To the Lake!

Much like my mother, I had to make the most of my vacation time.  My family had planned for a multi-day trip to the lake to camp out on our houseboat May 29 through June 1.  We loaded up our boat, and headed off on the near 2 1/2 hour drive to Lake Powell.  Turns out that my dad and two of the brothers had to stay for work, so our boating party initially consisted of me, my mom, and three brothers Mitchell, Calvin, and Carson.

Our adventure definitely got off to an interesting start when we got a flat tire on our boat trailer about a half-hour away from the dock.  Luckily we had a great pit crew, and we managed to get the flat replaced with the spare.  Unfortunately we got into the dock a little later than planned, and it was nearing dark by the time we finally launched.  Our houseboat is moored off the shore on a buoy, and we managed to get docked with it without incident, and didn't think much of our late start (more on that later).

The next couple of days were spent out in our boat making frequent stops for tubing, water skiing, wake boarding, cliff jumping, climbing, and swimming.

Tubing is one of our favorite pastimes.  Unfortunately, so is crashing!  Hope this video clip works, it's pretty entertaining!

The water was unpleasantly cold that time of year.  It was bearable, but for a poor, sad, Maui girl it was a bit too nippy for me to spend too much time floating around (yes, I got mocked).  We also made frequent stops at the marina for Rockstars and ice-cream.

See.  I wasn't the only one who thought it was cold!

By Friday we were joined by my dad and my brother Blake.  Our boat is comparable to a floating RV, so our sleeping arrangements were a bit comical with the added people.  Especially when it started raining fairly hard in the middle of the night, and three of us attempted to sleep in an area really only meant for two.  I imagine my dad found that amusing when he found us still sleeping in the living room the next morning!

We left sometime Saturday afternoon.  Things were going well until we attempted to load our boat on the trailer and encountered a slight hiccup.

Yep.  Just, yeah.
We got the attention of a nearby ranger, and he called up the guys responsible for the boot.  After sitting in the hot Arizona parking lot for nearly thirty minutes, the brothers contemplated pulling the tire, putting on the spare, and driving off, not to mention doing some other unsavory things to the boot which the officer would have to handle in order to remove.  Haha.  Boys.  Well, turns out when our flat tire slowed us down four days prior, we were able to get into the park, but we were too late to get our boat inspected for mussels.  I'm all for preventing spread of the nasty buggers, but our boat had been inspected the last time we used it, and it hadn't been in any water since.  Things eventually got sorted out - which actually took several weeks, and multiple emails - but we finally got our vehicle liberated.

Mitchell had put in his mission papers a couple of weeks prior, and he was expecting to get his call sometime during the week.  The parents had even gone so far as to plan a call opening party that night which we were trying to drive home for.  We made it home on time, and Elder Brown's thick envelope was waiting unopened for him!

We had quite the crowd gathered to hear Mitch read his call to the Johannesburg, South Africa mission leaving September 19.  Sooo proud of him!!

No party is complete without a cake!

Southern Utah Tour

To make my Mainland trip worthwhile, I stayed in Cedar for almost 10 days, and used up all my left over vacation time.  I also got two very fun visitors while in Cedar.

Two of my good Omaha buddies drove down from Salt Lake while they were both off from school/residency.  Dave was using up vacation time at the end of his dental residency, and Stephen was in Provo with his family enjoying a brief break before moving to Wisconsin for his medical residency.  They stayed at my parent's house, and I gave them a brief tour of Southern Utah.

My family has quite a bit of mountain property that used to belong to my grandfather.  Hence we have a nice collection of ATV equipment, including a ranger.  I strapped these guys into the Ranger, and we took off up the mountain!

Dave strapped into the Ranger driving through Cedar.

Calvin after arriving at the top.  He was driving a 4-wheeler up the very dusty trail.

Dave after tearing around behind one of the brothers.

Steve was very concerned about me wreaking.  Hence the helmet.

We enjoyed the ride, had a little weenie and mallow roast, drove around the property, then headed back down the mountain.  It was very dry and dusty, but I think the guys had a good time!  We finished off the night by playing some card games.  The next morning we were up moderately early to drive down to Kolob and Red Cliffs.

After getting only slightly lost, we made it into Red Cliffs.  Not bad considering I literally hadn't been there since High School nine years ago.  Red Cliffs is a series of slot canyons extending through the red rocks of Southern Utah, and it felt good to get back to my hometown backyard.  The guys seemed to really enjoy the beautiful red rock formations, and we had a good time posing for pictures!

Taking pictures on this log with a timer.

Dave climbing a tree.

A yucca plant.  The state plant of New Mexico!

Climbing along some footholds around a large "puddle" or whatever.  Those girls were swimming, but we'd neglected to bring our suits!

Dave.  Being Dave.

We though this old rotting stump looked a lot like an elephant.  Here we are demonstrating our trunks.

