Well, Edward and I are in the middle of our first road trip together. Now in case you missed it, Edward is my car's name...I don't want any of you starting rumors that I'm going to marry a man named Edward (though how amazing would that be!) :) Let me start off by saying that Edward is amazing...
Now I don't know if you can see that, but it says 40.4 miles per gallon! This was after driving from Utah to Bozeman (on one tank of gas, of course!) Amazing!
We grew up together, and she was having a baby shower. I stayed at her house for a couple days and had fun chatting with her and seeing all the cute baby stuff she has gotten! I'm crossing my fingers that she'll have the baby before I head back down to Utah on Wednesday....you better get going, girl! :)
After a couple days in Bozeman, I headed over to see my good friend, Megan. She was my roommate for a couple of years before she got married. This was my first time seeing her little 9 week old Cameron. He is so sweet!! Sorry Sally and Tessa, I took more pictures of him...it's nothing against you. It's just that I remembered my camera :) 
Megan and Cameron...seriously Meg, you are such a cute, little mom!!!
I took this one for my family...at least the younger half. Recognize this? It's the Midland place in Columbus where we used to have our cattle sales once a year. Brent spent a couple of his birthdays here. Oh the days. :)
Dad and Paul had fun as well...
Look how skinny Dad is getting. What a good lookin' guy!"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin...literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface...A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal."
-Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer
As I sat outside this afternoon reading a book (oddly enough, another Stephanie Meyer book...The Host), I kept looking over at my pretty new car. It literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. :) So I've decided to name my car Edward. :) For those of you who haven't read the Twilight books, you should. :) They're super easy to read, and they're fun! Plus you would have a greater understanding of the name choice for my car.
Goodbye, stupid shiny Volvo. Hello, beautiful shiny Corolla! :)
That's right! Shannon is now officially poor....but very excited! It's a 2009 Toyota Corolla. What's that you say? It's not even 2009 yet? I KNOW! :) I wasn't really planning on buying brand new like that, but with the amazing assistance of my friends Ryan and Katie George, he was able to talk them down (plus get me some free stuff like all-weather floor mats). It was also great to buy a new one because they had a killer deal on interest rates right now for new Corollas! Plus apparently these cars don't depreciate very much, so it wasn't much more for me to buy a brand new one over a used car with 30,000 miles! The color is "magnetic gray metallic" (fancy way of saying it's a dark gray...and it kind of has a pearly finish. It's so pretty) :) 
So basically I love it. Cherilyn, you're going to laugh, but I went to Brent Brown. :) Plus the salesman was cute and single...Ryan and Katie were trying to find ways to get us hooked up. :) Perhaps he will call me one of these days! Anyway, that's all! I just wanted to tell you how excited I am!!! :)
Here are some more pictures from my trip. Most of these were taken before church on Sunday as we drove around Jackson. You can watch them scroll through, or click on the pictures to see them in more detail...along with my commentary! :)
Well first of all, SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!!! I'm so excited! What better way to celebrate than to go with two of your best friends (Carie and Meagan) on a camping trip? We had so much fun and a lot of adventures! It all started off with a bang when we stopped at Walmart for last-minute supplies. After we left, I remembered that I needed to call Cherilyn. When I reached down to get my purse, it wasn't there! Naturally I was freaking out! Carie called Walmart, and I really nice employee went and searched and found it in the cart in the parking lot. Genius, Shannon. :)
The whole trip was beautiful! It made driving quite enjoyable. We even stopped in tiny Smoot, Wyoming...home of my good friend Jake...to take some pictures. :) We got into our camp ground late that night and had a fun time setting up our tent in the dark. We had a camp fire and roasted everything from bananas to carrots...I don't think we ever even roasted one marshmallow! By then we were exhausted and ready for some sleep. It was a little chilly, but not all that bad!
We spent most of Saturday in Grand Teton National Park. We went on a hike around Jenny Lake. It was SOOO beautiful! I don't know how many times Carie said, "I'm in heaven." It was true! We did a bit of the hike through snow. We got half way around the lake and someone told us that the other half was completely covered in snow. We ended up taking a boat across part of the lake as a short cut, but we still ended up hiking probably 5 miles.
After the hike we found a place to shower and headed into Jackson to see a play that our friend Emily was in at the Pink Garter Theatre. It was so fun to see her, and she told the cast to interact with the three of us...it was great. We also went to dinner that night. Other than our waiter being completely drunk, it was great fun! :)
Later that night we were so exhausted!! We went right back to our camp and fell asleep! On Sunday morning we visited with Emily again and went to church. We also had fun taking pictures around Jackson, but I'll have to post those pictures later when I get them from Carie. The ride home was so beautiful! We accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up coming down through Logan, but it was worth the view!
Enjoy some pictures! Click on the album to look at the pictures individually...