Ketchup Time!

Remember that time I didn't blog for 6 months? Well, I decided it's time to do a little catching up. The problem is that I don't remember exactly what happened the first 3-4 months, except for a lot of snowboarding and even more wedding planning.... so we'll just leave it at that and start with March 10th of this year. :)
I never actually believed the day would come (especially that last week), but come it did, and everything turned out perfectly. You know your wedding day is going to rock when your also-restless fiance texts you at 6 AM to ask if he can come over and eat your cereal. Yes, please! The sealing was incredible. The sealer did a fantastic job bringing the Spirit there and not leaving an eye dry. What an amazing experience that was. Since that was later in the day, we went straight to our dinner/dance after pictures. Small though it was, it was pretty hopping, not gonna lie. The best part was doing the Thriller dance with family and friends -- classic!

So what have I been up to since then? Quite a bit, actually. I'm not feeling a whole lot like typing, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. First, obviously, was the honeymoon in Mexico.


We didn't snorkel a whole lot (just had a lot of fun taking pictures with them), except for that incident with the sharks and stingrays... but I'll let your imagination take over from here. Trust me though, your imagination won't do the day justice.






We spent a ton of time here at the beach in Playa del Carmen. I read The Princess Bride and Joe did Sudoku puzzles -- those moments we weren't swimming, I mean.

There was plenty to do away from the beach in Mexico. On our 3rd day there, we took a 4-hour bus ride to Yukatan to see Chichen Itza, and believe me, it was worth the commute. We also visited the ruins of Tulum one day.



We spent that Saturday (day 5) swimming with the dolphins. Our dolphins were named Yoconda (sp?) and Estrella. They were both mothers with 1-year-old babies, which, though they're cute, we decided we'd rather not sneak home with us when we kidnapped the mothers. They're useless right now; they don't do any tricks!


We did quite a bit more and ate a lot of indescribably delicious food, but I'll leave this where it is and move on to the things we've been doing since our return to reality...

We've played a lot with friends. On this particular Sunday evening, we invited our friend Jake over for dinner, after which we all decided to put various bridal shower/bachelor party gifts on our heads. And yes, believe it or not, I actually meant to make that face.
Another night, we went to dinner with our friends Logan and Elise. Wait, I worded that wrong. They kidnapped us and took us downtown to The Bayou, so we showed them a favorite location of ours -- what we call Thinking Hill. The only downside to this trip? There was a couple up there, so we felt a tiny bit unwelcome and eager to leave.





Joe and I went to the Salt Lake colors festival. It's much smaller than the Spanish Fork one, which is why it was so much better!


Here we are, showing dominance over our bikes after the Salt Lake bike tour, where we rode 26.1 miles for a Creamie and chocolate milk. Worth it? Well, yeah... the Creamies were peach-flavored!
So much adventure, and hiking season hasn't even begun... life is great!

Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

I know everyone has been overloaded with gratitude posts on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc., this week, but if you're apt to complain about it, let me point something out to you: long, gushing, Oscar-style "I'd like to thank my..." posts are a heckuva lot better than the ranting/venting/life-is-terrible posts that you're overloaded with the other 364 days of the year. Eat that for breakfast!

Speaking of breakfast, I'm starting my gratitude post there. There are many things that I'm thankful for this week. Right now, I'm grateful for the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I had for breakfast - that it sat so invitingly in the fridge, that I could eat and enjoy the holy shiz out of that dessert. I mean breakfast.

I'm so thankful for my amazing fiance who understands and never criticizes me, even when what I do is irrational or selfish; in fact, selfishness is almost encouraged? Honestly, the man's perfect! I'm thankful for the support we've received from family and friends. Actually, in a way I'm also grateful to any who questioned us along the way - for causing me to reconfirm that I am making the right decision. I have zero doubts that I am!

I'm grateful for my supportive, understanding family that takes care of me, is genuinely concerned, and is so willing to offer and deliver help at the drop of a hat. It's inexpressible the gratitude I feel for Buster and Emelie for providing me with a cheap (and free for most of my stay, until I put up a big enough fight to pay rent) place to live, and for the love and support that they give. Even during those few times when things seemed hard, I could never complain; I had them and a place I felt totally at home (and still do!).

