Blanket for Shelby

Dave & Sarah (Josh's cousin & wife) had their first baby. A baby girl. So I thought that I would put my sewing skills to work & made baby Shelby a blanket & 2 burp cloths. With the help of my mother coaching me along the blanket & burp cloths came out perfect. We are so excited that Shelby is here. She is an adorable Anderson.

What else is there to do at 2:45 am????

That's right to go and see ECLIPSE with my one & only. It was such a fun "date morning" with Josh. So when I went to get the tickets & the ticket lady informed me that the next showing wasn't until 2:45 am. I was like um...okay sounds like it'll be fun. So Josh came home from work went straight to bed. We woke up at 1:30 am and off to the theater to make sure we got our VIP seating. After the OUTSTANDING movie we continued our date and went out to breakfast to IHOP and had some yummy pancakes. What a hottie my one & only is to take me on a date & miss out on sleep. We both very much so enjoyed the movie. It's so funny watching the movie and remembering the character's thoughts from the book of different scenes in the movie that just can't be acted out or said. After the movie I kept explaining certain parts to Josh then he understood why I was laughing in certain parts. If you haven't seen it.....what are you waiting for?? It was super good.

win...Wynn...WYNN

So Josh & I took a romantic 3 night weekend get away to Las Vegas to enjoy the Wynn. It was SUPER nice and very RELAXING. We had a blast enjoying each other & The Wynn.

Our room

Our bathroom

Other part of the bathroom, even a T.V. in the bathroom. They don't mess around in Vegas.

Here is a view from outside our window of our room.

The pool we swam & relaxed in.

We came and ate at Okada it was inside the Wynn. The restaurant was really fun the cook came and cooked our food right in front of us. We always enjoy that typed of dinning. The food was pretty good.

We got hooked up with free tickets to the show. This was our 2nd time seeing the show and we still enjoyed it.

More pictures of the show.

Tommy & Jolynn (Jennifer's sister & Brother in law) came out to Vegas to stay at the Wynn as well. While they went to catch a show we got to hang out and play with Aleena & Drake. Here we are waiting for the car to go play.

We took Aleena & Drake to M&M world. They LOVED it. Aleena loved all the blue M&M's (her current favorite color). Drake was taking it all in.

Aunt Gigi, Aleena & Drakie bud

Josh told Aleena to poke the M&M's eye she's so cute.

Aunt Gigi & Drake. We had a BLAST hanging out with the Francis kiddo's. Can't wait for the next time.

Hiking the tallest mountain in the continental United States....that's right & in the snow MT. WHITNEY at 14,496 feet

When Josh was growing up in his family they would go on a hike when each child turned 10. Well, one year the family came to hike Mt. Whitney and on the way Josh's ear drums began to bleed and ruptured. Needless to say OUCH. So he stayed at the campsite and waited for everyone else to climb Mt. Whitney. Ever since we've been married Josh has always talked about going back and "beating" the mountain. So we were finally able to go and beat Mt. Whitney together as a couple. We loved being able to do this and achieve this together. To quote Josh it was the most scary, exhilarating, and exciting thing that we've ever done. Usually the best time to hike Mt. Whitney would be in the summer months of late July and August. It is EXTREMELY hard to get a permit to hike Mt. Whitney. Our permit was picked amazing as that is, and we were so LUCKY to be able to hike in to the campsite May 31st and out June 1st, so with record snow fall we were in for a HUGE treat. We loved our adventure.

Jennifer & Josh so excited to start on this new & exciting journey to hike Mt. Whitney.

Check out these icicles just to give you an idea they were about as tall as Jennifer. Pretty sure we don't want to be around when those fall.

Jennifer at Mirror lake pointing at the summit, we've come far but have so much further to go.

Consultation Lake frozen over

Jennifer is pointing at the snow covered 90% grade that we got to scale.

So once we arrived in camp there were only 3 other tents. We found a group of rocks that was perfect. So we got a nice flat spot set up tent, then Josh said you know if I was a marmot (the only animal that is up there really nasty looking thing and they aren't afraid of humans) I would live in between those two rocks (which were near our tent). Sure enough about 2 minutes later a huge marmot comes out and starts to go for our backpack. Josh starts throwing rocks at it and the marmot gives Josh a look like I'm going to attack you. So we thought the marmot left, well it came around to the other side going for our snacks, that was it, Josh grabbed our tent and other things and we went out to a rock that was flat by itself and surrounded by snow. We weren't bothered at all. It worked out a lot better.

Yep, that's the mountain we get to climb. Little did we know that it would take 2 hours to scale. We will go to the left where there is a gap. Once we reached the top we went along the backside of the rocks that are on the right side. (Hopefully that makes sense.)

Josh showing off all of our gear that we use to climb this big mountain. Crampons on the shoes, ice ax to climb, rope so that his sweetheart doesn't fall or hurt herself.

