Anniversary!

Okay, so this post is long over due but better late that never I guess. On August 8th we had our 3rd anniversary. We decided that we didn't want to do anything expensive to celebrate but we wanted to get out of the city. So we decided to try camping up in The Spruces for 4 days. We borrowed Brian's mom's trailer and had a really great, relaxing time. Here is a picture of the cute little trailer that made our camping trip so much more comfortable than sleeping in a tent.



We didn't want to burden anyone with the chore of watching Stu for us so we brought him along. I think he did pretty well for his first camping trip.  Here he is chilling out on his cage inside the trailer.

 He spent most of the weekend just hanging out on one of our shoulders. We had to be careful because the littlest things would scare him and he would go flying off into a bush. Somehow he managed to survive.

 It was a great weekend. It was nice to just sit and relax and not worry about anything. And the weather was great. We got dumped on by a huge rain storm the first night, which made me grateful to have the trailer, but the rest of the weekend was perfect. Except for the fact that it is freezing cold at night, even in the summer, we really enjoyed ourselves.

Here is a picture of our rabbit friend we brought along to keep us company. He almost looks real and like he belongs in this setting. :)

And of course, like any good camping trip, we spent a lot of time by the fire. There is just something about fires while camping. You can't help but love them.

It's crazy to think that we have been married for 3 years. I can't imagine life with out Brian. I'm excited to celebrate many more anniversaries with him!! Yay for marriage!!

Summer 2011

   Wow! Summer has come and gone and I haven't posted any updates.  Well, honestly there isn't much to update on. Our summer consisted mostly of working, running and a few extra days off in between. So this post probably won't be very long.

   After Brian graduated in May he got hired on at LDS in their Endoscopy Lab. He was already working there as a tech which made it easier to get hired on as a RN. It's definitely not where he wants to work forever but he makes the most of it for now. When Brian is asked questions like, "Can you change those sheets?" or "Can you give that patient an IV?" Brian responds, "Of course I can, I'm a Male Nurse!" I think his coworkers are getting tired of him saying that. :)

   Now on to running. Honestly, the only thing I can really remember about this past summer is running, running and more running. The reason we have been doing so much running is because we signed up to do the Hood To Coast (H2C)  Relay in Oregon on August 26th and 27th. We signed up with a bunch of Brian's immediate family and cousins and basically spent the whole summer training for that race. I will make a post about the H2C a little later.

One thing that impresses me about Brian is that when he goes running he prefers to train on dirt trails and steep hills. I personally try to avoid hills but not Brian. He ran a few races during the summer to help with his training. The first race was in July and was apart of a Cascadia Trail Series. The race was called Battle @ Big Springs 8K and was up Provo Canyon. Here is a shot of Brian near the start of the race.

This is the elevation profile of the race.

All I can say is that I think he's crazy. Here he is coming in at the end of the race. The second picture shows him crossing the finish line with a time of 47 min.

After the race was over they had a raffle for all of the runners. We debated whether or not we wanted to stick around for it but we were glad that we did. Brian won a pair of trail running shoes that were worth about $130. He was so happy!!!

That race was on July 18th and on July 23rd we did the Pioneer Day Classic 10K in Provo. It was the 1st 10K I have every done! Brian took 8th overall and 2nd in this age group. I conveniently don't have any pictures. Sadly I had a hard time with remembering to take pictures during the entire summer. Brian did one more race before the H2C. It was on August 20th and was called the Skyline Mountain Half Marathon. It was definitely no ordinary 1/2 marathon. They climbed 4500 ft and actually ran 14.1 miles instead of the regular 13.1. I wasn't surprised when Brian took 8th overall. That boy is amazing. He definitely makes it easy for me to brag about him. :)

Well that's all for now. I will soon post about our anniversary adventure!

Yosemite National Park

Now that Brian is graduated some excitement has returned to our lives. The weekend after graduation we left for Yosemite with my parents. I was excited to get away from my busy work life and Brian was just excited to not have his face stuck in a book for once and actually have a chance to enjoy the outdoors. We left early Saturday morning expecting our drive to CA to be anywhere between 8 - 10 hours. Well after a few unexpected delays, and a few snow covered mountain passes being closed we made it to our destination 18 hours later. Yup that's right... 18 hours in the car. Blah. We did find a few ways to entertain ourselves along the way. As we drove into CA we were stopped at the border and forced to either surrender our apples and oranges or eat them. So we pulled off to the side and ate all the fruit we could stand. Next to the car just happened to be this sign. I think it explains itself. Maybe we shouldn't have eaten all that fruit.;)

Next we found some long, straight and bumpy roads. And if any of you know my dad you know that he couldn't resist going fast over them. That 10 min stretch of road was more exciting than all of the rides in Disneyland combined. I would know, I was there 4 weeks ago. I think the best part was listening to my mom as my dad sped of over each bump. Here you can listen for yourself.

Our long day of traveling was definitely an adventure. Though we saw some beautiful country and were with good company... I don't ever want to make that trip again. After sleeping in on Sunday and catching a few hours of church we went into the park to get a feel for what it was like and made a little planning for what we wanted to do during the week. Well Monday came and it was about 45 degrees and raining. And of course that rain turned to snow. So instead of trying to brave some hikes we headed up to Wawona were you can find Giant Sequoia Trees. And they were quite giant. Here is the bottom of a huge sequoia that fell down hundreds of years ago. Those roots were amazing.

Each tree we came upon seemed to amaze us more than the last. We were in awe at how tall they were able to grow.

This sequoia was carved out back in the early 1900's and cars used to drive through it.

