A Little Bit of July

July started off with having lunch with a dear old friend from medical school, Elena Daniels.  She was in town visiting her extended family, and she contacted me to see if I was available to get together.  I'm so glad I was!  We enjoyed chatting and catching up while having yummy salads at Cubby's.  I wish I had thought to take a picture with her.  

The 4th of July weekend was fun in Provo.  We walked a couple miles down (and back) to the Freedom Festival balloon launch.  Good exercise with a fun reward!  Definitely will become an annual thing for us. The balloons didn't ever launch that morning due to some threatening thunderclouds.  Maybe next year we will add in the parade too.  Later that night we watched the Stadium of Fire's fireworks from Sertoma Park which is in our neighborhood.  Some neighbors also set off some impressive fireworks right before the big show.  Provo does Independence Day pretty well!

We had some friends, Stephanie and Freddie Nicerio, from Guam stop by our house for a short visit.  They were on an extended vacation of the West with their three teenage daughters, Freddie's sisters and mother. The other man in the pic, Christian Hidalgo, grew up in Guam.  He was 13 when we lived there.  His wife and child are in the picture too.  They are such an amazing family!  It would be so fun to go visit them in Guam.  Guam friends are forever friends!

To celebrate Pioneer Day, on July 24th, we went to the Days of '47 Rodeo.  So fun despite being super hot and feeling a bit crowded.  Before it began, we ate the best corndog that we've had in a long time.  We enjoyed the bucking broncos, lasso competitions, barrel racing, bull riding...all of it.  

July ended with a hike up to Stewart Falls near Sundance.  I love a good morning hike with my love.  

Three "Burgs"

After we said goodbye to Josh and Megan (they were heading back to Utah for Megan's sister's wedding), Matt and I drove three hours west to Pittsburg.  We checked in at the Renaissance Hotel which is right across from PNC Park where we watched the Pirates play the Dodgers.  All we had to do was walk out the front doors, cross the Roberto Clemente Bridge over the Allegheny River, and we were right there at the ballpark.  We had an awesome view out our hotel room window.  It was a fun place to stay the night.  

Moments after we entered PNC, it started to rain hard.  And it kept on raining.  The game was supposed to begin at 7pm but due to the rain delay, it was just after 8:00 when they finally started playing.  It cleared up and the weather was perfectly beautiful.  It was great being at a major league game again since we missed out last season due to the pandemic.  Matt didn't even realize that he had bought us awesome seats that got us access to the club lounges.  That was the best since we could wait comfortably inside there during the rain delay.  Fun times with my man.  

The next "burg" that we went to was Gettysburg.  The morning after the game, we left Pittsburg and drove to the historic town and Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg.  We had pre-arranged to get on a bus tour that would show and teach us more than we could on our own in the short time that we had there.  We had a great guide who was well educated and easy to listen to.  We had a few stops where we could get out and take different sites in and learn about what happened there so long ago.  After that, we headed back to the visitors' center and watched a short movie about the battle and then toured the museum exhibits.  It was a sobering experience, and we were really glad we made the effort to visit.  The cicadas were out in full glory which was an added bonus to hear/see them.  The late afternoon brought rain, but luckily we were then on our way to the Harrisburg/Hershey area (the third "burg") where we stayed the night and flew home the next morning.  

Visiting Josh and Megan in PA

At the beginning of June, Matt and I went to Pennsylvania to visit with Josh and Megan in Leola which is just outside of Lancaster.  It's the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish country.  What a beautiful place!  The landscape is stunning.  The farms are impeccable.  The Amish culture mixed in with our American modern day lifestyle is a unique thing to witness.  I loved it all.  I especially loved seeing Josh and Megan living happily together in their cute townhouse.  Megan is working in a family medicine clinic as a medical assistant, and Josh works for Smoketown Helicopters doing flight instruction and tours.  We had fun driving around looking for historic covered bridges and admiring Amish farms and homesteads.  My favorite part was seeing their laundry hanging up on long lines blowing in the breeze.  We went to church with J&M on Sunday which we thoroughly enjoyed.  Such down to earth people in their ward.  He worked a little bit while we were there, and so we went out to his small airport and watched him do some flight instruction with one of his students.  Then he showed us around inside which I thought was awesome.  I liked the old feel of it and the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling.  We had them come with us on a countryside bus tour and old Amish farmhouse tour.  It was interesting and we all learned a lot.  The best part of our time with them was our hour long helicopter tour Josh took us on.  Megan had been up with him once before, but for Matt and I, it was our first time in a helicopter.  And our son was the pilot!  It wasn't scary at all like I had anticipated.  It was a smooth ride.  We really enjoyed seeing the farmland from above as well as flying over the Susquehanna River.  It was cool watching him fly it.  Proud parent moment for sure.  We gave him a nice tip at the end:)