On blogs and dogs

First things first-- we are now public. So go ahead and add the blog to your Google Reader or whatever. After trying to keep up with a couple of friends' private blogs I realized that it can be a pain to remember to check those blogs. Not that those people aren't worth visiting or commenting on, but yea, private blogs can be harder to reach and read. And it seems like you agree with me. I decided that whether this blog is private or public actually didn't matter that much to me, so why not make things easier? Done and done. 

Second matter of excitement and happiness-- our cute new puppy. We named him Misu, which means "little bear" in Polish. We adopted him from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. They had so many cute sweet dogs and puppies to choose from. I went a month before the adoption to see what was available and after playing with Misu and his litter, I realized that he was the one for us. Back then he was called Hendrix, but he didn't look like a Hendrix to me. Turns out that Misu is a perfect name for him. He often sounds like a tiny little bear with his grunts and growls as he plays with Luna. 

He is half Miniature Poodle and half Maltese and is a sweetie. (A sweetie that still poops on the carpet from time to time, but still...) 

He and our other dog Luna get along really well. They play tug-of-war, wrestle, and chase one another around the house. Luna has really taken to her little brother and I love it. What's more is that they really seem to play off of one another really well. Misu is really chill and not easily riled up-- both Jon and I hope that trait rubs off on Luna. Having Misu join the family has been just great. Luna still loves following me around but she also gives me a little more space now that Misu is here. Which means I can get a lot more done around the house. And if it sounds like I'm talking about Luna as if she is a child, that's because in some ways she is one. And now with Misu she's a happier more self-sufficient one. However, unlike children, I'm finding that two is easier than one. 

So yea, we've got some good things going on around here. Good and cute. 

Anniversary trip, part 2.

Could you do me a quick favor? Seriously like one second of your time is all I need. Will you share your opinion? (Quiz on the right side of this page--) Thanks bunches!!!

Part One is right HERE.

. . .
The day after Sequoia National Park was a L-O-N-G driving day. Poor Jon had to drive us through Malibu during some crazy mid-day traffic. We moved about sixteen miles in an hour! Ridiculous, people! Finally, we just HAD to have a pee break. But you know what? Eateries around there aren't required to have bathrooms. So we had to hit up five different places before some guy at the gelato shop took pity on Jon and let him use the employee bathroom. Yes, Jon went first because I felt so bad for him. And then I decided that the best plan of action would be to first decide on some food and then have me find a bathroom. Certainly the deli that we chose would have a public bathroom, right? Nope. So I told Jon what to order for me and then I went on a bathroom-seeking journey. I had to walk two blocks to a public bathroom. It was like this-- one tiny girl's bathroom along a line of shops across the street and around a corner from our deli. And that was the closest public bathroom. Not even the Starbucks had one. Hello-- people in there are drinking coffee and coffee makes you need to pee lots. At least that's what I've heard. What the heck? How do the people of Malibu put up with such nonsense? Anyway, I finally made it to the bathroom and there were three ladies in line in front of me. The two at the end let me cut. Apparently I looked like I was ready to burst. I made sure I left the bathroom in a much better state than the older lady who went in front of me did. Yikes!

Anyway, after that things calmed down and were much better. We ended up with delicious sandwiches that we ate sitting in cool wood lawn chairs on a grass-covered mini-lawn. Suddenly California was sunny and lovely all over again. And our sandwiches were so big that we could only eat half of our lunch, saving us the expense of buying a real dinner. We had linner all ready and waiting for us.

After getting more gas for the 4-Runner, we made our way to our destination-- lovely, gorgeous, wonderful El Matedor beach. It did not disappoint. We pulled up into a parking spot IN the parking lot! Our luck had turned. And then I saw these guys with Polaroid Land Cameras. Jon asked if I'd go talk to them and I said, "Of course!"

