Yes we're still alive!

So I thought I should probably post something so those of you who we don't talk to often don't start to think we died or something. We are back in Utah and doing well. Life threw us a few curve balls on our arrival home but who doesn't get a few of those. :) Nick is back at school at the U and doing great. He is going for a degree in Business Administration ( I think that's what it is now, I've lost track with how many times its changed!) and then off to med school to become an Ophthalmologist. So we have like 12 more years of school, but who's counting! At any rate, he's doing great, getting good grades and enjoying his classes. As for me, I'm currently looking for a job. I'm really not sure doing what so that makes the search a little more complicated than I expected. :) As soon as I make up my mind or run into something good I will let y'all know. Its good to be home and done with long and hard work hours for at least another 7 months. The summer was definitely a success and a wonderful experience. Sometime soon I'm going to have to post more of our pictures from out there. You take so many and then the thought of downloading each one onto your blog is just daunting. Since we have been home we have wanted to take advantage of our free time. So far we have decided we are going on a new hike each week. I threw that one off for a couple of weeks by having ridiculous allergies. I could just see myself sneezing and falling off some ledge. So after the allergies calmed down a bit we went on our first hike to Moss Ledge up Big Cottonwood canyon. It is one we've been on before but was still a blast.

So there's starting to be a theme in our hikes. We have reached our destination, everything has gone well, and then I spot something that looks like great fun to climb. I don't know why I'm attracted to steep rocky things but I am. There's just so much fun to be had, wondering the whole way up what your going to find at the top. Well, here's the first one. It doesn't look to bad but let me just tell you how many little spiders are in those rocks! Ya going up you don't need to put your hands down there to hold on but little did I realize that going down was going to be a whole new ball game. About half way up that little glitch hit me and we made a quick decent. I'm sure the falling rock and possibility of a land slide had some pull in that decision but the spiders where definitely the deciding factor. Bellow is a picture of the rocks we climbed up looking down.

Nicholaus climbing up the side of the waterfall to take a look at where it first hits. I tried to do this as well and it didn't go so good (major panic when I realized I couldn't get down) so there is no picture of me because the photographer was busy coaching me on how to get down.


Nicholaus and I before we started our way down.


These next pictures are of a different hike we went on up to Doughnut Falls. Its another well known one up Big Cottonwood canyon. This picture bellow is of a chipmunk. This little guy was fearless. He was out on the trail digging away in front of hikers and would let you get within like two feet of him. You probably are going to have to look at the picture in full size in order to see him, but he sure is cute.


We where shocked when we got to the falls because there must have been a rock slide since we where last there. You cant even see the falls from bellow now. You have to get right up there and inside to see anything. Still a pretty view though.


For some reason Nicholaus had the desire to get his head wet with the freezing water. This is the face he made the entire time while screaming "COLD!"


So this is the second rock ledge we tried to climb. I had the genius idea that if we climbed it we would be able to get to the top of the falls. Well since all the rocks had fallen I didn't think to look where they had fallen from. We get to the top of this thing and realize that all the rocks that fell came from where it used to connect to the falls. Now we have this insanely steep ledge to go down because our way is blocked. It was scary because it might not look it but this is a nearly vertical climb and getting up is always easier than getting down. We lived but Nicholaus is no longer listening or allowing me to climb anything when we are on hikes.


It was great to walk through all the tree's with there changing leaves.



Nicholaus and I so happy after we made it down from the rocks.