I kinda dreaded this part of the trip. For the most part we have planned out our trip so that our drive time is no more than 4.5 hours; except for the first two segments of our journey. The first part, Utah to Colorado, wasn't bad because we had the mountains. I was not looking forward to today's drive to Kansas because we all know what that means...a whole lot of prairie. Vast open stretches that go on forever. But you know what? I was pleasantly surprised when the drive was pretty fun and actually beautiful (sorry Kansas lovers).

To break up the 7.5 hour drive, we made a few different stops. The first was the "Big Easel". It's a huge, 80ft tall art installation to look like an easel holding a Van Gogh Painting in the town of Goodland... so pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It was a great time to stretch our legs, walk around a bit and, of course, take a few pictures!




I was impressed with the size and loved that this city added a little art to attract tourists. We for sure got caught in that trap, and there was another guy near us taking pics too. I'm generally really curious what he was doing because he had a piece of paper with some writing on it that I couldn't see. He had the paper and easel in view of the camera. Some secret message that I will never know... I hate the feeling of not knowing. Maybe he was proclaiming his love to his girlfriend and Van Gogh was the man to help him out.

The next break was in Oakley where the Statue of Buffalo Bill stands. The thing was massive! Just look at the picture!





The museum was closed being a Sunday and all but they had a stand with information about Buffalo Bill's famous western show and a little history behind him and the area. To be honest, I had only really heard the name. I didn't know that much about him, but now I am an expert so feel free to ask any questions regarding his life. Just Kidding. Please don't do that or I may be embarrassed with the little information I actually retained ha.

Our last stop of the trip was one we almost passed up, Zack had found this cool cathedral online but thought it was in Oklahoma. Luckily we saw it in the distance and pulled off the road to take a look.




Dubbed "The Cathedral of the Plains", it turned out to be a 100+ year old cathedral built by German immigrants. I guess their American Dream was moving to Kansas! It makes perfect sense for people who just wanted their own land to farm and to be left alone. The doors were open so we had a chance to sit inside for a moment and enjoy the beauty of the stained glass and other intricate designs adorning the walls, but let's talk about the stained glass for a moment. There were at least 30+ intricate pieces covering the walls and depicting moments from Christ's life and various saints caring for His children. I just loved how it was around sunset when we came in so there was soft lighting outside contrasting the dim light inside the church, which made the glass really light up! It's almost like they were LED powered. It was gorgeous.




This was my favorite stop of the day by far. The Church is nestled in a quiet town, which is impressive that these people wanted a beautiful place to worship so they built one. I can only imagine the time and money it must have taken to make the cathedral what it is today.

Kansas has surprised me. Even in winter, when the grass is dead and the farms are waiting for the growing season, the plains were beautiful. It made me appreciate how vast the US is. There is so much land and amazing things to see. These stops slowed us down a bit while en route to our final destination for the night in Wichita, but it was worth it. We enjoyed the journey so much more when we strayed from the Freeway a bit.

Second leg of the journey: Colorado to Kansas. 9 hours, 535 miles.

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We only had a single day to spend in Colorado so we had to make the most of it! With that in mind we started off our day with... a run! Exactly what most people would do right? We gotta stay somewhat in shape with all this inevitable eating out. My aunt and uncle live in a brand new neighborhood on top of this nice big hill. Wonderful for the view of the city, horrible for running. Naturally we ran up it anyways. It was brutal, but we did it.

After the workout we headed into the city and onto 16th street, a downtown pedestrian strip with lots of food and shopping. We walked along the street with no real destination in mind. There's something fun about not having an agenda and just wandering in whatever store catches your eye.

Zack found his happy place.

After an hour or two we checked out Union Station. It was amazing to see how the city has turned this old train hub into a very classy meet and greet slash hangout area, with leather chairs and nice wooden tables surrounded by little coffee and dessert shops.

For lunch, we went to a place called Avanti Food and Beverage just outside the city. When you walk in there's a few different restaurants inside the building, but they're all inside individual shipping containers. So it's kind of like a food truck roundup but indoors and in shipping crates... kind of hard to describe! They had several different options (Schawarma - which I got - sushi, Italian, American, etc) and some nice tables and benches in the middle. It had a very modern young-tech-town feel to it, I'd recommend you go if you're in the area!

Today also turned out to be our trial and error day. We planned a few things (the Newman side of us) but not everything (the Woodmansee side of us - or at least the male Woodmansees!). We were left with a few more hours and so it slowed us a down a bit. We would find something we wanted to do but then found out that they were closed. Take a tour of the Pepsi Center? Closed 10min ago. Take a tour of the Hammond Candy Factory? Closed half an hour ago. Take a tour of the Denver Mint? Need a reservation ahead of time. It was really no big deal but we could have saved time driving to no where for a bit. That's part of the fun though, right?

After much deliberation and driving around in circles while googling what was still open, we ended up at the house of the "unsinkable" Molly Brown. Naturally it was about to close, but we still saw the gorgeous exterior and went into the carriage-house-turned-gift-shop and the employees were nice enough to tell us a bit of the place's history before shooing out the door so they could close up. Since everything in Denver was closed just to spite us, we decided to just walk around the State Capitol building grounds before calling it a day.

