Dinkey Creek

Any of my friends that have known me for a long time know that Dinkey Creek is near and dear to my heart. I decided to do a memory post of Dinkey Creek because not only did I run into some old friends that I know from there, but this is also the month that we would go every summer.
Dinkey Creek has an interesting history with our family. It started with my grandparents when they were in the Compton California ward. My mom will probably need to correct me, or add more to what I know, but they had some sort of club and the club from the ward decided to vacation together up in the Sierra mountains in a City called Dinkey Creek at a camp called Camp Fresno Jr. I guess it was so much fun they decided to go every year after that. So my mom grew up going to Dinkey Creek every year with her family and the same groups of people went every year. No matter where people ended up living years down the road they would all meet up during the summer for a week at Dinkey Creek. My grandparents passed many years ago, but my mom continued to go and take our family. So I grew up going to Dinkey Creek every year since I was a baby. The love of Dinkey Creek was passed through the generations. The people at camp became like family that you see once a year.
The camp is a blast! Everyone stays in the same two cabins, separated by little room dividers. The teenage girls get their own cabin and the teenage boys get their own cabin. So you can only imagine how fun it is for the teenagers. There was always some romance with the teenagers. The hire a cook for the week, we are served breakfast, pack lunches and then a big dinner. They have craft time for the kids, everyone goes out and swims all day at different parts of the creek or goes down to Shaver Lake. Then at night after dinner they have game nights (everyone gets really into horse shoes and ping pong) and they have skit night and there is always a camp fire where many gather around to chat a relax before they go to bed.
I have so many great memories there. Sadly they can't get enough people to go anymore. So in the past few years it has been cancelled. In fact I don't know if anyone will try and make it happen anymore, which breaks my heart. But I really hope Dinkey Creek lives on through my family. Hopefully we can at least get our family up there a couple times. I truly love it there. The smell of pine, the beautiful Forrest, the candy store up the road, the historical bridge, all the fun places we would swim and hike to and of course all the great people that I know from there. Dinkey Creek, I love you!


Everyone at the camp
Lolly came up to see me from when she was home in Fresno! We had some fun at Shaver Lake


Skit Night! We were singing Man of Constant Sorrow from "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?"

Weekend in Vegas

This last weekend Brent and I went to Vegas. #1- because Brent had never been before #2- to visit my friend Lolly and her cute family. She has been such a great friend of mine for several years, I like to go visit her at least once a year #3- to visit Brent's brother Brian, which is how we spent most of the trip. It was a lot of fun. Brent and I had a great drive there and back. Then we went straight to Lolly's house that Friday afternoon and Brent and Lolly finally got to meet each other. I talk about them to each other a lot. We hung out then went out to dinner.


Then we headed over to Brian's house on the other side of town and met some of his Vegas friends and went to sing at this Karaoke place at some casino. I thought it was pretty awesome. Super low key, everyone got to sing at least once, and there are some regulars at this karaoke place. Ernesto, an older gentleman who sings purely Frank Sinatra. It was great, it reminded me of an older guy on the cruise that I went on. Then there was an Asian lady who was also a regular who was pretty good. She told me that I did a great job singing "Natural Woman" and said that we should come back more often. If only I was not five hours away... I probably would take her up on it. After I was done singing "Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin (Queen of Soul) a man in the audience (one of the few people there) told me I was a natural woman while he traced my curves in the air. Besides that, it was tons a fun. And the fact that half the people are drunk and are tone deaf makes it that much more entertaining!


The next morning we got up early and drove about an hour and a half crossing over into AZ and rented kayaks at this lake. The water was really cold, but it was an amazingly hot day. I mean... I thought it was getting hot in Utah when it started to hit 100 degrees, but this made Utah seem like nothing. So the water was refreshing, swimming and kayaking was fun/tiring, and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't get burnt to a crisp.


On our way back we stopped and took some pictures at the Hoover Dam. It is a huge tourist attraction after all. I believe it is #5 on the top 10 Architectural Wonders of the World.

5. Hoover Dam, Border of Arizona and Nevada

Hoover Dam, originally known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. Hoover Dam is one of the world's largest hydro-electric generating stations. Hoover Dam is one of the most jaw-dropping sites in the US. The dam is named after America's 31st president, Herbert Hoover, who played a large role in bringing the nearby states into agreement about water allocations, settling a 25-year controversy. One more great thing about this dam is it was completed ahead of schedule. Construction began in 1931 and finished in 1936. Two years ahead of schedule and well under budget.

