The Keyhole

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

The Big Trip!

The Big Trip 2014! Here is Matt and I somewhere between Boise and Provo on the first day of the trip. We're so excited!

The Midwest was beautiful! I didn't expect it to be so lush and green. There were lots of beautiful rolling hills, and trees growing spontaneously between farms. This is a very flat, humid area of Nebraska.

The purpose of the Big Trip was to go see my sister-in-law, Andrea, and her husband, Steven in Minneapolis. We surprised her by just "happening" to be at the same restaurant she was going to with Steven the day we arrived. One of our days in Minneapolis, we went to the Mall of America. Here is Matt wearing a unicorn mask in Urban Outfitters.

It's difficult to see in this photo, but there is an amusement park INSIDE THE MALL! So cool!

I almost never get a picture of Matt just plain old smiling. Haha!

While in Minnesota, we went to a resort near Onamia along Mille Lacs Lake (what a redundant name! In French, "mille lacs" means 1000 lakes. So the name is essentially, 1000 Lakes Lake.) This is Mille Lacs Lake. It was surprisingly warm and huge! Well, huge to my standards. But in comparison to Lake Superior, very small.

Next is a cheesy filter on a cheesy photo of Matt near the lake. Enjoy.

And now another cheesy edit on a photo of a cute little carousel at a burger joint called Happy's.

A beautiful photo with a cheesy frame.

There were TONS of frogs at the resort. Also toads. This is a little guy I saw on a lily pad.

Evidence of Minnesota's beauty.

One day we drove North to Duluth to see Lake Superior. We went on a boat tour, which was pretty cool. Pictured below is my mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law, Andrea, and Stephanie (left to right).

As per usual, odd faces of the Emma and Matt variety.

I thought Duluth was a really bizarre place. Like it stepped right out of the industrial age. There was this sad, brown, worn out feel to the whole place. Even Lake Superior was kind of brown.

I really love this guy.

We found a beach in Duluth. The water was pretty cold, so everyone pretty much just waded in the water. But I like to swim, so I took the plunge into the great lake and got to cross that off my bucket list!

I married into a really fun, cool family. Matt, Andrea, and Jared (left to right).

Here I am post-swim, happy and invigorated!

Lake Superior holds 10% of the Earth's fresh water. At its deepest, it would completely cover the Empire State Building PLUS eight more stories.

We went back to Minneapolis after our resort trip and saw the sweet park with lots of sculptures. This fish one is one of my favorites.

This is a really sweet view of Minneapolis overlooking the Mississippi River from the Endless Bridge.

In this photo, you can see the Endless Bridge (blue and not really a "bridge") and the flour mill ruins. The mill is in ruins because it exploded like ten years ago or something.

Some more mill ruins.

On our return trip from Minneapolis, we stayed in South Dakota so that we could see the sights there. Mount Rushmore was breathtaking!

Can you guess how Matt feels about Teddy Roosevelt?

We also saw the Crazy Horse monument. It's not finished, you can see his face, the starts of his arm, and the outline of his horse traced in the mountain.

One day it will look like this.

One night we stayed in these sweet cabins run by a Ma and Pa operation. It was charming.

Here's Matt dressed in his Sunday best in front of our cabin. Once again, isn't he handsome?

We had a great time on our vacation! But I have to say, I'm glad to be home now. Sometimes you need a vacation from your vacation because traveling is rather tiring.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Summer so far

Here's some pictures of my summer so far:

Matt and I went to a Brookhart family reunion (his mom's family) and took a few photos underneath a tree that his uncle planted in his grandma's front yard.

Matt is very handsome.

I tried my hand at home-made gum drops. Let's just say they look better than they taste and are basically jello jigglers.

The Big 4th of July Swim! In my family, we put "the big" in front of most activities we're going to do. Like the big feast, the big swim, the big hike, etc.

The swimming hole this year is prime! Deep and cool.

On the way to the Big Swim, I found some daisies growing in the rocks in an empty river bed channel.

Matt makes this really hilarious face when he is pretending to be super sad. Hahaha! Look at that eye!

The Big 4th of July Frog Hunt! This actually turned out to be rather disastrous. Cara had a good time, but Faith got cut by a plant that she was slightly allergic to, Cara cut her toe on a blackberry brier, the dog kept scaring all of the frogs, we got tons of mosquito bites, and we didn't catch any frogs.

One night after work, Matt and I drove up to Tablerock in Boise and looked out over the town, enjoying a warm summer breeze.

It's a rare occasion when almost all of my nieces and nephews are together. But what's even more rare is that we got them to hold relatively still long enough to take a picture! Luckily I had Adam standing behind me making goofy faces and "bunny ears" to keep their attention.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

I'm on a kick right now...

I, like other members of my family, get really excited about something for a while and then I lose interest. Right now I'm on a fitness kick. This might be one of those short-lived obsessions, but I'm going to ride it for all it's worth while it lasts! (That's always what my sister, Jane, says about things like this...I know what she means for sure!)

So while I'm interested in being as healthy as I can be and losing weight, that's what I'm going to write about today!

Embarrassing story:

Once upon a time I decided that I wanted to lose some weight--fast. A very appealing diet was brought to my attention. Maybe you've heard of it. It's Bob Harper's Jumpstart to Skinny diet. His is a three-week very low calorie diet designed to help you lose up to twenty pounds for a big event such as a wedding. So I was like, "Yeah, I need to lose like 40 pounds, so this will be fabulous! Maybe I'll even do it twice!"

I read the book and got all excited about how planned out it was and how much I had heard about people losing. Some red flags popped up as I read the questionable research he mentioned in the book, but I was reassured by the fact that Bob Harper is a professional and knows what he's doing. Gung-ho, I bought all the groceries for the first week costing a total of over $100. (Just for me!)

The diet began and I was pleased with the results and even pleased with the food! But as time went by, I started to feel sick and tired--literally. It was a struggle to choke down my salads and chug all the required water. I was still losing weight, but I felt awful. So I quit the diet. The embarrassing part of all that is that I even fell for the dumb diet in the first place! Of course I was going to feel terrible on 800 calories a day!

The End.

Now I feel way better. The miracle is that I still want to be healthy after that crap-o diet. I'm still losing weight and exercising! I'm just being a lot better with my food (as in eating enough food and trying to eat healthy food).

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Etsy Finds!

One of my favorite things to do at work when I don't have video priveleges is to browse Etsy for cool or beautiful things. Here are some of the things I found. The links to the listings are found below each picture. I guess I'm really into plants right now...