Bonneville Salt Flats

Utah Bucket List: Hike Y Mountain

I'm not afraid to say it - this hike is hard! It's steep the entire way up but I love the views of Provo the entire way up, so I think it's worth it. I hiked Y Mountain with my friend Lindsay about a month after we moved to Provo and Rob and I have looked forward to hiking it together since then. We plan on doing it at leas once more, hopefully Henry will be able to join us sometime. The beloved concrete letter Y on the mountain has become a fun part of living here, we love finding it when we're out and about, checking to see if there is anyone on the Y, watching it disappear when the snow comes, and waiting for it to light up during homecoming and a few other times during the year.

The fall colors on the way up:

Enjoying the dinner we packed while sitting on the Y.

 Provo temple

An odd panoramic shot.

There were a lot of people up on the Y with us, maybe mostly because on a nice Friday evening at the end of summer there usually is, but also because it was in the middle of homecoming so a lot of people wanted to be on the Y while it was lit. We had to get back to our Littles so we didn't wait for the lighting.

Utah Bucket List: General Conference

We've both attended Conference in Salt Lake before, but it's been years so we really wanted to go again while we live in Utah. I don't know easy it is for Utah residents to get tickets, we got ours from Rob's parents (the tickets given to their stake in Washington). It's nice to have connections. Sorry people in Silverdale Stake. What's even better is that they were in town too, so they watched our kiddos while we attended the Sunday morning session! Rob also was able to attend the Priesthood session the evening before with his Dad. We invited our friends, the McDonnels, to come with us because we had an extra pair of tickets.

First off- Dear Ensign editors, feel free to use this very genuine photo of me taking notes at conference in the November issue of the magazine.

Lots of Mormons here.

Lots.

Utah Bucket List: Pizzeria 712

We received a gift card from Rob's parents for Pizzeria 712, yet another restaurant on our bucket list. We actually went in mid-July but I'm just finally getting around to posting about it.

I don't know the official history of Provo dining (okay, this is actually Orem but it should be Provo) but it seemed to me that Pizzeria 712 was the first of the "new" (= since I left BYU) cool eateries. I kept hearing about this place from everyone and Rob and I wanted to go the couple times we visited Utah but just never did for some reason. Now that we live here, it was an obvious choice for our bucket list.

We did a couple things different for this dining experience: we went for lunch rather than dinner and we brought the kids. The lunch decision was a good one, that's when the menu includes the paninis (the BEST part of our meal!), but we could have done without the kids :)

Yum! I would definitely return, get a different pizza but the same panini, and leave the kids at home. Although we love them dearly. However, it did take us this long to get to Pizzeria 712, so I don't know if that will happen.

Utah Bucket List: Black Sheep Cafe

It turns out that a really smart way to get some gift certificates to restaurants you want to eat at is to put them on your bucket list and then blog about that list :) 

For Mother's Day Rob's parents gave me a gift certificate to Black Sheep Cafe. Happy Mother's Day to me! Here is my handsome date, button-down shirt and all. 

Don't get mad at him for being on his phone while on a date - it took about five years for our food to come, so there was some time in between the romantic talk. It was fine that the food took so long, we had planned that our friend would put the baby to bed (that was huge for me - someone besides us putting her to bed! Luckily my friend, Lindsay, is as capable as we are at such things. Oh, we also left her with a half-potty-trained three year old). However, had we planned on this date lasting as short as they usually do (because of said baby) then I would have been stressed about the wait!

The wait was also made better because of this awesome prickly pear lemonade. Truth: after I saw the menu I was less than enthused to be eating here. We realized the items we had intended to order, because of Yelp and friend reviews, were only served at lunch. We even thought about leaving, but we ordered. Then came our prickly pear lemonade we ordered. I thought we'd get one glass but instead it comes in this bottle... lots of glasses worth (and pretty and delicious)? Okay, my attitude totally changed. Do you agree that this is exciting?

Our food that ended up being really really good. I got the red beef navajo taco with street corn (meh) and beans on the side (I was so not in the mood for beans but they were good good). Rob got the green chili stew. Great flavors, another one that I thought I wasn't in the mood for, but ended up totally enjoying bites of. Oh, we also had a great seat by the window and in the corner of the restaurant. I'm super picky about where I sit. I don't ever speak up about it, but it helps me enjoy/not enjoy a dining-out experience.

Another shot of my date.

