Say Goodbye! IT'S ALL GONE!!!

Starting last January I decided to start growing my hair out, for a little bit of a change. After a few months, I thought, maybe I could keep growing it and even donate some of it to Cancer Patients. SO, after many months of hair in the face I finally had enough to do it! Last month I went up to my favorite stylist and said, TAKE IT ALL OFF! She put my hair into little pig tails and chopped off 9 inches of hair! It was a little scary, but then again, it's just hair... right?!?!?

THE BEFORE:





I actually have LOVED it and think I might just leave it this length for a little while... the only problem is that now some people can't tell Paige and I apart - Sorry Paige... I guess you had the right idea in the first place.

THE AFTER:

Time for a little Back Packing

After I got back from the best 9 day road trip ever! – (it really was the best – so relaxing and FUN!!!), I unpacked, hung out for 3 days and then packed again for another mini vacation – this time I had to pack all my goods with me. I headed up to the Uintah’s with my Dad, my brother Spencer and his friend Melissa. We hiked up one afternoon, set up camp and made some dinner. It was amazing to me how many mosquito’s there were! I thought I was going to get eaten alive! But we started a fire quick and things weren’t too bad with the smoke to protect us! However, despite the amount of bugs, it was BEAUTIFUL!!!, don't you think!





The next morning we did a little fishing, and reading – I mostly read & yes, I packed up 2 books with me, so I could read. I was less interested in the fishing and LOVED the book I was able to read! It’s called The Last Lecture. It was a great quick read and I felt inspired by what it had to say. I took a nap, meandered around and just mostly relaxed for the day. That afternoon we fished again and I caught a few – which was actually pretty fun, although I am still not interested in touching them. I asked my dad to take them off the line for me, cause I am a girly, girl. Anyway I had a good time!

Day 9... The END

So, after our trip to Portland we were headed for home. We got up early and then headed home. We stopped a few hours into the trip to attend sacrament meeting in a random town on the edge of Oregon. It was actually a really good meeting. Then after that we made lunch in the gas station parking lot and headed back on the road. Along the way I think I got car sick... I had never been car sick before... and I was a little miserable! Paige and Preston decided it would be fun to take pictures of me in my "pain". Don't worry I got a picture of her too - while she was sleeping :) And of course what would the trip be without a picture of the official driver... Preston really did a majority of the driving, which Paige and I were NOT complaining about.







We drove for about 13 hours that day and were very happy to finally make it back home! So that's it - we made it through the whole thing finally! Hopefully you enjoyed hearing/reading about it :)

Day 8... Portland

It was the last leg of the trip and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I had only been to Portland once and quite briefly at that, so it was fun to really see what the city had to offer, even though we only had one full day to do it. We started off by going to a "farmers market" style shopping area... I can't think of what it was really called. It was pretty cool. Then we went to a gigantic bookstore and of course the teacher in me won out and I purchased a few books (used... so they were CHEAP!) Preston and I also purchased a gift for Paige there. It was a journal made of elephant dung - long story - it has to do with a pet name she kept using when talking to Preston - and no it wasn't anything bad, just funny:) Anyway, after we went to the bookstore, we stopped for lunch and it was pretty tasty.




Then we headed to the local garden area. There was a Japanese Garden, which was beautiful! It was very interested to see all the different styles of gardens... rock, sand, water, etc. It was amazing! We of course didn't stay totally serious the whole time, but it was probably the longest period of somberness for the whole trip.













After the Japanese Garden, we went to the ever famous Rose Garden. I really enjoyed seeing the different types of roses, especially since I had just started my own flower business weeks before. I didn't know how they really grew on the bush, so I thought it was cool to see the long stems growing and how they look on the plant. It was cool... while we were there, Paige tried out her Photography skills... not bad... I told her the second one almost looked like an engagement photo... too bad I am not in the market for such services! But way to go Paige :)




We ended the evening with a walk through the local mall and a short drive for dinner at the Cheese Cake Factory. I thought that the day was enjoyable and was glad that we had the chance to spend the day there... I'd do it all over again.

Day 7... Day of Travel...

This is a picture of us as we were leaving the Red Wood Forest. It's almost as if they were calling for the "morman's" to come, but they got the spelling off just a bit... It was hard to leave such a beautiful and unbelievable place, but we were on to new adventures! Portland here we come! We had some awesome scene's along the way and really enjoyed just "taking out time" to get there...

So as we exited the "forest" areas we came to this small coastal town called Cresant City. We stopped at the city's tourist post and got some information on the local grave yard, because Preston's Grandfather was buried there and we wanted to stop and take a look at the grave. Another attraction in this small little town was a little lighthouse that we decided we wanted to take a peak at. SO, we did! And it was really COOL!!! The whole little place was amazingly BEAUTIFUL and we saw really pretty plants, some awesome shells/some kind of muscles that were living or had been living on the coastal rocks. And while we were there the tide was coming in which was kind of neat to see... anyways, here are just a few pictures of what we saw... we literally took about 60-80 pictures, but I narrowed it down a bit...







