hawaii part 2

onto the next part of our hawaii trip!

don't hate me with all these hawaii trip photos, it's just the way it is...

for our first full day we woke really early our first day to do as much as we possibly could.
we went on 2 hikes
1. diamond head crater.
glad we got there early because even early it was busy

 
our 2nd hike was the muddiest thing ever to this really pathetic waterfall.
but the hiking part was pretty.
and they did say lost was all filmed on the trail we were hiking.

 

we then went on this trolley/tour ride around waikiki that told us of all the historic/cool places around the city.
it was a nice break off our feet while still being able to do something active!

then off to hanging out on the beach it was.
man, that main waikiki beach front is busy!
it was mostly all asains though...
we rented some boogie boards, played in the water, admired all the people, and read our books.

 
as the evening came around,
we went and got some really yummy pizza, hawaiian of course, and ate it on the beach.
eating pizza on the beach is one of my most favorites parts of the beach.
we watched the sunset, and waited for the fireworks on the beach,
we were unknowingly on a section of the beach where the fireworks could not be seen...boo.
they were behind that tall building you see...

 
another night we went to a luau!
so festive and fun.
the food was great as well as the entertainment!
it was really just another fun activity we got to do together!

the last provo bucketlist: diamond fork hot springs hike

i'm here to report our last provo bucketlist activity:

hiking to the diamond fork hot springs together
(not too far away from spanish fork)

the day after graduation ceremonies was pack up our house day,

or at least pretend to pack up our house day.

we stopped for awhile and went on a little excursion with my mom to hike the hot springs!

i had done it with friends during my aspen grove summer,

but it was at night and you couldn't see much.

so i was definietly excited to go with casey and my mom.

i just googled "diamond for hot springs" and looked up the info on it.

we followed the driving directions and reached our destination mid-afternoon.

we were very surprised how many other cars were there but knew we were at the right place.

the hike is about 2 miles in and beautiful.

it smelt so good and the rushing water by the path was spectacular.

we had good company and we just kept hiking along.

about half way there though, we ran into one of the funniest moments i'll always remember.

casey was leading and then it was myself and then my mom.

suddenly i see a small snake by casey's left side and i say "watch out there's a snake"

casey then begins to go bonkers.

he can't see the snake.

he begins to do football star/deer high knees trying to get away from where he's standing while looking at the ground.

he's freaking.

i've never seen that boy move so much nor be so terrified.

i know, i'm so childish, but seriously it was the funniest thing ever.

i'm pretty sure his face was struck with pure fear too,

i was laughing so hard and would just keep randomly laughing about it for the next while.

funniest moment ever.

we finally reached the hot springs after what seemed like forever

(forever bc we could smell that yucky sulfur for so long).

sadly enough though, it was quite warm outside during the hike,

and so the last thing we wanted to do was get into some burning hot hot springs.

so we splashed our feet in the cold stuff for a little while and then once we cooled down tried out the hot springs.

it was still way too hot to me so i just walked in the shallow parts up to my ankles.

casey got in sitting down though and seemed to enjoy the warmth all over his body.

once he got up, the bottom half of his stomach and below looked like it had been sunburned the water was so hot!

it was beyond stinky too.

you could tell what parts of the water were hot v cold depending on the color:

black=HOT

white= warm

clear= cold

there were lots of fun little pools for people to sit in so you didn't feel like you had to mingle with everyone else too much.

the rushing waterfall set a beautiful background to our experience there too.

i did feel that it was the hang out for all non-LDS people in the utah area to go to,

ha, seriously!

it felt like everyone else there had beer, were smoking, and were covered in tattoos.

it was just a funny site indeed for a utah hike :)

but we were so very lucky to have the company of my mom there with us and it was just a fun trip all around!

if you're in the area, it's definitely a must hike to do!

sadly, this item rounds off our completions of our provo bucketlist.

maybe in the future years as we come back to visit provo we can do a few we never got to accomplish.

if you ever make one of your own send me a link so i can follow in on your fun!

the official statistics are as follows:

total: 29

completed: 20

still to-do: 9

cheers to our 4 years we spent in provo!

provo utah bucket list: hiking the Y (one last time)

did i mention we don't have school fridays?

well we don't.

it's the best part of our week.

