We went to visit my family for the holidays. It was a good trip, but also very stressful. I'm not sure how much of this stress was of my own making and how much was unavoidable. But overall, it was "good." Being back home now, there are things I realize that i take for granted.
1. my own shampoo, conditioner, and body wash with spongie
2. deciding what i want for dinner
3. my own transportation (i really don't like having to rely on others to go places)
4. my routine-- just being able to plan my day, now what others are doing and where they are, and most importantly, sticking to a nap and feeding schedule for the munchkin
5. my bed! i missed my bed so much! it's comfy and big and mine.
6. munchkin's crib. she always sleeps better in it than the playpen.
7. my diet and exercise plan. i didn't have control of what i could eat or when, i didn't have my work out dvds or my WiiFit or JustDance2 wii game; i didn't have alone time to work out without people watching me, etc. so my diet was out the window. I'm glad to be back and put it back in place.
8. privacy. while i love a house full of family, i also love our small apartment with just the 3 of us.
9. my working washer and dryer. the one at my grandma's stopped working while we were there. ugh!
10. christmas sweets. they just weren't there... i was craving Mom Neeley's chocolate covered oreos ALL the time!!! and the Neeley fondue.
but i'm also going to miss "home." There were lots of perks that pampered me while there, adn now i gotta grow up and be the mom and homemaker again. I'm gonna miss...
1. not having to do dishes. my grandma can't let a dirty dish sit in a sink if she knows about it.
2. not having to cook dinner.
3. not having family to watch the munchkin while brad and i run out for a bit.
4. my home ward family. I was baptized in the Carbondale Ward; the members there are seriously like family. I love them all so much. it was great to go to my home ward twice while there adn show off my adorable family. i owe much of my happiness in life to the members there. they opened their arms and hearts to me, they wouldn't let me get lost from the fold, and they pushed me to be greater than i thought i could be.
5. the crazy weather. it was about 30-ish degres when we gpt there, then one day it suddenly shot up to 55, then 70 degrees. then we had tornadoes. adn then 20 degree temperatures.
6. the humidity. i'm back to lathering myself with layers of lotion every morning so i don't dry out.
7. Mr. Miles-- Naomi's new best friend (my 2 year old cousin). He was so great to her, adn she looked up to him so much and learned from him. I'll especially miss waking up and meeting him outside the room to ask me, "baby Naomi sleeping?"
It was fun. Pictures to come after I get them from family, because i didn't take any pics while there. opps!
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Friday, June 5, 2009
Iosepa Weekend Adventure
Memorial Day weekend we went to a place called Iosepa, near Tooele, UT. We had been invited several times to come to this place and camp out with some Polynesian families from my mission in the Utah Provo Mission, but I had never been able to get camping gear or the time to go in the past. We borrowed my Aunt June's camping equipment for the Southern Utah adventure and decided to keep it a bit longer so we could go on this campout.
Here's the basic background of the place. The people who settled here were mostly all of Polynesian decent, mostly from Hawaii. Anyways, they built a small city there and for several years, it was one of the best kept cities in Utah. They named the city Iosepa (Yo sepp a) which is Hawaii for "Joseph." The people endured several trials with the elements and such and then they left to Hawaii to help build the La'ie Temple in Hawaii. If you want more info than that, here's a little more history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosepa.
We arrived Friday evening and met up with the Peck family, a family that I was able to help prepare their daughter for baptism. I used to play racquetball with them after my mission also. Anyways, we get there and it's this place in the middle of nowhere. Just farm land and cows. At the actual site, there was a pavilion and cemetery for the settlers of Iosepa that the children would clean up and decorate with flower leis every year. We set up our tent next to the Pecks' camper and just hung out for the night, making new acquaintances and renewing old ones. My wife had not been around many Polynesians before and felt completely as if she were surrounded by family right away, even though she had never met any of these people.
