Becky, Jared and Sarah
Washington
December
Jan 2nd
We have done a lot this last month so buckle up and enjoy the ride.
December 1st-16th- School, work,and everyday life.
December 17th-18th- The weekend after finals ended we drove down to Arizona for a wedding. We caravan-ed up with Jared’s sister, Nicia, her husband Joe, their daughter Alyssa, and Jared’s step sister Caitlin. On the way there we stopped in Vegas. We found a room at Circus Circus for less than $30 a night! Once we checked in we hit the strip. The first place we stopped was Ross, much to the boys annoyance. (For reals, we have a Ross in Orem!) What can I say it was one of the only stores that we could actually afford and they have a bigger selection then the one that is close to my house. Well, as all Ross shoppers know it takes a little bit of time to shop at Ross. So the boys ditched us and started walking to M&M World. If any of you have been to the strip, that is over 2 miles away and they took my 2 year old niece, Alyssa, with them. Well, when our shopping was complete we called them up to see where they were only to find they had been walking for almost an hour. So, we were advised to take the Monorail so that we’d get there about the same time.
We met the boys who only had to wait for us 10 minutes or so. While in M&M World we went to a 3-D movie, entitled “I Lost My M in Vegas” or something similar. (Nicia and Jared both thought the movie was out of focus and you had to cross your eyes so much to get it in focus. We left with headaches…)
Dinner was the next item on the agenda. We ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory at Caesar’s Place. At dinner we meet up with Dave (Jared’s Dad), Kathy (Jared’s step mom), Emily (Sister), and Justin (Step brother who would be married in a few days and the reason for the trip in the first place) Here is us at Caesar’s Place.
After dinner we all walked over to watch the water show at the Bellagio. It was a Christmas theme this time. By then we were all wiped out and our feet and taken enough so we went back to our hotel and ended the night. Here are more pictures of us on the strip.
In the morning I was still set on exploring so I dragged Jared around with me and we explored Circus Circus while everyone else had a nice relaxing morning. But unfortunately for us there isn’t that much to do in the morning in Vegas. So we did what we did the one activity you can do at 24 hours a day in Las Vegas. We gambled. We put a dollar in the penny slots (I know we are high rollers, but they wouldn’t take anything less). When we got to around 90 cents we won some pretty good odds and got back to $1.33.
Then we continued playing the slots until we were back at $1 and then we got our voucher for the dollar. So we made out even with our Vegas Gambling Spree. It was actually pretty fun. What was not so fun was the drive ahead of us. We actually took the wrong way and added 2 hours to our trip. When we got there it was dinner time and we stopped at Peter Piper Pizza for dinner. Jared’s first job was at Peter Piper Pizza and so he was supper excited.
We stayed the night with a old family friend, Ashley. (Thanks Ashley)
Wedding December 19th- Justin and Stephanie were married in the Mesa Arizona Temple on December 19th for time and all eternity. The Sealer had some great words of advice. One thing that stood out to me was when you look at your wedding rings they are made out of precious metal and stone. So, when you look at your wedding rings you should remember how much more precious your spouse is. He also talked a lot about cherishing and treasuring your spouse. It was a nice sealing.
After that we had a nice luncheon. We decided we wanted to go see a movie, so we used our phones to find out the times and a theater close by. When we got to the theater, Nicia went first and found out they were going to charge them $6.75 for Alyssa! So they said “forget it” and so Joe, Nicia, Caitlin, Jared, and I just hung out, ate ice cream, and walked around stores until the reception started.
The reception was of course really nice and wonderful. On the way home from the reception we stopped at Joe’s Uncle’s house to pick up Caitlin’s luggage, since she was coming home with us so we could get an early start on our way back to Utah. There Jared got to ride in this car.
It is an Ariel Atom. It is the fastest accelerating street legal car ever. Jared recognized it from his racing games on his Xbox 360. Needless to say, he experienced the acceleration first hand. He thought it was awesome….
December 20th- Drove back to Utah. The biggest event was driving over the Hoover dam
December 21st --We attended the reception of Kevin Wiest, Jared’s best friend’s (Scott) little brother.
December 22nd- We babysat for my brother David. He only asks us to baby sit once a year so we try to help out. His kids are amazing to baby sit because they love to watch movies and can watch movie after movie. A babysitter’s dream. (And we like movies too, so it’s easy to watch it with them)
December 23- We drove to Washington. The roads were okay. When we arrived Jared and I had dinner with my parents and then went and played games with my cousins. We learned how to play Bang! My brother Justin and his family (wife: Beth and four children: Nathan, Hailey, Brooke, and Ryan) and my brother Mark and his wife Emily all arrived later that night.
