A night at the Yurt

 

At the beginning of the week me, Andrew, his cousin Sami, and our dog Gus spent a night at a Yurt in the Uintas.  We rented some cross country skis and skied into the Yurt.  It was my first time cross country skiing and I LOVED IT!!  It’s a great work out and really fun!

Here we are getting our gear ready for the trip.  We had to carry everything in that we needed, so we brought our backpacking backpacks. 

It was pretty cold when we started out, but after about ten minutes of skiing we were hot so we had to take off our coats.  The scenery was beautiful on our way to the Yurt!  We saw a golden eagle on the way, we were all pretty excited to see that!

This was at the start of our trip.  There wasn’t a lot of snow at the beginning and we had to dodge some rocks, but once we got higher there was plenty of snow and the trail was groomed really nice!

It took me a little bit to figure out how to cross country ski.  Sami on the other hand was a pro!  She did great and her backpack was heavy!

Andrew and Gus.  Andrew was always ahead of us.  I finally got him to slow down so I could take a picture of him!  On the trail there was a really steep hill and Andrew went down it fast, but some hikers were blocking the bridge so he completely wiped out so he wouldn’t run them over hahaha it was so funny!!! 

This just shows you how fast Andrew is at skiing!  I thought we were keeping a good pace, but he’s a maniac haha.  It was SO pretty and peaceful up there!! The sky was so clear we didn’t want to come back to Utah County the next day.  

Takin’ a little breather on this cool log…Gus jumped right up on it!

We all fell our fair share of times and it hurt! haha But Gus was right there to make sure we were all right.  He’s such a good dog. 

Here’s the sign that let us know we were close to the Yurt!  

Here we are at the East Fork Yurt!!  It was really nice inside and there was a lot of room.  They had a wood pile outside.  Andrew chopped us some wood that would fit in the wood stove.

Inside the Yurt…it was really roomy and had a cute little table and bunk beds for us. 

Here’s the bunk beds.  They were actually pretty comfortable and the pads they had were nice, but we still put our thermarest ones under the ones they supplied. 

We survived the night!!  We piled the stove with wood right before we went to sleep to keep us warm at night, but it didn’t last the whole night so the morning was a little cold.  Once the sun came up it was really warm though.  We had to melt snow and boil it for water which was really fun. 

We’re ready to head out…we will definitely be going to a Yurt again!  It was a lot of fun and they keep the Yurts nice and clean.  The only downfall was that the outhouse was like thirty yards from the Yurt, so it got pretty cold haha.

On our way out we fell a lot!  I think the snow was more icy than the day before.  We were almost to the truck, but Sami completely face planted it.  Her poles went flying in the air and her skis almost went over her head.  We couldn’t stop laughing!  Good thing she wasn’t hurt, but it was hilarious!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

 

We finally got our CHRISTMAS TREE!!  We’ve been so busy with finals, work, and putting our house together that I was afraid we wouldn’t get a tree!

We got a real one this year from the Ault’s Christmas Tree Lot!  It smells so good!  Refilling it almost everyday with water is a pain, but it’s worth it!

I love turning off the lights at night and sitting on the couch and looking at our tree.  It’s our first tree!!  I think we’ll make a tradition and get a real tree each year now.  Maybe next year we’ll have enough time to cut our own tree down in the woods somewhere.  

Honeymoon in Mexico!!!

 

For our honeymoon Andrew took me to Mexico on a cruise!!  It was so much fun!  I had never been on a cruise before, so I was really excited!  We flew to California and got on the cruise boat in LA.  We did a carnival cruise, and the ship was GIANORMOUS!!  I have never seen a ship that big, let alone got on a ship that big…good thing we were running to make it in time to board (b/c it took an hour for our luggage to come out!) otherwise I might have convinced myself not to get on.  Luckily the baggage issue was just a blessing in disguise (at least that’s what I tell myself) because we walked right on and went straight to our room.  We didn’t have to wait in line for three hours to get on the ship,  it took us about five minutes to get on board!

                           

Here is a picture of our cruise ship!

On the ship every night they would leave us a new “towel animal”.  It was a highlight of my day, not going to lie…so of course I had to take a picture of all of them!  Here are just a few…

A Seal

An Elephant

This one was my favorite…they hung a gorilla from the lights in our room! 

We had two stops:  two days in Cabo San Lucas, and one day in Puerto Vallarta.  Cabo San Lucas was definitely more “tourist friendly”.  Everything was right there once you got on land.  In Puerto Vallarta we had to take about a twenty minute bus ride to get to the shore excursions, but they did have a large flea market right when you got off which was really fun to walk through. 

In Cabo we did the Sail and Snorkel shore excursion.  They had these small tender boats come and get us in the harbor on our ship, then they would take us to shore (sorta like a taxi cab but for water). 

Getting on the tender boats to go to Cabo!!

Ready for snorkeling!! They made us wear these blow up things to help us float better!

This is the rock we went snorkeling around.  There were a TON of fish and the water was really clear!!

 

Some scuba divers pushed a school of fish up and right into us!  It was SO COOL!!  They were swimming all around us and there was a lot of them!

Andrew snorkeling….he dove down there pretty far!  Every time I tried to do that I’d end up with water up my nose or mouth!

Some more coolio fish!  I wish I knew what kind they were!!

After we were done snorkeling they took us on a tour of the area.  This is the very tip of the Baja Peninsula!  Someone said that this spot was filmed in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. 