After the tide was starting to come in over the path we took to get to the lighthouse we decided we should go. We stopped at the cemetery and found Preston's long lost grandfather and I think his uncle, and took a picture and had lunch (yes, we ate at the cemetery... It was actually kind of a nice stop and it made me appreciate how beautiful and well kept the cemeteries are in Utah). After that stop we were on the road again until we made it to Portland early that evening. It made for a long day of driving, but we seemed to enjoy it for the most part - somehow this was the most "enjoyable driving" I've done on a trip - I guess it was the great company I had to keep me occupied during these long days of driving! Thanks guys!

Day 6... The RED WOODS!!!

Waking up in the Red Wood National Forest was a CHILLY experience. It was still pretty cool by the time we got out of the tent around 8:00. It didn't really warm up until about 11:00 unless you were in the sun - which wasn't too much, since it was cloudy most of the day. We got up, made breakfast, and finished setting up "camp". We were staying in a campsite in one of the State Parks and luckily for us there was running water and a bathroom with pluming not even 100 yards away. (not TRUE camping, but not too bad considering we were on a road trip.) We headed to the ranger office, and got a map and directions to some of the hiking trails around the area and were off for some sight seeing in the Great Outdoors! Here's what we saw! (EVERYONE SHOULD REALLY GO THIS PLACE! IT's AWESOME!)

Hike #1: okay, so the only "hike" we really went on... Boy did we enjoy ourselves!












The Coast: Five min away from camp was this coastal scene. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! Paige found lots of beautiful rocks which she collected for her class... they were evidence of weathering! 30 rocks! I mean really - what a dedicated teacher! Then at the end, we drove over to a fern grove, which they used in filming Jurassic Park! It was also AMAZING! This place is really Cool!!! So peaceful! I would go here to meditate daily if possible!

Day 5

We got up and again Paige and I went down to the gym for another work out! Again, it felt GREAT! Then we packed up our bags and headed down to get some breakfast. We thought that we'd start the morning off right with some awesome pictures and a little breakfast!







So after we were all packed up, we went down town for some quick shopping... how do you think this hat looks on me? What about Paige? (p.s. the "mall" was really COOL!)


And then we hit the open road and were on our way up to the RED WOOD NATIONAL PARK near the California/Oregon boarder. We had a few stops along the way, with beautiful natural surroundings to look at.



Because we didn't leave until later we didn't get to our campsite until almost 11:30 at night! We quietly set up the tent, through in our gear and hit the sack. It had been a long day's drive and we were finally at destination number 2!

Day 4

Wow, so after the long day of sight seeing, Paige and I crashed in our motel and woke up on day 4 around 8 or 9am. We headed down to the hotel gym (which had everything we needed!) and worked out for an hour. It felt good to do a little physical exercise after 3 days of only walking and sitting and eating vacation food. So, we got ready for the day, and headed back to Fisherman's Warf to meet our scheduled tour of Alcatraz Island. I was pretty excited about visiting this awesome place and ended up loving the experience! There is so much history to learn about. I didn't know that it was originally used as a military post and then military prison before it was ever used as a high security prison. I also didn't know about the few times that they had attempted escapes and therefore guards killed and the post prison indian "reservation" or whatever they called it when they decided they wanted to occupy the "land" there. So INTERESTING! Here's some fun pictures of our visit... of course they aren't too "serious".

This is us waiting in line :)




...arriving on the island...



...one of MANY photo shoots! Looking good Paige! Work it! Work it!




Then we started on the actual tour. The audio tour is just a tape with 8 people talking about things that happened in the prison. It was four guards and four ex-prisoners. INTERESTING to see what they say about their experiences there... don't think I'd of liked it either way... and on a side not - the prison guards often lived on the island with their families! Yeah, there was a small community of families, and the kids would take a boat to shore to go to school, and boat back home afterward. So different from what I think they would do today! But the family members said it was a "good life". They never 'mixed' with the prison inmates and so it was their own 'private' community.
This was a cool photo at the beginning.



These are the men that were on the tape telling stories...




I feel TRAPPED! Oh, wait the door is open:)



This is the cafeteria where they had to all eat at once. They had the place set up with gas so if the prisoners tried to "rebel" they could gas the place! Only catch was that the guards would have died too... One time they almost had to do it! But luckily it worked out that nobody got hurt!



Here's another PHOTO SHOOT! Lookin' Hot ladies!







And here are some plain strange pictures, but we had a lot of fun taking them... people kept looking at us like we were crazy while we were doing it though... maybe we are crazy!








After the tour, we headed back to the main land and I decided to see if i could touch the sun! Worked!



Then we hit Ghillideri Square - the Chocolate Store! I'm the only one who enjoyed the free sample they gave as we came in.



Then I got a free ride back down the hill! Lucky me!



At the end of the day, we decided that we'd like to try to be more like the locals - so we pulled up a bench!




After all the fun, we walked back to our car and headed back to the hotel for another nights sleep! We enjoyed some graham crackers and milk and hit the sack because day 5 was going to be a LOT of driving!