Yellowstone take 1, August 2003

After exploring Mt. Rushmore and Wind Cave, we headed towards Yellowstone. The most exciting part of this trip is that our Jeep was having issues with the fuel pump, and we had soooo many problems with it as we drove east and then back west. (Shoutout to the mechanic in Vail who correctly diagnosed the problem, NO shoutout to the mechanic in Michigan who gave us a different diagnosis and a very large bill to not fix the problem). Also a giant shoutout to Neil, who actually fixed the problem when we got back to Utah. As a sidenote, I remember thinking the first few years of our marriage that I just wanted a car where we didn't have to spend half our free Saturdays working on new problems. I loved driving that car, but man it had a lot of issues (by the end the driver's side door didn't open, you had to sometimes use a rubber mallet to get it in gear, and the key would get stuck. There is nothing fun about being 8 months pregnant and climbing over the gearshift to go drive somewhere). 



Anyway. All of this is to say that we were having major car issues on this trip and I remember coming into Cody and finding out that the west entrance was closed due to wildfires and that we would have to go in the north through Gardiner/Mammoth, and driving the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway after dark and worrying that we would get stranded. 

But thankfully we did NOT get stranded, the Jeep pulled through, and we set up camp sometime around midnight in Mammoth. The next morning I woke up suuuuper annoyed by all the people who were brushing by our tent, presumably on their way to the bathroom? Our whole tent was rocking and the walls were visibly being pushed inward. Neil told me to look out so I sat up and looked out the window and it was A HERD OF ELK. Just casually rubbing up against our tent and wandering everywhere. It was super cool (and kind of scary in hindsight, yikes!). We also slept through a giant moose charging past our tent in Glacier this summer...what can I say, we were suuuper tired. 

Here's Neil looking very tired somewhere along the Firehole, likely by the falls. 

And doing some boardwalk wandering--my guess is the paint pots? 

I think this photo was likely on the way to the canyon falls (do you like how I can make pretty decent guesses at this because I've been to Yellowstone so many times?!)

Gosh we just look super thrilled to be on this trip, hah!

Look at young Neil here, so carefree, not at all worried about kids going off the boardwalk...

Just casually eating a Poptart at Mammoth. 

And me, looking like I regretted leaving my jacket in the car. (Sidenote--when we were at this overlook when Matthew was three, I heard him say "look I can make the St. Louis Arch" and yes, indeed...he could. Little boys are fun). 

 

Mirror Lake

This batch of photos is from two trips--one in 2003 and one in 2004. The first four are film from a trip Neil and I took together. I remember being SO insanely cold on this trip; it snowed a ton and I was shaking so much all night I really didn't sleep well!



So many fun adventures with this tent but let me just say, it does NOT fit 6'5" Neil unless he is diagonal...which isn't very fun if you're sharing a tent! 



Here's a couple photos Neil took of me. I was still 19 at the time which is really crazy for me to think about (barely a year older than Abigail). 



And this is from a trip we took with my parents, sisters, and a lot of my dad's extended family. My dad had a fancy new digital camera which I thought was soooo cool. 



At the time this photo was taken I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Abigail; I think we'd just found a few weeks before. So exciting!

Beautiful Mirror Lake!

And a photo with all five of my sisters and my dad! 

 

Wind Cave & Mt Rushmore

I legit cannot believe I found these photos, but here they are! I'm going back to old pre-blog photos, digging through film prints, and working to find all the pictures from the first year we were married. 

Neil and I were married over Christmas break in 2002 (and went on our honeymoon to Bear Lake/Jackson Hole; I'll dig those photos out too). When we got our very first tax return in February of 2003, we got about $300 and used all of it to buy a tent, two sleeping bags, and a Coleman stove (which is the stove we still use today 20 years later--it's going strong! We still have the tent and sleeping bags too). 

We went on three camping trips that summer--we went to Arches & Canyonlands at the end of spring semester, then the Uintas one weekend in May, and then drove across the country for a family reunion with his family in Missouri and mine in Michigan. Then on the way back we stopped at Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, and Yellowstone. 