Now, I'm not usually the type that just goes off and talks to new people like that, but they were driving a refurbished bright orange car with glittery-sparkly upholstery. And they had Polaroids. So I went over to chat while Jon paid our parking fare. They told me that they were impressed that a non-local knew of El Matedor, and I told them that I liked their car and their camera, and we got to talking about Polaroids, and I was so jealous. The one guy had a stockpile of old vintage Polaroid film-- 669 and 600 stuff. . . And then I took a picture of them sitting in their tangerine car overlooking the Pacific and handed it back, and a minute later, they peeled it and said, "Man, this girl really knows her stuff." Yay. In the first place, they liked my photo lots. And in the second place, they thought of me as considerably younger than them, which I doubt I was.

And then we walked down to the beach.

How gorgeous is this place?

On the way downstairs to the beach, I got stopped three times so people could ask me questions about my Polaroid cameras. I had my SX70 and my 350 land camera out, and Jon asked if I was feeling like a rock star by the time we got to the bottom. He said, "You're getting way more attention than all the people with their fancy digital cameras running around here." And it was true. There were seven or so other people running about with fancy-pants digital cameras, several of them doing shoots of "models." None of them were asked about their cameras. Jon was watching. And I still got asked about my cameras a few more times while walking along the water's edge. I'm not going to lie, it was kind of fun telling them that yes, these were functional older Polaroids and yes, there is still film to be had for them.

I make faces when I take photos. That's my secret. 

I wish I'd taken photos of the "models" out there-- There was one girl with purple hair who kept swinging her head from side to side as her "move." I'm guessing. There was another girl in a skimpy outfit that was so giggly, but as soon as the camera turned on her, she'd make these deep, thoughtful faces and would really get into it. Also, she was maybe 18 and had dyed her hair gray. I'm not kidding you. I saw it in several lighting conditions. Each time, gray. Oh, and Jon saw her get trounced by a big sneaky wave while she was trying for a seductive pose laying on the sand.

So happy to have some beach time together.

There isn't much more to say about the beach other than it was lovely and relaxing and so scenic. We'd never been to this beach before and even though it was crazy to get to, it was so worth it. Even Jon (who did the driving while I did the directing) had to agree. Amazing place.

We LOVED this beach.

Jon, jumping. :)

We spent the night at a really nice place for not very much at all. We woke up and had a lovely continental breakfast, and then we took a long walk along a river trail and fed some ducks. Then we drove over to pick up a dresser that we'd bought on e-bay. As Jon put it, "It looks better in real life than it even did on-line." An it's true. We are so happy with it. It is a mid-century solid wood 8-drawer dresser. I'll put up photos of it soon. We are delighted with our purchase. And the young woman we bought it from was so helpful. She provided the additional human-power that we needed to keep the dresser balanced on its back while Jon put the drawers in it. She marveled that our 4-Runner could fit it, but fit it it did. And there was plenty of room to spare for our clothes and cameras and snacks to fit in around it when we were done.

An amazing whirlwind of a trip. It was a great quick little anniversary trip out to California. A change of scenery and pace. And as always, it was so fun to go adventuring with Jon. It was great to have hours and hours of uninterrupted quality time with my honey. Time to talk in the car, time walking, hiking, and photographing-- I couldn't have imagined a better anniversary. Jon says it could have been better if we'd gone back to Hawaii. . . haha.

Anniversary

Jon and I celebrate one year of wedded bliss today. It's weird how on the one hand it feels like the past year has flown by, but on the other hand it's hard to imagine life any other way (and it's only been one year!). It has been an amazing, full, and happy year with my darling sweetheart. I look forward to many, many more. 

We had an adventure this past weekend as part of our celebrations. We went to California. It all started when we began looking for grown-up furniture. Right now our bedroom is a mash-up of both of our past lives. We decided it was high time to actually go for a look rather than look overly eclectic without a purpose. I have always loved mid-century pieces and once we got looking, we quickly found a really great solid wood dresser for a super awesome price. The only problem? It was in California. Wait, did I say that was a problem? Okay, it was more like an opportunity. The wonderful Carrie that we bought our dresser from was happy to hold onto it until we could come get it, and so our planning began. And our thoughts quickly went like this-- well, our anniversary is coming up, and we don't have kids yet so we can take a trip, and we love beaches and nature and we have this dresser in California. . . so it was decided that we would make a whole road-trip out of it.

We were fascinated by all the wind turbines.