Just to give you an idea this is the mountain that we climbed. It was about 1500 feet incline that we conquered going straight up. While climbing up this mountain we relied heavily on our ice axes (good thing for youtube for teaching us how to use them).

Here is Jennifer with the sign saying that we are at 13,600 elevation. Behind Jennifer is where the trail normally is as you can see it is covered in snow.

If you look closely you can see the trail and how narrow it really was. One slip and you could fall off the mountain. Josh & I had a rope and were tied to each other.....just in case.......

Here you can see how packed with snow the trail really was. A lot of the trail we were only able to put one foot in front of the other. Good thing we had crampons and our ice ax.

Frozen over Guitar Lake

Jennifer & the hut that is at the summit. We are almost there so excited to finally make it.

Josh & Jennifer on top of Mt. Whitney

Jennifer feeling on top of the world enjoying the view and beauty from being so high up.

Josh & Jennifer on top of Mt. Whitney. Elevation 14,496 feet, tallest place in the continental United States.

Here we are ready to slide (glissade) down the mountain.

Here is the mountain that we slid down. That was actually pretty fun. I kept telling Josh how I wished I had my snowboard that would be fun to ride down that mountain, too bad I wasn't able to attach it to my backpack. So there was a guy who got sick from altitude sickness and he actually never made it to the summit. It was pretty sad he was only about half a mile from the summit. But when you're sick you're sick. Well, we were about 30-45 minutes ahead of him, it took us about 20 minutes to slide down the mountain and we turned around and here comes this guy tumbling down, lost his ice ax in the process he said that it was 3:25 when he was at the top and now it was 3:27. He goes on to tell us how it was the scariest thing he'd ever done he was sure lucky to be alive. Crazy....

WE MADE IT!!!! It was a wonderful feeling coming down the last couple of switchbacks and seeing mom walking up the trail to greet us. Then to get to the last switchback and be able to hear dad & Risa cheering us on brought tears to our eyes. We were so EXCITED that they came to CHEER us on we can't thank them enough.

Jenn, Risa & Josh standing in front of the Mt. Whitney sign so HAPPY to be alive & one of the few people to say that we were able to SUMMIT MT. WHITNEY in the snow. It was awesome we LOVED it.

Day Hike to Lone Pine Lake

Josh & I drove up to Mt. Whitney to do a day hike and just get a feel for what to expect when we did our SUPER INTENSE hike. We had a blast. Here is a beautiful picture of Mt. Whitney.

Josh & Jennifer at Lone Pine Lake. Side note, yes we do have other clothes these are are "hiker clothes".

There was TONS of snow. Lone Pine Lake was about 50% frozen on top, still a beautiful sight to see. We had so much fun and it made us so much more excited for our BIG HIKE!!

A weekend in Cottonwood

Josh & I went to Arizona to do a prep hike to help us get ready for hiking Mt. Whitney. So Josh & Jennifer, Shawn & Angie and John & Esther (family friends) went for a hike. We were so grateful to John & Esther for taking us and showing us these waterfalls in the Mingus Mountain we never knew had even existed. Well, to get to these waterfalls we had to hike a couple of miles to the canyon and then scale down several rocks holding on for dear life. Good thing Josh & Shawn were there to rescue Jennifer & Angie and keep us safe. We had a great time even though at certain times it was a little scary.


Here is the canyon where we did all of our hiking around and exploring.

While on our hike we heard Angie let out a scream, then she called us to come over to where she was at. This is what she almost stepped on. Yes, I would have screamed as well.

Jennifer scaling the rocks to get to the bottom so I could enjoy the beauty. There were several times while I was holding the rock not really having a strong grip just hoping and praying that I wouldn't fall the rest of the way down. I didn't want to land on all of the sharp rocks. It was crazy.

Angie & Jennifer thankfully we didn't fall.

Josh & Jennifer at the 1st set of waterfalls that we hiked to.

Okay, it must have been snake day and we just didn't get the memo. This snake scary looking I know right?! Well, he was tucked under these rocks and we had to step over the snake up onto the rocks to continue on our hike....not fun at all. Good thing we had our big strong husbands around to keep us safe.

Here is the final waterfall that we hiked to. It was about 60 feet tall. We all got in for a FREEZING cold swim, lets just say we didn't stay in the water too long. It sure cooled us off real quick.

Here is a view looking back from where we had just come from. It was a great prep hike for Mt. Whitney.

After our fun hike we went to Josh's parents house to relax and enjoy everything about being "home". Here are Josh & his mom enjoying a nice canoe ride in the Verde River near the lower fields at his parents house. Josh's mom has a little area for a fun beach for all her grand kids to enjoy. They also have the canoe which makes it fun as well.

Josh serenading Jennifer by singing Pavarotti.

Josh picking up where he left off working as a child. He was so excited to be able to lend a helping hand to his mom. Josh loved being able to get a little dirty even if it was to move some big rocks around. We had a blast as always in Cottonwood.