Small town...East Carbon

I love visiting my in laws in East Carbon. Its just such a cute small town. When I tell people that Royal is from there, most people (including born and raised Utahns) have never heard of it. I searched the internet to find some pictures and here is what I found.

Technically Sunnyside is a different city that East Carbon, but only the people that live there know where that boundary is. I have been there a few times and still have no idea.......

This is one thing that we did the first weekend I visited. We drove up the canyon and looked at the sheep. Its a pretty popular thing there, I got this picture off of the East Carbon website.

After looking for pictures I decided to give youtube a try and guess what came up? An exciting video a trucker made......thats really a lie....its really boring, but it gives a good view of the area of where East Carbon is and what it looks like.

Birthday Cake

Since the Little family is getting bigger, we are doing a monthly birthday instead of every one's separately (genius idea). But November is the big month with 3 of us (my brother Lex, Royal and I). So to make one cake, we each got our own section. Royals is a tractor digging his grave (since he is the oldest). Lex's is a truck running over a sign, and my is sparkly!! (for those of you that know me, you understand). They had a tractor left over so they made it stack up all the sparkly rings on my side. Here are some fun pictures!

Royal's Birthday

As of Friday, November 6th, Royal is no longer in his twenties. Since we had celebrated our birthdays and anniversary in one big weekend, I didn't have a lot planned except for his birthday book. A big thank you to everyone who wrote a letter for me to put in the book. That day, Royal had to work at 6 am so at his 9 am break I brought everyone doughnuts and milk.

Royal was really excited because he hadn't bought anything for breakfast (he was heating up an old chimichanga when I walked in). He ended up working till almost 6 that night (which gave me plenty of time to finish and wrap his book). He picked me up from my parents house where I was working on it and we went out to eat. We were going to eat at Rusty's because we had never been there before but on our way there Royal decided the Hong Kong Buffet sounded better so that was where we went. After dinner we headed back to our house where I gave him the book and he loved it!! The next morning he woke up early and was reading it. After that we headed to Wal-Mart because he wanted to spend the birthday money he got from his parents (this is one of his favorite parts of his birthday!!)The funny thing was that I ended up getting 4 shirts that were on sale for $3 each. But he did find a tie that he really liked. Its black and white with hounds tooth and blue stripes. He wanted to get a new game for the Wii but rather than getting one and it end up being boring we wrote down some some that he liked and can research them at home and get a really good one. We came back home and pulled out the DVD player and watched a CSI DVD from the Season one that he got from David & Ruth and their family (thanks!!) in bed, where we both fell asleep after one episode. I guess we were both tuckered out from such a fun day!!

Cool tree

So tonight we decided to be deviant and throw our pumpkin off a bridge up the canyon.

Three reasons why

1) It was starting to rot

2) Its environmentally friendly

3) The water would clean it all up anyways, which is better than throwing it in the street.

Royal dropped it perfectly between some rocks, but still where the water could clean it up. As we were leaving we thoughtwould be fun to take some pictures of this cool tree that is on the other side of the road. We found this tree while taking our engagement pictures and always wanted to come back to get better pictures but never did. Apparently this tree is pretty special for a few people for a few reasons.

1)There are 7 (that we could find) faces beautifully carved into the tree. They are so amazing. Someone must have spent a lot of time doing this. Sorry some of the pictures look weird, it was getting dark so I had to brighten the pictures on the computer and some look weird.

2) Someone cared enough to climb up put a birdhouse here.

3) There are SO MANY shoes in this tree! There were even shoes on the ground by the tree. I don't know what the deal is, but we thought it was cool! Maybe someday we'll retire a pair of shoes here......................

Lagoon

When we heard that Joe and Alaena (Royal's brother and sister-in-law) were going to Lagoon, we thought it would be fun to join them. When we called and asked them, they agreed. Since we don't see each other very often, we thought it would be fun to share a hotel room. I used my Marriott discount and got us a room in Layton.

We got it because it had a kitchen and so we could make our meals there rather than spending money to go out (we do that alot). We all got there Friday night. They brought up our nephew Blake, who is living with them and we were cozy in that room, but it was perfect. The next morning, Alaena and Joe made us breakfast and we headed off. We were all so excited but a little nervous that it would rain, but it didn't!! We started in the kid section, where I went on a ride that had water but was told that the part that sprays you is off......yeah.....not true. Blake made sure that I got wet since he had the joystick controller thingy!!It was so much fun and we were both laughing so hard!

Royal and Blake went on their first roller coaster of the day together. Since you have to go in groups of 2, I waited and Royal and I went later. It was a small one, but it went fast!!

We also rode a few of the bigger rides like the one pictured below.

Its actually two rides in one. On one side, its called Blast Off where it shoots you up before it comes down and the other is Re-Enter, where you slowly go up and it drops you. Royal and Joe sat by Blake so he wouldn't be scared and yet it was Royal that we could hear screaming the loudest!! We did another ride called the Samurai where you flew around going every direction possible.

Joe and Blake went on the Tilt a Whirl and we waited for them and rode the sky thingy to the other side of the park

Once we got to the other side, we did a couple of Haunted Houses, the train ride (and saw animals) and got started on the bigger rides!!

The last one that we did was called Wicked, which pretty much sums it up. At the beginning of the ride you go straight up and then straight back down. We had to wait in line for a while but it was totally worth it!! After all the rides, we did the Go Carts last. It was fun but with going so fast, it made it really cold. On our way out, we saw some monsters and things getting ready for a performance so we decided to stay and watch them. They definitely stayed in character!! There was one guy who was dressed as a zombie and could twist his whole arm 360 degrees. It was so creepy looking, so were some of the others who came over and interacted with us. They did a show with songs and dancing.

