Day One - What a day!

Sorry there will not be any pictures today for a couple of reasons. First, I woke up this morning at 3 AM with severe cramps. I did not get much sleep after that, so our plans to leave early out of Midway around 7 AM did not happen. After spending the entire morning throwing up in the bathroom, I finally decided to brave it and hit the road, so at 9:30 AM we headed out the door. I think I had food poisoning. What a crappy time for that to hit, right? I know! The rest of the day was painful and long, so now you know why I was not quite up to taking any photos. :) Poor Rob had to drive the whole way today because I was unable to sit up straight in order to drive. He rocked it though! Secondly, there was nothing to take a picture of anyways! We made our drive through Wyoming and then Nebraska where we are now currently staying. There is nothing much in those two states but wide open land. To cap off the eventful day we were having, around 8 PM we decided to continue on another hour to the next city of Kearney where we wanted to spend the night. However, we had no idea what we were in for. Out of the blue we hit this terrible severe thunderstorm causing torrential downpour and massive amounts of lightning. We were even lucky enough to follow the storm the whole way to our destination. Sounding fun huh? Well it was exciting, but scary! The news report kept threatening that funnel clouds were forming, quarter size hail, and massive wind gusts up to 60 MPH. It was the classic Nebraska thunderstorm!

Although it sounds like we had one heck of a day, which we did, there were some great moments too, like seeing three rainbows, lots of wild animals, and trying to make the best of being in the center of a severe thunderstorm.

Well that about sums up our day! We drove 780 miles today, which should be our longest leg. YAY! We are in Kearney, Nebraska tonight, and we plan to drive to Kansas City tomorrow. I hope to have pictures for you tomorrow. On a side note, I am starting to feel slightly better and even was able to keep down some dinner. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Good night from Nebraska!

Moving Day - Florida Here We Come!

Well the day has finally arrived! We are leaving beautiful Utah to go to sunny Florida. After three long days of packing, the moving truck finally arrived! I could not wait for them to arrive. I was so sick of packing and cleaning. I officially hate moving!

Here is an action shot of the Explorer being loaded up onto the truck underneath all of our boxes. I am so glad that we are having our stuff moved across the country by professionals. It was great to have them come and load up all of our boxes for us.

Last shot of Robert outside standing on our street.

After a long three days of hard work, we finally got to rest. As a going away present for Robert from Ford & Huff where he did his law internship at, they let us stay in their company villa up in Midway at the new Zermatt Resort. It was well needed after spending three days hunched over boxes!

It was an awesome way to kick off our trip. Tomorrow we will wake up really early and begin our drive through Wyoming and Nebraska. We are hoping to make it to Lincoln, NE tomorrow, so wish us luck!

Well goodnight! Keep checking out our blog as I will try to keep it updated as we make our trip!

Going Away Parties

So this past weekend was our last weekend in Utah before we move, so both sides of my family decided to throw Robert and I a party. This way we could see nearly everyone before we left.

To start it off we went up to my Uncle Garn and Aunt Kim's house where we got together with my Tolsma side of the family. It was a perfect day to have a cookout with hot dogs and hamburgers and play some games outside. We played horseshoes and this other fun game like horseshoes where you throw these roped balls onto a stand to earn points. It was a lot of fun!

Some of us were not as skilled as others and kept getting the roped balls stuck in the tree, so Kim had to cut some branches down to clear a path.

I think I need some more practice. ;)

Where's Tyler?

It was a lot of fun getting together again and catching up. We are going to miss being able to see our family so often.

Jenny, Aunt Lori, and Grandma Tolsma

Cousins


The following day we got together with my mom's side of the family and the games continued...

This time we played some croquet and money was at stake. I almost took the first round, but my cousin Drew took me out! Lucky bum won $20! My Uncle Murray won the second round.

Tyson, Jessica, Drew and I sitting back and relaxing after finishing up our game of croquet.



After eating taco salad and playing croquet, we took our party up to Mountain Green where my Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob just moved. We celebrated my sisters birthday and ate lots of dessert.

Farewell! Thanks to everyone for making these past five years here in Utah awesome. It is definitely going to be a bittersweet move. We are excited to start a new adventure, but sad to leave family and friends.

Swimming Party

Last Monday, we went over to the Asay's barn to have a last get-together with two other couples in our ward because two of us our moving.

