Independence and family reunions!

A belated Happy Independence Day, America! Glad we get to live here in this great country, but also glad I've lived in other countries to see the differences that this country has compared to others. Gotta say we don't have it perfect, but we definitely have a leg up over a lot of places. Hopefully we won't get so full of ourselves that we will always be respectful of others, work to understand different opinions and always work hard to make this country great. NOW LETS GO WIN THE WORLD CUP AND SHOW ALL THOSE OTHER NATIONS WHO'S BOSS!
 
If only, right? Maybe one day we'll move past the first round of the knock out stages and start having real soccer rivals with countries that matter on an international stage-like Germany, Argentina, Spain, and Brazil. That would be fun to be at that level competitively. I think it's on its way, if you look at how far MLS soccer has grown in the U.S. over the last 8 years. Teams are now playing in sold out stadiums weekly, where once they were playing in mostly empty football stadiums (I'm looking at you KC Wiz). I have really enjoyed the World Cup over the last month. It's been extremely entertaining soccer. I think it won over a lot of 'haters' out there who say things like "soccer is boring," "I can't like a game that ends in a tie," "there isn't enough scoring." This world cup was so exciting! Lots of goals, late game drama, controversy and even a showing by Dracula! It's probably for the best that the tournament ended today with Germany defeating Argentina 1-0. It was way too easy to check the score of a game only for a quick minute and end up losing 2 hours during the middle of the day. I should be more productive this next week than I have been in over a month. 

Not that July is a great month for insurance anyway. It always seems like when I try to schedule something I'm met with the response, 'yeah let's talk but call me in August'. (Seriously, I have a great August lined up.) So, what do I do? I go on vacation too. 

On the 4^th Lori (Kaela's mom) drove in from Omaha, NE to get ready for her extended family reunion at Bear Lake. We got to play with her during the day after we went on a great bike ride up the Alpine Loop. I bought a pass to the loop this week because I figured I'd want to go up there so often to get out of the heat if I wanted to go on a ride. Plus, we are going to do a bunch of camping up there this summer because it's so pretty. It's also good to get us into any National Park, so time to go on some hikes. Anyone who wants to go, let us know and we'll get it planned up. 
 
Anyway, after the bike ride our fantastic neighbors, Paul Hansen, invited us over for a BBQ with their family. This is the neighbor who has been so generous with his tools and help when we moved in. It was great food and company. They told us all about the parade in Provo this year, which is apparently is a big deal. Kaela and I had no Idea this thing was so big, we thought it was just another parade, so we decided to skip it, mainly because it was in Provo and we hate going down there. After hearing about what a big deal it is, we have decided that it's something that would be worth checking out next year.

That night we headed up to Sandy to watch Real Salt Lake play the New England Revolution. It was a great game with RSL wining on a goal by Jaoa Plata in the second half. Plata is Kaela's favorite player and it took all of her will power to not jump on the field and give him a big hug when he came over for a corner kick. After the game we got to meet my cousin Chad Meek's girlfriend. She seems great, and we hope to see her in October at the Desert. 

Saturday Morning we got up early to watch the Balloons take off during the balloon festival. It was really early after a late night at the game, but I had never seen a balloon get filled up and taken off before. I think It would have been more fun if I had had more sleep, or they used helium…then sang in falsetto… the wicked witch is dead. 

Once we got a nap in, I went to work siding my shed. The previous owners had started to build a shed on the side of the house and had almost completed it when, crap it the fan for them, they weren't able to finish. The shed remained un-sided for almost two years and was getting to the point where it was going to rot unless something was done. So, I went to Home Depo and bought a bunch of siding and learned how to install vinyl siding. Here is a pic of the completed project. Not perfect, but I love having it to hold all the lawn equipment and toys that otherwise would be taking up space in the garage. After all, contrary to popular belief, cars go in garages, not all your junk. 

Sunday, we had dinner with the whole Jorgensen family at Gram's house. It was nice to see some family we don't see very often. 
 
Lori had come into town early to get ready for the Pickett family reunion. Aunt Marsha has some friends with a cabin in Bear Lake that we were able to rent for the weekend. As many of the Pickett's posterity who could make it came up to the lake Thursday night where we had dinner and Minute to Win It games ready. Team 3 (or team 2 and ½ fingers as we liked to call ourselves) won the games by a land slide! 