Saturday was the main festivities day. We volunteered to help out and ended up stationed at a booth were the kids could give up "Iosepa bucks" to buy things such as coloring books, candy leis, kukui nut bracelets and some kind of fuzzy leis. We also collected money for a few surrounding booths. At one, you could make flower headbands or wristbands. At another, you could make Ipus (something with gourds, I never did find out). At another, you could make your own bookmark with a piece of special wood and sandpaper. Most made them into surfboard shapes. I got creative and made an example of a wavy bookmark and put them together for a surfboard on the waves! It was lots of fun.
In the evening, the Imu was opened up. For those that don't know about Imus, it is a traditional way of Polynesian cooking, basically a huge steam cooker, but it's a hole the ground. It is started in the early morning and usually is ready to be buried after 3 hours. The hole is a couple feet deep, and rocks are placed in the fire to be the main heat source because they retain heat better than coals. We used steel girders because it works better. I was able to help bury and unearth the Imu. The favorite dish is kalua pork, basically cooking whole pigs to the point where the meat falls off the bone and is very tender and juicy. Ours was just slabs of the pig already cut up and wrapped in foil. If you want more details about the Imu, go here: http://www.primitiveways.com/Imu1.html.
The dinner included the kalua pork, chop suey, taro (kind of like a potato, but very dense), macaroni salad, a cole slaw dish that had crab in it, another kind of cole slaw with raw fish and peppers in it (it's actually one of my favorites), steamed rice, teriaki style chicken, and tons of other stuff that I can't really remember right now. It was DeLiCious! Marie loved it too. Polynesian food is one of our favorite kinds of food. There are a few restaurants out here that specialize in it, and Marie and I go to them when we feel a bit rich (not too often).
It rained pretty hard that evening and we found a pool of water in our tent. Luckily we had some towels and were able to soak it up and it didn't damage anything. I tried to adjust our tent fly so it would block the rain but it was so windy that rain was still coming in the tent. We decided to just leave it to the Lord and prayed that we wouldn't have any more rain in the tent somehow. Right after we said "Amen", Brother Peck shouted at our tent "Anybody home?" He was just checking on us and making sure we were doing alright. We mentioned we were a bit wet and couldn't seem to figure out how to keep the rain out and a few minutes later he was putting a tarp over our tent. Isn't it nice when God answers your prayers quickly through his servants? The rest of the evening was spent trying to sleep and drown out the loud music from the dance the youth were having under the pavilion all night.
Sunday morning, it was still raining but we had Sunday services under the pavilion. It was just a big testimony meeting with the Utah Polynesian Choir singing several hymns in the various Polynesian languages (Samoan, Tongan, Hawaiian, Tahitian, etc...). It was a great service and afterwards was another authentic Polynesian meal and then Marie and I took off since we had to get back to Provo and wanted to dry out our tent.
All in all, it was a great experience that neither of us will forget and we plan on doing it again next year. Marie loves the Polynesian people and we would like to visit the Islands someday to scout them out for possible retirement. :-)
Here's the basic background of the place. The people who settled here were mostly all of Polynesian decent, mostly from Hawaii. Anyways, they built a small city there and for several years, it was one of the best kept cities in Utah. They named the city Iosepa (Yo sepp a) which is Hawaii for "Joseph." The people endured several trials with the elements and such and then they left to Hawaii to help build the La'ie Temple in Hawaii. If you want more info than that, here's a little more history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosepa.
We arrived Friday evening and met up with the Peck family, a family that I was able to help prepare their daughter for baptism. I used to play racquetball with them after my mission also. Anyways, we get there and it's this place in the middle of nowhere. Just farm land and cows. At the actual site, there was a pavilion and cemetery for the settlers of Iosepa that the children would clean up and decorate with flower leis every year. We set up our tent next to the Pecks' camper and just hung out for the night, making new acquaintances and renewing old ones. My wife had not been around many Polynesians before and felt completely as if she were surrounded by family right away, even though she had never met any of these people.