I'm grateful for the Gospel in my life, for a loving God who is willing to give me blessings I know I do not deserve. I'm grateful for covenants and promises, the opportunity to give (although very little) back to my Heavenly Father and Savior. I'm sure this gratitude will only grow when I go through the Temple soon.

I'm grateful for my wonderful friends (some of which are also family!) for supporting me and putting up with my flakiness and endless faults. Maegs, Nell, Rach, Weenie (in no particular order besides alphabetical) - thank you for being so kind and caring. You are seriously the best friends I could ever ask for, and if I were to have bridesmaids, you would definitely be they! You're welcome, by the way, for not making you stand in line and try on and wear borderline skanky dresses that you will never take off the hanger again. ;) Hehe, just kidding. Sorta.

I'm grateful for my health, my continued safety (especially driving 70+ miles per day! That's a REAL blessing), and for the health, safety, and happiness of my family and friends.

There are so many other things I'm grateful for, but those are the ones that I absolutely had to get out for fear of bursting this weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. If it doesn't have Siamese twins in a jar, it's not a fair!

Just a quick update before bed. For those waiting for the news, I am officially engaged now. We've had a date picked out for quite a while, but as of 3 weeks ago, it's official. here's my sapphire ring.

How'd he ask? Well, funny story. We drove out to Antelope Island with our bikes, parked at the end of the causeway, and went for a ride. The causeway is a really fun, really easy ride. The only catch is all the brine flies. I was not wearing an immodest shirt by any means - just a Ninja Turtle t-shirt - but still the flies flew down the neck and flew around in there until I pulled a Tarzan, pounded my chest, and killed them all. Blech!

Anyway, we rode the 7 miles to the entrance and the 7 miles back to the van. After I killed the new batch of flies, we drove to a rocky area where we took pictures with a group we camped with a few weeks before - the view of the sunset there is always breathtaking.

We climbed the rocks so we were far away from the other people and watched the sunset. Joe bent down to pretend to tie his shoe and came up with the ring. While I wasn't totally surprised (I tried it on 2 days before), it was still perfect for us. There we were, covered in sweat and dead bugs, watching the sunset on Antelope Island.

I said yes, and he pulled a dead brine fly out of my hair (no joke!). It was pretty great. :) We went to Chef Tom's and got some cheap but fantastic Italian - which is also us! What's wrong with cheap if it's delicious, right? Best alfredo ever! We stopped at FYE, looked for the absolute worst movie we could find, and watched Frogs at his house.

That's the story! I've just been busy shopping for a dress and reserving reception centers and whatnot since then. I'm still in favor of elopement, but, as Joe so rightly put it, "we need stuff." Hehe.

Other things going on? I joined Joe's family on a trip to Cedar City a week later to see the final weekend of the Shakespearean Festival. I'd never been before, and I loved it. We saw Winter's Tale on Friday night, then Dial M for Murder on Saturday (obviously not a Shakespeare, but I do love me a good Hitchcock script.). We had tons of fun!

This picture is from a hike we took in Kolob Canyon (which is technically a part of Zion National Park, but it's accessed somewhere funky and very few people know about it). Pretty, right?

One last picture for the road. This is my favorite engagement picture, taken 2 weeks before actually being engaged so's not to miss those leaves:

Yeah, I like Thai. Do you like shirt?

I've been collecting quite the conglomeration of good times, intending to blog about each one individually. In the interest of moving on with life and saving time, I'm just posting a few highlights.

August 19th and 20th - Grand Teton Relay! I was in van 2 with Jess, Josh, Kim, a high school friend of Jess's, and a younger brother of Josh's coworker, who DOMINATED the 10-mile leg. This is a picture of Josh ending our van's first leg and Jess picking up the second. This race worked exactly like a Ragnar. Not sure how weekend relay races work? Here's an enlightening video:



This race starts in Ashton, ID, and ends near Yellowstone, WY, taking the team all over the Grand Tetons.