Friday we drove out to Visalia, California where we met up with the lovely Amanda Morgan and her fiancee Addison. This was our first time meeting Addison, and we were so happy to see how happy these two are together. We had fun eating dinner at Panera and dessert at a local frozen yogurt shop.

That was it for our first day--- driving, visiting, eating, and then sleeping.

Day two was much more eventful. In the first place, we had a nice easy-going morning with a pretty nice complimentary breakfast, and then we met up with Amanda again for lunch. We had amazing sandwiches at this cute local joint, and then we took a few pictures. We were all full after half of a sandwich that we saved the rest for later. The sandwiches were HUGE! And oh so very tasty.

From there, we took Amanda's advice and stopped at Reimer's. I can happily recommend this place to anyone remotely near by. This place had some of the best ice cream that I've ever tried. They even had a cookies and cream in a chocolate base. That's what Jon got. I tried their almond toffee in vanilla. So delicious!

Look at the cute Swiss-inspired detailing!

Happy and full of tasty ice cream.

And then we got to Sequoia National Park. First we hit up the Giant Forest. We walked around a meadow and experienced huge sequoias, read some informational plaques, and saw two brown bears! Jon got within fifteen feet of one. They were just chillin' in the grass, rooting around for food. They didn't even seem to notice the people all around. One lady we talked to had one walk right in front her to go munch on berries in the glade.

Cute baby bear.

Huge trees!

Root base of a fallen giant. I'm in there for scale.

Giant sequoia hugging a boulder. 

Can you spot Jon in the photo above? Another scale photo. This probably would just look like a normal tree and a rock otherwise. (Click on the photo to see it larger.)

In contrast to the huge trees all around, I found these darling tiny pink and yellow flowers growing here and there along the trail. Does anyone know what they are?

Second bear siting.

I can see why the teddy bear has become a symbol of all things cuddly and sweet. The huge bear cubs did indeed look sweet and cuddly, and in a perfect world, we could go snuggle them. But alas, we had to keep our distance. So sad.

My cute Jon.

From there we decided to check out the General Sherman tree. While it is the biggest thing alive (by mass), we were more impressed by other trees and by our walk along part of the Congress Trail. There we not only saw other massive trees, but also gigantic burnt out tree trunks. They were haunting, sad, and beautiful all at once.

My one regret is that we didn't make it to a Visitor's Center early enough for me to get my National Parks Passport stamped. But Jon reminded me that we'll be in that part of California for Amanda's wedding in a couple of months, so we'll attend to that then. :) But while we were there, we had an quick impromptu picnic consisting of some of our snack food and the rest of our sandwiches from earlier. Thank goodness for high elevation and cooler temperatures. Our food still tasted great hours later.

Then we made our way to look over the valleys and so that Jon could take some more of his amazing 360 degree panoramic photos. It was a quick little hike up stairs to the top of Moro Rock and we got a few fun photos up there as the sun was setting and twilight was coming on. We were the last to come off the mountain. It was nice and quiet up there once all the other tourists left.

Here's Jon setting up for one of his photos.

I think we made quite a few people nervous setting up for our photos. We really don't take risks, I promise. We just don't always stay on the trail or within the bounds of the handrails. We really do make sure to only stick to places we feel comfortable on, though. So that makes it O.K. Right?

The second place that Jon set up to take panoramic photos. 

Jon's view of me from his vantage point.

In the next photo, if you click on it, you can see layers of mountains and valleys, the road that we drove up, and the moon in the sky.

I love the pastel colors!

Even though Jon forgot to smile because he was busy concentrating on the taking the picture,
this is a happy memory for me, so I'm including it!

Sunset on Moro Rock

The path illuminated by moonlight.
(Best seen large.)

And then it was time to head back to our car. Jon was helped me along the last part of the trail where it was totally dark. When we got to the bottom I saw something huge in front of us. "Uh, Jon?" was all I managed to say. Jon looked up and nearly jumped out of his skin. When our eyes fully adjusted, we saw that there was a buck licking something up off of a rock, and he was soon joined by a doe. This was RIGHT by us and next to our car. We just watched them for a moment and kept quietly talking to one another, and the deer would look up every once in a while, but they weren't scared of us. So of course, we had to take a few pictures.

