Summer Lovin' had me a blast!

So sad to think the summer is over.
I feel we got robbed this year of a summer as far as weather.
We still enjoyed a lot of summer activities...
A few trips to the pool!
We finally got our mountain bikes up in the canyon!





Its so crazy to think we live in the city, but can be up and out of all the commotion and in a beautiful, quiet get away in 15 min.



A few rodeos with friends!
We did make it back to Strawberry Days this year with a few friends. I was horrible at taking pictures this summer.
Nothing like a cup (or 2 or 3) of strawberries in creme while watching a buckin bronco!

Russ grew up on a farm, riding horses and hunting!
So its a lot of fun to go camping with his family. I get to ride horses, which I never did growing up!
The setting on our camera was really bad almost this whole summer, and I didnt notice until I took all the pictures off.
So not the greatest pictures.


His dad has this great mule named Ingersol( I have absolutely no idea how to spell it). Anyway, his dad loves this mule, but he is nice enough to let me ride him every time I go riding with their family. Im obviously not an experienced rider (Im wearing Converse in the stirrups) so he lets me ride him because he is the most gentle of the group.


We saw a drive in drive in movie, did a few hikes, and went rock climbing twice.



The best part of this summer, we got engaged on July 24th! Yahoo! All the pictures from our engagement are on Russ's camera, so I hope to post pictures and story soon. Its a good one!

Proud to be an American!

I sure love the 4th. I love everything about it.
This year we did the same ol traditions as always...Parade, dinner, family sleepover and big breakfast!
Riverton Parade..
On the way to the parade (Cody still thinks he is in Taiwan)



After the parade we went over to a fundraiser carnival for dinner, games and a photobooth!

We went back to the ol parents and laid out the row of sleeping bags and surprisingly enough, had the best night of sleep ever on a family sleep over.
Thank you kiddos! If you look close, Russ and I are the only ones lucky enough to still be asleep!



My dad made his traditional Swedish thin breakfast!

Russ was preparing for this day for a long time. There is a record for most eaten Swedish thins years and years and years ago..like even before I was born for a total of 8 eaten. Russ went into breakfast ready to beat that record!
He did it!! 9 and a half Swedish thins. Makes me want to throw up thinking about it.
For the special occasion we played "For he's a jolly good fellow", made a fan tunnel for him to come out in

And the kids made some noise.



We celebrated little buddy's fist birthday!



Mei and I were getting our picture taken..

And K Bell wanted his picture with Russ(His favorite) by his new motorcycle :)

Because the 4th was on a Monday we had done the sleepover the first part of the weekend. That Monday, Russ and I had a good old fashioned 4th of July. We started early by getting up to run in my cities 5K...but 2 seconds into the run Russ had an injury to the ribs, so we went back to the park and had a fireman's breakfast and waited for the parade instead! Pancakes and bacon is way better then running anyway. After the parade was over, the firemen were doing a tug a war while spraying you down with their hose to make you let go of the rope. It looked so fun so Russ and I joined in and got SOAKED!Im sad I dont have any pictures of it, bu It was so much fun. Then they had another game where one team had one fire hose and a team across from you had another and you had to try and spray a bucket hanging in the air to the other side of the team. Im sure that makes no sense, but I dont know how else to explain it. Just picture a bunch of fun, in the middle of the park, and people getting soaked.
So we did that for a bit, went back to my house and got into some dry clothes and went back to the park to check out the booths. We got KFC (this is a rare occasion for me to eat KFC, but it was the 4th!) and had a picnic in the park.
It was so much fun riding my beach cruiser around in the park with my honey.
Then we decided to go swim! But when we got to the pool someone had pooped, so we scratched that. Why people dont put their kids in swim diapers is beyond me. This happened FOUR times to us this summer!
That night they had a really great concert in the park, so we went to the concert and watched a fantastic firework show.



Such a perfect 4th!

Sole Sisters!

Well, we did it!
The middle of June my sister Kaysie and & I completed the Bear Lake half marathon. Yahoo!
What a fun thing.
My family rented a condo and have a fun weekend get together for the occasion.
The morning of the race, my wonderful boyfriend (Now fiance) got up at the buttcrack of dawn to make us breakfast. Now if any of you know Russ, he HATES getting up early. So when he voluntarily woke up to make us breakfast I thought it was very sweet.
Getting ready to leave! Look at these super cute shirts my sister made us.

Our cute chef

Our wonderful mom also got up at early to wish us luck and take us to the buses.
I couldnt believe when we hopped on the bus and it kept driving, and driving and driving. I didnt train too well, and never did run a full 13 miles before the race. Sheesh, that is FAR!
The bus dropped us off and it had been raining the night before so it was a bit chilly.
Kays and I stayed together for almost the whole race. We were always close enough to see each other through the whole thing. The first 4 or 5 miles, I felt GREAT. I was running faster then I normally would, and then hit the dirt road we had to run for a mile. Because of the rain it was solid mud! After already running for 5 miles and then hitting mud, it was hard!
Running next to the lake was a beautiful thing though.
13.1 is a long way for a non runner. Just as I was about to the point I was feeling pretty exhausted, my amazing family and boyfriend drove by, honking, yelling and taking our pictures to push us along (We had about 3 miles left).






