MIDWEST ADVENTURES

A couple weekends ago we drove 12 long hours to Tennessee.  Johnny's grandparents have been showing and riding Tennessee walking horses for most of their lives.  Each year, there is a Grand National Championship of Tennessee Walking horses in Shelbyville, TN.  It was that time of year again and so we decided that since we were only a "short" 12 hours away... we would go!  Johnny's aunt, uncle, cousins, and Papa Sid were all there in TN to greet us.  It made me get a small taste of family and made me very home sick!!  Papa took us to all his favorite restaurants and it was fun to see everything and meet everyone that I had heard so much about.

While we were there (for a short 24 hours), we went to the Grand Ole Opry, The Bluebird, visited new ranch horses, Miss Mary Bobos and several other Lynchburg, Nashville, and Shelbyville spots.  We had a blast!!

Paiger

The view from the Parish Patch

Grand Ole Opry 

Creepin' in the Bluebird

This last weekend we searched Oklahoma for something outdoors to do.  To our pleasant surprise, we found a small mountain about, 2,900 feet above sea level, and were able to experience a beautiful place with a mile or two of hiking.

Family picture

Meagan and Eric Bird, our new Cards Against Humanity and outdoors friends hahaha

Boots missed hiking, he was soooo happy to be at Wichita mtn.

Of course a nice yoga pose 

See, Oklahoma can be gorgeous... No filter even

SUMMER RECAP

Beware, this post is long... but is mostly pictures!
This summer has been a busy one!  We tried to spend as much time with family and friends as possible, all while trying to move our little family to Norman, Oklahoma.

First, I went on a trip to St. George and Zion with my best friends.  Most of these girls I went to high school with, and the others, we have adopted into our group along the way.  Rachel just got engaged so we thought we would celebrate as another hurrah before I moved and Rache got married. We are missing a couple girls due to us all being spread across the country.  Evette, Kate and Nicole- you were dearly missed.

Hiking the Narrows, with a baby... Amber and Kylie are troopers!

Next, I went to Alaska to visit my best friend Evette, and Johnny went to the cabin.  We both had a great time away on our separate adventures but missed each other a whole lot.  We kept telling each other that we had a long time in Oklahoma to spend together without anyone else... Which has proven delightfully true. 

I loved Evette and Nate's dog Bandit so much in Alaska that we decided to add a new member to our family.  Actually, if you know Johnny and I well you would know we have wanted a puppy and had his name picked out since we got married nearly 5 years ago.  BOOTS!!!!  And the night we got him, we took him up to Bear Lake to spend time with Johnny's mom, Ralph and family.  

Then, as if we didn't have enough going on, we went on a camping trip to Tony Grove with my Dad and Kim and family.  Tony Grove is a beautiful camping spot up Logan canyon where we used to go camping as kids.  Everyone in the family minus Joseph and Amanda were able to make it for some part of the trip.  It was so fun to be together reliving our childhood trip.  

My cute sis Kali with tiny little Boots

Tim helped all the kids catch some fish.  This is Mckay who was pretty darn proud. 

Our first family picture

After camping with the Kocherhans clan, we had a blast with most of the Baucom cousins up at Yellowstone Ranch.  We went on a few SHORT horse rides (Boots is sort of a time consuming little guy), ate lots of yummy food, swam on horses, played some music, and just hung out.  And together, the cousins reminisced of their cherished memories of Grandma Bob who passed away just a few days before we all went up to Yellowstone Ranch.  We are all blessed to have known such a beautiful person both inside and out.  The reason we are able to go up and visit the Ranch is due to her kindness, love and generosity towards her family.

Luisa is the best cowgirl of them all

All of these events only happened a month ago but it feels like forever, so long that I can't remember what we did next... Oh yeah!  I think our split weekend was next.  We drove 5 hours to the Baird cabin in Driggs and then we drove up to the Uintahs to go backpacking, all in the same weekend!