Saturday was the main festivities day. We volunteered to help out and ended up stationed at a booth were the kids could give up "Iosepa bucks" to buy things such as coloring books, candy leis, kukui nut bracelets and some kind of fuzzy leis. We also collected money for a few surrounding booths. At one, you could make flower headbands or wristbands. At another, you could make Ipus (something with gourds, I never did find out). At another, you could make your own bookmark with a piece of special wood and sandpaper. Most made them into surfboard shapes. I got creative and made an example of a wavy bookmark and put them together for a surfboard on the waves! It was lots of fun.
In the evening, the Imu was opened up. For those that don't know about Imus, it is a traditional way of Polynesian cooking, basically a huge steam cooker, but it's a hole the ground. It is started in the early morning and usually is ready to be buried after 3 hours. The hole is a couple feet deep, and rocks are placed in the fire to be the main heat source because they retain heat better than coals. We used steel girders because it works better. I was able to help bury and unearth the Imu. The favorite dish is kalua pork, basically cooking whole pigs to the point where the meat falls off the bone and is very tender and juicy. Ours was just slabs of the pig already cut up and wrapped in foil. If you want more details about the Imu, go here: http://www.primitiveways.com/Imu1.html.
The dinner included the kalua pork, chop suey, taro (kind of like a potato, but very dense), macaroni salad, a cole slaw dish that had crab in it, another kind of cole slaw with raw fish and peppers in it (it's actually one of my favorites), steamed rice, teriaki style chicken, and tons of other stuff that I can't really remember right now. It was DeLiCious! Marie loved it too. Polynesian food is one of our favorite kinds of food. There are a few restaurants out here that specialize in it, and Marie and I go to them when we feel a bit rich (not too often).
It rained pretty hard that evening and we found a pool of water in our tent. Luckily we had some towels and were able to soak it up and it didn't damage anything. I tried to adjust our tent fly so it would block the rain but it was so windy that rain was still coming in the tent. We decided to just leave it to the Lord and prayed that we wouldn't have any more rain in the tent somehow. Right after we said "Amen", Brother Peck shouted at our tent "Anybody home?" He was just checking on us and making sure we were doing alright. We mentioned we were a bit wet and couldn't seem to figure out how to keep the rain out and a few minutes later he was putting a tarp over our tent. Isn't it nice when God answers your prayers quickly through his servants? The rest of the evening was spent trying to sleep and drown out the loud music from the dance the youth were having under the pavilion all night.
Sunday morning, it was still raining but we had Sunday services under the pavilion. It was just a big testimony meeting with the Utah Polynesian Choir singing several hymns in the various Polynesian languages (Samoan, Tongan, Hawaiian, Tahitian, etc...). It was a great service and afterwards was another authentic Polynesian meal and then Marie and I took off since we had to get back to Provo and wanted to dry out our tent.
All in all, it was a great experience that neither of us will forget and we plan on doing it again next year. Marie loves the Polynesian people and we would like to visit the Islands someday to scout them out for possible retirement. :-)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Our Southern Utah Adventure
Well, we're back safe and sound from our week long camping trip. We camped with borrowed camping equipment from Aunt June Neeley. We really appreciated it by the way. Anyways, we were gone from Monday May 11th to Sunday May 17th. We decided to spend about 2 days each in Arches National Park, Zion Canyon National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park.
Monday we left Provo around 5 am and, due to my lack of sleep, ended up taking the really long way to Arches. Instead of going in the diagonal line that mapquest told me to do, I completely forgot and ended up going down I-15 until I hit Scipio and took Route 50 to get to I-70. We ended up losing about an hour because of that mistake. Oh well. We arrived at the park and drove to the Landscape Arch hike and hiked further on to Double O Arches. It was a 4.4 mile hike and we weren't quite prepared for it. We brought enough water and food, but we should have taken a warm up hike first. We were wiped out by the time we got back. I learned several things on this hike, most importantly that Marie is deathly afraid of heights and jumping over cracks between rocks. This is understandable, and she got through it all well, I just had to help calm her down and hold her at certain points in the hike. I also learned that Marie really loves animals more than earthly features such as arches. She liked to stop and look at and point out the many lizards and squirrels we encountered on our many hikes. She even fed a few squirrels some honey nut Cheerios. She did really like the arches too. On this hike we saw Landscape Arch, Navajo Arch, Partition Arch and Double O Arches. After this hike we figured we should get to the campsite and set up for the night. The campsite was 13 miles south of Monticello (where Arches is just north of Moab and Monticello is about 55 miles south of Moab) and was pretty nice. We only had problems at night when we wanted to use the bathroom or the water pump to clean dishes. We would hear rattles as we approached, warning us of rattlesnakes nearby. Other than that we were safe. I think we had Spaghetti O's that night for dinner.
