Back in April, my friend Leslie set me up on blind date with Nathan. We have had a lot of fun together! He is an incredible guy and I just love spending time with him!! Here are a few of the fun adventures we've been on over the past few months:
The Manti Pageant
Nathan took me to the Manti Pageant. We left to get down there several hours early and we stopped along the way at the big red barn off of the freeway...I don't remember what it is called, but we stopped and got some ice cream and it was so good!! We also tried some of their icee apple cider, which I also highly recommend! When we go to Manti, we walked around the town. He even let me go in all of the craft stores and shops... what a great guy! We then stopped and got something to eat at one of the food stands right by the temple. The pageant was really good, and we were very grateful to the people sitting next to us for letting us use their bug spray.
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| Manti Temple |
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| Me and Nathan |
Hiking Bells Canyon
On one sunny Friday morning, Nathan called me and invited me to go hiking with him up Bells Canyon. I had never been an avid hiker until I moved to Hawaii, so I had never been up there. We hiked up past the first reservoir, which was amazing and headed on up towards the top. There was a very distinct trail, but I'm all about taking the road less traveled by because it's fun and there's always the chance that you might get lost. Which, we didn't get lost we just couldn't find our way back to the main trail for a bit. It was fun and very adventurous.. We finally did find our way back to the trail after crossing the river a few times and headed on up and up and up... We finally reached our destination and there was this amazing waterfall!! It was quite large and really cool! We sat up on the rocks and ate our little picnic that Nathan had packed for us. Subway sandwiches, trail mix, fruit and lots of water. It was beautiful up there and the view was incredible!
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| This is when we got lost... it was quite the adventure! |
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| The River | | | | | |
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| The View from the top |
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| us enjoying our lunch |
Backyard Campout
Nathan invited me to come camping with his family in his dad's backyard. We had tents to sleep in and we made tinfoil dinners and roasted marshmallows and sat around and talked. It was fun! I also got to meet his little brother, Austin, who is 4. He's so cute and so funny!! I even got to play with his transformers!! We all ended up sleeping out under the stars for most of the night and then eventually went into the tents. The next morning we had a yummy breakfast and then Nate and I went and drove around downtown SLC to look at all the buildings being built. Nathan loves skyscrapers and developments and knows a lot about stuff being built. It's great! It's like having my own personal tour guide. We even found the artesian well located on 800 South and 500 East. Thirsty? go ahead, have a sip!
After our little twirl around SLC, we decided to head to Kamas. We stopped off at the Road Island Diner and had some lunch. If you are looking for a great place that is fun and has good food, this is the place to go! The Diner is located inside a train car and is decked out like all the old fashioned diners, they are even dressed like the old diners! It was awesome!!
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| The Diner |
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| Nathan enjoying a nice chocolatey shake |
After the Diner, we headed up Wolf Creek pass to one of my most favorite view spots. We both love a good view, so I wanted him to see this:
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| This meadow has wildflowers of all colors all over it and you can see mountains and more mountains and trees and it is just beautiful! |
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| I look a little grungy, we just went camping! :) |
Park City Family Reunion
Nathan invited me to go to his family reunion in Park City. We stayed at a cabin up there with the Ebert side of his family. I soon discovered that our families knew eachother. My grandpa was their stake president and his mom and aunts went to school with my mom and aunts and uncles! We did a lot of fun things while we were up there. The first night, Nathan wasn't feeling well so he went to sleep and I hung out with his family. We played lots of games like Keys, where you try and tangle yourself up in the group of people:
We also played signs, and some other games like that. The next morning, we all helped cook breakfast, and then we had a sunday school meeting. It was really nice. :) After that we headed on up to the city and tried our luck at the zipline:
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| Jordan and Doug |
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| This was Nate's attempt to take a picture of me.. he he he |
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| Me after flying down the mountain |
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After the zipline, we walked around the Olympic museum
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| Nathan |
and then headed back to the cabin. Ate dinner, took a nap, had a water fight, played some more keys and murder in the dark and just had a fun, fun time!
24th of July
Pioneer Day in Utah is a big deal... we have the day off of work, we have carnivals and fireworks and the biggest things of all, the 24th of July parade! Each year thousands of people crowd around downtown Salt Lake for the annual pioneer day parade. Some people, as crazy as it sounds, sleep out on the parade route just to save a spot for the event, or maybe just because its fun. Well, we are some of those crazy people. My family use to do it when we were younger, but I hadn't done it for probably 8 or 9 years. Nathan's family do it quite a bit, so we went down, found a nice spot of grass off of State street and 200 South, and there we camped. We played games, walked around, ate some tacos from the street stands and just had a good time. We didn't get to sleep until around 3 and woke up around 6 to have some bagels, provided by Nate's mom, Linda and then we watched the parade.
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| Nate & Nat |
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| This is Nathan's little brother, Austin... isn't he so cute!! |
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| Doug and Linda (Step-Dad and Mom) | | |
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| Nathan and I and the rest of the gang |
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| he he |
After the parade, we all went to Nathan's dad's house and took a nice long nap. Then Nathan and I went to the carnival at the park downtown, whose name at this moment escapes me. We walked around, ate some pizza and a shaved ice and then headed to the BBQ at Jared (Nate's bro-in-law) parent's house. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and had lots of fun! Then the pulled out this ginormous slip n slide and It looked like too much fun to pass up. We didn't have our swimming suits, so we just went in our clothes, and had a blast!!
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| Nathan and I |
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| Linda (the mom) |
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| That's me! |
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| Nate... I love his face on this one! |
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| Kristy and Jared (Nathan's sister and her husband) |
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| Me and Kristy |
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| Me and Kristy |
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| Jared, Kristy, Me, Linda, Nathan |
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| Nathan and I... look at our faces! |
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| We did a train-like slide on this one.. everyone went down one right after the other. |
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| Kristy and Austin |
After the water fun, Nathan and I went and watched some of the fireworks, which were ok, but not the greatest. He then came up with a very fun thing to do... rootbeer taste test. We drove to Walgreens and Smiths and got every kind of rootbeer they had so that we could do a blind taste test to see which rootbeer was really the best. First he set up the cups with the rootbeer poured in them for me and I had to arrange them in order of the best tasting to the worst tasting and then I did the same for him. Turns out we have the same taste in rootbeer. #1 was Teddy's from Smiths and #5 was IBC. A&W won the rootbeeer float test though. So, if you ever have a hunkering for some good tasting rootbeer, head on down to smiths and pick up some Teddy's rootbeer, you won't be disappointed!!
So, there are just a few (the one's I have photos of) of the things we have been up to.
