Tim's New Song!

Hello everyone! I just thought I would let you all hear Tim's newest song. It is beautiful and one of those songs you can listen to over and over again. The emotion is inescapable. I hope you all like it.

Forlorn
"The wind blows cold tonight
I didn't notice the stars, they died
Whispers from a dark stone in fading light
Etched words to mark where my heart lies
I know I must let you go
But I'm scared to walk this road alone
The moon it lost it's shine
And I feel that I've run out of time
I dance with ghosts and weigh the knife
How swift our dreams they fly and fall away
I know I must let you go
But I'm scared to walk this road alone
For the both of us you said I must go on
For the both of us you said I must go on
I know I must let you go
Because now I walk for us both"

Bell's Canyon Waterfall

I am going to try and get a little better at updating our blog. I have been terrible. The fact that we don't have a good internet signal at our house makes it difficult, but every once in a while I have some time to kill with a good signal, so I will try to be better about updating at those times.

:) So Jess came to see me a few weekends ago and we went hiking up Bell's Canyon or to Bell's waterfall or something in Sandy. It was a ton of fun, and a much more difficult hike than I was anticipating.
When we started out, you park along the main road that runs along the foothills of Sandy and start your hike walking this pretty trail past all the million dollar houses in that area. However, once you get past them, it felt a lot like hiking in Ephraim or up Nephi canyon which is where I have spent the most time hiking. The only trails I had hiked up to this point in Salt Lake were up Millcreek Canyon. It is a beautiful canyon but it is pretty popular and the trails are pretty well taken care of, whereas this one was a little more rugged, which I like. :)

We hiked a long time following the trail or at least what we thought was the trail. There came a point when we figured we should be about there, but we could not longer even hear the water.

So we finished hiking up the long, rocky, uphill, wash we were hiking. (truth is I am very out of shape and I about died hiking that wash :)...thank goodness Jess was patient with me :) ...

anyway, when we finally got to the top of that and had hiked through a fair amount of snow, and lost track of much of a trail, we decided to head back to where we knew the stream was and see if we could tell if we had missed the waterfall yet or not.

So we trudged through the trees and what do you know...we came out right above the waterfall! How good are we?

Anyway, then we took some pictures, pretended to be Atlas holding up the world with our strength...

and hiked down to the bottom of the falls to see about locating that trail we had missed to head back....no such luck...so we just followed the river down through the thick trees until we found the trail again. I was glad I decided to wear a shirt I didn't care about because through the trail blazing, I managed to rip it a few times.

But it was fun because it felt like we were actually exploring and not just following a mapped out trail that thousands of people walked every year.

The only regret is that it wasn't warm enough when we got to the falls to jump in and play...well there wasn't much water to play in at the bottom, but we could have gotten good and wet. However, we probably would have frozen on the hike back. It had already been drizzling on us the whole hike. :)

But we had a ton of fun. I will need to start looking into more hiking trails, waterfalls, and lakes in the area and explore a little more, because obviously there is more here than I thought there was. :)

Hey all! It has been a very long time since I have updated my blog. Between not having the internet at our new place :( and not really doing much where we have taken many pictures, there has not been much to update. But we finally have some new pictures I thought I'd share. We went boating at Yuba last weekend. I have never been there before. It is a very big lake. The only boating lake I have ever been to is good ol' Gunnison Res. so it was fun to go somewhere new. It was off course too cold to really get in the water so we just hung out and drove around. So here are the pics and I hope you enjoy. :)

Nothing better than chillin' on the boat singing Irish and Russian Drinking songs. :)

More drinking songs, and yes, I look a little strange when I sing... Oh and yes, the irish songs are courtesy of Dawn and a cd we pilfered many years ago. It was a pilfering we will never regret. :)

Nothing like the feel of the wind in your hair...the feel of freedom. Soaring through the water!

Tim and Brit just hanging out as the rest of us stole the boat for one last spin.

And of course, because it is a lake, we really can't resist the pull of the water...however, we did not stay long and only jumped in once...except Tim...because he is crazy :) Very cold. Yep that is it. We had lots of fun though. It was nice to just get out in the sun for a bit and enjoy it. I am so excited for summer. I love all the seasons, but I am ready for summer. Yay! Hopefully I will be better at updating my blog, but until the next time I get pics and an internet signal, ta ta!

We Moved!!!!

So this weekend has been the best weekend for me and Tim. Lots of work, but great! We finally found a new apartment! YAY!!! We have been looking over the last 2 months and never found anything too promising. About 3 weeks ago, we found one that we liked. It was in our price range, clean, and was a duplex. (we like to have as few neighbors as possible. :) ) Bad thing, it smelled like gas. They told us 3 companies had come to check it out and said the levels were safe. Plus they were in the process of putting in a new furnace, which was where the gas problem was. We were super excited. (shows how slim the pickings were if the one that smells like gas is something we are super excited about.) So long story short, we wait for three weeks, hearing from them on and off but never a yes or no on whether we have gotten the apartment or not. I start to let it start stressing me out. I start to wonder if we are being cursed by God or tested by God, or if things just happen and we assign a label to it and it is just life. Or what.

We finally gave up on them and started looking again. The part I hate :( And we look at one apartment and really like it. So much better than the original. And were planning on turning in an application, but decide to look at one more...just to see. The pictures didn't look great on the internet, but it was big, and so we checked it out...and it is super nice!! And I mean super nice! It is a 2 bed 1.5 bath (actually with a third toilet only in the basement..a little odd.) and 2,000 square feet!!! So cool!!! Plus it has a yard which I am absolutely excited about for spring and summer. It has an unfinished basement that Tim is super excited about because he can set up a studio down there. Another great thing, we looked at it Wednesday night and filled out the application and were able to move in Saturday! We were wanting to move right away.

Everything just worked out better than we ever imagined it would. This is a lesson I always have to be reminded of--Stressing doesn't solve anything. Do what you can and things work themselves out. Usually better than you would have had them. :) So me and Tim are very happy people right now. But with a lot of stuff to sort through now and unpack....Guess I should probably get back at it. Ta ta for now!!

Great Book!

Today, I just finished a really good book. It is call "Prisoner of Tehran" by Marina Nemat. It actually made me cry at parts which you all know doesn't happen very often. :) But if any of you ever get the chance to read it, it is a great one.

It is a true story about the author's life. She grew up in Tehran, Iran. When she was about 16 years old she was arrested and taken to Evin, which was a prison specifically for political prisoners. The story is about her life there and everything that happens, mixed with flashbacks of her childhood. The author does a great job describing her personal experiences along with the political turmoil of the time. She describes how the government changed hands from one form of dictatorship to another and how the lives of those who tried to stand against those dictatorships, most of whom were young, were changed forever. The book brings to light the injustices and atrocities that occured at the time and that were justified in the name of God by a religion-based government.

I would tell you more because of course there is much more to it than that, but it is one that if you ever get the chance, you should read. It is not an exciting book full of twists, turns, and climaxes, but it is the story of a real person and knowing that and that these things really happened to this person, is what makes it such an intriguing book. It really makes you think and remember that there is a whole big world out there and while the struggles you are experiencing are important and difficult, there are others who go through unimaginable horrors that it is important to remember even if they are worlds away from us.