Foliage

Either Matt (and his infinite love for the fall foliage) is rubbing off on me, or it really was a pretty fall.  I kept on finding myself ooh-ing and aah-ing at the leaves this year, and I wasn't just doing it to humor him.  My parents discovered a great place to scope out some trees up Provo canyon, so we decided to get the ATV's and make a double date out of it!

 Proudly displaying the oldest stuff we could find in our closet.  Stone washed jeans and Roxy.  

 Cute parents.

 Scenes from a movie.

 And, the aftermath!!!

Ah, the northwest....

Matt and I started to get a little stir crazy since we usually vacation more during the summer so we decided to go to Seattle to visit our friends Blaine & Melissa who moved there last year for grad school.  Once we started talking about a visit to the northwest I knew we had to go to Portland because Matt has never been there they have the BEST doughnut shop in the world there.  Perfect.

 This is one of those things you're supposed to do, right? Eating fish and chips? 

 Before we devoured our carmel apple.

 Blaine and Matt at Gasworks Park

Part one of our waterfall tour. 

 Matt literally had to pull me away from eating all of the blackberries.

 This is a bad photo but Matt thought that paying $20 to go to the near top of a building and look outside was really cool.

 He even humored me by going to a rose garden in Portland.

 We spent a lot of time discussing the mechanics of the bridge behind us, so this photo had to be included.

We stopped at Multnomah Falls on the way home and ventured on the 2+ mile hike in Sperrys.  Not my smartest choice.

And how could I not make special tribute to VooDoo Doughnut?  If this box looks enormous, it's because it was.  And it was full, and it was delicious.  

I'm already ready to go back.

Oktoberfest

I'm guilty for loving things marketed towards tourists/yuppies that aren't actually that cool.  Enter : Oktoberfest.

I usually throw out ideas for things like this and get shot down quickly from Matt so when he was just as anxious to go as I was, I knew we were in for a treat.

Upon entering the festival I instantly got carried away and convinced Matt to buy the expensive collectors-edition glass mug instead of a cheap disposable plastic cup.  I know, sometimes I surprise myself too.  After taking in the apparent German culture for a few minutes, we got in line to get some lunch.  While we were anxiously awaiting our $13 plate of chicken we noticed that everything being served was from Sysco, NOT GERMANY!!! At that point we had to laugh at what a sham it was - did we really think we were going to get imported German food, made from an authentic German?  No, we got Sysco food on a styrofoam plate served to us by a high school student wearing a white apron and baseball hat.  

Nostalgic or not, it was still a fun day.  But once again, we got suckered in.

 A self timer accident to prove how pretty it was.

And a sub-par photo of us blocking said pretty scenery.

It was like death...

Without doing much planning or thinking ahead, Matt and I ventured up Milcreek canyon in the heat of the afternoon for a hike.  We just stopped at a random trail, parked our car and started climbing.  As we were leaving we debated bringing a water bottle that I happened to throw in the car as we were leaving, and at this point I had already drank half of it.  I used 3 bits of reason to convince Matt to leave it behind (thus being mistake number 1 of the trip).

a. There was a small group of older people who were finishing the hike when we left, they had all sorts of camelbaks and walking sticks with them.  When they told us it was steep I thought, You mean steep for YOU (not me) - you're using a stick to hike, I'm sure we'll be fine.
b. The hike was 1.8 miles each way.  I figured if I can run 5 miles up a canyon on my lunch break without water, we'd be just fine.  Plus, in learning that the hike was only 3.6 miles total Matt said "I wonder if we'll have to go on 2 hikes to make it worth our trip up here."
c. Every other hike we've been on this summer, I've diligently carried a water bottle and regretted it the entire time when nobody wanted any lukewarm water hours later.

So we ventured up the mountain.  About a half mile in we started to get hot and thirsty but we decided to finish what we came to do.  Half way through Susan found another dog and chased him around which quickly drained all of her energy, which led to Matt carrying Susan up the rest of the mountain.

When we got to the top and laughed at how stupid we were for not bringing water (mistake #1) and coming during the hottest part of the day (mistake #2), Matt realized that the only liquid he had that day was the milk in his cereal (mistake #3), and neither of us had eaten since about 9am (mistake #4) and it was almost 5pm.

We drove as fast as we could to the nearest chevron and drank an unsightly amount of gatorade, water and diet coke before we even checked out.   

 The beginning of the overheating.

 The princess in her carriage.

 At least the view was worth it.

The way Susan looks on the outside is the way I felt on the inside.  

Summer Ended with a Bang!

Is it just me or did this summer seem kind of uneventful?  I think I spent all of August on my couch watching the Olympics, so I suppose that can account for a lack of activity.  Once mid August hit I went into panic mode and felt the need to start doing summery things.  And this just about wraps it up.

 We bought a new car and Susan claimed the arm rest as her own perch.

 We spent an afternoon in Park City with my family.

As active members of our HOA board we got scared when they started talking about imposing fines for weeds, so we got rid of these bad boys all in one night.

 We took some drinks and candy (of course) up to South Mountain and watched one of the many beautiful sunsets this summer.

 We got to hang out with Grace and the goats.

 We rode the alpine slide 2 times in one month.

 We went boating with my family.

 Ashleigh was in charge of the music - which was obviously dance-able music.

 Dinner with some of my favorite people.

We rode our bikes up to Bridal Veil falls with my family.

And BAM! Just like that, it's FALL!

Ringing in Fall with a Bet!

If you've ever talked about Susan with Matt, this story will come as no shock to you.  A few weeks ago my family planned an afternoon for ATV'ing and Jeeping in American Fork canyon.  Matt didn't want to leave Susan at home and was convinced that she'd enjoy riding on the back of an ATV.  After watching Matt's failed attempt of having Susan ride on our scooter with him, I was adamant that she would not enjoy it.  We even bet breakfast at Mimi's on it.

Somehow Matt managed to prove me wrong on this one and Susan successfully rode on the back of Matt's ATV for at least 45 minutes before we put her in the Jeep.

It was the perfect day in the canyon and it already smelled like fall.  After returning to our car Ashleigh and I kept on referencing what a "nice ride" it was...and then realized that we sounded like naturals just using the term "ride" so casually, so of course we used it some more. :)

 On the parking lot test run...

 She really was enjoying it!

My Husband: The "celebrity"

On Friday night we sat down to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics and what commercial popped up on the FIRST commercial break?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIc3ti-hv8Q&list=UUKwhv7NRxw245l0ah7rh_FQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Turns out, I can't figure out how to add a video to blogger.  So the link will have to suffice.

Minute marker 0:20.