It was an exciting day and by the end we were ready to go back and hang out with family for the rest of the night.

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The story of us and our year of travel: A few months ago Zack and I decided to do a lot more traveling this year. Zack currently works at GitHub and can work remote; freeing him up to go just about anywhere as long as he has internet and his laptop. I was working for a company, IdealShape, and while I loved it, I could't leave for weeks at a time...so that left me with one option really. It was a hard decision, but I traded work for travel. Ya I know, rough life.

So here we are. We are driving across the US. 27ish states. 45 days. The plan is to drive through Colorado, then down to Texas and work our way along the east coast seeing friends, family, and cities that we have always heard about but haven't seen for ourselves.

I didn't sleep much last night. Maybe it was just nervous energy or excitement to get on the road? I ended up paying for that on the drive and was so tired all day. Oh well.

First leg of the journey: Utah to Colorado. 8 hours, 506 miles.

My aunt and uncle were nice enough to let us crash at their place while we check out Denver: my hometown!

Tonight on the menu: we found this little greek inspired restaurant called Bada Bing Grill in Arvada. We each got a gyro (finally learned how to say the dang word) and it was the best YEE-row I have ever tasted. To be real for a sec, I don't even know what kind of meat was in it. Definitely not chicken...or beef. It was sorta like sausage but maybe it was lamb?? I should have asked but because it was so good, I didn't even care. I also tried their greek salad, which I guess is just a salad? Not sure what part of it was Greek. That was also fantastic!

We ended up not even going into Denver tonight, I was so tired from my night of restless sleep that the idea of relaxing and talking to family was far more appealing than running around town. But we'll make it there tomorrow I promise!

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(written by Hannah)

Now that summer is over, Zack and I can take a breather from all the weddings we have had. It's been great to celebrate these exciting days with loved ones, but it has also kept us very busy.

At the end of June we headed out to California for our friend Sheryl's wedding. It worked out nicely for us because we had the chance to stay with the family in Oceanside! We had a beach day and even though the water was pretty cold in the beginning, I toughened up and got in the ocean (I'm use to east coast Florida water). Sheryl's wedding day was beautiful and I am just so happy for her and Christian.

Such a beautiful day at such a beautiful temple! 

We love the beach!

Then it was time for Austin and Annie's wedding in July.

It was a fun weekend and while it was busy, we loved having our friends stay at our house.

To end our summer, Riley and Sabri got married. Now I have a new sister-in-law and I'm excited to get to know her more over the years. 

Waiting for the bride.

Look at Zack work it!

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(written by Zack)

We have a new house!!! It’s both more wonderful and more stressful than anything we’ve done before. There’s just something to be said about having your own big space you can decorate and change however you want. 8 years of living in apartments makes you so sick of the small spaces, landlords, rent money you'll never see again, and so on.

For the first year of our marriage we lived in a married complex near BYU called Harmony Square, but were tired of the noise and having our stuff stacked to the ceiling due to a lack of space. We moved into the complex because of some other married friends, but when everyone started talking about moving out we figured we’d do the same. So where to go? In order to even think about that, we had to figure out what we’d be doing the next few years. If we were leaving the state soon we’d find another place to rent, but if not then we’d find a place to buy. Since I have a pretty good deal going on with Vivint, we figured we’d stick around 5 years and see how that pans out. So lets buy!

I started reading all I could about buying a house, getting a mortgage, etc. and spent many weeks looking at houses around Saratoga Springs and all places west of I-15. We found a few we liked, but none we were set on until a real estate agent was showing me some homes in Eagle Mountain and I found one that I knew I had to have.

It sits up on a hill overlooking the valley and the lake, and it has plenty (more than we need by far) of space inside. The view alone made me want it, but it was complemented by lots of space inside and plenty of upgrades planned. Only issue was that it wasn't finished yet! We hadn't planned on buying a brand new house, but this one made me change my mind. I called Hannah and told her this was the house I wanted, so she made a trip out to see it after school one day and agreed. It was great!

Three months later, we signed the papers and got the keys to our brand new house, where we've been living for over a month now! We've been blessed to have such a great house that we can turn into our own home. We have lots of plans for the inside and outside, but for now we're content to have room to ourselves. Come and visit us!

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(written by Hannah)

This winter was just a little too cold to stay outside for long, but without any snow on the ground, we never had the chance to go sledding or build a snowman. Instead, we did a lot of puzzles to pass the time.

These are just a few that we completed. I liked the Disney ones the best!

To kickoff the nice spring weather, our friends recently took us shooting!  I’ve never seen Zack shoot before so when he consistently hit the bullseye, it was safe to say that I was extremely impressed! He made it look easy! I wasn’t a terrible shot, but he definitely hit the target more than I did. 

So focused

           

Last weekend was General Conference and the whole family came into town. We haven’t all been together since Christmas, so having us all together again was great! Some of us girls went shopping at City Creek during the Priesthood session and caught up with our cousins. We should have known that every woman in Utah would have the same idea because the mall was packed. Oh well! We still had a great time.