I had no idea that we actually had photos from Wind Cave, but WE DO!! Both of us were so surprised when we found this photo Friday night! So here is 23-year-old Neil in our third national park that we visited together (there was a photo of me too, but it was totally black behind me and you couldn't tell that we were anywhere interesting). 

We did not have the money to pay the parking fee in Mt. Rushmore (I think it was like...$10? And apparently we'd really splashed out on Wind Cave tickets) so we parked at a pullout viewpoint and then walked all the way back up the road into the actual monument part. Good times. Can you see Washington's nose at the top of the picture? 

Here's Neil pointing just in case you missed it. 

One of the things I remember most vividly about this day is that it was the Sturgis Motor Rally that weekend and everything was booked. Just totally crazy and we couldn't find a campsite anywhere! I remember we checked sooooo many sites and everything was booked, we finally found a site around 2 am and set up our tent on the gravel right behind our car (and I remember just brushing my teeth at the campsite because I was too tired to walk to the bathroom). We had a couple of experiences with campsites that first year that stressed me out SO much and now that I'm recording this I realize that's probably why I am so obsessive now about making sure that we have a site booked months in advance and never leave anything to chance! That may be a common theme in these posts. ;-) 

way back when

Neil sent me this link earlier today which brings back some interesting memories.

He lived in the Philippines for two years while he was serving a full-time LDS mission. One of our first dates was to a Filipino fireside where they were serving native foods. I vividly remember Neil warning me that there were bones in the egg roll-like thing he had just handed me, and that the two motherly Filipinas smiling happily at me would not expect me to spit the bones out in disgust.

A month or so later, he was making a dish to share with his Tagalog class at BYU and for some reason made it in my apartment rather than at his house. I came home to a kitchen that smelled SO BAD and all my roommates were gagging (remember that one, Jen Bosen?) Poor Neil has been forbidden from ever making that dish ever ever again, especially after the slimy frozen okra he used in it traveled from my apartment to our first shared apartment, where I found it in the freezer five months later and gagged the whole time I was running it down the garbage disposal (maybe that is when I found out our apartment actually didn't have a garbage disposal?)

Neil on our honeymoon--we drove to Jackson Hole one day and went on a sleigh ride through the elk preserve

Me on our honeymoon--hanging out in the visitor's center at the elk preserve. If I recall correctly Neil yelled my name and took the picture when I turned around.

So as I was thinking about all of this, I was thinking about the old days back when we were students OH WAIT STILL STUDENTS and all of that. Tonight while we were washing the dishes I had a song stuck in my head, and it was really bothering me that I didn't know most of the words, so I went and found it online so I could sing along to it, and Neil stopped washing the dishes and came and took my hand and started dancing with me in the living room. I think I can safely say that this is the first time in our marriage this has ever happened--when we were first married I thought it would be fun to take a social dancing class together at BYU and it was a disaster! He is so much taller than I am that it's physically painful for both of us to hold proper ballroom dancing posture (we did, however, make it to semi-finals for cha-cha in the US DanceSport Competition--it was extra credit and we needed all the extra credit we could get in that class!)

Anyway, long segue, but we were dancing to the song in the middle of our living room and the kids were doing all their kid things around us and Neil asked me if I remembered back to the time when we first met eleven and a half years ago (and then in characteristic fashion he told me that was back when I still had chipmunk cheeks, which is true).

see? Honeymoon chipmunk cheeks.

I was thinking about those early years and the fact that they exist only in my memory and a few scattered photos, and I wanted to remedy that a bit.

When we were newlyweds, we lived in a teeny tiny little apartment in Orem just off of Center Street. It was (of course!) a basement apartment, but we were the first ones to live there and so it was just this teeny little place sparkling with newness. We spent our first night together there--when I was a teenager I loved the fact in Anne's House of Dreams that she and Gilbert went to their own home for their honeymoon. And I loved coming home after our wedding to our own little home that we had furnished together and into which we had put so much happiness and hope. It was perfect.