After a long day, there was still more. I have always wanted to see the Broadway musical production of The Lion King, so when Lolly told me it was playing in Vegas, I had to get tickets. So when we got home from the lake, everyone else went to see a community production of West Side Story and Brent and I got ready and headed over to the Mandalay Bay, where Lion King was being performed. Brent had never seen a Broadway musical production, so I was excited for the both of us. It did not disappoint! The costumes were amazing. They do an amazing job of playing animals. I think my favorite costumes were the giraffes and the leopards. But it is hard to say, I loved too many of them. My favorite song was either "Shadow lands" or "He lives in you". Such a great show. I recommend it. Brent loved it too. So that was a highlight of my trip. We didn't get home until 11:30 that night and I crashed on the couch, I was so tired. Sunday we slept in, had a big waffle brunch, went to Brian's ward... where I ran into The Davis's which are some Dinkey Creek friends for those of you who even know what that is. If not... I will be blogging about it soon. Then we went to see Lolly one last time and then drove home. It was a quick trip, but we got a lot in and had a really great time. Now it is back to work. Thanks to everyone who made it a great trip!

Tubing Provo River

Living in Provo for the last 6 years, this is an activity that I have done almost every summer. Along with everyone else in Provo. We went down the river today and it seemed to be the thing to do. I have never seen it so crowded, and I have never seen the cops there before handing out tickets left and right to people who were either not wearing life jackets or to people that were not wearing the correct life jackets. I guess a girl died going down the river the other day... so they are being pretty strict now. It was a good day to go, I am pretty sure it was like 100 degrees today. So you think it would be refreshing, but it was so cold. My body was pretty much numb for the hour or so that it took to float down to the park where we had parked the car.
We were going to go with our ward, but for some reason I thought or ward was signed up to go in the afternoon, but it was so booked that day that they signed up for the morning (I can't even imagine how cold that was) so Brent and I missed it. My friend Tessa and her husband Adam had told me the day before that they wanted to go tubing down the river that day... so we just went with them, so it worked out. Since we did not go with the ward, therefore did not go with the rafting company, we had to buy something to float down in. We have club 400, but we didn't think that it could handle the rapids, rocks and bushes of the Provo river... so we went to a tire shop and got tubes. We decided to name them club 100 and club 200. We then went to BYU and rented some life jackets and we were good to go.
Sadly Tessa and Adam were told that they did not have the correct life jackets... and then on top of that, it was so hot that Tessa's tube popped! Sad day. Adam and Tessa tried dodging security and sharing a tube.... but that only lasted them so long and then they realized that Brent's keys were in their car and Brent's car was what was supposed to get us back up to their car. Poor planning. So we ended up seeing them at the end. I felt pretty bad. Hopefully they get to go again.
Last year Brent and I totally fell out of our kayak into the freezing cold water after going under the bridge that we were told to get out and go around because of the current. This year we walked around, so I thought we were going to avoid being submerged in the freezing water and any other injuries. WRONG! The current was taking us straight into a HUGE branch sticking out into the river. I tried to push off it, but that was the wrong move. The current was so strong that me pushing off the branch just tossed me off my tube into the freezing cold water and the branch smacked my head and I have a gash in my hand that was still bleeding when I got home an hour later. Brent ended up falling in and getting a bit scratched up. I guess why tube down Provo River if you are not going to come home with a battle wound?
Anyway... that was our adventure today. Pretty fun, but I am so tired. It really takes it out of you.

Harry Potter

If my friend Shawntel reads this post... she will love it because she is the one that got me to read Harry Potter. I was pretty against Harry Potter when it first came out. Why? Because everyone was reading them and I didn't want to be trendy and read them because everyone else was. Silly, I know. What I should have realized was that everyone was reading them because they are a good read. The story is so clever and the way J. K. Rowling writes sucks you into book prison.


I didn't start reading the books until the 4th one was out. Shawntel was listening to them on tape at work (Back when we worked at Far West) and I couldn't stand listening to the guy that reads them.... I don't care if he got awards for being one of the best audio book readers... I found him annoying. Shawntel told me that if I would read the first Harry Potter book, then she would stop listening to the tapes out loud. I agreed and then was hooked. After I finished all of the books that were out, they then started to make them into movies. I feel like they have done a really good job with the movies. And just like the books, each movie just gets better. The newest movie, #6 - The Half Blood Prince was no exception. I loved it and it made me that more excited for the 7th movie to come out in a year or so. But I think I will read the book again before watching the movie.

