A WEEKEND OF BREAKING RECORDS

Friday morning, Manny and I went fishing at Strawberry. We had a great time catching some big fish!

You might want to turn up the volume to hear Manny better. He really believes in jinxes. I didn't jinx him though. The fish ended up being 22 inches. That's the biggest fish for Manny to date.

Here's the 22 incher. Record number 1. He was so happy. And, he caught it on a fly pole which he doesn't use very much.

The next video is of a 19 inch fish he caught.

The picture below is of the 19 1/4 inch fish that I caught. This is record number 2. I seem to only ever catch much smaller fish, so I was glad that I finally caught a bigger one. I had to have Manny unhook it and hold it, because I may catch the fish, but I definitely do not touch them. Record number 3...I caught this on a fly pole too. This was my first time ever using a fly pole.

We caught quite a few others, but I won't post the pictures because they pretty much all look the same. All of the fish were caught on a fly pole and they were all between 18 1/2" and 22".

I thought I'd add the picture of the dead pelican that I took. It was lying on the side of the lake next to where we parked. It was really big. And, gross, I know, but I was still fascinated with it.

Saturday, we went to Scofield with my brother in-law Big Ryan and my nephew Little Ryan. Record number 4 is that I caught the most fish that I have ever caught at once time. 9...and I know that's not very many for some people (like Manny), but again, I'm not the best fisherwoman, so I was happy to break another record and catch a lot of fish. There was a total of 30 caught between us. My newphew broke record number 5. I taught him how to cast and retrieve and he ended up catching a fish all by himself with my pole. He was so excited, and I think all the adults had a better time watching him reel it in than we did catching our own fish.

And earlier today, we went fishing at Salem Pond. Manny's nephew Jared has been asking him for weeks to take him. Jared has never been fishing before, so Manny was happy to take him. I love watching Manny and Jared together. You can just tell that they absolutely love to play together. Here's a video of Jared catching his first fish, record number 6.

Manny and Jared with his first fish. Jared didn't want to get too close to the fish.

And here is a video of Jared catching his 2nd fish.

Yeah, it was a good weekend of fishing.

FISH LAKE

Manny and I went to Fish Lake the last weekend in September. We were thinking that it was going to be a little cold, but it wasn't. The weather was perfect. We had such a blast camping out. We rented a boat and spent the whole day on the lake on Saturday and caught quite a few fish. It was quiet and peaceful because the lodges around the lake were either already closed or just about to close for the season, so there weren't that many people there.

We were able to enjoy all the beautiful color changes in the mountains. Each night, we listened to the elk buguling. It would last until morning. That was probably one of Manny's favorite parts of the trip. I didn't take very many pictures. Most of the ones I took were of the lake and the mountains.

Here's a family of deer that we saw while we were fishing. We saw a lot of deer during this trip!

This is another lake that we stopped at, but I don't remember the name of it.

FALL ALREADY?

Fall is now official! Summer has come and gone in lightning speed and now it's Autumn time. I'm happy about it because Fall is by far my most FAVORITE season of all. I love all the bright colors on the mountains and on the trees that line my neighborhood. The absolute best part of this time of year is Halloween. This is hands down, my favorite holiday! I know it's still a little over a month away, but I don't care. I just couldn't wait any longer and have already started decorating my house. I'm not completely done with decorating. I've only put up a few Fall and Halloween things. I'm trying as hard as I can until Oct. 1st to put everything else up. So far, here's a couple of things I've done...

I'm proud of myself because I made this cornucopia on my own. I'm not really a very creative or crafty person. Hopefully, I'll be adding a bit more to the cornucopia and this little display on my table.

I can't wait to get into the mountains and take a drive through all the pretty colors! Happy Fall Everyone. I hope you enjoy the beautiful change as much as I do.

6 YEARS AGO...

SEPTEMBER 6, 2003

We were married in the Salt Lake City Temple. These definitely aren't the best photos. I tried to upload much better and prettier pictures from the temple, but for some reason, they just wouldn't upload. So here are a few of the pictures that I have from our reception. It was held in the ballroom of the old BYU Academy (Provo Library). The song that is playing on our blog right now is the one that we danced to at our wedding. It's about saying goodbye to a lonely life and starting a new one with someone you love. I thought it was fitting for a wedding.

MORE CAMPING

Last weekend on a spur of the moment, we decided to go camping in Mayfield. We found a nice little secluded spot, set our stuff up, and then hopped on the 4 wheeler to go for a ride and to see if we could find a lake to fish. We ended up coming upon a place called 6 Mile Pond. We happened to get there as the sun was setting. There were fish jumping everywhere! We caught a whole bunch of rainbows. They were tiny, but at least we caught a bunck. We onlystayed for about an hour or so. We wanted to stay longer, but the sun was going down quickly and we starving so we wanted to hurry back to our campsite. We got back to camp and roasted hotdogs and sat around the fire for a very long time. I don't know what it is about fires, but we can just seem to stare at them for hours.

