HS Graduation & Missionary Homecoming

More Kraus family adventures! During the month of May, Dustan's brother Garrett got home from serving a two year mission in Farmington, New Mexico, and his other brother Bryant graduated from high school. Luckily for us, Bryant's graduation and Garrett's homecoming talk about his mission in church were within just a few days of each other, so we took a short trip out to Castle Rock to visit :)

We got in fairly early, so of course the first thing the boys did was go mountain biking! I don't trust myself to safely mountain bike while pregnant, so I skipped out haha. We had a relaxing evening otherwise just eating good food, watching a movie, and attending Levi's orchestra concert.

On Wednesday morning, it was time for Bryant's graduation!! It was at the fancy Red Rocks Amphitheater and it was a beautiful, sunny day. (Thank goodness, because it snowed that night!) It was a little crazy with the traffic to find parking, but we were able to make it in time and even get semi decent seats. Overall, the speakers were good and the graduation was shorter than I expected with the number of graduating seniors. Afterward, we went out to lunch at Noodles and Co. and headed to the park.

At the park, most of the family again went mountain biking on the surrounding trails while I sunbathed and read a book. That evening, we did our usual eating of good food and watching a movie. But when we woke up in the morning, there was about a foot of snow! Colorado (and Utah for that matter) and crazy. So, we had a lazy, indoor day with no desire to be out in the snow. The boys went and played sports at an indoor complex and we played games as we waited for Bryson and Taylor to get in that night.

The next day was a little more fun! The highlight of the day was when we went out to dinner at Red Robin and told Garrett that both Taylor and I were pregnant! We had agreed that neither of us would tell him until we were together in person, and he hadn't found out with the rest of the family because he just got home from his mission. Once we had ordered our drinks at Red Robin, Taylor followed our waiter to ask him to bring out something special for Garrett when drinks came around. As our waiter was placing all our drinks, he casually placed two baby bottles in front of Garrett. He was SO CONFUSED, it was hilarious. We had brought two baby bottles with us to Red Robin, and Taylor and I had each taped an ultrasound picture to one of the bottles. He understood that Taylor and Bryson were having a baby girl first (their last name was on their ultrasound picture) before finally understanding that I was pregnant as well. We got the whole thing on video and still enjoy watching it, haha. It was so nice to finally have the secret out! The whole family had been working hard to keep it from Garrett since he had come home from his mission a couple weeks earlier.

At this point, we only had a couple days left on our short vacation. First thing Saturday morning, we went to Top Golf. It was a blast! Bryson and Dustan killed it, the rest of us had fun, haha. We definitely plan on going back to the one in SLC this summer!

After running a couple errands, we headed back to the park. Most of the snow had melted by this point and it was just chilly out. I wrapped up in a blanket and read my book/watched (thanks nausea) as the rest of the Krauses exercised by running trails, swinging around on the Epic Ropes Course, or playing football. That evening, we had a small BBQ, made homemade Nielson family ice cream with rhubarb cake, played games, and watched a movie.

And with that, there was only one day left of our vacation! Sunday came around and Garrett gave his homecoming talk in church about his mission. He did a great job, and it was wonderful to hear some stories from him. We spent the afternoon watching Kraus family videos and playing games before taking some family photos in the evening! This was the first time since Taylor had left on her mission (which was back when Dustan and I were dating) that the whole family had been together at once! Which also means, that this was the first time both Bryson and I had been with the whole Kraus family at once since we married in :) So of course we had to get a picture!

We also took a few cute pictures for Bryson and Taylor to help them announce their new baby girl :) Of course, Dustan and I had to join in a few toward the end, since our babies are due just within a couple weeks of each other!

We ended our last evening watching a few more home videos and just chatting. We headed to bed fairly early, because we had to leave at 4 am to make it to a baby appointment the next afternoon and get moved in to our new apartment! It was worth it though. We are so happy that we have the Kraus family so close! We love being able to visit them :)

**More new posts below!**

First Trimester with Baby K

We're having a BABY!! The current due date is December 1, 2017. We are so excited. Check the blog post below to see how we announced it to the public (i.e. social media). It seems like most moms mention how they wish they had documented their pregnancies better, so I am hoping to post how our little baby is doing at least every trimester, maybe every month. Hopefully future posts will not be quite as long as this one, haha. In my defense, so much is happening that I don't want to forget!

