Old-fashioned Family Update

Hello, my loyal readers (all three of you)!

I realized that I hardly ever do family and/or vacation stories or updates, so here you go.. Warning: this is a picture-heavy post,

Our big summer vacation this year: Utah and Idaho. Yeah, I know.. sounds lame. But, it's our longest road trip yet, and we decided to make the most out of it.

Carter's last official day of school was Friday, June 21st (it got pushed out from the Seattle Snowpocalypse days in February), but we had our nephew's wedding in Utah on the 21st.. so we literally drove alllll night through Washington, Idaho, and Utah to make it to the wedding. It didn't take nearly as long as we thought--we left at 4 PM on Thursday, and made it to Orem, UT by 6 AM (Mountain time), making it only as 13-hour drive. Apparently, the speed limit in Idaho on I-84 is 80 mph!! It was awesome, but I didn't feel safe going much over that in the dark on an unknown road.

We had every day packed full of visits with friends and family. I have one brother and Graham has one sister that live in Utah, so we made seeing them a priority. We had the wedding on Friday (btw, the Payson, UT, temple is amazingly beautiful), visits with my family and Graham's sister on Saturday, fun with cousins, 2nd cousins, and old friends on Sunday, visits with old college roommates and Graham's aunt and family on Monday, and we finally did some typical sightseeing in Salt Lake City at Temple Square with one last college friend visit in Utah before driving to Idaho.

Here are some pictures of our visits and activities. By the way, Carter now calls Utah the "cookie monster state" because of all the cookie places there. I totally agree. WTF Utah? How can you support a cookie place around every corner?

Not a bad random family photo. My mom usually cuts off our heads in the camera.

Just to get a scaled idea of how big and beautiful this temple is.

The happy couple!

Swig cookies--just kind of meh. I wasn't super impressed to be honest. Their soda mixes though--wow--I got the diet soda mix a couple different times, and all were delicious.

I'm officially a great-aunt now. How weird is that?

Graham and baby Brecken. Graham loves naps with babies.

Baby Autumn, who is the baby of Graham's "baby sister" Grace.

We hiked the Y. For those of us that live at low elevation, this is a tough hike at 4550 feet above sea level! Sadie did NOT want to walk or sit on shoulders, so Graham had a really tough hike.

We all lived in the same town from 2008-2011 when we were newlyweds and newly parents. Now in 2019, almost all of our old friends have moved out of our town.

Here's us gals in 2009 for our first "girl's night out". 

The guys. 

3 families worth of kids.

Kelley, Julane, and me in 2019. We were BYU roommates for two years. We all have two kids: one girl and one boy. How random is that? We haven't been all together since 2006. Kelley and I were friends and roommates in Portland after BYU.

Me, Julane, Kelley, and Tiffani in 2005. We totally look the same, right? Motherhood hasn't changed us a bit.

Sadie and Graham's aunt Cindy at the ranch.

The kids got to meet Graham's uncle's horses.

Temple Square

View from the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

I love the big and ornate doors.

Shannon and I were friends and dorm mates in 2001-2002 (crazy long ago, right?).

We drove to Council, Idaho on Tuesday. Graham's grandma lives there. Population: ~800. What? You've never heard of it? Weird. Here it is..

There's obviously not much to do in Council, but really we just wanted to see Graham's sweet grandma. We hung out with cousins, played croquet (I'm not a fan), played horseshoes (I sucked, but not as bad as croquet), and relaxed.

On Thursday we made the windy road trip up Highway 95 to Coeur d'Alene (CDA). We were prepared to give the kids dramamine, which did help them sleep and not be as motion sick as last time we drove on Highway 95. The whole purpose of this trip was to end our longest road trip ever up at Silverwood (the biggest amusement park in the PNW). Graham has been dying to go for ages, so we finally decided to do it.

On Friday, we did some hiking around and swimming in lake CDA. I definitely did not put my head under--that's too cold for me. The lake was beautiful and the 2-mile hike at Tubbs Hill was perfect for our kids. We also saw Post Falls, ID, ate at a Cracker Barrel, and got some huckleberry ice cream.

