HAIR CUT!!!!

So, many of you may have been noticing in pictures both on our blog and on facebook that Chris has been growing out his hair. It is quite long.  And by is I mean WAS!!! Because it is now shorn off.  We took some pictures showing off the before and after, of us both to show you how it was basically the same length in the back, haha, and now ta da! The new Chris! I actually like the long hair, so once we leave BYU in two years we think its going to come back.  So, for those of you who hated it you have two more years.  For those of you who loved it, just wait and it will return! :) This may seem like a lot of pictures for a hair cut, but this was epic.  He hasn't had hair this short in a year.

(OK, so no, he never actually wore it in a pony tail in public, but I wanted to see if it could be in one before we cut it, and it could! A big one. Sick.)

4th of July

This is kind of late, but I just wanted to show the flag jello I made for a family BBQ we had on the 4th.  It is creative, and I was proud of myself.  Its made of red jello on the bottom, whatever flavor you like, the big box (for a 9x13 pan).  Then cool whip, or whatever kind of whipped cream stuff you like best, spread all over, strawberries sliced in half length wise and placed as stripes, leaving a while stripe between, and blue berries lined up in a square in the top left corner for the stars.  Take a look!

We also went to the hot air balloon festival that morning.  We got up and went at 6:30 am to make sure to see them, ugh, but because of too much wind they ended up not getting off the ground till around 8! And then only 3 got off before it got bad again.  Thankfully we snagged this picture to make it look like we were at this crazy awesome thing.

Zion National Park

This weekend we went down to Zion National Park with two of Chris's old mission companions/roommates and their wives.  We had never been before, and it was on our list of things to do while we live in Utah.  It was incredible.  We got down there late Friday night, hiked Saturday and part of Sunday and got back in the evening Sunday (today) so it was a short trip, but we still did the main things we wanted to do there.  Also I have to give a shout out to Zion River Resort in Virgin, UT just outside the park.  This place was AWESOME and very inexpensive.  If you are looking for a place to camp down there and don't want to camp actually in the park (or can't because it is full) I HIGHLY recommend this place.

1) Angel's Landing - We hiked up to the top of an almost 5,800 feet tall cliff, Angel's Landing.  It is 2.5 miles up to the top.  The first 2 miles are like any "moderate" level hike.  The last half mile is insane.  You are going up parts that are only 3 or 4 feet wide with thousands of feet dropping off on both sides.  They have chains built in along this part to help you.  I don't know how the people who put the chains in did it! The views all along were amazing.  

2) The Narrows - This is a hike through the bottom of a canyon, and essentially through/in a river almost the entire time.  The whole hike is 17 miles and most people who do the entire thing camp half way through and do it in 2 days.  We just went in for about an hour and then came back the same way.  One day we want to go back and do the whole thing, but this still gave us gorgeous views and a great adventure.  Some parts were all the way up to my waist in the river!

3) Emerald Pools - This was not on the list to do originally but it was only 2.6 miles and we had some time to kill.  This takes you to three different "pools" which is in quotes because two of the three are LAME.  The good one is really cool, so for only a couple miles it was worth it.  For anyone going when you only have limited time and are trying to pick what to do, I would not do this one.  But, if you have time you are trying to fill (about an hour and a half including hanging out at the pool) it is good.

There are so many comments I could make on a ton of pictures but this post would be ridiculous, so we just put together a slide show of our favorites.  Aren't the views incredible?!?!

For those of you who like to learn interesting things, read on.  For those of you who are not interested, thanks for looking at the pictures!

1) Zion is part of the "Grand Staircase" which consists of Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and the Grand Canyon.  The name came because the bottom biological layer of Bryce is the top one of Zion and the bottom of Zion is the top one of the Grand Canyon.  I just thought that was really cool.

2) Zion is the remains of a desert that used to stretch from the bottom of Wyoming all the way to California! THAT IS SO BIG.  And the sand dunes that used to be there were 3,000 feet high.  To compare, the dunes at the Sahara Desert are 200-300 feet. Hundred.  When we heard this, Chris leaned over and said "Imagine rolling down those dunes! Until, of course, you got to the bottom and were dead."

3) One million TONS of sediment is dumped/falls into the river yearly.

4) A certain Piute tribe used to live in the region that is now Zion National Park, so once it became a national park and were moved they could not longer hunt, gather, etc.  This messed up a lot of traditions they had.  But the park is now worked with tribal leaders and those tribes can now go in the park to gather (not sure about hunting), but they used a lot of plants specific to that region and now they can continue that.  There was a quote from one of them on a board about a certain plant that said something like, We use the juice of this for (something) but the white man just cuts it down and throws it away so now it is rare." LOL.  I thought that was funny.

I guess that isn't a lot, but they were things like really stuck out to me. Also, the squirrels there are SO FAT and not shy at all which is actually probably a bad thing.