4th of July and Dog Lake

This 4th of July was pretty relaxing. My parents were up for the summer and my sister and her family came over for some food, fun and fireworks. We had a blast! I had a recipe for home made girl scout Samoa's that I made. Delicious!!!!! We played card games and lit the fireworks when it got dark. Good times. My dad even played cards and came out for fireworks, normally he doesn't do either so this was a really good 4th. Saturday we finally got back on track with our hiking and went up to Dog Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon, around the 10 mile marker. It was one of the prettiest hikes I've ever been on. The flowers were all out in full splendor. Bluebells lined the stream, Queen Ann's lace was about as tall as my niece and then there were tons of wild roses, Indian Paintbrush's and even wild snapdragons! It was incredible! The beginning of the hike was pretty steep then it leveled out until the last .8 mile. When you get to that last .8 mile there's a little sign that points in the direction of the lake and you think, wow we are so close, maybe another 10-15 minutes and we'll be there. That's where it gets you. They fail to tell you that even thought that last little stretch of the hike isn't that far away, it's almost straight up!! Holy crap that was steep! It took us 40 minutes to finish that last part. Then you get to the top and you're so excited to see this brilliant, crystal clear lake and you get a stagnant puddle. Such a disappointment at the end but the trip there was outstanding. The lake was cute but that's about it. One other annoying thing is that at the beginning of the trail and right when you get to the lake there are big signs that say that this is a water shed area and that dogs are not allowed. So what do you think we saw when we got to the lake? About 10 dogs running through the lake playing. Now it's always cute to see dogs playing in the water, having a great time, but come on people! Can't you read the signs? Pick another place to go with your cute little pooches. I really don't want to turn on my faucet and have a big glass of water with your dog's doo doo in it. Honestly! I really do like dogs, and if I had one I'd take them hiking with me in a second, but we would pick places that they were allowed to go. And what's this aversion of not picking up after Rover after he's done doing his business and not having him on a leash when he should be? We were sitting by the lake enjoying the view, when a HUGE orange dog came over and almost ate us. Well, OK, maybe he didn't try to eat us and he was pretty cute, but I know he was eyeing my cheese stick pretty closely. :) It really was a great morning and we ended it at the Cottonwood Cafe for an egg white omelet and the biggest chocolate chip pancake I've ever seen! It took all three of us to polish that thing off. Can't wait for next Saturday.

Youth Confrence

Three days after I got home from San Diego, it was time for our 3 day youth conference. We had a blast! Thursday was the first night and we had a Dutch Oven Cook off with the boys against the girls. The boys made delicious rosemary chicken, cheesy potatoes with almost more bacon in them than potatoes and a to die for strawberry rhubarb cobbler. The girls went with a pulled pork in a bbq sauce that was melt in your mouth, buttery squash and yummy peach cobbler. The judges vote ended in a tie but we were all the winners because we got to eat all that good food! The next morning we met up early and went for a hike up to the granite quarry that they cut the granite for the Salt Lake Temple for, and picked up trash along the trail. We each picked up a little piece of granite to keep so we could have a little piece of the temple with us. After that was over we drive up to Alta Ski Lodge and had a picnic lunch and snow fight. James and Marc pollished off the pickle juice and James followed that with a shot of mustard. Boys are so weird. On the drive up to the Alta we saw a Moose on the side of the road just chomping away at some leaves. We hit the breaks and turned around. By the time we got back down the road he had gone back in to the woods a little more but I was able to kind of get a picture of him. He was very cute! That was the first Moose I've seen in Utah. It was great. We finished up the snow fight and went back to cool off with some water games at the church pavilion. While the others were playing the games I was off making ice cream for later that night when we put on an activity night for the older singles in our ward. The ice cream was fantastic, the games were fun and I think everyone had a great time. We ended Conference Saturday by going to the open house for the Oquirrh Temple followed by lunch at Ab's. With all the eating we did for this conference I think I gained 10 lbs! Not good! I'll have to double up on some runs to get it off, but it was sure fun putting it on.

Some sweet, sweet beach time!

