How To Survive Riding in the Bed of a Tailgate-less 1990 Ford F250 Whilst Driving Up a Mountain

Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend), Me, Jayni, and Devon road tripped up to Grace, Idaho for a "weekend away" at Jayni's parents' ranch.

We arrived late Friday night, shot the breeze for a while, and then went to bed. On Saturday, we had a full, fun day planned, starting with a little cow branding (which I have vowed never to do again, because I just feel bad for the poor things).

Devon trying it out.

Then, we did a little horseback riding (it was Devon's first time on a horse).

 He liked it.

 After horseback riding, we decided to head over to the Caribou County High School Rodeo Finals (high schools treat rodeos like sports?) But we had some time to kill before that started, so we went to town to pick up some flowers for grave decorating that would be taking place on Monday. Jayni held the flowers on her lap in the car for point two seconds, and ended up looking like she peed all over herself.

She was sad, but I viewed this as a wonderful photo opportunity.

We also stopped by a "haunted" old hotel/museum and a little geyser. Then we went to the rodeo finals.

Doug and Peggy.

I look like I have no left arm. 

After the rodeo, we got some FOOD. Then we went back to the ranch, did some reading in the hammock, and prepped for our bonfire up the mountain that evening. 

 And here's where the real adventure begins. We packed up Doug's 1990 Ford F250 that he only uses for driving around the ranch. But there's only 2 seats in the front of the truck, and we had 5 people. So naturally, Me, Jayni, and Devon needed to sit in the back. We set up some camping chairs and got ready for what we thought would be a fun 3-4 minute drive that would not be life threatening in any way, shape, or form.

Oh, how naive.

We started like this:

Happy Happy Joy Joy

And that soon turned into this:

Holding on for dear life. 

The back of the truck had no tailgate, and it's not like our little camping chairs were nailed in or anything, so we were all holding on to each other's chairs to try to stay secured. It was bumpy back there. And, before we knew it, we were driving up unnaturally steep and completely unexpected inclines and through (and under) very lush shrubbery, which meant that we were constantly ducking (or getting smacked in the face by angry tree branches) and I was frantically trying to keep my head and neck covered because, I kid you not, spiders were falling on me off of the trees. SPIDERS!

We almost lost Jayni once and Devon twice. We did lose two chairs at one point too. I ended up sacrificing my body to save a lantern from flying out the back of the truck.

When we finally arrived at our final destination, safe and in tact (besides some high blood pressure), we (and by "we," I mean Doug and Devon) built a bonfire, set up dinner, roasted hot dogs, told stories, and then, of course, roasted smores. Which = happiness in my book, any day. It felt like camping. And I, actually, happen to love camping.

Then, it got really dark outside, but the moon (which was a full moon that night) hadn't come up over the trees yet. And I was starting to feel certain that a cougar was hiding in the trees waiting to make its attack. So Peggy says to Doug, "Doug, why don't we pack up and go?" And Doug says, "No, I want to wait until the moon is up so we can see...the truck doesn't have headlights." To which Peggy responded, "Excuse me? No headlights? You brought us up to the middle of the mountains in a truck with no headlights?! We're leaving right now." At that point, you couldn't really see the path through the trees at all. Doug kept trying to reassure us all it would all be fine when the moon came up. But Peggy wasn't having it. She said, "Go turn that truck around, we'll put out this fire, and then I'll walk ahead of the truck with the lantern if I have to. No headlights? That was really well thought out Doug." So Doug went and spent what seemed like 20 minutes turning the truck around without any headlights while we let the fire die more. Then we packed up the truck and Doug told us to start walking so he could drive over where the fire had been. As we were walking, he kept shouting, "faster, faster!"

And then he turned on his headlights. And Peggy said, "Doug!" And the rest of us laughed a little, said, "We knew it!" And then got in the back of the truck and prepared for the treacherous downhill drive home, which actually wasn't that bad. (Though I did have to have Devon keep checking my body for spiders all along the way - true story.) But we made it safely. And then we all took some MUCH needed showers.

Sunday was church and some more Hammock reading on the porch. Then some great grilled T-bones and games.

             
We left Monday after lunch. It was a great weekend and we were all exhausted.

Worth it.

Also, Devon and I concluded that we would need to probably always live in the city. Ranch life is great to visit, but not for us.

Labor Day Weekend Part 2

Here's some better pictures from last weekend that I pilfered from the bestie's blog:

Yeah... it takes a lot of work for me to get a good picture with Chad. You can see why...

