Digital Scrapbook Fun!

I have created an album of our wedding using my new digital scrapbooking program! It's the first one and is kinda lame since I'm just discovering the software, but people have requested on facebook that I post wedding pics, so I'm doing it here. And P.S. Digital Scrapbooking is the way to go...I'm just getting into it, but holy crap, I should have asked Santa for one of these a long time ago! I HIGHLY recommend it!

The Christmas Update

I decided to do an update online this year instead of killing even more trees...so here goes:

Jan. 2008: We began the 2nd half of our first year teaching. We were living in St. George in an adorable 3 bedroom apartment. Life was good!
Feb. 2008: Teaching got a bit stressful for Beth with a crazy parent and with the changes happening at her school. Beth also turned 24. We welcomed a nephew, Kevin, on the 20th.
Mar. 2008: We celebrated our 2 year Anniversary with a Trip to Park City for a few days during spring break. It was beautiful! Beth finds out she will NOT be asked back to PVMS, so we start searching for jobs throughout the state of Utah.
Apr. 2008: Um...Easter? We headed to Las Vegas for Haven's 1st Birthday party! We did lots of job interviewing all over the state, but are both offered jobs in Hurricane, UT. YEA! We still have jobs!
May 2008: Our first year of teaching FINALLY ends. Actually it seemed much faster than we thought it would! Chad finishes up with a piano recital and Beth with End of Level testing. Beth is relieved to begin at a new school next year and Chad is excited to start teaching Band!
June 2008: Chad begins playing percussion for Les Miserables at Tuacahn. He is excited to get into the music scene in St. George (its a small world that you must work your way into). Beth is enjoying the time off of school and is busy finding a place for us to move. We traveled to Las Vegas for our nephew Judd's wedding! It was beautiful! We welcomed a nephew, Brayden, on the 3rd.
July 2008: Hell on earth. Really that's all I want to say...just kidding. Beth has a scare with a job transfer, but gets to keep her SpEd job at Hurricane Middle School. We visit Zion National Park and both get scooters! We find a cute 4 bedroom house to rent (only .7 miles from Beth's school). We are scheduled to move on July 31st. 4 days before we move, Beth's trusty Escort passes away on the side of the freeway (just in time for her before contract-days meetings begin) and we are a few days behind schedule in the "packing to move" department. Chad is assigned the overwhelming job to finish packing, find a fridge, reserve a U-Haul, and research new cars while Beth is at meetings. He did a fantastic job and Beth chilled a little! The move was smooth and were lucky enough to have help from Beths family and some friends! We traded in our two dead cars for a living one the day we moved into the house!
Aug. 2008: We go back to work on the 4th and school begins the 12th. We both already love the environments of our new schools and really enjoy teaching in Hurricane. Beth's whole family came to town the 15th-ish; we had family pictures taken, a birthday party, and the first of many NERF wars to come. We welcom twin nephews, Ian and Darek, on the 22nd (born July 3rd). We are back to "normalcy" in our lives! Oh, and Chad is still working Les Miserables...
Sept. 2008: More normalcy...school is going great for both of us. We travel to Salt Lake to meet one of our two new nephews.
Oct. 2008: We celebrated Chad's 29th birthday! Unfortunately, tragedy hit the next day when our little nephew, Ian, passed away. We spent 5 days in Salt Lake with family and for the funeral of little Ian. We took a planned trip to Disneyland with Beth's sister Mandi, nephews, and parents over fall break. Chad's time with Les Miserables is FINALLY over just as we leave for the funeral. We enjoyed dressing as a pirate and Darth Maul for Halloween!
Nov. 2008: Lots of time working this month. Beth went to a New Kids on the Block concert with her cousin and sister Mandi. We also took a VERY impromptu trip to New York over the Thanksgiving Holiday. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable month. We welcomed a new nephew, Jax, to the family on the 24th!
Dec. 2008: We hotsed a Christmas party for Chad's family on the 12th and we really enjoyed having everyone at our home. We also enjoyed having family at Chad's first ever band concert as a conductor! Beth was VERY proud! We headed up to Salt Lake for Christmas Break on the 19th (and had an adventure getting there!) and have really enjoyed our time with family! We are still awaiting the arrival of the last nephew of the year...we'll see when he comes! Santa was very good to us this year and are grateful for all that we have!

