The Basement

"Podunk Mexican"

This was one of the first weeks we were here. We were thinking Mexican sounded good for dinner..that is until we ate at this restaurant. Hilarious/Shocking experience!

Hello Blog World.

I would like to personally and formally apologize for the lack of activity on this blog in the last few days. I take full responsibility for consuming the free time of these bloggers. To make up for my selfish acts, the girls insisted I make a post to show the world how good Jackson Hole is from an outsider’s view. I would like to begin by telling you that this will be long since we do have six full days of activity to cover, so please bare with me.

 

Day One: It all started with an exciting pick up from the Jackson Hole airport, and a quick tour of the town square. As I entered the “basement,” I quickly realized that something had to be done—so Laurel and I spent the afternoon cleaning. Some of you may be thinking that sounds miserable, but you must know that I was thrilled to clean. Just ask Laurel, my excitement for cleaning products was unordinary.

 

Day Two: Excited to be in Jackson Hole (and due to my air mattresses deflating), I woke up early and ready to explore. I quickly learned that when it rains in Jackson Hole, you don’t get to play in Jackson Hole. A little upset at first, I quickly recovered, realizing that I still had the chance to spend the whole day with my friends. We hung out, caught up and began my new obsession by watching a few episodes of The O.C. Morgan arrived home from a long day at work and brought some sunshine with her. Morgan and I decided that we should do all of the tourist things, since I am a tourist. We ventured downtown for the shootout (don’t worry it is not real), the classic “elk antler arch picture” and a lovely, traditional sushi date for dinner.

Day Three: Finally a sunny and beautiful day, we went on our first hike. My lungs soon discovered that the altitude change was an issue. But we powered through and stopped a few times to take in the view. Today was my one-on-one with Anna. We went downtown to do the tourist things again. (Yes, I went to the shoot-out two days in a row.) We also discovered a store that sold many over-priced stuffed animals. We had such a good time taking pictures in the store. Lastly, we found a lovely secondhand store and found some deals—this store fit our college-kid budget a little better. We ended the day with a nice family dinner of Lasagna.

Day Four: Saturday was the first and only day that all of the girls had to work the same time. I decided that it would be a good day to go on a drive with Evie and get to know Jackson Hole on my own. I was so awestruck with the beauty of the mountains and ranches that I was passing (the cars behind me grew a little impatient). When Laurel and Morgan got off work we went to drive through the Elk Refuge and some of the National Forrest. Even though we saw several “Elk Warning” signs, we didn’t see any Elk. After our afternoon of driving we went to the Rodeo—where we all got in at the locals price! It was quite the experience to see six –year-old boys getting bucked off of sheep.

Day Five: On Sunday, Morgan and I woke up and went to Mass (my first Mass ever I might add). Morgan told me some tips so I didn’t stand out as much. After church, Morgan and I went on a drive to this beautiful resort. We went home to pick up Laurel and then we went to Teton Village to ride the Tram. The tram took us from an elevation of 6,000 feet to 10,000 feet. At the top of Mount Rendezvous we played in the snow (in sandals--woops), ate wonderful waffles and took some great pictures. We dropped Laurel off at Haagen Dazs, and Morgan and I hit the trails. Hike #2 was a little bit easier, but we still stopped to take in the view and catch our breath a few times. We finished up the night by going to Sidewinders, where Laura, Morgan, Anna, and I all ordered burger and fries. We were all so hungry that we cleaned our plates. Well, almost all of us— Laura is a quitter!

Day six: We all slept until 10 a.m. No one woke up until Laurel’s alarm went off. (Yes, Laurel’s alarm). Laurel had to go to work for the majority of the day, and the rest of us went to Teton National Forrest. We hiked a 6 mile path around Jenny Lake. We all packed our lunches and had a picnic on the lake. We took plenty of pictures and stops to soak in the beauty of the Lord’s creation. After our hike, we went home to make another family dinner. We finished the night with girl talk and, of course, the O.C.

Day Seven: My last day in Jackson Hole started early. All four of my sweet hostesses all woke up to take me to the airport at 6:30 a.m.  As my plane was taking off I convinced myself I would finally read Crazy Love on the way home (I am really bad at making myself read). One of the first thing that I read was this, “Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.” It was an incredible way to summarize how I have felt the whole trip. How significant the Lord is, and how insignificant we all are.

