Gorgeous Silver Lake Hike

We hiked to Silver Lake in American Fork Canyon yesterday and we had a nice time. We started the hike at 11:00 and got back at 2:45. Kaili was a rockstar! We stopped once to snack on the way up and then she just wanted to play in the water when we got to the top. We had a picnic there and on the way down she konked out on my shoulder. Such a fun hike! We'll definitely do it again!

Father's Day Surprise

I was pretty sure Andrew knew what he was getting for Father's Day, so I decided to add a little twist to it. I actually had two gift ideas in mind - a softball bat or a workout set (pull-up bar, push up handles, dumbbell weights). Because he guessed I was getting him a softball bat, I purchased the rest of the gifts, wrapped them and put the workout set behind door number one and the softball bat behind door number two and made him choose. It was a fun way to add a surprise to what Andrew thought was not going to be a surprise. He had no idea what was going on when I led him downstairs. In the end, he chose door number 2 with the softball bat. After he gawked over the bat, I showed him what he could have had behind door number one and I actually gave him a chance to choose the workout set if he wanted to, but he stuck with the bat. I returned the workout set the next day and that was it -- game complete!

Demolition

It was close to 11:00 pm when I had my father-in-law look at a small wall in our basement to see if it was something Andrew and I could take out so that we could fit a bed in the room without having to tear out any of the built in shelves/desk we use for work. He rushed downstairs and I swear, it took only 10 minutes from when I said yay until Andrew and Steve had that wall removed. Pretty fun having pops in town! He even went to Home Depot and put one coat of spackle on it for us.

This was my contribution:

Truck=stuck

Kind of a funny story to tell if you haven't heard it. It had been a while since Andrew and I had been on a date together and we wanted to try something a little bit different so we booked a sitter and decided to take our truck up Provo Canyon on a pretty wet day (May 13th if you remember) to site-see and maybe find some mud. Well, we took the road that forks East off of Squaw Peak Road and drove about 3 miles near Rock Canyon Campground. Although we were on a dirt road most of the way up, the dirt was pretty packed and the steep incline was no trouble. However, there was one spot were they had just re-cut the trail and the fresh dirt had turned into some very sticky mud. We should have got the hint seeing a truck just like ours parked to the left of the trail because when we started going down hill we tried to turn the wheel to the right and we slid left, we tried breaking and we slid left. Everything we did made us slide closer to the edge to the left of the road, even being in 4WD. After several attempts go reverse back up the hill or go to the right, we decided to abandon the truck and start walking.

I was somewhat dressed up in red pointed flats and I couldn't even lift my leg without them getting stuck in the mud and my foot coming out. We held hands and made it up the hill and started our assent down with no real plan in mind. It was me who decided to approach a bunch of guys target shooting to let them know what had happened and to see if they caught up with us to give us a ride. As it turns out, they were about through and we hopped in the car of two total strangers and got a lift to the Riverwoods Mall where we enjoyed carmel apples from Rocky Mountain Candy Co. and chips and salsa from Bajios. Wonderful Grandma Smith picked us up and we dropped her back off to borrow her car to get back home. We drove it back to her that night.

We hoped the next day would be dry and sunny so the mud would be easier to handle, but it turned out to be even wetter and more muddy. We decided to take the trip up with our Corolla and park it just below that spot to check on Champ and to see if we could get it moved. Trying to brainstorm, I wondered if Geico could offer "roadside assistance" and tow us out for free. After talking with them for 30 mins and explaining where we were (since we were off the map), they agreed to contract with Larry's Towing and send us their "offroad rescue vehicle" to get us out free of charge. That was all wonderful since Andrew's attempt at moving it was unsuccessful, but this time we had Kaili with us and we had a 90 minute wait with pouring rain outside and too much mud to even want to step foot outside. Well, we made it through, every single minute of the wait and eventually our rescue vehicle arrived to winch us out.

Two things we learned: We love Geico and Grandma and we will try to enjoy more simple dates in the future.