Fourth of July

      Okay, so I'm behind on my blogging...just now talking about the fourth of July!  Better late than never...right?  Last year, Tyler and I got to celebrate the fourth of July in Acapulco...we weren't that lucky this year, but we still had a blast here in Arkadelphia with lots of fun friends.  

      Tyler and I hosted the little get together at our tiny apartment.  I always forget that we don't exactly have a kitchen table to sit at, but I continue to invite multiple people over for dinner.  On the fourth, we had 10 adults (I think we are considered adults), one 3 year old, and one baby!  So it was pretty much a full house.  No matter how many of us there were, we made it work.  Tyler cooked burgers on the grill, and everyone was in charge of bringing something for side or drink.  It ended up being a delicious menu of corn casserole, salad, burgers, gatorade, tea, chips and queso, and homemade ice cream!  

      After dinner, we all headed to Lake DeGray so we could see the fireworks show. Too bad we were on the wrong side of the lake...boo.  We did manage to see a few of the fireworks...well, at least the ones that were high enough to pop over the trees.  However, we weren't totally devoid of a fireworks show.   

 Baby Cayden was a trooper!

      Some random guys decided to put on a little show of their own right next to us.  It included throwing some of the fireworks in the lake to see them light up underwater.  Most of the rest of them sat on the ground and sparkled...ohhh ahhh!  I'm happy though, we had a lot of fun and whether the fireworks were lame or not, I get to say I saw some on the fourth!

First Anniversary!

Last weekend, Tyler and I celebrated our first anniversary! It's crazy to think that an entire year has gone by. We wanted to do something fun away from home...our options: Little Rock, or Memphis. We decided to splurge and go to Memphis for the weekend. Neither of us had been there before, so we thought it was a good idea to do something new!

We spent two nights there, and had SO much fun! We decided that instead of getting presents for each other that we would each surprise each other by planning something to do.

Thursday night, our first night, we got checked into our hotel (The Madison) and got ready for dinner...SUSHI!!! We were both adamant on getting some sushi this weekend, so we took care of that on our first night. It was delicious...we had two different rolls (along with some cooked food) and they were both very different than anything I'd had before. One of them had balsamic vinegar on it...YUM!

After dinner, we took a walk along the Mississippi River. The sun was just going down and it was so pretty. We continued our walk to Beale Stree. Even on a Thursday, it was PACKED! There were people everywhere. We didn't hang around there too long, because we knew we would be back the next night for dinner. 

We got back to our hotel and spent the evening watching some tv and ordering room service...bread pudding! Exhausted after a full day of work, driving, sushi, and walking, we hit the hay.

The next day, we went out to see the Cooper Young district. It's supposed to be a cute little area full of stores and restaurants. We didn't luck out on the store part, but there were quite a few places to eat. We ate lunch at the Young Avenue Deli, and then found some antique stores to rummage through.

We had dinner reservations that night at B.B.King's. It's a famous restaurant on Beale Street. they have live music and delicious bar-b-que ribs! 

After dinner it was time for my surprise plans...tickets (paper anniversary) to the show Red, White, and Tuna. It was a play starring two guys who played about 18 characters combined (mostly woman)! It was so funny.

At the hotel that night, we watched Shutter Island on the computer...I was terrified! We woke up early the next morning, because we had appointments for massages! Thank you Tyler! We both had never had a massage before, so we walked a couple blocks away to the Peabody Hotel and for one hour we were in heaven. Then we packed up, and checked out. We met our friends Kevin and Christy Barnhart in Little Rock for lunch at Damgoode Pies (excellent pizza), and then finally made it back home to little Arkadelphia!

Dinner just the two of us in our apartment that night, and then...our wedding cake! I know it seems really gross to eat year old cake, but it wasn't as bad as you'd think. We actually only had half of the top tier, because we ate half of it when we got back from our honeymoon, but there was still a perfectly good portion for both of us. My only problem with it was the fact that it tasted just a little too much like freezer...it smelled delicious, and was still very moist, but I couldn't get past the freezer taste. 

