Team USA

 

It's almost here! The London Olympics are almost here! I've wanted to do a special post on the Olympics for a few weeks now but have waited until the games got a bit closer. And now, it will be here in less than 22 hours.

I have always had such a special place in my heart for the Olympics, and the fact that Salt Lake City was honored to have the games here in 2002 was such a memorable experience. Seriously, how awesome is that! The WORLD gathered here. I will always remember seeing the huge banners of athletes draped down the sides of buildings in downtown SLC and also being able to an Olympic torch runner pass right by my high school as our whole school was excused to go watch and cheer them on in the cold. (I'm getting emotional right now as I type!) And who could forget our incredible torch that now resides on my beloved U of U campus. Love it all!

Even though our city got to experience the winter Olympics, my heart's soft spot leans a wee bit more towards the summer games. Swimming! Synchronized diving! Sand volleyball! And of course my favorite, gymnastics! And that fact that the games are in London this year will make it that more fun to watch. I have such a craving to visit Europe, and London is definitely a destination on my bucket list. What a beautiful city. Sigh...one day.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to opening ceremonies tomorrow and the fact that the world will be united during those several days, all watching for the same cause of cheering on their country. I will get emotional...and I LOVE hearing our nation anthem. Cheerio!

GO TEAM USA!!!

Yellowstone Park!

The Jones fam has returned from our Yellowstone adventure! It was such a fun getaway. The weather was was great and ended up being mostly overcast, which I preferred since it made it much more bearable to hike around trails and sight-see in a cool breeze rather than blistering hot sun. Be prepared for lots of pics in this post folks, thanks to my new iPhone!

Our first day started off with the Grizzly Bear and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone near our hotel. Even though the animals obviously weren't in the wild, I was still giddy to see bears up close (the two brother bears were having a water fight in their pool...adorable!) and wolves (they are HUGE!). They also had a few birds of prey that have been rescued and now live in captivity.

After the Discovery Center, we headed into the park where some animals greeted us along the way. We were amazed by all the different kinds of wildlife we were able to see.

We headed through the park to Mammoth Hot Springs. I admit, I was a little disappointed because the springs are not as watery as they should be. Because of their dryness, it seriously looked like we were on the moon instead of hot pot territory. It was a dry, gray and copper mud pile instead of white mounds with rivers flowing over them. Eh. I took a few pics of the section that looked the most watery to me. Still a neat site to see.

Day two started out geyser sight-seeing. What a cool day! It started out with smaller hot pots here and there off the sides of the roads and then...the BIG pots! I've never been to the two biggest pots in the park before, so seeing these for the first time was just awesome. Seriously, the size of them is spectacular.

Excelsior Geyser - Second largest in the park. Maybe football field size??

Grand Prismatic Spring - Largest in the United States, third largest in the world. Top pic is aerial view from online; bottom is from ground level that I took. See the size of this thing?!

As my favorite warning sign clearly shows, stepping on a geyser blows your hat off and makes your mother mad. So don't do it.

Next up was our stop to Old Faithful (which we got to see go off 3 times because we dinked around so long at the Old Faithful Inn and gift shops!). It was pretty cool. I wasn't quite sure what to expect and had pictured a huge blast of water into the air like the Bellagio fountains, so I think I was a little bummed when that wasn't the case. Instead, Old Faithful gradually built up to its grandeur, and the anticipation for it to go off was making me antsy. But, very neat experience the the infamous geyser. 

Another great experience we had was going up on the roof of Old Faithful Inn for a tour. Apparently, they only allow these to family members and special guests but somehow my dad must have pulled some special strings and/or complained and was able to get us an exclusive tour with just us...mom chickened out because she's afraid of heights. The 360 degree view of the park was awesome! We could see so far and spot puffs of white smoke all over from hot pots around the park.

Cloudy skies...storm's blowing in!