Month One

Dustan and I had agreed that we would always have me take a pregnancy test when we were together, so we could be elated or slightly disappointed together, haha. I had only taken a few negative ones so far. On March 22, Dustan needed to go to campus late to get some work done in the lab. He left around 7 pm that Wednesday night while I lazed around the apartment, watching my shows and vegging. About an hour after Dustan left, I got the impression that I should take a pregnancy test. I immediately brushed this thought away--I didn't take tests without Dustan and I had just gotten a negative test a few days beforehand. I continued my laziness. But, this impression just kept coming back to me again and again. So, eventually, I gave in. I peed on the dumb stick then hopped in the shower while I waited. And what did I find when I got out! The faintest line ever indicating I was pregnant :)

Dustan: I had been on campus working on King Louie (the robot I do most of my research with) trying to get a demo working for the next day. Well, 3 a.m. hit, and I wasn't getting anywhere, so I decided to call it a night and head home. When I got home, I found a note on the lightswitch from Ellen asking me to wake her up when I got home. This isn't that unusual as she usually likes me to wake her up when I get home if I'm working late on campus, but for some reason, the first thought that I had was that she wanted to tell me she was pregnant. When I got into bed and woke her up, she asked how everything went with my research, and then we rolled over like we were going to go back to sleep. Then she whispered that she was pregnant!! I was/am so excited! I immediately hopped out of bed so that I could see the faint line on the cheap pregnancy test. I'm so excited to be a dad! Needless to say, it was hard to get back to sleep despite it being almost 4 in the morning.

Signs/Symptoms:
 - Days before we even found out I was pregnant (so very early on), I had very slight and intermittent cramps and nausea. Only enough to be annoying to me though.
 - Extra acne. Yay. The first "symptom" of all!
 - No aversions or cravings yet!

Month Two

This was an exciting month, even with all the nausea! First, we told our families on Easter Sunday :) Unfortunately, my family is in Washington and Dustan's is in Colorado, so we couldn't tell either of them in person. Instead, Dustan and I took a cute and simple little picture revealing that I was pregnant (below, we didn't have a cute ultrasound pic yet) and sent it to each of our families while we were Skyping them. Both families were SO excited, though mine seemed to be a little more surprised, haha. We were excited to finally have someone in the loop that we could talk to! And SO FUN, when we told our Kraus family that I was pregnant, Taylor (Dustan's sister) and her husband Bryson also announced that they were having a baby! Just two weeks ahead of us! We are so excited to be doing this together.

With month 2 came the dreaded "morning" sickness. During week 5 of the pregnancy, I just started feeling a bit worse every day. By the time week 6 was in full swing, I was throwing up every day, usually multiple times a day. It became very difficult to work (substitute teaching is not a good profession for when you are sick, in case you were wondering). I felt a little bit better when sitting or laying down, but still so crappy. I called my OB (I hadn't had my first appointment and wouldn't until week 8), and she told me to start taking Vitamin B6 and Unisom (an anti nausea and sleeping agent) each night. Unfortunately, I just threw this up in the middle of the night and it tasted horrible. My all time record was that I threw up 18 times in 24 hours. This was definitely more than the norm though. And that happened the night before and day of my first appointment, yay haha. I even threw up at the appointment. But good news, my OB prescribed a new medicine (Diclegis) that helped. I didn't throw up for about 5 days! It was awesome. Still feeling very crappy, but an improvement. The barfing unfortunately returned the next week, but more like twice every few days. So I'll take it.

Our first appointment was during week 8 of the pregnancy, on April 24th. As I just mentioned, the night and morning before was one of the worst I'd had, so my excitement level wasn't as high as I think it normally would be, haha. We had been a little overwhelmed at first on how we would choose an OBGYN with the plethora there are here in Utah, all covered by my insurance. So, we went to the hospital where I would eventually be delivering the baby and asked the nurses in the birthing/mother center who we should choose, and they were pretty unanimous with their top pick. So off to Dr. Emma Miller we went! She was awesome at our first appointment, we think we will really like her. The nurses were very sympathetic about my nausea (as I mentioned, I threw up in their office haha) and gave lots of advice. Of course, the most exciting part about the appointment was seeing our baby and hearing the heartbeat :) The heartbeat was at about 160 beats/min., and the baby looked like a little gummy bear. Doc showed us where the heart was and we could even see it fluttering while it was beating super fast! So neat. She also pointed out the head and body, which were very difficult for Dustan to discern, haha. And we got a cute, black and white picture to take home!

