Camping & Fishing the American Way

This is a long time coming, but here it is! Team Svedin's 2 July 4th Weekend. ( I don't know if the 1st one in 2007 counts as a "Team Svedin" event, but we did go fishing. We'll count it.) 2009 was every eventful. We strapped the canoe to the top of the car and drove down to Utah to go camping in the Uinta's.

We camped in the rain. That was an adventure!! We fished, in some beautiful lakes during some even more beautiful sunrises. That was an adventure too. We fly fished in some streams. I caught a little brook trout. That made me feel like a pro. (Beginner's luck.)

Here's my catch of the morning on Trial Lake

Here's my amazing husband cooking up that fish for breakfast. (I'd never had fish for breakfast before.)

Here's my sister-in-law digging a trench around the picnic table so we wouldn't get so muddy as we ate.

Here's a picture of the canoe falling off my car. It was on there really well, but then we loosened it to get into the trunk. Don't worry though. No damage was done to canoe or car.

After camping a night in the rain, we decided to pack it up and camp at Grandma's house. We hung out with the other Utah Svedins and Grandma Jackson and had a blast all weekend. On the way home, we stopped by my uncle's house to say hi. He walked us out to our car and said, "Is that a car under that canoe?" We thought that was pretty funny. The canoe is a little longer than the car, but Svedins are pro's at strapping things to the top of cars! It's always an adventure when you go camping with Team Svedin.

Castles, Castles, Castles

Matt and I took at trip down the Rhine River, one of the major European rivers. It was like talking Gilligan's 3 hour tour twice with no big ship wreck adventure at the end. We sailed by a lot of little towns and big towns, tons of beautiful vineyard covered hillsides, and too many castles to take pictures of. Here are a few . . . I'm sorry I don't know any of their names.


And here are a few more . . .

This one is bright Yellow, and being remodeled of course.

This one is built right out of the mountain side. Those are my favorite.

Lots of castles were right next to each other, so Matt and I made up some theories about castle building and living. 1. If you take over someone else's land, you should definitely abandon their castle and build one of your own. 2. Just because two castles are right next to each other doesn't mean their inhabitants were neighbors, or even lived in the same century. 3. The closer to the edge of the cliff, the better the castle.

Other highlights of the boat trip include . . . This building that I mistook for the Crispy Cream Headquarters. Sorry Germany. Crispy Cream is good, but your stuff is way better.

The yummy Fruit and Nut trail mix that we brought along for the ride.

This yummy mix includes dried cranberries, toasted soy nuts, pumpkin seeds, yogurt covered raisins, cashews, and sunflower seeds. It is not homemade.

And a very large statue that seemed to be a main attraction for a lot of other boat riders. Tons of people got off at this stop. (It could have been the rum plant and wine tasting tour that was the big draw, but I doubt it.) We put this statue on our list of "future Germany trip attractions."

Check out all that land below the statue. This whole hillside is completely covered in vineyards.

To go on the entire river ride took 12 hours, so we got off at the very middle point and got ice cream, then took a train back to Mainz. It was like doing to whole boat trip backwards in super speed re-wind. 6 hours in 45 minutes.

A German Spring

I've been so negligent about posting for the past few months. My cousin is doing an "every day in July" blog post challenge, and although the thought of posting every day already wears me out, I do have to post something. So much has happened. I have no more excuses.

At the beginning of May, Matt and I planted our garden. I'll put up pictures in the next post and then you will see why I'm so in love with Matt and his gardening skills.

At the end of May, the 19-30 to be exact, Matt and I went to Germany for our first real family vacation. It was beautiful there this time of year, and the weather was perfect. It was green and sunny during the day, then cool in the evenings with little rain storms at night.

So we flew out of Salt Lake May 19th and into Frankfut, Germany the next day. You gatta' love international flights. We decided having a car would be much less expensive than taking trains, buses, and taxis everywhere we planned to go, so we picked up our little VW golf (which was really a good sized sports wagon) and took off. For the sake of trying to beat jet-lag, we didn't even drive to our hotel to check in until later that evening. We spent our first day traipsing around Frankfurt, eating ice cream, and checking out the interesting art and architecture.

The main square in Frankfurt. I love the trestle work on the buildings here.

This crazy building has a hole in it!!!

This is more than just a cute picture of Matt eating ice cream. Look at those junk sculptures in the back.
This was the entrance to an "art" park.

