Birthdays, Youth Conference, and Other Things

This is going to be a long post, so bear with me. A lot has happened in the last couple weeks of our summer vacation. I'll start with the most recent.

-Birthdays-

Dar celebrated his big 30 birthday last Thursday while we were at Youth Conference. The group all sang happy birthday to him while rafting down the Colorado River. Not to mention I reminded him all day long that it was his birthday. I couldn't help it! :) Happy birthday, baby!

My 24th birthday was yesterday. We enjoyed a wonderful phone call from Australia - it was great to hear your voices, guys! We miss you!! Then yesterday evening we had both of our families come over, as well as several friends, to enjoy some good food along with cupcakes & ice cream to celebrate with us. We didn't get any pictures though :( Thanks to everyone for all of your birthday wishes!!

-Youth Conference-

This past week, Dar & I had the opportunity to spend 4 days at Youth Conference with our ward. We seriously had a blast getting to know the youth in our ward better and the other leaders and bishopric members who went too. There were 10 youth and 10 leaders who went. We have lots of fun pictures to post, so here we go!

Dar & I left before noon on Wednesday to head down and reserve a camping spot for our group at West Water Canyon on the Colorado river, just west of the Colorado border. We got there several hours before the rest of our group was coming so we decided to take advantage of our time together and do some site-seeing on our own. We drove down to Moab and then out to Dead Horse Point. I seriously love road trips with just the two of us! And the red rocks down there are beautiful!

Day 1 - Wednesday: Road trip & camp set-up

Beautiful scenery on the way to Moab

Dead Horse Point

Potash settling ponds at Dead Horse Point - the view of the water was so pretty!

Me & my sweetie

Some little boys find themselves too close to the edge

Cool night shot Dar took the 1st night at camp

Day 2 - Thursday: White Water Rafting on the Colorado River
The next morning we were up bright and early to have breakfast and prepare the rafts to go white water rafting. The youth all did a great job with helping to get the rafts ready to go.

We even put the bishopric to work :)

The last raft took a lot of hands to get into the water. All hands were needed on deck! It was extremely heavy!!

Skipper ready for launch

The "yellow jacket" gang ready to get in the water!

Loading up & preparing to take off

All done with the fun and ready to return to base camp. They really only suffered sunburns despite all of our pleading to cake on the sun screen. Silly kids :) And when we asked the kids what their favorite part of youth conference was they all said it was the rafting. I'd say it was a success!

Another cool night shot Dar got the 2nd night. Our camp was right on the river. We stayed in the same place for the first 2 nights. The mosquitoes were relentless!!

Day 3 - Friday: Goblin Valley
After breakfast & packing up camp we headed to Goblin Valley. We set camp up again and then set out on a geocache scavenger hunt using GPS. The kids were split up into 2 teams & each team had 4 bags of items to find using the coordinates the leaders gave them. Both teams did a great job & they had a blast using the GPS on their search through Goblin Valley.

Ashley was our trusted guide & honorary GPS navigator

The last bag of items was the hardest for our group. But they finally found it after a while.

Me & Dar at Goblin Valley

The Red Chief from the Peter Pan cartoon was the watchman over our camp the night we stayed at Goblin Valley. We really needed him too - the wind was SUPER intense at times! I had to re-stake down our tent a couple times because of the wind. Luckily it calmed down by the time we were ready for dinner & it wasn't windy at all that night while we slept. Thank goodness!

The youth had to use the items they found during the scavenger hunt to put together a short skit centered around our theme: Joshua 1:9 - Be strong & of a good courage for the Lord thy God is with thee withersover thou goest.
Both groups were extremely creative and did an AWESOME job!

Dar took some more really cool night shots of the beautiful rock cliffs that made up our camping alcove on the last night.

Day 4 - Saturday: Service project & travel home
The kids didn't get a whole lot of sleep the last night because they were playing pranks on each other nearly all night long. We were woken up at 5:00am to the girls laughing hysterically and taking pictures because they had zip-tied the boys tent shut in an attempt to get the boys back for the pranks they had played on the girls the night before. They were planning to wake up early anyway to hike to the top of the cliff to see the partial lunar eclipse that morning. Dar & 1 other leader went with them. I was so tired I stayed to get some more sleep before they came back :)

We did a service project on the way home. We stopped near Salina to clear a hiking trail of garbage & trim back the branches and bushes to make the trail more accessible to hikers and horseback riders who use the trail. While we were waiting for the tools, they played dodgeball.

After the service project we had a final testimony (and I made a fool of myself by bawling my eyes out while trying to share a spiritual thought about being strong and having courage through trials), then we ate at a super yummy Mexican restaurant before driving back home. This was such a fun experience for Dar & I to be a part of, and we know the youth all had a really great time too. Even though we don't have very many youth in our ward, they are all really great kids and I learned so much by watching them this last week.

