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: go to 1 game of every BYU sports

another bucket list item, yayyyyyyyyyy
we have SIX more to accomplish after this!
i don't know if we'll get them all done but it sure has been fun!

so although we didn't quite make it to one game of EVERY sports game at BYU,

we did enough, i think, to cross it off our list.

BYU football

BYU basketball

BYU baseball

and lastly, BYU volleyball

after casey's LAST organic chemistry final on saturday we ran over to the volleyball game at the smith field house.

wow, was that place packed with energy.

seriously, the crowd went wild over everything, it was so fun!

and you could tell the players had TONS of fun playing and worked as such a great team together.

supporting each other when they were awesome or not so awesome.

they beat penn state 3-0.

i wish we had gone to more volleyball games, it was seriously a blast.

granted, there were about3 other little sports games we didn't get to go to (tennis, gymnastics, track, we'd gone to a soccer and rugby one before), but these were our top ones we wanted to go to, so, i'd say we're good :)

provo utah bucket list: museum of peoples and cultures.

we went (all 100 ft away from our house).

we conquered (all 1 room of museumness it had to offer).

ha kinda a bust bucket list item but we still had fun making a trip out of it.

it's a free little museum from BYU.
the only room they had open at the time was about south american people and their culture of clothing.
fun to walk through.
we could see the room they were working on and it had something to do with cool masks.
so it's fun little museum you just gotta try, i say, while you're in here in provo!

provo utah bucket list: ride tandem bike together/walk down university ave and center street in the spring or fall.

2 bucket list items with one stone!

friday was a gloriously nice day here in provo (saturday as well but we're talking about friday).

firstly, we rented a tandem bike and began learning how to ride that thing together.

boy, were we laughing our heads off the whole time!

have you ever ridden a tandem bike with someone?

ha, you definitely have to get used to it.

i rode in the back (because the seat was shorter) and felt like i had absolutely no control nor could i see much,

suddenly the weight of the bike was going one way but i wasn't doing it!

ha, no control!

starting and stopping was a joke, we were just laughing.

talk about being in sync with someone else,

we learned lots about one another.

and i learned to give control over to casey completely on that bike.

who knew one little bike ride could also help me in my relationship with my husband!

oh, goodness.

and much of the time we were laughing at that whole "tour de family" talk from john bytheway,

you know that one, yes we were laughing.

and then while going on a little uphill, i didn't push, and it was much harder for him,

and then he didn't push and i could barely do it myself

i was laughing inside how john bytheway talked about how some members actually petal backward!

we will most definitely be riding a tandem bike together the next chance we get :)

so where did we ride this bike?

we went all the way down university ave and center street looking into all the shop windows, admiring all the fun shops, counting how many foreign restaurants there were, and being surrounding by beautiful  blossoming trees!

lots of pink and white, we just loved it!

there are so many fun shops in "downtown" provo (some i don't know how they stay in business)

but it was just son wonderful, and i feel like i know provo a little more than i once did!

we also stopped by the old provo tabernacle because a bunch of people were standing around the fence.

so we joined the crowd and there was a mini tour going on of excavation/archeology site!

very cool indeed!

there's a big old building they found there underground and lots of fun artifacts to look at!

apparently the old church building was torn down after a little earthquake, since the tabernacle was unaffected they kept that one and took down the small building.

on our way home we stopped at provo bakery and split a doughnut.

yummo.

on the way home i tried to be the driver of the bike...yeah that didn't happen.

but we had such a wonderful time.

yay for provo and tandem bike riding!

 

ps- we've been watching general conference all day!
it's been so wonderful!
we'll be watching it all day tomorrow too.
if you have a chance, you should watch it too!
in UT it starts at 10 and 2 and can be found on KSL
in AZ it starts at 9 and 1 and can be found somewhere on TV...forgot which channel.
or you can go the easy way and watch it online here!
happy conference weekend!

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: provo printing museum

#12 visit the provo printing museum.

13 done, 2 vetoed, 14 to go!

very cool place indeed.

the provo printing museum is way cool.

it's the most complete working printing press in the world today!

we went through 4 different rooms.

the first was where our tour guide told us all about the johannes gutenburg's printing press.

all the technology and methods that went into it.

you've all probably heard that they're individual types, the ink, yada yada yada,

but in this tour he SHOWED us they made each little letter,

with heating the metals, pouring them, carving one out, imprinting them and all.

it was really very fascinating actually!
i can't believe he ever figured out how to do it.

and did you know they're called "uppercase letters" bc the capitals were always held in the upper part of the case and the lower case letters were always on the lower half of the case.

cool, eh?
also the printing press was first patterned after that of an olive press, again, cool eh?

the 2nd room we went into was all about the declaration of independnce and constitution.

the printing press was the exact dimensions, settings, and style as that of benjamin franklin's.

(the owner of the place is friends with the smithsonian's head guy and gave him all the measurements and pictures)

i guess i never really though that in the beginning era of america they used the printing press too,

it just passed my mind, 

but it was so fun to look at all the types and imagined what it must have been like.

we are so fortunate to live in this day and age with computers and printers!!!!

the 3rd room was all about the book of mormon

and how the printing press paved the way for the book of mormon to be published.

it truly was inspired by the Lord!

he went through the whole process again showing us details of how it was exactly done.
we were also lcuky enough to have a tour of the original book of mormon printing place in palmayra IL this summer!

we were so very fortunate to have our very own guided tour of the place!

the final room was all about the printing press in utah in the early years of the church.

they even had a similar one to that of which president monson used when he was a young man working in a print shop with his father!

overall, we loved our experience there.

the provo printing museum is definitely a hidden gem in provo and more people should go and see it!

it was just on center so we had a nice little bike rode down to it :)

provo bucket list:temple square saturday

#10: do a temple square saturday

we attempted to also do #14: a session in the SLC temple,

but alas, it was closed 3 weeks for cleaning.

boo for closed temples

yay for clean temples.

the only good thing about not getting to actually go into the temple was that it gave us an extra 2 and a half hours to do temple square activities!

