Natural History Museum

About a month ago, Nate and I decided to go down to the University of Utah's Natural History Museum. It was a very fun and random adventure with tons of cool things to see.

Windriver Mountain Range

The Olsen family vacation this year was to the Windrivers. It was so much fun! This picture was taken during our hike to the natural bridge!

In a place with such a breathtaking panarama there was also amazing beauty right by my feet.

We made it! 4-mile hike and here we are at the natural bridge! It was so neat to see the river coming right through and under the rock.

Square top mountain reflecting onto green river lake was my most favorite place during the trip. So beautiful!

Gus came along on our 8-mile hike and he did very well but he sure was ready to drink the water out of the lake when we got back.

I think this might be my favorite picture - It could be on a postcard.

Sophie and Dad enjoying the river.

This picture rivals a close second on the favorite list. :)

What an amazing trip! We are already planning our trip back there someday. So much territory only accessible through high country trails. SO! Amazing!

That Famous Preston Night Rodeo

Two weeks ago Grandma Lou took the whole Owen Clan to the Preston Rodeo!

Good thing Ben & Alyssa brought a plastic drop cloth to the rodeo because the rain poured down on us making it a very memorable night.


Bull Riding! Crazy!

The little boy that happened to get hit in the knee by a horseshoe that fell off and came flying through the air into the audience. The clown came up and talked to him and let him keep the horseshoe as a souvenier. I don't know how lucky of a horseshoe that one is. :)

The clown was the highlight of the rodeo, so very funny! This is when he brought out his little dog that did tricks for us!

The whole night the clown made fun of the judges; it was hilarious. Everytime the judge had to run over to tell a score the clown would start inspirational running music and tell him that he would lose his weight if he kept it up. He also asked the audience to raise money for another judge because he didn't have enough money to finish painting his horse, and it was a paint horse.

My most favorite event of the rodeo is the mutton bustin' - I don't even know if that is how you spell it, but I love watching the little kids hang onto the sheep. The clown said that you can't beat your children but you can strap them onto a sheep. But, he thinks that if a parent makes their child ride a sheep, the parent should have to ride a bull. The funny thing about the sheep is in order to get the child off their back, they start running and then flop into a roll right over top the child... pretty effective!

Strawberry Flavored Raspberries!

We have a couple of little measly strawberry patches and I have been amazed at how many strawberries we get from them. This picture is from just one day. Nate made me laugh though when he said that they look like strawberry flavored raspberries because they are so little. I've actually seen some raspberries bigger than these strawberries.

Meet Gus

Gus is a Labradoodle! Mix between a Lab and Poodle ... that means he doesn't shed and he is as soft as a plush teddy bear.

"I do not like the cone of shame!" This is gus eating up his food looking like a vacuum!

Gus was laying on the ground and got wound up in Nate's backpack. He's just trying to tell Nate that he wants to go to school with him. :)

Compare his size in this picture in the tub as to the next picture.

This is when he was about 3 months old now he is 6 months old and still growing.

Younger puppy picture looking up and hoping he can talk us in to giving him more food if he just looks cute enough.

This was his very first day at our home. We set him down on our floor and he had never stood on anything but carpet and grass so the floor was very scary to him. He acted like the floor was as slippery as ice. :)

This is when we went to pick him out. . . . how can you say no to that face?

But then again, I couldn't say no to either of those faces! :)

Willow Flats Camping!

Our cute little family!

We went on a short weekend camping trip with Mom and Dad Olsen the weekend directly following the Owen family vacation. This was on our hike up to the springs at Willow Flat Campground. This is definitely a family favorite/tradition. :)

Gus going on a hike with a walking stick.

A dog for each of us! If you look closely you will see that I had Sophie carrying my water bottle on her leash. I love spending time with Sophie!

Here was our nice little shaded spot for our tent.

Funny Story: We sprayed gus with bugspray so that he wouldn't get ticks or bites. Well he immediately went over to this bush and started rolling in it. He must have really enjoyed it because he spent most of his time there laying on that bush for the rest of the trip.