That night, those who weren't staying at the cabin camped out at the KOA campground in Garden City. A storm cell rolled right over the campground around 12:00 sending up to 1/2" of rain down with big thunder and lightning. Kaela and I stayed dry in our tent but others didn't. Jim and Karen Wright's tent leaked from the top and through the floor, through their blanket, through their sleeping bags, and even the back of their shirts. They got their gear dried out well enough for the next night, and fixed the ground cloth so it wouldn't run water under the tent but they still got leaked on. I think I saw that tent in the dumpster of the KOA as we were leaving. Can't say I blame them.

Friday was spent at the lake with Steve Pickett's boat and Canoes. It was over cast and chilly when we got there but the water felt great, cool not cold. I jumped out on the first shift and got to wake board for the first time in a long time, even almost jumped the wake. Back at the beach the kids played in the sand or went out on canoes and paddled around. It was overcast but warmed up so we were comfortable. Most of the adults got a chance on the boat before the wind kicked up and sent us all packing back to the cabin. That night, the kiddos put on a variety show. Lori and Marsha danced the chicken dance with holding oversized cutouts of their parents faces attached to solo cups that they held in their mouths. The awkward position of their heads holding the cups attached to the oversized cut outs made it look like Grandma and Grandpa were bobble heads. 

Saturday was a hodgepodge day. Kaela and I went to ride stump hollow by Beaver Mountain and others did a ride on the trail through town. At breakfast we got a count for how many wanted to go up to the Minnetonka cave. I drove up to secure our spot for the afternoon then went on another Mt. bike ride up St. Charles canyon. My trail would have taken me to the ridge overlooking Willow Flats campground. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to make it that far before needing to turn around and get back to reception to let everyone know of the cave start time. It's a good thing I left when I did because the others had gone to the lake only to get stuck in the line of cars trying to put boats in. Steve waited an hour just to get the boat in the water. It was unfortunate that by the time the boat got in, others had to leave to meet us at the cave.
That night we went into town for shakes before a lot of folk took off for home. Most of the crew had driven from Albuquerque, NM and wanted to get a few hours in before making the big push on Sunday.
Kaela and I stuck it out in our tent (everyone else bailed out on camping) and helped cleaned up at the cabin before heading to my parents in Smithfield for the afternoon.

It was great to see family we hadn't seen in 2 years since before Kaela and I were engaged. Everyone got along great and most of the plans went off without a hitch. Koodos to Lori for being the engineer of a great family reunion.

Fears, Tears and Beers

And we return from our silence yet again. Or just me, I guess. This week Darrell has been at scout camp with the deacons in our ward. He loves scouting so he has been pretty excited for this. I’ve been here, working, holding down the business as well as my amateur self can, checking tons off my to-do list, and putting everything else possible before studying for my insurance license exam. This, as you may have guessed, is one such thing.

Darrell and I love summers together. It’s definitely taken more effort to figure out where the good stuff happens now that we are in Utah county than we are used to after both living in Cache Valley for so long. I’d say it’s been pretty awesome though. Darrell fixed up the motorcycle so we take that on Sunday rides sometimes. We’ve got our summer calendar marked with all the outdoor movies and each nearby city’s summer festival/days, along with anything else random I’ve been able to find. We mountain bike a few times a week and have only fit in one hammock camping trip so far, but hope for a few more. Last week we went down to Manti and saw the pageant with Darrell’s parents because his dad was down there on a charter and neither of us have seen it before. My main goal of the summer is to go ziplining in Provo canyon at some point, and I think Darrell’s was accomplished with our mountain bike race a few weeks back. (More on that in a minute.) We both do a lot with the youth, and more on our yard than we like but less than we should since the house was empty for so long before we bought it. For the lawn being so dead the rest of the yard sure has jungled out with our massive bushes and tree shoots and weeds coming up everywhere. Darrell has been siding our shed (another skill this house has blessed us to need to acquire) and I’ve been raking, trimming, and weeding into large piles we will have to take in a few loads to the dump sometime soon. 

We went up to Logan a few weeks ago so Darrell could go to a friend’s bachelor party, I could see two of my favorite study abroad friends, and to have some time with Darrell’s family. We’ve watched A LOT of world cup soccer, and got to see my sister and her family when they drove through Salt Lake on their way to Washington D.C. for the summer. They have 4 kids and we always enjoy whenever we get to see them and the kiddos. We’ve been to a few weddings already this summer, with more coming and a trip to Omaha for my other sister’s wedding in August. 

I’m still enjoying not commuting and working less away from home, thus more at home. I’ve been using our new Blendtec blender a ridiculous amount, learning how to grill, and love having more good produce out now that it’s summer. There is a guy just across State Street from us who has orchards and calls me whenever he thinks I might want something he’s picking that week. And while we are waiting mostly until next spring to plant our actual garden, a few of my herbs are coming in well and we planted a peach tree in our backyard this week! (It’s an Elberta; thus his name is Albert.)

