What we did this summer

Well now that the summer is over and I am back in school (and trying to procrastinate doing homework) I thought I'd let you all know about some of the highlights from the summer.

We started off at Grandma and Grandpa Drapers. We went up for a weekend to help plant some trees. Zac works four 10 hour days so we left Thursday after work and came home Saturday night so I could be back for primary. Anyway it was a lot of fun. We spent most of the time helping plant the trees. They really just looked like twigs. Grandpa had already dug the holes so we just had to plant. Because the tree root need to be held at ground level as you fill the hole one of us would squat down and hold if while the other person filled the hole. Zac was a lot better at filling so I got to do most of the squating. My legs hurt for a week afterward. It was really fun I think all together we helped plant 300 tree. It was great to spend time with my grandparents and I can't wait till the trees have grown a bit and it becomes what Grandpa is envisioning. I think it will be an awesome place to come together to visit.


While we were in Idaho we went to Rexburg to visit some friends. One of Zac's good friends from childhood was at BYU-I so we had dinner with him and his girlfriend. Then we stopped by my old roommate and friend from high school to say hello. It was so much fun to see Brittney again and meet Nate.


Let's see next we had the Draper family reunion. We went to snow canyon. It was awesome! There were tons of little "hikes" and we had fun just being together. It was soooooooo HOT!!! St. George during the summer is always like that though. Here are some of the photos we took.

For the 4th of July we got up and went to the balloon launch, then went to a bbq at my moms then we hiked the Y and watched stadium of fire fireworks with Zac's family. We only have pictures that Tat took with our camera of the balloon launch. But they are still cool

Then the weekend before school started we had the Miller family reunion. We went to a park in Idaho and just chilled there. There was this awesome 18 hole frisbee golf course that we played for a while. It was a fun quick trip made even better by the fact that we hitched a ride with my parents so we didn't have to worry about our car not making it up and back.

Anyway that's what our summer was like. Plenty to do but also plenty of time to relax. Now we're back into the swing of things and just enjoying life.

Ireland (Finally)

I know this post should have been done a long time ago but oh well. As most of you know Zac and I went to Ireland in March. We had a fantastic time! We stayed with Zac's uncle Paul. He was awesome he even let us barrow his car for the week. (Which was an adventure and a half with Zac learning to drive on the opposite side of the road and drive a stick at the same time!) Anyway here are some pictures of what we did.

This is the town square in Dundalk. (the city where Zac's parents grew up)

This is a random street in Dundalk.

I love this picture. This is St. Patrick Catheral in Dundalk. I think it's a beautiful building.

Meet Chuck Dickens. There were ducks on one end of the canal and chickens on the other. This is what we found in the middle, a duck chicken hybrid (Chuck Dickens).

The monastery tower build in about 1200 AD. The tower is all that's left of the monastary.

Our first night in Ireland Paul and Margy took us to Roche's Castle. Built around 1185 AD.

This is out one of the windows of the castle.

The sun was setting as we got there and there was a mist that made everything beyond the castle look far away. I wish the pictures could do it justice.

This is the Giant's Causeway. Yes this is natural. It happens when lava hits the ocean and it cools quickly, cracking into these hexagonal pillars.

The Ledgend goes that two giants (one in Ireland and one is Scottland) were in a feud. The Scottish giant came over to kill the Irish griant so the Irish one had his wife pretend like he was thier baby. When the Scottish giant saw the "baby" he got scared and didn't want to face the Irish giant so he ran back to Scottland and pulled the causeway up behind him. Leaving only the foundations.



This is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. Zac's family thought we were crazy for crossing it. It's about 30 meters above the water. And it sways just enough to make your stomache feel crazy weird.

But the view from the other side was totally worth it.

Zac on his way back and the white cliffs to the other side.

This is Newgrange. This is the entrance slab it's covered in celtic art.

Newgrange was built about 500 years before the the Egytian pyramids. It is aligned so that the rising sun of the winter solstice penetrates the back of the passage, and it's the only light all year.



This is the Hill of Tara. Legend goes that the person who toaches the stone and the stone sings is the next high king of Ireland .

The Round Tower at Monsterboice, 5th century monastery. The Celtic crosses were used to teach bible stories to the masses.


Cuchulainn's Stone. This is where the legendary Irish hero died. He and another man fought for three days and three nights and whoever won the battle won the war. After three days they had each mortally wounded each other so Cuchulainn tied himself to this stone so that he would be the "last man standing".

The Proleek Doleman. Around 3000 BC people made dolemans to show the site where a leader or entire village died. The idea was to create an unnatual rock formation.

The view from the mountains northeast of Dundalk.

The veiw from Flagstaff.

King John's Castle. Built by the brother of Richard the Lionheart in 1210. Zac has a picture just like this of everytime he has visited Ireland.

This is inside Trinity College in Dublin. The library hold the Book of Kells (an 800 AD bible).

Elish, Zac, Me, Eugene, and Sadbh (pronounced Sive). Eugene is Zac's uncle on his mom's side.

Zac, Jim Pepper, Grandmas Rose Kearney, Katherine Pepper, and me. Katherine is Ann's cousin, daughter of Gradma Rose's twin sister.

Cecilia, me, Grandpa Kevin Boyle, and Zac. This was our last night in Ireland.

Paul, Margy, Elizabeth, Karl, me and Zac. A night with Donald's brothers and their wives. It was a lot of fun.

Valentine's Day

So this year for Valentine's day we didn't want to do anything too big. I really just wanted to relax in a CLEAN house and do nothing. So that's what we did. It was really nice. Zac was going to take me up to bridal veil falls but that morning we woke up to a layer of snow. We decided to wait until it warms up a bit more before we go. So he went to plan B and got me chocolate. :D
You can't go wrong there. I stole my gift from Brittani. She has a recipe book of cool things to do with cupcakes. So Friday night we made a box of chocolates. Or at least that's what it looks like! I had a lot of fun and got to feel creative, and Zac absolutely loved them. I probably should have done more! We had a great Valentine's Day!