Summer Air Festivities

I have done some pretty awesome things recently so I am going to blog about them to show the world my creative, unique, and amazing experiences. (Pictures are compliments of the one and only Bethany Madison, look her up, she is the best photographer, dead serious.)

FIRST: HARRY POTTER 6 DINNER PARTY AND MOVIE NIGHT
For all of you who know my sister Bethy you know what an amazing party hostess she is, so when she shared with me her idea of having a HP6 dinner party I eagerly tried to get myself invited, my clever scheming worked. We had a typical Hogwarts dinner on finest pewter wear complete with pumpkin juice and butterbeer, oh my heavens it was delicious, house elf cooking would have been shamed by the quality of this meal. Then we took silly photobooth pictures, dressing up as Hogworts students complete with the best props, then we went and saw the last showing of the new HP on opening day! I must say that I loved it entirely, one of the best HP movies yet.

SECOND: HIKING THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS, MT. OLYMPUS.
This proved to be quite the feat none of us was expecting. The Madisons, my dad and myself had planned and prepared, both mentally and physically, for a 4 hour hike, it turned out to be an 8 hour escapade in 100 degrees of heat. The elevation gain is 4000 feet done in 3.5 miles, not that long but suuuuper steep! The last 1/4 of a mile is a straight up 600 feet of bouldering, my favorite part, seriously it was really fun. Reaching the top was truly inspirational you can see EVERYTHING. It is a gorgeous hike with breath taking views just make sure you have strong legs, thick socks and a personal paparazzi to take excellent pictures of your experience.

THIRD: SWEDISH FINGER DANCING WITH WATERLOO
I just need to say that my family is awesome, we do the coolest things. My dad got us all tickets to one of the numerous concerts that make up the outdoor music festival this summer, the concert was the hits of ABBA with the Utah symphony at the outdoor amphitheater at Deer Valley. It was pure awesomeness. We began our evening at the top of Main Street in Park City and dined at the Grappa, which is the bees knees. Then we attended our concert, we almost got rained out! Waterloo is the most famous ABBA cover band in Norway and they performed with the Utah Symphony, needless to say it was a party. They taught us how to Swedish Finger Dance and they looked exactly like ABBA, complete with unbelievable outfits.

Some other fun summer adventures that I have done include:
:: Biking all over Sandy, West Jordan and Draper
:: Discovering the amazing slide rock in Alpine (I suggest this to anyone, SO FUN!)
:: Fashion Shoot in the Mona Lavander Feilds
:: Slowly learning how to long board
:: Gourmet cooking lessons
:: Swimming in the Spanish Fork reservoir
:: Seeing every movie that comes to the theaters and all the good ones at Red box
:: Baking home made bread, rolls and pizza dough
:: Moving to the apartment of my dreams
:: And of course enjoying my freedom from homework

Y E L L O W S T O N E

It has finally come, the final Yellowstone post. These things just take so dang long that it takes me a while to get them up but anyways here it is. We began our adventure by setting up camp at Madison Arm Resort which is a few minutes outside of the park. It is a gorgeous campsite! Right on a lake, and luxurious bathrooms complete with hot showers (I couldn't resist putting in a picture of its pink beauty)

The first day while driving in we saw the eagle in its nest and we could even see a little baby eagle head peeking over the side of its mansion of a nest. Then we visited the petrified tree, very fascinating indeed. While walking back to the vans we found the cutest little mouse type wildlife he was very friendly and scampered around eating grass, I kid you not he is on the top three favorite things that I saw in Yellowstone.

Our next stop: Mammoth Hot Springs. They were very very impressive they were huge! At the bottom there were elk and bison just hanging out so we got to get really close it was so neat! We over heard a ranger telling kids not to get too close because elk can kick a humans head clean off and a bison can just 6 feet into the air from a stand still ... we were a little skeptical of those facts ... but it made the kids stay a safe distance away from the animals.

We then took a little drive to sheep eater cliff which were very unique and awesome. They were named after the tribe of Indians that lived in that area, the different groups of Indians were named after their main source of protein, thus this group depended on sheep. We got to climb to the top of the cliff which made for impressive and awe inspiring views. While we were driving the many roads within the park we would often come across a lazy bison that would be strolling nonchalantly down the middle of the road, sometimes we would be stuck behind them for a while, even though it is quite a common occurrence it still is cool when it happens to you.

The next day we were given quite a bit of time at the canyon village visitor center, after falling asleep in the educational movie we moved on to the entertaining gift shop and tried on as many things as we could, while Alec had a moment with his ice cream cone (inside joke that just couldn't be left out) Then we headed to the absolutely B E A Utiful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. All the rocks (or stones) around it were yellow, that's when it clicked for me ...

Next up, Black Dragon Cauldron Bwa ha ha ha (the name just sounds evilly intense to me) The weather added to the eeriness of the place, on of the geysers that was in a cave, honestly looked like a dragon breathing smoke out of the cave I thought it was neat. This was the only moment the whole time we were in Yellowstone that it rained on us, and boy did it get us good, it even started hailing at one point. It only lasted long enough to get us completely soaked then it stopped so that we could be wet and cold the rest of the day, it made me a little bit grumpy.

Driving back to camp we got to see a baby grizzly bear! Granted it was through a huge telescope but still we could see him perfectly digging up little dandy lions and other plants. We found a park ranger that informed us that he was two years old and had been on his own for about two weeks, I kid you not he looked exactly like a teddy bear it made me really wish that bears were tame.