Jon, our car, and a big deer.

And then, even though it was dark, because we were so close to it, we had to go see the Log Tunnel. It is a big tree that has fallen over with an arch carved through it making an 8' high tunnel you could drive through. I took a few photos of Jon driving through it.

Right after taking that second photo, I heard some rustling in the bushes next to me. Jon and I have been watching the X-files, and I've just plain seen too many scary/creepy movies in my life. I knew better than to stop and look at what was making that noise. I just firmly grabbed my camera and ran for the car. Jon heard the rustling from inside the running car, so I can't imagine it was a small woodland creature. More than likely it was another friendly deer, but I didn't want to take any chances. It was a pretty funny way to end our day at Sequoia National Park.

From there we drove back into town and shared a late dinner before getting back to our hotel room and crashing. And that is that for our second day of our anniversary adventures in California. More to come really soon!

Trek 2011, Part 3

Part one of our trek can be found HERE.
Part two is HERE.

After making it to our last campsite, we quickly got to work finding a spot to camp at and got all of our stuff more or less situated so that we could get out and have some fun. They had all kinds of activities slated for us, and everyone was ready for a change from pushing and pushing and pushing a handcart.

We had to opportunity to make more butter, but this time in real churns. We also got to do some leather-tooling, archery, hatchet-tossing, and gun-firing. I tried my hand at archery and the leather-tooling. (As soon as we got home, Luna found our leather bracelets and chewed them to shreds.) There was also this ropes course that they'd titled "Pioneer Warrior Ninja" and whoever could get across it without touching the ground was awarded with a few buttons and the title of being a Pioneer Warrior Ninja.

Brother Traveller completing the course

Buttons had been given to all of the kids here and there on the trail. They were our way of getting things at the trade stations. We had one on the first day to get all of our necessities and not much else. I think we had enough extra to buy some hard tack candy to share with our group and that was it. Well, on our last night everything was discounted and buttons were flowing freely at the Trading Post, and all the kids ended up getting filled and fueled by sugar. Neither Jon nor I thought that was a good idea. Why didn't we have them all hopped up on sugar during the physically grueling portions of trek? Instead all the kids were drugged up on sugar the last night when there wasn't really much to wear them down on. It was quite the sight to see.

Where you can get all of your sugar needs met.

They did have a big square dance, and that helped a little. I think almost everyone danced a little, including Jon and I. I wish we'd taken more pictures that last night, but we were all so exhausted. . . so you'll just have to imagine us all in our pioneer garb dancing around. It was fun. Then it was time for dinner. Not so surprisingly, the food didn't go terribly fast. Jon got to grab us a plate full of seconds. Thank you very much, kids who ate too many Twizzlers, popsicles, lolipops, taffy, and peppermints. Dinner on our last night was actually really good. I was so grateful. They even gave us each a scone for dessert and they were delicious.

It being our last night together, we decided it was a great evening for a family meeting. We shared a little about our favorite/hardest moments on trek. I also had everyone pass around their notebooks to everyone else and each person wrote at least one nice thing about every one else in our family. I could tell it was a tough thing for some of the kids, but I was so happy to see how much everyone looked forward to seeing what was written about them. Jon and I got some very sweet notes thanking us for our hard work, our happy attitudes, and a bunch of other sweet stuff. And then we each shared our testimonies. I prefaced this with telling them that no matter where we stand at that day, Heavenly Father is happy with each of us for being there and for wanting to come closer to Him. I was amazed at how much everyone opened up.

Before that meeting, I was already feeling like as spastic and crazy as our little pioneer family was, we were meant to be together. After that meeting, I knew that we were meant for one another. I learned a lot from all of a sudden having to share the responsibility of watching over six teenagers with Jon. As I heard them share their thoughts and their testimonies, I was in awe of each of these children. They came from such different places, they each had different reasons for being there, and they each were coming away with something personal and precious from Trek. I was proud of each them by that point, but after hearing more details of their lives, I was that much more impressed with them as people.

