Camping, Tucson, Tombstone, and Utah

So much to blog about! For starters, Justin and I had quite the Labor Day weekend. Justin has been trying to get me to go camping ever since we've been married. It's really not my thing but I said that I would go with him. We went for a night in Prescott, just a couple hours north of Phoenix. It was a really nice campsite (according to Justin- I haven't had much experience with other campsites so I didn't have much to compare it to). We went with some friends and barbecued hamburgers, made smores and popcorn, and even went kayaking at a little lake there. I was actually contemplating staying another night, but we got rained on the next day and decided to hit the road. We actually went to lunch at Olive Garden while it was raining-- I think the worst part of the camping trip was how embarrassed I was to be in Olive Garden in my camping clothes all soaking wet! Oh well. We did have a couple skunks visit our campsite, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful trip. Justin was very proud of me!


Justin had to shake this popcorn thing for forever before it finally started popping:
Our tent was just a little bit smaller than our friends' tent!
Our time in Arizona is coming to an end so we've been trying to think of things that we want to do here before we move. For the other part of Labor Day weekend we went down to Tucson. It's only about an hour and a half south of where we live but we hadn't made it down there yet. We went and walked around the University of Arizona campus and also went to the Sonoran Desert Museum, which is a little zoo and botanical garden of the plants and animals found in the Arizona desert. We even bought our very own saguaro cactus. This little guy is really tiny but he's actually 8 years old already. Crazy!

Coolest saguaro ever! Most of the big ones you see are 150-200 years old!!These are Justin's favorite flowers. He calls them ASU flowers but we finally found out that they're called Mexican Bird of Paradise.

After our visit in Tucson we drove another hour or so south to the city of Tombstone. It is an old wild west town made famous by the gun fight at the O.K. Corral. It really wasn't as cool as we were expecting but it was an experience. We watched a mock gunfight put on by some interesting people and walked around the old western town.

Justin was really getting in to character:
This past weekend we drove up to Utah to see Michael before he went in to the MTC. We drove overnight to get there which was a little scary since we saw about 50 deer grazing on the side of the road throughout the trip. We spent a day in Provo and got to see some friends and walk around the BYU campus. We got to hang out with Justin's siblings and spent some time with my family. It was hard to say goodbye to Michael but I'm proud of him for going and know he will be a great missionary!

I'm starting to get a little stressed about our move out to DC. I'm definitely excited to move out there again but the whole process of moving is stressful. We've started looking at some apartment places online and are planning on flying out there in the next couple weeks to check some of them out. I still need to find a job and we need to figure out how we're going to transport all our stuff 2500 miles. We've really enjoyed living in Arizona though and will be sad to go. The past year has really flown by, but it will be fun to move on to our next adventure!