A Summer of Adventure!

Didn't realize that the last time I posted on here was in January! Wow, does time fly by. Goodness, I have a lot of catching up to do. Let's see, it all started with our one year anniversary in June...

Yay! We celebrated with teaching our Sunday School/Relief Society classes and having sticky buns for dinner :) Oh, and Jonathan gave me the sweetest present ever! A beautiful wooden box filled with memories from our first year of marriage. He even got all of our parents and siblings to each write us letters of their favorite memories with us. It will be cherished forever!

Looking back over our past year, we realized that although being married to each other was the BEST decision we ever made, we hadn't really done much with our time. I mean, we both graduated from college, so working was the next step. But we had been working non-stop and not doing anything fun! We also knew that we were both heading to graduate school soon, so now was the time to live it up! 

NOW was the time for ADVENTURE.

What is the most adventurous thing we could think of? Skydiving, of course.

We packed up the car the night before and right after work, we headed down to Moab, Utah! I can't believe that I've been living here in Utah for 5 years and had never gone down there! It was absolutely gorgeous. The plan was to get there Friday evening, camp for the night, skydive the next morning, and head right back home. 

As we were driving to the airport (where the skydiving company was), I was getting so many butterflies that I couldn't eat! Well, I did eat 2 poptarts, but that was my limit. I was SO psyched. We signed our lives away ....can't tell you how many times "death" was in the contract.... and awaited putting on our jumpsuits. Then we got the news that wind speeds were too high so everyone was suspending all jumps for the day. Sad. They did say that we could wait for the winds to die down and hope for a jump at sunset. That meant we would need to stay another night, and find substitutes for our Sunday classes. Which we did! We immediately started driving around claimed an open campsite in the Canyonlands.

Well, the heavens smiled upon us and we were able to squeeze in skydiving during sunset that evening! And it was the most beautiful and thrilling experience of my life. Words cannot describe. You can check out my facebook to see a full range of emotions play out on my wind-squished face. 

Next on our list was paragliding. Something that I had never thought of doing, but has been/is Jonathan's dream!

And I have to say, I am converted! How lucky we are to have one of the premier paragliding spots in the nation, right in our backyard. Seriously, people come from all over the world to practice and fly at the point of the mountain. It was such a surreal experience. I was only supposed to be up there for 15 minutes, but because of my small stature, I was able to steal a good 30+ minutes of flight time! We went so high that I could see both Utah Lake and Salt Lake at the same time :)

This was the summer for family vacations as well! Jonathan and I went back to Maryland to spend a week and half with my family. We did so many fun things - including a couple of "firsts."

First time I ate seafood.... and liked it! Can't visit Maryland without having a Maryland Blue Crab feast in your backyard. You can tell it was legit by the presence those cool wooden hammers and trash bags spread on the ground. Easiest dinner clean-up in the history of dinners! We really should do that for every meal.

First time Jonathan got up waterskiing! He's a natural. And it's a good thing too - you aren't officially a part of the family until you learn how to waterski :)

And first time spelunking. Who knew that 3 hours crawling around mud and rocks in the dark could be so much fun?! I felt like a mole with that headlamp on haha.

We also went kayaking and white water rafting! 

Two weeks later, Jonathan and I went on a week-long roadtrip with Jonathan's family to Nauvoo, IL! Ganae (my sister-in-law) was on a mission there for the summer as a young performing missionary! We got to see her quite a bit, actually. Performing in all the shows and directing everything backstage as well! She is a rockstar.

The BEAUTIFUL Nauvoo temple! It was such a blessing to go there.

Being in Nauvoo and learning about the saints who lived there was so inspiring! I can't believe how much they lived without but still how happy they were. Makes you think how many things we take for granted today. I know I do. I learned so much and my testimony of the latter-day saints grew tremendously from this trip! I love the Gospel and am so grateful for all the sacrifices which have been made on it's behalf.

Our last adventure for this summer was a quick trip to the grand Yellowstone National Park.

AH!!! What can you say about Yellowstone? When I think about Yellowstone, I have to think of its beauty, its raw power, the ability of so much life to flourish in such extremes and harsh environments. The land is so varied and extremely rugged. Very AMERICAN. Hahaha. We are absolutely in love with Yellowstone! If we could live there, we would. 

One of our favorite hikes- Lost Lake up in the Roosevelt area. Gah! I wish I could post all of our pictures up here! But I've already made this post super long, so I'll just direct you to my facebook if you want to see more pictures from our weekend in Yellowstone.

And now I've finally caught us up to now. The end.