Cheesecake...YUM!

Thanks to the best visiting teachers in the world we crossed another thing off our bucket list. When they were over a couple of weeks ago, they noticed our bucket list board and saw that making a cheesecake was on it. That day we talked about making goals and striving to constantly better ourselves. The next day, in a bag on my doorstep was a recipe for cheese and all the ingredients needed, from my visiting teacher. She is such a sweetheart and not to mention, she has the cutest little boy ever!

Check Mate!

We finally crossed something else off our bucket list! Today we played....chess. You would think that would be an easy one to cross off but it took for-ev-er. We finally just broke down and got the chess board out. See, when I was in Russia, my two cute host brothers loved chess and would want to play it all the time. They were 8 years old and 6 and both would beat me quite often. But I got a lot of practice in Russia so I walked into this chess tournament with Seth pretty confidently. The first game he put me in check mate in about....10 moves. He then won the second game although I hung on fighting for a bit longer. Well we know who the chess champion in the family is..... 

When life gets in the way of the Bucket List....

I figured that since we haven't crossed too many things off our bucket list (fail) I should at least update our blog to post why instead of just letting the time tick on how long since our last post. This is supposed to be blog about our adventures but since that is on hold I'll update it on what we have been doing. Near the end of the summer life got really busy with work and packing and getting ready for school in Rexburg. Sadly, because of this, our bucket list adventures have begun to slack off, although I have now sworn that this will never happen again. But the move was successful with the help of amazing family and friends! Now I am here having just finished my first week of school, and I can happily report that it was success, although slightly lonely. the lonely part caused by the fact that Seth is in Florida for over two weeks training for the United States Marine Corp which he has been apart of for 6 years now. He is having an adventure of his own staying up all night, training, and hanging out with Marine Corps for 8 different countries. His company is assigned to work with the Marines from Paraguay. Luckily Paraguay is on the boarder of Brazil so they can understand Seth's Portuguese and he has been a great asset to his squad. Here are a couple of pictures he was able to send my way. I sure do miss him!! 3 Days and counting till I get to give him a giant hug!

Nebo's Loop

So we kinda procrastinated this item on our bucket list till the last minute.... but we accomplished it none the less.We got off on a rough start because Seth ran out of gas on the freeway about the time we were supposed to meet everyone at Denny's. He called me but his phone died and by the time I got there with some gas he had already pushed his bike a mile and a half in blazing heat. But because Seth is so incredible he wasn't going to let exhaustion and a late start stop us from accomplishing our goal. Logan and Elise were willing to tough it out with us. They are so great and I don't know what we would do with out them! So we headed down and of course with Seth leading with a broken speedometer.... we made it down to Payson in record time. But I think it was worth it, although others in the group may disagree. The ride of Nebo's loop was absolutely gorgeous. I saw the most beautiful views that I have ever seen in all of Utah! 

Filling up in Payson

We are smiling.... you just can't tell :)

                       
                                                           Great view of Utah Lake

The trail went on and on and we were still on it way after dark and we were all a bit frozen. Turns out it spit us out and we ended up in Nephi at 10pm. To thaw off we stopped at this cute dinner just outside of the mouth of the canyon to eat dinner. The ride back was defiantly an adventure as we were all very sore from the what would be, four hour drive. When we got home I literally could not walk strait and my legs would give out every 10 steps. I also kept hearing a WAWAWAWA sound ringing in my ears that wouldn't go away. Next long trip... I am wearing headphones. Adventure is out there!

Gunshots Are Not Something You Want to Hear When You are Camping

Next up on our bucket list of adventures was to go camping with a group of friends. It was probably one of the best camping trips I've ever been on! Up big cottonwood canyon, you are allowed to camp anywhere as long as it is 1/2 mile away from any road or trail. We found a great place to camp that is not quite that far....but close enough! This round of camping we went with Lauren, Devin, Logan, Elise, Artyom and Asher. Seth and I arrived a little before everyone else so we had our tent and everything ready by the time everyone got there. So as everyone else was setting up their tents, Seth, Asher and I set out to to fetch wood which Logan then broke into little wooden pieces with a wooden club he found. As the night continued we enjoyed the fresh mountain air and one an others company. Asher, Seth and I went on a little hike on a trail right above our camp. It took us out onto a gorgeous view of the canyon opening. As we walked we discussed how the trail was probably a pipeline trail or possibly....an abandoned mining trail. We even found an apple tree that branched out over the trail! The trail ended off the side of the mountain on the south side of the mountain. There we found a bench that someone had made out of long pieces of wood found on the side of the trail. Watching the sunrise from that bench would be incredible and is defiantly going on a future bucket list! That night we cooked dinner (which included bortch made by Devin's Ukrainian brother!) and sat around the fire and talked. One by one we started crawling into bed and falling asleep. Around 2:30 am we hear a bunch of loud voices of a bunch of men passing our tent. They are pretty much yelling about how creepy our tents looked and swearing up a storm. Seth of course grabs his gun but they pass and go on their way... possibly drunk or high. A couple hours later they come back, being a little quieter but not much. This time Logan is ready, hiding in the bushes , ready with his wooden club. But they left our camp untouched and continued on their way. A little while later our peaceful night was once again disturbed by 5 very loud gunshots sounding like they were very close to our camp. Logan and Devin run down the mountain to grabs Devin's shotgun that is in his truck. Seth stays at the camp walking around with his gun. I get out and walk around with him as well to keep him company. We then hear footsteps coming towards our camp from the west. Seth shines his light down the path and the footsteps stop. He turns it off and they start again and out comes two boys dressed in desiner cloths carrying a backpack. Seth asks them if they shot those gun shots and there response was "uh..........uh......no....." in other words yes. After chatting a bit more they headed down the mountain and Seth made sure they went down the mountain. After we had sat around and chatted for a bit we went back to sleep hoping we weren't woken up by gun shots again. 

Falling in Love on the Ferris Wheel!

Ever since we met, Seth and I made it a goal that we would ride a Ferris wheel. Every time we went to try and ride one last summer, something came up to stop us from enjoying the wheel. Either it would be closed or we would run out of time and have something come up. So this became one of our first feats of this summer. We rode the motorcycle down to Liberty Park (which was freezing) and got to the ticket office minutes before it closed (phew!). We jumped on the fun began! We were both surprised how much that little slow moving circle made us get butterflies in our stomach. The man operating the Ferris wheel was getting dangerously close to the turning wheel and I kept thinking that at any moment his head would get chopped off. But he must be an experience wheel operator because he avoided the head chopping by centimeters every time! The view from the top was beautiful and riding the Ferris wheel together was worth the almost one year wait.

Adventure Number One!

One of our adventures for May was to create a blog. I don't believe I need to go into much detail about this adventure, as the results are obvious. But we are excited to start documenting our adventures to be sure that we always remember the fun times that we have every week.