Sheeze, life has been crazy busy lately, so I'll try to catch up with what's been happening. My sister-in-law's family has a tradition of camping on the beach right outside of San Diego called San Elijo State Park, and ever since my brother married into their family, they have invited us to go along with them. It's has become one of my favorite vacation spots ever! There's a little camp ground that is right above the beach that has showers and flush toilets and great little camp spots that we put out tents up on and get ready for a week of sun, surf and food. It's fantastic! This year my parents and older brother decided not to come so it was just me and my brother's family, but it was still awesome! My little nieces had so much fun playing in the sand and jumping in the waves. It was just fun watching them. But we also built sand castles and took turns burring them in the sand. Aspen loved that, Paisley not so much. She hates getting dirty. Paisley also just turned two before we left and we had a little party for her before heading out to the beach. This was honestly one of the best vacation's I'd taken in a long while. I didn't think about work once!!! Always the sign of a good vacation. One crazy thing did happen while we were there. The fellas decided to go snorkeling in La Hoya bay and check out all the fish and maybe see some sharks. I decided to tag along just for the heck of it. That lasted until I got chest deep in the water. I'd seen a couple dark shadows pass by me and didn't really think anything of it until I joined up with the guys who were standing around talking and Teri's brother Bryan said "Did you see those sharks that just went by?" Sharks you say? Even before we really got out into the bay? That's when I decided that the whole snorkeling thing was way over rated and that if I actually went out where I couldn't touch, I was sure to die. That and I just didn't have a very good feeling about it either. At that precise moment I was having these thoughts, Teri's brother-in-law said that he was having trouble with his mask leaking and that he was going to go back to shore. Talk about miracles from HEAVEN!!!! It took me about 1 second to hand him my mask and to count me out! You can call me chicken all you want, that was way too scary! The funny thing though was the guys had been joking with me about how you just need one person that's slower than you to avoid getting eaten by a shark. That had been my brother Joe until I'd decided to tag along. Now it was back to being Joe and he wasn't too happy with me leaving. He kept asking me, "Are you really leaving?" Uh, yeah! No sharks for me, thank you. :) That kid sure has guts because he sucked it up and went out with the guys, all the while, I was waving from the shore. :) The guys were gone for about 3 hours and all the girls back on the beach were starting to get worried. All of the sudden one of the guys came walking up the beach and his legs were pretty banged up and bleeding. Turns out that they all got too close to the cliffs and got grated across the rocks. He said that Joe was really bad. Teri and her sister Megan took off down the beach and I followed a little later thinking that I knew some CPR and could stop some major bleeding if needed, but thank heavens we ran into all the guys walking up the beach. Joe was pretty bad. He said that he got to close to a cave and almost got sucked in, but he grabbed onto some rocks that pretty much acted like a cheese grater on his body, but he didn't want to let go because it was either the rocks or the cave. The guy I gave my mask to has help save him by helping pull him up higher on the rocks. They climbed over the rocks to a more calm part of water where they jumped back in and swam for shore. Joe said that jumping back into the water, while he was bleeding was the scariest thing he's ever done. He kept expecting to be bit by a shark the whole time he was in the water. I'm so glad I didn't go. Honestly, if my big 6'4", 270 lb brother who's pretty dang strong, was having a hard time holding onto those rocks, I would have been a goner. I don't think I gave the Holy Ghost credit for the bad feeling at the time but I know it was him now. I really need to start paying attention to him a little more. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, thank heavens. I can't wait until next year! When I got back I had a change to get together with some wonderful old friends from Phoenix. It was really good to see them again. Sometimes it's just really nice to go home.