Tuesday morning I woke up to find that my rear driver side tire had gone flat. This is when I found out even more about Marie and she found out even more about me. I have never changed a flat before, but I had seen it done and knew the basics. Marie assumed I knew what I was doing and just watched. I started out by jacking the car up and taking the wheel cover off. Good so far. Then I tried to unscrew the bolts unsuccessfully because the tire kept spinning when I tried to wrench them off. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out and got pretty frustrated. I'm sure Marie was glad there was no one watching her poor dumb husband attempt such a feat. Anyways, it finally dawned on me to put the e-brake on and I continued on my way. Marie had learned how to change a flat in Young Women's as a requirement for something I can't remember. I think we might have been better off with her changing it. Oh well. The rest was ok from there as we had a full size spare left over from a previous accident so we went out in search of a shower so we could do some temple work at the Monticello Temple. It costs a lot to take a shower I guess, as we paid $5 to do so for 1 hour. We acted as proxy for sealings that day and then went to Arches again to see the visitor's center and hike 3.5 miles to Delicate Arch. It was another tough hike but fun. That night we roasted hot dogs on the fire and later had roasted marshmallows.
Wednesday we broke camp pretty early so we could get to the Monticello Temple again so we could act as the witness couple in an endowment session at 10 am. After that we drove to Zion Canyon National Park to camp within the park. As we set up camp, several mule deer came down in the middle of the camp site. They didn't seem to mind people all that much as I came within arms reach of them a few times. There were a lot of annoying things about this site though. 1.)There were tons of bugs (caterpillars falling from over hanging trees, gnats, mosquitoes, flies, etc.). 2.)There were some people who decided to bring their baby camping and it decided to cry all night long. 3.)We were camped in a grove of cottonwood trees and both Marie and my allergies flared up severely, causing sleep problems and breathing problems.
Thursday morning, we hiked the 1 mile Canyonview trail in Zion. We ate lunch as we sat on some rocks overlooking the valley several thousand feet below. Marie is not as deathly afraid of heights as my father is. When I took him on this same hike, he inched up to the railing where the cliff is, all the time leaning backwards away from the cliff. When his hand finally touched the rail, he looked briefly over, still leaning backwards, and then scampered away from the edge. Marie was very cool about it but still didn't go as far as me, leaning over the rail to see the cliff drop off better. After that, we went to the St. George Temple, hoping to shower in the church building across from it for free because it was a stake center, but we found that there were no showers to be found there. We didn't want to go into the temple smelly and dirty so I tried to call a few of the people I know in the area but didn't find anyone home. Finally, Marie remembers that I had another friend down there that we were trying to stay with but things fell through. I called him up and we had our shower hookup for the next 2 days! After serving as the witness couple yet again, we went to our favorite restaurant, Mongolian BBQ. We took the friend with us to repay him for letting us use his showers. After dinner, I found out that a very good friend that I served my mission with was living in the area. We visited with him for several hours and enjoyed catching up on each other's lives.
Friday, we broke camp and took the shuttle around Zion and saw most of the peaks and did a few short hikes such as Weeping Rock and the 3 Patriarchs. We also went to the visitor center and saw a short film on the creation of the park. After that, we again went to the St. George Temple and performed sealings. After the temple, we went to our camp site out side of Bryce Canyon National Park. It was fun trying to find the camp site-- it was 5.5 miles down a gravel road and the signs with the name of our campground suddenly disappeared once we reached the campground and were replaced by other campground names. Luckily the campsite host was found and kindly pointed us in the right direction. I must say that this campsite had the cleanest camp bathrooms I've ever seen. They looked new and were not infested with rattlesnakes. We had eaten dinner at Iceberg in St. George before we came to camp and read until nightfall.
