Bendall Family Photos

LOOKING GOOD!!



Happy one year to us!

HOORAY! We made it! The first year of marriage was spectacular. Our cake tasted delicious, what that means for our marraige I do not know, but hey it can't hurt right?

We spent some time in Salt Lake at the Raddisson Hotel downtown, Spanish Fork, and at the ES Arena... KATY PERRY. Hooray. (sorry no pictures, the bald man and the door told me no cameras for Katy Perry, stupid man). Concert was great, still can't hear you.

This is what we do at hotels on our anniversary...

(it was Lee's idea)

 We also want to introduce you to the newest addition to our family... FRANCIS!!

Does England have the 4th of July?

Happy 4th of July everyone that reads our blog (mom and susan)! Lee and I chose to stay in Cache Valley to celebrate Independence day, and we were not disappointed. Great fireworks up here! And I found our stash of sPaRkLeRs we used at our reception (we had about 200 left) and we had some fun. Tomorrow (the real 4th, although Cache Valleyers strecth the celebration for like 3 years...(or days)) we head down to Hyrum for some carnival, parade, and firework fun!! And then back to the old life on Tuesday. But tonight we'll remember forever! (becuase i'm posting all the pictures on this blog)
enjoy. we did.

Hike, anyone?

So, I am really bad at posting on the blog... or there might be another reason my last post was a while ago... NOTHING happens in Logan, unless you make it happen. Work demands much of our time but our night are free to... watch TV (gotta  love America's Got Talent), search for coupons, and read (to Lee's dismay, he didn't fully realize what I meant by "I read a lot" before we got married, so sorry... but not really). So when we try to make exciting things happen we usually spend most of our time trying to figure out how to make it free...like hiking!! Logan is full of hikes just ready to be trod upon. Our first hike, which was shared with Mitch, Jen, and Mitch's little brothers (Nathan and Nicholas), was a short hike up the mountain to the windcaves, which, you guessed it!, are caves that were made by the wind! They were neat...and windy.

Our next hike was just last Saturday, of which we never took pictures, duh! But I'll tell the story anyway. We waited until I was off of work at 1 and then took off up Logan Canyon and tried to find the trail head to "Old Ephraim's Grave" which was off the paved road on a BuMpYdirt road, in my Hyundai no less. After 4 U-turns, one 6 point turn, driving through a scout camp full of church people, and blindly following a pair of old people in sandals we found our trail head, parked the car, and begun to walk. We soon realized the rushing rivers of Utah included the one that crossed our path. Big frowny face! :( Undeterred (unlike the couple in flip-flops) we found a log that crossed the distance from shore to shore across the raging river in which Lee scooted (yes, scooted) across the log, and I walked effortlessly across (naturally). We continued on the trail for another hour an a half through dense forest, mountain peaks, muddy ponds, and a large field that hissed at us (of which I nearly stepped on 2 snakes!!). And, while on this trek of ours we have crossed no other human soul (excepting the sandal couple). Now let me tell you about Old Ephraim and his famous grave, for it is essential to how we felt about this little adventure of ours. Old Ephraim was a...bear. Yes, an enormous ten foot sheep eating bear, the last of his kind murdered by a farmer back in the 1800's.  Some people thought to erect a large monument in the middle of no where, a place where this farmer hiked to have his revenge of the bear that killed many of his livestock so people (like us) would hike to visit the legend of Old Ephraim. SO! We were traipsing through snake and mosquito infested forest risking our lives to visit a Bear's grave. Needless to say after 2 hours of hiking we turned around, only making it half way to the hallowed dead-bear ground. Sad we didn't make it to the end? Yes. Even happier to be back in my car driving home with air conditioning, big YES!

The Big Move

Ok... so now we are officially Loganites.

Goodbye Salt Lake City!

About two weeks ago Lee and I left our little apartment and fled Salt Lake City to nice, quaint, Logan city to spread our wings.



Hello Logan!

Lee and I are attending the Utah State University in the fall; Lee shooting for a bachelors in Bioveterinary Science and me a bachelors in Chemistry with a master's in education looming in the future. Although we're far away from family and friends and we're planning a five year stay, we are very excited!! Especially with a ward with 120 kids in it!

One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty Three Miles way from Home

Spring Break befell the Matheson home, so Lee and I took a little airplane ride to visit Lee's friend, Mitch. We visited the capitol of this great nation!



THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

The tallest building in Washington DC it reaches 555 feet 5⅛ inches in the air, with a sandstone block from the "The State of Deseret" now known as Utah. (The monument also sinks an average of 1/8 of an inch every 30 years)

THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

(OUR FAV)

JEFFERSON MEMORIAL

LINCOLN MEMORIAL

THE CAPITOL



Rotunda



Capitol-- Statuary Hall

HARPER'S FERRY

The former residing place of Mitch McBride. Also the famous place of John Brown (who is that you ask? I asked the same thing, and Lee looked at me like I asked who the President of the United States is. Like, how am I supposed to know who this civil war guy is). so.. John Brown is a man who tried to raid the militarys armory and arm the blacks (which he did not succeed, but started the unrest that led to the civil war). Needless to say this is a famous civil war town.

Banks of the Shenandoah River

near Harper's Ferry

ANTIETAM

A famous civil war battleground. Said to be the bloodiest one day of the civil war. 23000 men fell that day.



Burnside Bridge: most photographed civil war bridge.
So, to commemorate this impressive record...
 we took a picture.



WASHINGTON DC TEMPLE



So, after walking a billion miles we arrived safely home. We are grateful for Mitch's hospitality, and also for the hospitality of his friends Gary and Cheri. We had a fantastic time, and I had the most exciting civil war history lesson I've ever had.

Yellerstone: Gotta Have Me Some Yellowstone

Presidents Day weekend has now become a annual hooray for my family, the Anderson Family, and the Lillywhite family up in West Yellowstone, accompanied by snowmobiles, games, hot tubs, and my favorite (and ironically my least favorite)... lots of food! With snow banks 3 feet taller than Andrei Kirilenko walking down the street in West Yellowstone is similar to walking in the north pole with Kris Kringle, Rudolph, Frosty,...

...and McDonald's, but there is some definite good shopping!

As you can see from my stylish pants.

(Yes, the one's with Yellowstone on the butt)

We had a blast, how could you not surrounded by food, games, the Bourne trilogy, hottubs, and machines that drive really fast on snow? It all makes winter just a little more bearable.