Last week was full of ups and downs plus a 34th Birthday thrown in to boot.  On Sunday, I decided to skip out on a mandatory staff meeting at the rec center in order to spend some quality time with Chucklebutt.  While I essentially used my one “get-out-of-jail-free” card, it was well worth it.  We made another trek to Salome Wilderness and the super cool pools of water we had visited earlier in the summer.  This time we were a lot more prepared with water, flashlights and highspeed cameras.  Check out these pics!

This time we got a much earlier start and were not as rushed to get back to the car.  With the help of Google Earth, Chuck was able to find a much faster route with less time on dirt roads.

This is our first glimpse of water.

Unlike last time, we went farther up the trail and found a much easier entrance into the pools.  Again, we had the entire area to ourselves.  It was aweseome!

The scenery is so enchanting it reminds me of a movie set.

We had a ball swimming.  There were spots that it was way above our heads.  The only icky thing was the algae which grew on the rocks.  Once you started swimming and stirring up the waters, the algae would break free of the rocks and float to the surface.  A few times I squealed thinking it was a creature.  Tee hee!

We gave ourselves a lot more time to make the trek back although we still got back to the car in the dark.  On the way, we ran into some other hikers who were swimming further down stream.  They too had to break out their flashlights.  We were quite a ways a head of them and could see their flashlights in the distance.  We also ran into a smelly feller along the way.

Isn’t he cute?  Good think we didn’t aggravate him.

Anyway, it was a great Sunday even though I get some flack from my boss.  I also applied for a job (didn’t even get an interview), had some great rehearsals, taught class and had a super duper birthday.  My friends at work decorated some fun pictures for me while another friend sent me floweres.  My mom gave me an AMAZING jacket and Chuck spoiled me like there was no tomorrow (he even got me a yummylicious birthday cake).  I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow along with some art I’ve been working on.  In the meantime, enjoy some cute photos of our girls.

Awwwwwww!