Castle of Chaos and Haunted Forest

On yet another Smalley adventure, Brooke and Roger spent Saturday evening full of screams with KC up in Salt Lake at the Castle of Chaos, and then down in Lehi at the Haunted Forest. The Castle of Chaos is said to be one of the scariest haunted houses in the whole country, even featured on the Travel Channel. It was scary yes, but not to the extent we expected. For fun Roger wore his new heart rate monitor. He peaked at 145 during the 20 some minutes of excursion through the "castle." The Haunted Forest was much longer and outside, and seemed much scarier, despite a much lower max hr! Definitely more bang for your buck tho at the Haunted Forest! Very fun!

At the ticket booth for Haunted Forest - wow our lens needs cleaned!

These were probably more for kids, but we posed in them anyways!

This was the scene waiting in line to go through the door into the Haunted Forest. About an hour wait, tons of people, but they had some good entertainment to make the time go by faster.

Another shot of the entrance to the forest. They kept playing the Thriller video on the big screen, and it just happened to be playing when it was our turn to go in! Rockin out to that definitely made it seem less scary to start!

Right before we went in, we had the creepy vampire door guard take our picture. Apparantly vampires or whatever he was, don't know how to take very good pictures! Sorry KC!

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Oct 16 was our 1st Anniversary! We celebrated by going up to Murray (south of Salt Lake) to the one Cheesecake Factory in all of Utah! After our sealing last year in the Bellevue Temple, our families and us had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory there, and we love the place! It was a surprise for Brooke, but she finally figured out where we were going the night before, and she ended up being right! We had a great anniversary and are so happy to be married to each other!

At the Cheesecake Factor waiting for our food

This was all we had! - just kidding. Our Dutch Caramal Apple Struesel cheesecake dessert

Get it!

Fun times - thanks Cheesecake Factory

Sharing anniversary gifts that morning before work and school

Brooke and her gerber daisies :)

Brooke's 23rd Birthday!

Today, Oct 15, Brooke turned 23! Here's a few pics from opening presents when she got home from work that evening.

So instead of a birthday cake, Brooke got her favorite peach smoothie from Buns 'n Brews! Yum

Pumpkin Carving

In the spirit of Halloween we got a pumpkin and carved it with fancy toy carving tools!

4-Wheeling at Soapstone Basin

Today was yet another fun Saturday activity with the Smalley's: 4-Wheeling up at 8500 feet at Soapstone Basin (couple hours east of Provo). Despite a temperature of only 37 degrees, and even some snow in some areas, we had an AWESOME time roaming around the dirt roads.

Renae (who owns the 4-wheelers), Jadyn, Lindsay, KC, Brooke, Roger

Gettin ready for our first ride

We drove across the top of the pass and down to the other highway

On top of the pass, looking back out across the basin

Fun times in the VERY rough rode and snow! :)

Roger, near "camp roger" below the basin

We went to the zoo!

Last weekend we went to the Hogle Zoo up in Salt Lake! Earlier in September, Brooke also got a job as a Nanny, and the family who hired her invited us up there with them for Jadyn's 4th birthday. It was a beautiful, warm fall day, and we had a fun, full day seeing all the animals!

The two of us in front of the elephants

Roger and a giraffe

Hello penguins!

Baby Zuri with her mom

We love to bike!

Since arriving back in Provo we have gone on some beautiful fall bike rides. Hobble Creek is probably our favorite, but another one is out by West Mountain on the south end of Utah Lake. We had a wonderful Labor Day ride out there with our friends Dane and Bridget. It was a beautiful day for a 32 mile ride, and we had to stop part way through to get a picture!

Dane, Bridget, Brooke, Roger

*Summer Hiking*

We managed to do two huge hikes over the summer! One as soon as we got home to WA, and the other right before coming back to Provo. We hiked the 15.5 miles into Stehekin to surprise Roger's mom for her birthday in June (and then hiked back out a few days later!). In August, when Owen (Roger's brother) and his girlfriend Suzie came up from California, we did our second annual McGregor Mt. hike. This year though, we made it an overnight trip, and suffered the whole way up to camp. But the next morning the view at the top was well worth the pain and scary ascent. We definitely had a great, adventurous summer with family.

Near Rainy Pass at the trail head of Bridge Creek (into Stehekin)

Brooke, lookin good as we rest

Water anyone?

We made it! (Back at the car after another long day)

Roger, Brooke, Owen, Suzie - finally made it to camp at sunset - time for bed!

Sunrise as we crested the cliffs below the top of McGregor Mt

Bundled up at the top cause it was freezing!! (8122 feet)

Finally warming up as we headed back down to camp

This was our tent!