That night, we watched our wedding video, and enjoyed re-living our wedding day one year later! Happy Anniversary Tyler! Can't wait for year two (cotton anniversary)!

Last Day of Vacation

Finally made our way back to Las Vegas to fly home, but not before we made a few stops in the city!  Our first stop was to an In and Out Burger.  A big hit with people in California...and apparently Dallas will soon be graced with one.  Then we found the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop...that's right...the one from Pawn Stars!  

They were filming when we got there, so we had to wait in line outside the shop.  Finally, after about 45 minutes (and 1 Chumlee sighting) we were allowed to go in.  Despite what I thought, the pawn shop was pretty small.  We looked around for a bit...it was very crowded...and when the bouncer (yeah) told us that the pawn stars wouldn't be coming out for autographs or pictures, we decided it was time to go.  

We made one more stop in Vegas before our flight...The Flamingo Hotel and Casino!  Tyler and I found us a good Blackjack table to hang out at, and ended up walking away from it later with $17 extra (all thanks to me).  Then we hit the slots for a bit, making sure that by the time we left, we had made money off of Vegas...SUCCESS!!!

It was an incredible trip, and I'm so glad that we got to experience all of it with our friends.  Kolby, Emily, thanks for all the work you two did to make this one of the best vacations ever!

The Rest...almost

Okay...going to try and fit the rest of the trip into this post. Here it goes:
Antelope Canyon -

This was ridiculous! We basically show up for the tour and are led to a crack in the ground that we are instructed to crawl into. Once we made it down into the canyon, this is what we saw!

It was so crazy. The walls were so smooth, and the colors were amazing. We took our tour at 12:00 noon, when the sun is directly above the canyon. This made for really great lighting. We had photography passes, so we were able to ditch the tour and just hang out and take pictures...which we did...FOR A LONG TIME! 

We kept taking pictures and saying, "our families are going to be so annoyed with the amount of pictures of the same rock we have." But we assure you, each picture is completely different (to us)! Antelope Canyon was like walking through hallways of rock. It is weird to think that this place was not man made...it is completely natural.

Horseshoe Bend -

Our next stop! It was pretty much just this, but it wasn't a long hike to get there. Another, very beautiful place on our vacation.

Lake Powell -

We spent the rest of our day at Lake Powell...maybe my favorite part of the trip. Some interesting facts about the lake: Lake Powell is 186 miles long and has almost 2,000 miles of shoreline - longer than the entire west coast of the U.S.A.! 

If you know us...we are gamers...so it only made sense to create a game to play at the lake. We played our very own version of bocci ball. We had two markers that sat on a small ledge in the water. Each of us had a different colored set of rocks to toss at either target in order to get points. We even kept score with our very own homemade scoreboard. It was a great way to end the day...that and spades of course!

Grand Canyon -

Finally, we ended our adventure vacation with a trip to the Grand Canyon. We hiked about 2 miles down the canyon, and were tired of hiking, so we turned around and hiked back up. 

We found a great place to eat lunch, and then found a couple of scenic outlooks to take pictures at. More spades, and then the beginning of the sunset (we were ready to get out of there). Back to the Jacob Lake Inn where we caught a couple episodes of Pawn Stars (the next day's destination).

All in all...the rest of the trip = 2 thumbs up (I know...again)


Total # of hikes = 5ish Total # of miles = 7.5

Bryce Canyon and The Vermilion Cliffs

Our day at Bryce Canyon National Park started with rain.  Luckily, Tyler and I were prepared for such a time like this (thanks to Grammie for the graduation money which = new raincoat...this saved us $12 on attractive plastic trash bag ponchos...but Kolby and Emily looked really good in them!).  

