Quick Cali Trip

So I'm proud to say that after a mild amount of worrying, the Rav4 has successfully and finally been put back together! It turned out that the Rav did need a new engine so Travis decided to search for one himself on ebay after looking into some quotes around town. He found a good deal for one and decided that it was an even better deal if we had the work done where the guy was selling the engine from which happened to be in L.A. So Trav found this amazing loop hole in our unlimited auto insurance towing plan and got it towed to LA for free! Then this last weekend Travis' parents carted us out to Cali to pick it up and to spend some time with family and on the beach. We had some great meals at Olive Garden, which we hadn't been to in forever and which I of course loved! (I really love Italian food) and then the next day at Ihop and Rosita's (mexican cuisine of course), all thanks to Travis' parents!!


Once we got the Rav4 Saturday morning, Trav and I decided it would be fun to head down to the Santa Monica Pier and rent some rollerblades for him to try out. I have my own pair and he's been wanting to try it out himself so we thought this would be a great way to give it a try. Well, we were completely wrong because Travis was so rudely reminded of how much he HATES California with all the traffic and beach-goers on such a nice warm Saturday afternoon. It took us FOREVER to get to the beach, and then to park, and then just maneuvering through the crowds was just ridiculous. So I dragged him to the end of pier, took a couple pics of the view and then with some birds on the way back in and spent a few minutes walking at the edge of the water. Rollerblading was out of the question with the "millions" of people that were there, not to mention the lack of motivation that came from the bad attitude they put him in which in turn put me in. So we took off and started heading home around 3:30-4pm. The traffic was still horrible and Travis vowed to never ever return to California again. Looks like all of our beach trips will have to be in Florida with my family from now on. :) No complaints there!

Pheasant Hunt

After a rough start to a quick weekend, (see previous post) we made it up to Utah all in one piece. Dad was so nice and got us a hotel room in Provo so we didn't have to drive another hour to Tyler's dad's house. I said hi to Claire, Joe, and Mom at 12:30am and that was as much of them as I got to see. 4 hours later we were up getting ready for the big hunt and met up with Hubert (Tyler's dad), Tyler, and Amy in Heber.

We hunted at a private Pheasant club where they raise the pheasants and then release them for us to hunt. Once they're released they can make a home wherever and fly wherever; they aren't confined to the club any longer. So I thought that was good as far as fair treatment to the birds goes. The weather was perfect-sunny, cool and no wind. There was still snow on the ground which made for harder hiking and after a whole day tromping in it, I ended up with wet socks and pants. My new snow boots did really well, and so did the gators Tyler let me borrow, but after a whole day of it, my jeans just didn't cut it. :)


We started in a field of dormant sunflowers and found a few pheasants there. I shot a rooster and was so excited! :) Travis did a great job and ended up with 10 birds at the end of the day. We hunted with 5 springer spaniels who did a great job finding the birds for us. The club also has black pheasants which are so cool looking because up close their feathers have hints of orange and/or purple. I wanted to get one so bad, but ended up with one traditional rooster. All the pheasants are so soft too!



I'd have to say that one of the most interesting shots of the day was when Travis and I were attempting to hop a fence. I gave him my gun and started to climb over, when 3 pheasants got up one by one right in front of us! So he laid my gun down and I jumped off the fence and ducked down to let him shoot. I was in a completely safe spot but forgot that my head and ear was right next to his gun. He fired and I seriously couldn't hear for a minute. Don't ever squat down next to someone with a shotgun. Ah! Luckily, he got the hen and the dogs tracked her down and added her to the mix. In total we ended up with 27 pheasants and 1 chucker. It was a blast and definitely a hunt I'll have to do again next year.

Crazy Start to our Utah trip

This last weekend we arranged our schedules to take off early on Friday to head up to Utah for a pheasant hunt with Tyler Hendriks and his family. Travis stayed late at work/school during the week so that Friday he left around 11:30am and we were on the road by 12:30pm. It was a great early start which meant we could meet up with my mom, dad, Joe, Claire, and Sarah, David, and Jacob at Tucanos for dinner. My family was there for Claire's clogging competition the same weekend we happened to go up for the pheasant hunt.

So we're heading out of town in the Rav4 and after an hours drive we approach the steep hill outside of Overton. As a pre-cursor to the story, the Rav4's check engine light had come on about a week ago. It has 135,000 miles on it and is a 2002 model. So a little old, but not uncommon for a check engine light to come on with so many miles and being 8 years old. So after checking a couple things, we just dismissed the light as nothing. So we were going up the hill and Travis feels the car loosing "umph". So he just about red-lines it and then the car just turns off. The oil light came on at about the same time as well, bad sign. So we pull over in the middle of the hill on the side of the I-15 to check things out. After examining a few things and looking over the manual and getting a second opinion from a random creepy guy who pulled over to see how we were, we decided it was un-drivable and that we'd need to get it towed back home.


We waited for about 2 hours for the tow truck and had an interesting drive back to town with our happy-go-lucky hispanic driver. We got home, dropped off the Rav and jumped into the truck to make our 2nd attempt at our trip, this time leaving at 5:30pm. We obviously missed meeting up with my family for dinner.


Turns out the Rav4 needs a new engine. :( It ran for a few seconds, up that hill without oil in the engine and tore apart the insides with the metal rubbing on metal. It's been a shock to have a car that hasn't had a single problem all of a sudden need a new engine. So lame.