The next morning, we woke up to three dear walking around our tent. We could hear them walking around, so we got up to look at them. Manny wanted to fish ALL day long on Saturday, so I told him that was fine with me. We knew that we were in the middle of quite a few lakes. First, we went for a ride around the area to check it out a little bit more. We discovered an old mine shaft or something. There were a bunch of really big muskrats climbing all over it...gross.

Can you see the muskrat?

What a flattering picture.

Then we rode over to Ferron Reservoir which was a little ways away to see if we could catch some fish. We were hoping to have as good of luck as the night before.

Ferron Reservoir

I didn't have any luck at all, but Manny did.

Manny was catching brook trouts. They were a little small, but at least he was catching something.

I got sick of it (actually, I got mad) after awhile because I wasn't catching anything, so we left and drove farther up the trail and found Willow Pond. I had much better luck there. We both caught a lot. I was happy that things were finally turning around for me. After about another hour or so, we were hungry for lunch so we turned around and went back to our camp site. We wanted to stay longer and try out a few other ponds that we had past, but it was so late in the afternoon that we knew we probably wouldn't be able to catch anything. Plus, we were tired and extremely dirty. The trail we had been on all day was really dry and dusty and we were both covered from head to toe in dirt. I was going to take a picture of Manny to show how dirty we were, but I never did.

I'm glad that Manny decided to go camping at the last minute. It was so peaceful and quiet. I love spending time with him out in mountains. It's always so relaxing, and I that it makes Manny really happy, which makes me happy.

I amlost forgot, on our way home, we passed an Elk ranch, so we stopped to take some pictures. They're not that great, there were so many of them that it was hard to fit them all in one picture. There were some really big ones out there.

CAMPING

Last weekend, Manny and I went camping up Fairview Canyon. We LOVE camping, but we didn't pick the best weekend to go. It was the opening of the bow hunt and EVERY available campsite was taken up. Fortunately, we were able to finally find a nice little spot. Right as we pulled in, I turned and there were 3 bucks standing right next to our campground.

This really isn't the best picture. I was trying to get close to snap a good one, but they took off up the road.

The next morning, we drove to Joe's Valley to do some fishing. That is one of my favorite places to go. It's so big and such a pretty lake. It's also very quiet and hardly anyone is ever there. The fishing pretty much sucked though. I caught a fish on my 3rd cast...and then that was it. No one else caught a single thing.

Joe's Valley

Nick, Jarron, Ryan (L to R)

I did manage to catch some wild turkeys.

My nephews Nick and Ryan, and their cousin Jarron were bummed about not catching anything.

We decided to head over to Potter's Pond to see if we would have any luck there. Ryan and Manny both had an albino on twice, but managed to get off. Again, no one was having any luck, so after a while we decided to head back home, and my brother in-law and his kids went back to their campsight. Hopefully they had more luck later that that night or the next day. Although we only caught one fish, I still had fun fishing and camping.

Manny out on Potter's Pond. He was telling Ryan to get up and get his pole because he had a bite. He was so sad the fish got off.

FAMILY

Last weekend, my cousin Tyson returned home from his mission. It was so good to see him after 2 years. His homecoming was on Sunday, so we had a bunch of family in town. My cousin Gina and her daughter, Anastyn stayed with us and I was so delighted that they did. Gina lives in AZ so I don't get to see her very often. Anastyn is about 3 1/2 months old so I hadn't met her yet and I was really looking forward to holding her tiny little body and pinching her adorable cheeks. Unfortunately, she didn't like me so much. Every time I picked her up, within minutes she would start crying. So, I really didn't do too much of holding her. But, you know who she did like? Manny...of course. All the kids seem to like him. She was so adorable with him. She would just sit and smile at Manny and make little gurgling noises. She became Manny's little sidekick the whole weekend. He held and played with her the whole time. It was so sweet to watch.

It was so great to see everyone else as well. I was able to visit with my aunt Beverly and Uncle Freddy. They also live in AZ and now that everyone is growing up, it's hard to get together as a family and see everyone. Tyson's sisters', Stacy and Cassie, and brother Jason were in town as well. They all have some of the cutest kids. Every time I see them, I can't believe how much their kids have grown. I wish everyone was closer so we could see each other more often. We always have so much fun when we get together. You can always count on eating a lot of good food, and having a lot of laughs. I'm so glad that I was able to spend time with family that I don't get to see very often, so please, everyone, come visit again! Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me at all the whole weekend, so the only picture I got was of Manny holding Anastyn at our house. And one other picture of my uncle Bill that my cousin sent me. He kept putting fake teeth in to entertain his grandkids, but really, it was entertaining to everyone.