Hair Today - Gone Tomorrow

To my pleasure 

(and Varian's chagrin) 

the time had come to cut my hair. I like variety. Long for awhile, short for awhile. 

I had done long for 7 something years. 

Ugh, too long for long. 

Time for short. 

Also I was very eager to get rid of all that icky died hair. I'm a sucker for having my natural hair color, but back in '07 ish my hairdresser-sister Katie talked me into trying died hair for awhile. It was fun for a few years, but the Australian sun fries it out giving it this icky blond look. (I'm very anti dark roots). So I've been growing it out and trimming it off since I moved here. Now it was time to say goodbye to it all.

PRE - HAIR CUT:

 

POST - HAIR CUT:

 

(As a current update, my cute hair cut had sadly outgrown and was looking rather shaggy. I just went last week to get it re-cut. It's the first time in over a decade that I've had someone other than Katie cut my hair, and it wasn't good. :( Yah, it's "okay", but my layers are choppy and so heavy still at the front. I may get desperate and try to trim it up myself. Hopefully Katie can give me enough tips over skype to help it not be a total disaster.)

ps: Katie has her own salon at her house and it's amazing. Click HERE to go to her blog where you can contact her for a great haircut! :) 

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!

The Fourth of July is one of my MOST favorite holidays - right after Christmas. My family has always had such fun traditions. The only times I've ever missed it were when I was on my mission and honeymoon. (If only those could forever be the only times!!!)

 

The celebrations start out the night before. This holiday is for all the Wood side and the Jeppson side. People come and set up their tents in the back yard and we have a barbecue that night with lots of traditional salads and desserts.



Then when it gets dark we light sparklers and dance around the lawn with them, spelling our names, taking pictures and other shenanigans.

 
 

Then we move to the front yard and watch an amazing home-firework show courtesy of my cousin Kirk. In the last 10 years the little kids (and yes sometimes us big kids) start dancing in front of the fireworks.

 

Then we sleep over and wake up to a breakfast of egg souffle (that we only get for this holiday), pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins, and cold cereal. We then go for the best home-town parade ever in Huntsville, and then stay for the carnival after wards.

 

Growing up in the middle of the day we would have a huge water-fight which was always thrilling and chilling but no one's been up for it in later years, but this year we went up to Perception park and tubed down the river. Brrr!

   

Then that night we go back to Huntsville Park for a hoe-down and a firework show. The cool thing about this show is that you're right up close and personal to the fireworks. Literally! One year we kept having ash rain down on us. But they're amazing. I'm so glad Varian was here to celebrate with me and my family for this wonderful holiday.

Yellowstone

Here we are in Yellowstone. One of the big highlights was that we actually SAW a BEAR!!! I went to Yellowstone for basically every year of my life till I was about 16 and then a few times after that, and did I EVER see a bear then? No. Well once far away on a mountain, but here we saw TWO and they were pretty close off the road. It was very exciting.

Another really fun thing was floating down the Fire-hole river like we did as kids.



You can't got to Yellowstone without seeing good Ol' Faithful (I don't know why we didn't get better pictures of it, sorry).

And I love West Yellowstone with all the souvenir shops (ahh sparkly rings) and of course the playmill.

                      

I don't think I'd ever seen a wolf before, but of course the classic buffalo.



We enjoyed lots of picnics and lounging in the shade,

 

Strolls on the walkways bordering the hotpots,
 

Pretty waterfalls,

Geysers, rock formations and pools, 

 

 

Wildlife and nature,

 

We tried forever to catpure on film the many "carcazone" looking places that we saw, with river systems, forests and little animals in the meadows. It was fun to see but sadly we'd be driving by too fast to get many good photos. This one's missing the animals but otherwise is pretty good. :)

                                        

What a fun trip it was. It was sad to say goodbye and go home.

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ps: I know it may seem like I've posted a million pictures, but between my mom and I you can imagine the hundreds that we took. Here are just a few more that I thought I'd add to the end of the post. :)