-Summer fun with the kiddos-

Last Saturday Dar & I were laying out, trying to work on our base tan before we go to Lake Powell next month. When we were done we had some fun eating tons of popsicles and playing with our nieces and nephew on the swings and teeter-totter at Dar's parents house.

-Layton Trip-

A few weeks ago Dar & I went up to Layton to spend some time with my family. We watched my baby brother in his last ballroom dance performance--you did a great job, Sky! We also helped my dad get the pool set up for the summer, and had dinner at my sister's house before coming home. We always have fun when we get to spend time with our families :)

Dar was the only one brave enough to get in the pool so early. The water was freezing!!! It was hose water straight from the house. Definitely not warmed up by the sun yet. Silly boy :)

We got Liam this mega-magnifier for his birthday last month. He absolutely loves it!

Some of the shots, like this one, make me think of the "Elf Yourself" videos.

Dinner at Bri's house. These are cupcakes with an insane about of icing over the top. The kiddos loved them tho!

Hannah

Liam

Baby Dakoda
Our yummy chicken enchiladas
The clouds were soo beautiful!! We had an amazing lightning storm that night.

I think that's it for now. Thanks for reading :) And keep reading because we have many more summer adventures to come!!

Eclipse Part 2 - Aug. 12, 2045

In doing some further research, I (D) found out that there will be an eclipse that runs smack dab through the center of Utah, and much of the United States. You will be able to see it as far north as Salt Lake City to as far south as Richfield, from Vernal down to Moab. What a trip that would be, to be sitting at Delicate Arch viewing a solar eclipse. Boo rah! So mark your calendars folks, it will be August 12th, 2045. That just happens to be mine and K's 40th wedding anniversary! How scientifically romantic!

The blue lines are the boundaries of full eclipse, the red line is the center of the path.

August 21, 2017

Dar has been madly working on his write-up for his master's degree presentation. He has to do a presentation on the sky in July so he was looking up information on solar eclipses. Being the astronomy nerds that we are, Dar & I were looking up future solar eclipse dates today. I remembered from my astronomy class a couple years ago that there would be a total solar eclipse visible from the Tetons coming up in a few years, but I couldn't remember exactly when. So in doing our research we found that the news is even better for us than we thought!!

The center of the solar eclipse will pass less than a mile from where my sweet grandma lives just outside of Rexburg. How much better than that can you get? Here's the proof:

In this first map, you can see the red line is the center of the solar eclipse path. The blue lines show the furthest north and south of the center you can be to still see the total solar eclipse. And it also gives the times that it will be visible. The red dot is my grandma's house :)

See? Look how close her house is to the center line when you zoom in!!

Dar & I were thinking we were going to have to take a trip to the Teton's to see this amazing event, but all we have to do is go to Grandma's house! You have no idea how excited I am about this!! Yes. That's how big of a nerd I am. Let the count-down begin! :)

P.S. I thought all of you Idaho relatives who read our blog would enjoy this information almost as much as us. Especially because some of you will probably be able to see the eclipse from your own backyards! Or, maybe we could just turn it into an eclipse viewing party at Grandma's. Mark your calendars! ;)

Oh yeah, and if you're interested in more information or just curious about other solar eclipses that will be taking place, we got our information from this NASA website.

Gettin' our can on!

Shouldn't it really be called "jarring" rather than "canning?" I mean, you're putting the stuff in jars not cans, right?
Anyway, Dar & I spent Tuesday morning canning strawberry jam for our first time ever!! Woot! Woot! And I can honestly say it was fun! Then again, pretty much everything we do together is fun no matter what it is. It took us 3 hours to can 5 batches of strawberries. I guess we may have gone a little overboard but we had no idea what to expect, since this was our first time. I'm sure it's going to take a while for the 2 of us to get through 30 jars of strawberry jam (although I have given a few jars away already). We bought 2 flats of strawberries the day before and got all the stuff together that we would need. (A HUGE thanks to Ron & Martha & Mama D for helping us out and all the great tips to get us started!) We used almost an entire 25 lb bag of sugar. No joke. On every single batch we did Dar was like, "Man! That's a lot of sugar!" Haha. He never got over the fact that you put in 8.5 cups of sugar to 5.5 cups of strawberries. No wonder we like strawberry jam so much! ;) And the even better thing is that all of our jars sealed and the jam tastes great! I was really loving the sound of the lids popping. Music to my ears!

My job was to cut all the stems off

And my amazing hubby did just about everything else :) But once I finally finished cutting all the strawberries, I was able to help him out with all the stuff he was doing.

Now that we're experts *wink*, we can't wait to can other stuff throughout the summer and into the fall, especially tomatoes and grape juice!! We've been wanting to do this for several years now and I'm glad we're finally to the point that we can dedicate enough time to actually get it done.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary. . .

. . .how does your garden grow?