We were really cold by the end of that!!We We were ready to head back to the hotel for the free hot chocolate and cookies!! Once we got back, Royal made dinner (even though it was 10 pm!!) But we were starving and ate the whole thing. We had to leave early Sunday morning to make it back to Cedar in time for church and Royal's bishopric meeting. A great weekend for sure!!

Some more random cool pictures from the day.

This ball was turning in the water and it took everyone's power to get it to hold still. I didn't want to get wet so I just took a picture of it. It was funny to watch!

2nd Anniversary

The reason we had Halloween on the 30th was because we left the 31st for our anniversary weekend. Its kind of our golden anniversary because it’s our 2nd anniversary on the 2nd!WE were going to spend the whole weekend in Mesquite but there were some problems with the hotel room on Saturday night so we found a really cheap ($39) hotel room in Vegas that had a kitchen so we booked that and headed down there. We got there and made dinner and exchanged gist. Royal got me the rest of the Twilight series and the Wicked soundtrack which I am so excited for. I got Royal Marley and Me the movie since he loves it and a cool shaving kit (it had a brush, bowl and shaving soap stuff). He said that he wanted that a while ago and was excited to get it. After dinner and getting dressed up, we headed for the strip.

We were a little worried because it was Halloween and the strip might be a little crazy, but it wasn’t too bad and we got some more ideas for costumes. We went to the Bellagio to see the atrium, which I had only seen in spring and Chinese New Year so it was cool to see it in fall.

They had massive pumpkins (between 800-900 lbs.). We went and saw the chocolate fountain

and then walked over the Caesars palace where I had some fun with the statue of David....


At FAO Swartz, we got some candy-making sure to not go over ¼ pound because it started to get expensive. We had fun picking out a candy or two from each bin and then weighing it. When we checked out, we were right on!

We walked around the store eating our candy and looking at the toys. Yes we are five years old. We decided we were tired of the strip and were going to go over to Freemont Street but while walking back to the car, we decided that since it was almost midnight Vegas time and it was starting to get loud and crazy, we headed back to our hotel. One our way we saw this sign and were laughing so hard!! Wouldn't they be talking about the "g"s we wear?

The next morning we made breakfast (totally forgetting that it was fast Sunday) and went to a ward that was really close to the hotel. We stayed for the entire3 hours and loved it. The only thing that we didn’t like was that the church was pink and purple. No joke, the door frames were all a light purple and the walls in relief society were purple and the curtains were pink. It was just funny to see for it being a semi-new church. After church we headed to Mesquite. We had to meeting with Royals co workers grandma because she is there so much and gets free rooms and got us a free one. We had to hang out in the gift shop for a while and met with her later since his co worker couldn’t get a hold of her. But once she got us our room, we settled in and then went and had dinner at the Purple Fez bistro. We each had a steak and it was pretty good. We walked around and played the slots with the $10 we got for this purpose. After playing at t Casablanca for a while (where we were staying) we went to the Virgin River to see about playing bingo but decided not. We played the slots there and did good initially (and by that I mean winning $5) but then lost it all. That’s why we only play with $10. When we were at the Casablanca we saw some lady playing slots and she pulled out and envelope with about $2000 in $100 dollar bills. Holy Cow!! We headed back to our hotel and hung out there. The next morning we got up early and had breakfast at the Eureka courtyard café which had a breakfast buffet. It wasn’t the greatest food but it was fast and cheap. We drove on the Cedar stopping in St George to fill up and wash the car (the snow salt looked bad). It was such a fun weekend and I loved that it was a surprise that Royal planned for me. I loved not knowing what we were going to do. I love him so much!!!

And for those of you that know my most embarrassing story, this is the elevator where it happened......in all its glory!

Halloween....Oct 30 for us!!!

This is what Royal's mug shot would look like if he was arrested........and had a mullet.


This year was really fun with Halloween. We started off the week by carving pumpkins at family home evening. We didn’t think that there would be enough pumpkins for everyone but luckily we found one that no one was carving. We couldn’t decide what to carve so I thought about doing something other than a face. I drew half moon but couldn’t think of anything else. Royal took over and ended up carving a cat sitting by the moon which looked amazing!! We were afraid to put it outside because we have annoying people who pass by who break the sprinklers and pull the for rent sign out of the ground, but we put it outside of our door in the hallway. Then on Friday we had two Halloween parties to go to. We had the hardest time thinking of costumes. I had to go to St George earlier that day so I bought a shirt on sale that I thought looked 80’s and figured I could do something with that. Royal decided to wear his mullet wig and John Deer shirt with his work pants and boots and went as “white trash”. We started out by going to the Mountains Springs party. That was a lot of fun. The students had a costume contest and then the adults had one. After the contest we had pizza and food people brought for potluck. We brought some of Royals salsa and it was a hit!! To be honest we were glad to get rid of it because there was so much of it and it had been sitting in our fridge for a while. Most of it was made from ingredients grown from other our or our bishop’s garden. The garlic, cilantro and limes were the only things not home grown. The tomatoes, jalapeños and onions were all from gardens. After that party we headed over to the institute. There were some amazing costumes (we were taking mental notes for next year). Each ward sponsored a room where they had candy (it was supposed to be a trunk or treat but it was too cold). After getting candy, we went in the gym and got hot chocolate and donuts and danced for a little bit. When we left, we didn’t want to go home but wanted to show off our costumes. So we went to my parent’s house and knocked on the door. When my dad answered, we shouted “trick or treat!!” He closed the door and said he didn’t know we were going to be so scary!! Hehe, wait, neither of our costumes were scary……I dunno. We went to Kendra and Jared’s afterwards and they just laughed. Even though it was the 30th, it was a good Halloween night for us.