Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Brenden, Park City and a Banjo

My missionary boy takes off for Canada in five minutes.  Kinda strange that I wrote my LAST easy "dearelder" letter to Brenden yesterday (they can be written and delivered on the same day) and the last $2 package that I could send was delivered on Saturday. Now I'm going to be spending time at the post office, and Brenden will actually get letters with stamps on them, instead of printed off of the internet. Which means he will get more lovely pictures from Aspen as well...lucky him.  I heard from him this morning, but it was frustrating because his calls kept dropping.

It has been a crazy week. We did go to Park City with Mary, and even Wade was able to come. We stayed at the Marriott, swam, and went shopping at the outlets. The highlight of the trip was the alpine slide and the lift ride to the top of Deer Valley combined with the hike down the side of the mountain to the bottom. For the mountain adventure, I didn't exactly plan great, and wore my Nike flip flops for the trip, and decided to make the hike down anyway. My feet were horribly filthy by the top we reached the bottom of the 2.5 mile trail, but other than that, my feet felt pretty good. The alpine slide was fun too. Wade and Aspen rode on one cart and raced me down the mountain. Aspen hates to lose, and every time I was a little bit ahead of them, she was start yelling at Wade to speed up. I think she gets her competitive nature from Hayden :) 
Hayden & Aspen
Walking Sticks... an essential
My hiking attire :)
Wade and Mary at the bottom of the switchbacks
Only two weeks left until school starts and I'm trying to ignore it's impending approach every day. I always get emotionally a mess (I know, shocker...) this time of year because of all the stuff that I end up still wanting to do before the summer ends. This year is no exception. Wade and I still need to get to the top of Mount Timpanogas, and I have lots of sewing still to do. Wade is at cross country camp today through Wednesday, so he will be back on Friday...that gives us two weeks to try to get to the top. Oh yeah, and try to get to Lagoon too sometime with my tickets I won. 



Wade went and worked with Hayden this past week, so he earned enough money to finish saving for his.... BANJO! It's been kinda cute watching him try to figure it out. He had to take it home yesterday to show it off.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Cheyenne Frontier Days... long TREK!

Just back from the gym, tending to Wade, Aspen and Hayden's Aunt Mary. We are headed to Park City today for a few days. Mary bought us a room up there for two nights, and we have plans to swim, ride the alpine slide, and perhaps ride the lifts and do some hiking. Morgan isn't with us, she is at her dads... long story. The short version is, she needs to rest and relax and be (somewhat) waited on. When I heard her dad was driving through town to bring Wade here after their trip to Lund, I sent Morgan with him. She needs some time to work out some of the wrinkles with him anyway.
She spun the wheel and won $25.  She bought a backpack for kindergarten
Aspen loved Frontier Days!

My view around town on my 5 miler
denver LOVES
Cheyenne
Cheyenne and Denver were SO SO SO much FUN! There was only one downside... the DRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEE!!!! We drove to Cheyenne on a Friday morning, and arrived in Cheyenne around 4pm. On the way home, however, we left Denver at 1:30 Sunday afternoon, and pulled into Lehi at midnight. Won't do that again. We stayed in a cool hotel that was similar to the style from the Titanic age, the Brown Palace Hotel. I ran a good five mile exploration route through town. This was my favorite part of the trip, actually. Cheyenne was good. Zac was amazing (as always)... however, the Marshall Tucker Band was the warm up band instead of Sonia Leigh. IT was NOT good! They were bad and I was really looking forward to Sonia. Zac has a new album out. It is (as always) great. We are glad to be home... at least until we leave this afternoon for Park City :)

Brenden got his shipping orders, and flies out to Canada next Tuesday, so his days for local care packages are numbered.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

AF Canyon Half


I ended up in Provo on Brenden's P-Day with a few extra minutes to spare, so of course I had to drive by JUST IN CASE!!!  He hadn't emailed yet, so I thought maybe he could be outside playing soccer or ultimate frisbee.  No luck.  Three weeks left to try and spot him before he is off to Canada.

This week hasn't been too crazy... other than the fact that Morgan is moving home today.  Um... yeah.  And she is NOT happy about having to contribute to the household (financially or with some minor house help).  It's going to be a rough year or so.  I am not sure who is going to come out the worse for wear, me or Morgan.

