The sweet sound of nothing

It's official. As of 4:30 p.m. today, I completed the LAST final I will ever take at Brigham Young University. Oh, how sweet those words sound.

All I have left to "officially" graduate is finishing up a few internship hours and writing a five-page comparison paper between the book I'm supposed to read and my internship experience. Cake? Yes. (Speaking of cake, I wouldn't mind some Funfetti with Rainbow Chip frosting ... I'll probably make it in celebration of Daniel's last final).

Speaking of Rainbow Chip, did anyone else notice they started selling it at Macey's again, after a far-too-long hiatus from the shelves. Love.

 

Well, on topics other than food (hey, I'm pregnant ... what can I say?), Daniel's coed intramural basketball team WON their division championship! Daniel got an elbow to the head, resulting in this:

Yes, it's as serious as it looks. Daniel grew a rooster-like headpiece and ninja-fashioned scarf as a result of that terrible blow. Actually, he has me to thank for his high-fashion appearance. I created that look specifically to keep the ice on his head and his hands free so he could finish his homework. I [secretly] made him wear it this way so I could take and post pictures. 

Since I'm taking pictures off my phone, here is Dan and I at the second-to-last home football game:

And moving back to the subject of food, I [accidentally] broke this spoon trying to eat some delicious leftover Coldstone icecream. I thought Daniel would be happy since he's the one who does the dishes and that makes one less spoon to wash, but apparently I was wrong. He was quite disappointed, actually.

Last of all (also food-related), I forgot to post these sweet (pun intended) cupcakes I decorated at a Relief Society activity (courtesy of Melissa Bell). I was quite proud of myself, actually. 

Well, that's it for this update. Oh, did I mention I'm done with school forever? It sounds better every time I say it. Mmmhmm. 

P.S. Christmas is only 11 days away ... can you believe it??

P.P.S. I'm so ridiculously sick of being pregnant, I'm going crazy. And the lack of sleep doesn't help.

This makes me sad...

So I saw this on Yahoo and it really makes me sad. The article is called, "Four in 10 say marriage is becoming obsolete."

Some of the things they mentioned in the article are:

"About 29 percent of children under 18 now live with a parent or parents who are unwed or no longer married ... Broken down further, about 15 percent have parents who are divorced or separated and 14 percent who were never married. Within those two groups, a sizable chunk — 6 percent — have parents who are live-in couples who opted to raise kids together without getting married."

"... about 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete."

"About 34 percent of Americans called the growing variety of family living arrangements good for society, while 32 percent said it didn't make a difference and 29 percent said it was troubling."

"About 44 percent of people say they have lived with a partner without being married; for 30-to-49-year-olds, that share rose to 57 percent. In most cases, those couples said they considered cohabitation as a step toward marriage." 

The Family: A Proclamation to the World says:

"The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

 I believe this to be true. I love my husband and I'm so grateful for him and all that he does for me and our soon-to-be family of three. I hope and pray that the family, as God intended it to be, will be able to continue and hold strong.

The article I mentioned makes me sad; my family makes me happy. The happiest times I can remember were when I was spending time with the people I love -- with my husband, who I can be with for forever -- and with my parents and siblings.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf talked about four key relationships that matter most in this past October 2010 General Conference: our relationship with God, our families, our fellowman and ourselves.

"Our second key relationship is with our families. Since “no other success can compensate for failure” here, we must place high priority on our families. We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship."

$70 for taking a survey and referring 5 friends

Some of you may have seen my facebook posts about a survey for the University of Michigan. It's actually legitimate, and though some of the questions are a little strange, you really do receive the money for taking it. You get $20 for taking it yourself, and up to $50 more for referring five people.

If you guys are interested, you can visit this link:

https://www.sph.umich.edu/vnet/vns.html

You'll need to use this coupon number to access the survey:

RKFCPE87KJL472BG

It does take about 45-60 minutes, so make sure you have the time to complete it. Also: you have to be between ages 18-24 to qualify/be eligible.

