The Miracle of Forgiveness

What a Christ-like man. I walk away in awe every time I watch this. I hope each of you take the time to view this video - it will change your whole perspective on life.

Summer slow-down!!

I feel like I have been procrastinating lately, and the reason I feel this way is because I am digging my heels in the ground as I see summer come to a close. I do not want summer to end, it seems like it just barely got here. So lately we have been trying to hurry and do all the summer activities we wanted to this year - in a few weeks worth of time.
The first weekend in August, we celebrated my 23rd birthday. Jess surprised me by taking me camping up by Causey Dam and we went canoeing, four-wheeling, and stayed in a really nice RV camper. It was so much fun! I hadn't been canoeing in YEARS and we had a nice time out on the water. We even brought our dog Harli along and let her ride in the canoe with us! That was an adventure for sure! She kept wanting to jump out of the canoe to swim and nearly tipped us over almost every time!

I had a little meltdown episode when we were canoeing and I had every reason to have a meltdown when you see two of these predators (see pic above) right along the banks of the dam as you are paddling merely along in your canoe. Jess and I were minding our own business, rowing and singing, (ok maybe not singing... but having fun) when all of a sudden we hear rattlers close by. We look to our left, and there are two RATTLESNAKES along the side of the dam, right by us! So Jess comes up with this BRILLIANT idea to paddle over next to them and get some close-up pictures! I was actually fine and dandy with that, as long as I stayed in the canoe and the snakes stayed on the rocks. Well, being the bright-minded boy that Jess is, he decides it would be a good idea to try and kill the snakes with the wooden paddle he had in his hand. Of course this idea made me freak out because that would mean we would be taking a chance at the snake NOT dieing and it quite possibly getting into our canoe while it was still alive! YIKES! Needless to say, I started paddling as fast as I could to get the heck out of there! But we did have some pretty cool pictures of these two snakes fighting to remember this special moment =)

We also saw some wildlife while on our camp out. One night there was a really bad rain storm and a baby moose came right up by our camper to drink some water. It was pretty exciting to see a moose that close up!

Jess and our crazy A.D.D. dog.

Then the 3rd night we were there, Jess' brother, his wife, and kids came up to play with us! I promised Steph I would add this picture on my blog...she is one of my very favorite people =)

On my actual birthday DAY, Jess took me to Park City to ride the zip line and go shopping at the outlet malls. He is so wonderful, he is my best friend and we always have so much fun together.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am SOOO not ready for summer to leave us. I still have a few fun items to check off my list... so I better get off the computer and go enjoy the warm weather while it's still here!