starting line scenery. 
The story of my half marathon... Originally Arica (from my school) was supposed to run with me, but she ended up injured from running Ogden Marathon.  Jocelyn has been injured as well but working up to some good miles.  Two days before the American Fork Half Jocelyn bought someone's bib, and ran with me.  It was one of my favorite races BY FAR!  It was for a good cause (cancer) and 100% of race entry fees went to cancer help.  The course was AMAZING, downhill, fast, and beautiful.  That is, until mile 8, where the course came out of the canyon and past a few neighborhoods.  As I was looking at the houses and yards as we passed, I caught an edge and went down.  Being the volleyball player that I was, I went with the chest slide... which works great in a gym, but not so great on blacktop.  I don't have much padding to catch myself either, so the impact was about 90% on my chest and 10% on my right elbow and right wrist, from catching myself.  I got up and finished the race without too much problem, but the next day I was hurting.  I had x-rays done to see if there was a fracture, but there was not.  For a good week it hurt to breathe or lift anything with my right hand/arm... which is really nice considering I am right handed :)  The bummer part about the whole thing, too, is that I totally could have PR'd, but between my fall and having to cater a bit to Jocelyn's sore foot, I was a few minutes shy.  Oh well... it was a cool medal :)  Besides... for my birthday I got a race entry and will be running Big Cottonwood in September.  PR for sure!
road rash baby!


the short and the tall of it

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Mission Letters, Music and Torrey


YAY YAY YAY!
(and did I mention YAY?)
Tuesday is always the day I wait with anticipation for missionary email, and if I get really lucky, I get a short little email of my own... and then the MOTHER LODE comes the next day, the ACTUAL... "I get to hold it" letter!!! So Tuesday came and went, Wednesday I was gone, but by the time I got back on Thursday I just KNEW my letter would be waiting. 
No luck. Thursday afternoon mail... no letter. But today... YAY! YAY! YAY! 

I picked up Wade last night at the train... this time with no "suspicious characters" hunting him down after arriving.  Last time he had to make a connection and got approached by some of the local scaries... offering him "candy". He is currently asleep on the couch. 

City & Colour
Between last night and today, he is kinda worn out. We went to Avett Brothers last night, and... what can I say?.. I'm a fan. City & Colour opened for them, and they were a band I could totally see Brenden sitting in behind playing the drums for. Very much "Brenden style". 
Avett Brothers
After only 6 hours of sleep (and amazingly, for Wade, going to bed before midnight) we made it to 7 Peaks today, too. Because there are so many fires burning right now, the sky was horribly smoky.  There is a fire in Neola, Duchesne (close to a possible explosive situation), Delta, Fairview (2 fires), and one along I-15 south of Spanish Fork. Another was just announced about a half an hour ago with major evacuations from Herriman. The Colorado fire ended up wiping out neighborhoods and over 300 homes, so far, and is still burning. It's crazy. It is especially crazy when you consider that some are started by stupid people out shooting off fireworks, or target practicing in the horribly flammable conditions. Just dumb decisions. Hayden jokes about maybe pushing our house to the fire line and letting it "get devoured". It would be probably worth more burned than standing :)

The "cabin" with the swing

On Tuesday, Hayden was home and his worker guys were working on a floor, and we decided to take a drive. We headed south thinking we would stop in and say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Fraser, but about Provo, Hayden called Grandma and she had plans... so we just kept driving south. We stopped in Richfield and bought a couple changes of clothes, some bathroom supplies and a pair of shoes each, and just kept right on driving until we got to Torrey. We both love Capital Reef, and we both love the Lodge at Red River down there, so we checked in and decided to stay a couple days. We ate at Cafe Diablo... twice, drove to Boulder after a hike to explore and eat, and sat in the hot tub a couple times. Aspen found a dog at Cafe Diablo to play soccer with the first night, which she named Serena (seriously... everything gets names with crazy strange names... and they change all the time!). There was also a cat at the lodge, which received the name Pixie... or Sabela... depending on the day (and the minute).

This is Heaven... I'm sure of it

Morning Shadows

Writing Utensil = Happiness
We only did one hike while we were down there, but it was a big one. Hayden thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal to just do a two miler (to OVERLOOK POINT) a mile above Hickman Bridge... the same hike you and Wade did last October. Yeah... well, Aspen lasted about 1/2 mile, then she was whining, and begging for rests. Hayden and I took turns packing her on our shoulders, which is NO small incline. By the time I was done with one portion of my turn, I was sweating like crazy... and it was only 9am. We only had to hear "How much longer" 23,512,502 times... luckily. 

One of the 12,386 breaks she had to take
But the end result...
It was beautiful. 
It was worth it. 
It was TIRING! 
Barely Survived the Aspen Workout
We managed the full 4.6 miles in just over 3 hours... far from the lightning speed you guys did it in, but we survived. Even Aspen, who had a ride 80% of the time, and she thought SHE was going to die, but Hayden and I... survived. On the way down the stairs at the end she was riding on Hayden, and I kept calling her SELFISH. She finally asked what it meant and I said "It means you are being mean and making dad carry you the entire way... he is tired and needs a rest." This was met with silence for awhile, then she said, "No, he's great. He's doing just fine".

On this Blog: