Yea! After serving a two-year mission in Brazil for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Josh’s brother Caleb is home! Hooray! We got really lucky and were able to see him because he just happened to have a layover – guess where – in Dallas! So welcome home, Caleb, and we’re looking forward to lots of good times and Sunday dinners in Provo this fall!
Yep, we’re here! After a weekend of driving, we arrived at our new home (that is, extended stay hotel) Sunday night the week before last. Here’s us saying goodbye to Provo:
And us right before we left.
Our car was riding a little low…
…because it was filled with all of our life that we’ll need for nine weeks in Dallas:
So after a day and a half of driving…
…we reached Texas!
And then after some more driving, we arrived! Here’s some pictures of our temporary home.
You can pretty much see all of it in these three pictures (except the bathroom). It’s just a tiny little studio-apartment type hotel room with a sink, fridge, table, bed, and TV. What more do you need, right? And it was definitely the cheapest and easiest option we found.
Josh is really enjoying his internship, and I’m just working from home, and we’re doing great! It’s been a fun summer so far, already filled with a few family reunions (watch for posts to come). We’re also really looking forward to exploring Dallas while we’re here. So if you know of anything awesome to do here, let us know!
We’re lucky – life is good. Even just everyday, run-of-the-mill things make us happy. Sometimes all it takes is just realizing that even when life is busy or boring, it really is great. Hope you find what makes your life great this week!
Though Josh and I aren’t super outdoorsy or anything, we both do enjoy getting out, hiking, and camping. We went once last summer and it was great, so we’ve been looking forward to going again. This summer was quickly filling up, though, especially with our upcoming trip to Dallas. But we wanted to make it happen, so we picked a weekend and said we would go. This past weekend it all paid off as we enjoyed an awesome camping trip.
We headed south of Payson to a campground called Maple Creek, and it was great! The campground was empty when we arrived, so we got first pick and chose the best site and were pretty much to ourselves all night and morning. Starting a fire was a little hard at first, but it all worked out in the end, thanks to Josh’s skills and my constant fanning (if I remember one thing you taught me about campfires, Mom, it’s that they always need air!).
Dinner, desert, and breakfast were delicious, and we had plenty to eat. (That’s because last year we were kind of hungry after half of our meal burnt to the tinfoil. This year, we were smarter, planned it out, didn’t burn anything, and ate quite well.) And the weather was perfect! Not too cold, but cool enough to enjoy a campfire, and not too hot, either. Check out the pictures below!
After we broke camp on Saturday morning, we headed into nowhere, Utah, for some fun exploring quirky places, taking pictures, and looking for ghost towns. We found some great opportunities for pictures in Eureka and though we searched and searched for Dividend (a supposed complete ghost town), we didn’t find it – though we think we were close! (See the map in the gallery below.)
It was a perfect, wonderful trip, and after we got back on Saturday afternoon, put away our camping gear, cleaned up the house, mowed and weeded the lawn, and washed our car, we were exhausted! We spent the evening watching a movie and eating ice cream (oh, and dinner. But the ice cream was the highlight.) So, in all, one great Friday and Saturday! It was perfect, too, to get away and just have fun, right in the middle of the busy summer. We hope to enjoy more camping trips like it!