Once we wrapped things up, we realized just how spent we were. It had been a full, emotional, physical, spiritual day and we were done. Everyone in our family fell fast asleep, even though some people around us chose to try to stay up as long as possible. With my earplugs in, I was out as soon as I got warmed up in my sleeping bag.

The next morning we quickly packed our things up, ate a quick breakfast/snack, and put all of our things in piles with our home wards. Tristen found a pile of ladybugs.

This is what happens when Tristen finds ladybugs:

You might have to click on the above photo to fully see what's going on, seeing as the ladybugs blend into his shirt, but he was crawling with those little spotted insects.


We then hiked the last part of our trek without our handcarts, but still as families. We were walking to our last devotional spot. On our hike out, each of our babies were taken away from us, symbolic of the babies and children that didn't make it across the plains, some from exposure, some from illness...

And then we made it --

We held our last devotional at the edge of the Grand Canyon. What an amazing view. It was a wonderful backdrop to look out on as we contemplated the lives of the early saints and heard a few concluding messages. Near the end of the devotional, Brother Traveller wrapped a white shawl around himself--it was a signal to those of us that he'd asked earlier to do the same. So I got up and quietly wrapped a white piece of cloth around my shoulders and followed Brother Traveller and others in white as we silently walked off. We went off to a small clearing where we were told that we represented the percentage of pioneers that would never make it to their destination. Then we were each given back our babies and were told that when we saw our families, we'd get to be reunited with them, as one day we all will get to in heaven. We waited for the others to finish their devotional and then waited as little by little, each of us in white shawls got to go back to our families. We then told them what each of us in white represented. Two of our little family of eight had walked off in white. Parker kept disappearing on us throughout the trek, so no one really missed him, they said. They did notice my absence, however, and said that they were glad that I came back to them with our baby in tow. Chrissy, when you read this, I think you might get a kick out this-- we named our baby Phoebe. :)

Then it was time for goodbyes. Tristen's family was waiting for him with the family dog at the bottom of the hill. He yelled hi to his folks but hugged the dog first. We all said hello to them and told them how we enjoyed having Tristen on trek. And then we each quickly hugged and said goodbye to the rest of our family members-- most had to find their wards, Kourtnee had to find her dad and help him out, and then that was that. We were back to just being Jon and Janel, part of the CC2 ward. We met up with our ward members and then met back up at the mouth of the Grand Canyon.

And blessed Shauna Vanderheyden brought pie! Coconut and chocolate. I had the chocolate, of course. While there was a lot of sugar flowing the night before, I hadn't had any chocolate in days!

And that was the end of Trek 2011. When people ask if it was fun, I usually answer that it was quite the experience. Fun doesn't cover the range of things that we experienced on trek. Fun doesn't do it justice. Trek was work--it was exhausting, it was challenging, it was different from everyday life. Trek was spiritually uplifting and inspirational. Trek taught us things about ourselves and others. It was like nothing I had ever done before. And yes, even though I can say that it was hard, harder than I had fully anticipated, I would do it again.

I am so glad that I had the trek experience. It was so humbling to do such a small portion of the original pioneers' trek and yet feel so tired every night we went to bed. I loved feeling connected to those early pioneers by physically emulating what they did, how they slept, and what they ate. I am also really grateful that we didn't have to experience those things along with huge snow drifts, actual deaths, or real mobs. So while I realize that ours was just a weak imitation of what really happened for the handcart pioneers, it still taught me so much and made me that much more appreciative for those that have gone on before us.

*I thought that I'd also add that the weekend after we got back, a few of the kids from our ward and Sandy spoke about their trek experience. The following week, there was more talks about pioneers. And then the last weekend of July, Jon and I got to speak about trek with a few more youth from our ward. Our assignment was to speak about the pioneer/s that we walked for. I spoke not only about Mary Hadley, but also my grandmother. I hope that both of them are happy with my effort. There are so many wonderful pioneer stories out there. I realized that my grandmother was a true pioneer in her family, even if she wasn't of the handcart variety. I think anyone could easily find inspiring stories from their family heritage if they only look.

I'm a huge family of family history and genealogy, can you tell?