I had been running along with this other girl, and she would pass me, and then I would pass her, and we would always cheer each other on as the other would pass.
At one point we were running along side each other when my family passed, and she made mention of what great supporters they were.
The next 3 miles were the most brutal of them all. Take note, if you are ever going to run a half marathon, make the time to really train!
Just as I was FINALLY making the round to come to the finish line, you can hear the loudest crowd and see them all spread out..of course, the awesome fam!
I will brag and say my family was by far the loudest cheering squad there.

Crossing the finish line



I loved the cute signs the kids made.

Later, Kays and I were in line to get some fruit and the girl I had been running with said "I knew when you were crossing the line, because your family was the loudest!" haha, I thought that was funny.
Thanks for the support Fam.



Mei like my medal

Such a great time!

The rest of our weekend we had a delicious pizza, attempted to swim but it was still to early in the year so freezing, played a little Frisbee and had races down the streets of Bear Lake. My team killed it.





We literally were pedalling our hearts out. Most of the time you see families taking a leisurely stroll on those bikes, nope, not our family. We were tearing around the corners, cutting each other off, trying to hit all the water puddles. It was awesome.
These crazy cats even had matching bruises. Im sad I waited until the end of the weekend until Russ's was fading.

Great weekend, and good feeling of accomplishment. I guess I can cross that off the bucket list!

Oregon Coast

So much to post, such little time!
I just bought a "Groupon" to print my blog, Im so excited.But that means I have a lot of catching up to do!
I left off blogging over a month ago with our Memorial Day road trip (In May!), and its not September. The good news is Ive been busy planning a weddin'! Woohoo, less then 2 months away.
Back to the blog for now though, and lets go back in time to May.
We finished off our road trip getting back to the US and driving down the Washington and Oregon coast. It was so beautiful!
Since Im short on time, and heavy on posting, this post will be mostly pictures.
One of the first stops after getting off the boat was this beautiful lookout.
The West coast is so beautiful.



We stopped for a short hike..





That night we drove to Forks Washington, where Twilight was filmed.

I hate to admit this, but I was never a Twilight fan..I know I know. BUT, it was very entertaining being in a town SATURATED with Twlight stuff. The menu items were all named after the characters, the hotel rooms were named after them, there were cut out figures of them all over...it was hilarious.
Forks did have our favorite beach of the whole trip. The best part, we were alone almost the whole time!



Russ was happy to be at the beach!

We are getting so good at taking pictures of ourselves.



This picture was taken on another beach. Do not let this fool you, it was COLD. Everyone was walking around in coats and scarves and Russ was walking around with his shirt off. He was really ready for summer :)

Along the ride home we saw the most beautiful scenery!
I saw the most beautiful rainbows in my life...

Pretty back drops..

And of course, beautiful coastal views!!






We stopped for the "Worlds best clam chowder" in a cute small town.
I had clam chowder in a bread bowl and Russ had fresh crab!


Russ drives a truck and I drive a SUV, so we rented a car to save us on gas.
Our little rental got great gas mileage! If anyone is interested in a gas saver, this Ford..Focus (I think was great on gas. Ford didnt even pay me to say that.
I do feel bad that I am in this picture, because of the whole 10 days we were gone I swear I only drove this once. Thanks Russ, you did a fine job.


That night we camped along the beach. The water wasnt too close, but close enough you could hear it break on the shore. Unfortunately we had a lot of ground to cover so we didnt get to the spot until dark.
The next day we stopped at a really cool area that had this break in the rock that the water would come crashing through. It was really windy and cold, but it was fun.
Plus there was a Tiny dog running around that hated Russ and wanted to bite his ankles, so that was entertaining.

We had heard about a really good place to eat right along the water, and thought it was be a great chance to have a last meal of fresh fish!

There were all these cute little creatures out sun bathing. I thought Id join in.



We also stopped at the Tillamock cheese factory and did some taste testing, bought a TON of beef jerky and topped it off with some Ice cream.

I was pretty stoked to be in Oregon for my first time.

We covered a lot of road that day and made it all the way to California to drive through the Redwoods just before calling it a night.





Look how small the car looks in between these huge trees!

We had such a great trip!

The next morning we woke up really early and drove all the way back to Utah.
Half way home I got a frantic call from my mom telling me my roommate had called her to let her know my basement was flooding.
THANK YOU to my family who spent their whole Memorial holiday at MY house moving out my furniture and sucking out water and removing carpet until I could get home.
I owe them so much. What a pain to come home to, and such a helpless feeling to be 10+ hrs away while your family is working on your house on a holiday. Much love Kemps.