Saturday morning we drove to the end of Bryce (Rainbow Point) and proceeded to stop at all the lookout points along the way to the visitor's center. We neglected to put on sunscreen that day and regretted it. I got the worst of it, with Marie taunting me by saying how she didn't have to wear blush the following sunday because she had just the right amount of sunburn for it to look natural. Grrr.... I on the other hand turned into a well-done lobster. That evening we found to my immense dismay that another tire was leaking-- this one had a hole and we could hear it going flat. So I used the wisdom gained from my first tire-changing experience only a few days earlier to change this tire also while Marie heated up some yummy chicken and sausage gumbo soup. We were so glad to have listened to the Spirit and filled our other tire before reaching our campsite that night.
Sunday morning we checked the tires and to our delight, they were all filled. We had been saying several prayers the entire week that our car would function completely and well and specifically included the tires the last few days with the impending danger of the gravel road. We checked the tires again after we made it past the gravel road and listened to each one to make sure they weren't leaking. Again, nothing. We made it to Provo about an hour and a half before church and cleaned up and enjoyed church, well, my neck didn't like the collared shirt and tie, but I endured.
Memorable Marie Quotes from the Week:
"I love the feel of photosynthesis in the morning!"
"HORSIES!!!! THEY'RE NOT COWS!"
Monday we left Provo around 5 am and, due to my lack of sleep, ended up taking the really long way to Arches. Instead of going in the diagonal line that mapquest told me to do, I completely forgot and ended up going down I-15 until I hit Scipio and took Route 50 to get to I-70. We ended up losing about an hour because of that mistake. Oh well. We arrived at the park and drove to the Landscape Arch hike and hiked further on to Double O Arches. It was a 4.4 mile hike and we weren't quite prepared for it. We brought enough water and food, but we should have taken a warm up hike first. We were wiped out by the time we got back. I learned several things on this hike, most importantly that Marie is deathly afraid of heights and jumping over cracks between rocks. This is understandable, and she got through it all well, I just had to help calm her down and hold her at certain points in the hike. I also learned that Marie really loves animals more than earthly features such as arches. She liked to stop and look at and point out the many lizards and squirrels we encountered on our many hikes. She even fed a few squirrels some honey nut Cheerios. She did really like the arches too. On this hike we saw Landscape Arch, Navajo Arch, Partition Arch and Double O Arches. After this hike we figured we should get to the campsite and set up for the night. The campsite was 13 miles south of Monticello (where Arches is just north of Moab and Monticello is about 55 miles south of Moab) and was pretty nice. We only had problems at night when we wanted to use the bathroom or the water pump to clean dishes. We would hear rattles as we approached, warning us of rattlesnakes nearby. Other than that we were safe. I think we had Spaghetti O's that night for dinner.
Tuesday morning I woke up to find that my rear driver side tire had gone flat. This is when I found out even more about Marie and she found out even more about me. I have never changed a flat before, but I had seen it done and knew the basics. Marie assumed I knew what I was doing and just watched. I started out by jacking the car up and taking the wheel cover off. Good so far. Then I tried to unscrew the bolts unsuccessfully because the tire kept spinning when I tried to wrench them off. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out and got pretty frustrated. I'm sure Marie was glad there was no one watching her poor dumb husband attempt such a feat. Anyways, it finally dawned on me to put the e-brake on and I continued on my way. Marie had learned how to change a flat in Young Women's as a requirement for something I can't remember. I think we might have been better off with her changing it. Oh well. The rest was ok from there as we had a full size spare left over from a previous accident so we went out in search of a shower so we could do some temple work at the Monticello Temple. It costs a lot to take a shower I guess, as we paid $5 to do so for 1 hour. We acted as proxy for sealings that day and then went to Arches again to see the visitor's center and hike 3.5 miles to Delicate Arch. It was another tough hike but fun. That night we roasted hot dogs on the fire and later had roasted marshmallows.
