Two Years and a wonderful Wife!

Kind of weird to think about but we have successfully made it to our two year anniversary!! A lot of things have happened in those two short years but that is not what I am going to write about. Instead, I would like to share with all of you how lucky I feel I am to be married to the awesome, wonderful, beautiful woman that Carynn is.

I don't believe I ever understood true happiness until I met Carynn. From our first date to the present day, she has always had some kind of quirky way to make me smile or roll my eyes (in a loving way of course) and brighten my day. I love the adventurous spirit she has in her, and willingness to try new exciting things, even if she is terrified :). I am constantly amazed how she can be overloaded with school work, stressed with her job, and struggling with new languages yet still have the most positive attitude about teaching kids in nursery and finding time to prepare. Her spirituality has always been something that has astounded me. She never has a negative thing to say about people and always looks for the positive. She is dedicated to life, family, God, and always seems to put herself last. She is always there to support me in any and all endeavors I choose to pursue, and keeps me on track when I get a little side tracked. Thank you Carynn for being the best wife and example that I could ever hope for. Not referring to anything in the near future, I know you will be an awesome mother for our future children!

I feel very blessed to have been introduced to you Carynn, and have been able to spend these last two years of marriage with you. I look forward to many more years of excitement with you. I love you more than I can describe and hope that I will always be able to demonstrate that to you!

Things that I have learned in the last two years of Marriage:

Carynn likes to laugh- this doesn't mean that I can tickle her to induce such laughter.

Carynn is not fooled when I pass bodily noises off on the dog.

Mustard will only be in our fridge if I remind Carynn that we need it.

Oreos are a sacred item and should only be eaten with permission from Carynn.

If Carynn is reading, don't ask her what she is doing... she's reading!!

Tomato soup can actually be good.

Scary movies are something I must enjoy alone.

There is never a wrong time for flowers.

My jokes aren't necessarily as funny as I think they are, but Carynn gives me a nice chuckle or eye roll anyway.

Our body temperatures seem to always be polar opposites.

Happy Two Year Anniversary!! I love YOU!! :)

Press on! A better fate awaits thee. -Victor Hugo

After returning from living in Zion National Park and having to turn down a job that would allow us to live down there a couple more seasons, Scott was left with no greater option than to return to his previous work at the Grand America, a job he has not enjoyed for the last two years for various reasons. After several interviews at several different hotels and other tourism related companies, 10 months later Scott was finally able to land a job at the brand new St. Regis Deer Crest in Park City Utah!

It was a long yet comfortable interview that lasted 2.5 hours with my future boss and the director of operations of the hotel.

We are both extremely excited Scott received this job as it is a long awaited answer to our prayers! Having been turned down by several smaller hotels, Scott is happy to be able to remain in this sector of service. This hotel will have a 5-Diamond AAA status as well as the much more difficult to obtain 5-Star Mobile status. We are hoping that this company will provide a great future for us not only to fulfill our financial needs etc, but to fulfill our travel desires in the future with the awesome benefits that come with this company! Scott was told that there are very good chances to progress in this corporation depending on his flexibility to move... so who knows where we will be next year :)

First Date Movie :)

Here it is Folks, Carynn and Scotts video created for the Butler Family Reunion. We had a blast making this and hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Where Did Summer Go?

If you don't like reading people's travel logs, you might not want to read this post.

Summer came and left too quickly for us this year. Carynn's last day of School was August 5th. After a short few days of relaxing we were off to Lake Tahoe for the first entire Groves Family Reunion in 10 years. We spent the week swimming, playing games, eating lots of good food, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Scott spent one morning out on the sandy bike trails while Carynn did some hiking with her cousins. Scott got to meet a lot of new family members (even though he's been part of the family for nearly 2 years now) and it was fun to have almost everyone together again. Scott spent his 26th birthday in a hot car driving through the Nevada desert.

After our week in Tahoe we came home to spend a few days relaxing and visiting with with friends and family. We went to the Banks Family picnic and this time it was Carynn's turn to meet new faces and make new friends. I thinks everyone from the entire Banks extended family was there except our brother-in-law Tyler who was still in Vegas.

Less than a week after returning from Tahoe it was time to pack up once more. This time we were heading north and looking forward to a much more scenic drive. Little did we know that this drive would include crawling up Logan Canyon at 20 mph behind a cattle drive! It was actually a lot of fun. We eventually made it to Jackson Hole where Carynn's sister is performing in the Jackson Hole Playhouse all summer. She plays Frenchie in "Grease" and did an excellent job!

