Wicked

In my family, we do things at the last minute.  So, when I got a call on Thursday asking if I wanted to leave on Saturday for San Francisco to see Wicked with the girls in the family, I shouldn't have been so surprised.  I was so excited though to see Wicked.  I've listened to the music for years, but had never seen it.

We headed out bright and early on Saturday morning for San Francisco.  When we got there we had issues with the car rental place that left us an hour behind.  After finally making it to the hotel, we headed out again to catch a trolley to Downtown San Fran.

Not really knowing where we are going, we went all the way down to Pier 39 only to find out we had to back track 10 blocks and head another 12 blocks west (thank goodness for a nice lady with an iPhone).  We caught a bus thinking it would take us all the way to our destination, but then we had to frantically change to a trolley.  We made it to the theater a half an hour later than we were supposed to (you're supposed to be there an hour early for Will Call tickets), but we were still able to get our seats.  Wicked was AMAZING!!!  I didn't think I would be completely overwhelmed with how awesome it is because I have listened to the CD so many times, but I got goosebumps from how incredible it was in person.  Loved it!





After getting back to the hotel, we finally got some food into our systems after not really having anything since breakfast at 6:00 AM.  We went to this little Italian place that made homemade pasta.  So good!  Our waiter was so funny.  He looked liked his name should have been Vini, with his shirt slightly unbuttoned and his gold chains.  We had a lot of fun just trying what everyone else had got and went away full to the brim.

The next day we went to church at Fairfield.  My mom lived here for two years in high school so we went to see her old ward.  There were actually a few people who remembered her there.  After church we headed to Bodega Bay.




We had a great dinner of clam chowder and french bread right on the bay.  We just sat enjoying our dinner and watching the sun go down.



On our last day we went to the Oakland Temple.  You could walk up on the second level of the temple and see all way into San Francisco.


Even though it was a short vacation, we had a lot of fun. I'm glad my lovely aunt Shanda could come along. We'll have to go on another girl's weekend again.

Peach Days

We had the whole Packer Family out for Peach Days in Brigham City.  We went out to dinner at Maddox, which was delicious.  After regrouping at the hotel, we headed to the Peach Days carnival.


The next day was really exciting.  We went to the Fireman's Breakfast,



Doug talking to cousin Blaine, the fireman

To see the firetrucks,





Ethan wanted to drive the firetrucks

The parade,






Scuba Burgers,


And Peach City Drive-In for peach shakes.





Ella giving the doggie a kiss


We even picked up a box of peaches on the way home.  It was really fun to have the whole Packer Family out for the occasion. I am convinced after this weekend that I have the cutest nieces and nephew ever. See everyone next year!

Byron's Birthday

My "little" brother is 12!  I can't believe he is so old!  We went up to Alpine to celebrate his birthday and to see him ordained.

Byron with Grandpa and Grandma Palmer

Adrianne wanted to play with my hair and she did a great job.  But mostly I just like the picture of the two of us.

Going to the Zoo

For our anniversary this year, Brad and I headed to Salt Lake. Brad took me out to dinner and then we headed over to the Gateway. We went to the Clark Planetarium and bought tickets for two of their shows. First, they had a star show. However, it wasn't the greatest show. It seemed like it was written for kindergartners. The announcer was great though. He was a nerdy kid, with long dark hair, that laughed at everything he said. I did learn some stuff about a space ship that they sent to Jupiter to take pictures and a lander that was going to Titan (one of Jupiter's moons). Best quote of the night, "This is a picture from the Huygens lander and I just stepped in gum." This guy then continued to come back to the same spot, step in the gum, and tell us about it. It kept us entertained.

The next show was better. It was about the Space Station and how they put it together. We got to wear awesome 3-D glasses. The show was pretty cool too.

The next day, we went to the zoo. Brad really wanted to try out his new lens, so it was really fun for him to take so many pictures.

This giant elephant kept making the funniest sounds.

This is me being a gopher, from a gopher hole. It was weird popping my head up and finding a gopher staring right back at me.

We had great anniversary together. It's nice to say that we've been married for a year and we still love being married.

Our Fourth Day: Catching Everything We Missed

This was our last day in Yellowstone. But we still had some things that we needed to see before we left. So, we headed to Firehole Lake Drive.

Our next stop was Midway Geyser Basin. We had been wanting to go here since day one, but just never got to it. I'm really glad we made it.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Excelsior Geyser

We went back to see Old Faithful again. There was a whole geyser basin behind Old Faithful that we didn't see on our first day, so went to see it. We're glad we did or else we would have missed seeing Lion Geyser going off. It only goes off every 6 hours to 4 days, and it goes off in a series with the first one being the highest and longest. We got to see the first one of the series and it lasted for over 8 minutes and went up 90 feet.

Another geyser going off.

This spring was cool because you could see the rock overhanging the pool.

It was time to start heading home. We were a little disappointed that we hadn't seen a moose, but on our way back we did see some big brown animal down in the river. We turned around hoping it would be a moose, but it just ended up being more elk. Oh well. It was fun to take a few last pictures before we left.

It was so cute to see them form into a straight line to cross the river.

That was our trip to Yellowstone National Park. We'll have to come back again since we had so much fun and would love to go do more things up in Yellowstone. All in all it was a great place to get away, have fun, and celebrate one great year together.