Manly Milestone

(Andrew, as a boy)

About 2 months ago Andrew started talking about guns and buying a gun for himself. I am not exactly sure what spurred it... but in order to convince me WE needed one, he talked about food storage, self-defense, blah...blah...blah... My dad had guns in his closet and owned one at the age of 12, however, I for some reason wasn't too exited about having one in our house. But, since he persisted in researching online, and talking talking... I realized that it wasn't just a faze. By the time Father's Day weekend rolled around I knew Andrew was going to want to take me to see the gun he found at Sportsman's Warehouse.......So that I wouldn't have to endure another conversation of him trying to convince me about why he should get one, I decided to surprise him by getting him a large gift card. I had guessed it--the first thing he wanted to do was drive Sportsman's Warehouse. He found one he liked and the funny thing is that in the end I had to be the one buying the gun, using the giftcard I bought him because Andrew was going to be late for his softball game. How ironic :). Anyway, needless to say he is pretty excited!

Here is a picture of the gun Andrew bought:

Madison Naomi (Skeen) Miller

Here's our first niece! Kristen and Kevin had their first (of many to come :) on May 22. When this picture was taken, she didn't have a name yet. She's dang cute though, and keeps getting cuter. Rachel and I go and visit as often as we think Kristen and Kevin will allow without getting tired of us. We'll have more pictures to come of Madison and her favorite person (uncle andrew).

Timpanogos Cave

Today Andrew had the great idea of going on a hike up to the Timpanogos Cave. It was about a 1.5 mile hike to the cave entrance and the actual cave tour lasted about 45 minutes. It was a beautiful day and when we got there we found out that today was the opening day of the season! We learned all about calcite, helictites, stalactites and stalagmites (I admit that I had to look the terms up).

Inside the cave

Squeezing through narrow walls

The Heart of Mt. Timpanogos

Inside one of the chambers

Awesome view outside

It's Official!

This past Friday, I was handed a diploma and awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising and Marketing Communications. Jenni, Kristen and Kevin graduated too! So, Wednesday night both Andrew's parents and mine flew in to spend the weekend celebrating. We flip-flopped between families and got a lot of free meals out of the whole thing :). It was just nice to see our family again and to feel their support and to laugh with them. Andrew is in the process of finishing the one online class he has had since he walked last August so in a couple of months we will get to say that we are both BYU grads!

Tax Return

On Thursday, the day after my mom got into Utah, she called and asked if I wanted to go to lunch with her, Grandma, Aunt Julie, and Mitchell at Jason's Deli. Since Andrew had the car, Julie came to pick me up. I stopped by my mailbox on the way to the car and was excited to find our $227 tax return from the State of Utah. I took it with me into the car and decided that I would leave it inside when we got to Jason's Deli. After lunch when Julie dropped me back off at my house I didn't see the envelope anywhere in the car. Julie told me that when she dropped us off at the entrance before she went to park she saw a piece of paper float in front of the windshield and didn't think about it. We rushed back to the parking lot and Mitchell and I laid down on the asphalt to look and asked the 3 stores there if an envelope had been found outside. Unfortunately, it was a VERY windy day and Julie seemed to think that if it had caught wind it would have flown over the highway to the fence line on the other side. So here I was, 1 hour before Convocation for graduation, hair curled and all, traffic piled along the highway, as I ran back and forth along University Parkway in search of my tax return. Right when I was going to give up, I found the envelope to the tax return there at the end of the ditch. I was stunned, but the only thing is there was no check inside. It looked like the envelope had been run over several times as there were tire marks on both sides and we wondered if somehow the check had been separated. We drove around to the park on the other side of the fence to see if it was on the field. But, right as we drove up a huge recycle truck had just picked up a bin and the wind had blown out most of the papers from the bin so they were soaring in a tornado toward the park field. We were so discouraged. By the end, we had found the envelope, but no check. I went back the next day to briefly look again, but still couldn't find it. Andrew and I faxed in a form to cancel the check and hopefully get a new one sent if someone has not somehow cashed it. We are keeping the envelope for memory's sake, but it was overall a very odd experience.

Shreadin'

I went snowboarding for the first time with Andrew and Clayton in March. We went to Brighton at night. I started out on the bunny hill and went down the big slope at the end. In the first clip notice Andrew warning me to watch my front edge just before I bite it.


Didn't quite get the "carving" down, but I had a lot of fun. Next time we'll get more clips of Andrew--an avid snowboard instructor in his day.

McCall in February

We headed up to McCall, ID Valentine's Day weekend to spend some time with family and check out Uncle Paul's cabin after the crazy winter. There was 6 feet of snow at his place. We snowmobiled on a frozen over lake and found a river that was sort of like a half-pipe. Check this out.