Cracker Barrel had some games for us to play before we got our food.

Post Falls

More Post Falls

Other side of the falls.

Us hiking at the lake in sandals

They even had a mini suspension bridge

Sadie wasn't super interested in the water.

We spent Saturday at Silverwood. It was expensive, but was perfect for our age of kids. They had a LOT of kiddie rides, so Sadie went on the most rides of all of us. I rode the big roller coasters and had a lot of fun. One was freaking awesome, but I was scared to get motion sickness, so I closed my eyes until I felt the roller coaster slow down.. HAHAHA. That was right before it ricocheted backwards and upside down. Certain swear words came out of my mouth in that moment. We hung out with Graham's cousin and her family, so my kids got to meet more of their 2nd cousins. We didn't really enjoy the water park because we spent most of the time looking for Carter and his 2nd cousin, and I recovered from the roller coasters by laying in a inner tube on the ground. I got really dizzy in the lazy/crazy river. Yes that's right--it's ridiculous, but it only exacerbated my motion sickness from the roller coasters.

The infamous Aftershock roller coaster.

Before the roller coaster madness

Sadie and her second cousin.

Second cousins and giant scoops of ice cream. Perfect way to end the night.

The lines weren't long at Silverwood except for two rides: the ferris wheel and bumper boats. Carter had to ride on both of them, of course. It was at least a 30-60 minute wait for both.

Dinner in bed. I was so done with sleeping in the same room as my kids by this time.

Did I mention that the Iron Man was in CDA the same weekend? Some people asked us if we were there for that. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time. Graham last worked out in January...

The drive home was supposed to only be about 5 hours, but we had freaking traffic starting in Cle Elum, WA, before even getting to Snoqualmie Pass. Anyways, we had a great time with friends and family despite driving a million miles. Funny enough, Graham and I are about to drive back to Utah for another family wedding in 2 weeks. We are not bringing the kids this time, though. 

The drive home, armed with tablets, markers, coloring sheets, and gummy bears.

All in all, it was a great trip, and now we won't fear long road trips as much. Our kids were pretty good. We just accepted that passenger seat is now called the "slave seat" to serve our masters in the back seat. Sadie was the worst task master. Peace out Utah--until next time.

Dear College Sherri..

So I recently met up with a friend that I had my freshman year of college at BYU. We really haven't seen each other since 2004-2006 (maybe even 2002??) other than Facebook. Both of us now live in the same town after not having seen each other in probably 14+ years.. It is pretty random that we now live in the same town, but that's beside the point..

←←My first day at BYU. Check out the sparkly lilac eyeshadow.



Man oh man was I nervous.. and it really got me thinking.. What was I like at 18/19 years old? What kind of impression did I leave? Am I even the same person that I was then?

Examples of me during my early college years..

Always trying to shake it like Shakira.

I want to clarify that this photo is a satire of Utah fashion. 

I'm not quite sure why we did this with our hands.

Please take note of the hair and choker. So 1990's, yet this was 2002..

You're welcome. The 2000's decade was not good for me fashion-wise (missing is the photo of me in a Juicy Couture velour track suit).

If I went back in time, would I tell myself anything? Would I do something differently? How have I changed?

Well, for starters..

I am essentially the same person half my life later (yes I was 18--18 years ago!).. I am still an introvert, self-conscious, slightly competitive, witty (I've always considered myself to be funny even if you don't), full of social anxiety, even-tempered mood (apparently the formal term is equanimous), kind of lazy, and an overall logical/pragmatic person.

However, I do care less about what people think of me despite being self-conscious. I am more responsible, less judgmental, more empathetic, less attention-seeking, more spiritual, and less sarcastic.