Once again the talks given by the leaders of the church were amazing! One of my favorite parts about conference was Music and the Spoken Word given right before the start of the Sunday morning session.  I have memories of Dad turning it on Sunday mornings and enjoying the music given by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I was not disappointed this year as it was just as beautiful.

On Easter Sunday, between sessions, Zack and I colored Easter eggs! It was a pretty low key decorating party with cheap dye that I had to crush by hand in the end.  Later that day we went over to Lindsey and Aaron’s place for dinner. We ate way too much food and played Apples to Apples. I love being around my family and feel so blessed that we can be together forever!

Baby Sanders loves us!

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(Written by Zack)

A few months ago I was browsing Imgur (a picture sharing website) and saw a post where a few guys decided to make a canoe out of pvc and duct tape. I sent it to Tanner saying we should do it - mostly joking - but then decided after about a week that I should give it a shot. 

I looked up a lot of other articles and DIY instructions for building a duct tape canoe/kayak, but wasn't too impressed with what I found. If you're going to spend that time and money, why not making it something worthwhile? Here are a few of the examples:

Noble efforts, but neither seem to work very well or be very comfortable. That guy is almost capsizing with his legs not even in the boat! 

I drew up several plans, initially wanting to use some PVC connectors and such, but I realized that would make it very boxy, kind of like this guys:

Not a very good looking boat. Using connectors just doesn't allow for the gentle curve that a canoe should have, so I scratched that design and decided to find a different way to build a sturdy frame. I saw an idea on one of the DIY kayaks that helped (the guy in the second picture did it, though not very effectively it seems). So here's what we did!

It would be no fun if only one person could be in the canoe at a time, so in order to make it log enough for Hannah and I to both have space we decided to make it about 14' long. We bought about 5 pieces of 20' 3/4" pipe to build our frame with, 1 piece of 10' 1" pipe to serve as our makeshift connectors, and a lot of duct tape to hold it all together. Using the above guy's suggestion, we cut a few sections of 1" pipe into about 8" pieces, and then cut them in half length-wise. Using a lighter, we softened the middle of the cut lengths and bent them to make a V shape, then used them to hold the frame in place.

Using this technique, we built a basic skeleton frame for the canoe. The 1" pipe halves held the 3/4" pip nicely, so with a bit of PVC cement and some tape it held the long ends together very well. We used pipe about 14' long for the top part of the frame, and about 13'10 for the bottom. That way it was a little thinner on the bottom and curved outward as it went up. 

For the pieces that connected the long top bowed section to the bottom (the trapezoid shape in the middle) we used more of the 1" pipe semicircle pieces bend in 90 degree angles to cup the 3/4" pipe. It holds impressively well, its a tight fit with the glue alone, and the duct tape provides that guarantee of sturdiness.

We built out the frame a little more to make sure it was sturdy all around. I also bought some cheap plastic school chairs off craigslist for about $10, to make seats for Hannah and I. Here's a shot of the chairs in the places they'll eventually end up just sitting in the completed frame:

(a lot of netflix was watched in the making of this canoe!)

Satisfied that the frame was sturdy enough, we started to make it seaworthy. A lot of DIY canoes/kayaks used trash bags to help keep it watertight, but Hannah and I bought some painter's plastic normally used to cover furniture during painting. It was about 25'x10x, so plenty big to cover our whole canoe in a single sheet. We didn't want to do it in small plastic sections, better if the whole sheet was uncut to ensure that no water would leak through some gaps.

(Typical Netflix being judgemental - "Are you STILL watching this show?")

That done, it was time to cover the whole thing in duct tape. This took a long time, Hannah was very patient and a great helper! 

All done with the canoe frame! 

To mount the seats, I drilled the legs off the plastic chair part and mounted them on some 18"x3' sections of thin plywood. I sat them up on some blocks to make sure we were sitting high enough in the canoe to paddle. The wood we found mostly for free from Home Depot in their scrap lumber section.

We built some paddles using a basic outline from a guy here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Kayak-Paddle/

Here's the finished product!

Only thing left to do was test it. We took a little too long while building the canoe, so by the time we were done the weather had already turned cold. So weeks went by while people repeatedly told me they didn't think it would float (apparently buoyancy wasn't taught very well in school) and we waited for a nice warm day. So this last Saturday, the clouds parted and the wind died and Utah Lake beckoned. We loaded it up on top of the Jeep, got lots of weird looks, and headed for the lake.

Hannah was fairly trusting  but a little skeptical, so we set it in the water for a few minutes while we waited for Tanner and Becca to come and provide both moral support and to be our lifesavers in case of emergency. But it floated! No leaks!

Once our temporary lifeguards showed up, we hopped in. Took us a minute to get the balance down, but once we did, it worked like a charm! We could paddle out around the little harbor and make sure no water was coming in. 

Victory!

Satisfied that our canoe worked and happy to get it out of our living room, it's currently spending the winter at the Archibald's where they kindly let us store it in their garage. It's too cold to get wet right now, but now we know we have a canoe to take on adventures come summer! Can't wait!

Here's a small video of our first test as a reward for reading this far :) 

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