Idaho/Utah Retreat

Our yearly Bear Lake Trip with the Otte family was changed up a bit with the location being Burley Idaho at Grandpa Vern and Grandma Donna's. But different location didnt mean less fun. With nieces and nephews, cousins, and couples it was sure great to see everyone.



Cookouts, camping, shooting, and lets not forget golf made for a busy weekend.

Preston taught me how to shoot a 12 gauge shotgot and after chickening out the first time and then much persistence from Preston to just try it. I shot this huge gun and guess what I took one shot and one shot only. But to make things even better, I shot the clay pigeon on my one and only shot.

Its only funny because between Preston and I it is semi normal for me to do/get things on the first try. When we were dating he took me fishing, I did one cast that day and my one cast caught a fish. 4 years ago we were visiting his grandparents and were shooting a 22 at a soda can. I took 3 shots and they all hit the can. So I am glad I could continue my tradition but to be honest the gun was so big it scared me to even pull the trigger.





We played games, made ice cream and just had a great weekend.



We were super excited to see our nieces, Alexis has changed so much in 6 months, we couldnt believe it. And miss Olivia lost her two front teeth and looks like she is ready for 3rd grade instead of 1st. Time sure does fly when you are away.




After our Otte reunion we headed to Logan for a couple of days where Preston did some fishing and I did some visiting.







Who knows maybe we will be back up towards Utah sooner then we think.

4 Years and a Wonder of the World

For our 4th Anniversary we decided to do some Arizona exploring. With one of the wonders of the world just a couple hours away a trip to the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff was an easy decision.

I was even able to see my good friend Kelly, who is firefighting this summer up in Flagstaff.



After a couple of days in Flagstaff and visiting the Grand Canyon we made the beautiful drive home through Sedona. Preston did a little fishing in Oak Creek Canyon and I took in the sights.

We finished our trip up in Phoenix where we were able to see the Clarks, who were over visiting from Australia.


A great way to celebrate our 4th Anniversary with forever still to come.

6 Month Update almost complete....I went to Haiti

This section of the update deserves the most amount of time of all but I want to post about it all when I have collected the photos from all the other team members from our trip. For now I will sum it up quickly.

I went to Haiti with a medical team out of Tyler, Texas called Mercy Works. It was the most eye opening and rewarding experience. I have been waiting to go on a medical mission trip since I was 16 years old and it was the main reason I wanted to study something in the medical field when I went to college. Now 9 years later I was able to go, RN license and all, and the experience has only made me want to do medical missions throughout my life. Here are only a couple of photos from the trip.

Some serious packing...the sleeping bag never made it to Haiti.

I like to think someone really needed it.

Our trusted ambulance that took us to our mobile clinics each day.

One of the last families I triaged on my final clinic day.

This little girl loved her bubble bee gift.

One of the tent cities in St. Marc

I would like to thank Preston for his unfailing support. My mum for helping me gather needed supplies, her master packing skills, and for watching the boys. For Ky's mum, Kris, in lending me needing supplies, thank goodness for scouts back in the day and for Fred and his backbacking supplies. Many thanks to family and friends for keeping me in their thoughts. A big thanks to Stephanie Morgan, Preston's cousin, for going first and then telling me over and over again that I could do a trip like this.

I promise to share more as I gather photos and edit the video clips from the trip.

6 Month Update....Belated birthday celebrations in April

For my birthday this year, Preston surprised me with a hot air balloon ride. I was so excited and we were scheduled to go two weeks after my birthday. Well Tucson decided to have rainy weather on almost every day we had off together and we had to keep canceling. So with much anticipation we were so excited to go in April and it was well worth the wait. It was so much better then I could have imagined. I thought the ride would be rocky and that the basket would sway all over the place, but it was nothing like it at all. The ride was so smooth and you couldn't even tell you were moving. It was a a beautiful day and you could see all over the city of Tucson.

Our hot air balloon being blow up.

Getting bigger and bigger.

It was an early morning.

The beautiful view over Tucson.

I was so thankful for my awesome birthday gift.

Lake views (man made) and all.

The shadow of our balloon... getting closer to the houses on our descent

As I mentioned above, the whole ride was smooth sailing and pretty uneventful until....we went to land. I didn't know this but there isnt an exact way to steer a balloon. As we are flying a ground crew follows us and helps us to land. I had imagined landing in this large open field of some sort, similar to what we took off in. I sure was surprised as we started to descend in a residential area and seriously came so close to the roof of a house I thought we were going to knock off the antenna. We landed in the middle of a street in a residential area and all of the home owners came out to see what the noise was. They were sure surprised to see a hot air balloon in front of their house. The male passengers had to get out and help walk the balloon to a bigger section of the road so that the balloon could be deflated

It was a great experience and an awesome birthday gift.

6 Month Update....March Madness

To celebrate our good friend Kylee's birthday we had a little birthday surprise at Olive Garden.
Shane, Ky's husband, had been doing a college bracket for the days leading up to Ky's birthday. Each day she would have to choose between two teams and her gift would depend on the team she chose. On her birthday, Kylee had to choose between her alumni school, Utah State, and Shane's current doctoral school, the Univ. of Arizona. It was a hard choice to make, the Aggies vs. the Wildcats.

The fateful envelopes...

Final answer....Utah State!

And the gift....Grand Canyon trip with the Otte's in the fall.

The Otte's and the Thompsons + May trying to eat some Olive Garden

6 Month Update....Forget May flowers, we get them in March

March was an awesome month. We went to Catalina State Park just as the desert wild flowers were blooming. We took the puppies and they had a blast. With the snow that was melting from a top the mountains we found some water in these natural pools that the boys had a blast in.

Mexican Poppies covering some of the hillside.

Wilson and Charlie actually following a stay command as we got a photo.
(Dont mind Char's awkward wide stance...you take what you can get)

They were such good dogs on this day. Poor Charlie got caught by a Cholla cactus right in his face. No worries though, we got it out with the help of a fellow hikers pliers.