So back to the teeniness of this place--we could just barely fit in a couch and a bookcase turned sideways and a small dining table pushed up against the wall. The living room had a kitchen along its back wall; the oven was so small that none of our pans would fit inside, and the shower stall was so low that Neil could never stand up straight. But since we were newlyweds we found it charming and fun (I do miss the fact that our gas heating bill was never above $8/month!).

our one-month apartment's kitchen

After a few months we decided that we wanted to live closer to campus and we would like a bit more space. We found another basement apartment that was much cheaper because it was much older--when we first moved in we found the 4-digit telephone number for the coal delivery company on a tin placard nailed into one of the closets! It was quite run-down but we really wanted something that we could afford on our own (our generous parents had both been helping us out during our first few months). So we got permission from the landlord to patch and paint and take down the wallpaper. Actually, for one month we lived above our "real" apartment while we were waiting for the current tenants to move out. The one-month apartment was so incredibly filthy. I remember that we couldn't see out of the windows and our feet turned black when we walked across the floor. I spent SO much time scrubbing it before we moved in that the landlord ended up giving us a substantial discount on that month's rent (in retrospect he still got an amazing deal). It also had this sort of stale smell and so I bought tons of air fresheners and put them around everywhere--as luck would have it I recently bought a similar scent for the Glade plug-in in my kitchen and it made me so nauseated to remember that filthy apartment that I had to unplug it!

Anyway, eventually we moved into the downstairs apartment. I was excited to move because unlike the upstairs apartment it had carpeting in the living room area (wood floors everywhere else)--but no air conditioning or cooling of any kind! It was SO hot! But it did have a working fireplace and we spent our first Christmas together there (after which Neil hacked up the Christmas tree and burned it in the fireplace. In hindsight both of us are amazed we didn't set the place on fire). It had this funny little kitchen with almond-colored appliances and a tiled counter that ran in front of the previous kitchen door.

It was always sort of odd having a doorknob in the middle of the counter and I kept a potted aloe vera plant in front of it. And I didn't know how to clean the penny tile that was covering the counters in a way that made me feel like they were thoroughly disinfected, so every week or so I would just pour bleach all over the counters and let it sit.

The bathroom had a large hole in the ceiling (through which I could hear our upstairs neighbor dealing with a very miserable first trimester of pregnancy) and an odd vanity made out of plywood. A previous tenant had painted the entire bathroom like Van Gogh's Starry Night...a cool idea in conception but not in execution.  And our bedroom was this big beautiful wood-floored room that backed up to the communal laundry room (nice because we didn't have to navigate the cobwebby unlit stairs like everyone else since we had a direct door, not so nice because the washer and dryer were constantly rattling our walls in the middle of the night).
We paid $410/month for this apartment.

living room of our downstairs apartment--this was definitely its best angle!

I know it sounds like a total dump--and to be honest it probably was--but this was one of my very favorite apartments because we had so many good memories there. It was the first time I had ever really had complete creative license over my own space. I tore down all of the wallpaper in the kitchen and painted it a cheery bright yellow that set off the white cabinets. I washed all the grime off a half-dozen jars of home-canned peaches left behind by a previous occupant (no way I was going to risk eating them but they looked beautiful) and arranged them in the glass-fronted cabinet over the sink. I painted our bedroom one day by myself to surprise Neil while he was at work. I taped posters of paintings by Van Gogh and Raphael and Monet over the cracks in the walls. I arranged our wedding pictures on the mantel and carefully painted the beat-up but beautiful paneling of the old wooden doors. We made it into home.

And every Friday night, Neil and I would have the most fantastic time cooking together. We couldn't afford to go out to dinner or on a date (we could barely afford $20 a week for groceries!) but those Friday nights are some of my happiest memories. I had never cooked much before we were married and he taught me so much--that is really where I became confident as a cook and willing to experiment with new recipes or ideas. Whenever I think of that apartment, I think of the two of us laughing together in that little yellow kitchen while we stood side by side cooking together.

We were married back in ye olden days before digital cameras (or at least before we could afford a digital camera), so all these photos are on film. Film, people!

The first summer we were married we drove East for Neil's family reunion and then went to visit my family. On our way back we camped in Yellowstone and in the Black Hills (we managed to hit Sturgis week...would not recommend trying to find a camping spot at that time of year!)  I have lots of photos from this trip but here are just two of my favorites.

We look so young! Babies!