First Saturday hike and pictures from our Cake Auction Girls Camp Fundraiser

Early Saturday morning, while everyone else was sleeping, 4 crazy ladies woke up at 5:30 to head out on our first Saturday hike of the summer! We chose Little Cottonwood Trail for our first outing because it wasn't too hard or steep and we needed something to build our confidence if we were to tackle something harder next time. It was beautiful!!!!! The creek was super swollen from the snow melt and rushed by like crazy. The trail kind of follows the creek up the mountain until you reach the old quarry where they cut granite for building stuff. Don't know what stuff but it was cool to see the old ruin. We laughed and talked and sang while we walked up the trail. It was one of the best times ever! I can't wait for the next one! Love ya Annette, Judy and Tracy! Thursday night before the hike we had a fundraiser for our ward's girls camp. We had taco salads with fresh hot delicious scones and honey butter. We also had people make cakes or cookies to donate to be auctioned off at the end of the dinner. They were so cute! I made the campfire cake and was pretty surprised how cute it turned out, if I can brag about myself for a second. :) Annette made the absolutely scrumptious looking strawberry and chocolate tower cake! I just wanted to shove that whole thing in my mouth!!! It looked so good!!!! One of our girls made the picnic table cake, which was adorable! There were tons of other cakes but I thought I'd just put up a couple of them. I think we did pretty good money wise and hopefully we'll be able to put on a really fun camp for the girls now!

Take a hike!

Last Wednesday for our combined Young Women/Young Men's activity we hiked up Ensign Peak. It was the first time I'd been up there and it was beautiful! The hike wasn't that far maybe 1 1/2 miles, a little steep in a few places, but was totally worth the effort. I've decided that I'm going to become a hiking queen this summer and try out all the great hikes in the Salt Lake area. I posted a few pictures from the top, looking over the valley and some of the pretty flowers that were out along the trail. Net and I have decided we want to get out every Friday/Saturday and try a new hike each time, so if you'd like to tag along just let us know. Happy Hiking. :)

Wicked dude!

Holy crap! I almost forgot to post about going to see Wicked on May 1st! I was actually ticketless until the night of the show and then a friend's child was sick so she couldn't go so I got a call announcing the wonderful news as I was driving downtown to meet them for dinner. I love going out with friends so even though I didn't have a ticket I still wanted to go out to dinner with everyone so that's what I was doing when I found out the blessed news! We went, and it was one of the best things I've ever seen! So funny, creative and brilliantly put together, I can't wait to go again! My pictures didn't quite turn out so I'm posting the only dorky one I have. I'm scrunching down and Judy is talking. Sorry Judy! I had on some absolutely fabulous black sparkly strappy stilettos which made me about 6' 3", Judy is maybe 5' which led to some very funny pictures of her head being at my boob level when I hugged her. Kind of why I don't hug short men. I'll stop there. Anyway, see this show if you get the chance! It's like, totally Wicked!

It was worth a Tri!

