Sam and I have had fun exploring Oklahoma.  We discovered a little nature park close to our apartments.  It was a very pretty area right inside the city.  I’ve come to love the red rock/ red dirt in Oklahoma. 

Last weekend Sam and I discovered a unique gas station called Pop’s.  It’s a gas station/diner/pop store.  This place had over 600 different flavors of pop, all in glass bottles.  Sam and I were a little boring at first he chose a root beer and I settled for cream soda. It was a difficult decision considering there were 65 different brands of root beer.  They even had a few bottles to embrace the current presidential election.

Before we left Sam and I decided we would be a little more adventurous and try a different flavor.  Sam chose a very yummy huckleberry pop.  For the last couple weeks I have been craving a Shirley temple.  I tried to satisfy the craving with a cherry 7up, but unfortunately it didn’t hit the spot.  I was excited to find that Pop’s actually had a real Shirley Temple bottled drink, and it was delicious.  It still wasn’t quite as good as the Shirley Temples my mom makes, but still good.  

Pop’s is located on Route 66, so we decided to take a little cruise down the old highway. 

On our way home we stopped at Lake Arcadia.  The lake is only 15 minutes from our home.  The lake was beautiful, and we enjoyed walking around the lake. 

The worst part of the day was when I discovered this giant spider…probably the worst thing about living in Oklahoma is the size of the spiders.  Fortunately, I have never found one in our apartment, but I’ve seen them in the parking lot.  This spider was at least three inches long.  Sam and I were walking and found a gazebo we wanted to sit in when something stopped me in my tracks.  This spider was gigantic, I couldn’t even get close to take a picture, I left that business to Sam.

Other than the spiders we really are enjoying Oklahoma.  We’re just getting anxious waiting for the arrival of our little princess.  Only seven more weeks!  It still seems like we have forever, but I know it will be here before we know it.

This post is a little out of order but that's okay.  Before we moved to Oklahoma we wanted to do some camping, we wanted to take advantage of the mountains while we still had them.  Sam and his friend Kye planned a trip to Jackson, Wyoming.  For all those Wyomians who I may have offended in my last post I think I may redeem myself here.  So not ALL of Wyoming is flat ugly and lacking in green  vegetation.  Jackson is beautiful.  I can't beleive in the four years I lived in Rexburg I only visited twice.  We rented some canoes and planned an over night camping trip.

I love the Tetons, and they are especially beautiful from the Wyoming side.  We stopped and took a few pictures before making our way to the lake.  Unfortunately there was a smokey haze so the mountins are a little hard to see in this picture.

 

 

Our first destination was Lee Lake.  There is no road access to Lee Lake so in order to get there you have to canoe through anoth lake, String Lake, and portage in.  The water was surprisingly warm for a mountian lake.  The boys, of course, had fun jumping off any large rocks we could find.

 

And THE best picture of the day...gotta love the look on his face.

 

 

Lee Lake was one of the most beautiful places I have been to.  Because it's not easily accessible, there were very few people out on the lake.  We only saw a few campers and we were the only ones canoeing.  I loved it!  It was so peaceful. 

 

 

 

 

The water was so calm it looked like glass.  I loved seeing the reflection of the mountains. This was one of favorite pictures.

 

 

So it was completely "real" camping.  We didn't actually cook dinner ourselves.  We went into the bustling city of Jackson to enjoy some spectacular gourmet pizza!

 

 

On our way home we stopped to let a herd of bison cross the road.  And yes we were just like the tourists and stopped to take pictures.

 

 

 

On our last day there we canoed down the Snake river. 

 

 

 

It was such a great trip!  I'm loving Oklahoma, but I miss the mountains.

Adventures in OKC

 

Sam and I love going to the zoo.  Every time we visited his parents in Salt Lake we always took a trip to the Hogle Zoo.  Oklahoma City has one of the top ten zoos in the country so we decided to spend our first weekend in OKC at the zoo, and we loved it!  And for the first time since we've been here the temperatures were in the high 80's!  It felt amazing.  It was a great day to make the trip.

These little meerkats were just too cute!

 

 

My favorite were the elephants!  They had a baby elephant who was only a year old and she was adorable.

 

 

 

 

 The strangest animals we saw were the Opaki they look like a strange mixture of different animals.  Apparently they're related to the giraffe.

 

The one disappointment of the day was that we didn't get to see the lions.  Their pen was arranged in such a way that they were able to hide behind a large hill!  So hopefully next time we visit we'll see the lions!

 

Whew...I have so much to catch up on so it might take a few posts!

It has been a crazy last couple weeks.  We are now all settled in Oklahoma (well kind of, I still have LOTS of unpacking to do). We had so much going on in August, the move kind of snuck up on us.  We were still packing up to the moment we were ready to leave.  It was a long drive…20 hours.  Sam and I caravanned.  We were worried our Camry wouldn’t make it, but she was a trooper.

The first part of the drive was gorgeous. We drove through Palisades in Idaho.  Then we hit Wyoming and Kansas and the drive instantly became more boring.  

This is what we saw for the majority of the drive.  Apparently there are parts of Wyoming where even the grass doesn't grow.

Since there was no grass in Wyoming we found a nice piece of concrete to eat our lunch on!

We packed lunches for the drive but realized we had packed all our sandwich baggies.  So instead we used paper towels and packaging tape!

The first day we spent the night with Sam’s aunt and uncle in Loveland, CO.  They have a gorgeous house on a lake.  Sam had fun kayaking while we were there.  It was our first trip to Colorado, and we fell in love with it.  We could definitely see ourselves living there one day.  

Sam Kayaking in the Franckum's backyard!

The next day I was so anxious to be in Oklahoma.  The temperature was around 105 for most of the drive, poor Sam didn’t have air conditioning!  We finally made it.  We love our apartment complex. A few things we love:

1. Automatic Gates:  I guess its the farm girl in me who spent way too much time jumping out of the truck to open gates, but I just love the idea of driving up to a gate and having it open automatically. 

2. Courtyards: There are lots of gorgeous courtyards to walk around (but let’s be honest I don't do much walking outside because it is WAY too hot). 

3. Swimming Pools: The pool has been a life saver.  I think it has been over 100 degrees every day since we’ve been here. 

4. Air Conditioning: What we love most about the apartment though is the AC.  It hasn’t been turned off once since we moved in.

5. Giant bathtub: One of my biggest disappointments in the past apartments I have lived in have been the fact that the bathtub was tiny.  We now have a giant oval tub.  Too bad I currently can't enjoy taking long luxurious hot baths. (It's okay baby girl you are worth it).

6.  Washer and Dryer: Yes we finally have a washer and dryer in our apartment! It's heavenly, oh the simple pleasures in life.

As you can see we're pretty happy with our living situation, we should be considering how much we are paying! Oklahoma has certainly been an adventure.  First, I was surprised how pretty it actually is here.  So there's no mountains but they at least have green grass and lots of trees. Maybe there is a purpose to Wyoming, anywhere else you go is gorgeous compared to it!  It is stinkin hot here though (Next week we should be in the 90's! Whoohoo).  Even the wind is hot!  The weirdest part for me has been the fact that it doesn't cool down at night.  At midnight the temperature is still in the 80's!  I've slacked on the blogging lately, but I have lots to catch up on, so I promise to redeem myself!