July 5 (Tuesday):
We went to Daniel's class reunion at 4 at a park in Fillmore. Daniel was really excited to see a few of his friends, and he said that most of the ones that he really wanted to see were there. It was a good barbeque with delicious food! Daniel and I couldn't stop eating! Daniel had fun talking about old things from high school. There were a lot of married couples, and babies. It surprised me, although it probably shouldn't have. I told Daniel that if my high school has a 5 year class reunion there probably wont be so many married couples, and not so many babies either.
That night we played a few games of hand and foot with Daniel's mom, Marilyn.
July 4 (Wednesday):
This Independence Day was very different than I am used to. In WA our ward has a 4th of July breakfast and we reenact the revolutionary war. The morning was really just like another normal day at the Freeman house. Jim and Marilyn have been redoing the front of their house. In the morning we spent more time pouring cement for the driveway and working on the new front porch. It was actually pretty cool though because I don't every remember pouring cement, so this was a learning experience.
Then the evening was a total 180. In WA we would usually just do sparklers or small fireworks in our cul-de-sac. Sometimes we would go into Bellevue and watch the big fireworks. Fillmore was better in every way. We got to the park where Fillmore was going to do their fireworks about half hour before they were going to start. We just played around a little bit with Daniels nephew and nieces who where with us. We were sitting behind the fence that went around the park. When the fireworks started we could see them setting off the fireworks because we were so close. Because the wind was gently blowing, we literally laid down on our backs, and the fireworks exploded right above our heads. They were huge and so close! They completely filled my vision. The sparks that didn't go out actually landed on the field around us. The fireworks were beautiful, close, big and awesome! I have never seen such an awesome fireworks show! Also, it was so fun being with Lucy and Ethan (when the fireworks started they scared Leah, so Frank had to take her back to the car). I loved hearing Lucy and Ethan's comments. Ethan just kept yelling "best day ever!!" and "I love seeing fireworks with my family!" (He had to yell because the fireworks were so loud that we couldn't hear each other). I loved the fireworks :)
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| The fireworks were shot off from the field behind us |
July 5 (Thursday):
Rain!! In the morning it was raining! Which is wonderful because Utah has been needing the rain. Daniel and I go backpacking every summer, and this summer we decided to make backpacking our anniversary celebration. We were going to start backpacking on our anniversary (Monday July 9) but because of the rain we decided to go on Thursday. We decided the rain would keep us cool, and give us cloud cover while we hiked. We had ponchos to cover our packs with so we weren't worried about getting too wet. Last year for our backpacking trip we started at the bottom of a mountain near Meadow and hiked up as much as we could the first two days, and hiked back down the third day. This year we decided to start at the top of that mountain and hike all the way down. But in order to do that we needed someone to drive us to the top of the mountain and drop us off. Daniel's brother, Frank, had originally said he would do it on Monday for us, and he agreed to do it Thursday instead, but his wife Stacee was worried about the roads being really slippery and muddy because of the rain, so in the morning Daniel and I went driving around in the mountains to test the roads. They were just fine. We slipped a couple of times but it wasn't because of mud, but because of rocks, which we slip on all the time driving out there, rain or not. So we reported the good news to Frank and started packing our packs. It was a two hour drive to the top of the mountain that we wanted to go to. Frank's son, Ethan, came with us on the drive (not hike). Ethan is 6 and was fun to have along.
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| About to head out |
For breakfast we had eggs and hash browns for breakfast (because this was our anniversary celebration Daniel wanted it to be awesome). We think we were packed up and heading out by 1030. Last year Daniel wanted to hike up this mountain to take me to a beautiful waterfall that had flowers growing all around it, but he didn't know how high up it was, and we never made it. This year he was really excited to show it to me, and on the second day we found it. It really was beautiful, and I wish we could have gotten better pictures of it. It was just a small waterfall falling off a cliff, and we were at the top of the cliff, a small stream was flowing into it, and all around the stream were yellow and white flowers. It was beautiful and peaceful. I was really happy that Daniel took me there.
We kept hiking and eventually got to the camp that we had stayed at the second night last year.
We were really tired from backpacking so most of the day we slept, but in the afternoon we went swimming with a bunch of nieces and nephews for a couple of hours.
July 8 (Sunday)
Church was at 10 in the morning, and I got to wear the new dress that mom got me for my birthday and the shoes my sister Christie got me. I love the outfit :) Daniel's sister Marla gave the lesson in Relief Society, and she talked about missionary work and supporting missionaries. She served a mission when she was 21, and she had all the sisters who had served missions either when the were young, or as couples when they were older come to the front of the room and sing "Called to Serve" she had everyone join in on the second verse because she said that it was everyone who supported the missionaries while on their missions. It was really touching and made me want to serve a mission with Daniel when we're older.