Ever wonder what it would be like to be to willingly subject yourself to torture? Well that's what I did on May 16th! For some reason I let myself get talked into signing up for a sprint distance Triathlon in American Fork called the Women of Steel. It think it was the cool name of the event that was the deciding factor to me giving in. :) So anyway I signed up for the race in January thinking I have plenty of time to get in shape for the 300 m swim, 12.5 mile bike ride and the 3 mile run, and ultimately squandered my time away until I looked at the calender and almost died when I realized that time had slowly crept up on me and the race was only weeks away! Panic set in. I finally decided to go buy a bike (yeah, I hadn't really ridden a real bike since I was 12 and spin classes kicks your butt but aren't quite the same. Not too smart of me.) Purchased the bike the Saturday before the race and went on a little 2 mile ride on Monday to "break it in" before the race. I'd been running so I wasn't too worried about the running part of the race, but I was worried about the swim. I'd been practicing swimming at the local rec center. They have a 25 m pool that I felt pretty comfortable in but it turned out at the race that they used a 50 m pool to swim in. Now I was used to having a break every 25 m because I had to turn around at that point at the rec center pool but now I wasn't going to be able to get a break until 50 m, I was pretty nervous about that. Anyway, the day arrived and my friend's wife Jerry picked me up at 5:30 AM so we'd have plenty of time to get there and get set up before the race. Jerry is the most wonderful lady and we had a blast driving down. She is in her mid 60's and she totally kicks butt in these events! She'd completed this race last year and had so much amazing advice that she shared with me on the drive down that was invaluable! So we got there and set up our areas by placing a towel down and setting out shoes and socks and everything we'd need for the transitions in order, and went and look around at the competition. For some reason I was thinking that there would be just some regular looking people there but no, all these ladies looked like they meant business! They all had Tri suits on and they looked like they were in really good shape. Gulp! That was my first hint that I was in trouble. It was finally time to start the race and everyone gathered at the pool. You were supposed to have timed yourself to see how long it took you to swim the 300 m before you got there so you knew where to line up when you got there. Jerry and I both stood in the 9 minute line and waited for our turns. That was the worst! You have to stand there and watch these ladies that could give Michael Phelps a run for his money finish the swim in 3 or 4 minutes! It was seriously intimidating. The way it worked out was they had two lines that you could choose to line up in, and each line was divided up into the different time's with the shortest time being at the front of the line. The 9 minute people were towards the end of the line. Anyway, the first person jumped in and a timer held off the next person until 10 seconds had passed then they let the next person in. This pattern continued until they reached the end of the lines. There were three lanes you swam in, going up one side, turning around in the same lane and going back down that same lane. When you reached the end of that lane you dove under the lane line into the next lane and repeated the swim, going up one side and back down the same side of the lane. You did that for a full 3 lanes, then you got to get out of the pool and race over to the transition area to get ready for the biking portion of the race. This was where my inexperience got to me. I hadn't purchased a tri suit, I'd just worn my tankini thinking I'd just pull my bike shorts over my swim bottoms, pull my shirt on and creatively get into my sports bra while taking my tankini top off, slip on my socks and shoes and I'd be off! Yeah right! I hadn't really practiced this part of the race, thinking that it wouldn't be that hard to hurry and change, but oh was I wrong! Bike shorts are pretty easy to put on when your dry but they didn't want to budge up my wet legs! It took me forever to get those babies on, having to contort my body in way's I didn't think were possible, giving everyone a show who were around me. :) Oh what I'd have given for a bed to lay down on so I could wiggle them on and do them up! I almost decided to just leave them and pull some shorts on I'd brought for the run when I gave them one last yank and they slipped up! Thank heavens they did because I think my butt would still be sore today if I hadn't of worn them. The bike course was a 6.25 mile loop that you did twice. That was fine except for it had three huge, steep hills right at the very beginning of the ride that almost did me in. When I got to the top of the last hill all I could think about was that I had to ride up them again! I ended up having to walk up the last hill the second time around, but that's what I get for not training on a bike beforehand. I really wanted to quit by the time I was 3/4th through the bike ride. I couldn't even contemplate having to run after the biking portion. But I remembered what my goal was and that was just to finish. I didn't care what my time was but I just wanted to be able to say that I finished it. So I calmed down, finished out the bike ride and went for the run. That was the funniest transition because my legs felt like jello from the bike ride and it took me about 1/8 of a mile to get my rhythm down for running. The scene that kept coming back in to my brain was a clip from Seinfeld where Kramer went to the dentist to get a tooth fixed so his mouth is numb and he's also wearing these new exercise shoes that make him walk funny so people keep thinking he's mentally challenged. Anyway, that's how I felt I looked like as I was trying to get the kinks out of my legs so I could run. The run felt great and I actually passed a few ladies. I finished really close to being the last person but I at least finished! In retrospect it was the most amazing race I've ever done and I'd love to do it again, but it took me the weekend of recovering to have that attitude. :) If you ever need any advice on what NOT to do for a triathlon give me a call, I'm an expert on that. :) Can't wait for the next one, it really is worth a tri.

Clean as a Whistle!

This post may be TMI for some people but I'm just so proud of my dad that I couldn't resist posting it. My dad made an appointment for a colonoscopy a month or so ago and that blessed day finally arrived bright and early Tuesday morning. My Mom said that he has kinda been looking forward to this event, oddly enough, but only in a "I'm a man, I can totally handle this" kind of way. I can actually picture him kind of jogging in place, doing some boxing punches and stretching to loosen up before going into the exam room. Maybe even throwing a "Let's do this" out while walking through the door. He cracks me up. He told my Mom that he was just going to drive himself home afterwards so she didn't have to go if she didn't want to. Yeah, right. Short story, my mom went and drove home, silly Dad, but he did have a clean bill of health! To hear him tell it, the Dr stated that he'd never seen such a fine specimen of colon as my Dads'. :) Way to go Dad! My Dad has been a big fan of fiber since I can remember and it looks like fiber has been good to him over the years! Hopefully they'll send him a picture of his clean colon that he can frame and hang on the wall. Hum...maybe I've just found the perfect Father's Day present! Awesome!