After the drive we ate some delicious Jimmy John sandwiches, then we wandered around the SUU campus and caught some rehearsals for the Shakespearean Festival.  All in all a great day!  So glad these guys came to visit, and even more glad to have had such great friends out in Omaha!

In the Adams Theater - modeled after Shakespeare's Globe theater.

Vacation for Graduation

Getting towards the end of April I realized I still had a plethora of vacation days saved up, and because of our residency's regulations, I had to use them all up before the end of May.  I had originally intended to go to Kauai with a friend, but we went to Big Island for the weekend instead.  Plus, flights to Kauai, even from Maui, were surprisingly expensive!  So I decided that since my younger brother was graduating from High School, and expecting his mission call, I would fly home for the duration of the vacation time!  (Yes, I know, seems strange to take a vacation away from Hawaii.)

Because I'm a proud sister, I provided a whole bundle of authentic Hawaiian leis for my brother, two of my cousins, and several of my brother's friends.  Mitchell even got a real tea leaf lei - the traditional male lei - along with a whole other pile of leis.  It seems to be a Hawaiian tradition to make a grad wear as many leis as possible, and who am I to argue with Hawaiian tradition?  Haha.

His graduation was May 23rd, and I got there in time to help my mother set up for a joint grad dinner with Mitchell, and my two cousins Whitney and Britney.  I helped make sweet pork, and my mom had some interesting cakes for the grads!

Whitney, Mitchell, and Britney.

Those cakes are supposed to be lockers... whatever.

Graduation was oddly nostalgic for me since my same choir director had the choir sing the same songs we had done for my graduation.  It was so fun to see Mitch graduate, especially since I had missed Blake's graduation four years prior.  So proud of him!

All the sibs minus one.  Blake, Carson, Mitchell, Calvin, and me.  Just missing Randall.

Mitchell and his friend Marshall.  He actually lived on the Big Island for a couple of months.

Part of the crowd cheering for our grad!

Mitch and his neck candy!  He didn't even wear all of the leis I brought for him.

Mitch and my parents left that night to go on a grad trip to Disneyland, CA.  I was a little bit jealous of the Disneyland thing, but I was not jealous that it was a marathon bus trip with no hotel to sleep in.  Instead I got to stay home and play with the puppies, and hang out with my other brothers!

No sleep tonight!

Because I love movies so much, I was excited to discover my coworker (and friend) Michelle also loves movies.  Not only that, she liked most of the ones I liked, and we had a great time seeing them together on Saturday nights.  She's also the one who got me into getting massages up in Makawau, but that's another story.

Sophia, Michelle, and I decided we wanted to make a sunrise trip up Haleakela, but I specifically wanted to go up early enough for stargazing.  Because of that, we specifically planned for a weekend as close to a new moon as possible.

We planned for May 10th, which also happened to be the release weekend for The Great Gatsby.  I was super excited because I love Leonardo DiCaprio, and I even read the book in preparation.  So we met up for the movie, which I actually really liked, but what a moody, depressing story!  After the movie we got all set up to head up the mountain.  By then it was around 1:30 am, and it took us about 2 hours to drive up the mountain.  By the time we reached the summit it was around 3:30am, and we were the only car in the parking lot.  The other two ladies were ready to take a little nap in the car, but I was only interested in climbing up to the lookout and gazing at the stars.  The summit of Haleakeala has been noted as one of the best places in the US for stargazing because of the utter isolation, and the altitude.  I found this to be true.  The view was absolutely astounding, with no city lights visible, I could see the vast expanse of the Milky Way.  Not to mention the absolute silence of being the only person at the top of my world.  Amazing!

Unfortunately my camera isn't exactly equipped to take pictures at night, so I can't take credit for this photo.  But this is pretty accurate!

After getting my fill I went back to the car for a very short cat nap.  I didn't sleep much - I mostly was attempting not to disturb Michelle and Sophia.  The parking lot gradually filled as sunrise got closer, and all three of us made our way to the lookout to watch the sun peek over the horizon.  Unfortunately it was fairly overcast, so the sunrise wasn't nearly as dramatic as on my previous trips.  It still was glorious, and the stargazing made the trip well worth it!

Very overcast.  We were actually driving in fog most of the way both up and down which made me just a little bit nervous, but it was also very exciting!

We were all perched like ants on a hillside bundled up in our various sweaters, coats, blankets, and even the occasional borrowed hotel towel.

Yes, it was pretty cold.  Good thing I had my trusty blanket!

A somewhat blurry Michelle.  Sophia was hiding from the camera!

Michelle looking out over the island.

This just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.  I love Maui!!

After several photo ops we eventually made our way back down the mountain.  After dropping the two ladies off I made it back to my bed around 6:30am having slept less than 30 minutes in my car the previous night.  Did I mention I was the driver too?  I have to say, it was totally worth it!  If you're ever in Maui and you get the chance, go up for stargazing!