December 24th Christmas Eve- We had a relaxing morning and then ate our traditional Christmas turkey dinner. My mom always outdoes herself. We had turkey, homemade rolls, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, jello cake, and too many pies. It was delicious, THANKS MOM!
Then we had our Christmas program. Justin read the Christmas story with his kids acting it out. Hailey and Nathan both played Christmas songs on the piano and all the kids opened a present.
Christmas December 25th- We started out the day opening presents. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, chatting, and eating. Hailey, Brooke, and I played “Pretty, Pretty, Princess.” This was a favorite of mine growing up. You get to put on jewelry as part of the game. I never won though. Brooke won and then Hailey won.
Jared and I also went over to my Uncle Phil’s where we played a bunch of games with Brittani, Taun, Tim, Aunt Meg, and Jessica. Uncle Phil even made us his delicious wheat scones (Thanks Uncle Phil)
December 26th- Emily had her baby shower. Emily (my sister-in-law) is expecting twins, a boy and a girl. Her sister’s planned it and did an amazing job. They really outdid themselves as you can see from the pictures. 
December 27th-Went to sacrament meeting and then drove back to Utah. Jared drove the whole way. What a man! (This made our trip driving for this month around 2850 miles). When we arrive in Orem we stopped at Jared’s Mom’s house and opened our presents there.
December 28th- Andrew (Jared’s brother) and Starrie welcomed their beautiful baby girl into the world. She is truly a beautiful baby, we only hope that we will be so lucky. 
After that we went to Jared’s Dad’s house and opened our presents there. Sorry, no pictures
December 29 and 30 were spent going to work and relaxing at home.
Decemver 31st Jared’s Birthday. Jared and I both worked in the morning/afternoon. After work we went to Jared’s Mom’s home for pizza and chocolate cupcakes. We were able to chat with his parents and Andrew and Starrie. We also stopped my Jared’s Grandparent Robin’s. We celebrated midnight on the freeway driving back. The romantic part about it was that we could see the fireworks going off in a few different places.
HAPPY NEW YEAR. Thanks for staying with us for that marathon post. We hope you had a wonderful 2009 and will have an even better 2010!
Pasco Fun So Far
Aug 7th
We’ve done a ton of stuff in Washington so far and wanted to write it all down before we forget.
Geocaching
Of course, the first thing I need to talk about is the geocaches we’ve found. Becky’s mom had read about some of our geocaching adventures on our blog and was curious as to exactly what it was and where you found them and everything. So we took her to a few caches close to where they live (and by close, we’re talking 30 minutes away closer to town around the Wal-Mart). We found a cache in the middle of a sage brush field, and we found one in more sage brush by a Lowe’s, and found a skirt-lifter behind a grocery store. So she got a pretty good idea of the different kinds of finds there are out there. She thought it was pretty fun.
We returned home and told Becky’s dad about the caches we found and he wanted to try finding some. I told him there was one that we could only get with four-wheelers. I told him the area the cache was hidden, and he said he was going to take us on a trip there anyway. So the next day we went out on a four-wheeler trip to find this very remote cache (Green Island GC19WCE). It took us a few minutes to find it, but sure enough, it was there. We all signed the log and continued on our trip.
The last notable cache we came across was a micro (almost a nano). We spent a decent amount of time finding this one. The day before, we found a cache in a cement barrier close to the entrance of a freeway. When we got to the cache location, we found the same cement barriers there so I automatically thought it was in there. So we looked around and couldn’t find anything. Then I took a second look at the GPS and we were about 20 feet away from it. So I moved 20 feet and was at this tree. We looked all over the tree and couldn’t find it. Then we looked all over the cement barricades again. Then went back to the tree. As I was walking around the tree, I was looking down at the GPS, looked up, and spotted it. Here’s how small this bad boy was.
Family Fun Times
As you already know, we went four-wheeling. We did some crazy stuff on them. After we found the geocache, we played in the mud by the river. Katie got stuck in the mud so we took our shoes off and helped get it un-stuck.
Then we continued on and found a nice hill to try the four wheel drive system on the machines. We went up some pretty steep hills. Becky said one time I was only on two wheels for a few seconds!