We love our little home in Hurricane, our ward (we teach the 3 year olds), our schools, the people we work with, and the relationships we are building! Life is fantastic!

I have been working on getting NYC pics into a slideshow to post here, but have been a bit busy. I got a digital scrapbook program for Christmas and am currently working on getting ALL my pictures from the past three years on to my new computer. I'm really excited to get going on it!

Pictures

I have spent the better part of three hours uploading picures on to my computer. Not because my computer is slow, but because we took 454 pictures in New York and still didn't get everything. I am also upload pictures from my old computer on to my "new" computer. I put new in quotation marks because I've had the thing for a year and a half, I just haven't taken the time to put all my old pictures on it. So, expect some serious updates with pictures within a few days- hopefully Saturday won't be crazy, so I can do it then!

P.S. New York was AWESOME! If you can handle big crowds, crazy drivers, and no dirt, I HIGHLY reccommend a visit! Especially during the holidays! Everywhere is better during the holidays!

Tag...I'm it...

Both of my sisters tagged me on this one... so here goes (an P.S. I'm not tagging anyone else, If you want it, you got it!)

Here are the rules: you need to type 7 things about yourself that you don’t think anyone knows and then choose 7 people to tag at the end and leave their link.

I am pretty vocal about my life, but here goes-

1: When I am REALLY angry, I throw stuff. Keys, balls, pillows, a can, whatever is closest. I have yet to throw anything breakable. However I have done some damage, and am working on changing this!

2: I really dislike when people say "It takes a special kind of person to do that." when I tell them I teach Special Education. Freak, it takes a special kind of person to be a full time Wal-Mart checker, what the heck?

3: I actually used to eat red meat and pork at one point in my life. Thank goodness for that change...

4: I can be crafty and outdoorsy. I am currently in the process of making a tree-skirt for my christmas tree. Its going to be AWESOME- I'll post pics when I'm done! I have always enjoyed hiking, but since I married Chad, I enjoy camping more. However, I do still have my unfounded, ridiculous fear of ANY bug (except the praying mantis for some reason) which doesn't go over well living in Southern Utah.

5: I have impeccable spelling and grammar skills. It works out well for me since I teach middle school Language Arts, but is sometimes annoying because everyone misuses things- biggest peeve: 's and -s (totally different: -s is plural, 's shows ownership).

6: I go INSANE without anything to do. On the flip side of that I also go INSANE when I have too much to do (i.e. when I'm stressed). On both sides, I end up sleaning like mad- ask my parents, their house was immaculate the first time I had finals in college. I guess that's why I'm so clean and organized all the time- I'm INSANE all the time!

7: I don't want to be the parent of an infant. This may come as a shocker because I love my infant nieces and nephews, I just don't want to keep any for myself! Yes, I do want children, just not infants. I also don't want to stay at home with my kids (see #6), I like to work and have "Bethany time". I am a teacher and will be in school for only 1 hour more than my kids everyday and I will have all the same vacations as they will, so bring on the kiddos, just no babies please.

There you have it. There are plenty more that I could share, but they are a little too personal for a public blog!

2008 is...

The year of the Nephew, not the rat or donkey, it's nephew. The final toll is in and we will have 6 new nephews by the end of the year!

And they are (oldest to youngest):
Kevin David Titus (Feb. 20, 2008)
Brayden Alan Winslow (June 3, 2008)
Darek Ethan Wood (July 3, 2008)
Ian Jacob Wood (July 3, 2008)
Jax Layne Baker (due to come on Tuesday, Nov. 25)
Baby Boy Titus (gender confirmed today and I should've bet on this, I was the ONLY one who was sure it was a boy- due to come on Saturday, Dec. 20)

Thanks to all our married sibs (every married sibling on BOTH sides had a baby this year)- we appreciate y'all taking the pressure from us-anybody up for dibs next year? C'mon, you know you want it!

Wow!

