Yellowstone 2010

An awesome burger joint in Ashton, Idaho on the way
In front of the Artist's Paintpoints - one of the geysers at Yellowstone


A close encounter with a black bear at about 6 in the morning
A second black bear
Madeline and dad cooking breakfast in the snow
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
Madeline after a long night of sleep and me after a long night . . .

This year for mine and Diana's 6th Anniversary, we opted for the ultra romantic option of camping in Yellowstone with Madeline. In sum, it was great. You'll notice from the pictures that there is snow on the ground. That's right, despite going on June 18th, we woke up our first morning to about a half inch of snow. When I say woke up, I mean decided to get out of our sleeping bags as the cold kept me and Diana awake for all but maybe one hour during the night. Takeaway lesson: If you go to Yellowstone, always prepare for the cold. It was a great trip. We hiked down the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, saw lots of geysers, tons of buffalo, jack rabbits, heron, deer, antelope, elk, bald eagle, moose and two black bears. Madeline loved the wildlife and slept like a charm through the night even when her parents couldn't. She was surprised to see a big jack rabbit waiting outside of our tent one morning and was a little disappointed when I informed her that we couldn't go pet the bears.

All in all, it was a great anniversary.

Adam's 2010 Philippines Trip

Fort San Pedro
The Taoist Temple
A picture of Cebu City from Jacob's Apartment
The fabled Magellan's Cross

Me taking a wild ride on a Jeepney through the streets of Cebu City


A pretty funky spider

Adobo - A Filipino Tradition
A view from our room

Where we stayed

We moved out to California at the beginning of October and I started work at the end. Fortunately this left me with enough time to take a quick lil' hop over to Asia to visit my bestest friend Jacob Sohn in the Philippines. I was there for just over a week, which was not enough time to enjoy everything the country had to offer or get acclimated to the climate, but it was nonetheless enough time for a great trip.

Jacob promised me that there was no better way to start our trip than by paying a visit to the local barber . . . he was right. We got our hair cut and a good ole' fashioned shave before heading out for a feast of different Asian cuisine.

We headed out bright and early the next morning to a tiny island, Malapascua, off the northern tip of Cebu island. Getting out to the island was hilarious. We got shanghaied a bit by our boat riders who overcharged us, but the ride aboard the ply-wood sea cruiser was well worth the money. The island was idyllic; no cars or paved roads and only limited electricity. We stayed in these cool huts right on the beach, enjoyed amazing food, went scuba diving, and got scared by a sea snake. The Thresher Sharks eluded us, but that was okay.

After that, we headed back to Cebu, where we enjoyed some more food, a Philipino style facial (the most painful experience of my life), some massages, a Taoist temple, and the general sights and sounds of big city life in the Philippines.

It was a great trip. Our only regret was that we didn't have enough time to get caught up; there are only 14 hours of talking time in a day . . .

Adam's 2010 Sawtooth Expedition

I decided that, after two years, it was finally time for me to make some more contributions to the blog. What better way to make my return than to post about our ward's 2010 High Adventure camp that I enjoyed this last summer while living in Pocatello. We spent four days up in the Sawtooth mountains of central Idaho. Myself and one other leader led a group of 8 young men into the mountainous terrain. As you can see from the pictures, the vistas were breathtaking. The fishing was not great, but the great views more than made up for it. It was a rather grueling 7 mile hike into Alice lake. We had been warned about prehistoric sized mosquitoes so we can prepared with nets, 100% deet repellant, incense, and a million other remedies. We managed to avoid them quite well. On the second day, a group of us scaled (or attempted to scale) the top of Snowy Peak (I'll let you guess which group I was in), which was actually much more frightening than anticipated. All in all it was a great trip and one boy, who had vowed to never go on another backpacking trip again, had even softened up by the end.


Most of the group.
A fantastic view of the lake where we camped.
A cool shot of a couple of the boys on the way back.


A picture I took looking down on our way to the top.

El Captain, not to be confused with El Capitan of Yosemite fame.
A great view of where we camped.

Nutcracker Tea Party= Heaven!!

So if any of you were wondering why we moved to California...this is it. The Nutcracker Tea Party! Madeline loves the Nutcracker more than life itself, ever since Mimi showed her the Nutcracker ballet on VHS, the Macaulay Culkin version. Bet you didn't even know a Macaulay Culkin version existed. Well, it does, and it's not too bad. It's definitely better than the Barbie version (yes, we have several versions, insane right?!).

Then last Christmas, we went with her friend Christina and mom, Heather, to the Pocatello Ballet's Nutcracker. Madeline was only two years and four months old, and she sat quietly watching the entire thing, and stood up clapping at the end and said "Do it again!"