Dan and I are using the money we get from the survey as our Christmas budgets for each other ... haha. It really is nice, though!

Email, comment or facebook me if you have any questions!

What I've been up to lately

Well, all last week I kept trying to think of something that was blog-worthy, and nothing came to me.

This week, however, is a different story.

The weekend started off normal: we went to the basketball game {which was AWESOME because BYU scored over 80 points which means FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE from MAGLEBY'S! I love Magleby's}, then we went to the football game the next morning [which was also awesome because we scored enough points to get FREE FatCats bowling, AWESOME X 2]. I guess in all the walking and standing between the two games, I overexerted myself or something, because when we got back from the football game (which we came home early from so that we could watch the Utah vs. TCU game {can you say "overrated?"}, I started having these contraction thingies.

Long story short, they continued from about 4 p.m. Saturday until 10 p.m. Sunday. Around 11 p.m. Saturday we called my doctor; he called back around 1 a.m. and told me to go to UVRMC and get checked out. We went there and they hooked me up to some monitors, checked me out and decided to give me a shot that was supposed to stop the fake contractions.

It didn't.

Instead, I puked my guts out and they wouldn't let me leave until I started looking/feeling better, which was around 4 a.m. Sunday. They prescribed me some drugs to stop the contractions and I left, feeling worse than when I got there.

Great news is, the drugs work, and I haven't had to take any more since Sunday evening!

More good news: we get another ultrasound in 3 weeks! So excited to see the little man again.

More good news: I saw some funky dude by the Provo City Library on my way to campus from work who was wearing the following (use the pictures below to really capture the look):

shorts 

amphibious shoes

an ugly wool coat  (I kid you not, this exact color/length, minus the fur collar and 1/2 of the girliness)

and a coon hat

If only that dang stoplight hadn't changed colors and my phone wasn't buried deep in my coat pocket. I totally would have snapped a picture. 

Halloween happenings

We've been able to do some fun and festive Halloween activities in the last couple of days, and I thought I would share the magic through narrated pictures from Daniel's phone (which has much better resolution than mine).

This weekend we went to Scott and Kieli's apartment in SLC for a chocolate fondue party, pumpkin carving and The Game of Things. First of all, I must say that I love fondue. I think everyone gets a fondue pot for their wedding. At least we did. And so did our friends next-door (which is why we [our friends and us] decided to have our own fondue party a while back and oOoOh was it goooood). This fondue party was also awesome. Everything you could imagine dipping chocolate in (and more) was there. 

Then we carved pumpkins. Daniel and I drew our inspiration for our pumpkin from his little brother, Seth. You see, Seth has cowlicks on his eyebrows (as seen below on pumpkin model). Seth also does a facial expression he refers to as "the lip." Seth is 14 and quite the character. I will say that every family member who has seen our pumpkin has been able to tell (without a hint) that it was a rendering of Seth ... so I'd say we done did a good jarb. 

 

(A picture of Seth doing "the lip")

 Daniel and I also went to Cornbelly's on Monday for our FHE/Date Night activity. It was so fun! We were pretty horrible at the corn maze. We passed the same markers like, three times. Dan wanted to give up, but I could never live with myself if I didn't officially complete my first-ever corn maze -- so we persevered. 

While it was still light in the maze ... That didn't last long.

Who doesn't love a corn field photo-op?

P.S. do you have any idea how difficult it is to get us both in the same picture when we have a +foot height difference? 

The pig races! 

Please ignore my super scary face in this picture ... only note the sign saying "VICTORY BRIDGE." Yes, we managed to finish the corn maze and we didn't even cheat! We almost went back out the way we came, but I carved my own path (I mean, stayed within the predetermined paths) and got us to the Victory Bridge! I'm such a great navigator. 

Daniel had to be incarcerated because he wanted to give up. Sissy.

  The pumpkin tower! Notable figures included: Gordon B. Hinckley, David Archuleta, TWO BYU pumpkins and Homer Simpson.