After Jackson we finally met up with the rest of Scott's family in Island Park. We had a great time going hiking, floating down the Snake River, and visiting Yellowstone. The weather was perfect and we always love being surrounded by our family and the beautiful creations around us.

On Top of the World!

Well it wasn't really the top of the world, but it was the top of Salt Lake City!

Yesterday we decided to take on the challenge of hiking to the top of Mount Olympus, the highest peak in the Salt Lake Valley. Here is some information about the hike:

Salt Lake City sits comfortably at about 4,800 ft above sea-level.

The peak of Mount Olympus is 9,000 ft above sea-level.

Difference- 4,200 feet!!

Trail distance: 6.4 miles round-trip

Average hiking time: 6-7 hours

Butler hiking time: 7.5 hours

The hike started off pretty decent with some steep switch-backs, but nothing we couldn't handle. About halfway up the mountain we ran into some other hikers making their way down the mountain. One gentleman said to us, "enjoy this part while you can. It gets a whole lot harder form here on up!" And he wasn't kidding. Not long after, we found ourselves climbing steeper and steeper, grabbing onto rocks, and getting an excellent work-out on our thighs! But ever time we looked up, the peak was getting closer and closer.

After some tough rock scrambling and even getting a little lost, we finally made it to the top!! The view of the valley was incredible. It was hard finding a place to sit down for lunch because the top of the mountain is just a big pile of sharp, jagged rocks. (Well, they aren't called the "sandy" mountains now, are they?!) We finally found a spot and ate our lunch before getting ready for the Return Journey.

We wanted to take a nice picture of us at the very top of Mount Olympus, so we pulled out our camera. I had charged the camera the night before so we could take it on the hike with us, but in the frantic harry to put it in my bag before we left the house, I neglected to make sure that the camera was actually turned off. It had been sitting in my bag and turned on for about 4 hours. Hence, no pictures :(

The hike back was just as hard as the hike up, but we finally made it back to the car and safely home. Now we can look out at the Wasatch Mountain range with our heads held a little higher, knowing that we conquered the highest of them all!

P.S. Thanks to Tiff and Will for inspiring us to take on this challenge!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!!

We are proud to say that we spent our 4th of July in an all-American way that even Uncle Sam would be proud of! It started off with a neighbor breakfast at our church (and really, can you get any more american than taking advantage of free food?!). It was definitely worth waking up at 8 a.m. for on a Saturday.

After breakfast we headed home and started getting ready for the rest of the adventures we had already planned for that day. We made some lunches, grabbed some blankets and the dog, and headed up the mountains for a beautiful summer picnic. It rained a little on our way up the mountain, but luckily the skies cleared up pretty quick and the rest of the day was perfect. We found our picnic site over-looking the breathtaking Little Dell Reservoir about halfway up Emigration Canyon. Since we had some time to kill, we even drove through different parts of the canyon we'd never seen before, but came out a little disappointed and learned that there was a good reason most of the travelers stay on the main road over-looking the water.

After our picnic we went and saw the movie UP. It is a very fun and very touching movie that we highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. We both admit that there were times we felt tears coming to our eyes. It is an emotional story about relationships and friendships, but neither of us expected to get all choked up about it!

After the movie we stopped for some ice cream at Arctic Circle before heading out again to finish the night in the most patriotic way we could think of- BASEBALL!! We went to the Salt Lake Bees game with our friends Tim and Susan and their little girl Sophia. The game was a lot of fun and we had a good time eating our foot-long hotdogs, singing during the 7th inning stretch, and cheering on the Bees! They lost 7-5 in the 12th inning, but it was still a good game with a lot of action. Since we bought the tickets that put us on the grass behind left field, and that was also where they were shooting the fireworks from, they moved everyone in our section down onto the field for the fireworks show. (I think Scott and Tim were more excited about being on the field than about the fireworks).

We had a great 4th and are glad we got to spend it together and with good friends. This was the first 4th of July where one of us wasn't out of town or working and we got to be together all day! We love the country we live in and the freedoms we enjoy.

With Love From Me to You!

I've never done anything like this before, but I got the idea from my sister and it sounded pretty cool!

OK! So this is how this works...The first 3 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me, just for you. Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! :)
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done some time within the next year.
4. You have no clue what it will be.
5. I will send it anywhere! It doesn't matter where you live!

The catch? The catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on their blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

(I was the second to sign up on my sister's blog, so now I'm doing my part...)

If you don't have a blog you can still comment and just make three things for whoever you'd like instead of waiting for them to sign up.

Be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

On your marks, get set, GO!