Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday was 2 months ago. However, I just got these pictures. I'm not sharing them because I think they're great pictures of me, in fact, I think they're awful. But they're hilarious, and so I put my self-respect aside. I had a great birthday this year. I spent it in Stockholm and then Copenhagen with my best friends. However, somebody forgot to tell this bird that it was my special day. While we were walking to get cake to celebrate, I felt something hit my head. It was exactly what I feared it to be.


This is the moment I realized what had happened

I told myself it was not the bird's fault, who knows, maybe he had Crohns
This is why Angela is my best friend. Also, the special shout out to Aaron LeGendre, who although was not there, saved the day by teaching us to always carry extra napkins. I love Aaron and Angela.

I had to include a better picture. This was later that night, after a quick shower.

Back on my A Game

Let's be honest, one of my hidden talents is that I am amazing at picking out great watermelon. I know all the secrets. And no, I won't share. Up until about June of this year I had NEVER picked a bad one. And that's saying something, because every summer I eat a lot of watermelon. But then in June, I picked up a watermelon, using all my usual tactics and secrets, and it was AWFUL! I mean, maybe some non-watermelon connoisseurs would have been fine with this melon. But not me. And it totally shook my confidence. I haven't bought a watermelon all summer since for fear of another gross watermelon. But yesterday watermelon was on sale. So I gathered all my courage and picked out a watermelon. And I am bragging when I say it's one of the best I've ever picked. YUM!

No, I don't think I picked this one out, but I'm sure it was good.

Summertime?!

One of my favorite things about summer is how nice the evenings and nights are. They are the perfect temperature, and it's so nice going outside when it's dark and not needing a coat. Today I brought a light coat to work. All week as I've left work (which is at 6:30 AM) I've been cold. IT'S AUGUST 24! It's far too early to be needing to bring a coat to work. I feel like I'm getting robbed of some of the simple pleasures in life.

Number One Threat to America

I forgot the best story from the camping trip. The first night Brian jumped out of his sleeping bag from a dead sleep and urgently informed me, "we need to get going." I jumped out of my sleeping bag a little panicked. We both came to a little more and he told me it was raining and we needed to get the rain cover on the tent. No, it was not raining. So in my half sleepy but heart racing state I informed him to not wake me up like that ever again unless we were in danger of poison bears. Still not sure what poison bears are, but they would be very scary!

First Things First

This weekend I enjoyed a few things that I had never done before. Namely, I had never been down to Zion National Park (note: pronounced Zion. Not ZionS or Zi-on.) I was amazed at how many foreigners there were. I heard more English in Europe than I heard in Zion. Brian and I went down just for 2 1/2 days, but we were able to do the Narrows and Subway, which are the things I wanted to do. We had intended to to Subway first, but the weather in the morning was a little sketchy, so we waited that out and were able to do the Narrows instead that day.

Other firsts:
Rappelling: We did Subway from top to bottom. Not that you couldn't do this one without rappelling, as many people that day did, but it was so much easier with ropes, and much less risk of breaking an ankle. Things I'm all in favor of.

Hitchhiking: We only had one car, so we needed a ride to the top of the trail. It was much easier than expected. It was early in the morning, but it took less than a minute, a guy stopped and we hopped in the back of his truck. Unfortunately dude man doesn't cap his tank that he carries diesel fuel in, so everything was oily and every time he took a turn gas splashed everywhere. You'd think that with as expensive as that stuff is, you'd be a little more careful with it. So we had gas all over. Let me tell you, we smelled awesome by the end of the day. A nice coating of fuel, sweat, and stagnant water smell.

Realizing how sharp cactus are: We were climbing down into the gully and I used my hand to lower myself down. I didn't realize that where I stuck my right hand there was a broken off cactus piece. It was camouflaged in dirt. It was one of those furry ones, so got to pick out about 30 pieces of cactus out of my hand.

Look how bitty I look in the Narrows!


In case you were wondering, I am aware of how ridiculous I look in a bandanna. However, I look even more ridiculous when my head is peeling for 2 weeks and it looks like I have the worst dandruff. Bandanna wins.

Reeling 'Em In

Disclaimer: The subject of this post has nothing to do with my current dating status. Do not read between the lines, read into it, or otherwise twist it into more than it is. They are just thoughts.

My family has a dating metaphor that began a few years back while we were salmon fishing in Alaska. We were catching nice big Kings around 20-30 pounds, but since you can only keep 4, which ones do you throw back? Do you throw back a 30 lb in hopes of a 35? But then what if you end up getting a 20? Or worse yet, nothing. It's a tough decision. Like in dating. You can have something great, but do you hold out for better? Only to be skunked? And then there's Mr. Perfect. Is he really out there? The last day of our fishing trip a friend pulled in a 47 pounder! I didn't know salmon existed that big! Could it be there is a 47 pound Mr. Perfect lurking out there? Someone I don't think exists but does? In the end, I ended up with the biggest fish on our boat, 34 pounds, and a few others around 30. I felt good with those.

