Zion National Park

Last weekend we spent Friday night and Saturday in Springdale, UT. It's such a cute little town with shops and good restaurants. Saturday morning we drove a few minutes to Zion National Park and spent the day hiking. It was gorgeous!! We hiked Angels Landing which was one of the strenuous hikes. (I felt proud that we accomplished that :) ) This is what the trail consisted of: The path winds its way up steep switchbacks gaining 1520 feet of elevation above the valley. It became incredibly narrow toward the top and had chains that you had to hold on to continue climbing. There were spots that were only 18 inches wide with a sheer 1000 ft drop on either side. Once we got to the top it was worth it. It was absolutely gorgeous at the top!! You had a 360 view. The cars driving below through the valley looked like little ants. There were birds that were soaring below us, it was really cool. I thought it was worse going down because you had to look down and you saw how far you could fall. But we made it down to the bottom safely. The view was incredible- we would definately do it again if we were ever back here.

I thought it was hilarious that it said in the brochure to NOT feed the persistent chipmunks to avoid bites, torn clothing, and the hostile takeover of your backpack. We certainly did not want hostile chipmunks so they did not get any of our sandwich :)

Take a look at our pictures to the left that says "Our photos" and you'll see all the pictures from our trip.

Thought I'd put just 1 picture to entice you to look at the rest of them. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture you'll see the little tiny cars. And here I'm standing on the wrong side of the chain and Brent was not happy at all about that. He took the picture quickly so that I'd get back on the safe path. Such a rebel. :)

On a side note...only 6 days left here. Then, our friends Carrie and Ryan Moorlag are coming out to spend a couple days with us in Vegas. Then we'll drive to San Diego and spend 5 days in a beach house enjoying the ocean. We are thrilled to be seeing them soon! Then we will make the long drive back to MN and will be back on April 11!

Our first roach

YUCK! We saw our first roach on our ceiling the other day! When we read reviews of this apartment complex, a lot of people complained about feeling like their apartment was infested with roaches. My recruiter reassured us that it was winter and we shouldn't see any roaches. Needless to say, we were nervous for the first week in our place, constantly looking around for nasty bugs. When we hadn't seen any, we thought we were safe, but apparently not. I know that it was only 1 bug but now I am paranoid. Good thing we only have 1 1/2 weeks left :) I was too freaked out about the roach that I couldn't get a picture of it to post. It was probably 3 inches to give you a mental image. I just keep replaying the reviews in my mind of people saying that they found so many roaches in their bed and shower and cabinets. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will not see any more!
I guess spring is coming and I know that we'll have bugs in MN but roaches just seem worse to me :)

Move That Bus!!!

Well I have officially been able to check saying that phrase off my to do list. We went to the Extreme Makeover Home Edition home reveal on Monday afternoon and stood with hundreds of other people to see the Cerda family see their new home. It was kinda cool to be there with all the hype and excitement, but we couldn't see anything! I could see the top of the home and occasionally when I jumped I could see Ty! I think I enjoy watching it a little more on TV, but hey, now I can say I was there when this episode airs in May :)

Here's a picture of Ty:

A pic to prove we were there!

The beautiful house:

Move That Bus!!

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I just found out last week that Extreme Makeover Home Edition is in Las Vegas! I know that they did a show in MN last year or two but I never heard about it until it was over. Today is the revealing of the home to the family and we might go to the revealing! I just love the show, I always shed a tear each episode, I can't help it. I've always thought it would be cool to be part of the crowd yelling "MOVE THAT BUS!!" So..I just need to convince my husband that it would be fun. Wish me luck!

Visit from family

We had a fun visit from my sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Dan. We went down to the strip, hiked at Red Rock, went to the new M resort, hiked/took pics at Valley of Fire and watched the beautiful sunset, and walked around the old part of the strip and Fremont Street. We had lots of laughs and good times this weekend. Thanks for coming to visit Heather and Dan!!

The Elephant Rock at Valley of Fire...see the elephant in the pic?

The gondola ride at the Venetian...

I don't have our other pictures downloaded yet from the camera of us with Heather and Dan...an update soon!

Weekend Fun

That's right...Nascar was this weekend! We only went to the Saturday race but let me tell you, it was still plenty of Nascar. It was a lot of fun. At the beginning of the race we picked our winners and mine won! Brent is always loyal to Carl Edwards, but my pick #16 Greg Biffle won! :) I'm not smug about it or anything :) The race got a little long, with a lot of crashes, running into the walls, and blown tires that slowed the race down by at least an hour. It was an experience! Here are some pics from Nascar:

On Sunday, we went to the Hoover Dam and to Lake Mead. The Hoover Dam was actually really cool. I'm not usually all that interested in taking tours or finding out about all the history or what goes into making things work, but it was very interesting. It was a ton of concrete! Afterwards, we went to Lake Mead and took Bella swimming. Apparently the water is about 80 ft below its normal water level- you can see the bathtub ring line on the rocks, kinda cool.