Trippin.

Well, it finally happened. We left Arizona. Now on to our new and crazy life in Jackson Hole. This past week has been jam packed full of non-stop parties, late nights, and adventures..
We went up to Taylor Friday and Saturday to see Travis' parents and drop off all the belongings that didn't make the cut for trailer life in Wyoming. Got to clean the Snowflake temple with them Friday night which took less time than cleaning a church building at home. Saturday night we drove back to Mesa for Jennifer's championship softball game..they won! Woot woot! We also were invited over to Scott and Stacy Hancock's house one night for dinner. Twas delicious. And they're so nice. Scott adores Travis ha. Tuesday was lake day with Jayrod, denim and the fam. Did some tubing, jet skiing and hotdog eating. The next night was Jessica's high school graduation which we kicked off by eating at Oreganos. I always forget how many people are at those things. After graduation, Jessica threw the party of the century for all her graduate friends at our house. No words. Let's just say when I woke up at 7am, at least 10 people were still there. The next day, and our last full one in Arizona for a while, consisted of physical therapy appointments, lake day with the Gibson family (well...lake day with shelly and kristin and the padres), party at the vance's house and lots of goodbyes. We borrowed Chad's kayaks and Kristin rented a couple paddleboards to play on. SUPa fun.(see what I did there?..haha) I miss having them close. We finished the night off with the entire Gibson family having dinner at Cafe Rio(minus Austin and Stacie). It's always interesting when they get together. After a stop by the Vances to say congrats to Brianna and bye to the family, we headed home to pack and get some sleep!
The only real problem we had left for the next day was Travis' van that was sitting in front of my parent' house. Some charity place was supposed to come pick it up but they were pretty bad at communicating and answering our phone calls. So we ended up leaving it there and headed to Utah for our first leg of the drive. (My husband is a saint btw. He drove the entire 1000+ miles it took to get there. I love him.)
Some stopping points on our trip:

• Horseshoe bend + a Hamburger Joint for dinner
• Coral Pink Sand Dunes(where we spent a very windy and cold night)
• Manti Temple
• Sonic
• Austin and Stacie's house! So much crazy and so much fun. That's the first real time I've spent with either of them or their kids really for that matter. This part of the trip included game nights, lettuce wraps, park play dates, lots of story-times, late night ice cream seshes, church meetings, movies, and more. Good stop. I'm glad they're moving back to Arizona.

The next part of our drive went a little faster. There weren't really any stops along the way. Which may have been because we were so excited to finally see our new "home" for the next few months. We took a tour of Terel and Rachael's house(which quite possibly, and hopefully will be ours next semester) as well as our trailer. It was pretty late and we were all tired so Thai food and a movie became the only things left on the agenda for the night. The next day was all devoted to the trailer. The main problem we had with it was our bed. I had found a mattress on some Rexburg garage sale site that said full size RV mattress. I figured it would fit in our trailer...but we quickly found out I was wrong. So given we had Terel and Travis on the job, it was only fitting that the poor thing got cut in half and duct taped back together..haha. But, it fit in our trailer and we now sleep on it so I'm not complaining. We also hit up BYU while we were there and talked with a couple counselors about degree options. One of the best things about that stop was going to the Rexburg temple. We just did sealings but it was so nice to be in the temple.
In order to get our trailer to Jackson, we had to rent a u-haul truck. And being that we didn't need to be at work until Saturday morning, and we had to return the u-haul to Rexburg that same day anyway, we decided to spend a couple more nights there at Terel and Rachael's after we dropped off the trailer. We filled those days in Rexburg with movies, good food, and foot golf(aka golf with a soccer ball). It was nice to get more acquainted with the town that we were going to call home for the next year or so in September and spend time with friends.
Aaaand that pretty much sums up our move to Jackson.
Zai Jian.

One last picture with the majestic van. You will be missed.

It was a cloudy day so there was zero sunset which was a real bummer. But it didn't keep us from enjoying ourselves.

It was real early and we didn't get much sleep(hence the tired eyes) but we still documented.

Adorable Aiden.

Which one doesn't belong?

We have fun.

Wedding de Halberts

MAY 6, 2016

Everything went just peachy. Weather was perfect, decorations were adorable, food was delicious, fireworks didn't light anyone on fire, and the sendoff was killer. Plus, Melissa and Scott adore each other and in the end, that's all that matters.

April-May

About a month ago, Travis and I decided to go on a kayaking/camping trip. We had originally planned on going to Canyon Lake and staying the night there but as we drove through, realized there weren't many real places to camp, so we continued driving to Apache Lake and figured we would camp somewhere in between the two lakes. We found a pretty decent looking spot and drove down the dirt road for a while. There was one good camp spot but we kept driving to see if there was anything better. As Travis turned around a corner our headlights shined on what looked like a huge pile of trash. At first I was thinking, why would someone leave that out here, as we drove a little further we both silently realized it was more than just a big trash pile. Yeahhh...pretty sure it was a hobo hideout. And with that creepy feeling we continued our drive further to get some distance between us and the hobos(it really was creepier than it sounds). We ended up passing Apache Lake and driving down the long twisty dirt road to Roosevelt Lake. There really weren't any other turnoffs that we could camp out at. After what seemed like forever, we made it to Roosevelt Lake. Stopped for a bathroom break and admired the dam, then continued our search for a camp spot. We finally found a spot that was far enough away from the road and set up camp in our little van. The original plan was to kayak to a spot and camp there but it was way too late at that point. We made a quick dinner and ended up falling asleep not too long after that. The next morning we didn't even use the kayaks so the trip was sort of a bust, but I would do it all over again. It's those kind of things that make memories and turn trips into adventures.