Our last full day at the park consisted of seeing Yellowstone Falls and Yellowstone Lake. The falls were gorgeous! We went to a few different lookout points, each with a different view of the massive waterfall. Fave pics to follow because let's face it, it's pretty hard to have a bad pic when a waterfall is involved. And how gorgeous is that canyon? And a rainbow with the tree and water? Are you kidding me! Oooh, I love nature.

And that was pretty much the Jones & Lieber Yellowstone adventure 2012. The park was so beautiful. There was always something to see. We saw many different animals, some quite rare, and got to see the majority of the park. Yellowstone is a treasure! And yes, I bought many smashed pennies as my souvenir. And to wrap up my post, here's a couple more pics...

Comments about Jenny looking like the plump stuffed buffalo are not permitted.

Ferdinando the buffalo...or so we dubbed him. Like the story!

* THE END * 

I would like to thank my new love Instagram for making these photos possible, which allow me to post them easily to my blog instead of downloading them from my camera (because that takes yeeeears) and also for making me appear as a professional photographer.

T-Minus 1.5 Days

Early Thursday morning, the fam, parentals and I shall be making our way to gorgeous Yellowstone National Park! I had been several times when I was younger, but probably all before age 12...which, of course, means I don't remember much except for maybe seeing a buffalo out the window and my parents threatening my brother that if he touched the hot pot water then his finger will turn purple and fall off. (And did he touch it? He most certainly did!...and then held his finger for dear life the rest of the day, terrified. Haha.) So yes, I do have a few treasured memories here and there, but I'm pretty darn excited to see everything now with my "adult" eyes and really being able to understand more about the unique geography, formations and all that geothermal shenanigans.

Bring on the wildlife so I can squeal with joy! Bring on that rotten egg smell from the awesome geysers! Bring on smashed penny machines so I can get a souvenir! Bring on being in the car with my parents for 8 hours!...wait, no, I take that one back.

A few faves I found online...these are seriously incredible!

iHave iPhone

The day has finally arrived where I have become a proud owner of an up-to-date piece of technology! I have never had the latest and greatest cellphone in all my years of cellphone ownership. (Which began my SOPHOMORE YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL!! None of this crap about being a 13-yr-old with a cellphone. Phh!...though I totally was allowed to take my parent's pager with me sometimes in my late elementary years. Hahaha! My hell, do I sound old?!)

Before ranting and raving about my new iPhone 4, let's take a looksy at my old phones that shall forever be remembered and have a special lump in my throat...I mean, heart. 

 

This is the closest picture I could find of what resembled my "brick," as I referred to it as. I don't recall the brand of phone it was but I assure you it was actually more horrible than this. Did my have cool silver buttons? Nay. It was an all black coffin of a phone complete with the stump of an antennae (with a pull out antennae inside for extra awesomeness) and flip out thingy to speak into. This bad boy kept me company many times in multimedia class where I'd play "Snake" on it's green glowing screen. Mind you, the snake did not have features back then...it was a rod. And I loved it.

Sometime shortly after enduring the "brick" for a year or so, I got to upgrade to a silver LG phone that remained in my care throughout my senior year up until 2009!!!! Did I ever get on that Nokia bandwagon everyone else did or the Cricket phase? Nay again. I wasn't that cool. It was only at the grace of my parentals that I even got the silver LG phone. (Family plan, you know...all matching phones. Presh.) What brought me to the maroon phone fabulousness that I've had up until last Thursday, was a watery ride of Splash Mountain in Disneyland 2009. My silver phone that I thought was protected in an outside pocket of my purse, was not...it took on a bucket a water and drown. RIP. However, my maroon companion quickly became my favorite and a very nice phone to have over the years. But finally, it just came time to ween myself off of the parentals' fam plan and share with the hubby.

So hello AT&T, and hello beautiful sleek white iPhone 4!!! I shall love you forever and you shall be mine. BFFFs fo' life.

My lovely background looks like this! Adore!!!