The Lincoln Highway

So the following is the much anticipated Lincoln head....yes I know you have all been waiting. If you ever want to see it in person, it is on Happy Jack Road in Wyoming; it was built in commemoration of the highest point on the transcontinental highway. I also have a picture of me with the plaque honoring one of my heros, Stephen Mather, one of the major developers of the National Parks in the United States. He is right up there with John Muir in my book. (if you don't know what I am talking about, I highly recommend the Ken Burn's documentary on the National Parks)

Colorado Crossroads

We are home from a great trip to Colorado. We are so grateful to Shawn, Kari, and family for letting us stay with them! It was so nice getting a break from school, work, needles, doctors visits and to have the opportunity to spend time together.

We spent a day in Denver playing at the zoo and aquarium. We had a lot of fun relaxing and playing. We got to see a polar bear go swimming right in front of us in a dive tank. We fed sting rays...weird but super cool. Better yet, I made it a whole day doing a lot of stuff, not without getting worn out, but still made it.

We spent another fantastic day in Denver after our creature adventures. We went to the temple and did some family work for Maheshwari, a friend of ours from India serving a mission in San Jose California. Shawn and Kari gave us tickets to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a dinner theater in town. It was super fancy with an amazing menu and was a ton of fun.

We also spent a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park. We will have to come back again when I can hike more but we did make it up to Alberta Falls which was beautiful, we also hiked to Bear Lake. On our second day we drove through the whole park to Grand Lake, it was a super cute little town. The drive made me a little nervous (ask JD and he will tell you) but it was beautiful being up high in the Rockies, even with the jagged cliffs right outside my window, the temperature was perfect and we had a fun time hiking and sightseeing.

The drives were also a lot of fun as can be seen by my fashionable TED hose. We made several stops along the way. I will post the picture of the giant Lincoln head we found on our way home. This one is a pioneer marker in Lyman Wyoming.

Denver Day 1/2

Vacation started early. As a surprise, JD had reserved an IHC Suite at the Little America Hotel for the night of Lion King. IHC has a few suites they reserve for guests at the Little America and Grand America. If they aren't reserved, an employee can get the rooms for less than 1/2 price. The suite has a two door entrance, turn down service, robes, pillow chocolates, ice bucket full when we came back from the show etc. Fancy shmance.

We ate at the Garden right next to the window with a great view of the Temple. There were a bunch of little girls with their moms that were going to Lion King as well and they would keep running to the window when not eating so we had a play by play of weddings going on etc. We went and checked out the to scale model of the temple at the South Visitor Center, it was pretty cool. After walking/sitting around the temple grounds, we made our way to the show.

Lion King was amazing.....my mouth was dropped open for most of the show and only closed when I realized it was open. The colors, costumes, set, everything was amazing. We sat next to a dad who had brought his 6 year old daughter who from what I could tell had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis. She would get SO excited anytime Timon, Pumba, or the hyenas were on the stage, it was really cute.

Super fun evening, much fancier than the hike and Zeppes we were going to do after getting back from Fish Lake until I decided to check into a different kind of hotel room (our anniversary was July 8th but we were camping with my family, so we were going to do a date night when we got home, but hospital got in the way of that). Today we head for Denver, with lots of stops along the way to keep the blood flowing, I am hoping to see a sign for the odd things that you would never stop for without reason such as the World's Largest Ball of Twine, or Tumbleweed, or something.....fingers crossed.

Archery World Cup 2010

Porec Croatia, Antalya Turkey, Ogden Utah, Shanghai China, Edinburgh Great Britain......Ogden doesn't really fit, but I am certainly glad that the third stage of the Archery World Cup was held here this week. As celebration of JD taking his last test this morning-YAY-he cut out a bit of work this evening and we went on a date to see the recurve archery finals. Free admission, free hot dog, and drink....can't complain. We got there just in time to see India take silver in the women's team event and now JD is quite interested in getting an Indian Archery Team shirt as we ended up sitting next to the rest of team India cheering on the girls. USA took first in the mens team event, a big first as in the first time the archery world cup has been held in the USA so the team was way excited. We had a ton of fun and it was a great way to kick off two weeks of freedom from school.

Progress

So this week has been going much better! I am sleeping in a bed. I was permitted to go back to work-pharmacy only-for 12 hours this week. Next week I get to do 14 hours-3 1/2 will be doing x-rays (a little scary but we will see how that goes). I can pick things up off the floor, walk and breathe at the same time, can't complain. My blood is starting to level out....at least for this week.

Highlights include I got a vacuum! I am so very excited about my Dyson. There is no sarcasm involved here, you don't believe me, there is photographic evidence, opening it was like Christmas.

Above all: JD FINISHES SUMMER SEMESTER ON SATURDAY!!!