 

It was definitely a wonderful trip!

 

--Katie

let's go on a walk...

SO, yesterday was the only day it hasn't rained, and it was absolutely beautiful! I got off work around 5 and decided to go on a walk. It was soo wonderful. I put my iPod in and grabbed my camera and went. It was so relaxing to be by myself and just take in the beauty around me! Here are some pictures I took. Enjoy!

This picture is actually from tonight. It was a beautiful sunset!

in other news, KATIE IS HERE!! Anna, Laura, & I picked her up from the airport around 2:30 today and we are so excited to have her with us. We are already having so much fun! Morgan was already at work and Laura & Anna had to go to work at 4, so Katie and I explored for a little while, and after she saw our lovely basement, she decided she wanted to clean it! We made a trip to the dollar tree & got some cleaning supplies! Katie went to town and deep cleaned & organized our basement & it looks so much better!

Until next time-- l a u r e l.

Boy Next Door

Not only is it a great day because we picked up Katie from the airport to stay with us for a week, but ALSO because we had a little run in with an amazingly attractive boy that happens to live next door to us.

Laurel, Laura and I were getting in Evie to go to the airport when a cute yellow lab runs up to the van. Laura quickly noticed his owner following behind him. Now here is a visual...tall, blonde, tan, perfectly dressed, and confident. Recipe for Laura's perfect man.

Now being the girls that we are, we acted quickly. Instead of going out of our driveway, we went through the back to get yet another look. And of course, there was some serious staring. We waved with our cute southern charm and prayed that there would be another run in soon. Laura has already come up with many plans to make this run in happen. One being that we bake cookies and introduce ourselves as the new girls in town, two being that we buy a dog whistle so that the dog will run over to us again and conviently strike up a conversation and three driving by his house every chance we can, hoping he will be outside. We are also open to any suggestions.

Unitl then,
amh

Lately.

This last week has been a sort of whirlwind, so here's a little recap. I'm going to warn you now that this will probably be extremely long!! I have a week's worth of Jackson Hole life to clue yall in on!!

Last Sunday we left Denver at 6am headed to Jackson. Being the morning person that I am, I offered to drive while the other three little angels went back to sleep. So typical for whenever I started driving. I am just speeding along the highway to nowhere, when I see lights in our rearview mirror. Wyoming Highway Patrol - 1, Morgan - 0. No, Officer Fox did not care that I was not from around there. Nor did he care that it was 8am on a Sunday morning, that the roads were deserted and that we had somewhere to be. Luckily, the ticket was only $81!! Considering I was doing 82 in a 65 zone... I'm pretty sure in Alabama that's reckless driving. Woops. I just consider it a thoughtful donation to the Wyoming highway fund. Lord knows they need it. Some of the roads we came in on didn't even have lines distinguishing one side of the road from the other! The rest of our drive was AWESOME as we (by we I mean Anna- I handed over the responsibility after our run-in with Fox) drove through miles and miles and miles of nothingness. It's incredibly humbling. Something everyone should experience. You realize there's a lot more to life than you. Maybe you already got that memo, but I find myself forgetting that regularly. Once we started getting into the mountains we saw SNOW!! Of course we had to get out in play. I mean, how many times will we ever play in the snow on Memorial Day weekend? I'm usually baking myself on the beach then. And then finally the moment we'd been waiting for for months. WELCOME TO JACKSON HOLE. It was only natural that we got out and took a picture with the sign. The town itself is precious, and the mountains are all around us. If only it would STOP RAINING!!! We haven't seen the sun since Denver! We got to our hotel, and Anna and Laura went to meet Doug, the owner of Life is Good. I met him briefly and he's super nice. He's been giving them advice typical of a dad, and he even gave them money so they could treat themselves to Mountain High Pizza Pie. Yummmm. SO good. As soon as we got to our hotel I opened the windows only to see a cute little church staring back at me. It can't be... I thought. Yep it was. Jackson's one Catholic Church. I had to go. It was 445, and Mass was at 5. I took the quickest shower ever (if you know me, you know quick and shower are never said consecutively) and ran out the door. The homily was about not living a worldly life, but living in the Lord's life. It was like He was talking directly to me. And it was just what I needed, a reminder of what's important. A charge of action for the rest of the summer. After Mass I went to my first meeting at work! I was so nervous that the girls had to give me a pep-talk and an outfit approval. Luckily, it went fine. I met some of the cool people I'll be working with in different capacities all summer! After the meeting, I met back up with the girls and we took a short stroll around town, and then I hit the hay. It had been a long day. Ha, if only I knew the true meaning of a long day then.

