Camping at Payson Lakes

We ventured into our first baby camping experience Friday night. The result: We had a blast minus the lack of sleep. We went with Ryan’s friend Cody, and his family along with some more of Cody’s friends. We camped in a really pretty meadow. Some of our camping neighbors brought their horses and the babies, including Liam, loved the horses. We made tin foil dinners (delish!) and roasted marshmallows. Liam wanted to be involved in it all from making the fire to eating the marshmallows. Some of his wishes were granted (eat mallows) and others weren’t (making the fire).

Kauai – The Garden Isle

I Love Hawaii…like Love, with a capital “L”, Hawaii. Having lived on Oahu our first 2 years of married life gives the Islands a special place in my heart. It was there we learned to dry our clothes on a line under the sun, we learned about cockroaches in all their numbers and how to minimize their impact on our food (put everything in the fridge!), we learned the importance of temples and eternal families as we went monthly to Laie Temple, we learned the importance of hard work at BYU-Hawaii, we learned that the beach is the best place to calm a troubled heart, and we learned that God loves us so much that he placed these amazing isles on the earth for us to enjoy.

Since living there we have gone back every year to reminisce on these fond memories and

Bryce Canyon National Park

We are so lucky to live in Utah with all its natural beauty. We have so many national parks in Utah which make for excellent weekend getaways. Last weekend we chose to visit Bryce. AMAZING!! Bryce is known for its “hoodoo” sculptures. The view from the Rim Trail looking down into the valley of hoodoos is something everyone needs to behold at least once in their lifetime. And for those of you who don’t like hiking and outdoors – Bryce is still for you! You can take a level path for about half a mile to view the valley from above. Painless, no sweat and still exquisite. And if you don’t want to camp you are luck! There are two great motels in Bryce Canyon City – Best Western Grand and Ruby’s Inn. There are a few other smaller ones but these are the biggest. We stayed at the Best Western Grand. Another exciting feature of visiting Bryce is

PERU!

Ryan and I went to Peru with my parents last month. It was so amazing and it was an adventure too. Here’s a quick recap of our vaca (aka vacation):

The Beginning…The start of our vaca was very chaotic. It was Feb 14 and about 2 hours before our flight was to leave I got a phone call saying our flight to Atlanta was delayed because of mechanical issues. The delay was long enough that we were going to miss our connection to Lima. After we exhausted all our options we realized there was no way we were going to get to Lima that day. Major bummer! Our trip had just been pushed back one day. So we figured out our new itinerary figured out and then tried to check in. That was another major issue too which I won’t go into detail about, but after 2 hours at the Delta desk in the airport we were finally ready to fly to Atlanta. We spent the night in Atlanta and went to the Coca Cola Factory the next day then flew to the Lima. PHEW!

Machu Picchu…PICTURESQUE! It was only 72 miles away from Cusco but it takes 4 hours on a train to go that distance. Brutal. Machu Picchu was absolutely beautiful though and it didn’t even rain until about 3 in the afternoon. We got very lucky.

Puerto Maldonado…the Jungle of Peru. We stayed at a really cool lodge called Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica. It is a 45 minute boat from the city to get this lodge too so it’s very remote. While we were here we went on a several excursions like a canopy walk, night walk, and a boat ride looking for animals and learning about the jungle’s foliage. We saw spider monkeys, brown capuchin monkeys, a red howler monkey, macaws, some other parrots, cayman, fisher bats, pink-toed tarantulas, jumping spiders, several kinds of frogs, lots of different kinds of insects and a TAPIR! The tapir came across us on the night hike and was sniffing my leg. It scared the ba-jeebers out of me! One afternoon Ryan played soccer with lots of the Inkaterra staff. He had a great time running around with those guys.

Lima…we stayed in Miraflores district just along the coast. It is pretty! We visited a few cathedrals and toured some catacombs. We watched the changing of the guards at the President of Peru’s home and ate lots of yummy food! We also went to the Lima Temple the last night we were there too.

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

at a restaurant in Cusco

Dad, Mom and Ryan in Cusco

Mom and Dad at Machu Picchu

Val and Ryan at Machu Picchu

Ryan at Inkaterra Lodge

Mom and Dad at a market in Downtown Lima

Valerie in front of the Peruvian President’s Palace

Lima Temple