Week 9, very end of month 2!

Signs/Symptoms:
 - As mentioned in more detail above, nausea. And a lot of it. ALL DAY LONG. Definitely not a fan.
 - Lost 3 pounds since the start of the pregnancy.
 - Slightly more tired than usual, but not too significant. It probably doesn't help that I'm up in the middle of the night sometimes throwing up.
 - Not having to pee any more than normal. Weird? I keep expecting to experience this, haha.
 - A little extra emotional, i.e. crying a lot. I'm not sure if it because of the extra hormones, or because I just always get more emotional when I'm sick. Which is all the time.
 - Continuation of acne.
 - Aversions: meat, warm foods, wheat thins (threw them up too much in the beginning), dry foods, anything strong smelling, most veggies
 - Cravings: cold fruit, french fries (specifically waffle fries from Chick-Fil-A with their special sauce), ice cream, pizza--basically all the healthy foods, haha

Month Three

Week 11, no noticeable difference yet!

We started telling a few close friends this month that I was pregnant, and it was so great to be able to actually talk to some people about it and not be afraid to invite people over even when I might throw up, haha. Even more exciting though, we told Dustan's brother Garrett! He just got off his mission in the beginning of May, and both my sister-in-law Taylor and I kept it secret until we visited them in person for his homecoming talk in church. Anyway. We went to Red Robin as a family and Taylor followed our waiter after he took orders to ask him to bring out something special for Garrett when drinks came around. As our waiter was placing all our drinks, he casually placed two baby bottles in front of Garrett. He was SO CONFUSED, it was hilarious. We had brought two baby bottles and Taylor and I each taped an ultrasound picture to one of the bottles. He understood that Taylor and Bryson were having a baby girl first (their last name was on their ultrasound picture) before finally understanding that I was pregnant as well. It was so much fun!! It was definitely a highlight of month three with our baby.

We also had our 12 week checkup with the doc this month. We were so happy to hear that everything is okay with baby :) My OB was awesome, and we not only heard the heartbeat--which was down about 10 bpm from last time--but got a second ultrasound! Baby was pretty chill until my OB started poking him/her with the wand, then he/she started getting super wiggly! It was really neat to be seeing our baby's different body parts so clearly (we could even see the spine, how cool) move as the baby squirmed around. We really regret not taking a video.

Signs/Symptoms:
 - Continuation of the nausea. With the meds my OB prescribed, it is more manageable because I'm able to get a better start to my day with breakfast, snacks, etc. I have found though that if I have a bad morning, I tend to have an okay evening and vice versa... Towards the end of the month though, only been throwing up a couple times a week and some days I feel almost normal!
 - More exhaustion and lethargy. Energy levels are pretty low. I get out of breath so easily.
 - Lost 5 pounds since the start of the pregnancy around the beginning of month three, but by the end of the month I was back up 3 (making me 2 pounds below pregnancy starting weight).
 - Towards the beginning of the month, it is getting more difficult to suck in my stomach, and I'm feeling bloated 24/7. Towards the end of the month, I could actually tell that I am starting to get a little bigger, especially right between my hips and my pants are definitely getting extremely uncomfortable, though most are still wearable.
 - Occasional but strong cramps, usually at night and when I drink less water.
 - Aversions: meat (especially in leftovers), smell of bbq sauce/chips/flavor (Dustan's favorite chips are honey BBQ Frito twists unfortunately), most veggies
 - Cravings: cold fruit (still, especially grapes and oranges), cheese quesadillas, fruit and cream cups from Fruta Crush in Provo (I've only ever had these once, but now want them every time we pass the shop), smoothies, ice cream

Awkward phase of starting to look chubby, but definitely not pregnant (Week 13)

BABY K :)

Our new travel buddy arrives December 2017 :) Our greatest adventure yet!!

We are so excited to meet our little one!

A second blog post will be coming within the next couple days documenting the first trimester. I know most moms say they wish they had written down more notes or taken more pictures during their pregnancies (and I have always loved documenting life anyway), so I plan on posting often on our blog how things are going with Baby K! And below are a few more pictures we took :)

Winter Fun!