Monday was my first day of employee training! I was there from 8am to 6pm and met the rest of the Mad River crew. Another long day with lots of information, but all in all good. The girls picked me up in the mini-van and then we headed to the lovely Idaho house. To get there we literally drove over a mountain. It was a beautiful drive, but something none of us were used to. 

Tuesday was another 8am to 6pm day, but with lots of fun thrown in! Since no one else had to work, I took the van myself. I left with plenty of time to get there, or so I thought. I did not account for being lost in the neighborhood for 15 MINUTES!! I was on the verge of tears. It was only my second day there, and I was already going to be late. I arrived at 807 and I'm not sure if anyone noticed my late arrival? I don't think they did. More answered prayers. The rest of the day proved to be way more fun!! In the afternoon we all put on wetsuits and headed down to the river to go rafting! My group took advantage of my naivete and convinced me to "ride the bull" down one of the biggest rapids. That consisted of me sitting on the very, very front of the raft and taking on a wall of water face first. Go to this link http://snakeriver.elevationimaging.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=776310 and I promise you won't be disappointed. I'm in pictures 3330 through 3335. We came back from rafting and had a cook-out in the warehouse. It was nice to hang out with my co-workers in a less structured setting. However, my phone went dead while I was on the river and the girls and my parents were convinced I had died while rafting. I made it up to the girls by bringing home ice cream. We have learned that ice cream cures everything :) Once I got to the Idaho house we enjoyed a lovely evening in the hot tub!!

Wednesday was my first official day of work. And on Wednesdays I work a double. So I was at the office from 730 am to 10 pm. Yes, you read that correctly- 14.5 hours of work. I have never worked that many consecutive hours in my life. When you have no choice, you learn a lot about yourself. And I learned that I CAN DO IT!! It didn't even seem that long.. I didn't start getting antsy till 7 or 8. And that night we had the "bootie" to keep us busy. For you non-rafters out there, bootie is what we call the wetsuits that need to be washed. Tricia and I started on the bootie waaaay to late to get it all done, so we were moving at the speed of lightning. As soon as we heard the washer end (the sound is synonymous with a landing plane. duh.), we would run in the laundry room, throw that stuff in the dryer and start a new load. We didn't even come close to finishing it all by 10, but it definitely kept us busy. I also learned all kinds of new things, like taking phone reservations, navigating Itinio (our reservation program), printing out manifests (the daily schedule) and what CFS means (cubic feet per second. duh.) and that it dictates how fast the river is meaning. Basically, I'm an aficionado on river jargon ;)

Thursday, I worked from 730 to 430, and it was another learning experience. Definitely getting better, but I'm still asking a million questions. Thanks to Kate, Bev and Laura for always answering me! Laurel had to work on Thursday from 10 to 4, so she had to drive into town with me early that morning! I got out of the car, ran to clock in on time (got it in at 727, much to my surprise) and then headed to the office. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I noticed the van was still in the parking lot! Sweet Laurel had curled up in the backseat and gone back to sleep for a few hours. Mornings are not her thing. Once we both got off we headed to Albertson's to pick up some groceries so we could fix dinner! At that point I could not handle one more sandwich. We bought some chicken, BBQ sauce and broccoli. Laurel also made some mac and cheese she had at home, and dinner turned out to be delicious! We were oh so domestic. We spent another night in the hot tub, and I, again, went to bed early.