Another sculpture in the park depicting a flower as it grows. They looked like 70's chairs to me.

Then we settled in at our Inn, which was in a little town north of Frankfurt. There was a thunderstorm that night that shook the whole countryside and rattled you from the inside out.

This place was so cute and so very fun. It was also the perfect introduction to German hospitality.

The next day was a German national holiday, the day Christ ascended to heaven. Everything was closed except the churches, so we drove to Mainz and caught the first part of Mass as we peeked inside the cathedral there.

The Cathedral at Mainz.

A beautiful courtyard inside the Cathedral grounds.

The remains of a pre-holy holiday party we found outside of the Cathedral. This is the only trash I ever saw on the street in Germany.

Checking out the situation for this headless martyr. Yep! It's bad.

After a little lunch, we headed for one of Matt's most favorite mission areas, Worms. We saw the church were Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thises, ate a doener, and a very old, very cool Jewis graveyard.

Here is a statue depicting Martin Luther in the town park.

This graveyard was massive. This is just one slice of it. There was more behind me and much more to the right side under a forrest of trees. It was beautifully fixed up and very neat.

Then we drove back to Frankfurt just in time to catch the last session at the Frankfurt temple.

After a day of churches and graveyards, it was so nice to be here.

Okay, next time, castles on the river, a fast train to Mainz and a weekend with Matt's two favorite Germans.

Our "Favorite" Songs

Ever time Matt and I hear these two songs we turn up the radio. Well, actually, he turns up the radio for Taylor Swift and I turn up the radio for Coldplay, but we both know all the words to both. I really wouldn't say they are our favorite songs. We both have running all time best top 10 lists. These maybe make it in the top 50 though, and definitely the best/most turned up of 2008/2009. Please enjoy this rendition of Jon Schmidt mashing our "favorite" songs together for us. We couldn't have requested a better arrangement.

Pass It On!

I've never been very good at passing along information because 1.) I figure I'm the last one to know, and 2.) I don't want people to think I think I'm a smarty-pants. But sometimes you get something that just needs to be passed along. So I hope that some of you already know this, but I also hope that some of you don't so I can feel useful.

There are children's games hidden deep within the church website. They are actually on The Friend's website. My lovely young mother friend and college roommate showed me how to get to them on her blog.

Go to LDS.org
Then Gospel Library
click on Magazines
Select The Friend

or

Just go to http://friend.lds.org

Then save that webpage to your favorites and revisit over and over again. I just put together three puzzles and now I'm humming "Do What is Right." What a great way to entertain your computer savvy children any day of the week.

I just wish I could put it on my Public Library blog. I'm half tempted too anyway.

Happy Cinco De Mayo

The view outside my apartment May 5, 2007

I like to call it May 5 because it reminds me that no matter what holiday it is, it really shouldn't be snowing!

This is what we were doing in May 5 two years ago . . .

Me getting a shot with the mariachi band.

I was handing out info about the library at a community Cinco de Mayo festival. See how I'm wearing my coat? Yah, it's snowing out there.

Have you ever heard the story of Matt's and my first date? It's a good one. Matt called me up on Monday for a Saturday Night date. (Smart guy . . . except that someone else asked me on Sunday Night for Saturday Night.) I was already comitted, so he asked me for Saturday Morning. But I was going to this Cinco De Mayo festival for work from 10-4. I said, "If you bring a truck and help me move a table and some chairs across the river, I'll go golfing (the proposed date) with you before." We made a deal and we had a date.

But then, it snowed. I called at 8:30 and said, "I don't think it's a good day to golf; will you still help me move those chairs and table?" And he said, "Of course, but let's go out to breakfast first." I think the most amazing part of the whole day was that at 2:00 he came back to hang out with me and put away stuff so we could get me home by 4:00.

Here we are. Hanging out on Cinco De Mayo, 2007. (that's May 5! It shouldn't be snowing!)

I'm #1000

I just happened to look at the people counter today and notices that I'm my own 1000 viewer!!!!

*Yaeh, Cheers, Confetee, Frollicing*

I think that's really funny. Thanks you guys for reading about Matt and Me and our adventures. I know I don't visit often enough to make it all the way to 1000 alone. Keep checking because this summer will be a very very fun one.

xoxoxox,
Team Svedin