KICKED THE BUCKET

Before I get too deep into this post (yes it is bound to be another long one) I guess I need to explain THE BUCKET LIST. If you have seen this movie... you will know what I am talking about. If not then let me explain. In a nutshell it is a list of things you want to do before you "kick the bucket" (aka die). Clayton and I have had a bucket list way before this movie came out. However one day at the grocery store my keen eyes spotted this little gem...
100 Utah Foods!!! Who knew that there were so many "Utah specialties" (besides green Jell-O with shredded carrots) or Utah Locavores that we haven't tried. So now there are 2 bucket lists: THE ADVENTURE bucket list and THE FOOD bucket list. Someday I will post the lists, but not today...to many other important things to post (ok mostly pictures).

A couple Saturday's ago a friend from Hawaii was up doing some training in Utah. Seriously who comes to UTAH from HAWAII to train!?! Should be the other way around if you ask me. Which no one did, but I like to offer my opinion anyway. We drove down to see Nikki on Saturday and decided that it would be a great day to introduce her to the state and cross some items off of our Food Bucket List.

Stop #1: Lehi Roller Mills
Oh yes! The place where "Kevin Bacon danced his blues away" in Footloose. The mag claims that you have to try their Heart Healthy Hotcakes Mix. Nikki wanted to get some syrup for her mom from Lehi Mills anyway so it was a "kill two birds with one stone" stop. Still haven't tried the hot cakes yet. Love everything else I get from Lehi Mills (cookies mixes, muffin mixes, etc.) so I'm sure these will be awesome too. Isn't it obvious how Clayton loves to have his picture taken.

Oh and can I tell you how excited I was to find an eggnog cake mix!!! E-X-C-I-T-E-D to say the least. Can you even buy eggnog this time of year? We planned on just getting the hotcakes mix, but came out with a crap load more than that. Gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Stop #2: Belgian Waffles at Bruges

Seriously who even knew this little amazing hole in the wall even existed!?! Not I!

I was immediately impressed with this place...even before tasty the food. Why? Because they have a naked little boy statue peeing fountain. Who wouldn't be impressed by that!?!
These waffles are amazing. Bruges doesn't use batter they use dough making them heavier...just the way I like it. I have to say that Nikki got the best one. Waffle with ICE CREAM drizzled with chocolate sauce. I know, right!?!

The "frites" are also good. Plus they come with so many different dipping sauces that it would put "Some Dude's Fry Sauce" to shame.

Stop #3: Salt Lake Temple
Ok not really on the food bucket list, unless they have an amazing cafeteria inside. We didn't have much time between all of our food consuming and dropping Nikki off at the airport so we took a quick stop at the Salt Lake LDS Temple so she could get a few pictures.

Stop #4: Ensign Peak

Also not on the food bucket list, but something I have wanted to do for awhile.

After we dropped Nikki off we headed out to Kami and Erik's to swim in their pool. After you have eaten so much food getting into a swimsuit isn't the most "pleasant" feeling.

Later that night we took the trek up to Ensign Peak. By trek I mean leisurely walk. Not a difficult or long hike by any means. Ensign Peak overlooks the Salt Lake Valley. It has some church reference to it, but I'm not sure what.

If Kami and Erik would just get a blog then I wouldn't have to post pictures of them. Seriously! Get. A. Blog. I know three people that would read it. 1-me 2-mom 3-the Paul family (you guys are so cool you count as one person). Little FYI for you...this is where Erik proposed to Kami. Ahhh...





Stop # 5: Frozen Custard at Nielsen's
Truth be told I have been here before and loved it. However, I was very disappointed this time.
The first time I went was about 3 years ago to the Bountiful location. They only served one size: LARGE. And in my opinion ice cream should only come in one size. The Holiday location was closer this time so that is the one we went to. Like the Bountiful location they only served one size, but it wasn't LARGE. It was somewhere between small and medium. This did not make Heidi happy. Plus it was way overpriced for a small/medium. This did not make Clayton happy. Erik also had a hole in his cup so his dripped all over him on the way home. This did not make Erik happy. Despite the two strikes the ice cream...er....frozen custard was really good. Still though...