The Asay's were so nice to open their home to us, so we could all hang out and go swimming. Here we are left to right: Kaydee, Eunice, Jaclyn, and me.

They have the sweetest pool! As you can see, they have a 12 foot rock wall that you can jump off of into the pool. The boys loved it. I think they liked climbing up the wall more than they did jumping off it. I spent most of the time on the dark water slide tunnel that they also have.

They also have these water guns that you can shoot at people while they are swimming.

Here is the gang! The Cranes on the left, Jaclyn in the middle (her and Brandon are moving to VA for medical school), and us. It was such a fun night! We had the best homemade burgers I have ever tasted, swam, played lots of ping pong, and ate some yummy desert. We keep saying how much we are going to miss our ward when we move. We have been so lucky to have met such wonderful people, and they will all be greatly missed. I wish we could take them with us to Florida!

Timpanogos Caves

On Saturday July 18, 2009, Robert and I met up with my mom and Grandma Tolsma to hike to Timpanogos Caves. It was my mom's gift to my grandma for her 79th birthday. This is something that she has been wanting to do for quite some time. Also, it was the first time for Robert and I.

Here we are starting the hike up!

On the way up, we saw some beautiful wildlife.

It is a steep hike, so we had to take a couple of pit stops for rest. My mom and grandma did awesome!

It was a perfect day to hike. Look at the amazing view we had on the whole way up the side of the mountain.

We are halfway there!

Getting closer...it started to get pretty steep towards the end.

We finally made it!

Once we reached the top, we had to get all geared up (wear jackets) to go on our cave tour.

It was a really fun cave to explore. It was really narrow at times.

Cave spaghetti

On the other side! We made it out. Now for the easy part: the hike down. Except that was the part that made us most sore the day after. I guess we are not use to using those muscles that it takes to go down a steep incline.

One last view of the beautiful canyon.

Well she made it! Way to go Grandma!

It's time for some real fun...

On Friday night, our friends Devin and Kaydee took us out on their ATVs. We went up in the Spanish Fork Canyon where we spent the evening taking these ATVs on some fun off-road trails.

It was another first for Robert. He had never been riding on an ATV before, and I think we initiated him well. We went on some fun off-road trails that were very difficult. He did awesome and loved every minute of it!

Hard core!

At one of our pit stops. It was a perfect night for being up in the canyon. The weather, company, and scenery were perfect! It was one of the best times we have had this summer!

Boys being boys...

One of my favorite things to do is go 4 wheeling. It reminds me of Sourdough, a place my Grandma and Grandpa owned up in the mountains. All my cousins and family would go up spend the night and go 4 wheeling all day! I miss those good 'ol days.

Here is some video from our drive back down the canyon after our off-roading adventure.

Who knew that the drive back down would have such a surprise.

On our drive, we found some skeletal remains of a cow jaw and an actual dead cow. It did not smell very pleasant! We didn't think you needed to see a picture of the cow.

After playing around all evening on the trails, we ended our night watching the sunset from on top of a hill. Utah summers are a lot of fun, we are surely going to miss them!

Unfortunately our fun came to a close when the sun went down. Here we are all dirty from all of our fun!

Thanks to Devin and Kaydee for an awesome night! You guys have been the best of friends! We are going to miss you so much! We can't wait until you come and visit us in Florida.

God Bless America!

To kick off the 4th of July weekend Robert, my mom, and I went to a drive-in movie. It was so much fun! I haven't been to a drive-in since I was little. We watched Ice Age and Night at the Smithsonian. We picked the two shortest movies possible since you watch back to back movies.

As you can see, we had some of the best seats in the house. We sat on top of the van and ate pizza and lots of other goodies.

It was Robert's first time at a drive-in movie, and he loved it. That's the screen in the background where our movies were shown. We watched them until 2 AM!

Happy 4th of July! The next day we slept in and missed the parade. After sleeping away the morning, we decided to get out of the house and do something. We took my grandpa to a car show up in Perry near Logan. On our way back from Logan, we decided to make a pit stop and have a picnic at the park.

While we were eating, a few seagulls started to stalk us. They were waiting for us to let our guard down. Robert, being an animal lover, started throwing our leftovers to them and sure enough we ended up with a whole army of birds!

After watching the main city fireworks, we came home and decided to do our own street side firework show.

We gave grandpa a show of a lifetime! ;)

We are so blessed to have been born in the beautiful U.S.A! Forever let freedom ring!