As you can see, it was pretty awesome. We also went through a haunted corn maze, "Cornophobia," and went on a hayride. Amazing evening full of fun! 

One final thing to note: today I had another interesting bus experience. I was taking route 833 home from campus and the bus driver provided a narration for the entire ride home. I kid you not -- he literally narrated every second of the drive with comments such as, "The Provo Missionary Training Center, complete with construction ... I don't know why there is such traffic on a Tuesday, you would think it's a Monday! Which doesn't make sense because the Provo Temple is closed on Mondays ... Oh, so you're going to speed up now, eh? Hello, it's called driving 101! ... That's right, you're going to back it up, now back it up! ... We are now approaching University Parkway, where you can see the stadium!" 

And so on ... I think you can probably tell he was a little crazy, but oh-so entertaining. So I had the privilege of listening to his ranting narrations the entire drive home. Jealous?

Fairly useless bus business

WARNING: this is a post all about my experiences riding UTA throughout Provo on Friday. Common side-effects of reading this post are (1) feeling as if you just wasted 4 minutes of your life, (2) wondering "what was the point of that?" and (3) a desire to drink grape juice. 

Today started off like any other day.

Alarm: 6:40 a.m.
Shower: 6:42 a.m.
Breakfast: 7:05 a.m.
Bus stop: 7:32 a.m.

As you can see, that's all pretty normal. Uneventful. Whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying things got crazy or interesting from there, but ... well, I'm kind of saying that, I guess.

When I walked into the little boothy-bus stop-thingy, I found this:

In case you can't tell from my grainy, 1.3 megapixel cell phone camera and the pale morning light, that is an acorn with "WRITE ME" written on top. The rest of the acorn displayed this:

Elder Colton D Henrie
MTC Mailbox #185
DAR-ASU 1116
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
10/21/10

Granted, I probably shouldn't be posting this poor young elder's contact information for the world to see, but hey ... he wrote it on an acorn and left it at the bus stop, so why not?

Anyway, if you're wondering whether I took the acorn: I didn't. I left it there so that maybe a nice, single (not pregnant) young lady might find it some cold and dreary morning and subsequently realize that Elder Henrie is her true love ... or so that some really old guy with a good sense of humor would pick it up and start writing him creepy letters. That would be much less sappy and much more funny.

I wonder if Elder Henrie realized the first person who stumbled upon his message-on-an-acorn would be a married pregnant woman. Probably not.

I actually had a couple more interesting bus experiences today. In fact, the most interesting experiences since the lady with the bird in a brown bag that she kept passing to people who had the audacity to strike up a conversation with her.

I was actually late for class because two gentlemen delayed my 1:40 p.m. bus. The first gets on the bus and is clearly struggling with his cash. I see him say something to the driver, who takes his money and puts it on a paper towel. The money is soaking wet. Seriously -- completely drenched. What's interesting is this young man doesn't appear to have anything else that's wet. No wallet, no wet clothes, nothing except for a suspicious looking gallon of Juicy Juice (grape flavored), and four dripping dollar bills.

But I don't even think the grape juice was the culprit, seeing as the dollar bills were not dyed purple. The bus driver dabbed the dollars with the paper towels and shoved them in the money-thingy. Problem solved.

Next bus stop: some surfer-looking dude with a long board hops on the bus, pops in a quarter, then pulls out his wallet and asks the bus driver if she has change for a $5. No, duh. Of course she doesn't have change for a $5. If bus drivers kept money on board, it would be like the olden days when bandits could make a fortune robbing trains. Only today, they'd rob buses instead.

I personally would not want to be on a bus (or train) as it was being robbed by some bandit, which is why I'm pretty sure I was born in the days of impenetrable metal money-thingy's that eat your cash [unless it's soaking wet] and don't give it back. Duh, dude.

So, all in all, my bus rides today were actually interesting. Most of the time it's just me and the bus driver, cruising around north and downtown provo. Not today.