Chad and I are doing this thing where we are home for a weekend, and then leave for a weekend, home, leave, home, leave...I'm looking forward to this weekend- its a home weekend! However, the last couple of times we have been gone for the weekend have been great!

In fact, last weekend was AMAZING! I went up to SLC for the weekend, by myself, and had a great time. I took Mandi and my cousin Leslie to the New Kids on the Block concert and it was FANTASTIC!!! What a blast from the past. I remembered all th words from their old songs! Mandi and I were total nerds, but we had a great time. It was also Leslies first concert- lucky her! I am still a HUGE fan of Donnie- gotta love the bad boys. Since I was coming up, my mom and I threw a shower for Mandi as well, which had a great turn out, we were very happy for her!
Chad stayed home so that he could catch up on his "man" stuff. We have a difference of opinion on a lot of movies, so he likes to have weekends by himself where he can get his fill of violent movies and video games and eat red meat and fish. He really enjoyed himself as well!

The time previous to that, we headed out to Las Vegas. We spent Halloween night with Hayley and her kids (they were adorable by the way) and left on Saturday morning for a wedding in Las Vegas (P.S. Chad was Darth Maul and I was a pirate for Halloween). It was a beautiful wedding and we had a great time catching up with some of Chads friends from High School. We also spent some time with Colby and Stephanie- they set up the spare room for Jax! It was really exciting. We always love being with their family!
We ate at the Cheesecake Factory (Man I love good food) and wandered around the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. We also hit the Bellagio (my fav). They always have a seasonal display (it's huge) made from flowers and plants. This one had a huge mill, giant pumpkins, a really cool fountain, metal trees that were also fountains, a giant ent (that's a talking tree for you non-Lord of the Rings readers), and tree nymphs. It was beautiful. We'll have to take a trip down to see the Christmas and winter ones!

Pictures of stuff will follow!

Our next weekend trip will be over Thanksgiving break. We decided on a whim to go to NYC for Thanksgiving to take part in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (ah the beauty of being childless)!! We depart on Tuesday the 25th (we're taking a red-eye out of Vegas) and coming home on the 30th. We have a good friend who lives out there that has graciously offered to have us for Thanksgiving dinner with his family and we are SO excited. Chad has never been to NY, so it'll be wonderful! I'll post when we get back!!

Update

With all the recent events, it's been hard to domuch of anything but catch up at work. So, here goes:
Oct. 6: Chad's B-Day! We had dinner with family on the 5th and I took him to The Olive Garden for dinner. It was a nice relaxed evening.
Oct. 7: Ian passed away. It was an emotional day. I don't remember much other than the phone calls from my mom and sister.
Oct. 8-9: Again, not much there. It was hard to focus on teaching...
Oct. 10-14: I decided to give up on trying to be at school since I wasn't productive and I wanted so badly to be with Mandi, so I went up to SLC to be with family. The funeral was on the 14th. Ian was a perfect little tiny baby and I am grateful to have the belief that he will be a part of my family for eternity. My sister and brother-in-law spoke at the service and my nephews and niece sang the song that Pam (a most wonderful gift from our Heavenly Father) was singing to Ian when he died. Throughout it all, I feel that Mandi and Ryan held up very well.
Oct. 15: We came back to Hurricane to teach the last day of the quarter and to enter our grades before our trip to Disneyland. This had been planned since August and i was a bit unsure about going, but we decided to stick with the plans and go. We left at 5 p.m... Originally it was to me Chad, me, Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa. Unfortunately my grandpa had a gallbladder attack and they were unable to go. My parents invited Mandi to come with us and she and Ryan decided it was a good plan for her to take Alex and Darek too!
Oct. 16-19: Disneyland. It was so fun and really relaxing to be there. It was so fun going with tiny little Darek. Chad held him most of the time with the exception of after water rides. It is very sweet for me to see that interaction him and our nieces and nephews. Alex was great, he is such a crack up! And it's always nice to be with family in a place like Disneyland! We took everyone on a tour of Disneyland, wich was a cool expereince, even for people like us who go ALL THE TIME! My favorite thing about the trip was that we had to buy mickey ears at Build-A-Bear for Darek! We also found his Halloween costume there- a Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) outift! Needless to say- he is adorable in it! I'll post pics of all the nieces and nephews after Halloween.
Oct. 20-25: Back to real life and responsibility! This was a difficult week. I had lots of behavior problems and felt like I was an underpaid babysitter (which sometimes I believe that's what teachers are.... thats a different story for another time). But at the end of yesterday, I felt much better about my situation as a teacher. We had a lot of catch up to do at school and finally took the time today to unpack from our away time! The best news though is that its a Saturday night at 10:00 and my husband is at home! NO MORE LES MIS!! Its really nice that he can be home in the evenings again!
That brings me to current again! WOO HOO! We've got Halloween plans and a wedding for Chad's friend in Vegas next weekend, so it'll be a good one!