Darrell is working hard as usual. He’s been doing a ton of networking in the area, picking up some additional products and companies to offer, and working on a few big proposals that will hopefully lead to good things later on. He’s been awesome taking me mountain biking with him again this year and being willing to work on the yard, sprinklers, etc with me even though it’s no fun now that the evenings are so warm. Also, our cat likes him best which is okay with me at 4:00 in the morning when she asks him to let her outside to play instead of me, but not so great when she thinks she has snuggling dibs. Furry traitor.

So, bike race. Darrell got me into mountain bike the summer before we got married. I went a few times that year on his old bike, went when we could fit it in after I got off work on my early nights and before it got dark last summer, and this summer I’ve been going with him pretty consistently 1-2 times a week. I even got me a new bike last year from Deer Creek’s rental fleet at the end of the season. J Full suspension 29er=Kaela liking mountain biking more. Darrell has been mountain biking since he was a teenager and is awesome, so I work to keep up with him. We were talking to some friends in our ward months back and Ely, Nevada came up. For those (probably almost all) of you who haven’t heard of Ely, it’s just past McGill, Nevada. J Basically it’s in the middle of nowhere. Darrell’s cousin and her family have a ranch about 30 minutes from there.  Our friend from the ward is from Ely and her dad runs an enduro mountain bike race each year, so they invited us when they found out we were fans. I don’t like failing at things, but after looking at the map of each class in the race Darrell and I decided we’d really regret it if we didn’t sign up.  So we printed some jerseys with our logo, went on a few test rides, and just kept getting more excited. We were a little worried about the mileage and elevation (mine was 13 miles and 1200 feet, Darrell’s was 26 miles and 3500 feet) but were surprised how well we did. I could have gone a couple more miles after mine, but I was glad I picked the racing class I did because the next class up was an additional 6 miles. Don’t think I would have enjoyed that as much. Darrell and I rode together for the first portion of the race through a couple casinos in town and part of the way up the mountain. He kept going and I moved on to my timed “downhill” sections. I got done about 2 hours before him, so Darrell’s cousin and her husband brought their kids into town to have a picnic with me while we waited to cheer for Darrell as he rode back to the park after his finish. Darrell and I spent the rest of the day laying around the park, watching the pro and expert riders come down the crazy downhill trail on Whorehouse Hill. (Yes, that’s what it’s called.) They had a dinner for all the riders after the races finished and then a drawing and awards. I won 1^st place out of the women in my class (there were only 4 women) and Darrell got 11^th overall in his class of over 40 riders. The only disappointment for the day was that we didn’t get to partake of the free beer they handed out at the end of the races. That’s what you get for being a Mormon participating in a race called Fears, Tears and Beers I guess.

Switching writers now, and I (Darrell) want to give a quick report on our scout trip.  We took off Monday morning for camp Tife located in the mountain above Mt. Pleasant.  We had one of the smallest patrols with only three boys but these kids delivered! Each morning there was a competition to earn the spirit stick, the award for the troop that does their troop yell the best.  Every morning a new word was introduced as a challenge to change up their yells.  Even though they only had three boys, they were successful in winning the spirit stick twice!  They are some pretty great kids.  They all worked really hard to earn merit badges and we all had a great time.  Me and the other scout leader, Marc Brown, figured that we would have a lot of time to sleep, read, go hiking, and otherwise kick back and enjoy a nice week in the mountains.  We did a lot of those plus did a lot of training on how to be better scout leaders.  We learned a ton of things that are going to help us create a program that is designed for the success of the boys.   

HAVASUPAI

I'm so excited to post this......SO FREAKING EXCITED!

Can you believe that a place like this exist? 

Havasupai is a name that is a combination of two places in the Grand Canyon.  One is called Supai which is the name of the village where a tribe of Indians still live to this day.  The other is Havasu Falls.  A stunning waterfall just below the village of turquoise blue water contrasted against the red rocks of the southwest.  The two names pushed together names the Indian reservation.  

This stunning place was our destination for the Rawlins/Jorgensen spring hike/backpacking trip.  Thanks to Lori for bringing this up over the Christmas break and starting the planning process.  This was a hike that I’ve wanted to do for years but have never been a part of the group that was going or I had already made other plans.

The place is one of the most unique places I’ve ever traveled to.  There are no roads to the village and falls.  Everything is either hiked in, packed in on mules, or flown in by helicopter.  At first I couldn’t believe that a village wouldn’t have some sort of access road that the natives would use that just took forever to drive down, or something like that.  Nope, sure enough, no roads. 