P.S. if there are any single ladies reading this blog, I strongly encourage you to write Elder Henrie. I'm not even kidding. And please send me any responses so I can do a follow-up story! So awesome!

A day of great news!

So, after getting off to a rough start this weekend (meaning the dreaded 3 hour glucose tolerance test that I literally thought might kill me), things are really taking a great turn! We've had several blessings to count and be grateful for.

First, I passed the GTT, so no gestational diabetes for me! Hallelujah! I was really worried about it, especially since the test itself was so difficult for me. I nearly threw up and passed out and I just might consider redo-ing the first trimester before I EVER have to do that test again. Ugh. Here's how I will celebrate:

 

(Yes, that is Turtle Cheesecake and yes, we do have 2 slices in the fridge)

Second, we heard back from Baylor Medical School ... and Daniel is IN! Oh, it's so great to know that we're "in" somewhere -- not to mention Baylor is pretty much the top med school in Texas and this is the FIRST week they sent out acceptance letters to only 10 applicants. Dang, my hubby is amazing. =)

Also, Dan is starting a new job at the MTC as a Russian teacher, which we're pretty excited about. It's amazing how blessed we've been in everything really -- especially good work during tough economic times. Dan's always wanted to teach Russian, so this is a great opportunity for him before we graduate and ship off to Texas.

This weekend was also great because my mother-in-law was in town and we got to spend some time with her and Dan's siblings. Nicole [Dan's sister] had a bridal shower on Saturday. It was a lot of fun.

I've been spoiled since the GTT with great food as well. After the test, I was so starved and weak and feeling awful that Dan took me to Kneaders, where I scarfed down a large French-dipped sandwich and a bowl of tomato and basil soup. Yum. Then, Dan's mom took us to Olive Garden for dinner ... double yum. Nicole's bridal shower was also catered by Cafe Rio ... can you say, "triple yum"? I sure can.

i love food.

All in all, things are looking good ... minus the fact that I have a huge portion of a project due in my capstone this Thursday. Hmmm, I'm kinda wishing I had a wee bit more time to work on it than I do. That's the beauty of group work, I suppose. I don't know if this semester can go fast enough for me. Wait, on second thought, I'm pretty sure it is. 

My personal "fail blog"

Ugh. I failed a test. And not just any test ... the glucose tolerance test. LAME! Now I must go to the hospital on Friday for THREE HOURS and drink [a TON] of glucose and be pricked and poked and prodded to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes.

I'm never eating sugar again. Seriously. Even my grapes tasted sour after that glucose goop. And that was four hours later.

I've never failed a test before ... unless you count BIO 100, but that 50 percent was definitely curved to an -A. So I don't think that counts. Could there be a curve for the glucose tolerance test? I would like that.

On the bright side, I'm [super] excited to go to the BYU Farmer's Market tomorrow! I've been meaning to go all month, but haven't been able to. I'm definitely going tomorrow though -- it's the last one of the year! If anybody cares to join me, I get out of class at 3:00.

I'm [pleasantly] surprised by the way this (my final) semester is going. I don't really feel like I've done anything. Well, I have an internship, and I do stuff there -- but that's like a job, not a class. I seriously don't feel overwhelmed by homework ... at all. The only class I have exams or even a final in is Russian 101 (which, btw, I don't even have to pass to graduate ... and that happens to be my sure-fire A. Go figure).

I guess that I'm just worried, because I [know] I have a serious case of senioritis, and it's like it's okay because I don't have anything to procrastinate. Or not do. Or slack off on. Really, I was kind of expecting more of a scholastically rigorous semester than this.

I'm sooooo not complaining, though. 

Although, one thing I have been slacking on is getting baby stuff. I can feel the motherly nesting sensations, but I just can't seem to get myself to rack up the baby bills yet. Maybe it's because Dan keeps calling our second bedroom "the baby storage room." The problem is, it's an accurate description. I have some serious storage to sort through before I can babify that room.

Any motivational words of wisdom?