This was the only picture we got from the trip. Lets just say it was a tight squeeze to get those things in there.

Some senior pics I shot of Jess

Mother's Day minus Melissa.

HOTTIE.

Love my Trav.

A race to the car for shotgun didn't turn out as I anticipated..poor shirt.

Pool time with Shelly's kids a few Saturdays ago. We babysat all day while she went to a dental convention. At the end of the day Travis told me he never wanted kids..haha, funny.

Arizona Science Center

My cute baby after surgery. He was a little loopy but nothing like his last surgery.

A day of disc golf at emerald park.

Feeding ducks in the irrigated backyard. I didn't want Trav to leave the house much after the surgery and he was restless so we resorted to this. The dang ducks didn't even eat any of the bread we threw(and there was a lot of it) so there's probably clumps of bread all over the yard now..oops. Don't tell grandpa.

Finally getting the stitches taken out of his hand..hallelujah!

(P.S. Some of these pictures were taken by the beautiful new camera that the padres did finally give to us. Woohoo!)

Surprise

Lots of news:

First off, Melissa is engaged!!! Woo! Scott proposed on the lake and Melissa dropped his phone in with all the pictures of the two of them...bummer. But I guess at least she didn't lose the ring! Date is set for May 6th in the Mesa temple. I'm excited for them.

Turns out I'm not going to NAU or SLCC. Sad. But I guess it just wasn't meant to be. It will all work out in the end. Travis and I applied to BYU Idaho this past week so hopefully we can still get into there! I'm praying we do. 

In other news, we're moving to Jackson, Wyoming for the summer! We'll be working for a white water river rafting company with Caitlin and James. We bought a little trailer to live in for the three months we'll be there for $600!! Which is crazy cheap compared to everything else we were looking at. Downside is that the trailer is in Idaho right now so we can't really work on it or see it in person, super lame. But, for 600 bucks it's worth it. Travis' friend Terel bought it for us so we got to tour the inside through facetime which was cool, but nothing is the same as being there for yourself. SO basically we just bought our first home for $600.

Also, I got a job at lifetime fitness a couple weeks ago! Except for now I'm leaving to Jackson in like 2 months so I'm not going to be working there for very long..whoops. Hopefully they don't get too mad at me for leaving.

A few weeks ago, we played dress up for Lauren Ruettinger(fetter). She was looking for some couples to practice her wedding photography on and asked if we would be willing to help her out. She also had a friend practicing makeup and hair skills on me for her portfolio. Ended up with fake eyelashes and a whole lotta makeup that I don't normally wear caked on my face, but it's fun to get all dolled up every now and then. Lauren even made us flower bouquets to pose with..how cute is she? I did have to pretty much scramble up a mountain barefoot in my wedding dress for her to get the pictures she wanted but I suppose it was worth helping a friend out. Afterwards, she let us take the flowers with us. When we got home I walked into the bathroom, after telling Travis we didn't have any vases to put the flowers in, to find this:

Haha he's a keeper. 

The picture taking has been pretty slim these past few weeks so that's all I really have in terms of photographs. But..rumor has it, my parents are getting us a nice camera for our wedding present. Downside of the rumor is it's been almost 2 months since our wedding sooo maybe that's not happening. I'll keep my fingers crossed for now because that camera would be really nice while we're living in Jackson.

Some Past Adventures

Playing catch-up: A few of the adventures Travis and I have been on lately.
Brown's Peak Details:
Travel buddies: Melissa and Scott. Vehicle: chop-top explorer (with Scott driving..)
Summary: We left Friday night so we could hike Saturday morning. A few bumped heads and several cracked eggs later we made it to the trail head where we camped for the night. Needless to say it was an exciting ride. Slept in hammocks and made it a quick hike to the top the next morning. It was a night and day difference from the last time Travis and I hiked Brown's Peak. We could actually see this time! And neither of us were sniffly or using the other for a tissue.
Humphrey's Details: Travel Buddies: James and Caitlyn(and maggie). Vehicle: James' cute new jeep Cherokee.
Summary: This trip was pretty freaking cold. But awesome. Hiking in the snow was a new experience for me. Travis and I did it in regular old tennis shoes so we had soaking wet feet by the end. Luckily for me I had wool socks on so my feet stayed pretty warm despite the wet snow. Travis not so lucky. James gets altitude sickness pretty bad so we almost turned around and went back a couple times, but he ended up pushing through to the end(well pretty much the end). The top of the mountain was sooo cold with the wind chill. It made it almost unbearable. And the false peaks got pretty disheartening after number five or six. We ended up getting about a half mile from the top(to one of the peaks) and calling it good. The cold was just too much for most of us. Travis decided to finish to the top by himself(and I'm still kicking myself for not just joining him) then catch up with us on the way down. It was definitely a hike for the books. Once we made it down, we rewarded ourselves with some much needed thai food in Flagstaff.
Peppersauce/oracle/mud caves details:
Travel buddy: Brock. Vehicle: The Civic.
Summary: Had a fun little third-wheeling party with Brock. Explored a good amount of the cave and had a glow stick fight in one of the small back rooms. It was a pretty short lived trip because Brock needed to be back for something but worth the drive.

That view,

I don't know why we can't take a normal picture.

Made some pretty sweet jack-o-lanterns. 

On the peak.

Sooo pretty. And sooo cold.