We have had so many short, fun adventures this winter!! We have done a few overnight trips that were awesome, but this is a post of all the short, day activities that we have loved :) So here is just a little dump about these adventures!

Valentine's Day

This year, Valentine's Day was on a Tuesday of a very busy week in school for Dustan. We were already going to be spending money going out for Dustan's birthday in a couple days and going to Bryce Canyon the following weekend. So we kept it cheap with a hike to the Spanish Fork Fifth Water Hot Springs!

We didn't quite know what to expect for this hike because of the winter weather. We knew that sometimes the road that leads to the hot spring trail would close due to the snow, but this would increase the hike by a few miles, which we didn't have a lot of time for. So we brought our bikes! When we got up the Spanish Fork Canyon, the road to the trail was indeed closed. So we pulled out our bikes and road up to the trail head. We had to walk our bikes a few times when there was too much snow on the road, but it was much faster. We got to the trailhead pretty quickly (3.5 miles later) and started the two mile hike to the hot springs.

The trail was completely covered in snow the entire way, but more packed down. We reached the hot springs close to when the sun was setting. But dang, the hot springs were incredible! The color was unbelievable.

We jumped into the hot springs, ate granola bars, and drank hot chocolate until the stars came out. There were so many! Also, since it was dark, and we were 5.5 miles from civilization, everyone else had left, but we had come prepared with headlamps, and stayed until well into the night. We also may or may not have taken advantage of the solitude and worn less clothes than usual ;) Eventually, we got up the courage to get out of the warm water, dry off and put on some clothes in the below freezing weather to hike back to our bikes, and ride back on the icy road to our car. We got some Valentine's dinner at Wendy's on the way home :) It was a very memorable valentines day.

Dustan's Birthday

I'm the worst at taking pictures on birthdays, it is a major flaw of mine. Especially when I love taking pictures of everything typically! It was a fun evening though. We went with a few friends to get all you can eat sushi at Sushi Ya in Orem, Dustan's favorite thing to do on his birthday! He ate himself sick, as usual. Happy 26th!!

Weekend in Bryce

This was one of our best winter adventures, so there was a whole blog post dedicated it! You can read it here!

Skiing

We were able to go skiing twice his season! The first time, we bought our lift tickets for Sundance weeks in advance. This makes the lift tickets a lot cheaper, but you run the risk of having bad weather. But it was a perfect day! It snowed a ton right beforehand, so we had a bunch fresh powder.  We went with one of our favorite couple friends, Ashlee and Adam. It was a great day of skiing.

The second day we went was right at the end of ski season--actually the second to last day Sundance was open. We have a friend that has company lift tickets, so our second day was almost free! And the week before, we had actually done some KSL shopping, so I had my very own skis, boots, and poles to use! Again, it was a really fun day. Though it was definitely spring skiing. The first couple runs were pretty icy. The runs we did just before lunch were just slightly slushy, which was better. After lunch, the sun was so warm that the snow became like mashed potatoes. It was pretty difficult to ski in. And by this time, I was feeling pretty wiped out. I relaxed in the sun at one of the lodges on top of the back mountain while Dustan did some of his own runs.

Weekend in Vegas

Another adventure that has its own blog post, you can read it here!

My birthday

Again, we suck at taking any birthday pictures. My birthday was on a Sunday, so we spent it eating lots of food with our favorite friends and family. We went out the evening before and got dinner at Chili's with a bunch of friends. Yay for being 24!!

Photography

And last, our photography business is starting to do a bit better! Our website is up at krausphotos.weebly.com and we got an Instagram going through @krausphotos. We've now had enough paid shoots that we can afford to buy some new gear, which we are very excited about!

Las Vegas for the 2017 WCC

Once again, we went to Las Vegas for a weekend for the men's college basketball West Coast Conference! We went last year for the 2016 WCC, which was a blast. We love taking a little break from school in March to go down there with friends and play for a weekend :)

Last year, we had a huge group of about 15 people that explored Vegas together. Once again, my old roommate, Kaitlyn, and her awesome family housed us for the weekend. Lucky for them though, there was only a group of seven this year!

Our car (with me and Dustan, and PJ and Katie) left around noon on Friday. We spent the whole drive eating junk food and watching season 5 of Psych of their car TV. The others (Blake and Jenna) joined us at Kaitlyn's home later than night after getting off work.

