Our last week

This was our last week in the Western United States for a while and we have been busy trying to fit everything in. We have done a lot of rock climbing at Rock canyon, and then we were off to visit family for a while.

We started out visiting Rachel's family and going to a science fiction/fantasy convention with them. This was in Salt Lake and we stayed in a hotel while going to different classes/presentations. At night time we would sit around and strum guitars and sing into the early hours. It was very "hippieish" and fun.

After the convention we headed up to Rexburg. Logan and Griffin ran Sheep Falls- a rapid on the Henry's Fork that thay have had their eyes on for a while. The run went well and everybody had fun.

We also did some rock climbing at Paramount and fishing on the Snake River while we were there. On one night, Matt took the family up to a cabin he had built and we shot guns and grilled chicken, then had a nice family night.

Now I guess it's time to get ready for the big move. We leave on Saturday morning.

Happy Birthday Rachel

Rachel's birthday was on the 18th, but we have managed to make it last longer than that. She is now 25 years old, or as she says, "half way to fifty!"

She got some new climbing shoes for her birthday (Red Chili Coronas) which we hope will see good use. She also got some movies, earings, pictures, and money. More importantly, however, is that we have managed to spend quite a lot of time with her family recently. This weekend Rachel went up to visit them all day on Saturday (I had to work) and on Sunday they all came down for a picnic of hamburgers in the park. It's been fun living so close to them.

Anyway- Happy Birthday Rachel! Logan Loves You!

Time is short

Time is soon comming that we will be gone to Ohio. We are way excited but at the same time sad to be leaving so many friends, family, and places that we love so much. We are trying to make the best of the remaining time we have but it seems impossible to cram everything in that we want to do. Both of us finnish up with our jobs this week and then it's off on a week-long road trip to visit family before packing up the truck and leaving. It's all pretty crazy!

Our two-year anniversary surprise!

If you have read our past entries in this blog then you will notice that we have been pretty busy lately. For this reason, I expected our two-year anniversary to be a small affair so we could keep up with all of our commitments. Well...I was wrong.

On Friday morning Rachel was driving me to work, like always, but instead of dropping me off she kept on driving. I thought she was kidnapping me so that I would go talk to her fourth graders about science (we had previously talked about this, and I had expressed my profound fear of fourth graders at that time). I wasn't too happy and I felt like I needed to be at work. Then she started talking about all kinds of wierd things:

"Logan," she said, "There are some things I can do by myself, and there are some things I cannot. For example," she continued, "I cannot lead a 5.10 climb. I need you for that. Also, I certainly can't find my way around Red Rocks without you, and I would be lonely in Zion without you there."

I slowly began to understand what was going on. She then told me to look under the seat. There was a paper with our reservations for a hotel along the Las Vegas strip. Also she told me that she had arranged with my work to get the next four days off for me, and she had gotten a substitute for her class. We were going on a vacation to Las Vegas and Zion!

On Friday we checked into our hotel then drove out to the Calico Hills area of Red Rocks to do some climbing. The sandstone was a nice change from the quartzite and granite that we were used to and we had a good afternoon doing short one-pitch climbs. The next day we headed out to First Creek Canyon and climbed around on Lota Balls Wall. This is one of the coolest walls I've climbed on because the rock looks like it has hundreds of marbles embeded in it. After climbing during the day, we spent the night wandering around the Strip looking at the various resort hotels and casinos. We finnished off the night by relaxing in the hotel spa and finally went to bed around 4:30 in the morning.

The next day we drove up to St. George to visit with Rachel's grandparents and catch up on our sleep. Monday, we went to Zion National Park and did a lot of hiking/trail-running. Before this trip I wasn't sure if we would get a chance to do Angel's Landing or Hidden Canyon again before the big move to Ohio. We did both of these hikes yesterday with perfect weather.

Now we are home and life is back to normal, but we had a great weekend/vacation/anniversary. Thank you Rachel for being so wonderful!