With pumpkins, peas, tomatoes and beans,
and lots and lots of weeds!!

Now that summer vacation is in full swing for both of us, we have more time to spend tending to our garden. We've already had to do some major weeding--twice. We had to replant some veggies already, got the poles in for our pole green beans, and we're really enjoying watching the progress of our little plants! Bring on the fresh garden veggies!! I can't wait until we can harvest!

P.S. If anyone has any tips on how to get peas to come up so we have more success for next year, we'd LOVE the advice!!

In the process of weeding :)

Our yummy grapes are starting to grow

We're getting excited to have LOTS of pumpkins!

The finished product after some good, hard, labor.

We also have pears, apples, peaches and apricots starting to grow! Mmm! Can't wait! And it's also in the plan to actually harvest the walnuts this year too. Our fingers are crossed that we get everything done that we're planning!

love + laugher = the best kind of medicine

I know I get all gushy sometimes when I talk about my sweet husband, but it's because I really mean it, and I really am that way in real life.
(I know I just used "real" like 3 times in that sentence. Hang in there.)
Darwin is my best friend.
He is my backbone and support in everything I do.
He is the love of my life.
My companion for eternity.
We're attached at the hip.
ALWAYS.
The thing I love most about him is that he makes me fall in love with him all over again every single day.
No lie.

Last night was one of those nights I will cherish. Always.
No.
It's not what you're thinking.
Before we were married, I made Darwin promise to make me laugh every day. If you know Darwin's sense of humor, and you know how easily I laugh, it's really not that hard.
But he has fulfilled his promise.
And last night, as we were lying in bed getting ready to fall asleep he had me laughing so hard I was crying. It's not the first time. It actually happens quite frequently, but that's what I love about him. He always knows how to make me laugh. And he loves to hear me laugh at him. I laugh at his quirky jokes because I actually think they're funny, when most people may just laugh out of sympathy.
Laughter really is the best medicine. I don't know what I would do if we had to live life without laughter.
Darwin is the funniest person I know. I'm so glad I have him in my life every single day to make me happy and make me realize every single day that I am the luckiest girl in the world to have him as my husband. I wouldn't trade what I have for anything!

I LOVE YOU, BABE!

Lape Family Reunion '10

Every Memorial Day weekend my extended family gets together for our annual Lape Family Reunion. We camp out in my great aunt and uncle's back yard and just have fun being together. I know it looks sunny in the pictures but it was kind of chilly this year, but that didn't stop us from all of our fun activities! We were just glad it didn't rain on us!

Aeryka & Abbie entertaining themselves while waiting for our tin foil dinners to cook

Mmm! They were scrumptious!

We played some softball. . .

. . . and had a beautiful sunset!

Christopher got a new wheelchair. He absolutely LOVES it because it gives him a lot more freedom to get around on his own. We love watching Christopher's progress!

Then it was time for marshmallows, s'mores, and campfire songs! I found gigantic marshmallows at a local grocery store that are at least 3 times the size of normal marshmallows. They were a big hit!

The fun part is trying to eat a s'more with a gigantic marshmallow!
Ben's haka face. Love this kid!

The next day was filled with lots of fun too.
These boys are crazy! ;)

When D & I went home to shower we found that our car was tagged overnight by a flock of birds. Or maybe it was just one? Everyone got a kick out of it, cuz it was only our car that got hit.

Beautiful Maple Mountain

Then, like last year, we did bottle rockets again. They're always a favorite!

I think the older kids had more fun trying to catch the rockets rather than launch them.

Beautiful Abbie

We blew some bubbles

And Dar got this amazing shot! I love it!

And, of course, it wouldn't be a complete reunion without a game of croquette!

Checking the position of the ball. . . just in case.

Uncle Bob

Thanks everyone for another fun family reunion! We always love spending time with you!!

Mr. D in action!

I went to work with Dar yesterday to document the demonstration day he does every semester for his students. It was so fun for me to be there and watch him teach! The students, of course, love his demo day too. He gets all the gases and chemicals from Praxair, in case anyone is wondering. . . people always ask him that.

*Note: It was crazy hair day at his school yesterday, and you'll see that in some of the pictures and videos. Just so you know, his students don't always look like that! :)

Teaching about liquid nitrogen
Handing out frozen-solid gummy bears

Standing in line for a frozen marshmallow

A bubble created from the CO2 gas of dry ice & dish soap

Lighting a butane bubble on fire

He made all of his students wear safety goggles for a couple of his demos, and one kid took the instructions to an extreme! What a crack up!

Now for the videos-the coolest one is first:












And if you want to see what sulfur hexafluoride (a.k.a. SF6) does, here are a couple videos we took a year ago when Dar was able to get some. I know some of you have seen them already, but here they are again. Please don't mind how nasty I look. It was like 10:30pm, and we were getting ready to go to bed when Dar thought it would be fun to show me the SF6:

It's official!