I ran the 12th leg, which means I finished the race (boo-yah, Grandma!). I was also fortunate enough, at the end of our second set of legs, to hog the sunrise run. I was running up a mountain road, meaning I was cursing mountains, elevation, and the world in general. The sun rising over the peaks as I rounded the east side of the mountain was the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life. Too bad you'll have to take my word for it, because I wasn't running with my camera.

September 5th - Say one Labor Day you decide to go on your second favorite hike in the world, you take a wrong turn, and wind up facing the choice of either scrambling the jagged mountain edge or backtracking a couple of hours. What do you do? 1) You take the knife's edge. 2) You turn your second favorite hike in the world into your first favorite hike in the world. Seriously. My favorite part about the hike (taking the Red Pine trail and then climbing the Pfeifferhorn) in the first place was the rock scramble near the end. The fact that we extended the scramble and skipped the steepest part of the hike made it absolutely perfect. Sure, we were nervous about moving forward when we first realized we were on the wrong side of that mountain, but just look at Joe and Reba in this picture. So. Much. FUN! As for the picture on the left, there's our destination as seen from about halfway through our invented rock trail.

Those are the two big things. As far as hikes go, here are a couple of honorable mentions:

Twin Lakes (Up by Brighton and Silver Lake) - not a particularly difficult hike - it's steep, but it's also very short - but it's absolutely gorgeous.

Remember that snow storm in the mountains last weekend? Well, Joe and I took a little drive up Little Cottonwood canyon to scope it out. This is the bridge at the start of the Red and White Pine trails.

Feelin' Campy - Like Karate Kid!

Earlier this month (the 4th through 7th to be precise), some of my family and I ventured on our I-can't-count-that-highth annual camping/fishing trip to Bridger Lake - the mystic waters of abundant planters! I defy you to spend an hour there and not catch your weight in puny, white rainbow trout. What made this trip special (among other things which I shall detail later), was that we invited Joe along. It was great spending time with him and getting him more acquainted with my wonderfully insane family.

As per tradition, the moment we arrived, we set up camp at a speed only possible for super humans, and hauled our fishing gear to the lake. This year, it started raining about an hour after we started fishing. This picture is of the lake during our first afternoon at Bridger Lake. We were soaked through pretty dang fast, so we pretty much froze the rest of the night (I was too stupid to change my socks before bed and wound up with really cold feet all night).

The second day was a blast, because after a morning of throwing our lines in Bridger and a hike (only Joe and I did that), Dad and Larie put their four-wheelers to good use, finding a lake with decent-sized trout that were actually native to the lake. All of us took turns riding the four-wheelers to that lake and fished there the second half of the day with some pretty good results. Most of our fishing time was spent there the rest of the trip. My favorite thing about Marsh Lake? Buster found this salamander in the weeds one morning. I'll not lie, once he showed me what he caught, I stole it and played with it for a ridiculous while before I even considered giving it back. It had so much energy! Sally was old and weak her last few years, so having to work to keep this salamander in my hands brought back some much older memories!

Some other fun moments of note:

Papa Gary teaching Chloe and Gaige to whittle - as he did for all of us when we were younger. Chloe asked me for whittling tools for her birthday next year.






Joe being silly whilst fishing at Marsh Lake.

Wait for Me While I Play Catch-up, Play Catch-up

Well, this is embarrassing. I thought I'd been slacking off for a couple weeks, but it turns out it's been almost 2 months! Sadly, as I imported pictures from my camera earlier this evening, I discovered that my camera is more neglected than my blog. There's a 4-month gap between my most recent photos and my second most recent. I've been using my iPhone for pictures, but still! In the spirit of making up for my disappearance, here are a few updates, brought to you by some of the images I just loaded:

About a month ago, Joe and I hiked Broad's Fork again (we've done it three times now: once snowshoeing as friends - ha! And twice this summer). As I led the way back down the trail, I heard a rattle. And proceeded to bolt to the other side of the trail at speeds I never knew were possible, all the while asking, "What the heck IS that?!" I knew was it was (derp!). It's really hard to see the snake in this picture, but sadly, it's the best shot I have. It's towards the lower right corner. Actually, contrary to what it looks like in the picture, rattlesnakes are pretty big. I thought they'd be the size of a garter snake or something, but he was muchly much more bigger.

