Summer Update

I thought it's about time I posted our happenings this summer. While Tim was in China I went to Washington state with Mom, Dad, Kelii, and his family because my youngest cousin was graduating from high school. We had a great time. Kelii, Ev, and I went on runs over the Tacoma Narrows bridge most days and we all went sight seeing and stuff. The Tacoma/Seattle area is so pretty. Here's a picture of my Mom and I at Gig Harbor just outside of Tacoma.

Funny story: The Gap in Kahului closed, so now my mom doesn't have a lot of places to get casual clothes on Maui. Now whenever I go shopping and find a shirt I like I'll usually buy 2 and send one to my mom. For awhile I was buying the exact same colors for her that I was getting for myself. Recently I've been buying us different colors because it makes it really hard for us to wear different things when we're together because our wardrobes are the same. When we were in Tacoma my mom wanted new jeans and I was telling her that I just found a pair of jeans that actually fit me (since I'm a little out of proportion) and she should try it. She did, liked them, and bought them so now we really have the same wardrobe, shirts and pants. That outfit she's wearing in the picture above, I have the exact same one. I guess when I go back to Maui I don't have to pack any clothes. My mommy is so cool!

I've started working and am working on a rotating shift. I have an 8 day work week, not a 7 day work week, so I work different days every week. It's been kind of rough the last few weeks because I've been working weekends and Tim works Monday through Friday, so we don't get to spend very much time together, especially since it's summer time. We have been able to do a few things though.

Earlier in the summer we hiked the Slate Canyon trail the goes out Rock Canyon Park, though Slate Canyon, and comes out on the Y trail. It was a really cool hike. The trail was a little overgrown going through Slate Canyon, probably because of all the rain we were getting the the beginning of the summer, but once it opened up and you could see the valley, it so was pretty. A little more intense then I was anticipating, but still fun. Here's a few pictures of us from the hike.



I have a friend from Maui that is going to be a Senior in high school that came up to BYU for a few camps so she spent 2 weekends with us. We had a lot of fun with Sala and hopes she decides to come to BYU next year. We took her to the Oquirrh Mountain Open House. It is a really beautiful temple, the inside especially.


Ray and his family were in Utah for the 4th of July. My dad recently came across a lot of family history on his dad's side so we took a bunch of names to the temple and did a session of baptisms for about 120 names, including his father, grandparents on that side, and one of my mom's aunts that we were close to. It was such a special experience to do baptisms for family names with all of us there and some close friends. Here's a picture of us at the temple.


This year the MLS All-Star game was at the new Rio Tinto stadium. No, I didn't get free tickets, those seem to go out in minutes when they're available. We did go with Kelii, Ev, and Emi. It's the first professional soccer game I've been to and I'm hoping since I work for Rio Tinto that I'll be able to get free tickets some times. They played Everton and it was a really good, exciting game. Everton won in penalty kicks. I was amazed at how fast some of the players are, especially Landon Donovan. Here's a picture of us at the game. We want to go to the US vs. El Salvador World Cup Qualifying game in September, but the cheapest tickets are over $100. Maybe somehow I'll sneak free tickets to that one...


Even though we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like to this summer, we've been enjoying it and doing a lot of fun things. We're going to see Cirques de Soleil in a few days (yet another perk of working for Rio Tinto). Tim went on a backpacking trip earlier in the summer with Ben and Austin (his brother and nephew) one of the weeks I was working my 12 hour days. I want to run a half marathon in November so I've been running a lot more to build up my mileage. We've also been rock climbing pretty often. I'm starting to get into it so we just got me a harness and shoes. It's still a little scary for me, but I trust Tim belaying me so I don't worry about it. It's nice to have something that we can do together.

That's our summer so far!