My Day Off!

Today was mine and Brads day off. We didn't have any guests today and so I didn't feel guilty taking my day off. We get to have one day out of the week that we don't have to work. It was quite nice not having to spend my whole day in the kitchen. We went into town today and just browsed the shops. The crew also took advantage of not having any guests so we all went riding horses and it was the most perfect evening to go! Here are some pictures of the day.



Here is a huge buffalo that hangs out in Jackson. Its quite tame and lets all the people pet him.








I don't know why people are so afraid of Big Foot. He is really quite friendly actually.






This is the horse I rode on our ride this evening. His name is Indian.







This is me and the crew except one of the boys who was too tired to come...they work us to death here! Just teasing.




This is overlooking the place where I work. The trees right next to the fields is where the house is and the bunkhouse (the place the crew sleeps) is. The fields is obviously just where all the horses roam. I will get some better pictures close up around the ranch.

I hope they call me on a mission!

Brad got his mission call! He is going to the Charleston, West Virginia Mission. Brad and I are up here at Wyoming together working on a private ranch. We are having a blast! Brad got his mission call while he was up here so I recorded it so the family could see his expression when he opened it. Brad is going to be a great missionary and will serve the Lord all he can. Congrats Brad on your mission call!....sorry every body...i was not able to get the video to work on this so I guess you will have to see it another time.

Cooking, Cooking and more Cooking....

So I am the Ranch for good for the summer and I am having a great time. Pretty much all I do here is cook lots and lots of food. It's an adventure every meal...trying new recipes, doing things I have never done before...its somewhat of a thrill! I have made a few really good meals like Salmon, pork chops (I used this really good marinade for them), shrimp scampi, and lots of other things. I am still testing the waters before the guests arrive. I have been practicing different things so I kind of know whats good and whats not. Another thing that is quite difficult is knowing how much food to make. I would rather cook too much food than not enough food but then I get a lot of left overs and I hate leftovers because I can't really do to much with them but I feel too guilty throwing them all away! So that is one thing I am going to have to learn to judge. The flu has been going on around here...at least that's what I hope it is and that its not my cooking...that would be horrible if I have poisoned everybody!!! No, it has actually been really cold here and so I'm hoping that its just the cold weather and a virus. We went fishing last night in the little pond here where they just dumped a lot of fish and I caught two!!! I was so excited...but I guess its not that great seeming their is a lot of fish in a little pond but it was still very fun. Anyways, I am having a good time and learning lots of new things. Next time I will try and get some pictures.

Aloha

Sorry this is all backwards, you might want to read the post just under this and then read this one. I am unable to fit everything into one post so day one starts on the next post just under this one.

Still on day 2: Just after the temple we went to the PCC (Polynesian cultural center). It is run by the LDS church and it represents a bunch of different Polynesian islands i.e. Samoa, New Zealand, Tahiti, Fiji, etc. I happen to be at New Zealand in this picture. They gave us fake tattoos and they had a little show and a bunch of activities at each island.

Day 3: We went to another beach, but this beach's main attraction was the snorkeling. It was really cool to see a ton of fish and really cool looking ones at that.

After the beach we went to the Dole Plantation where they grow fields and fields of pineapples. They also had a 3 acre garden of different kinds of fruits plants and flowers. This tree was my favorite, it looks painted and fake but its really not! That's the real color of the bark...crazy.

Day 4: This was our last day we could do anything in Hawaii because the next day was Sunday and we were leaving anyway. We spent our last day at Pearl Harbor. The names behind us were all the people that died on the USS Arizona. These names don't include everybody else from other ships or whoever else died in the attack. I couldn't believe how many of them that were killed. At the memorial we are at you can still see the ship in the water, where the bodies of the men that were killed still lie beneath its chambers!

Day 5: We just went to church on Sunday and then flew out a few hours later. It was a long drive home from LA but it was worth the trip we had all just came home from.

Just some other things about our trip...We stayed in a beach house which was really fun and the island was just beautiful. There were the prettiest flowers there just in our front yard and all over where we went. I would always pick one and put it in my hair.
Another fun thing about Hawaii was that there were a ton of wild chickens all over the island. At the house we stayed at, there were chickens all over the place. The first night we stayed there, we were awakened by a very obnoxious rooster very early in the morning. We walked out one morning and found an egg on the porch a chicken had just laid. Every few years I guess the islanders have a chicken round up because there are too many chickens around.

All in all, we are home now and the trip was very fun. We had a blast and made lots of memories! Aloha, and thanks for reading.

Aloha!

Aloha everybody! I just got back from Hawaii vacationing with my family. The whole family came except Andrea's husband and all the little kids other than the nursing babies of course. We all had a blast. We drove all the way to LA to fly out because the plane tickets were so cheap and I guess it was even worth the gas to get down there. We left at three in the morning to leave and we finally got into Hawaii at six in the afternoon. It was a long day, and I had jet lag major! We did so many things. We did all we could squeeze into the week that we were there.

Day 1: our first day was beach day. The beach that we went to that day had this perfect cliff jumping rock. I thought I was going to be big bad and cool by jumping off. It didn't look that high from the ground but when I got up there it was way high and scary. It took me forever to finally get myself to jump. We were also able to do some snorkeling at this beach. I had never snorkeled before so it was weird at first but I got the hang of it and I snorkeled forever and found some really cool fish.

Ahhhh! Sharks! ha ha teasing. They are actually dolphins, but they do look like sharks though huh. They got really close to shore and the life guard was saying that they were still babies and quite dangerous so we weren't allowed to swim by them. They were really showing off though...they were flipping and twirling and doing all sorts of stuff.

Supposedly this place is famous for its shaved ice. It was good but nothing to be that famous over. They put ice cream in the bottom and so that made it pretty good I guess.

Day 2: We went to the temple and did baptisms for the dead. The temple was very pretty and it was just amazing how they set it all up. There were palm trees just lined up on each side clear from the road up to the temple and made it quite a sight to see.

There was this awesome tree behind the temple. It's quite hard to explain how it works but I guess vines grow from the branches and root into the ground and it makes all these trunks and it is just keep making more and more. You can't even tell where the original tree trunk is. The boys had a great time climbing it.