Before even getting to Kaitlyn's in Henderson (about 20 minutes from the Strip) though, we stopped for some amazing vanilla custard at Luv It Custard in Las Vegas. So delicious.

From there, we drove on to Kaitlyn's house. That evening, we just chilled and had fun eating good food, played basketball outside in the warm weather, watched sports on TV, raced in Mario Kart, and played board games. We stayed up until the others arrived, then kept playing until about 2 in the morning. Way past our bed time! We were all happy that Dustan didn't get any sort of allergic reaction this year, haha.

The boys woke up earlier than us girls on Saturday to go play basketball outside. And of course, since Dustan didn't get an allergic reaction, he had to go hurt himself instead ;) In literally their last game of the morning, Dustan landed wrong and sprained his ankle pretty good. He was able to walk on it okay, but he had a nice limp.

After breakfast, we headed to the Orleans Arena in the heart of Las Vegas for the reason we came--BYU was playing in the WCC tournament! We came early to pick up our ROC Vegas game t-shirts, then strolled around the Arena in the sunny weather before the game was to start.

It was a fun game, even with a lot of fouls being called. We won against LMU, yay!! Also, free shirts FTW. And they were super cool shirts this year!

After the game, we went to Tacos El Gordo for some lunch. Really yummy and pretty cheap for Vegas eats. The males really went for it, haha.

The BEST taco of them all

After our late lunch, we took a quick walk around the Bellagio Hotel Arcadia to see what artsy display/garden was set up (it apparently changes every season). This year is the Year of the Rooster for the Chinese New Year, so it had some fun and beautiful Chinese culture displays, as well as giant roosters, haha.

That evening at Kaitlyn's home, we did the usual. We played some basketball (though we kept it chill for Dustan, playing PIG and Sevens), ate cheesecake, watched sports, and played games. We didn't get to bed that night quite as late--we didn't want to be exhausted for church and the drive back to Provo the next day.

Sunday was wonderful. We got asked to help out in nursery for the second and third hour (funny, since Dustan and I are already in nursery all the time in our home ward). After church, we ate a quick lunch, then PJ, Katie, Dustan, and I headed home to Provo! We made great time.

Blake and Jenna stayed in Vegas a couple more days to go to BYU's second tournament game against Saint Mary's with Kaitlyn. Unfortunately, we were totally destroyed, haha. But nonetheless, it was a fun weekend! We love our WCC Vegas tradition :)

And here is a picture of Dustan's sprained ankle a few days later:

A Weekend in Bryce

We have continued our annual tradition of going on a mini trip within Utah for President's Day weekend in February! In 2015, we spent the weekend hiking around Zion National Park near St. George. Last year in 2016, we explored Arches National Park near Moab. This year, it was time to go to Bryce Canyon National Park near Bryce! Dustan was the best husband and planned the trip :)

We decided to not spend the extra money for a hotel on Friday night, and instead left early on Saturday. Really early. Like 4:30 am early. We did this because we needed to be in Bryce at the Ruby Inn by 8:00 am to sign up for the Bryce Winter Festival activities! This was the main reason we decided to go to Bryce was to see this Winter Festival. Throughout the weekend, there were all sorts fun activities, such as snow shoeing tours, archery and ski clinics, art classes, seminars, and more. And pretty much everything was free!! So, we needed to arrive in Bryce by 8:00 am to sign up for the activities we wanted to attend.

The drive to Bryce from Provo was just over three hours. It was pretty uneventful until we gained a bunch of elevation right before reaching Bryce, then the weather hit. The fog was so dense it was difficult to see, and the snow was coming down like crazy! As we drove through Bryce, we could barely even see the shops on the side of the road. But we made it just fine to Ruby's Inn.

After signing up for a variety of activities, we checked in to our hotel room (at Ruby's Inn, the hub of all the activities!) and put on all of our snow gear to go snowshoeing! I had never been before and Dustan had only been a few times, it was a blast. We went with a big group and simply walked around the Dixie National Forest for an hour and learned about the area from a ranger. The crazy weather had calmed down just a little, and it was perfect for a snowshoe stroll.