3 day weekend, ALWAYS!?

uh, yes please!

so we slept in a bit on friday morning, as always (but also because we stayed up for hours thursday night backing up our pictures/music/documents etc, jeeze, that made my computer run SO much faster! but i was also completely scared while deleting the pictures! luckily it worked, plus there's pretty much a back up on facebook/my blog)

back to hiking the Y...

i persuaded casey into going getting up and actually going.

the sun was out and it was a crazy beautiful day.

it was 65 degrees when we got in the car... halleluiah.

i forgot how steep that mountain is.

it's not even a full mile up, but jeeze, it sure is UP.

not kidding you, after the first 2 minutes my heart was pumping.

we walked and walked and walked.

surprisingly, hand-in-hand most of the time.

we talked.

we laughed.

we whined.

we dreamed.

we planned.

twas a great little hike for us.

i told casey my top 2 best moments of the week:

1. a completely unexpected little necklace from him. sweetest moment.

2. buying my first child, a very nice sewing machine for an amazing price.

he told me his top moment:

1. getting a 100% on a world religions test he barely studied for

and his top not favorite moment:

1. that moment during the football game.

we huffed an puffed our way up the hill.

i was completely inspired by a family in front of us:

a mom, with 3 little kids, ages 3/4-8.

woah. i want to be that kinda mom.

they seriously did awesome.

an old man with an arm in a sling passed us...kinda made me feel like a baby.

saw an old high school friend coming down the mountain as were going up.

anytime a dog passed us i wanted to stop and love it.

but then we finally saw the white plaster on the mountain.

a light at the end of the tunnel.

  
i always forget how beautiful provo is.
seriously.
i know people complain about it a lot,
but it sure is a beautiful, unique place.
provo will always have a special place in my heart!
but really, snow-capped mountains, a large city, a blue lake, and BYU.
i love provo.

the way down was seriously worse than the way up, it's so steep you're forced to run but don't really want to because you're about to slip form the steepness.
isn't it so true that when you're going, up, you wanna go down,
when you're going down, you wanna go up...


after we rested from our hike,
we took our free, semester bowl at the BYU bowling alley.
we miss bowling class.

then we went to applebee's with a gift card that's been in casey's wallet for ages.

then we worked all friday night long.
i watched almost all of the 1st season of downton abbey... :)

provo bucket list: snow shoeing

this past weekend we passed off another TWO bucket list items!

can i hear a "woot woot!" from all you peeps out there?!

#3: go snow shoeing.

the landscape management major/aboriculture class on campus organized a night for anyone who wanted to to go show shoeing up to the largest white fir tree in Utah.

my overall feelings of snow shoeing in five words you ask?

 hiking with 100 pound legs.

ha, i'm not going to lie, it wasn't my favorite hiking experience ever, but i'm still glad i did it.

there were 45 of us who went and strapped these snow shoes to our feet and hiked about an hour and 45 minutes to the tree.

regardless of the minimal snow utah has received lately,

we had wonderful,.sparkling, fresh powder in the mountains  that made it much nicer.

we began the hike at 6:00 pm, excited to  be going!

at about 6:30 i thought/complained to casey "how much longer"

at 6:45 we began the much steeper part of the trail

and about every 5 minutes i said to casey "i want a break."

did we break very much though?

no, because i felt peer pressured into not stopping from all the 43 other people around me.

i was NOT going to be deemed the most out of shape person on this adventure.

soooooooooooo,

we kept going

and we kept going.

let me tell you the basic experience of snow shoeing:

each foot becomes about 6 inches wider with the inside and outside added together,

and then sometimes on the steep parts your snow shoe doesn't claw into the snow nice enough and you totally start tripping up,
casey had good laughs about every 10 minutes watching clumsy kimber trying to not fall with huge clown shoes on...

and my tree hugging professor, phil allen, (literally he LOVES trees and is obsessed with them, that's why he teaches the tree class) would say "oh you're about 20 minutes away from the meadow"

45 minutes later we reached that dang meadow.

and then at the meadow he said we were "5 minutes away from the tree"

15 minutes later we reached the tree.

LUCKILY, that tree did not disappoint.

the pictures don't do it justice but it was a rather large tree,

i was glad i made it.

love this picture my friend chase took after climbing up the tree a little ways

the way down was awesome.

it took us maybe 35 minutes?

you could take a giant step and slowly glide with that foot a little more.

the snow made the pounding on your knees/toes not bad at all.
i'd go snow shoeing down hill any day :)


ps- don't forget to enter the giveaway below if you haven't already! there's pretty good chances you could win since only, like, 8 people read this here blog!


pps- i read the conference talk from Pres Monson called "Charity Never Faileth"
it is indeed an incredible read.
reminds us of the importance of not judging and just loving.
i needed that.