 

We’re excited to be at Lover’s Beach…they said this arch is called Lover’s Arch…oh la la

After we were done snorkeling we went shopping around Cabo.  They had some really neat stuff and Andrew was great at bargaining with them…I hate confrontations so I would have just given them their asking price haha.  While we were walking around they had this booth with a baby lion you could hold, so of course Andrew and I had to do it!  I know it’s probably a crock, and the money you donate doesn’t go to the wildlife refuge, but I just couldn’t resist!  It was too darn cute!

Andrew started growling at it playfully and it growled back and bared its teeth and tried to take a swipe at his face (playfully of course haha).  Isn’t it cute?!  I wanted to take it home with me.

I love this guy so much!!  He is the best husband I could have asked for!  He always puts a smile on my face.  I am so lucky!!

Next we stopped in Puerto Vallarta!! It actually had mountains!  I was not expecting to see that!  In Puerto we did a dolphin swim!!  It was such an AMAZING experience!!!  I didn’t want to get out of the water!  The dolphins were so neat to see and touch!  They let us feed them a fish, ride on their belly’s and dorsal fins, and play with them!  I don’t have any pictures from that yet, but they are coming!!!  I’ll do an entire post about that experience, no worries.  I was in heaven the whole time we were there!  Pure joy.  We also rented a waverunner and took it out on the ocean for a little bit too!

This sign made us laugh….it’s a cage for parrots and it says “Do not introduce the fingers!”

This is what Andrew wanted at the flea market, but realized the airplane passengers probably wouldn’t be too fond of him wearing that on the plane haha

Andrew went up to this band that was playing outside the flea market and they let him start playing with them!! It was so funny to see…Andrew had no idea what he was doing!! 

Us in Puerto Vallarta!! 

On the cruise ship!

On one of the tender boats in Cabo!

I didn’t want to leave the ship to come back home to the cold weather and school!! It was such a fun honeymoon! I definitely want to go back one day.

A little about us

Andrew and I met in a class at BYU. He was my TA for vegetation measurements (yeah you read that right, vegetation measurements...one of the most exciting classes in the major hahaha not.) I thought he was pretty good lookin from the beginning, but I was so nervous to talk to him...so I just creepily stared from afar. I tried asking him questions when we were out measuring the vegetation but his response was always, "I don't know...go ask the other ta..." I figured he just wasn't interested. Plus he always wore these stinkin' sun glasses, so I could never tell if he was looking at me or not...that didn't help me out at all.

Then to make matter worse this one time we were at a river taking measurements. This part of the class we were required to wear waiters while walking in the river. For those of you who don't know what waiters are, they are this great looking overall things with attached boots made of rubber (so they are really attractive). Well we were getting out of the river and I decided to just climb up the bank when I was in waist high water. Well, my friend helped pull me out and while I was coming out of the water it all splashed up and into my waiters so now it looked like a peed my pants. I was so embarrassed, but when I looked up Andrew was standing right there....just laughing!! At this point I just wanted to bury myself under a rock.

So after all these great encounters I decided that my chances of ever going out with him were pretty slim. But having the great friends and family that I have, they convinced me to just add as a friend on facebook. So that's what I did...and it took him three weeks to confirm my friend request because he was off hunting an elk in colorado, and he gets on facebook about 5 times a year. I didn't know any of this, so I was really convinced this time that he was not interested.

BUT eventually he did add me on facebook and asked me out (Happy Day!). I would later find out that he really wanted to ask me out and was going to add me on facebook as soon as he got back. I was really excited when he asked me out.

For our first date we were going to go dinner and a movie, but he's a graduate student as BYU in the same major as I am (which is Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation). Another graduate student needed him to pick up an otter that they trapped in Idaho or something and bring back here to be released in the Provo River. So we went and picked up an otter and bought some fish for it to eat, then moved it from it's carrying case to it's cage. I was in HEAVEN the whole time we were doing this! It was so awesome to see a live otter that close! I would have stayed and watched the otter all night! Then we went to Tucanos and saw a movie.

Then we went on a lot more dates like horse back riding, four-wheeling, the party barn, movies, tin foil dinners in the canyon, went looking for deer/elk.

This summer I worked at a place called Lytle Ranch in the very bottom corner of Utah, in the middle of the Mojave Desert tracking quail and trapping rodents. Andrew was working on his grad work, so he was out all the time putting up cameras at guzzlers and taking them down. I saw him like once every two weeks the whole summer, off and on. A few times he came down to the Ranch and stayed because he was down there putting up cameras. It was really hard being away from him, but it really made me realize how much I always wanted to be with him. So a little while after I came home from my summer job we got engaged!

He proposed to me by taking me on a scavenger hunt to some of the places we went on dates, that we both really liked. I started off asking the worker at Tucanos for a clue, then we went to places up the canyon and found more clues. Some places we went were Salamander Flats, Andrew's favorite spot to camp, the first placed we kissed, hikes we went on, etc. Then we ended up at Silver Lake Flats up American Fork Canyon. We took a four-wheeler up to the lake then had to blow up a little raft. We went out on the lake and I had to find a fishing bobber. Once I found it I pulled up the long fishing line that was attached to it and there was another bobber that had weights attached to it. Inside this bobber was a not that said will you marry me. I said yes of course and life has been amazing ever since!! It was so pretty on the lake because it was right at sunset.

We got married on November 19th of this year and went to Mexico on our honeymoon, but I'll talk about that later.

Pretty much I married my best friend and I am so excited to start our life together!! We enjoy a lot of the same things, so we always have a blast together no matter what we're doing.