Second Year Anniversary at Park City

This semester has been SO busy for Cory that we truly enjoyed our low key anniversary trip to Park City. We stayed in a cozy bed and breakfast, relaxed, and dinned out on Main Street. (with a coupon of course!) There was a hint of the first of the seasons snow, which forced us to ditch our plan of biking around Park City. We didn't mind!Of course we stopped by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and shared a caramel apple!



Park City is so beautiful. I always love driving by this neat little ranch!

Summer and Autumn Hiking!

Cory and I spent some time with Bette doing a day hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon. (just a 25 minute drive from our home!)
The wildflowers were beautiful!
And yes, it was a DAY hike although Bette and Cory look decked out for a backpacking trip!


During the Autumn Cory and I went hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon to see the fall colors.




We were not disappointed!

McCammon Family Vacation

After Cory returned from his internship at United Stationers in Chicago we headed to Northern California to spend time with the family. On our way we stopped by Lake Tahoe for some hiking! Pictured below is part of the Rubicon Trail which follows along the shore of the lake.

This year the McCammon family vacation was at a lovely beach house at Jenner Beach.

Cory, Matt and Sarah played some catch on the beach.

Part of the Sonoma Coastline.



Matt and Sarah chasing birds.





Cory had a great time being a 'rescuer' for Brynn as he helped her across a log!




Cory and I had a wonderful time spending time with my family. We furiously played games and cooked (and of course ate). We took leisurely walks on the beach and most of all just enjoyed being with each other! Thanks mom and dad for a great vacation!

Why I Love Draper

This is the 8 mile round trip bike path I love riding on in Draper.
It passes through houses and farms and ends at a beautiful park. I love taking a break and reading under the leaves of the gigantic tree shown below.

Life is good when you're biking on this trail, except when you get a goat head in one of your tires like I did last time! I had to walk back 4 miles but luckily a nice fellow stopped to help me on mile 2! It was great of him to stop because I knew he was on a long ride! He even gave me one of his tubes! I'm going to have to learn how to fix my own flat before I venture out again by myself.

Chicago!

This summer Cory did an internship at United Stationers, "a leading North American Wholesale Distributor of business products, with 2010 net sales of $4.8 billion." (http://www.unitedstationers.com/profile/overview.html) Cory's position was in the finance department and he was able to work closely with the CFO on a project designed to improve United Stationer's shareholder value.

United Stationer's is located in Deerfield, IL, a city just 30 minutes north of Chicago. Cory and I had both never been to Chicago so we enjoyed a summer exploring together. In order to maintain my job I worked part time and flew to Chicago 4 times to be with Cory.

Our favorite part of the summer was taking a river boat tour via the Chicago Architecture Foundation. A guide taught us about the history and Architecture of each magnificent building we passed. In the collage above on the leftyou can see the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) and is the tallest building in America at 108 stories. In the middle you can see Union station and on the right is The Wrigly Building. We loved seeing the juxtaposition of both modern and traditional architecture along the river.

Besides seeing the Skyline, we of course had to sample the famous Chicago pizza! It was good, but not our favorite, probably because the slab of cheese on top!



We did enjoy a restaurant called Big Bowl though! We ate there 3 or 4 times over the summer! They had the best curry and Chinese food!














We also spent a lot of time at this deluxe gym that came with Cory's internship! It was the type of gym that had towels, shampoo, and saunas!



























The northern suburbia of Chicago has an impressive collection of forest preserves. Cory and I tried "hiking" around them but found that it was either way to hot and humid or cool but buggy!













This was our apartment complex with was also provided from United Stationers!










One night we made a fort out of the furniture and ate our dinner inside it while we watched a movie!






Overall it was a wonderful summer. We met a lot of great people in our ward and other families who were doing their internship at United Stationers. We had many barbeque's and potlucks with them! Despite being separated we still survived! It helped to get cute pictures drawn from Cory.......And of course Bette kept Erin quite busy by hiking and biking!

Nauvoo

Cory and I drove to Chicago in 3 days so we could visit Nauvoo on our way. The visit was short but wonderful! We were first blown away with how wide the Mississippi river was (pictured to the left) and could not imagine crossing it.







We took a quick self guided tour of the little replica town of the original Nauvoo of the early saints. As we only had a little bit of time, so we focused on just a few buildings. Two of our favorites are shown below. The Jonathan Browning Gunsmith building was Cory's favorite building! We were able to learn about Jonathan Browning, an early convert to the L.D.S church. He began making the famous Browning guns (too bad Cory is not writing this part because he could supply more information!) that are still used widely today. We were able to see a museum of his guns inside the building and the equipment and tools they used to make the guns in pioneer times. Another favorite spot was the brick yard. It was actually really interesting to see how they use to make bricks! It use to take weeks and it was hard work! It made me appreciate all the hard work the early saints put into making all those bricks to build their homes. Most of them actually lived in log cabins so they could dedicate their time and resources to building church buildings and most importantly the temple. It made me sad to think they had to leave it all behind, but also very grateful for their example of selflessness and dedication to what they believed in.


Pictured below was my favorite building, the Blacksmith Shop. We were able to watch how they made wagon wheels and nails. Even just making simple nails seemed like a lot of work! The pioneers had to work so hard to get ready to cross the plains. The were sure asked to do a lot. We heard a cool story about a pioneer boy who really liked one of the most beautiful pioneer girls. She was sought after by many of the boys and her father didn't want to give her away to just anyone! He told each suitor that the only way that he could receive her hand was to give her a diamond ring. This father knew that finding a diamond ring would be impossible for any pioneer boy. However, this clever boy knew what to do. He made a ring out of a nail, which happened to be not just any nail, but a Diamond brand nail! So he was able to win the girl's hand by a nail! Each visitor to the blacksmith receives a 'Diamond ring"
Last but not least, we were able to do a session at the Nauvoo temple, which was awesome! The Nauvoo temple is restored exactly as the original. It was beautiful inside! What a great way to end our trip to Nauvoo. We felt really connected to the early saints who walked those halls. We thought about how lucky we are to be sealed in the temple together, especially thinking about those early saints who dedicated their lives to making this possible, some of whom were unable to partake of their dream themselves.

Trip to Zions National Park

Back in May Cory, Bette and I spent about six days in Zion National Park hiking and camping before Cory and I drove out to Chicago. The most memorable hike we did was Angel's Landing.

(click on the pictures to see them full size)

It looks easy enough from that angle, but as you look at the image below you can see what the hike really was like!

It really wasn't that bad! There was a chain link you can hold onto all the way up the ridge. The view from the top was so worth it!We lucked out and were able to get a camping spot at the Watchman campground (free but first come first served). We went on numerous hikes each day, bushwhacked a bit, and of course ate really good food! The trip was perfect....except the hoards of caterpillars! They loved to try and sneak into our tent! There were about a hundred on our tent at all times! And you had to make sure not to step on them all the time. The worse part was their droppings! We didn't realize that those 'tree seeds" that were dropping on our heads and food continuously was actually caterpillar droppings until we were packing up to leave!