Cleveland Rocks!!!

As Jill mentioned in her previous post, the two of us took a short trip to Cleveland, OH over the Memorial Day holiday. Why Cleveland? Well, the main purpose was to see one of my favorite musicians, Donnie Iris & The Cruisers, perform in concert. Donnie and the band were performing with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra. What a great show it was!!! We had so much fun. (You can click on this link to see a video of part of the concert.)

Other highlights from the trip include:

1) Going to Amish country to gawk at the Amish.

2) Visiting the first LDS Temple in Kirtland, OH.

3) Going to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

4) Driving up to Niagra Falls, NY and riding the Maid Of The Myst.

5) Visiting The William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum in Canton, OH.

and, 6) Visiting the NFL Hall of Fame (just the gift shop, we were a bit tired that day).

This was our second trip to the Cleveland area, and I'm pretty sure Jill would agree when I say that Cleveland Rocks! It really has become a place that we've grown to quite enjoy. I'm sure we'll be traveling there again at some point in the future.

Fancy Restaurants

So, on our recent trip to Cleveland, Steve and I were driving back to town after visiting Niagra Falls and while passing through Buffalo - we saw a restaurant on the side of the interstate that we decided to backtrack and eat at. It was called "Harry's", and it really looked like a fun place to try. Unfortunately it turned out like most fancy restaurants; not much food, not great food, but big prices.

It did have a great view though -

And, they did give us cotton candy - to sweeten the blow when they brought out the bill.


I guess we are just simpler folk, because our favorites in Cleveland from our two trips there are below - Hoggy's Barn and Grill, the best BBQ ribs I have ever had.



And then a classic midwest restaurant - The Steak and Shake

Dandelion's & Yard Work

So, most of you know that I love my home in West Bountiful. I love the neighborhood. I love the style. But there are a few things I would change if I could, as I am sure most people would. One of those things is the amount of work it takes to maintain our yard.

I feel like every time I have a few spare hours I need to be spending it in the yard. Tonight, it was combing the lawn with a steak knife digging up dandelion's and their roots. Other activities so far this spring, spraying our tree that has borer's and then filling the holes with elmers glue (who knew that is how you fix this problem), fertilizing the lawn, re-planting the tulip's that our neighbor's children have been pulling up (we have now had our little neighbor over 3 seperate times to apoligize for either plucking the heads off my tulips, or the latest was for actually pulling them up bulb and all.) And, I haven't really even started weeding yet :)

Anyway, I don't want to sound like I am complaining, it is a beautiful yard, and I love the way it looks when everything is done, and I actually like working out there, it would just be nice if it wasn't so overwhelming.

A quick trip to visit our truly "great" Great Aunt Carla!

A couple of years ago, Jill and I decided to take a quick trip to visit her Great Aunt Carla, who lives near Seattle, as I had never been to the Pacific Northwest before. On that trip, we had so much fun that we knew right then that we couldn't wait too long before making a return trip. So, last weekend we flew back to SeaTac aiport, grabbed a rental car, and drove over to Carla's house to spend a few days. For this trip, she had planned to take us to her beach house for the first couple of nights. What a great way to spend a few relaxing days. The time was spent playing games, reading, sleeping in (never awake before 9:00 a.m.), going out to eat, and we even went to a movie, The Soloist.
The trip was a lot of fun. One of the highlights was getting to know some more of Jill's extended family. Carla's son, Steve, and his family spent a couple of days with us as well and it was so great getting to know them. They truly are good people with strong family values. We played a lot of Rummy Cube, Fill or Bust, and Quiddler; staying up late into the night and then sleeping in the next morning. Definitely no alarm clocks!!!! Jill and I can't wait until our next trip Seattle!

The little bunnies that were running around near the beach house!

Fast asleep by the beach.

Post Secret

So two weeks ago, on April Fools Day Steve and I went up to Utah State to hear Frank Warren speak about his website Post Secret, it really was a cool presentation. For those of you that don't know Post Secret is a blog, were people send in their secrets on post cards, it started as a community experiment and has grown to a blog, with millions of followers and several books. Each Sunday new secrets are posted. This week this was the first post card posted, and I loved it, I think it is so true, and is another reminder to all of us to step back and count our blessings. Hope you enjoy.



Here is one other that I enjoyed this week for obvious reasons :)

Thankful

I wanted to take a minute today just to be thankful. I am so grateful to everyone this week for their well wishes, and care and concern while my mom was having surgery. Everything went well, so much better than expected and I wanted to thank everyone for their prayers, thoughts and faith.

It seems that sometimes in life it takes something to humble us before we can truly realize all there is in our lives to be grateful for.

I for one am grateful everyday for the following:

Steve
My parents
My brother Mark
My friends
My in-laws (they are the best)
My great extended family
The Gospel and the comfort and faith that comes with it
My home
My job
All of the opportunities I am provided in life (travel, abilities etc.)
Great neighbors
Modern Medicine
The opportunity to learn

There are hundreds of more things I am grateful for, but I don't want to exhaust anyone :), just wanted to take a minute and count my blessings.

Topaz

Barrack from Topaz, Utah Internment Camp

So, when Steve and I first got married we made a list of places we both wanted to see, or places that one of us had been that we wanted to show one another.

We have done a pretty good job of crossing 1 item at a time off the list, we started last summer with our trip to Mt. Rushmore with the folks, and last weekend we crossed another off the list by visiting the museum remembering Topaz in Delta, Utah on our way to St. George.

There were two things I wanted to note about this museum 1) the fact that the museum that holds all of this information and remembers this site, is so small and underfunded - see the photo below:


2) the guy who runs it was straight out of a novel, a crazy guy, that took Steve and I into a small room shut all the doors and turned off the lights to show us the radioactivity in some of the rocks found in the local area, the whoe time I stood in the room in the dark listening, I thought to myself this would be scary if it weren't so funny.


He also convinced us that we should take the road less traveled to St. George so that we could see the rock with a face in it, it is said to look like Joseph Smith, does anyone else see it?