This site has moved...

This site has moved to http://threelittlecondies.blogspot.com/

I changed my email and decided that if I ever wanted to keep up on my blog, I'd have to change that as well.

A real-live post {I'm so serious about this blogging thing}

Lately I've been having a difficult time with this whole pregnancy thing.

It's not that I'm not excited to have a baby -- because I am -- but it's more because I'm getting bigger and bigger (which is good, I know) and I can't do anything about it.

I know I'm supposed to gain weight, and I'm definitely in the healthy range, it's just so hard to try on clothes and realize ... oh, they don't fit. At all.

This Sunday was tragic. Seriously. I wasn't feeling too good, but I got up and began trying on clothes for church. Of course, I was trying everything in my closet that I thought [might] fit because I didn't want to wear one of the two dresses that I've worn to work and church for the last ... oh, I don't know ... forever. Of course, nothing worked. I felt like a whale. Well, more like a balloon. Or kangaroo. Or some sort of pregnant giant. 

Anyways, I finally found an outfit that worked. I went to my Relief Society meeting and came home for my usual before-church snack. Then it hit me. I was [sick]. Very sick. After all that work, I stayed home in bed all day and slept. How frustrating!

I don't want to sound like a whiner, or like I'm not grateful to be pregnant with the world's sure-to-be-cutest-baby-ever. It's just difficult to see your body change and know that it may never go back to its old self.  I look at all the [super] cute pregnant women in my ward and think ... oh, if only I looked like that.

Of course, while I was moping [sick] on the couch, I decided I should watch the RS General Broadcast (that I may or may not have missed due to a home BYU Football game [which was disappointing]). 

I received this loving chastisement from President Monson:

Not only are we inclined to judge the actions and words of others, but many of us judge appearances: clothing, hairstyles, size. The list could go on and on.

I have in mind the charity that impels us to be sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful, not only in times of sickness and affliction and distress but also in times of weakness or error on the part of others.

      UAdd a Note 

There is a serious need for the charity that gives attention to those who are unnoticed, hope to those who are discouraged, aid to those who are afflicted. True charity is love in action. The need for charity is everywhere.

I realized that comparing myself to others is quite the opposite of charity. Not only that, but while I lack self-confidence and appreciation for my individual worth, I am [incapable] of extending help and providing an example to others. 

So I'm working on my "body image." I'm learning to love my body now, after the baby and forever.  

A fresh attempt at blogging

So, I'm thinking ... I really need to be a better blogger. I have an excuse -- of course. You see, I switched my email account (since I FINALLY changed my name) and I get so much spam in my old email, that I just avoid it all together. Hence, I don't update/check/etc. my blog either.

I know, lame excuse. It's true though, I swear.

Well, I keep getting requests to update my blog, so I'm going to buckle down and do it {hopefully}. I suppose it would be a good idea to keep a record of baby, his development and future birth/life.

So this is me giving in to blogging pressures and creating a new blog account ... and I'll post something legit soon.

Baby Pics

I would have grabbed more from the ultrasound, but it was being very uncooperative.

Daniel + Whitney + Baby = 3!!

Привет!

Well, I'm officially the worst blogger on the face of the planet. I blame it on school, but that's really no excuse. I'm only taking three classes and doing a part-time internship!

But I guess we should announce via blogger that Daniel and I are having a baby! A baby boy, to be exact. I'm due on January 15th, 2011. Two-thousand and eleven -- holy cow. I can't believe how the time has flown by!

I'm about to graduate from BYU in less than four months, have a baby in less than five, and we'll be at medical school somewhere in Texas within a year!

Anyways ... a lot has been going on around our neck of the woods. We went to Yellowstone with Daniel's family a couple weeks ago -- so beautiful! I loved it there. I'd never been before and I thought it was awesome! Some crazy bison came migrating through our camp, brushing up against my tent while we were sleeping (which didn't even phase a very asleep Daniel), leaving us big pies on our walking path and flat out taking a nap right next to our picnic table and tent!