provo utah bucket list: stewart falls/canyon drive in the fall

so our original plan was to drive up the canyon,
back in all the pretty leaves,
and drive home.
but on our way back down we suddenly thought, why not hike stewart falls right now since it is on our bucket list?
and, oh, what joys we did have!

luckily we went last tuesday, the day before it turned rigid, cold, rainy/snowy here in provo.

the drive was utterly gorgeous.
we saw the mountain sides were alive with colors bursting out in flames.
the smell was incredible, it made me want to go camping right that minute and live out in the wilderness all autumn long.
i honestly couldn't take big enough breaths in. it was so wonderful.
we listened to our beloved country music the whole way driving (did i tell you i converted casey to country music? for all you country haters, it makes us happy and we love it it so don't judge.)
and of course the company was wonderful, i don't remember what we talked about but i remember being happy.


we turned up the canyon and enjoyed every mile.
casey was driving slow,
my head was stuck out the window like a dog taking in the smells and sights.
we'd go back and forth saying "oh look over, there, that's so pretty!"
we saw a huge moose cross the road when we got up to aspen grove.
it looked so majestic with the fall leaves on all sides of it.

after driving through all the aspens after aspen grove,
we turned around and that's when we decided to hike stewart falls!
to say it was pretty is the most boring word i could use.
i'm not much of a writer so i won't try to convey what it was like except that it was so glorious.
seriously.
all the leaves around us were changing colors.
little chipmunks squeaked and crawled up all the trees around us.
leaves littered the trail and looked like millions of little girls had gone before us and dropped their flower baskets.

we ran (on the flats and downhills) to make the hike faster.
it felt like we were in a movie, being chased, jumping over stumps, roots, and boulders in the fall time
it was so cool.


the falls were exquisite too with bright reds, oranges, and yellows trailing on all sides.
the air was perfectly crisp with a slight chill.
and we were out there all alone in God's beautiful creation.
we passed maybe 8 other people.
it was like our own, personal, intimate experience with nature,
one i will never forget.

 

if you live in provo you need to take your canyon drive asap before it's all gone!

ps- the picture above the bottom left picture, is the road we went and took our engagements in,
it was just as beautiful as we remember!!
it's this secret little road up the canyon, you pass a kinda bigger open horse field on your left and it's behind there.
my ultimate dream would be to have a quaint little cabin on the itty bitty road!

bucketlist check off: bridal veil falls

the saturday before school began we were sitting around doing nothing.

so out of desperateness to not be lazy,

we got our booties off the couch and drove up the canyon to bridal veil falls!

(everyone, bridal veil falls is the pretty waterfall that you see on the right when you drive up provo canyon).

we thought it was going to be more of a hike than it was but it was still pretty and we can still say that we did it!

yay for a cool refreshing mist at the top!

 

after our "hike" we decided it'd be wise to feed ouselves
at red robin with a gift card :)
man they have good burgers.

Timpanogas

yes, that is correct.

me and mi madre hiked to the top of mt timpanogas a few weeks ago.

8.3 miles to the summit at 11,750 ft we were 2 proud girls.

one of my mom's goals this year, along with sky diving (which i shall be doing that with her too:) was to hike mt timp to prove that she's still awesome!

originally, a lot of us wanted to hike with her, one by one we all dropped out for multiple reasons until no one was going to be able to hike with her.

and that determined woman said she was going to hike it by herself still!

give me a break mother.

kirk called me, told me i had to do it with her somehow, so i got my work shift covered and didn't go to my grounds crew volunteer hours that week and went hiking with her!

rising at 4:45 in the morning, we were on the trail by 6!

the first hour or so was in the dark and quite chilly too!

the next 6 hours consisted of us climbing up that stinking mountain.

lots of talking.

lots of crazy mountain goats.

lots of trees.

lots of boulders (in 1 section:).

lots of people passing us.

lots of gorgeous views.
lots of beautiful colors.
lots of mountain goats.

lots of up hill mostly.
and then lots of too much downhill

we went slow but we enjoyed it and had a good time bonding together :)

 if you are a byu student and haven't hiked timp, you should, it's one of those cool things you can say you've done.
if you've lived in utah your whole life and have never hiked timp, shame on you :) do it, you'll love that mountain so much more after seeing the view from the top.
if you don't live in utah but visit often, plan a time to do it, you'll love it (after the fact:)
if you have horrible knee problems (cough cough you know who), don't hike it, you'll be miserable.

ps- we saw a man who ran to the top and down in probably 3 hours or less, disgusting.
then he said he was going to bring his family up to hike it with him the next day, gross
we also saw an 80 year old man hiking it by himself, props grandpa, props.

pps- we hiked up from the AG side just fyi