Saturday, August 29, 2009

Back to School

So it's back to school time!!
Cam and I are both doing Practicums this semester, which makes for both of us being really busy all the time. Cam is so excited to get to go and be active in the classrooms, and I am excited to be in a Severe classroom again!
We both do practicums all morning and classes in the evening... and work.... when we can fit it in!
But regardless of the stress, we are so excited to be in one of the nations best programs ... for both of us! We love Utah State!!!
So i found this Video on youtube, where ESPN did a segment on all of their favorite College Teams, and the did one on USU.
I love it! Because this video demonstrates perfectly Utah State BBall Pride!!! ENJOY!!!

The Big Shave!

So while in Alaska Cam didn't save for 2 months... his mountain man beard was a hit with all the tourists in Alaska, with some asking for pictures with his "Real Alaska Beard"... to coming home and having all of his friends and family freak out (in a good, funny way)... except his Grandma Jackson who freaked out in a scared way ha ha.
But he decided he needed to shave it before school started... so here is the process...
First... Trimming the sides, while leaving a burly goat!

Then he shaved the middle of the goad, i thought this looked way funny.

This one was the best.. the Long Handle Bar mustache!!

Then the sweet mexi' stash!

After that cam just kept it at a short trim. In the end it looked like his face should have felt prickly, but it was SO SOFT the softest facial hair i have ever felt, i think it was because of the trim instead of it being straight growth, but it was pretty cool.
And im going to admit, it took me like 2 days before he felt like my husband again, He had the beard for so long when he saved I didn't even recognize him, and felt wierd kissing him, kinda like he was a stranger haha it was pretty funny!

Richard's Farwell

On the 16th, right after Cam and I got back from Alaska Richard had his farewell.
It was so much fun to have the whole family together to celebrate Richard making such a wonderful decision in his life, to dedicate himself to God for 2 entire years.

The family

Richard with grandma and grandpa Jackson

The Amott Kids

TOUCH the beard everyone... before its gone!!!

Kathryn loved Cam's beard and was always wanting to touch it. It was so funny!!
Then on Tuesday everyone took Richard to the airport. He is going straight to the MTC in Africa! I think this is a cute picture of Cam being brotherly :o)

The big goodbye!!
We love you Rich! and know your going to be an amazing missionary!!!

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Alaska trip comes to an end

So we are finally safe at home from our long journey to Alaska. Here are some of the final pics of our trip. Our drive home took us a week, because we decided to stop and have some fun along the way. (needless to say by the time we got home we smelt pretty bad lol)

I love this picture. There were some absolutely beautiful glacier rivers on the drive home, and Cam took advantage of everyone of them.

Goodbye Alaska!

While in Valdez Alaska we took a one day Glacier cruise to the Columbia Glacier. Valdez was the prettiest place i have ever seen (including all the jungles hikes and everything in Ecuador. On the cruise we were able to see tons of sea otters, sea lions, 4 bald eagles, doll porpisies (these really cute little animals that were built just like a dolphin, but looked just like a killer whale), and we were able to see 5 female and 1 male Killer Whale, swimming right next to our boat.

The scenery was to die for. These HUGE mountains just came shooting right out of the crystal clear ocean, and the trees grew all the way to the water's edge

Valdez is just a little sea port town, but is honestly beautiful. I like how this picture shows the beautiful water, the cool fishing boats, then a breath taking mountains in the background.

This is Bridal Vail Falls, it is right along the highway through the canyon towards Valdez. In the winter the waterfall freezes and people can ice climb it.

This is Worthington Glacier, in a place called Thompson Pass (on your way down to Valdez). This was fun because they let you hike right on the Glacier, Just be careful not to slip :o)

Worthington Glacier is so Large, it is the glacier that pretty famous for "shrinking because of Global Warming" but the people that live there say its actually from the Great Alaskan Earthquake back in 1964 that cracked the Glacier in half, and so since then it has been breaking down little by little, and has absoultly nothing to do at all with Global Warming.

This is Cam in his Beaver hat that he Really wanted to buy (but was wicked expensive) I love this pic bacuase its hard to tell where his beard starts, and the hat ends :o)

Yes thats right ladies and gentleman, they are eating Roudolf! With mustard and some sourcrout on the side.

This is the Ancorage Temple. It is SUPER small!!! It shares a parkinglot with the church, and is HALF the size of the average sized chapple! It is probably six car lengths long... if that. BUt it was so nice to get to go to the temple, the 6 1/2 hour drive there sure made us appreciate the 5min drive to the Logan temple!

This is THE REAL SANTA CLAUSE!!! He lives in the North Pole and knows EVERTHING! when we told him we lived in Logan Ut he knew all about the Aggies, our football team, and our new head coach!!

This is Mike and Ester Smith. They were our good friends up there that we got really close to. THey are a wonderful family and so fun to be with.

This is the Verhagen family that cam worked for.

Look how dusty Cam's face is!! This is right after we got done with a 4 wheeling trip. Thats Wyatt with him, one of Niki and Shannons dang cute kids! This family was so great and took us on tons of 4wheeling trip and were honestly the coolest people ever!

The tripod is the one thing that Nenana is known for. They put it out on the river during the winter then people from all over bet on when the ice is going to break, and it will fall into the river (you have tobet down to the min). The pot last year was $300,000 and only 3 people had to split the winnings... pretty sweet.

One night Cam's friends Ben, Shaw, and Steve came over and spent the night with us... after they layed down you honestly couldn't have fit another person in that room if you had wanted to.

This is the view on one of our 4 wheelings rides with Niki and Shannon

Shannon took us up through the Coal Mine that he works at, where we saw these HUGE machines! Cam looks like an ant next to that blade!

Talk about a real Tonka Truck!

You cant find that road sign anywhere but Alaska!

All summer we were surrounded by 6 wild fires (just one of them burnt down half a million acres) THey just let the fires burn unless they get by someones cabin. It really made us appreciate how GIANT Alaska is that 2 million acres isnt even something they worry about up there.
Well, if anyone knows anyone who is traveling to Alaska send them over to us, we kept all of our maps and traveler's guides, and can tell them all the best places to go!