I have been through a lot within the past two decades that has helped me mature. Would I go back and change some things? Absolutely--there are some things I have said and done that make me cringe so hard. But, the experiences that were difficult to get through are what made me who I am today. Hey, I straight-up told a guy friend that I had a crush on him, and he told me he didn't. That was the worst thing ever to 19 year-old me. I made myself vulnerable and really put myself out there, and I was devastated when I was rejected. But the experience taught me that 1) "he's just not that into you if he's not asking you out", and 2) it's ok to be vulnerable sometimes. I also learned that I don't like when a guy serenades me with a guitar. That was a really difficult experience to live through, and it was only 5 minutes of my time in college.

If there is one thing I wish I could tell my late teens, early 20's self is that I will not get married in college. I wasted soooo much time worrying about boys and not about college! My outlook in life during those years would've been much different if I worried about my grades and not my dating life.

Anyways, what if you met someone from your past that you haven't seen in years? Would you revert back to your old self, or do you feel comfortable enough in your own skin as you are today?



Spoiler alert: the blast from the past meet-up went well and wasn't awkward.

Freshman Flashback...

Oh, BYU dances...

You can't say we weren't creative!

A story for the ages...

So, I was trying to think of a funny story from my life lately, but there hasn't been anything.

But, I did remember a hilarious story from my college days at BYU... Let me take you back... 

The year was 2003. Tisha and I (along with our roommate Meri), lived in a 2-bedroom condo complex in Provo called "Santa Barbara". It was fall semester, so it wasn't quite snowy yet. Tisha and Darren were engaged. I wasn't dating anyone in particular, but I was "having fun". I was working as a manager at good 'ol Hogi Yogi, and I worked every Friday night until midnight.

Tisha & I on a late-night run to Wal-Mart in 2003.

 So, now you know the background.. Let me get to the real story.

Tisha, as you may or may not know, has a habit of "collecting" things, whether they be items of clothing (cough cough.. skin tight leather pants..), books, or pets. This year, Tisha had decided to adopt a mouse, which I was cool with because it didn't make noise, it had its own cage, etc. However, Tisha's compulsion to collect things took a wrong turn when she decided to adopt a hamster... that she found on the street.

That's when the red flags should've popped up.. What kind of hamster/guinea pig do you find on the street? (I mean, besides the thug hamsters in those car commercials.) Seriously.. this isn't Argentina! This hamster/guinea pig/rodent had beady little eyes.. and was totally evil. I could tell he was plotting my death.

So, we soon found out WHY this rodent had been wandering the streets in Provo. This hamster was an escape artist. He found his way out of his cage many many times. Let me illustrate the scenarios in which this hamster was found:

1) Tisha had a private room right next to mine and Meri's room. One night as we were getting ready for bed, we heard Tisha scream loudly. We ran in to her room and found her under her bed. Apparently, she had heard some noises under her bed, and when she stuck her head under, the hamster was there staring right at her.

2) I used to sleep with the door open until this night.. I woke up to some weird noises at 2 AM. The hamster was right near the head of my bed, trying to crawl up on the computer cords and plastic bags that were there.

3) When the hamster escaped again, I decided to sleep with the door closed. One morning we found a patch of carpet the hamster had worn through to the carpet pad right under our bedroom door. The hamster REALLY wanted to get into my bedroom!

4) One last time when the hamster was MIA, Tisha left for the weekend. I got home from work late that Friday night. I opened the door and the hamster froze in his tracks, right by the front door. I decided I'd had enough with this sociopathic hamster. I grabbed my umbrella and ushered this hamster out the door.

I don't know how many of you know the layout of these condos (other than Tisha, Whitney and I), but the condo complex had indoor stairwells for 6 condos. We lived in the basement condo, so this hamster had to get up a flight of stairs and out of of the stairwell's door to get outside. I didn't feel bad for this hamster at all. I kind of hoped he would die. When Tisha got home on Sunday, I lied and told her the hamster escaped. A few days later, I confessed and told her I kicked the hamster out.

I thought the hamster wouldn't make it.. But I should've known this hamster would somehow convince another sympathetic human to take him in.

A week later, we were at a neighbor's condo, and this guy said, "Hey check out this hamster we found running free!" It was the same little evil hamster..

Would you have done the same thing?