Labor Day Weekend

The three day weekend was MUCH needed - and it was rather lovely. I got to spend an extra day with Chad because he had Monday off too, AND my bestie Shannon came to visit, so I got to see her too:

To celebrate Labor Day, we slept in (I didn't get my butt out of bed until 11am - I didn't even feel bad about it!) and then went to a delicious Mexican food lunch at Los Hermanos. It was perfect weather, I was with two of my most favorite people in the world, and I was eating great food. It was a great day. The worst part was having to say goodbye.

Goodbye's = not my thing.

One, You're Like a Dream Come True...

Yay for another weekend update!

No but really, my weekend was very nice. WAAHAY too short, but nice just the same.

On Friday I got a text message from one of my freshman year roommates, who I haven't seen in a long time, saying that she was in town for just that day and asking if I had time to come see her. Well, let me tell you something. Even if I didn't have the time, I would have MADE time to see her! I was so excited to hear from her, so right after work I went down to Provo and met her at the BYU volleyball game where I got to (finally!) meet her sweet little baby girl, Harper, and catch up on the last year or so.

Sometimes when you're a [almost] 24-year-old in Utah who hasn't been in school for [almost] 2 years, you tend to get a little lonely. In my case, all of the good friends that I made while I was at BYU got wise and ditched this crazy place (and most of them got married too). I have friends in DC, AZ, CA, CO, MD, NV and now GA - which often leaves me all by my lonesome in UT [wishing upon star after star that I could just get out of here too!], so I get REALLY excited when one of my favorite friends is in town and wants to see me. It was funny because when I got to hold Harper in my arms, I realized wow, it's been 6 years since I met Whitney in the King Henry Apartments that I lived in my first year in UT, and now she has a family and is moving to GA. Sometimes, it feels like King Henry was only a year or two ago. Sometimes it feels like a different lifetime. But, out of the 3 roommates I had my freshman year that I was good friends with, all 3 are married, all 3 live outside of UT, and all 3 have at least one kid. And Harper was the first of those kids that I got to meet. And she is perfect.

It was fantastic seeing Whitney again and I got an added bonus since she ended up marrying a guy from a group of friends we hung out with back in 2005/2006, so I got to see some other friends from back then that I haven't seen in forever. It was great to see Eric (who we call May) and his wife Lindsy (who is due in 3 weeks!) too! Eric, Lindsy and I all worked together at Brick Oven back in the day. And now we all hate that place. Some of us [me] with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of actually seeing my own boyfriend (since I only get to see him on the weekends, if I'm lucky) and we went to a Brian McKnight concert! I guess I'm one of those special white people who listened to and loved R&B in the late 90's, early 2000's and, let's be honest, I still listen to it all the time now. (Boyz II Men Pandora station - listen to it, you won't get let down). Thankfully Chad loves R&B too, so he got us some tickets to the show and it was fan-freaking-tastic! Brian McKnight's voice is like a dream and he is such a talented song writer. He played the whole show on just his piano and guitar (no band), did impressions, made us laugh like you wouldn't believe, and was extremely humble and down to earth. By far, one of my favorite shows I've ever been to (and I've been to some goodies).

Ok - Pictures:

Yay! I had friends again for one night!

And just in case you missed the concert or haven't ever heard of Brian McKnight and therefor can not yet appreciate his creative genius [Mom I'm looking at you], here's a little taste of what I got Saturday night:

Boondocks

Here's a few pictures from my weekend:

Boondocks Arcade... I won, of course.

Waiting in line for the go carts. It was toasty out there!

On Friday my work had a "family party" at Boondocks Family Fun Center in Draper, UT. I didn't have a family to bring, so I brought Chad instead. We had fun with our all-access passes, free food, and 20 free tokens each for the arcade. It was like being a kid again. We went on the go carts twice... the second time we had the brilliant idea to sit together in the same cart. Let's just say that was, uh, a leetle snug. But hilarious. We laughed the entire time. I then proceeded to beat Chad at the basketball hoops, skeeball (sp?), air hockey, and numerous other racing games. Ok, he won a few times, but I was the overall champion.

Chad got interrogated by all of the coworkers I have that spend too much time being interested in my dating life, but overall, we had a lot of fun. One thing I really like about Chad is that he is fun... he's goofy and weird (in a cute way) and always knows what to do to make me laugh. He doesn't take himself too seriously, which makes it a lot easier for me to be my goofy, nerdy self. Besides, he thinks I'm funny, so... it works.