We spent the night at Kami and Erik's and then Sunday I dropped Clayton off at the airport. This was not a fun experience. We have never spent a day/night apart since being married. Even though I wouldn't see him for 2 days it was the most lonely/miserable 2 days. He flew to Tempe,AZ for training. I flew out there 2 days later. However, that is a post for another day... Till then...

BEAR LAKE FUN

Thanks to Kami, Erik, Kathrin and Tracie for stopping by and gracing us with your presence at "the lake."

Yes he really is "Too Cool".

AMERICA DAY

Freedom is a pretty cool thing.

Celebrating your freedom is pretty cool as well.

Here we go...

How to properly celebrate the 4th of July

by Heidi

STEP 1. Drive to Bear Lake. After realizing that all the June rain has A) made the lake so frigid that looking at it will bring about instant hypothermia, and B) made the lake so high that finding beach for your blanket is pert near impossible, we decided "what the heck" and went anyway. We found a small sandbar that was pretty long, but only about 8 feet wide and laid out our blanket. Our first clue that something was not right was when Clayton sat on the blanket and water instantly seeped through. We played frisbee for a bit and then tried to sit on the blanket again. Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds later a boat pulled up and the waves from it's "not so pleasant" arrival drenched us and our blanket. But it didn't drench our spirits (anyone see that one coming?). Why didn't it drench our spirits???...because we knew (ok I knew) that a La Beau's shake was in the soon to be future.

STEP 2. Eat a La Beu's shake. 'nough said.

STEP 3. Enjoy the shade in your backyard and stare in wonder of the hair on your neighbors back as he too enjoys the shade. Oh Clayton is going to kill me for posting that. Seriously though...SO. MUCH. HAIR. Amazing.

STEP 4. BBQ with friends and watch the classic cars parade by from your prime sitting spot in front of your house. Ok this one deserves a story. So there we were...we had saved our spots in front of OUR yard bright and early in the morning. Past years have taught us that people have no shame on parking on someone else's yard. How did we save our spots you ask...we put our garbage bin and recycle bin out there. About 1/2 an hour before the parade was set to start we realized that we were out of chips. You CAN NOT have a BBQ without chips. So we hurried to the store and picked some up. When we got back to our house someone had parked in OUR DRIVEWAY and someone else had parked IN OUR YARD IN FRONT OF OUR GARBAGE AND RECYCLE BINS (I use CAPS to demonstrate my extreme irritation). I not-so-kindly asked the "gentleman" who parked in front of our bins to move his piece of crap vehicle because this was "our property" and we had saved these spots. We left the lady who parked in our driveway in peace, but i still still shot her dirty looks every chance I got. Seriously folks, WHO DOES THAT!!!

STEP 5. Give Clayton a baby (in this case Jovi) and watch him freak out (thinks he will break babies).
STEP 6. Enjoy a surprise visit from friend Candace, her boyfriend and her grandma. Love ya Candace. Nicole I'm not too pleased with you for not stopping by. If you still worked for me I would fire your sorry butt. kidding. STEP 7. Enjoy the Brigham City fireworks with the Moates clan. Not the best fireworks I have seen, but they sparkled anyway.


STEP 8. Take a picture of 2 gay men and a baby. Stephanie didn't post it to preserve their dignities, but me...I'm not so nice. That's it. Till next year Independence Day.

ROCKIN' UP THE WELLSVILLES

The destination

* image via google images

WELLSVILLE MOUNTAINS

The Group

Chelsey, Brandone, Claytonious and myself

The trailhead

What!?!

Those afraid of snakes
"Would those afraid of snakes please raise their hand."

