Idiot Wounds

So, I didn’t know about idiot wounds until about two years ago when I witnessed my first one. Jake and I took some friends from England out to go shooting. They had never done two things in their life that they wanted to experience here in the U.S. The first was shooting and the second was riding in the back of a pickup truck. I guess they had seen them both in movies and wanted to experience it themselves.
So it’s getting a little late and probably to the point where we want to stop shooting out in the middle of the desert, but we had one more watermelon to blow up before we called it quits. Jake pulls the scope up to his eye and being that its getting a little dark he can’t see very well and pulls the scope just that much closer…BAM… the recoil of the gun pushes the scope back into Jakes head and hits him right between the eyes, and that my friends is what an idiot wound is.
Now it’s my birthday weekend and Jake plans this romantic horseback ride through Pine Valley. We have Justia the pretty palomino of Phils that I will be riding, loaded into the trailer that Randy and Sharon were nice enough to let us borrow for the day. Now we only have the Knubbins to load and she is a pain. The last time I tried helping her load I was almost in tears because I thought for sure she was going to kill me. So I’m trying to tell myself that now she’s worked with so she should totally load easier…well… not what she had in mind and apparently being my birthday didn’t sink in for her. So Jake has her half way in and asks me to take the rope through the window of the front of the trailer. Okay first off I’m not so much of a rookie that I wrap the rope around my hand! I swear that rope was not looped but Knubbins of course freaks out and pulls back with all her strength and the rope start slipping through my hand and I must have had it bunched somehow because it burns my hand and then loops my pointer finger and I can’t let go!!! So her strength pulls my arm through the little window and my head slams right into the trailer and that my friends is how Julia got her first idiot wound!!!!
After a lot of ice and getting to the point quickly where I could laugh at myself, I was fine. I learned from my mistake and used the trailer for leverage with the rope and got the Knubbins beast in.
We then got to Pine Valley and had really the most amazing ride. We felt like the only two people out there and probably were with the cold. We road through some easy trails for my sake and we saw so many deer. Our horses weren’t too sure about them because at some points we were literally just surrounded by deer. Jake would even leave me to the trail and ride up through the trees towards them and get 10 feet from them and they would just watch us. They are curious creatures that followed us all the way to the horse trailer and then watched trying to figure out why we were loading two massive animals into a small white box lol.


So now I’m laying here in bed Sunday morning loving the time change because every inch of my body hurts…. Including my idiot wound. Honestly though, thank you Jake for a perfect birthday! He got me the game Parcheesi that is a very competitive game and we have been staying up until 1:00am each night playing the darn thing. He was going to get me the Nook because I’ve wanted it for so long, but I left to go pick it out and I just couldn’t do it. So we turned around and stopped at the library instead where I finally got a library card and got a book on cd and a paperback to read. Is it weird that I get this satisfaction of finishing a book and seeing all those pages I read? Would I feel the same way reading it off the Nook? That’s probably totally silly, but for now I’ll stick to my paper lol.
I totally got spoiled this year and thank you to all my friends who made it honestly so special. Mom and Dad and Aunt Donna, even living in Idaho I still felt totally loved on my birthday from you.
Love you guys!

Temple and Sealing post to follow…

I finally got to go through the temple! It was an amazing experience! My mom and I
got to the temple early, well early for a Saturday, 8:30AM and I was instantly surrounded by the cutest little old ladies I have ever seen. Everyone just started congratulating me and acting like I had known them all my life. Instantly I just felt so peaceful and could feel the spirit so strongly.
Some funny moments during my experience that I can talk about was at one point my mom and I were in the waiting area which was a gorgeous prep room where they had lots of mirrors and big chandeliers and a bunch of stations where you could fix makeup and hair. Well one girl was in there flipping out because she didn’t fit in her wedding dress, all of a sudden??? Which how does that happen? The mom was freaking out and asking my mom for help and running around trying to get the temple helpers to assist and the whole time I’m thinking…what are we suppose to do??? Make her lose 5lbs in 5 min lol.? They finally squished her into her dress and I thought that the first person she hugs she is going to pop. Then of course you have the high maintenance St. George girl who was throwing a fit that she couldn’t keep her enormous daisy in her hair LOL! I was dying! She had this scowl on her face the whole time (which sad for her she isn’t realizing what’s most important about this day) and the cute worker ladies were all trying to remain nice and calm but you could just tell they were struggling. Then she comes out of her dressing room and the ladies are all looking at each other nervous and then one of them said “you need to bustle your dress” and the girl snaps back… It’s ALREADY bustled. So they were telling her how it was too long and they can’t have the train following her like that down the hall and she insisted she wasn’t going to change and that she would just hold the train. I about died laughing at that point… good luck to that poor husband.
They had someone by me every second of the way and my mom was with me of course and thank goodness she was, because she was a huge comfort, but right before I go walk into the room my mom decides to go to the restroom!!! SO I’m standing there by myself, totally overwhelmed and I see my friend Laura and Jake and my Dad and instant comfort!
Don’t worry that I have a big pink tag on me so EVERYONE can know I’m the new girl! Then they keep referring to Jake as my fiancé and I have to keep clarifying that he’s my husband. Then when everyone was again leaving me to fend for myself and I started to panic, out of nowhere this darling little cute temple worker is at my side and she helped me through everything. She was trying to calm me down and all I did was look at her and grab her hand and said “okay you’re going to tell me what to do right… you’re not leaving me … and you’re going to stay by me through the rest of this!” she looked at me and laughed a little and she did stay by my side the rest of the time. It was totally awesome and I just loved every moment of it all and looking over at my darling husband and him smiling back and thinking “this is awesome”.
Oh and Dad’s camera broke when it was time for pictures so all I have are these photos taken by my phone. I didn’t even get a shot with Brother and Sister Nielsen, are temple prep teachers that were absolutely awesome. They have become such a blessing in our lives and we were so grateful not only for the wonderful lessons but also the friendships that were made and getting to be a part of their loving home.
Also, Nicole and Laura - love you guys! Laura you were such a huge comfort to me and i was so thankful to have you right next to me through it all. Nicole, you were there in spirit lol She was two minutes late to the session and not allowed in...and after coming all the way from Vegas for it. Of course my parents - love you guys and i'm so blessed to have you in my life.