Ugh!

I think I'm having a mid life crisis. How does one get over it? I've tried chocolate (the not eating chocolate thing lasted about a day) buying things and sleep, but so far the only result I've had is that my pants have gotten tighter. Tight pants have not helped the crisis. Any recommendations on how to get over it?

Disneyland, just what the Dr ordered!

Have you ever gotten to the point were your just done. Done with work, done with school, just done with the same old crap you have to put up with everyday? Ever wonder what could possibly fix that rut your in? Well I have the answer for you: Disneyland! They don't call it the happiest place in the world for nothing. It was the perfect little getaway. Work, school and all the other worries that had been plaguing me for the last little while where completely forgotten in watching my cute little nieces experience the magic of the park. We arrived Monday afternoon, checked into the hotel and headed right over to California Adventure. My dad scored some sweet two day park hopper passes from AAA so we could take our time and go where ever we wanted, when we wanted. It was boiling hot but nothing could dampen the spirits of the two little jumping beans posing as my nieces as we went on the rides. They loved it! I think the best part was watching them run through the "cool off" places where they had misters and shooting water fountains the girls and us bigger kids were running through to cool off. It felt so good to get a little wet. Paisley was cracking me up. Her hair got wet and she kept laughing saying "Mommy, hair wet Mommy" then she'd let out this little chuckle. Aspen was laughing and getting as wet as possible. They both are just darling! Joey, Aspen, Paisley and I went on this little Ladybug ride that is very similar to the Teacup ride at DL but not as twirly. Aspen was laughing the whole time, just loving it, but Paisley sat there for a little bit not knowing if she like it or not and then towards the end of the ride she started making these siren noises, "whoo, whoo, whoo" without moving her lips. Joey and I just started cracking up! Her face never changed but just these noises started coming out of her. Oh my gosh, it was funny! The only down side was that the girls didn't get to meet any of the Princesses. We looked all over but couldn't find them. I'm sure the girls got over it pretty quickly but the adults were all bummed out. We still went on the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Small World, Haunted Mansion and the Dumbo Ride along with ton's of others. We honestly just about walked onto every ride there. Longest wait was for Splash Mountain and that was maybe 20-25 minutes. It rocked! Perfect time to go. One of the best rides was Joe taking Aspen on Thunder Mountain. She was so excited to go but two second into the ride she was screaming "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" which was so funny because that's what Joey used to do when we'd take him on rides when he was little! You'll have to ask him about the Magic Carpet ride at Lagoon when he was a little guy! Hilarious! On Tuesday afternoon Teri took the kids back for a nap and Mom and Dad went to lay down too, so Jason, Joe and I got to go run around hitting all the "grown up" rides. The Tower of Terror is fantastic! Sorry Joe and Jason for grabbing your legs! They really need to show you where the hand hold are before they drop you 5 stories! :) We rode on the crazy, non-regulation sized Screamer Coaster. I was actually fine the first time around...it was the second time that got me followed by getting spun around in circles on the Rapids ride. I had to head to the closest bathroom. Eating a bacon cheese burger and then going on those rides isn't the best of ideas, so my puking spree continued! But that's all part of the fun, right? :) I got to meet up with my emailing buddy John for dinner Tuesday night and had a blast finally talking to him. It was so fun to sit and actually talk to someone I've been emailing for over a year. The time flew by and the restaurant was closing before we knew it. We'll have to do that again, I had the best time. So summing everything up, that was a fantastic vacation! Can't wait for the next one in June...camping in San Elijo State Park on the beach just outside of San Diego. That's going to be fun!