The next week we went to Dan's family's house in El Paso. Dan had his first med school interview out there, so we decided to make a vacation of it. Of course,  while we were there, Mockingjay came out, so we had to take the time to read it. I so want to read it again. I should probably wait until I finish school, though. We had a super fun time in El Paso and Dan did great in his interview.

Currently, I'm a weekend widow for pretty much the rest of this month. Dan has med school interviews all lined up each weekend, which is great because we're getting them all done now! Nicole and David have been kind enough to take this lonely weekend widow in and have let me hang out and eat dinner with them all weekend. And, since I'm super scared of sleeping alone in my apartment (I know, lame, right?), Nicole has agreed to come stay the nights here too.

Let's see ... I'm going to try and figure out how to post a picture of our baby from the ultrasound DVD we got, but we'll see how successful I end up being.

That's all for now, пака!

P.S. The reason for the Russian is that Nicole, Josh and I are taking Russian 101 this semester and I have kind of figured out where all the Russian letters are on the computer keyboard ... how sweet is that?!

Yes, I'm actually making a blog post!

Well, as we all know, I'm quite the blogging slacker. Basically, I have pictures from our trip a couple weeks ago to Arches National Park, and I definitely need to put them up. I haven't even put them on facebook yet!

Today was a special day, however, so I decided I would blog about it. I created a delicious soup, and though I didn't measure a single thing, I'm going to try and guess how much of every ingredient I used so that perhaps I (or others) may recreate it.

• 5 cups water
• 3-4 large potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can whole green chiles, diced
• 1 can beans, rinsed (I used pinto)
• 1 tbsp chicken bouillon
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 bay leaves
• pepper
• crushed red pepper (to taste)
• sour cream
• cheddar cheese
• lime

Bring water to a boil. Add potatoes and onion to water, boil for 5-7 minutes. Add green chiles, garlic, bouillon, cumin, bay leaves, and pepper. Boil until potatoes are almost completely cooked, add beans.  Boil until potatoes are completely cooked and remove from heat. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, cheddar cheese to your liking, and garnish with lime juice (after I squeezed the juice out of my quarter of a lime, I put the whole thing in).

I reckon this recipe would be amazing with some shredded chicken, but I wasn't in the mood for chicken so I didn't add it. This was sooooo good though! I'm planning on eating some more after my meeting tonight =)

Zion National Park

OK, prepare yourselves, because Imma bout to go BLOG CRAZY!

Seriously, though. I have some catching up to do, and I'm doing it now.

First off, I would like to present some pictures and captions from our AWESOME ZION NATIONAL PARK TRIP!!

Here's our lovely campsite.

And if you look closely, there's a squirrel that took up residence on our wheel. 

The beautiful view of Zion National Park when we woke up after our first night in Zion. 

Some lovely scenery. 

This is part of the Emerald Pools. 

This is a sideways picture of the waterfall that fed the Upper Emerald Pools.

Daniel and I below the waterfall at the Upper Emerald Pools. 

This was part of the hike to the different Emerald Pools. We met a very nice couple who had ridden a motorcycle from Vegas to Zion through the HAIL and the RAIN and all sorts of bad weather. They were from Canada and helped us out with a couple pictures. The guy kept saying, "Pictures are free, right? You can never have too many pictures!" 

This is us at the Lower Emerald Pools. There's an awesome path beneath a giant slab of rock that the waterfall flows over top of. It was beautiful! 

Here we are, cooking our tin-foil dinners. It was quite cold the first couple days in Zion, so I was trying to warm my fingers by the hot coals. The dinners were delicious, courtesy of my dearest Daniel!

 Here is another sideways picture. This was in the Hidden Canyon -- which was an incredible trail that went through this ... quite literally ... hidden canyon. It was one of the coolest hikes we did during our stay. 

Here is Daniel looking at ... something ... in the Hidden Canyon. I'm sure whatever it is he's looking at is something I told him to do, but I honestly can't remember! 