Since then the Nutcracker is not just a Christmas thing at our house, it is on year-round. So you can imagine our excitement when we found out that they were having a Nutcracker Tea Party here. I mean, Nutcracker+Tea Party!!! What could be better?

The cast from the local ballet performed some of their numbers, while the girls had juice and cookies, then they opened it up for questions. PS- Adam took Madeline. Adam helped Madeline ask Clara (Madeline's favorite person--because she's a girl and wears pretty dresses, of course) if the rat king was scary! Then all the kids went up and learned some "ballet" with the dancers. And thank you to Adam for not only indulging Madeline's favorite things, but also for taking LOTS of pictures!
Madeline in her whole ballerina outfit her Mimi bought her. You wouldn't know it, but about one second later, she started crying and throwing a tantrum. Yes, the girl still needs a nap, but come hell or high water, she will not take one! Does anyone have this problem with their 3 year old?
The scary rat king
Madeline was so excited that they had REAL cookies and "tea"/juice. Because we just play pretend at home. She asked me not less than 50 times if the cookies were going to be REAL!

Madeline and Spicy Spanish Chocolate
Let the dance lessons begin!
Of course, magic princess wands were provided

Not sure what they call this move in ballet

Madeline ran to Clara as soon as the dancing lessons began and did NOT leave her side the entire time!

Annie Oak-a-ley

Madeline was Annie Oak-a-ley (yes that's how she pronounces it) for Halloween! I loved it because all the other little kids had no clue who Annie Oakley was. She first fell in love with Annie Oakley when she heard that her idol, her cousin Mary, loved Annie Oakley, and then when Adam took her to see the musical in Jackson Hole this past summer. (PS Madeline loves musicals). The video is a picture of her singing "You can't get a man with a gun" her favorite song from the play. Sorry it's side ways, I just wanted to get her whole outfit. If anyone knows how to rotate it please tell me!

Pier 39

We are here in the Bay Area! This was our first excursion up to the city, to Pier 39! It was so fun, Madeline rode the carousel, we saw sea lions- which STINK by the way- we walked along the pier and got lunch and went to the Farmer's Market. It was a fun day!

Remembering Sharen Beard

Sharen died at the end of April. I am not sure why I haven't been able to write this post until now. All I can think is that 1. posting something on the world wide web makes it a little less personal, to me and 2. I think I am still just shocked that she is gone.

We met Brian and Sharen when we were doing an internship in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were members of our ward, and being the only married couple in the intern group, we tended to hang out with married people instead of the other single interns. Who knew we would be hanging out with people twice our age, but Brian and Sharen, to whom age does not apply, soon became our best friends there. This picture was taken in their flat probably around 11 pm at night. Since the sun doesn't set in the summer in Scotland until about midnight, we would stay over there for hours. Sharen was so peppy and fun and Brian would be talking our ears off about some new idea for furniture design. We loved it and we always had fun with them! Such good memories.

We continued to write and visit here in the states, over the past five years. Sharen was the best at keeping in touch! Although she wrote the occasional email, she would always send a handmade-handwritten card begging for pictures of Madeline.

Her daughter, Brianne, called me on a Sunday night and said "I have some bad news, my mom has died"--I couldn't believe it! She was not even fifty and was oober-healthy! They said it was the "perfect storm" of things that caused her death, but eventually she died from acute leukemia. She died in a matter of hours.

The funeral was so surreal, everyone was in shock. Brian gave an incredible eulogy and told stories I had never heard before, probably because Sharen was always asking about me, always interested in what I was interested in, instead of talking about herself. He talked about how she would have been considered a "nerd" in high school, always arguing for a better grade, and even coming up with her own element to add to the periodic table.

After the funeral, we all gathered at a ward member's house and talked late into the night. Not the somber funeral talk, you might expect, but laughing, lots of laughing. We left, and Adam said to me, "that was more fun than we should have had at a funeral!" But it didn't seem like Sharen was even gone yet, it seemed like at any moment, she would come bouncing down the stairs and join in the fun!

I was sewing last night and I was up late after everyone had gone to bed, and I was just thinking about her. Wondering if angel-Sharen can "hear" me thinking about her. Does she know how much I loved and admired her? Does she know that I want to be just like her? But I never even took the time to ask her how to be like her! And now I can't. I just have to try to piece together my memories of her and try to emulate them.

I think the major thing that impressed me about Sharen is how unassuming and happy she was. You didn't have to be anything cool around Sharen. I felt like she was my best friend from the moment we met. And I love people like that.

On the front of the funeral program was a picture of her running her marathon and it said "I can do hard things." What a great last phrase to go out with. I think about that now almost every day. Sharen is such an inspiration to all of us. We love you, Sharen!