1.we visited a visitor's center about the SLC temple

2. we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and watched a beautiful new movie on Joseph Smith and the Restoration.

3. we went to the Lion House for lunch and saw lots of fun people we knew,
namely the giffords and my SILs dad, we see him in the most random places!

4. we went to the beehive house next door. the house the prophet brigham young called home.

5. we walked around temple square without throngs of others being around.

6. we went inside the old tabernacle building (can't believe conference used to be held in that SMALL place!)

7. we took a tour of the LDS conference center including the green roof atop, that building was divinely inspired.

and boy were our feet sore and tired afterwards!

we will be heading back once more before graduation to finish our visit off!

don't forget to enter the J3LL watch giveaway below!

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: slc temple lights (with cousin dinner)

sunday, we also crossed another item off the list!

the salt lake temple square lights!

we actually had a cousin dinner in SLC that night so it turned out perfectly!

firstly, this cousin dinner:

SO FUN.

oh goodness, i love being with family,

it is always such a blast!

everyone in the utah valley was able to come accept for 1 family (they were sick),

plus the dinner just happened to be planned on a weekend our cousin and her family from tennessee was in town!

all together, i believe there were 18 adults, 17 children, and 1 baby on the way!

it was so fun being together and watching all the cute little ones just running around and playing.

i love family.

my cousin, suzie, also instigated a few games for us all to play which was a hoot, as always.

catch phrase and werewolves.

it was perfect for our size of group and with all the kids in the middle playing and making their own noise.

after the get together,

casey and i headed over to the temple to see the lights.

we were a little worried it'd be terribly busy due to it being a sunday night and after the christmas devotional,

but to our surprise, it was nearly empty!

seriously, there was nearly no one there,

it was perfect and beautiful, (and super cold)

the only other time i've been to the lights was my freshman year with our ward where we were hurried and it was terribly busy,

so this was a much better experience!

 

if you've never gone, you should :)

provo utah bucket list: sammy's burgers and BYU planetarium

yet again, we have crossed off TWO more bucket list items!

we had quite the eventful night last saturday!

1st on the list: sammy's burgers.

it's a small burger shop in provo at about center and 100 west near the marriot hotel.

we've driven by it plenty of times and said to ourselves: "we need to go there!"

they're have also been plenty of people rave how incredible the pieshakes and burgers are.

off we went and brought scott, megan and tristan in tow.

let me tell ya, that place is as yummy as it is cracked up to be:

huge, delicious burgers,

the yummiest fried ever,

and such an awesome vibe.

we had to skip out on the shakes because we were so full from the burgers and fries,
so we will undoubtedly be back again soon for more.

i can't remember what casey got,
but i ate the aussie burger: fried pineapple, grilled egg, with all the other normal stuff.
loved it.
another tip: get the battered fries: ooooober yummy.

apparently casey and i both got a little picture crazy at this place,
it just had so much fun character for such a small place!




after dinner we drove like speed demons up to campus and literally RAN to the eyring science center for the planetarium show!
we had heard the first night in december was the special "star of bethlehem show" and were excited.
our excitedness quickly disappeared as we began to fall asleep during a LECTURE!
yes, that's all it was, a lecture!!!
i'll admit, it wa kinda cool listening to the professor reason through what could have possibly caused the bright star in the sky...
after the show, we learned that this indeed was a "special" show, it was the only lecture show,
jeeze.
we'll be going back again next semester for a legit, cool star show indeed with all the affects and stuff


after the show ended we walked over to the JSB and began waiting in line for divine comedy, 
yes, we love divine comedy. 
they never disappoint and are SO CLEVER!
at the end of each show, our mouth always hurts from laughing smiling so much!
here's their new music video this semester "good" instead of "bad" by MJ :)
we were lucky to have met up with 2 other couples there too.

and there was our friday night!

provo utah bucket list: provo bakery

we passed off antoher bucket list item!

going on over to the infamous provo bakery,

we've heard people rave over it, but we've never actually gone, gasp!

as i turned the corner to see our front door, i saw casey in the process of bringing my new bike into the house!

woot woot! we actually got a bike and another big something while in montana (no taxes, yeahya!) and luckily casey's grandparent's were in montana with us and would be driving back down to utah with their mini van, yay :)

as i walked up, joy spread through my whole body and now i knew what little kids felt like at christmas!

i threw by backpack and coat in the door and started riding that baby around!!!

casey hopped on his and we just decided to ride down the street.

the closer we got to center i thought, "hey let's go to the provo bakery, we're right here!"

so, we found it and just stopped!

we got ourselves a HUGE, christmasey, sprinkle one to split,

and enjoyed it in the cold outside sitting at the bus stop (the bus stopped for us, ha).

we will most definietly be going there again soon!

that doughnut was so perfect :)

*update*

i think i'm going to get rid of this cute bike that i'm in love with :(

i just think i'd really like one that changes speeds...

we'll see what happens!