"out-house" with the best view ever

Two States

Hello all! Sunday evening here in Provo. Winding down the weekend and getting ready for a new week. Brooke and I are for the first time in our marriage experiencing what its like to be apart for an extended period of time - not fun. However, we are working through it as an acceptable sacrifice and an opportunity to grow even closer (about the same way we have looked at early time periods of long separation like freshman year of college, the mission, etc...now its only 3.5 weeks, so nothing really compared to a couple of years!) Tomorrow Brooke will have been back in good ol' Washington State one week, filling in at Heartland. So, as she puts in hours of work back there, I continue putting in hours of school here. Another round of midterms coming up this week. Three to be exact, plus a quiz (in that particular class...Honors Isaiah...they are pretty hefty quizzes though!). Have continued also to get to know my professors better and build relationships with them, so that is nice. Still investigating quite diligently what my major is going to be...lots of ideas, but I think I'm getting it narrowed down. However, I did join the Honors Program at BYU this past week, meaning that upon completing extra projects/requirements, can graduate with honors in the top 2% of BYU. So that is a definite goal I have made for myself.

It has not all been work and school for the two of us this past week though! Brooke has been getting into Guitar Hero with the family back home! Apparently we are going to rock it when I go visit her in two more weeks! She also enjoyed Wenatchee Wild hockey games both Friday and Saturday nights thanks to their season tickets. I got an almost instantaneous cell-phone video of the big fight from the game on Friday! So it was ALMOST like I was there! Here in Provo, the weather has turned VERY spring-like, though I'm trying not to get my hopes up because knowing this place, it will probably snow another foot before March. Anyway, I do try to enjoy it while its here, so yesterday I woke up to bright sun shiny skies, and decided to go for a hike in the evening and hopefully get some good sunset pictures. I had a great hike and though clouds had moved in by that time of the evening, still got some pretty pictures and beautiful views out over the valley. Got to play in the snow. I didn't go on a trail, just parked and started hiking up the hillside lol! Towards the last part, which was very steep heading up to the top of the ridge, there was decently deep snow (had the effect of being  deeper because of the incline) and since it was all over these small shrubs, there were lots of air pockets underneath, and most steps involved sinking into my knee or above. Got a great thigh workout to say the least! Pictures are posted below :)

Thats about it for now. Time to plan out the week a little and get to bed. Our greetings to all of you!

Valentine's Weekend

So yesterday, Valentine's Day, we woke up to yucky wet snow falling. Not too rosy at all! Our plan of going for a run in the hoped-for sunshine thus fell through. However, not too worry. We decided to make a yummy breakfast together! Brooke made her stellar scrambled eggs, while I pulled out one of our cookbooks and saw "French Toast Waffles" listed and thought I'd give that a try. Turns out, they were awesome! You just make regular French Toast, but instead of cooking it on a frying pan, you stick it in a waffle grill! Highly recommend it! We shared breakfast together on the new cute Valentine's Day plates Brooke got us, and sipped Orange Mango Pinneaple Juice from Valentine's Day glasses. After exchanging cards, Brooke got out the most hillarious heart-shaped glasses I had ever seen, "Kiss-Me" antennas, and a lovey/kissy neckless! So, see the pictures! We had some good laughs for sure!

That evening we got together in the kitchen again (we love being together in the kitchen btw) and made an awesome chicken, brown rice, and corn dinner. Sounds simple, but ohh was it good! A craving for ice-cream hit us, so where else did we go but on down to Hogie Yogie to get their world famous Oreo Milkshake. My was that delicious. But, the funny thing is this. I had been wearing my cute little neckless around the house most of the day, and forgot I had it on lol! Well, Hogie Yogie was almost empty, so all the workers were waiting for customers when we walked in. It did seem like they were looking at us a little oddly though. Then when the young man took our order, it almost seemed like he was trying not to laugh. Well then Brooke couldn't hold it in any longer and kindly mentioned to me while laughing, "Roger, you still have your neckless on!" LOL! Wow, talk about embarrassing. Good times though for sure! Those moments are priceless.

It's Sunday evening now. This morning we both gave talks in Church on Missionary Work. Fun fun! Now we're just hangin out, taking it easy for the evening. The sun actually came out today too, so that was nice. Also have been working with this dang blog to get it "pretty" :) Like I promised, will be updated often! Cheers for now! B&R

One month in Provo

Our first full month in Provo is now past. Each day goes by faster. We are feeling more adjusted now to life in Utah though - still sponsoring though our favorite motto: "In Utah but not of Utah." :) We are loving our new life together. I have managed to create a very busy semester for myself at school, between 6 reading-intense classes and a part time TA job. Together though we attack head on each day. We are up around 4 or 4:30 each morning and walk to Gold's Gym across the street, and love working out together. Whether it be lifting, cycling, or doing functional workouts, it is a great way to start the day and spend time together. I'm on campus by 7 AM usually and am there until 6 or 7 in the evening. That's always the goal at least!

Brooke is on the job hunt still. Had a great interview earlier this week for one, so we are waiting to hear back on that. We're happy, and we love that fact! Yes, we are surrounded by tough times here and abroad, but each day we learn and grow a little bit together, and like I said, meet life head on, with a smile of course! In this first month we have also solidified the fact that Brooke makes the best breakfasts and lunches ever!

As January now sits behind us, we even moreso are looking forward to spring!! Lots going on each day, so we will keep you posted!

We're HERE!

Well...we have finally decided to enter the blogging world! After putting it off for so long, we couldn't avoid it any longer. To our family and friends, we hope that this provides some way to "keep up" with us!