Here are a couple of videos... one is of the spring - it was amazing how much water was gushing out of there..... normally you can walk on some of the stones. The other video - Nate and I decided to hike around and get on top of the cliff that is directly behind and above the springs... we made it. :) We had so much fun!

Monterey Bay Trip

Our first night we spent at an amazing campsite just past Reno, NV. The reservoir surrounded our campsite on three sides. The sunrise was absolutely beautiful and refreshing!

Once we arrived in Monterey we camped at a state beach! It was so great to wake up to the sound of the ocean. These strawberry fields are what we saw driving between our campsite and the condo. Strawberry field, after strawberry field, after strawberry field!



We spent 8 hours at Monterey Bay Aquarium and could still barely take it all in! It was so amazing! They had an entire section on Jelly Fish from the size of a speck of dust to about 8 feet long! They are so graceful and beautiful but at the same time you know how deadly some can be.


Mr. Penguin checking out the view from underwater. The penquin exhibit was so fun! I think that penguins have so much personality. It was funny to watch the ones contemplating on jumping into the water and the funny one that was claiming another one's cave when that one left. He just moved his stuff right on in while the other one was distracted by food. :)



I just had to take a picture with the penguin statue just for Charity.

Nate and I have always loved looking at the aquariums at Petsmart. Times those by 500 in awesomeness and you have Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is a picture of Nate under an archway tank. There was also a two-story kelp forest tank, a wave tank that blew out over top of you, and so much more.

Ahhh! So cute and so relaxed! The sea otters are a favorite of mine. You just can't help yourself when you see a face and belly and hands so cute and fluffy. We found out that otters have like 1 million hairs per square inch on their coat while humans have approximately 1,000 hairs per square inch on their head. That makes for one soft, fluffy, warm sea otter!

This picture is hard to tell what it is because our camera died before we got very close. This is a picture of Alcatraz Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. We actually got to ride a boat out and tour the old prison and walk around the island. I could see how it would be virtually imposible to escape the prison, I wouldn't be able to swim those turbulent, cold waters. We were able to walk through the prison cells and listen to an audio tour that made it all so real. We also got to meet a man that was a guard there and a man that was a prisoner there for robbing a bank. He said that the prison changed his life, he had learned his lesson.

Here's me on the boat ride back from Alcatraz! We rode at the very front of the boat and enjoyed the ocean splashing up at us as the front end hit the waves. I love the smell of saltwater in the air, especially at our campsite and back at the beach by the condo. But, San Francisco Bay smelled a little fishy. :)

Random picture number 2! You know you are in a desert when a cactus grows back instead of a tree. :) This was on the way to our campsite at the state beach.

This was a little boat along 17 mile drive and the bay was called love boat bay or something like that, I can't remember. But anyway, the name obviously inspired this picture. The boat originally called a glass bottom boat because under that middle canopy would be a glass bottom that you could see through into the ocean. :)

As you can tell by the jackets in almost every picture, it was cold there. Also, this is a pretty mild picture as far as the wild hair goes because the wind was blowing like crazy. I tried to go stand up on the rocks out closer to the ocean and I didn't go very far because I was afraid that the wind would blow me off into the ocean. I'm really not exaggerating. I think this place topped the windiest place on the trip. This was just somewhere along 17 mile drive. So Beautiful though!

The famous lone cypress picture that is basically copyrighted by Pebble Beach Golf. There are signs there that say that you can't use the picture for any marketing purposes. It was really cool to see and it was also really cool to know that the PGA golf tournament would be starting within the next few days. But you can't really see the golf course because they have it fenced so much. I guess you have to pay to play golf if you want to see it.

I just had to show off this amazing picture!

Highway 1 !!! I think that is all that I need to say! We drove along it between Monterey to San Francisco with views like this most of the way!

I finally got to see the Golden Gate Bridge! I have been to California so many times but had never seen this amazing structure. Not only did we see it but we walked onto it and stood under the first large support column. We also got to drive across it!

San Fran Cisco!!! No... I didn't leave my heart there... I brought Nate back home with me :)

Looks like the videos just drop in wherever they feel like it. This video was supposed to be up with the Aquarium pictures. This video is entitled Leafy Dragon... he's there.... you just have to look hard..... :)