This metaphor made me start thinking. How did fishing take over the dating world?
"He's a great catch"
"Fish or cut bait"
"The one that got away"
"There's other fish in the sea"
And then I kept thinking, if I went fishing more often would I be married by now? Is there some life lesson I'm missing because, more often than not, I think fishing is boring and frustrating? Then again, so is dating.

Me attempting to hold the 47 pounder. Maybe it's more than I can handle?

Please note: My fish is bigger than everyone elses. Although, dad does look overly excited about his little ones. Oh, and how cool do we look all matchy?

Namesake

A few years ago some of the greatest friends ever introduced me to the heaven that is Lake Powell. As we were enjoying the boarding, skiing, boating, sun bathing, and other joys that define "lake life" we kept repeating to ourselves "p.s. this is the life." And it is. That phrase has become a mantra of sorts. This past weekend I got to enjoy that life again with Logan and some new friends. It was a great weekend, nothing exciting, just lots of enjoying life. But it did remind me, I need a boat.

Please don't blow picture up! No make-up looks much better as a small picture

I enjoy Rainbow Bridge much more when the water is high like this year and it's only 3/4 of a mile away!

Would You Rather...

Today the universe played a fun little game of would you rather with me, pitting my known fear against fears I apparently didn't know I had, and had to choose which one scared me more. I have always known I was afraid of heights, although not able to admit that until recently. And why I continue to do things that scare me, I have no idea. But oddly enough, when presented with other fears, heights are not so bad. I realized it's one of the few fears I have a little control over, so in the fun little game of would you rather, heights always lost.

Let me explain. My friend Brian and I hiked Mt Timpanogos yesterday. It was more of an adventure than we had planned on. But we did summit and now have better stories than most people.

Would you rather:
~Be afraid of heights or a disgruntled herd of Mountain Goats?
I know, this one may not sound so scary. But you can't understand, you weren't there. We were stuck on the trail for 1 1/2 hours waiting for a herd of mountain goats to saunter across the trail. We couldn't go forward because they wouldn't stop coming, but we couldn't go back because there was no where to go. The scary part was that there were AT LEAST 60 of them and they just glared at us, some from only 8-10 feet away. And they would stomp their hooves at us and keep glaring. And they wouldn't keep moving. We got off the trail as far as we could but they still wouldn't pass by. So we happened to be by a cut off to a lower trail so we hopped down in hopes that if we were more out of the way they would keep passing. It was our best option, but not a great one, because as they finally started passing, they would cause big rocks to tumble down the mountain. Not good when you're on lower ground. Finally this initial group moved enough that we could start moving, only to encounter another 60 or so farther up the trail. If I never see another mountain goat I will consider myself blessed. I know, you don't think it's scary, but you just can't appreciate the predicament we were in. My words don't do it justice.

~Be afraid of heights or be stuck above tree line during a thunderstorm?
Because of our little mountain goat delay, we were not nearly as far down the mountain as we would have hoped by the time the storm we knew was coming came. It ended up being fine, we did get poured on, but nothing too traumatic. The trail was slippery, but we still made it down in pretty good time.

~Be afraid of heights or reprimand from doctor and parents?
We ended up hiking an extra 5 miles (don't ask but it wasn't our fault), so it was a pretty burly hike. My body was so tired and I was worried I had overdone it. I'm pretty sure this is not what my doctor had in mind when he told me to use a little more common sense when choosing physical activity. But he doesn't read my blog, so I think I'm okay. Don't worry mom and dad, gut still intact.

Congratulations universe, you win.



Do you see them completely blocking the trail being obnoxious?
This felt much more intimidating in person, and note, the camera is not zoomed in. They were right there.
Still blocking trail and every way around them and being obnoxious
I like the look on my face, glad to be away from the goats

My house is in between our feet, also, 3 showers later and my feet still look like this!

Happy Olympics

Thought this would be a good time to share some pictures from our trip to Greece. These are from Olympia, birthplace of the Olympics. The Chaco picture is in front of where they light the flame every time. We waited forever to get our picture with it, and then realized it's a pretty anti-climatic piece of ground.

I Think I've arrived!

There have been a few milestones I've reached lately which are making me start to feel like an adult. I've always used the phrase "when I grow up." I think I may actually be "grown up."

~I just had the birthday in which I do feel a need to start lying about my age
~I have a mortgage (most of the reasons stem from this one)
~ I have a garden, complete with shovels and a hose
~Today I got so excited about buying furniture!
~Most of my shopping is done at Home Depot
~I use coupons at the grocery store
~I have a retirement plan at work
~My idea of a fun Friday night is painting the bathroom
~I know what words like escrow mean
~I signed a renters contract, but I signed the landlord part (don't worry, I think I'm a pretty cool landlord, and the girls are my friends)
~I have food storage

And with all of this evidence, on Sunday I went to Logan's class at church (he teaches the 16-17 year olds) and I was confused as a 16-17 year old visitor. I'm sure I'll appreciate this later, everyone tells me I will. Of course, my big fear in life is that I'll go through my 20's and 30's looking like I'm 18, and then wake up one day at 40 and look 50-60 and completely miss my prime.