It's been a crazy week trying to get the Rav fixed and not that uplifting of a post this time, I know, but I couldn't let this crazy broken-down-on-the-side-of-the-freeway experience pass by without giving it a post. Just another one of those life experiences...

Out Hiking Again

Since we didn't make it to the Arizona Hot Springs via White Rock Canyon a couple weeks ago, we decided to head out on Travis' between rotation break weekend down the Arizona Hot Spring trail. This trail doesn't seem as distinguished compared to the trailhead for White Rock but once you're on it, you can tell it's definitely a trail taking you down a different canyon. Out of the 3 hikes we've done to Hot Springs, this one is definitely the most difficult. There is a 30ft drop, class 4 climbing that we had to get down with Lily. The climbing was a sinch, but having to pass Lily down a straight down 30ft drop was a little tricky.


The class 3 scrambles were also more difficult than the ones at the Gold Strike Hot Springs, again only because we had a dog with us. We also took a side-hill off the trail route that looked like it would be easier, but it took me forever to make it across because of the loose rock. I do have to say that I liked this hike better. The views were more interesting and the canyons more narrow. I love the conglomerate rock and this is the only trail that has it, sheer walls of it too. Not as pronounced as Maple Canyon outside of Nephi, UT, but still cool looking and in some places climbable for the more technical climber.

We make it to the hot springs and planned it well. A new ladder was recently installed which allows hikers to access the river and rafters to access the hot springs. It's a really nice ladder with handles too.

The hot springs are super clear and small and sandwiched in between tall narrow canyon walls. Someone also recently set new sandbags creating a damming affect with 3 separate pools. Lily of course loved the water. She'd jump in off the sandbags and swim until it was shallow enough to stand. We'd have to pull her out of the water to cool down because she just loved staying in it. There were a few people there when we arrived-a daddy daughter rafting/canoeing expedition from San Diego. There isn't much room to lounge around with strangers there, so we just waded in the water and sat on the sand bags. It would be the perfect hot springs if you happened to be there alone for awhile.




On the hike back out, a random old guy suggested that about a mile out to take a trail that goes up the mountain, over a saddle to the left. There was still enough light out, so we ventured to take what we later found out is called the River By-pass. It was a good steady uphill hike with no class 3 or 4 climbing. Just regular old uphill hiking. Great booty work out and a lot easier to do with a dog or if you're back packing a baby or kid. It's shorter too, so we got back just as dusk was setting in. This Arizona Hot Springs hike is about a 5 mile round trip hike and probably about 4-4.5 with the by-pass. We could definitely tell the difference after the 7+ mile hike we did a couple weeks ago. 5 miles was just perfect for me. :)

Valentine's Weekend

This year for Valentine's we decided to spend time together with a nice date night and then outside in the wonderful winter Vegas weather. Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday this year, we went out Friday night to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Cook on Wok. Afterwards, Travis was so sweet and let me pick a movie to go see, which of course was a romantic comedy, Valentine's Day. Very cute movie. He always lets me pick the movies we see! He's so sweet.

Then on Saturday we slept in and later headed out for a hike to the Arizona Hot Springs. There were 2 trails to take at the trail head-one to the Colorado river, and one to the hot springs. We meant to go to the hot springs but ended up on the White Rock Canyon Trail to the river. The trail of course is in a wash with lots of sand, so the hike out was killer! It's nothing steep, just a steady incline for 3.5 on the way out. So we hiked a little over 7 miles that afternoon! Lily was a trooper! She wasn't tired one bit! Well, we all were beat when we got back to the car, but she kept truckin the whole way.

So at the end of the trail was the gorgeous Colorado river which Lily took a quick dip in. The trail also led to a small waterfall where a ladder use to be positioned giving access to the hot springs. But since there was no ladder, we just got to experience the warm humid water fall instead.


At the mouth of the narrow canyon to the waterfall was a huge camp of tons of kayakers and canoers. Looked like they boated from Willow Beach upstream to this camp and brought all sorts of gear to spend the night. There were all sorts of different groups of people, some even had dogs! My guess is that there were over 100 people there. It was nuts. But it was the perfect weekend to do something like that. There was no wind and the weather was gorgeous!

So on our way out, Travis of course spotted a big horn sheep on the canyon cliffs above. There are just tons of sheep that live in the cliffs near the Hoover Dam. As we were hiking out I was reflecting on last year's Valentine's adventure and remembered that we also hiked to some hot springs that year as well, and come to think of it, our first Valentine's Day together we did the same thing! It's just a good time of year to good hiking, especially in Southern Nevada.

Superbowl Party

The Starley's put on a great Superbowl party with tons of food and a couple of creative games. A bunch of our friends were there including the Kessingers, Alans, Pursers, Heffners, and Meeders. It was great catching up with Steven & Amber- it'd been so long since we'd seen them! The kids there had a great time sneaking food to Lily all night, which I was surprised to see that she really wasn't all that sick afterwards! She got brownies, chips, cookies, smokies, jalapeno and cream cheese appetizer from Travis and who knows what else! Spoiled doggy. I too of course had my fill of food! It was all so yummy. :)


During half time, Amber and I went over to the Symes to visit little Crew that was only 8 days old. He's so adorable! It was fun seeing such a teeny tiny baby again.

As far as the game goes, I guess the outcome was a big deal, but since I'm not all that into football it was just a good excuse to get together and chill. The Colts and the Saints played, with the Saints as the underdog. They had never won a Superbowl before and they won like 30-something to 17 or something like that. So it was a pretty cool win and a great little party. Thanks Starleys for hosting!