Yep, I'm a princess...

You Are Ariel!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

A Heavy Heart

Life is precious. I realize tonight (as I have in the past on such occasions as this) that life is not to be wasted on such trivial things as broken TVs and the "hardships" of work. But to be spent on forgiveness and love, gratitude and service, prioritizing. Unfortunately, it is true hardship, trial, and sorrow that brings this realization.

Ian Jacob Wood was born on July 3, 2008, 15 weeks early. He suffered some trauma during birth which caused him to be in the NICU. He fought to stay alive and was a miracle just because he was alive. Ian lost the fight this afternoon. Ian was a sweet baby and brought so much excitement and joy into his family's life. Few of us ever met him, but we all had an unconditional love for Ian and his brother the moment we were told that they would join our family. My heart is heavy as I try to imagine the pains my sister and her family are experiencing right now- Ian Jacob has left a hole in all our hearts. We will miss him very much.

Please keep Mandi, Ryan, Alex, and Darek in your thoughts and prayers during this heartbreaking time.

TV

We finally got cable set up at our house after 3 years of being without TV. Its been a little overwhelming- we're not used to the noise and all the stuff associated with TV. We were pretty excited because for the first time in 3 years, we'd be able to watch conference. Well on Wednesday, our TV started looking like we need 3-D glasses to watch TV. We have had to watch movies on our 19" TV for the past little while...bummer... So hopefully dad will be able to fix the TV when he comes, or else we'll have to get a new one. And after having a 51" TV, it will be EXPENSIVE...

1st Quarter

The end of the 1st quarter of school is only 8 school days away (thats 10 total days)!!! After the end of each quarter, Washington County School District (WCSD) is kind enough to give us a vacation. At the end of this quarter we get two days off. Well, back in March, Chad's department won teacher team of the year for WCSD and each member got a free 3-day, 2-night trip to Disneyland for 2 people. SO, my parents called us and asked if we were able to go to Disneyland in October and we said yes! On October 15th, we will be heading to Disneyland! My parents and grandparents (how cool is that?!) will be going with us. Anyway, I am very excited. Yea for a vacation! Oh and only 4 showings of Les Miserables until we go- Chad (and I) is (am) very excited that the show will be done!!

Nieces and Nephews

This is an "I'm proud to be an auntie" blog. The reason I do this is because by the end of this year, between my family and Chad's family, we will have added 6 babies to the family. The babies are not the most important thing, it's that we love that our family is getting bigger and that we can be a part of our neices and nephews lives. Chad and I are so happy to be the(favorite) aunt and uncle of all these kids! It is so much fun for us to watch our nieces and nephews grow!

My brother, Aaron, and his wife, Jen, added a baby boy, Kevin, to their family in February. My sister, Hayley, and her husband, Mike, added a baby boy, Brayden, to their family in June. My sister, Mandi, and her husband, Ryan, were called three weeks ago to adpot twin boys. Mandi brought the first one, Darek, home on Sept. 4 and we went up to meet him on Sept. 5th! The second twin, Ian, is still in the hospital in Virginia (they were born at 25 weeks and are still very smal., but ever so adorable). Chad's brother, Colby, and his wife, Stephanie, are due to have a baby boy, Jax, in late November/early December. My brother, Aaron, and his wife, Jen are due to have another baby in late December. The gender of this baby is yet to be determined. I have my money on it being a boy, which probably means it will be a girl. We'll see. Here are pics of the new additions and then some...