A couple weeks later (I guess this would be 2 weeks ago now), we hiked Grandeur Peak. It's definitely a new favorite hike of mine. The only thing there to slow us down? A rattlesnake. I kid you not, haha. I'd never seen one while hiking before, and now I've seen two within a couple weeks! This one was pretty boring compared to the first one; he just curled up under a bush by the trail and refused to let anyone pass without throwing a fit.

The filthy legs you see here are the aftermath of that hike.


This picture is about 5 months too late, but here I am, dominating Moab on President's Day. That's right - my Moab trip is the most recent thing on my camera besides Grandeur Peak and Broad's Fork. Can you say it with me? On the count of three. One, two, three: FAIL! Fail of epic proportions! To add to the glory of this huge exhibition of shameless slacking on my part, I'm going to go ahead and conclude my update here. Honestly, I'm keeping busy and enjoying the living crap out of my summer (not to mention life!), and yet I'm having issues thinking of things to blog about. So, on that note...

Until next time, suckas!

It's a Beautiful Day, Don't Let It Get Away!

Well hi! It's 8:45 AM on a Sunday. What should I be doing? Planning the lesson I didn't bother planning all week. Naturally, that means it's time to update my blog. Mono-wise, I'm doing fantastic these days. My only complaint is that I have no idea long how long I'm contagious - anything I've looked up has a very wide date range (even wider than how long the symptoms last. I know now for me that they last 3-4 weeks; however, this information has no value. You can only get mono once.). I did somehow pass it on to one person - unless she happens to know someone else with it. Joe's sister. I feel horrible about it, but I am extremely puzzled as to how she got it. I haven't been anywhere near her in ages, and anytime I was at their house I kept my distance from everyone but Joe and didn't leave anything of mine around. Go figure!

I started at work 2 weeks ago. I think it was too soon based on how hard the first week was, but after watching Jurassic park a 3rd time and checking out a second Goosebumps book from the library, it was time. I actually did great this week, and I'm feeling totally normal. In fact, yesterday I went on a little hike up Big Cottonwood and went on a tandem ride along Wasatch Blvd until it ended up North. As you can see from my hiking picture, it was a gorgeous day.

The only thing dragging me down and causing fatigue? All the fun I'm having! 2 weeks ago it was the U2 concert. The picture here is of their stage - it was amazing! You'd really have to see it in motion and in the dark, but just trust me on that. The concert was a blast and totally worth my dragging myself to survive the rest of the week.

This past Tuesday, I went to Les Miserables at Capitol Theater. I'd never seen the play in any form and really loved it - enough that I wound up starting the audiobook on the way to work the next day.

I think the only other thing to report is that yesterday I sent in my forms for my concealed weapons permit. Awesome, right? I took the 5-hour class on Friday night after work, which was offered for free from a coworker. Since he and his wife took care of everything, all I had to do was address an envelope and send it off. That was actually more difficult than it sounds. How safe would you feel mailing off your name, address, race, height, weight, hair color, eye color, social, credit card information, finger prints, a copy of your driver's license, signature, and a recent photo all in one envelope? Someone steals that, they steal you! Anyway, the application can take a couple months to process, but in the meantime, I'm choosing out my gun. I had my heart set on a Glock, probably a 9mm, but then the instructor pulled out a 1911. I fell in love with it. When I looked it up on Cabela's website, I decided on the Springfield brand, since Glock doesn't make a 1911 and that was my second choice anyway. When I saw all the pictures, I decided on this silver guy here. Isn't he pretty? 9mm Glock, .45 Springfield... same diff, right? ;)

I'm also posting a picture of a second gun I really liked. It's also a .45 Springfield 1911, but it's more of a WWII design. As you can tell from the fact I like the 1911 design, I love older-looking guns, so this one is still definitely a good possibility. Anyone want to choose? The silver one was exactly what I had in mind after the class, but this one has a charm in its rustic look, yeah? I believe it is also $50-60 cheaper, and let's face it, at this point I should definitely be saving money any way I can.

In conclusion, no one ever, ever tell me not to hike alone again. Why? 'cause I'm packin' HEAT!