Tubes and Springs

It's finally picture time again (translation: I finally successfully thieved photos off my roommate's camera, because I never take any of my own). But this is why my body hated me last week:

I would like to point out that, no, I'm not actually in this picture, but no one who was on the boat with me had a camera, so the pictures from Michelle's trip were the best I had. But I did do this. Standing up, I might add. That lovely green backing that turns it into a chair? Yup, there are handles on that, and Brenton and I stood up for the large majority of our ride. My thighs objected. The rest of me had a blast.

What does one do with one's friends when you have a holiday from school and homework has not had time to pile up and drown you? Why, go for a splendid hike, of course! We'd originally intended to go tubing down the Provo river, but it was too cold on Monday to do that, and we'd been slightly remiss in actually adequately preparing for such a venture. So it was just easier to get our tubing in at the ward activity and go playing in the hot springs on Labor Day. And, as has become the norm for our plans, what started out as just a few people multiplied quickly as friends brought friends. Oh, and only two people who came actually had cars. Which meant we were plenty snuggly on the drives there and back. ;)

This is, in a sense, my victory picture.  I made it all the way to the springs and up the waterfall, all with legs that really wanted to drop out from under me (side note: they're happy and strong now -- pain is gain, my friends). Okay, so I lie a little bit. I was actually following my brother around on the rocks and then Michelle said, "Lynnae! Stop right there! No, not there. Step forward! Nevermind, back a step," and snapped a picture. Apparently spontaneous photoshooting is not my strong point.

No trip to the Diamond Fork Hot Springs is complete without some shenanigans in the waterfall. Sadly, the waterfall was a bit pitiful-looking this time around (compare) but we still had fun. PS: in case you ever wondered what my holycrapthisiscold face looks like, well, here it is. Brian and Nick were all manly and tough and stuck their heads in the the waterfall, which, if I remember right, made their heads feel numb and tingly. Riiiiiight. Because that's a great idea.

 And since Michelle's camera seemed to object to working in the bright sunlight, only one of the waterfall-hole pictures actually turned out looking really good. Go figure it's the most awesome one.

Have I mentioned that my brother is awesome? I really love having him around. He just adds a whole new layer of fun to everything I do.

Oh, and here is my beauteous roommate, Michelle, who is awesome enough to organize things like this. I may or may not covet her hair on occasion. Okay, most of the time. :)

Other adventures/fun facts from that trip (excluding the beating my body took) included Brian's pet rock Alfred, who, despite our best attempts to lose him, always managed to turn up again; Stephen's successful avoidance of getting his clothes wet, which included some rather fantastic skating along the slippery rocks without falling, just so he could get close enough to talk to us; Tom feeling up Michelle's foot, thinking it was a squishy rock (that's on the quote wall, too, for the record); and Nugai getting a nice little heat-induced line across the middle of his torso because he sat in the springs for too long.

Oh, and I may or may not get pleasure out of fluffing my brother's ego, because he's definitely the most ripped guy in this picture. (Unless Stephen's holding out on us...)

So yeah, here's the visual proof that my life is awesome. I love it. Unfortunately, school is slowly whittling away at the time we have to do cool stuff like this. We'll just have to get creative, I guess.