Cute Beckie-sue playing in the leech infested pond with the kids

Then backpacking in the Uintahs.  We went 20 miles within 3 days and Boots, only about 18 pounds and 3 months old did the whole hike without being carried.  He was a champ!!!

Can you imagine waking up to this in the morning?? haha He was a freezing pup and it was his first time getting to sleep with us.  

After backpacking, we stuck around in the Salt Lake Valley spending time with family, friends, saying goodbye to our jobs, building desks, packing, and playing with Boots.  Here are other things that happened in between that I failed to mention...

Kels got her mission call to Louisville, Kentucky leaving October 15th!

Spencer Jase Dahl was born on July 20th and we were SO happy we were able to meet him before we moved!

These little girls have so much energy and I love it!! It was so hard to say goodbye to them!

We've been together a long time and I can't imagine life without such a great and supportive group of friends.

Overall, it was a stressful summer.  I wouldn't trade the stress for anything else.  We got to do everything we wanted and spend time with many of our family and friends before we left Utah.  There are so many more pictures I could add but I thought I'd spare the few people that may happen to read this.

CATCHING A BREAK

This post is titled "catching a break" because Valentine's/Presidents Day weekend was supposed to be a good break to the life we lead.  Working, waiting for responses from graduate schools, working... It can be tiring, let me tell ya.  We were excited for a weekend getaway at the Baucom family cabin.  I was even more excited to get some good snowshoeing in.  When we pulled up to the dirt road it looked as if it had never snowed this season.  As we kept driving though, it was muddy and a little scary to drive in.  As soon as we rounded the corner to come up to Yellowstone Ranch, there was at least 2 feet of snow... We were rather confident despite the snow so we turned down the lane and BBUUUFFF, the faithful Subi high centered on the snow.  This predicament couldn't hold us back though, we put on our snowshoes and loaded all our stuff on our backs and hiked down to the cabin.  As soon as we got there, the water wouldn't turn on... I trekked back up to the car to bring down the cooler while Johnny tried to figure out the water.
Bryan and Melissa got there later that night and after many tries we were able to get the Subi unstuck.  But then the Jeep got stuck, and the Subi got stuck again, and then the Jeep... So the night went on!  After we got the cars situated, we all snowshoed down to the cabin where we sat by the fire and talked.  All our work was worth it, except we still didn't have water.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating hotdogs, trying not to dirty dishes, snowshoeing ALL over the property trying and find and fix the broken pipe, talking, laughing, brushing our teeth and peeing in the snow.  It wasn't exactly relaxing... but it was a great trip nonetheless.

Waiting Game

I detest the waiting game.  It makes me ponder too many possibilities and then I end up stressing over situations that I created in my head.  Johnny recently submitted about 20 applications to graduate school for History.  Two of these are applications within Utah, the rest range from Oregon and California to Arizona and New Mexico over to Chicago and Indianna.  As you can see, there is a wide range of possibilities of where we could be moving to by August 2014.  Not knowing which state we will be schooling, living, working, and potentially starting our family is anxiety-inducing.  I mean, this is a place that we may spend the next 5-6 years of our lives! It doesn't help that we're playing the waiting game during the winter months that seem to drag on forever without waiting for acceptance letters. 

Enough complaining though, I am very excited for whatever journey we end up with.  Johnny has worked so incredibly hard to get where he is.  It will be such a fun and exciting adventure to most likely live out of Utah and experience life with "just the two of us" (we can make if we try! Will Smith... anyone?).  So while we play what feels like the absolute worst waiting game ever, I'll try to remember that a few months really isn't that long and that I am extremely blessed to have such a hard-working husband who deserves an acceptance letter from all 20 schools. 

Some of the schools Johnny applied to are:
UCLA
University of Oregon
University of Washington
University of Colorado- Boulder
Utah State University (woot, woot! I could be an Aggie again)
University of Oklahoma- Norman
Purdue
UNLV
ASU