Brent like me was not wanting to read the Harry Potter books or watch the movies. He simply had no interest in them. When he found out how excited I was for this movie to come out, he told me that he would watch all the Harry Potter movies with me and then go see the new one in the theater with me. So we did just that... and what do you know? By the time we were done watching all the movies at home.... he was pretty pumped to go see the new one with me tonight. And he told me he even wants to read them now. I think he is already dying to see how it ends. It made me happy that he liked it so much. It is such a fun story.

This is the first Harry Potter movie that I have not gone to the midnight showing of. So I went the next night, no big deal. Maybe I am getting too old for that now? I don't know. But not only did I go to the midnight showings before.... but Shawntel and I liked Harry Potter so much that we showed our HP pride by dressing up for one of the midnight showings. Yes... we were one of THOSE people. I admit that I like to dress up... in general. I think I have the Peter Pan Syndrome.... but is that so bad? Anyway... I thought I would post some old pictures from when Shawntel and I dresses up years ago. We sewed our own cloaks. And I even learned how to knit so I could knit a house scarf. I decided on Ravenclaw since Shawntel was going with Griffindor.

Geocaching

What is Geocaching? (For those of you who don't know... and there are many out there who don't)

Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook. Larger containers can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is most often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek", sharing many aspects with orienteering, treasure-hunting, and waymarking. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.^[1] There are over 820,000 active geocaches in the world right now.

Today Brent and I went on a double date with my sister Kristy and her husband Jess to go geocaching. We had all been before... so Kristy looked up some coordinates for caches up Provo canyon and off we went. We were out for 3 hours and found two caches. Every time I have gone... I had never found one myself. I was always with someone who found it. That was not the case this time. I found my first cache today! Woot woot! It is so fun once you have found it to write your name on the log and contribute something to the geocache. I put in Bren't old pinewood derby. I am sure the next person that finds it will get a real kick out of that.
Anyway... it was a hot but beautiful day. Even though we only found two of the geocaches, it was fun to be by Bridalveil falls and be out exploring in good company.



This is Brent's old pinewood derby. If you want to know why there is a moustrap on top of it.... you will have to ask him about that.


I FOUND IT!!Kristy and Jess holding their GPS and a bag of little pirate toys that we took out of the geocache in exchange for Brent's pinewood derby.

Independence Day Weekend

It was so nice to have a long weekend. I kind of wanted to get out of Provo since I have been here during the 4th of July for the past 5 years, but that didn't happen. I still had a really great weekend though. Friday it was just so nice to not have work and sleep in and go for a run in the morning instead of late at night (because it has gotten so hot here recently). Then Brent's brother Brian was in town so we went on a double. First a picnic in the park and then up to Payson lakes to use our club 400 again and paddle around the beautiful lake. It was so relaxing and fun. Then picked up dinner and went over to Brent's sister Diane's house and we all ate pizza together.



Saturday I woke up early and my sister Kristy and I drove over to BYU campus to get ready for the Freedom Run. Before the run started we watched all of the hot air balloons in the sky. Kristy and I ran the 5k together the whole way through. Because of my crazy diet I had just started running the week before and was not in the best of shape yet, but thanks to Kristy pushing me, I had a better time than last year when I ran it. We then met up with Jess and the kids to watch the parade. I'm not that into parades so I went home early to get clean and take a nap.

That evening... Brent came and picked me up and took me up American Fork Canyon to have a romantic picnic. July 4th is not just Independence Day, but it is also the day Brent and I went on our first date last year. So we decided to celebrate. Brent grilled delicious salmon and we also had salad and fruit. It was a perfect dinner by candlelight in a beautiful Forrest area next to a creek.



After our romantic picnic we went to Thanksgiving Point to watch the fireworks (which is where we went for our date last year). I got a text from Monica that she and her husband were there, so we met up with them and watched the awesome firework display while listening to patriotic music. After we chatted for a bit while eating my patriotic dessert that I had made earlier that day. Shortcake with whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries. We then head home. Sunday I made Brent dinner and made this patriotic Trifle for dessert. I guess I was in a cooking mood this weekend. Over all... great weekend. Hope everyone had a great holiday!