The beautiful flowers and senery

Those who wussed out 2/3's the way to the top

Brandone and Chelsey (I colored their names pink because they hike like little girls)

The gladiator-like troopers who kicked the mountain's butt and made it to the top

Cloudy view of Logan from the top

At the top with nothing to eat, but Laughing Cow cheese because above said wusses had ALL of the food in their backpack

i know, right!

Kiss at the top I am usually so anti-kissy face pictures (of myself of anyone else), but I thought this one was funny because it looks like I am eating Clayton's face...maybe I am because I was starving and ONLY had stupid laughing cow cheese to eat!!!

Picture time

Awesome hat hair on the way home

3D glasses

had to wear them to distract us from Brandon's terrifying driving on the way home. I don't know if "terrifying" is the right word. Maybe "death defying"???

1. Wellsvilles are BEAUTIFUL

2. Didn't see a SINGLE snake. Victory

3. Next time we will bring WALKIE-TALKIES for Brandon and Chelsey so we don't have to wait for them every 5 minutes and don't have to worry when we get 45 minutes ahead of them.

4. ONLY time Clayton and I stop to rest is to take a picture. Power hiking baby!

5. Next time pack the food in OUR backpack.

6. Cross "hike the Wellsvilles" off of the bucket list. done and done!

STUFF AND MORE STUFF

It's been awhile I know. I'm pretty sure the only reader who really cares is my mom (love ya mom). Here are my excuses... A) I've been lazy, B) Work has been so crazy that I haven't had time, C) Been busy at night doing (stupid) 8 minute abs with Clayton, taking long walks and watching episodes of Hannah Montana.

Now that the excuses are over with let's get on to the picture overload section...

A couple of weeks ago we had a Spencer reunion in Sandy. It was my Grandpa Spencer's brothers and sisters and all their family's. Pretty large crowd. Most of whom I had never met. It is amazing how strong the Spencer trait is. Most of my gramps brothers and sisters look alike. The reunion was on a Saturday, so Clayton and I decided to make a weekend out of it and headed down Friday.

Our first stop was here...

Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. Beautiful. Highly recommend it.

Angel Moroni was struck by lightening awhile back. If you look closely you can see how black his arm is. They are replacing the Angel Moroni sometime soon. Us again...because you know you can never get enough!

For dinner we stopped here...

It was on our restaurant bucket list (more on that in a future post). Not bad. However our waitress seemed to be PMSing. O-N-E-R-Y. Food was good. I think that I like Texas Roadhouse better though. Must be all the free peanuts. I know the action poses need to stop. They are just soo much fun though.

On to grams and gramps where we spend the night and saw this...

lovely rainbow. It was actually a double rainbow, but you can't see it too much in this picture. The next morning we headed to the reunion where we ate, visited and played softball - rounders style.

This guy came ready to play.

Our catcher

Our crazy 3rd baseman

Can't tell if he is golfing or batting. Pretty sure that was a strike Cort. Nice. Also pretty sure Kace hit the ball farther than I did. Time to hit the batting cages. Skills have gone downhill since the softball days.

After the rousing game some of use decided to rinse our sweaty bodies off by...

taking a swim at Kami and Erik's pool. Others decided to go buy tires for their car (boooooring). Interesting story about Kami and Erik's apartment complex where we swam. The night before we went swimming a crazy guy was on his balcony shooting guns. You might have heard about the story on the news. If not and you want to read about a crazy click HERE.
WARNING: there are some serious farmers tans in the pictures following.

I told you so. Farmers tans. awesome.

This picture has to be my favorite of the day...week...month...year.

After swimming we caught this movie on IMAX.
Clayton looks thrilled in this picture, does he not!?! Since he was the one who "really, really, really, really, really..." wanted to see Transformers and took me along with him I made him pose for me. This picture is a lot better then the one where he is picking his nose out in front of the theater.

4th of July post will be coming ... sometime...