreds of years and that they are still mostly intact for us to enjoy and learn more about. These were very resourceful and ingenious people and we are so lucky to have learned more about this culture and to see where they lived and how they used natural elements to survive!

Here we are waiting to go Cliff House (and I am just HOPING there will be no more ladders!)

Cliff Palace did have some ladders but NOTHING like Balcony House. These were just small ladders that I could handle. Here is a picture of Cliff Palace from above where we walked down from...
These Camel Backs or Packs or whatever you call them pretty much saved our tails on this little day trip. It was very hot and water was essential so these really helped us through the day. I would HIGHLY recommend these!

After Mesa Verde we drove all the way to Page Arizona and stayed the night there. We got in fairly late so we didn't really do a whole lot that night. On Thursday we got up early and went and found a swim beach at Lake Powell and spent the day there and had a blast. We would love to rent a house boat there someday. It would be so much fun. The water was so nice and clear and we just had a great day...

I have short fat toes and Scot has finger toes. Opposites attract I guess...

Lounging on the beach...

After spending a few hours on the water in our floating lounge chairs we decided to give our pasty white skin a rest and we went to lunch and then went back to our hotel room and took a nap. Then we got ready and went to dinner at a nice steak house in town and walked around a couple of the shops. Before going back to the hotel we decided to go back to the lake and enjoy the sunset...

After our fantastic day at Lake Powell we drove to Cedar City on Friday for my family reunion. I was lamo and didn't take any pictures while we were there but I would love to post a few so if my ever so kind mother would like to email me the pictures she took that would be fantastic (hint, hint)...anyway one of the days we went to Bryce Canyon and that was a really fun day. Here are some pictures from that...




We had such a great trip. It was EXTREMELY difficult to come home, it always is after a great vacation, but it was nice to get away and rejuvinate and see my family. We love you guys and we miss you already!!!

*Side note: My mom and I are such dedicated Twilight fans we actually went to Wal Mart on Friday at midnight to get the 4th book in the series so yes, we actually stood in line with all the teeny boppers at midnight at the Wal Mart in Cedar City to get Breaking Dawn and I just have to say...IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Memories

Alright, so I have seen this on a ton of blogs so I decided to join the fun! I hope to hear from you all, feel free to leave memories about me and/or Scoty!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! If we're only blogging friends, write about a post that is the most memorable for you.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll be sure to write one about you...!

Tagalicious

What are the last 3 things you purchased?
- A flowery shirt from JC Penney, they are having a great sale right now. Especially for all you moms out there on kids clothes!
- A bike pulley so we can hang our bikes in the garage
- Sunglasses

What are the last 3 songs you downloaded?
- Finally by Fergie
- Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield
- Love Song by Sara Bereilles

What were the last 3 places you visited?
- Sacramento, CA
- Rexburg, ID
- Salt Lake City, UT

What are your 3 favorite movies? (I like lots of movies these are just three I can think of)
- She's The Man (OK I am lame I know, just leave me alone about it.)
- Dan In Real Life
- 50 First Dates

What are your 3 favorite possessions?
- My Cricut
- My bed (gotta sleep)
- My computer (it's my life line to everything. Sad, yes but true)

What are 3 things you can't live without?
- SCOT
- My celebrity and scrapbook magazines
- Sugar sadly (I have to agree with you Mitzi, I've tried and tried to give it up but it hasn't happened yet. I justify it though with that you can deprive yourself or else you will really be jonsing for it and eat WAY more than you normally would, so it IS OK to keep sugar in our lives :))

What are your 3 wishes?
- I wish I had a button in the kitchen that I could push and a marvelous dinner would pop out of a little slot each night just like the Jetsons
- That I always had clothes in my closet that were super flattering and I never had to worry about stuff popping out of here or there because I magically always had cute flattering/slimming clothes in my closet
- No debt (thank you Mitzi for reading my mind on this one)

What are 3 things you haven't done yet?
- Left the United States (although this will be accomplished in October, Oh ya!)
- Swim with Dolphins (I've wanted to do this since I was a kid)
- Made millions with an online business or working from home (this is a dream and something I will HOPEFULLY do someday. Ha :))

What are your 3 favorite dishes?
- Pretty much anything with Chicken
- Lasagna
- Fettuccini Alfredo from Zio's

What 3 Celebes do you want to hang out with?
- Patrick Dempsey, if he were younger maybe but not like "Can't Buy Me Love" younger just not...anyway ya. He is just my celebrity crush so I would like to meet him OK!
- Tom Cruise so I could maybe get inside his head and understand what happened between the years of "Top Gun" and now. He USED to be so cool, now not so much
- The kid from the movie "The Kid"...just cause we think that movie is funny.

Name 3 things that freak you out
- The dark ( I think I just have a fear of the unknown really. It gives me anxiety)
- Spiders/bugs/bees all of that, for obvious reasons
- Plane crashes. I like to fly because it is SOOO much faster but that is always in the back of my mind when we fly...the whole "what if" type of stuff. It's morbid I know but I just can't help it

Name 3 things you are good at
- Uhhh ya. PASS
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Name 3 things you are currently coveting
- A Volvo S60 in dark grey
- People who have jobs that they enjoy even though I should just be happy to have one here in The Springs
- A supreme scrapbook room that would put the ones in my magazines to shame with TONS of storage and beautiful cabinets and desk tops

3 bloggers I tag
- You
- And you
-And even you!

Trailer #2

Horray! There is a 2nd trailer out for Twilight now and I thought I would share because I know you are all just as obsessed as I am...Click HERE to see it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

...EVERYBODY!!!!

