Camping!

Last night Brandon and I went camping at Cedar Canyon with our friend Christian. Even though I don't go very often I really do like camping. I love being outdoors, the smell of nature, seeing wildflowers, campfires, the food, and sleeping on the ground inside a tent. Even though this site was a pretty one of the things I didn't like is it was kind of close to a switchback on the road. It wasn't too bad but next time I want to go somewhere that is a lot further away from the main road.

Here is a picture of our campsite and a very attractive picture of me:

Brandon and Christian decided to get the fire going. So here are some pictures that go along with that:

 They were entranced by the flames:

We don't have a lot of our camping supplies so we rented some at the Outdoor Center on campus. For the most part they have good quality products. This "circus tent," however,  is not one of them:

(note all the openings along the bottom of the tent.)

Now, here comes the part where everyone has permission to hang and shake their head and think, "Oh Dana and Brandon what were you thinking?" The reason why you can do this is because as the night went on it started to have some scattered showers. We realized our tent was most likely going to leak and we knew it would be uncomfortable. We started talking about what to do and then Brandon and I decided we might as well go buy a tent. Brandon had gotten a nice bonus check that day and we really do want to go camping more so we figured might as well. So Christian and Brandon went back to town to get a tent. (Random side-story after they left within five minutes the fire went out. I then spent the next hour trying to get it going again. I never could and I realized my days at girls' camp had failed me.) 

Here is our new tent though where we stayed nice and dry all night:

These couple of pictures are kind of random but during the night I noticed a tiny green light on the ground:

It was on a stick and so Brandon picked it up and we realized it was a glow worm! I have never seen one before and I thought it was so cool. Here is a very blurry picture of it:

(after taking a picture we set the stick gently on the ground out of harms way. Some bird probably ate it this morning though.)

Another thing I LOVE about camping is I love making smores! There are a few people I want to meet and thank when I get to heaven and one of those people is the man/woman who invented smores (I also want to thank the man/woman who invented maple donuts.)

We found these freakishly large marshmallow at the store and so we got them:

In the morning we decided to drive up to the overlook and that shows quite a few features of Zion National Park:

Here is Brandon and me at the overlook:

(I wanted to do a group shot but Christian refused to be in it.)

To wrap it all up, here is Brandon at our apartment this morning trying to fit one of those marshmallows in his mouth:

We are planning on going camping again in September and go to Bryce Canyon and stay there Friday and Saturday night. We just need to pick a weekend that isn't Labor Day weekend because I rather not deal with those huge crowds! 

Hiking/We're Five/Random Pictures

Today Brandon had the day off and so we decided to go on a hike. We went to a place in Kannarrville and did a hike we did a couple of years ago. For some of the hike you hike through a slot canyon and then you get to some waterfalls. This is the main reason why people do this hike but when we were approaching the slot canyon it looked like it was going to rain so we turned around. Even though we didn't get to the destination it was still really pretty:

The last time we hiked this together Brandon fell down this mini-waterfall as he was trying to climb it because we didn't see a marked trail (some of the hike you are in water). This is him reliving the horror:

As we were driving home we started discussing what we wanted to do tonight. For some reason for the past while I have been wanting to play Monopoly, we have started playing games more and I kept getting sad that we didn't own it. Because of this desire I said I wanted to get Monopoly, play it, eat junk food, and watch "Psych." So that is what we decided to do but while we were at Wal-Mart we also ended up getting a cheap set of Nerf guns and I also got this puzzle set that has 10 different puzzles and it was actually really cheap (I also like puzzles). So here is our picture of us once again being giant kids and what we will be doing tonight:

(Also I am going to beat all my "hilarious" sisters to the punch and say if I lose the game I am sure I will throw the board. There, none of you can make a comment about that.)

Here is us with our guns:

These last couple of pictures are random ones that I had left on my camera after Stephanie's wedding. The day after the wedding we hung out with my sister Shannon and her kids. Usually when we are over there Brandon and our nephew Andrew will play a lot. Andrew has told me that Brandon is his favorite uncle but I am sure he just says "yes" whenever someone might ask "Is so-and-so your favorite?" Anyways, one thing Andrew likes to do is play with Brandon's "Giant Phone" (iPad) and at one point during the day I went downstairs and they were intently watching a Spider-Man cartoon, which Brandon loves just as much as Bubba. I thought it was so cute so I took a couple of pictures. Even though we aren't planning on having kids for a few years I know when we do Brandon is going to be a great Dad:

One Step Closer to Teaching...

About a month ago I had to take an exam called the Praxis. There are several different Praxises, but this one was a content test of literature and composition. So basically I took it to prove I know enough to be a qualified English teacher.

I hate taking tests, especially ones with a duration of two hours. I was very nervous for it, which Steph and Steve were witnesses of since they were at our apartment the night before and I was freaking out that I could only find four mechanical pencils (when it actually turned out that I learned later that night that the test doesn't allow mechanical pencils so Brandon picked up some regular pencils for me.)

ANYWAYS....

When I finished the test I felt content. I didn't feel like I failed it but I also didn't feel like I aced it.

Well I got the results today and I passed! I got a 170 out of 200, which isn't really that great since the passing score for Utah is 168. At the same time though it is a high enough score that I can teach in pretty much every state except Vermont, Virginia, and Connecticut (You need to score at least a 172) and some other states that don't use the Praxis system.

The part that killed me was the literature part. The majority of that section is here is a passage now tell me who wrote it and what the book is. I mean I read a lot, but not that much. In the other two sections I did really well on. I was only one or two points off from getting them all right.

I only have to take one more Praxis exam which is basically a test on classroom management, which I am not too worried about.

I really am excited to start teaching next year and even though I only get pretty average grades I am confident I am going to be a good teacher.