I really should rotate these pictures before I post them, but I'm tired and don't really want to. This is a pretty little spot called Menu Falls. It got its name because at one point, the spring water from these falls was listed on the Zion Lodge menu. There were cute decks that led up to these falls. It was in a really secluded area and there weren't many people there since there wasn't a marker or path to it. We received the exclusive information via a ranger tour we took one of the mornings. 

I believe this is a sideways picture of the Temple of Sinawava. This is at the very top of the canyon. There's a neat trail -- The Riverwalk Trail -- that starts here. It's really easy, but definitely beautiful. This is also where the Narrows trailhead begins, but unfortunately, the Narrows were closed because the Virgin River water was flowing at more then 1040 cubic feet per second ...  and you probably ought not cross a river moving that fast, eh? 

This is the entrance to the super-long tunnel that leads to the other half of the park. It's over a mile long, I believe. If I recall correctly, it was built during the Great Depression as part of an economy booster and employment opportunity. There were awesome lookouts throughout the tunnel ... though I'm not sure of their purpose, seeing as there were no places to pull over and look out of them. Maybe it was just for lighting purposes? Who knows. 

On the other side of the tunnel, there's an amazing trail called Canyon Overlook. It was a fun trail that led to a BEAUTIFUL view of the entire canyon. 

This is me on the Canyon Overlook Trail. Daniel likes to take waaaay more pictures of me than he lets me take of him. =)

This is us at the top of the Canyon Overlook Trail. BEAUTIFUL, right? I might also mention that Daniel is totally pro at setting up the camera on rocks with the timer when there's no one there to take a picture for us. 

We went on a trail called the Grotto, which is a really short, easy, 0.5 mile trail that connects the Zion Lodge to another stop in the canyon. While we were on the trail, we met several deer, who weren't the least bit afraid of us. 

This is a picture I took from Weeping Rock. I tried to get the "weepings" (aka, the water dripping off the rocks by the hanging gardens), but I couldn't -- so I settled for this picture. I think it's pretty impressive! 

OK, I'm going to try to explain this photo, but I doubt I will be able to do it justice. We had gotten off the shuttle at the Temple of Sinawava and Daniel started laughing at the port-a-potties. I couldn't figure out what he thought was so funny. He kept saying, "Look at the port-a-potties! Isn't that hilarious?" and I kept saying, "I don't get what's so funny?!" 

Daniel: "Yucca port-a-potties, get it?"

Whitney: "No, I don't get it. What's so funny?"

Daniel: "Yucca port-a-potties!"

Finally, I understood what he was trying to say ... Yucca (or YUCKY) port-a-potties. I played it off like it wasn't that funny, but really I was slightly embarrassed because it took me so long to get what he was saying. 

We jammed on the guitar at our campsite for a little while. Our super-sweet neighbors kept telling us to keep playing, but my fingers were pretty much dead by that point. 

Just thought this was a pretty picture. Not sure where we were for this one. 

Alright, here it is! The pride and joy of our trip! We climbed, we saw, we conquered ... ANGELS LANDING! We pretty much felt like a hardcore mountain man and woman.

Those were the chains we held on to (or clung to for dear life) as we scaled Angels Landing.

This is us at the very, very, tippy-top of Angels Landing. 

This is a sideways picture of me trying to get DOWN from Angels Landing ... which I think was equally treacherous as going UP! 

Daniel and I, looking good at Menu Falls. 

My handsome hubby rockin' out on the drive home. It was the best trip EVER! Daniel is the best husband ever for planning this after-finals getaway. 

All in all, we did 10 trails: 

1. Grotto Trail
2. Lower Emerald Pool
3. Weeping Rock
4. Riverside Walk
5. Middle Emeral Pool
6. Upper Emerald Pool 
7. Kayenta Trail
8. Canyon Overlook
9. Angels Landing
10. Hidden Canyon

It was amazing! We'd love to go back again someday.

-Whitney