Uncle Chad entertaining Kevin. He is a sweetheart- we don't get to see him ever he lives in Maryland...sadness. That's Mike in the background with Brayden.

The second nephew this year, Brayden. He is a chubby little low key baby. He weighs 16 lbs 8 oz @ 3 months old.

Twin #1, Darek, with a very excited Aunt Bethany and sharing nap time with Uncle Chad while we were visiting. My husband is so cute!

Twin #2, Ian, still in the hospital- we can't wait to finally hold him (and spoil him too)!

I don't have pics of the unborn babies yet.. but here's the rest of the (Titus side) kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa Titus.

Left to right: Alex (5), Emma (2), Grandma holding Kevin, Tyson (almost 6), Anna (above Tyson-almost 4), Christopher (3), Papa holding Brayden. Ian and Darek were added to our family about two weeks after this picture was taken.

I also have pictures of (some of) the Baker side kiddos. We love being involved in their lives and participating in their activities, it's such an honor that they want us around too- we love them so much!

Baylee (almost 3) with Colby watching Thomas and Lottie!

Lottie (15) cheering! She is one of the captains of the cheerleaders this year (as a sophomore). She's such a cutie- it was fun to finally see her perform, we are proud!!

Thomas #11 (17) on the sidelines- he played almost the enitre game last night and it was his birthday! Thomas is also one of the captains of the varsity team. P.S. he is awesome, we are way proud of him!

Judd and Britney (both 20) at their wedding in June. They are a great couple and we are so happy and excited for them!

All in all thats pretty much them. We don't have up to date pics of Kevin (18) or Haven (1 1/2), so we'll have to work on that. So the take home message- we love our nieces and nephews!

Pictures- FINALLY!

These pictures have taken me forever to post! Life has been busy with all the new changes and posting pics hasn't been priority. We are surprisingly at home in Hurricane. In fact we really love it. The environment at work is so amazing for both of us and we are both doing what we love to do. We have a FANTASTIC neighborhood and ward and just love the people here. We live about 15-20 minutes away from Zion National Park (if you ever want to come out, let us know- you can stay with us)! Life is so good for us right now, we are very happy. Chad is still working Tuacahn, but only has 10 shows after tonight! We are excited to be on a regular sleep schedule! Enjoy the pics- (a disclaimer to the pics- I am not a professional.... and we LIVE in our house, it's not a museum, so there are things out...crazy, I know)

This is the front of our wonderful home. We LOVE not having to share walls with our neighbors and that we have a garage! I didn't realize how picturesque the sky is- beautiful!
No, our house is not on a slant, apparently I was having some trouble. This is the first room you see when you walk into the house. We got to buy a cute little red loveseat! I was excited!This is the living room. Chad was taking a nap...To the left is our awesome TV (which now has cable- by the way, bad choice...). You can see the kitechen/dining area in the background.
The kitchen/dining area. We love having the space to keep our table out to its full size all the time.

Here's our kitchen. We had to give up kitchen space from our last apartment (our kitchen was huge in our last place), but we have more storage here. Also, the fridge is ours, we had to buy one for this house, our landlords "don't do fridges." We found this one used for $200- we were pretty happy about it!

These are the storage areas in the kitchen. The one on the left is big enough to walk into! Yea for storage!

Keeping with tradition, we had to set aside a room for the neices and nephews! This is our playroom. There is a TV to the right that you can't see that has a Playstation2 and Xbox hooked up to it. We have to be the favorite aunt and uncle. This room is to the left of the sitting room. We have a lot of windows in this house which is nice, unless you're taking pictures...

This is the guest room/office. Again- awesome big window, not so good for the pics. This is where Chad spends a lot of time- hence the messiness...

I promised Chad that if we got a 4-bedroom house that one could be an instrument room- so here it is. Our (I say our...but really, do I play on them?...not really) drumsets and any other instrument we have goes in here.