Friday was another early morning- I had to be at work at 8am! The girls needed the car because we were leaving our beloved Idaho house that afternoon so Anna and Laura kindly offered to wake up early and drive me in. I am so lucky to have such WONDERFUL FRIENDS!! They got up earlier than usual to drive me over the mountain and then turn right around and head back to Idaho. All three of them were so accommodating to my schedule and my needing the car last week. They would get up to go into town early and stay in town late. They packed and cleaned the Idaho house while I was at work, and then moved all our stuff into the basement! No complaints whatsoever! I love you three oh so much. I got off early on Friday (who thought I'd ever consider getting off at 8pm early), and couldn't get in touch with anyone since the Verizon network has been experiencing some serious problems lately.. So I decided to walk home. It was about a 40 minute walk. However, it was nice to get some fresh air and exercise! Once we got settled into our lovely basement apartment (videos to come), we were STARVING and headed out in search of a restaurant pleasing to all four of us (and our wallets-- hello Jackson, we are not on vacation budget like the rest of the people here). After much deliberation, and a general lack of decision making, we decided on a random Mexican restaurant. NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I SEEN A PLACE SO TERRIBLE. We should have known by the disgusting pictures of their meals near the counter where you ordered, but I guess we were so hungry we were oblivious. They had a mismatched tables and chairs everywhere. Cafeteria lunch tables to dining room chairs to chairs covered in a lovely green and gold chinese fabric. The TV was on Spanish telenovelas and we were the only people in there. They only had canned drinks and our chips came in a tiny bowl. They were out of queso, and there was no question about the salsa-- it should not be eaten. Everyone ordered quesadillas except me, and they looked OK. Ha, except that Laurel's sour cream was pure liquid. I ordered soft chicken tacos and they were absolutely disgusting. If you know me, you know that I'll eat almost anything when I'm hungry. This I would not eat. All they had on them were questionable chicken, onions and more cilantro than I had ever seen in my life. We thought we saw a drug deal going down outside, and we quickly got the heck out of dodge. We took some videos of it, so hopefully you too can experience the loveliness of The Gordita Chica (The Fat Woman).

Saturday I worked again!! I hope you are noticing the trend here... I worked from 730 to 430 and came home and crashed. However, I did make it out for Mountain High Pizza Pie! So good!! Definitely the highlight of my day.. A few exciting and nervewracking minutes at work when a group was drinking beer on our property before going rafting, which is a big no-no. Luckily our boss came in on her day off and took care of it all! 

Sunday should have been my first day off, but I was back to work at 8am, this time for the annual Snake River Clean-up! I didn't mind helping out a good cause; and since I was on the clock, it made it even better! However, my day was not all rainbows and butterflies. It was the first day I had ridden my bike to work. The ride to work was no big deal, I left with plenty of time to spare and made arrived there early. I was wet and dirty from the rain puddles, but nothing I couldn't handle. The ride home-- not so good. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some fruit, and my legs were dying. I hoped I could just walk around the store and stretch my legs and that the rest of my ride would be better. Not. Even. Close. I started the rest of my mile and a half ride only to feel the pain back in full force. I was on the verge of tears. I was determined to make it home, so I would stop and rest and then start riding again. Ha, it just wasn't in the cards for me.. I ended up swallowing my pride and walking the bike the rest of the way home. I noticed that the front wheels stuck at a certain point every time they went around, so I'm attributing my inability to ride the bike to that.. Not how out of shape I am! Again, I came home and crashed!! Then proceeded to have a pity party for myself and insisted we have Wendy's for dinner. Then watched more of The O.C.! We're already on Season Two. Thankfully Mrs. Mary has Season Three in the mail to us!!

So today is Monday and I am not at work!!! The first day since I have been out here!! I always have Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays off, but last week it just happened that we had employee training on all of those days! Whew. I slept in until 1045 today and it was great. We made a trip to KMart for some cleaning supplies (thats an indication of our living conditions.. more on that to come) and then I have spent ALL afternoon writing this blog post!! I'm so sorry for the obnoxious length!! Hope you have all had a great Monday.

MM

want to see what i'm seeing?

I just took some random pictures throughout the day and I thought I would show ya'll what i've been seeing. Things that you wouldn't exactly see everyday in the South!

how beautiful is this?

"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the MOUNTAINS and HILLS will burst into song before you, and all the TREES of the FIELD will clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:12)

Horses

I've seen a lot of these since I've been here and I LOVE them for some reason. I'm not leaving Wyoming until I've ridden at least one!

SUBURU SIGHTINGS!

You cannot go anywhere in Jackson Hole without seeing Suburu's. Its crazy! I think all the local's have one. Today, I was at work and looking out the window and within about 3 seconds, I saw at least 2 drive by. Random fact, just thought it was interesting!

Furry little animals.. I was told that they are called "Chizzlers" but i'm not really quite sure.

They are like a little squirrel mixed with a chipmunk. I was sitting in the park after work and saw one pop up. They will let you get pretty close to them. When he saw me with my camera, he stood up. I thought it was funny and made my lunch a lot more entertaining!

-laurel :)