This is a picture of my parents down the road a ways. That whole place was beautiful.

Can you believe how tall these trees are? It still blows my mind.

This sequoia was called the Cloths Pin. I can see why. This one was not carved out, it eroded away like this naturally.

And yes, we were freezing.

My dad is really good at looking like tourist!! :)

As we were heading back to the car the sun decided to come out. The freshly fallen snow on the trees had no chance against the sun rays. At first we thought that is had started raining again but we soon found out that the snow was just melting off the trees. I captured a really neat video of it but later found out that I can't rotate my videos when I take them turned on the side. So bare with me as you watch this video. It is sideways.

As we drove back to our lodge we can upon a place called the Tunnel View. Right after you go through a tunnel you come out to see this view. It was absolutely beautiful.

This is a little rock tunnel you go through right after you enter the park. Some how buses fit through here.

We took the short hike up to Bridalveil Falls and we were soaked everywhere our ponchos didn't cover.

But it was beautiful!

This is a shot of Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls.

This is just Lower Yosemite falls from up close.

My parents, Brian and I all took a hike to a lake called Mirror Lake. My parents stopped at the lake while Brian and I kept going on a hike that goes on the mountain behind Half Dome. This is a shot of the back side of Half Dome. If you look close it kind of looks like the profile of a face with the mouth open.

It was a nice, secluded hike and I enjoyed the time I was able to spend alone with Brian. I'm not sure I could ever get tired of his company. That's probably a good thing saying we are married.

On our way back out we passed Mirror Lake again. It was beautiful in the afternoon lighting.

The next day we decided to take the hike to Vernal and Nevada Falls. I was a little worried because it looked hard but it ended up being a good time. I think this fall was called Illilouette Falls. We saw it on our way to Vernal Falls.

And this was our little friend who was not one bit shy. He was cute.

This is a the top of Vernal Falls right before we hit Misty Trail. And yes it was misty, our ponchos came in handy here.

Vernal Falls

This shot is from the top of Vernal Falls looking down. It was neat how close we could get to the actual falls.

After Vernal Falls we trudged on and made it to Nevada Falls.

And the top of Nevada Falls!

We made it to the top around 2:45 pm. It was then that we realized that we were going to meet my parents at the bottom of the hike at 4 pm. I'm not sure on exactly how long it took up to get to the top of Nevada Falls (I'm kind of a slow hiker) but it was somewhere around 3 or 4 hours. So we had about 1 hour to make it back down to the bottom. So we booked it, running half of the way there. It wasn't till then that I realized that it is easier to run down hills than walk. Weird. We ended up making it all the way down in 1 hr and 15 min. That's pretty good time!

All in all it was a great trip. Our ride home didn't take nearly as long as our ride there thankfully. Everyone should visit Yosemite National Park! :)

Gradumacated!

Today Brian graduated from the Nursing Program at the University of Utah! I'm so proud of him! He has worked hard to get to this point.

Here he is in his wonderful cap and gown!

Or maybe I should say my cap and gown. Yes, this is the same cap and gown I wore 3 years ago. I'm amazed that it fit him! We were both glad I still had it hanging around so we didn't have to fork out a butt load for another one.

Other exciting news... on May 1st Brian turned the big 27! Happy Birthday Hun!! And Happy Graduation!!

Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!!

To honor St. Patrick's Day I thought I would talk a little about my favorite color... GREEN!!! Some of my favorite things in life are green! Here are a few examples:

Grass

I love grass and I'm so excited that spring is near so I can enjoy grass again!

Green Apples

To me green apples are delicious and I love them!

Forest

Most forests are gorgeous and full of green foliage. I love this picture below. If only I knew where this was.

My Green Neon

Though my Neon may not be the prettiest shade of green and it's taking on more a rust color these days, it has still been a really great car for me for almost 8 years. It is the only car I have ever owned and we have made many great memories together.

Passat

My newest favorite thing in my life that is green just happens to be a 2003 Volkswagon Passat. Though I'm sad to see my litte green Neon go I absolutely love my new Passat! I feel very spoiled driving such a nice car. Isn't it cute?!

So there you have it. Those are just a few of my favorite things that are green!! Is there anything green that you love?! Please share!

Touring Salt Lake

On Thursday I was able to get off work a little early so we decided to visit some places here in Salt Lake that we have never been to or at least haven't visited since we were little. We jumped on TRAX and headed downtown. The first place we went to was The Church Office Building. We took a tour of the lobby and then they took us up to the 26th floor. The view from up there was amazing. Here are a few pictures I captured on my phone.

The next place we toured was The Beehive House. It was really neat to see the rooms Brigham Young and his family lived in. It was a nice home and we learned a bunch of things we never knew before. For example, Brigham Young only had 11 days of formal education and a lot of the rooms in the house were added on after Brigham Young died. Here are a couple of pictures from the house.

Our next stop was The Conference Center. That building is so amazing and truly inspired. We got a tour of the inside of the building and learned neat facts about how the 21,000 chairs were installed and how much weight the main beams can hold. It's amazing. And then we went to the roof. A place we have both wanted to visit ever since the building was constructed. It was beautiful up there, even in the winter. There were running fountains everywhere and beautiful trees and a large grassy area.

It is hard to believe that most of these places we hadn't visited before even though we have lived in Utah our whole lives.

After the Conference Center we decided to get something to eat. We ended up walking almost all the way home before we decided on a Chinese Place. My feet were killing me when we got home but it was fun to visit some neat places and spend the afternoon with Brian. It is awesome living in downtown Salt Lake.