The spare bathroom. The floorplan of the bedrooms and bathroom are almost identical to our last apartment- so if you never got to see it, this is pretty much what it looked like, minus one bedroom.

This is the master bedroom. No, we don't have a blanket on our bed right now- Chad is picky and can't sleep hot, so I get to put a blanket on my side until the weather cools off a bit. The bathroom is off to the left, it's nothing special- we had to give up a LOT of master bathroom space...I was sad. Oh, and dad, notice whose clothes are NOT on the floor...yeah, that would be mine. And no I didn't just clean them up for the picture.

This is the back of our house. We have a cute little backyard filled with lots of plants. It's pretty awesome. We have two pomegranate trees (can't WAIT for those to be ripe!! They're my fav.), a peach tree, and a pear tree, which means we get LOTS of awesome bugs...not my fav...but we also get hummingbirds like crazy. One favorite of the hummingbirds is right outside the dining room window, so every night at dinner we get to watch hummingbirds!!

This is the little patio in the back. The window above the chairs is the window in our living room. The door on the left goes into the dining room and the door on the right goes into our bedroom!
Last, but certainly not least, out garage. The top picture is of my cute little scooter which has gotten me the nickname "Morotcycle Mama" with my co-workers. I love it! The second picture is Chad's bike. He loves it when we ride together- its cute and fun! The bottom two are our new car (its a 2006 Chevy Cobalt 5-speed). We were very sad to lose our cars, but really love this one. My dad calls the color "ticket red" but we have not gotten any tickets yet- we'll see what happens on our drive to CA in October!

Hanging in there...

We have had a busy month...I will do a better update next Saturday/Sunday but here's the last month in a nutshell:
Chad gets new scooter.
Chad crashes new scooter and sprains ankle 5 min. after buying scooter.
We begin packing our apartment right after we get home from Zion.
Bethany goes back to work July 21st for SPED time @ Hurricane Middle.
Beth gets a scooter.
We are packing our apartment.
Chad is working Les Mis and The Sound of Music @ Tuacahn 3-5 nights a week.
We apply (and are approved) to move into a house on July 31st.
Beth's car dies on July 27th- not sure why. We now have 4 vehicles- only our teeny scooters work :)
Beth goes back to work for District SPED meetings July 28-30th. Beth crashes her scooter after one of these meetings- just took some skin off the knee and bruised her ENTIRE calf...both scooters still work- no worries!
We are STILL packing our apartment.
We begin looking for a new car on July 28th.
We find a car July 30th- and they will take the truck and car from us as trades!
We move into our new home on July 31st (they even put new carpet in for us- its a rental)!
We also finalize the car on the 31st. Yea for our cute new car!
Mom and Dad (Titus) come to St. George for "baby Brayden's" blessing.
We have lots of family time from Aug. 1-3 (i.e. no UNPACKING time).
Chad and Beth go back to work for Quality Teaching Time and Teacher Prep time on Aug. 4th.
Beth goes CRAZY living in a house full of boxes and an unorganized classroom and unpacks the house on the 4th, 5th, and 6th in the evenings!!
Steph and the kids come on the 8th and spend some time!
School starts Aug. 12th- we are busy prepping and organizing our lives at school!
Aug. 15-17 Beth's whole family is in St. George! Yea for meeting a new nephew and having family pics...someone is now bound to get pregnant so that the pictures will be outdated! (P.S. that person is not me...it's actually my sis-in-law Jen- due Dec. 20).
More craziness of getting back into the "back-to-work" routine.
Meanwhile, Chad is still working Les Mis 3 nights a week.

Which catches me up to current. As I said, I will give details next week. We don't have internet at home and the internet at school won't let us get onto facebook and myspace, so if you are waiting for us to reply to that, we will have internet (and TV for the first time in 3 years) hooked up next Saturday! I will post pics of our new house, scooters, car, etc. as well. Love to all-

Zion National Park

Chad and I (and Chad's friend Kent) went camping at Zion National Park on Sunday night. We got to Zion on Sunday afternoon and went to hike the Narrows (my fav @ ZNP) but just as we got to the entrance, the whole sole of Chad's water shoe came off :( So we turned back and went to the Emerald Pools and Weeping Rock. We camped out Sunday night and Monday morning, we packed up early and headed out to Angel's Landing. It was the most incredible (and difficult) hike we have ever experienced! I highly recommend it if you're up for it and if you're not afraid of heights! We enjoyed beautiful views, adorable little critters, some creepy bugs, good company, good food, and some wonderful memories!