Wednesday we broke camp pretty early so we could get to the Monticello Temple again so we could act as the witness couple in an endowment session at 10 am. After that we drove to Zion Canyon National Park to camp within the park. As we set up camp, several mule deer came down in the middle of the camp site. They didn't seem to mind people all that much as I came within arms reach of them a few times. There were a lot of annoying things about this site though. 1.)There were tons of bugs (caterpillars falling from over hanging trees, gnats, mosquitoes, flies, etc.). 2.)There were some people who decided to bring their baby camping and it decided to cry all night long. 3.)We were camped in a grove of cottonwood trees and both Marie and my allergies flared up severely, causing sleep problems and breathing problems.
Thursday morning, we hiked the 1 mile Canyonview trail in Zion. We ate lunch as we sat on some rocks overlooking the valley several thousand feet below. Marie is not as deathly afraid of heights as my father is. When I took him on this same hike, he inched up to the railing where the cliff is, all the time leaning backwards away from the cliff. When his hand finally touched the rail, he looked briefly over, still leaning backwards, and then scampered away from the edge. Marie was very cool about it but still didn't go as far as me, leaning over the rail to see the cliff drop off better. After that, we went to the St. George Temple, hoping to shower in the church building across from it for free because it was a stake center, but we found that there were no showers to be found there. We didn't want to go into the temple smelly and dirty so I tried to call a few of the people I know in the area but didn't find anyone home. Finally, Marie remembers that I had another friend down there that we were trying to stay with but things fell through. I called him up and we had our shower hookup for the next 2 days! After serving as the witness couple yet again, we went to our favorite restaurant, Mongolian BBQ. We took the friend with us to repay him for letting us use his showers. After dinner, I found out that a very good friend that I served my mission with was living in the area. We visited with him for several hours and enjoyed catching up on each other's lives.
Friday, we broke camp and took the shuttle around Zion and saw most of the peaks and did a few short hikes such as Weeping Rock and the 3 Patriarchs. We also went to the visitor center and saw a short film on the creation of the park. After that, we again went to the St. George Temple and performed sealings. After the temple, we went to our camp site out side of Bryce Canyon National Park. It was fun trying to find the camp site-- it was 5.5 miles down a gravel road and the signs with the name of our campground suddenly disappeared once we reached the campground and were replaced by other campground names. Luckily the campsite host was found and kindly pointed us in the right direction. I must say that this campsite had the cleanest camp bathrooms I've ever seen. They looked new and were not infested with rattlesnakes. We had eaten dinner at Iceberg in St. George before we came to camp and read until nightfall.
Saturday morning we drove to the end of Bryce (Rainbow Point) and proceeded to stop at all the lookout points along the way to the visitor's center. We neglected to put on sunscreen that day and regretted it. I got the worst of it, with Marie taunting me by saying how she didn't have to wear blush the following sunday because she had just the right amount of sunburn for it to look natural. Grrr.... I on the other hand turned into a well-done lobster. That evening we found to my immense dismay that another tire was leaking-- this one had a hole and we could hear it going flat. So I used the wisdom gained from my first tire-changing experience only a few days earlier to change this tire also while Marie heated up some yummy chicken and sausage gumbo soup. We were so glad to have listened to the Spirit and filled our other tire before reaching our campsite that night.
Sunday morning we checked the tires and to our delight, they were all filled. We had been saying several prayers the entire week that our car would function completely and well and specifically included the tires the last few days with the impending danger of the gravel road. We checked the tires again after we made it past the gravel road and listened to each one to make sure they weren't leaking. Again, nothing. We made it to Provo about an hour and a half before church and cleaned up and enjoyed church, well, my neck didn't like the collared shirt and tie, but I endured.
Memorable Marie Quotes from the Week:
"I love the feel of photosynthesis in the morning!"
"HORSIES!!!! THEY'RE NOT COWS!"
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