Bryce Canyon, though it did have some hiking trails, had a lot of scenic outlooks.  We were planning on visiting multiple lookouts, so we decided to try and wait out the rain, before doing any hiking, by driving to the furthest lookout.  Once we got there this is what we saw...

We were basically hanging out in a cloud, a cloud that kept us from seeing anything 10ft. in front of us.  So, we headed back to the car (it was freezing) and played a few rounds of spades.  Finally, the clouds cleared up and this is what we saw...

It was incredible!  One of the craziest things about this trip was that the landscape completely changed from one place to another even though each place we went was only an hour and a half apart.  We hit a few other scenic lookouts before starting on our hike.  We hiked a trail called the Navajo/Queen.  It was a combination of two hikes that were about 3 miles combined.  

The tower formations of rocky sandstone are called "hoodoos."  At one part of our hike, we got to a place where people had made their own hoodoos...it was fun, and tempting to knock them all over.  

A lot of times the hoodoos would look like funny faces in the rock.  We actually saw troll doll shaped hoodoos...Emily told us a story about how she wanted to be a troll doll for Halloween.  Signals must have been crossed when she told her mom because her mom dressed her as a model.  It must have been hard to convince people that she was a troll going door to door dressed in designer clothes and accessories.  Anyways, shout out to you Ems...and a Happy Halloween!

Finally, dinner at the Bryce Canyon Lodge...yum, it was nice to sit down to a fancier meal than the "unstoppable" chili we had two nights ago.  This was also where we celebrated Kolby's birthday!  A very successful day if you ask me.

Next, we hiked the Vermilion Cliffs.  We started our day an hour earlier than we expected (our guides were on Arizona time...we were on Utah time...they forgot to tell us that little detail).  When we asked them about it, they said they like that it feels like they are sleeping in.  Okay, so once we realized we were on Steve (our guide) time, we had some breakfast...probably some of the best pancakes I've ever eaten, along with bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, coffee, and orange juice!  We felt like royalty...then we realized this was one of the biggest meals we had had yet, and we were hiking at a restroomless area...yikes bikes! 

We took the longest, bumpiest ride I've ever taken, on which I reconsidered Steve's offer to sit in the front if I get carsick...too late!  I ended up being fine, but Tyler on the other hand...he had some issues.  I don't know if I've seen someone clutch a seatbelt as hard has he was.  He had too much orange juice at breakfast, and I wasn't sure he was going to make it.  We were both crying...I was crying because I was laughing so hard, he was crying for other reasons.  We finally made it to the place we would be exploring, and it was AWESOME!  Pictures do not do this place justice, but here they are anyways.

Throughout the entire place, the ground was made up of these little "fins."  They were so fragile, so we had to be really careful when walking around...the Germans that went on the hike with us must not have understood this because they clomped around all over the fins.

close up of the fins

Wild oregano!  It smelled good!

This rock was so cool.  The color change is very distinct here, and when you backed away from the rock, you could see the same line run along the ground!

After lunch, we made our way (same/worse bumpy drive) to a place called White Pocket.  Once again, only thirty minutes away and a completely different landscape.  We felt like we were on a different planet.  It was almost like we were hiking on white brains!  Steve did not disappoint us.  These places were so beautiful...definitely worth the nauseousness of the trip out there. 

The BRAINS!!

These are called "mockey marbles."  They are iron deposits in the rocks that had been eroded away.  When the rocks wear down, these iron deposits are all that are left.

Rock with "mockey marbles"

This is a picture of all of the rocks/pottery that we found...apparently, left over from the Indians

We ended the day with a true Texas Bar-B-Q dinner.  It was like eating a plate of meat, and then eating a sandwich!  Susan (Steve's wife) told us that if there was food left on the plate, she had done her job!  With full stomachs, we loaded up the car to head to our next hotel.

All in all...Bryce Canyon National Park and The Vermilion Cliffs = 2 thumbs way up! 

Total # of hikes = 3ish  Total # of miles = 6 (rough estimate)