July/June is definitely the months of Birthday's for our family!! Anybody who's anybody has a birthday in July!!

You saw my mom who had her birthday on July 2nd...

One of my dear friends, Lisa...her birthday is July 8th...

Then my sister-in-laws husband Jay's birthday is July 12th...

Next up Scot's parents birthdays are on the 14th and 18th...



















In between those two is my sister in law Jennifer on the 16th... Her husband Christian's birthday was the 23rd of June...
And on the 20th is our adorable niece Mikayla's birthday!!
Also at the end of June was Scot's other sisters husband Travis' birthday on the 29...

WOWZA that's a lot of birthdays! Happy Birthday to everyone!! We hope you all had fantastic birthdays!!!

The Bachelorette

I know this is stupid but I totally got sucked in to the Bachelorette this season just because I saw her get dumped by Brad a couple of seasons ago on the Bachelor and I had just gotten done watching the latest season of the Bachelor and this one came on the next week so I had already set aside time to watch T.V. at that time...and...uh that's all I can think of. I'm a loser OK???? ANYWAY...I just have to give a big shout out to the guy she chose becuase he is from one of my MOST favorite towns in all of Colorado, Breckenridge. I absolutely love Breckenridge for some reason. It's just this little small ski town kind of like Jackson Hole, WY if you have ever been there and we go there to celebrate for all kind of special occasions because we just love it so much!! Here is Jesse in all his glory...

Now I will share a couple of trips that I have pictures from Breckenridge...

Here we are in our hotel room in Breckenridge for my 23rd birthday a few years ago (yes, I said a few years ago OK). I had never even heard of Breckenridge. I had just moved to Colorado, we were just barely married 3 months and Scot came to my work around 1 or 2 in the afternoon and was like "clock out, let's go." I was like "I can't just leave, I have to stay here until 5:00" but he just kept pushing it, finally my boss came in to the room and was like "why don't you just go ahead and go." and they all started laughing. My sweet husband had already called her and set it up so that I could leave early and we could spend my birthday weekend in Breckenridge. It was a blast!

I loved Breckendridge so much the first time that we ended up going there again to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary. Here we are at the place we stayed...

Here is our view from our room. Beautiful huh?

Here is where we stayed...

And here we are with the cute little town in the background...

So that is a little bit about why I love Breckenridge and why I had to give a shout out to good ol' snowboardin' Jesse!!!

Happy 4th of July

...a little late, but still here none the less...

We had a great 4th of July and it was our first camping trip of the Summer. We headed up to Woodland Park, CO on Thursday after work and stayed through Saturday evening. Scot's parents and his sister Jennifer and her family were there as well. We had a few rainy moments but that's Colorado for you. For the most part the weather was really great if you were outside in the shade. Trying to go in our tents to take naps...that was another story. WAY TOO HOT!!!!

On Friday we went in to town and walked around this little fair that they have where you can ride an old fashioned fire truck...(I'm definitely not out to win a fashion or beauty show when we camp so don't judge Okay?)

And a horse and buggy...The horses name was Mouse. We thought that was pretty funny for such a LARGE horse.
There were also lots of little booths to walk through and a pond to walk around and even a little parade. It was a good small town time!

For the fireworks that night we headed up to the local high school and staked out a great place to set up and watch the fireworks. They really put on a great little show!
The rest of the weekend consisted of relaxing, a bike ride to the lake that nearly killed me (I really need to get my booty back to the gym), walking around the lake, going to the movies, catching up on my magazine reading and the most important part of all EATING!

We really do love this country and feel so lucky to live in a place where we are blessed with so many freedoms, especially our freedom of religion. We are so grateful for the gospel in our lives and for the knowledge, peace and comfort that it brings to us. We truly are lucky and we love the 4th of July to reflect on our many blessings and freedoms! We hope you all had a great 4th as well!

Happy Birthday Mama

Today is my mom's birthday, I won't disclose her age in fear of a hardy beating but I will say Happy Birthday to my mom! I am so glad we got through all of that toddler and teenage stuff so we can be such close friends now.

Over the years my mom has become my best friend, a confidant and a wonderful person to get advice from. I can laugh with her and be myself with her and she still loves me! I am so happy to have her in my life, now if I can only find a way to get her and my dad closer to Colorado!!! Love you and miss you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!!!

Scot and Jenny Simpson?

Have you ever wondered what you would look like if you suddenly became an actor and got cast as one of the Simpson's? Well we did and this is what we would look like... Do you likey?

Here is my studly husband...Baby baby...


Here I am...If only I were a cartoon and could erase the things I don't like...sigh...


Disclaimer: *I hate the Simpsons, I think it is a foul show and I am just not a big fan but I thought this was funny. If you want to do it youself you can just go to http://simpsonizeme.com/#

Star Struck

So I have been meaning to blog this for a while but I kept forgetting. I totally saw someone famous right here in Colorado Springs the other day while driving to work. Ok now brace yourselves...this is a good one. I saw Bobby Brown of Bobby Brown Bail Bonds driving next to me on I25...

OK OK, so there are probably only a select few that even know who this is and most of you are probably like is she insane? But I thought it was cool. Let me break it down for you...He is sometimes on a little show called Dog the Bounty Hunter which is on A&E.
Dog grew up in the Denver area and so sometimes comes over from Hawaii which is where he lives now to help out Bobby Brown who has a Bail Bonds company here in the Springs. FYI, I in no way support Dog and some of his recent scandals but I do enjoy the show from time to time, it's so weird and they are so cocky and ridiculous. So that is my awesome star sighting...be impressed, be very impressed...