Monday, August 23, 2010

Etc. Etc. Etc.

John and I were talking the other day, and he asked me what my favorite camping trip this summer has been. And after racking my brain for a few minutes, I realized I have absolutely no clue! Not just because we have been on countless camping trips, but I couldn't really remember them all individually. And that made me a little bit sad.

For those of you who were around for my first blog, you know I blogged a ton. I loved being able to look back on old posts there and see pictures from different little trips we took and things we did, because otherwise those memories are mostly lost to me.

So here I am :) Making a point to take pictures, and blog more. Simply for my own (and John's) good. Because we do lots of fun stuff and I want to remember it! (Well the good stuff anyway!)
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We don't go to a lot of concerts, but in the past couple of weeks we went to the Tim Mcgraw + Lady Antebellum concert, and the Jack Johnson + G Love concert. Both were really fun! One thing is for sure- if you sit in the grass at Usana... you will witness some interesting things for sure! Take this lady for example:

Yes. That is her butt cheek.



This lady was sitting right in front of us at the Tim concert. She reached down and touched it a couple of times, so she definitely knew the rip was there. Just imagine when she bent over... there was nothing left to the imagination my friends!! All the people next to us were snapping pictures with their phones and cameras... I wasn't sure weather to be emberassed for her or just disgusted! Overall the concert was really fun, and I sat and stared at John in amazment as he sang along with most of the Lady A songs. Neither of us were sure how/why he knew them, but he did. I fell in love with him just a little more that day ;)


While we were waiting for the Jack concert to begin, we went down into the area that had little hippy booths set up to walk around. And out came Jack and G Love on this little platform to perform a couple songs! It was awesome. We were really close to the front and there were just maybe 100 or so people gathered around. It was like a mini private show. Also Paula Fuga did a couple of songs with them.(Click her name to see a video) She is SO talented!


G Love and Jack Johnson


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For John's Birthday we had an awesome bbq rib dinner at his parents house, and Hillary made his Birthday cake. It was pretty creative looking, and tangerine flavored.





There is a long funny story behind the interesting look of that cake, but you kind of had to be there. Bottom line is it was delicious, and hilarious. Happy 27th Birthday Johnathan, you old man :)

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We recently had a campout at Ledgefork with my parents and Tara and Darce and their boys, and Drey. The weather was great and we had lots of fun! Boston and Drey are both 2 and it's so funny to watch them play together. I snapped just a couple of pictures when John and I took the RZR up the mountain. The clouds were rolling in and it was so beautiful.










Nap time
Drey and Uncle John. They're pretty good buddies!



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So due to my lack of blogging altogether, I haven't mentioned that John got a new job as a Revenue Agent for the IRS. We are both really excited! When he found out that he got it, he said "It feels really weird to have a job that you need a degree for." That made me laugh. He finished school last December, but nothing really changed with graduation- other than he didn't have to go back to school when January came around. So i'm really happy for him that things are changing now and his hard HARD work and dedication to schooling is starting to pay off. So far he is loving the job and is doing really well putting his knowledge to the test.

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Last weekend we had the opportunity to steal Drey for a couple days. It's so fun to have that little guy around. My mom dropped him off at my work at 11, just in time for a nap! I was worried about how he would do, but I threw a couple blankets down and turned out the light and he was out for 2 solid hours! The hardest part was keeping myself from locking the Credit Union door and curling up next to him.









We don't really have any extra space in our bedroom for Drey, so we put up the blowup mattress and slept upstairs, with him on the couch. Drey helped John blow up the mattress and thought it was the coolest thing ever. The expression below says it all!




Then there was blow up mattress wrestling, which was undeniably entertaining! (And I promise- there were no tears involved!)
















Over the weekend we played at the park (3 times, 1 in the rain) ate cupcakes at Vintage Cupcake Co. (most delicious and prettiest cupcake you will ever have, btw!), went to the farmers market (where we watched a guy get arrested like 15 feet from the big toy at the park... gotta love O-town, right?), took naps, watched the Little Mermaid, and went to a BBQ at Zac and Hill's where Drey played with Harrison and Trevor. It was a busy weekend but we had lots of fun!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Indian Trail

Prior to yesterday it had been a good 2 or 3 weeks since I had worked out. It's funny because for the most part, I have been sticking to a work out schedule quite well for the past year or so. But in the last month I have been under a lot of stress which = the NEED to get exercise. So naturally I didn't do it when I needed to be doing it the most. It seems like a lot of things go that way and I'm not sure why.


Anyway, it hit me yesterday that if I don't get back into the habit of exercising, I will quickly get back into the habit of NOT exercising. So I texted John and told him I wanted to do the Indian Trail hike here in Ogden, which is kind of hardcore and really gets your blood shooting through your veins within the first 3 minutes and hardly lets up until the end. He was down with the idea as usual. I almost tried to back out at the last minute since it was 98 DEGREES, but we decided to just go for it.


We have done this hike once before, but we only went for an hour and then turned back around. When we did this, we figured we had almost finished it... or that we at least had made it 3/4 of the way... so ever since then I was really wanting to go back and do the whole thing.


So off we went! It's incredibly steep at first, and there are a few spots where the trail is really narrow and gravely with a serious cliff hanger drop off on the side. Like one trip or slip of the foot and you are without a doubt tumbling down the mountain side hundreds of feet to your death.

According to my heart rate monitor, we made it up the first part in 46 minutes, as opposed to an hour the first time. Then we thought here we go... lets finish! Surely it's all downhill from here!


And it was downhill for a couple minutes, and then started to have switchbacks heading back up the mountain side. And then it would go down for a while, and have more switchbacks going up again! And then for a while it was really steep going down. After about 20-25 more minutes of that we were incredibly confused as to how the trail would be ending anytime soon. We stopped to debate our options. Either turn around and go back the way we came. Or keep going, because surely we had to be really really close to the end. And somehow find a ride back to our car that was parked at the trailhead where we started. John wanted to turn around and go back the way we came, but I figured finishing the trail would be pretty quick and easy.


We continued on our way for about 30 minutes (which somehow managed to be uphill again) and thought we must be getting really close by now. We finally came to our first sign. Telling us that we had gone 2.6 miles total, and still had almost 2 miles to go! I about died!! We knew the trail was 4.5 miles long, but for whatever reason we both thought we had gone much farther than we actually had. We stood there for a few minutes wondering how we could have been so clueless, and continued on our way. Luckily from this point on was all downhill. We jogged part of it and we finished the entire trail in 2 hours and 12 minutes.


And then there we were. In the canyon at one trailhead, while our car was at the other trailhead about 5 miles away. I thought about calling and asking someone for a ride, but we took our chances and hitch hiked. It literally took about 20 seconds for a car to stop, a friendly looking young guy, and he was heading in our direction so it worked out just great! He was Dave. Worked for a window company, not in school because he couldn't decide what to study, and spent the last couple summers driving tour busses in Alaska for cruise lines. Definitely my first and most likely my last time ever hitch hiking. But it was quite the adventure!

We were about a .75 mile from the end when we were suddenly in this meadowy forest area. It was soooo pretty and I regret not taking more pictures. Until next time!