And remember when we took the kids to Arches? That was only our second time there together. Kind of sad. One of the things Neil & I regret about our time in Utah is that we only explored southern Utah together once, just five months after we were married. But in all fairness, we were spending our time there working like crazy to get awesome grades for scholarships and grad school and working multiple jobs to avoid any student loans, which didn't leave much time for fun. Sometimes I wonder if we should have eased up a little bit and enjoyed ourselves more, but in retrospect, our nose-to-the-grindstone attitude has paid such huge dividends that I always end up feeling like we made the right choice.

 And a photo from the very end of our wedding day. I'm wondering what the photographer told us--look so happy that you're falling asleep?  (One real regret I have is our crummy wedding photos. Oh well--I have the real deal squeezing my hand every day and telling me that I'm the best thing in his life.)

Beach, beach, beachity beach!

 On Saturday we met my parents at the beach.  I love love love that it is nicely situated between our homes--it's the perfect meeting place!  We told the kids the night before that we were headed to the beach but didn't tell them my parents would be there--they were SO EXCITED when they got out of the car and saw their grandparents!

We spent a good six hours enjoying the perfect weather, the warm sun, and the not-too-frigid water.  And, of course, the requisite burying-everyone-in-sand occupied a good chunk of the afternoon (the blond little boy in just trunks is not mine, the blond little boy in a lifejacket IS mine. In case you were wondering if we picked up a sixth child--just a friend we made at the beach!).

 Abigail was buried so deeply that it took quite awhile to dig her out.  The boys decided to be helpful and pour water on her to wash away the sand, but it ended up just making a giant mucky mess and it was quite amusing to watch her trying to get out.

Here's Jules lying back in the sun...


I didn't get a picture of Isaac in the sand, since I was nursing Nathan, but you can get a good idea of how diligently Luke was trying to help Isaac cover his face.  Yikes!



And Luke was so funny--he just lay there with this giant smile on his face and I was actually thinking that he might have fallen asleep, since it was his naptime.  Nope--just enjoying his turn to do what the big kids were doing!

 This will be the last picture of me for quite some time without raccoon eyes--I made sure all the kids got lots of sunscreen and completely forgot to do myself (nursing every time I remembered and just thought, oh, I'll do it as soon as I finish).  Since I was wearing knee-length running tights over my swimsuit (so much better than swimsuit bottoms for keeping out the sand!) I have the worst burn lines ever just below my knees--and around my face in the shape of my sunglasses, since I forgot that I wasn't wearing makeup with a heavy-duty SPF built in.



And I took this set of pictures while the girls were noshing on baguettes and big hunks of Brie--hence the puffy cheeks.

 This picture is of the boys looking for more things to feed the seagulls.  We had SO MANY seagulls flocking around us because the kids thought it was so funny to feed them.  Then I got up to show Luke how to chase the seagulls away and how cool it is to make them all go crazy and fly up at once--well, I tripped over the tarp, stepped in a hole in the sand, and did a totally spectacular fall down the sandy bluff to the water.  I was laughing so hard...but probably not as hard as everyone else who watched it.  The kids gave me the Funniest Fall of the Day award.

 And Nater Tot was so so good all day!  (which is saying something considering he's been on a nursing strike that has required pumping and syringing milk down his throat with a medicine dropper to keep him fed.  not fun.)

The only thing cuter than Nathan at the beach is fat little sandy Nathan toes at the beach.

Nathan had a great time hanging out with my parents--the other kids did too; I just put my camera away pretty early on!

Beach hair! I hope Luke does his hair like this when he's 15 or so.

 Sisters!  I was trying to recreate this picture from last summer, which I LOVE, but which has people in the background--unfortunately when I moved to get better light it allowed time for somebody else to get in the photo!  Oh well.

 Near the end of the day, the kids built this huge sand structure with Neil that involved a cave, a tunnel, and a moat running out to the water.  Pretty cool stuff.

Perfect perfect day.  I'm so glad that we live where we do!  Previous beach posts: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 (nothing from 2007 because Jules was born in August and we didn't go, nothing from 2006 because I didn't start my blog until that fall, and nothing from 2005 because OH WAIT WE LIVED AT THAT BEACH ALL SUMMER and I really should have had a blog.  Because we literally lived there for 3 months right after Abigail was born).