Then I actually got to do something productive (besides playing) out here. Somehow I found out Amy’s computer had died. So I offered to take a look at it. Somehow, Windows had corrupted itself and pretty much had to be reinstalled since it wasn’t offering any options to try and repair the system files. She had taken it or had someone look at it before and they said they couldn’t do anything for her. Fortunately, they gave her an external enclosure. I took the hard drive out of her laptop, put it in the enclosure, and used my Mac to read all her files. I was able to recover everything she wanted: documents, pictures, music, movies, that sort of thing. Fortunately #2, she had the operating system recovery CD. So I put the hard drive back into her computer and reinstalled the OS. Then I installed all the software and updates and put all the files back on her computer. She was so surprised and delighted at what I had done that she offered to take us to lunch, so we went to Mongolian Grill!
Then you already should know about my ER visit. So that’s all the good times for now (at least that we have pictures of!)
Getting All Better
Aug 6th
After spending 3 hours in the ER, I was handed a prescription for two antibiotics and told that if the swelling goes outside this purple line (they drew around my current swelling) then I should come back for some IV antibiotics. (Yeah, 3 hours for that…) So we leave the hospital around 12:45. At this point, I’m really frustrated that I waited that long when they could have had me out of there in no time that I want to do something fun. So I remembered this geocache by the Timpanogos Regional Medical Center back home and thought that someone might have left a geocache by this hospital. Turns out they did! (Geocaching App for the iPhone strikes again!)
So we went across the street, Becky got out and found it (since I had a gimp foot at the time). Someone placed it when they were at the hospital when their baby was born, so it was a camo taped baby bottle. We signed the log, returned it, and went in search of a pharmacy that was open. We were seeing if there were some around Pasco, and I told Bex to go to one around there. We get there, and it’s not a 24 hour pharmacy. So then I looked up a 24 hour pharmacy and it’s in Kennewick. So to make a long story short, due to very recent construction around that area, the iPhone wasn’t up to date on its directions and we took a few wrong turns. But eventually we found it! I took my first dose right there in the store and we made it back home around 2:30 AM. Exhausted, we went to bed and were out pretty fast.
The next morning, I woke up around 10 AM. Nicia actually woke me up by calling Becky’s phone. Then I realized what time it was and thought I’d better get up and take my medicines. But fortunately, my foot wasn’t in agonizing pain! It was only dully sore. So thankfully, I’m on the mend and should be perfectly fine. You can see how bad my foot got on the previous post, but as of this afternoon, this is how my foot is looking.
Emergency Room
Aug 5th
That’s right, baby, I’m blogging from the ER! So as you can tell from the picture my right foot is super swollen and in a TON of pain. I was going to go tomorrow but the pain is showing no evidence of subsiding. Anyway, the last time my foot felt like this was when it was infected, so I decided I might as well go in since I’m pretty sure it’s infected. So I’m expecting the IV’s of antibiotics and the works. The nice thing is that we’re at the hospital Becky was born at! Woohoo! (Can you tell I’m having fun?) Anyway, this will probably cut Mt. Rainier out of our vacation since I can’t go hiking. I promise a nice uplifting blog tomorrow.
The Drive to Washington
Aug 1st
Today, we made a trip to Washington where Becky grew up. The trip usually takes 10 hours. We have made this trek a few times before so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary trip wise. What was different is that my Mom’s family is joining us for some of it! YAY! So in the morning, we did some geocaching around their house while we waited for them to finish up packing. We only found one of the two we tried… sad day. Then we hit the road and started going. Hailey was in the car with us and Becky and her listened to Harry Potter all the way until Boise. About 50 miles south of Mountain Home, I got a call from the car behind us… my mom “somehow” chipped her front tooth. So they made arrangements to see a dentist in the Boise area who Clyde has hook ups with. So we gave them Hailey back, had lunch, and went on with our journey… and never heard from them again. SCARY!! Hope they made it up here all right.
Fortunately for me, Becky drove from Boise to Baker City. We decided to switch in Baker City. With me driving, I decided I wanted to find a geocache and drop off a travel bug there. So we went and tried finding a travel bug hotel. After finding the area described in the hint, we couldn’t find the cache. So then we searched again for nearby caches and found one close by that would be big enough to hold a travel bug. We found one by someone’s house out in the middle of Baker City. It was a pretty cool cache. It had some DVD’s for trade. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a DVD with us to trade, but there was a couple Disney movies (and a couple cheap movies). It was a pretty interesting cache. So now on the geocache map page, we’ve added a new “Northwestern” area cache map. We’re going to be adding a few caches as we find some more around Washington. We’re also going to hit up Idaho on the way home so we can add another state to our map on geocaching.com. Anyway, we’ll add more post as we do more stuff in Washington.