This is the view of The Narrows as you're coming in. It is absolutely gorgeous and serene. The water was REALLY murky and a bit gross this time around as you may notice. Usually the water is crystal clear.

Me- all by my lonesome since Chad's shoe broke. I decided to hike in a little bit by myself.

Chad and Kent touching the 2,000 year old water dripping at Weeping Rock.

The view from Weeping Rock into Zion Canyon.

Chad being very manly and making dinner on Sunday night!

We were about 10 feet away from these two deer as we started our hike to Angel's landing!

"See, I'm fine babe!" What you can't see from this picture is that this rock juts up from one of the "21" switchbacks from hell and that if I took one step off the opposite side I was standing, I would have fallen to my rocky death.

The final ascent to the top of Angel's landing. As you can see, this is not a hike for the faint of heart. There was a point where there was only about five feet of rock and a chain to hold on to and on either side- 800 to 1200 feet of death.

Chad being VERY cautious at the top of Angel's Landing and enjoying the view down!

Me being not as cautious as Chad :) You can't see down well enough though...

A very happy Bethany at the top enjoying the view!!!

The view of the Virgin River from the top, as well as the shuttle stop at Big Bend into the Temple of Sinawava- entrance to The Narrows.

The view down Zion Canyon toward the Visitor Center from the top- this was by far my favorite view!

The Rest of the Weekend

We went up to Salt Lake for two days- just a quickie trip to get out of the heat and visit family. We went up on Sunday and left Tuesday morning (the 6th-8th). We had a great time! It's always nice to be with family and we hadn't been up since April. We went up to go to Lagoon, but it ended up that we went to the Gateway with my nephew, Alex, instead- a stellar choice, seriously!

There is a train you can catch from Woods Cross (abt. 5 min from where my parents live) that goes into Salt Lake. It is a commuter double decker train called The FrontRunner. So we decided to take the train- what 5 year old boy wouldn't prefer that?- into Salt Lake and catch Trax to the Gateway so that we could meet my mom at Discovery Gateway. What a cute place- Chad and I totally want our house to be like this place when we have kids- all hands on kid sized stuff- a house, grocery store, garden, water area, building area, a real friggin helicopter, you name it! Awesome!

We ate lunch, finished up at Discovery, went to the fountain- the most popular place at the gateway- then had some ice cream (after all, what kind of Aunt and Uncle would we be if we didn't have ice cream?) and Alex showed us the Clark Planetarium. We lamented about how there is NOTHING like these places in St. George and it is sad. We would so enjoy something like this all the time. I guess we'll have to take more trips to Salt Lake!

We took the train home, went to dinner, and then to Alex's T-Ball game. Ok, kid sports are THE BEST! We've watched Tyson play soccer and video of Anna at her dance recital, and now Alex at T-Ball. There really aren't any words to describe the entertainment it provides and how sweet it is because they are so proud of themselves!

My parents also saved their box of fireworks for when we were there! It made me so happy because, like I said, they are my FAV! Ok, enough rambling...here are pics:

This is our "flying things" invention we put together at Discovery Gateway. We were proud that we got all of the pieces moving! FYI- Discovery is kind of like The Exploratorium in San Fransisco (for those of you who have been there), just geared toward a younger audience.


The two pics above are of us with Alex on the air med helicopter @ Discovery Gateway! So fun!

This is us on the moonscape at the Clark Planetarium (notice the EARTH in the background- yeah baby!!)
Alex and me sucking on our rock candy on the train back home! Yea for rock candy- it's the best!
Chad in a very "Big Brother is watching" pic, sucking on his rock candy on the train home.

Alex on his last batting of the game- he gets to run everyone in, so ultimately he's the only one that gets a home run. T-Ball rules are friggin' weird, but it was cute!!