Lions and tigers and bears oh my August 28th!

I had the chance to get away from St. George for a weekend to Boise Idaho to see Kimmie.


She is doing fantastic and still loves her awesome job at the law firm there. I took Hera all by myself on the airplane. I usually like the comfort of having Jake along with me and he carries her which is huge for me because she can get heavy when you’re hauling her down the endless terminals of the airport. I actually had a moment of weakness where I understood those ladies who took their dog around in a stroller – do no panic… I won’t be doing that EVER. The only challenge was trying to fit in the bathroom stall, with her, my luggage and then she jumped out of her carrier and so in this little bathroom stall I was trying to get her back in. I’m sure my neighbors were a little confused and hopefully understood I had my dog with me lol awkward!
Kim’s work is sponsoring the Giraffe exhibit at the Zoo so we took off early Saturday morning to the Boise Zoo. Now you wouldn’t think that Boise has a good zoo but they really have a great one. We reserved tickets to have breakfast with the lions… no not be the lions breakfast ;) they set out this great buffet breakfast and once you got into your meal a little they released the lions into their area. It was amazing to watch. They spread cinnamon and a few other herbs close to the window to entice them and they couldn’t get enough of it. They would rub their face all over it and roll in it. It was great.

We then headed over to the Giraffe exhibit where we got to feed them.



Our little viistor during our breakfast...

I don’t know what treat I was expecting but they gave us roman lettuce… I just thought they would give us something a little bit more than lettuce but the giraffe loved it lol. So my pictures of this is funny because from my view I thought I was really close to this guy. He was looking down on me and taking up my food and Kim kept telling me to get closer and I wouldn’t because that honestly seemed so close to me! Now I look at the pictures and thought what the heck perception was I having that day lol.







Do I need to explain why i took a picture of this -- i laughed so hard.





We then went around to the other animals and saw the Snow Leopard that every time I went to film him going NUTS… like jumping on the side of the wall and flipping backwards nuts. I would raise the camera and press record and like he was on queue he would collapse on the ground and act like he was just sleeping. He did it to me 3 times and finally and gave up trying to catch him in the act.



We then found ourselves in the same spot that the last time Kim and I came to the zoo this annoying lady was eaves dropping on our conversation. I came up to the exhibit and yelled back to Kimmie “check out the turtle!” this lady got in such a huff and corrected me “its NOT a turtle… it’s a tortoise” ohhhh okay, I don’t remember inviting you to this conversation but thanks for the info. So there we were reminiscing on that experience when I look over and see this whole display of nasty cockroaches. Kim turns her head to look and instantly is disgusted because who wants to see those at the zoo and makes one of her classic Kim remarks that I love. This girl comes up to us and corrects us “these are NOT bad cockroaches these are cockroaches you can set in your hand and they hiss… so they aren’t bad”. We just look at her and don’t know what to say. We made the decision to avoid that spot in the future of Idaho Zoo trips because all the crazy people seem to populate there.

check this brave lady out... brave to go into the Australian porcupine habitat to clean. she ended up defending herself with the broom:


This goat was awesome! This kid was pestering him and yelling at him for no reason and then he sticks his head in its area and decides he wants to pet him... BAM... the goat head buts him right in the head!



talk to the hand monkey...











other fun animals:





Once we were done with the zoo we did a little shopping and then went back home to have some of Kim’s yummy garlic chicken she makes. The puppies all behaved themselves. We had a little bit of a war between them over toys. Hera was a little bored so I pulled one of her horse hoofs to chew on – yes dogs chew on horse hoofs. You actually can buy them at the store for a lot of money but we just collect the clippings after the ferrier comes out to clip our horses hoofs and whala… instant chew toy. So I pull it out for Hera to play with and after a little while I put it away for later in get bag in my room. I’m chilling on the couch when Kim walks by and says “oh Bronte stole Hera’s chew toy?” and I told her no I just put it away. Well the little culprit Bronte went into the bedroom and into my bag and pulled out the chew toy. She was chewing away as fast as she could and Cooper was standing guard. Well what goes around comes around I guess because Hera goes over to Kims toy bin for the dogs and pulls out a huge bone for her to chew on. So that started it… fight for the toys. Her dogs would get distracted and she would go steal a there toys and then my dog would be distracted and they would come and steal hers. Then Cooper would get furious when he would see Hera having fun with one of his toys. It ended in a full on bark argument but they made up and got along in the end.
Thanks Kim for a great time!

Virginia In June

I had planned like crazy for our trip to Virginia. When you standby travel you have to have at least 5 different scenarios in case your flights starts to fill up. Then the flight out of St. George cancelled and then the Cedar flight cancelled so when Jake came to pick me up at work I at that moment let him know we were off to Vegas. We get to Vegas and tried for a flight to Los Angeles where we would connect to Tucson and then stay the night there and go to Atlanta the next morning to connect yet again to a flight to Norfolk, VA. The agent called our names for the flight but we got ready to get on the plane and they wanted to check our bag (number one rule of standby travel – never.check.your.bag!) I told her we didn’t really know if Tucson would be our final destination and she said we had no choice the bag was being checked. Jake makes his classic comment “ya we have a choice… we don’t go” and we looked at each other and thought we should not get on this flight. So we back away from the gate and start panicking that we might have missed a great chance to get to Virginia. We had one more chance that night for an oversold flight to Washington Dulles and wouldn’t you know it that we totally slipped on that flight with no problem! We landed in Washington at 7:00am just as Andy my brother-in-law was pulling into town. Jake had never seen Washington DC and if you know Jake at all you know how much he loves his history. We did a quick view of the sites because Andy had to get some paperwork back to Yorktown before a certain time. We did have the special privilege to eat at the Washington DC military base located behind Arlington National Cemetery. We really will have to go back and do a real detailed tour of DC sometime.













Andy is going into the JAG and so he is based at the Naval Weapons Base in Yorktown . Let’s just say that they hooked him up! He has a darling family of 4 and so the Military requires that each kid gets their own room. So he was in a Colonel house looking over the huge York river (okay huge for a Utah girl). Andy’s wife Noemi is from Mexico so we had some delicious meals. In fact I would have been content playing games with the kids the whole time and eating her amazing food.
We did take a tour of Yorktown and saw the cave where General Cornwallis went to hide after Secretary Thomas Nelson bombed his home. He then shortly after that surrendered. We also saw where the battle of Yorktown took place and saw the battle hills that were made. We went to Jamestown (you know… Pocahontas) and saw the coolest glass blowing done there. We honestly could have spent hours just watching these guys do amazing artwork out of glass.











One of the highlights and at the same time disappointments was when we had the chance to take a fishing boat on the Chesapeake Bay. It was so fun being out on the water like that and fishing but the disappointment was when we only caught a few lame croaker fish. Now they call them croakers because that’s exactly what they sound like… some weird croaking sound – kind of freaks you out a bit. We did catch a flounder but it was so little that we had to throw it back.






When we took the little croakers back to the house to cook up because the kids had never caught and cooked up their own fish (what world are they from?) so Jake was showing the kids how to gut a fish and Olivia was just enthralled in the process and wanted to do everything that Jake was doing. So when Jake cut the fish she wanted to hold his hand in the process to also cut the fish, and when Jake tossed the guts she tossed the guts and best of all when Jake spit like a real man she… no kidding… turned and SPIT just like him… oops sorry Noemi about that one!






















Last but not least we went to Williamsburg which is a darling historic town with people even dressed up in the typical colonial outfits. We caught a lot of fireflies with the kids and saw some of the fun sites and then ended on a perfect note in the candy shop with amazing caramel apples and fudge.
We had a tough time getting back to St. George with the flights but the whole trip made it worth it. Dan however had no problem! As we were waiting for a flight he read his horoscope that said he would fine with all his travels today and that nothing would stand in his way. Apparently the stars meant that we wouldn’t stand in his way because when the Flight Attendant called Rainey she informed us that she only had one seat and could only take one of our party… well have fun Dan LOL He made it home without a problem! We’ll have to check our horoscopes next time we plan to fly.




some more fun pics:
















The Prince and the Princess tried to run away... shoot they didn't make it... guess you should have paid your taxes.





















Jamestown:












































the base:





























Yorktown:



























Williamsburg:


























































After a very long day and coming to the end of the journey...