Thanks for making this date possible, Jerry and Linda! I still have enough left over on the gift certificate... I might even go with girlfriends instead of Rob. It was MY gift after all :)

Utah Bucket List: Moab/Arches National Park

A Trip to Moab from New Land Media Works on Vimeo.

Utah Bucket List: 180 Tacos

Rob's parents are in town and took us out to one of the restaurants on our bucket list! They like tacos (who doesn't? No really, are there people who don't like tacos?) so we suggested 180 Tacos in Provo when we were deciding where to go for lunch.

I'll try not to make this blog post a Yelp review. But just for my own memory, we got a bunch of flavors of tacos and my favorite were the Korean bbq pork and the chili orange shrimp. I definitely want to go back to have more of each of those plus try some new flavors. I texted both my dad and my brother while we were there to tell them they would have to go with us when they each come into town.

Then there are these, sweet chili wonton chips. I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing? Brilliant.

Hey June, hands off my tacos!

Hey Grandpa, hands off Grandma's salad!

Henry is eating the tasty dessert, Portuguese donuts (topped with perfect flaky sugar and agave sauce. Holy moly. I just realized: Henry is eating Portuguese donuts while wearing a Brasil sweatshirt. It's like he knew.

The party and our tacos +

 Thanks, Jerry and Linda, for our lunch and for helping us check off another bucket list restaurant!

Utah Bucket List: Station 22 Cafe

Our first item checked off our bucket list! We enjoyed some delicious food at Station 22 Cafe in downtown Provo. This town has changed a lot since both of us lived here previously - good changes. One of those being the improvements of downtown Provo and lots of new and interesting restaurants. Before moving back we joked that now that there are restaurants we'll want to eat at, we won't have the money to eat there. We decided, at about the time we came up with our bucket list, that we would save up our date money and eat at one of these restaurants every three months. That might sound really infrequent, but we only go on two dates a month and one of those is always to the temple, so every third "date" date will be like tonight's. I am so so excited about this... an actual restaurant! I like going to our typical dining spots: taco joints, cheap Asian food, food trucks. But every once in a while I like (need?) a sit-down "nice" place.

Back to Station 22. We had heard mixed reviews about the place, mostly good despite a 3.5 rating on Yelp (I consider that rating the lowest I would want to try if the ratings were my only guide). We ordered the Jack Kerouak burger and the Memphis Chicken Sandwich, shared both entrees and had a salad on the side. Yes, a salad, not fries. Our sole healthy decision of the night. Both burger and sandwich were good, we were happy with our meal although we wouldn't rush back (that's what Rob said, but the deep fried cookie dough the waiter tried tempting us with makes me want to rush back).

My favorite part of the meal was the great ambiance in the restaurant. It felt like an escape from Provo to me. The other great thing about Station 22 is their soda selection. It's fun to have an "activity" to do while waiting for the food - after ordering we stood from our table to go select a soda. Rob chose caramel root bear.

Oh, we also rode our bikes to Station 22. How fun is that?

Utah Bucket List

Well, we're here for another 2+ years and we want to make the most of it so we created a bucket list: what we want to do, see and eat in Provo and around Utah!

Originally I was going to purchase a notebook and create a passport-like booklet for the things on our list, but I didn't know what kind of keepsake I could put in the notebook for each item (vs. a blog post where I could just include a picture) plus, I'm not very sentimental - a little notebook like that would be something I would want to get rid of a few years down the road.

So, if I can keep this up, here are the posts you'll be seeing in the future as we check these items off our Utah Bucket List:

Restaurants (first things first, let's be honest):
Station 22
Black Sheep
Pizerria 712
City Trolley
180 Tacos

Places:
State Capital
Zion National Park
Arches National Park
St. George
Manti Temple
Park City
Salt Flats
Timpanogos Caves

Activities:
Springville Art Museum
Provo Center Street Parade of Homes
BYU baseball game
BYU volleyball game
Ice Skating
Rodeo
Temple open house
General Conference
Alpine Slide
Thanksgiving Point
Sundance Film Festival
Ski lift ride at Sundance
Outdoor movie
Sheepdog Festival
Camping
Tube Provo River
Y Mountain
Hike Timpanogos
Bike riding in the canyon
Bean Museum

Any suggestions for our bucket list?

PS. We've already done the following things. They would have ended up on our bucket list if we hadn't already done them by the time we made one:
Ride Train to SLC
Lights at Temple Square
BYU hockey
BYU gymnastics
BYU Museum of Art
BYU Paleontology Museum
Seven Peaks
Waffle Love