Our 2013 Summer Highlights

Big Sister went to Heber Girl's Camp

Big Sis went to Idaho with a friend.

The girls played in the summer rain!

We went up the canyon to explore Cascade Springs and had a picnic.

We went to the Redwood Drive-In to see Turbo

For our 16th Wedding Anniversary, John and I went to Firebird Pizza and Pasta and had cupcakes for dessert at Alisha's Cravings.

The girls went to Seven Peaks Water Park!

Scaling New Heights:American Fork Canyon

Fifteen years ago, John and Jen fell in love... 

For our 15th anniversary on August 14, 2012, we went up American Fork canyon for our milestone anniversary date!  Since we love the great outdoors, we thought it would be fun to explore some new places and go hiking.  We packed a lunch, camera, sunglasses, sunblock, camel backpacks, etc and headed towards the rocky mountains.

  First, we stopped at The Timpanogos Cave Visitor's Center to purchase our tickets for the breathtaking (literally) 1,092 feet hike later in the afternoon.  Then, we went to Cascade Springs. Wow, what a gorgeous place!  There was a lovely board walk path nestled around the natural springs.  John was most impressed about seeing a brown trout swimming in two and half feet deep clear water.  

Next, we pulled over and ate our sack lunches (sandwiches, carrots, celery, and apples). Around 2:00 PM, we headed down the canyon to the Timpanogos cave entrance (elevation 5,638 feet).  Little did we know, we were in for a crazy HIKE that nearly wore us out! We had to stop a lot to catch our breath several times.  At one point, I didn't think I was going to make the 1.5 miles due to almost passing out. I kept telling myself: "I can do hard things!" Luckily we had a lot of ice cold water to drink from our camel backpacks while hiking up the mountain trail.  Also, many people along the way encouraged us as we reached closer to the cave entrance. 

Finally we made it to the top of the trail 58 minutes later (elevation 6,730)... We refuelled our bodies with granola bars and dried apples while we waited for our tour guide.

We explored the magnificent limestone caves without a jacket, which was okay for us during the summer since we were sweating from the hike, although next time I will bring one just in case I get chilly. There were many interesting cave formations (helicities and anthodites).  My most favorite rock shape was the dazzling "Heart of Timpanogos", which is seen in the bottom right photo below! Hiking Timpanogoes trail and exploring the caves is definitely a wonderful summer bucket list activity to do in Utah!

The hike down the mountain was a piece of cake and I am glad we survived the trip up to Timpanogos Caves! It has been over 18 years since my last hike up there! We had a lot of fun and were extremely sore for several days after our adventurous hike!  We look forward to embracing the future together sharing more laughs, tears, triumphs, failures, joys, fears and so on. "Life by the yard is hard but by an inch, it's a cinch" -Thomas S. Monson 

Happy 14th Anniversary to Hubby and Me!

Shoga Japanese Sushi Bar 

Enjoying my dinner, Yum! 

Yes, I am lame eating with a dinner fork in a Japanese Restaurant!  I cannot eat well with chopsticks!  I tried and failed miserably!  Thankfully my waitress offered to bring me a fork, lol!

Here is John eating his food and is a master with his chopsticks!

 On August 14th, 2011 was our 14th Wedding Anniversary! We celebrated by  eating sushi at Shogo in Orem.  My brother in-law Matt and sister in-law Chiaki highly recommended that place! Since they are sushi experts and my sister in-law is from Japan, we trust their opinions!  We absolutely loved it!  The atmosphere was cozy with friendly service. The presentation of the food was very creative, fresh, and authentic.  The restaurant was decorated with black modern and chic furniture.  We started our meal out with a refreshing house salad that contained a couple types of lettuces, mandarin oranges, tomatoes, shredded carrots, and cucumbers topped with an Asian dressing.  We then shared some sushi rolls (playboy and funky roll), and had an incredible dessert chocolate trilogy mousse,MMMMM! 

Our sushi rolls with a side of sauce, ginger, and wasabi

We like to mix our wasabi in with the soy sauce in the small white dish.

The Funky Roll and Playboy Roll 

The funky roll included the following: cucumber, crab, avocado, rice, seaweed, topped with eel tempura and a couple sauces.  As for the playboy roll, it included the following: shrimp tempura, cucumber avocado, rice, and seaweed topped with raw tuna, spicy mayo, unagi sauce and tobiko.

Chocolate Trilogy

What a beautiful edible master piece! It has three layers chocolate genoise, white milk chocolate, and dark chocolate mousse, with dark chocolate shavings, three sauces, and powdered sugar!  Oh, what a delicious treat!  We died and went to heaven!  There was a serious party going on in our mouths!  To our surprise, it was not too rich.  It was very fluffy and tasty!  We are total Shoga fans and cannot wait to go back again to try something new on the menu!  We give it 5 stars!  We left the place feeling satisfied and not over full.  This place is by far better than Happy Sumo and Sushi Ya!