What all the snow and fog wasn't good for was visiting Bryce Canyon National Park, with its beautiful overlooks and hoodoos. We did a quick visit to the visitor center to get the skinny on the park and sign up for a snowshoe tour the next day, but left without seeing anything. Instead, we went to a pottery "class" (where we just got to play with clay) then to an archery clinic.

The archery clinic was a lot of fun, but so cold! In the snow, wind, and 25 degree weather, you don't really want to be holding a bow and shooting without gloves. But we did it, and it was a lot of fun. Dustan especially loves archery.

After prettying up, we went out to dinner at the Bryce Canyon Pines Restaurant (very yummy and not too expensive) then went to the Winter Festival family dance :) We learned some new line dances just beforehand, then had a blast dancing with families, watching all the little children go crazy, and laughing at the awkward teenagers.

We woke up early on Sunday morning and finally drove up into Bryce Canyon National Park in hopes of watching the sunrise at one of the overlooks. Unfortunately, we ran into a lot of problems. It had dumped snow again the night before, and we attempted to get up a hill in the Park three times before finally deciding to put on chains when we kept sliding back down. The chains worked great, but when we finally got up to the overlook, we were met with a wall of fog and no sun or hoodoos in sight. So, we drove back to our hotel and slept a little more before heading to church in Tropic, haha.

Chain success!

The entirety of Bryce Canyon that we could see that morning...

Church was wonderful, and so full! There were so many people visiting during sacrament meeting that they filled the chapel, overflow, and the entire gym.

After church, we went back to the National Park for the snowshoe tour we had signed up for the day before. Sadly, the ranger that signed us up was apparently confused and we were no where on the list... We cut our losses and instead drove around the Park to check out the various overlooks and finally see the Bryce Canyon views for the first time! And it was so incredible!! The views were amazing.

After a little low key exploring, we went back to our hotel room to relax and do some of our usual Sunday activities, such as snacking, writing missionaries, looking through pictures, and Skyping family. We did this until it was almost time for sunset, then we again drove back to the Park to an overlook. We had read online before our trip that sunsets at Bryce Canyon were far less impressive than the sunrises. Though we hadn't seen a sunrise yet, the sunset wasn't too impressive. Still very pretty, but nothing spectacular.

We also took some cute pics in the woods :)

That night, there was a fireside from a LDS man who had climbed the seven summits, the tallest mountain on each continent. He spoke mainly about his experience climbing Mount Everest. It was a very engaging fireside, and also made Dustan really want to hike Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, haha.

On Monday morning, we again woke up early to go see the sunrise in the Park. This time, it was a success! We drove out to Inspiration Point (all the rangers recommended this over Sunrise Point which many people think would be best) before anyone else was out there and got the best photography spot at the overlook. We had to wait a little bit for sun to rise, but it was so worth it.

Just like on Sunday, we took a quick nap again back at the hotel before the required check out time. We packed up all our stuff then took one last drive into Bryce Canyon National Park. Finally, we were going to do some hiking! A few of the paths were closed, but we ended up doing the Navajo and Peek-A-Boo Loop.

Thor's Hammer rock formation on the right

It was a beautiful hike. Even in the snow and cold weather, we didn't need our jackets for long. We wore our snow boots, which were completely necessary since the path was either very snowy or inches deep in mud. We started on the very short and easy Navajo switchbacks before reaching the Peek-A-Boo Loop.

Though labeled by the Park service as a "strenuous" hike, we thought it was a pretty chill hike (at least compared to other strenuous hikes we had been on, such as Half Dome or Angel's Landing). We climbed and descended a lot, which gave us spectacular views of the hoodoos around us. We do wish the path weaved through the rock structures a little more, but it was still great.

After the Peek-A-Boo Loop, we met up again with the Navajo Loop, climbing the switchbacks back to our car. We had originally planned to also do the Queen's Loop and part of the Rim trail, but it was getting late and we didn't think the sights would be very different on those trails. We stopped by the visitor center on the way out to buy our customary keychain and postcard for our travels.

We are now proud owners of the America the Beautiful Card--the National Parks Annual Pass!! We are hoping to visit Bryce Canyon National Park again this summer and see what it looks like without all the snow, and see some of the roads and paths that were closed due to the snow. And of course, we will visit as many National Parks we possibly can :) High on our list for this summer: Yellowstone, Zion (again!), and Glacier National Park. As always, it was a wonderful three-day weekend adventure!