2 years old

Lily turned 2 years old on Sept 6th. To celebrate she got lots of yummy food and treats and a new toy. But the most dog-parentish thing we did was put a candle in a beef log, force her to stick around while we lit it and sang happy birthday. She's not a fan of open flames...except for camp fires. A lady at Petco gave me the beef log for free. We're so silly, I know. :P Happy Birthday Lil! (p.s. I couldn't get a picture of her and the candle lit because she was trying to escape and because Trav insisted on taking a video. hehe)

Temple- Las Vegas

I recently had the privilege of accompanying Mindy Starley through the temple for the first time. It was an amazing experience! Going through with someone for the first time makes it feel like your own first time all over again. But more than that, I was so happy for her and her decision to go through. She's 6 months pregnant and had an excited little baby happy for her too. It was so wonderful sharing such a special spiritual experience with good friends and it really puts life into perspective. We are here on earth to truly be there for one another and help one another come unto Christ. What a blessing! Thanks Mindy, for being the greatest!

Caliente

Travis did his rotation in Caliente Nevada this month. Where is that you might ask? Well I just happen to know because it's one of the many tiny little towns we drive through on our way out to go hunting every year. There's about 1500 people there and Travis gets to meet about half of them probably, while working at the clinic and hospital.

So one of the weekends I had to go visit and figured that he'd have a bunch of stuff he'd want to do and places he'd want to go. So Friday night we went to a church BBQ at Kershaw Ryan State Park. Nice park with a natural spring pool. A small banjo/guitar playing singing group was serenading us in the park. It was an interesting event. I met the people he's staying with, the Perkins, who are very nice and who have lived in Caliente most of their lives. They explained to us that Lincoln County is still considered the "frontier", meaning it's not settled enough to be considered a settlement. Ha! Crazy. Right after the BBQ it was just so conveniently twilight so we went spot lighting and found a bunch of bucks feeding in the fields. Afterwards he gave me a tour of the town which took all of 5 minutes. We also visited the hospital and I got a tour of that as well. The nurses (3 of them) were definitely happy to have visitors.

The next day we slept in and finally mosied out to a hot sunny day. We stopped by the PA's house in Panaca, Bart. Super nice guy and cute family. Then we headed off to Cathedral Gorge State Park for some hiking. Well the hiking didn't go all that well because it was soooo hot! The slot canyons were awesome to be in, but it just was too hot to really enjoy. So our event for the day was kind of squashed and we didn't really have a plan B. We soon realized that really there isn't much to do in Caliente. Ha! Not too big of a surprise there.




So we got out the map and decided to drive to the top of Mt. Wilson and get out of the heat. It was a nice ride and had great views. The road made a loop and came back down the back side through Spring Valley State Park so we got to check out Eagle Valley Reservoir. Definitely best to go there in the spring. The lake wasn't as full and was pretty merky.


That night we ate at one of the 2 restaurants in town, The Branding Iron, which actually turned out to be pretty good. We also took an outside tour of the Train Station which is now used as county offices and the town library. Very cool looking building.



The next day was church. The ward was a pretty good size with a lot more kids then I thought there'd be. I met Dr. Katschke and his family and could see why Travis was loving it there. Great people and he gets to practice all types of medicine being the only hospital and clinic in the county. Sunday school and Relief Society were pretty interesting, but I was kind of expecting it to be that way. It's kind of amusing visiting small town wards. Their comments are just so funny sometimes; like the quote of the day for that Sunday was a guy who said, "Anyone over 40 should be shot". Ha! What does that have anything to do with anything? :) So amusing.

That afternoon we spent with the Perkins who cooked a nice dinner for us. They showed us their garden and his paintings and I of course hung out with the kitties for awhile as well. It was a nice trip, but I think both Travis and I came to an agreement that Caliente is just too small for us; great for him and his job, but not the best place for us. We'll be back to visit though, I'm sure.

Sherb (orange) and Monk

Caliente Kitty

I just had to document this occasion- Travis let a kitty into his untouchable truck! While on his rotation in Caliente, the cat that lives with the people he stayed with (he's an outdoor cat only) climbed up into the cab while Trav was working on the back breaks and then later right onto the engine! Such an adorable kitty too! :) With Travis being so allergic to cats I was so surprised that he actually took the time to take a picture of it. So cute! He just knows how much I love cats. :)

4th Year Anniversary

Travis was out of town this year for our anniversary, so we celebrated twice and went hiking on a new trail up at Mt. Charleston. Our first attempt at the trail was a good hike and pretty quite as far as other hikers go. It was so nice getting out of the heat and doing something we love. We even got a really good picture out of it. :) But we weren't able to get to Mummy Springs, the end of the 3 mile hike, because Travis was breaking in some new boots which were killing his feet and giving him blisters. So we decided to go again the weekend following our anniversary.

This trip was a lot cooler and still nice and quite without too many hikers. We made it to the super huge and old Bristlecone Pine Tree which was amazing! There were tons of other cool looking trees and we basically hiked in the trees the whole time. Such a change from being in the desert all the time. I think that's why I keep going on and on about the trees. Anyways, we made it to the springs which unfortunately I don't really have anything to say about them because it was just a spring. The highlight of making it to the top were the old huge trees. So the trail is basically all uphill for 3 miles and then knee-pounding 3 miles downhill, over all a pretty tough hike. I was totally sore all over, BUT it was well worth it. Such a wonderful way to celebrate 4 years doing what we love!

Knitted Sweater

Grandma made such a cute little sweater for Lily. She gave it to me when I went out to Colorado so I put it on the stuffed animal dog to send a pix to Trav. Fit great on the stuff animal. A little snug on our husky schnauzer. ha!