We started the trip by heading to Vegas where we picked Lori and Kelly up from the airport.  Kaela had never been to Vegas before so we stopped at the Fremont Street Expierience so she could get a taist of what the ghetto part of the strip was like before we came back and did the glitzy strip after the back packing trip. 

After packing up the car with all the backpacking gear (BTW, Bean, my hatchback, was a champ at having enough space for everthing)  We headed out into the Arizona night.  After turning off the main highway we drove up over some higher elevations and almost ran into 6 or 7 elk on the road!  We saw more animals off to the side.  I’m so grateful we didn’t have an accident because in some cases, you were on top of them before you knew it. 

The road ends at a hilltop parking area on the rim of the canyon you hike down.  We pulled off to the side in a spot and set up a quick camp to catch a few hours of sleep.

The trial is a 10 miles trek down a wash to the campground.  You start the journey on a mesa top before switch backing down to the canyon floor.  I was worried about the distance with backpacks so Kaela and I decided to do some conditioning hikes above our house in the canyons below Mount Timpanogos.  We did two hikes with packs, one 6 mile and one 8 mile hike to help condition our bodies and minds for the grind of 10 miles.  In the end I think the 10 miles wasn’t as hard as we imagined it was going to be. 

4 hours later we arrived at Supai and checked into the campground.  We then pushed on for another 2 miles before reaching camp.  We stopped in between at the first falls we came to called New Navajo Falls.  This was the new falls that had been created after the flash floods of 2008 wiped out the old falls.  It was a great spot to take a break and do some swimming.  We were amazed that there wasn’t any one else there.  A few more minutes further we understood why as we crested the hill and viewed the amazing Havasu falls as it cascaded down through its red rock shute and into the travertine pool below. Hikers would stop and take pictures and gaze jealously of the baithers in the pools below anxiously anticipating when they would be able to take off their packs and join them.  

We pushed on and found a campground that had some trees nearby for Kaela and I to hang up our hammocks.  Kaela and I changed into our swimmers and went back up to Havasu Falls and played in the pools.  One pool had an eddy that you could float in and it would push you in circles for as long as you wanted.  The water was perfect.  A little cold at first but then felt just right. 

Came back for a delicious rehydrated dinner that Kelly had prepared and settled into the hammocks for a restfull sleep. 

A little note on hammocks.  Kaela and I are really into them.  They are by far the most comfortable way I have ever slept outdoors and that includes sleeping on an air mattress.  Think about it this way, remember the last time you went camping.  How many times did you wake up to shift positions?  Two maybe three times if you’re lucky?  Kaela and I woke up once In the middle of the night.  The next day felt completely rested and ready to go for a full day worth of activity.  I’ve never had that before sleeping in a tent on the ground.  So, If you’ve never thought about hammocks, try it.  It’s amazing. 

Day two into the backpacking trip we packed up lunch and headed further down the canyon.  Our first stop was Moony falls that is just massive.  There is no true natural way to get to the bottom of the falls because of the sheer canyon walls.  So to accommodate the adventurous tourists who want to get to the bottom and further down the canyon.  The reservation from the tour guide in New Orleans and “take your time and watch your step” you were fine. 

Once at the bottom of the falls we hiked further down the creek passing beautiful sections of red rock and desert greenery we arrive at beaver falls.  Beaver falls is great because it has three different tears that you can play on.  One has a 12 foot drop that you can jump off of.  We all jumped off, even Lori who is afraid of heights and drowning!  She became quite the daredevil in the last few years. 

Back at camp, we found our packs had been invaded by a bold family of squires who chewed through our packs to try and find food.  Even though they didn’t get the food they did quite a bit of damage to our packs. (Sorry Ben for the holes in your backpack) 

The morning came, and we broke camp to hike back out.  We all agreed that the trip was too short and we could have easly spent another 2 nights there in the canyon.  It’s honestly felt like a resort of sorts for back packers.  You could spend a whole day just lounging in the pools by camp and under Moony Falls.  You could spend another back at Navajo Falls because no one is there.  You could keep hiking past Beaver Falls until the river empties into the Colorado river in the main channel of the Grand Canyon. 

We left with the thoughs in our head of ‘when can we come back’ because it was all over too quickly.  We made it back to the car in about 5:30 hours and headed into Vegas.  Walked around the strip and hit up the Rio buffett the next day for lunch.  We estimated that between the 3 days, we walked over 30 miles.  High Fives all around. 

Now we are looking for our next destination for a hiking/backpacking trip.  Anyone have any suggestions, please leave a comment below!