July 9 (Monday)
Our 2 year anniversary!! :) Although we hadn't planned on it, we decided to go to the Andersen Family reunion with Jim and Marilyn. The Andersen's are Marilyn's side of the family and this was a reunion with all her siblings and their kids and grand kids and great grand kids and so forth. Daniel only knew a few people there, and I knew even less. We didn't really get to do anything special for our anniversary because the reunion was at a cabin out side of Manti (pretty much in the middle of no where) and we didn't have a car to take us somewhere. But it was ok because we had celebrated the week before and we kept wishing each other a happy anniversary. I love Daniel and am SO happy to have been married to him for the past two years. He is a wonderful wonderful man!
Everyone when to the "lake" for the day (it was a really really small lake but it was still water). I don't like swimming in dirty lakes (and this one was filthy!) so I went canoeing with Daniel for a little bit, then just sat in the shade while he went off with his nephew Brion and played in the mud. That night the program was to have the 5 siblings (Joe, Darleen, Tommie Sue, Vonda and Marilyn) talk about there dad, Tom. Well, my goodness, I didn't know Daniel had a Grandpa Tom. I also have a grandpa Tom, so after that night we have now decided that we need to name one of our sons after both our grandpas :)
July 11 (Wednesday)
When we first got to the reunion on Monday the camper we'd driven up in over heated right as we got to the cabin. Because of this Jim wanted to leave early in the morning to try and get home while it was still cool outside so the heat of the day wouldn't add to the heat of the engine. We left at 5 in the morning (Marilyn stayed at the reunion and was going to get a ride back with Daniel's sister, Deana). Well, we got down the road about 10 minutes when the engine completely died. I mean, it died so much that Jim couldn't even get all the way off the road! Well, our plan had been to stop every 20ish minutes to let the camper cool down for a while (we'd planned on it being a very long drive) so we waiting for maybe a half hour then tried to get the camper to start, but it just wouldn't. Finally Jim had to call a tow company from Fillmore to come pick us up. Manti is about an hour and a half from Fillmore for big cars that have to drive slow. In the end we got home by about 9 in the morning. I was tired the rest of the day, in fact Daniel and I slept for most of the rest of the day with a few breaks to visit with family.
That night though, we were glad we'd gotten the rest! We played 007/ fugitive (different people call it different things) with all the nieces and nephews. That was SO MUCH FUN!! So the goal of the game is to get from Jim and Marilyn's house down to Marla's house (1/2 a mile) with out getting caught. Kyle, Marla's husband, was going to be driving around in his truck looking for people and if he called your name you had been caught and had to get in the back of the truck. He could only call your name if he knew where you were not just if he thought you might be somewhere. There where 13 kids playing. I stuck with Daniel and Brion. Most of the kids just took the direct rout between the houses and for the first game they all got caught but the three of us. We made it with out getting caught which made us the winners :) We climbed through ditches, ran across fields, and jumped over barbwire fences (ya we know, not really safe). We kept a constant look out for Kyle and his truck. This first round was at dusk. I got so many slivers in my hands from all the stuff we had to climb through, but Daniel was determined to get all three of us there without getting caught. There was one time when we were hiding behind an old abandoned house which was at the intersection between two streets and we needed to cross the street so we were going around the house and saw Kyle's truck, we were sure he'd spotted us so we just dropped to the ground and hid in the grass. Because the house was abandoned the grass was really tall and covered us. Daniel knows Meadow really well and he knew exactly where we could go and always have some kind of cover. The second game we played it was totally dark out side. Because of that the older kids were given an extra task. We had to follow the younger kids to make sure nothing happened to them, but they couldn't know we were following them, and we still could get caught. Again the kids took the direct route between the houses, which the parents liked because the kids couldn't get lost, but we didn't like because there wasn't much cover for us. There was one point when we were running down the road and Kyle's truck turned down the road we all panicked and just jumped into some tall grass. We were right next to the road so we were sure we were going to be caught (the second game Jorgen and Emma joined the three of us). But the dark ended up being an advantage to us, because Kyle must have suspected that we were there in the grass because he flashed his lights on us so many times, he just kept circling and circling, but the shadows that the lights cast on the grass hid us perfectly! It was amazing, but we made it to Marla's without getting caught. It was a really fun game, and it was great exercise. We all ran at least a mile and a half. By the end I had stickers all stuck in my hands, legs, pants, hair, everything!
July 12 (Thursday)
It was a lazy day. I got caught up on laundry in the morning and helped cleaned the house while Daniel helped his mom pour more cement. It seems like she never stops finding cement projects.
Friday the 13th!
Another lazy day. We'd been in Meadow for so long that vacation was getting old. We watched Wrath of the Titans at JD and Angela's house. We were going to stay for night games again, but it turned out that they got canceled, so we decided to go home. It was really good to be home to our bed, and Frodo :)
~Jessica~
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