Winter Shenanigans

Some wintertime 2011 shenanigans!!

Jake and I on our way to do some backcountry skiing

Jake in his new skis

We tie-dyed sheets one night, they turned out great!

Here is the best Christmas tree I've ever bought (I didn't even buy it) and we hauled it away on the back of my bike rack. Merry Christmas!

Jake is drilling wood into the trunk to make a tree stand.

I had two strands of lights sitting around and only half of each of them worked. We make homemade decorations and hung them on the tree. Very festive!

Jackson Hole

Blair and I took a quick trip up to Jackson Hole to spend time with Jake and for Blair to see the Tetons! We spent time with our friends Jen and Jon and went into the National Park.

Blair and I on our way, after we got out of the inversion, it was a beautiful winter weekend.

Jake and I at Cadillac

The usual.

Blair and I with flowers in our hair.

Being the average Jackson Hole tourists. The antler arch in the city center.

Blair and I at the arch.

Jon, Jake, me and Jen in the Teton National Park.

Jake and I

Hanging around in the park.

Thanksgiving 2011

I spent Thanksgiving with my family. The night before, I made 5 pies; Apple cinnamon, pecan, pumpkin, banana cream and coconut cream! Everyone said they turned out great. The weekend of Thanksgiving we always go cut our Christmas Trees in the National Forest above Heber, UT.

Tree cutting is always a big production. We have chili, cheeseball, and veggies. Then the whole family, boyfriends, kids and parents, get on our snowshoes and brave the snow to find the perfect tree. I would venture to say that the tree we found this year is the best of all. We take our saw, cut it down and drag it back to the truck where we all pile back into the cars, come back to the Hill house and eat pizza and play games. This is one of my favorite holiday traditions!

We each take our turn cutting the tree.

Jake with the saw. Danger.

Post tree cutting - waiting for the others to return.

The final product!

Bug Lab Zion Trip II

This was the second research trip I took to Zion National Park this year. It was a quick, three days, in and out and a whole lot of miles. Ryan and I found a spot to pitch our tents on BLM land just outside the park. We got up early, marched around, and collected samples for two days. One night the wind was so bad that it left layers of dirt on my stuff inside the tent.

Our first site on the Left Fork

On our way to the Grapevine site, before our misadventure.

After the picture (above) was taken, we had to make our own trail. We came to a part of the river in which we could either go through the water or crawl up and around to try and get down the other side. We opted to climb. BAD idea. I ended up sliding down a really steep face and tearing the skin up on my arms and legs. Ryan lost his camera and one water shoe. Needless to say, we had to backtrack about an hour and ended up walking through the water, which we should have done in the first place. The misadventure left us shaky and exhausted. Even though we had another day of work, we were just ready to go home. However, we did have success and ended up with some great samples of insects from Zion.