Summer Vacations

This summer we were able to take two vacations, one to visit my family in Oregon and the other to visit Mykel's family in California!  We had so much fun with both our families and wish we could have had longer vacations with them.

The first week of July we both took work off and drove down to Oregon!  Instead of making a long one day trip like usual (about 13hours) we decided to leave Friday after work, stay in a motel, and finish the drive Saturday so that we could get there at a decent hour and not be quite so tired.  I think it was nice doing it this way for a change, but lets just say I don't ever want to stay in a motel like that again haha... We slept on top of the blankets and brought our own pillows in, basically just needing a bed to sleep in.  My dads birthday was on sunday July 3rd so we went out to dinner to celebrate that Saturday night.  Then Sunday we headed to Redmond, right by Bend in Central Orgeon, to stay in a vacation home for a few nights!  It was a blast going golfing, watching the fireworks, going swimming, eating out and then going white water rafting on our way home.  Unfortunately my parents still have the pictures of the white water rafting so I don't have any copies to post on here.  But let's just say even though I thought we were going to die a few times, it was an absolute blast!  Mykel and I will definitely go white water rafting again when we get a chance.  The rest of the week was spent at my parents house.  Mykel and I were able to go to OHSU, the dental school in Portland, and get a tour and find out more about it.  He will be applying to dental schools next year and this is obviously my number one choice so it was cool to go and check it out.  But wherever he gets in is where we will be meant to go!  We also went shopping, of course, and my mom took me to get mani/pedis!  We also were able to go to the Portland Temple for the first time and do sealings with my parents.  The trip went by so fast and next thing we knew we were headed home the following sunday back to good old Provo, Utah.  Then we counted down the next three weeks until we would be driving down to California!!

The first week of August was our trip to Cailfornia to stay with Mykel's parents.  It was really cool because for the first time since we've been married his brother Tanner, his wife Amanda and their adorable one year old daughter Addie came down for the week as well.  It was a perfect little family reunion/vacation with lots of time to relax and enjoy the beautiful California sun!  We spent a lot of time swimming in their pool, which I loved, and on Monday we went to the beach.  Even though it was a windy day the sun was out, the skies were clear blue, and the scenery was beautiful.  Mykel and Tanner spent a lot of time body surfing/boogie boarding while Amanda and I layed out on the beach.  It definitely made Mykel and I miss living near the beach, and hopefully wherever we move to next we will be near one!  Another fun thing we did in California was go to a place called MB2 Raceway, which is really fast indoor kart racing.  I had been to a place like that before but not for a long time and it was so much fun.  On the final race it was just myself, Mykel, Tanner and Craig and I actually got the fastest best lap time out of all of us!  It was definitely a fun trip but was definitely not long enough.