WE ARE PARENTS!

Meet Sir Digsby (AKA, Dig/Diggy), our new son. We are poodle parents. haha.

We had been looking for toy poodles or poodle breeds since they are hypo-allergenic and have little to no shedding, for Chris. Yesterday, I called Heartland Humane Society on a whim since I stalk their web page on a daily basis, and guess what.....they had a new puppy and he wasn't loaded onto their web page yet. This was a sign.

When we got to the shelter it was love at first sight. He was the cutest 2lb hair ball we have ever seen. We knew he was ours. Or so we thought, but right after we rescued him he was kidnapped by his grandparents and taken to the beach.. we hope to be reunited with our first child soon!

(Kia your nephew can't wait to see you!)

Nebraska

We had an interesting time in Nebraska. The first time we drove through the state we stopped in Fort Kearney to camp. It was a beautiful night to camp....at first. Having travelled to the Midwest many times, I know that summer weather can change suddenly. Because of this, I suggested to Chris to put the rain fly on our tent before we went to bed. His response, "I don't think we will need it. The sky is clear and it will be nice to see the stars." I agreed. Fast forward to 2AM....DOWNPOUR. We exhaustively and grumpily got out of the tent and put the stupid rain fly on. That wasn't the end of it. Fast forward to 4AM. Groggy, I awoke with a strange sensation...my felt like they were lifting off the ground. Probably, because THEY WERE, and so were Chris's because of the high winds. Our air mattress was catching some serious air. I turned towards Chris with the fear of a tornado nearing thinking he was awake, devising a plan to save us if a tornado was indeed coming. Boy was I wrong, we was sound asleep. How can you sleep through that?

Enough venting about the weather. New subject....the bugs. They were beyond big, I think they were dinosaur bugs. Please see exhibit A below. This thing, whatever it was, was longer than my finger. If I had a saddle, I probably could have taken it for a ride. (slight exaggeration)
After experiencing "rural" Nebraska we decided we should head to the city. Here is a picture of University of Nebraska's football field. This thing made OSU's stadium look like a high school football field. Our last Nebraska site....Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium. Most Beaver fans recognize this, since the OSU baseball team won two national baseball titles here.
We found out this field will be completely demolished in 2 years to make way for a new $140 million dollar stadium across town.

Olympic Park

One last Utah Blog....Olympic Park Extras..... This park was really neat! This park was created for the 2002 winter Olympics, but they now have a training facility for athletes to train in the summer. Here are pictures of the Aerial training facility Instead of landing on snow they land in the pool. Neat, huh? We were really lucky to be able to watch the Chinese Olympians train while we were there.
These guys were crazy!!
Random pic of Chris attempting to fulfil his bobsledding dreams.
Back to the Olympians. Here is a great picture Chris took of an athlete right before entering the pool.
This was the only female athlete we saw attempt to go off the highest slope. Nice form!

One other side note....Utah's Olympic Park is the only place you can ride on an ACTUAL OLYMPIC BOBSLED TRACK! They have professionals to drive, of course.

UTAH

I wish we had more time in Utah to site see. We went from place to place to place and we still didn't see everything we wanted, not even close. At least most of the sights were indoors so we could get out of the 105 degree weather.....HOT! We started out in Lehi, at Thanksgiving Point, where they house the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the world. It was pretty impressive.
Next stop, the Red Butte Gardens. We have a ton of pictures from this place, it was amazing. Acres upon acres of stunning gardens to enjoy. The cool thing about these gardens is that the park is divided into gardens within gardens....sounds strange I know. There is a Japanese garden, rose garden, vegetable garden, butterfly garden, animal garden, children's garden, etc. Plus, the garden is built into a hillside so wild animals mingle through the garden too. Here we are taking a breather and enjoying the views of downtown Salt Lake City. Temple Square. The pictures don't do this place justice, this place was MASSIVE.
Park City, Utah home of the winter Olympics.
Next stop Snowbird Ski Resort.....once again impressive. Now we know why this place was voted top skiing destination last year, you feel like you are in The Alps. Snowbird is really famous for their innovative concepts as well. Above is their newest creation (and only one in the world) it is giant tunnel with a conveyor belt in the middle to transport skiers/snowboarders....who needs a chairlift any more? What do they do with their old chair lift? Another innovation....extend it, so tourists like Chris and I can ride it 10,000 feet up a mountain. It took 30 minutes just to reach the top of the mountain and I at one point I thought I was going to pass out we got so high. I am glad I did it, but I probably won't do it again.

Here I am happily on the ground back at the resort:)

Idaho

Probably, the least exciting part of our drive was through Southern Idaho (no offense to any readers who like the area). It was brown, it was barren, and it was a little lack luster compared to the rest of our drive. There were are few highlights though.... For all you sports fans, you probably recognized this football field immediately. Though our time in Boise was short we had to make the stop to see the famous "smurf turf" at Boise State University.
The state capitol building.
Chris's new friends.
Twin Falls, ID: Atop the snake river canyon. There is a really cool golf course right behind us at the bottom of the canyon.
Again with the snake river behind us.

Next state: UTAH

Home Sweet Home!

Man-o-man we had one great trip. We spanned a little more than 5,100 miles and 8 states in three weeks. I will post some pictures soon!

Road Trip Update!

Monica and I have decided we are road-trippers! It is now day 11 of our vacation and we are loving every minute of our zig zagging excursion. Only 8 days left and so much more to see. We will hopefully post tons of pictures when we return.