Girls Weekend!

My cousins, Alicia and Crystal, have an apartment up in Ogden, so I went up there for the weekend and we had great time hanging out and having fun!

Crystal and Alicia giggling as we're playing cards - we were ALL laughing sooo hard! We played '1st to 13', Pictionary, Cranium, Rummikub and laughed the whole time. Crystal made us a gourmet dinner and then we watched The Scarlet Pimpernel after enjoying milk and oreos, and chocolate. Crystal had to work on Saturday, so we all slept in till about 10 (it was wonderful!) and then Alicia and I played Xbox and lounged around, listening to the BYU game till Crystal got off work. Then we decided to take a hike up behind Weber campus.

View of Ogden from the trail

Along the trail that we took, they had signs for different exercises you could stop and do. So, me, being goofy, thought it would be funny to stop and get pictures of us doing the exercises. Towards the end of the trail, we looked at the sign and realized the copyright was like 1975.....too funny!

Here's a picture of me showing the "sit and reach" exercise

Me and Crystal demonstrating the "hop-kick" exercise

Alicia demonstrating the "hand-walk".....this one was waaay hard, and the railings were coming loose, so not the safest!

After our strenuous work-out we went to Beus Park and had a picnic dinner. There are ducks and geese (I think that's what they were) that love to have you feed them, so we fed them bread and then Sunchips once we were out of bread. Most of them didn't seem to like the Sunchips, but they went crazy for the bread.
Beus Park behind Weber campus

Ducks and other large creatures - as soon as we threw one piece of bread, they all started swarming us!!

This guy was kind of ugly - and they were very loud when they started squawking!

Me, Crystal, and Alicia

Sunset as we were driving home from the park

It was a really fun weekend and now that I know where they live, we'll have to make it a regular weekend thing as often as we can. Thanks for a great weekend girls!!

Wasatch Woman 5K

The Wasatch Woman 5K came a lot quicker than I thought it would. The race took place at Sugarhouse Park. The 5K (3.1 miles) went 2 times around the park....4 hills total. This was only the second time I've done a 5K and the first one with hills included, so my time was up a bit, but I am still really proud that I did it, and I wasn't the last one. :) It seemed more 'official' to me than my last one because we had bib numbers, got a t-shirt, and we were timed with timing chips from Stride Racing. My time ended up being 45:32, which equates out to 14:38 minute miles. 2 of my friends from work, Stacy and Angela were there with me. Neither of them are workout guru's but Stacy wanted to be there to support me and Angela likes to run and doesn't get to do it very often with her son, so she signed up as well. Even though it was tough, it was fun and a great achievement for me!

Here's my t-shirt and bib #

Stacy and me before the race

Stacy, Me and Angela before the race. I feel I should explain the cell phone looking bump....I didn't have any pockets and I needed my cell phone to find the other 2 before the race, and I've seen people keep their cells phones there, so I thought I'd try it....and it worked. :)

Stacy, me and Angela after the race....this was about 2 minutes after I crossed the finish line, which would explain why I'm beet red!! That tends to happen to me when I work out 'vigorously' :)

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Alicia and Crystal (my cousins for those of you who don't know) took me to the Scarlet Pimpernel at the Hale Centre Theatre for my birthday!! It was awesome!!! I had forgotten how much I love live theater because it's been quite a while since I last saw a production. I had never been to the Hale Theatre, and it was really cool! We were in the second row and the production was very well put together, props and costumes, both. I didn't know the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but now I definitely need to read the book as well as get the soundtrack, because the music was fantastic, too! I'm actually thinking about purchasing season tickets for 2010 as a Christmas present for myself :) (I know, I know, Christmas is a long ways away) If you're around the area, I would definitely recommend seeing a production at Hale Theatre.
Thanks Alicia and Crystal!!

Girls Day

For my birthday my friend Stacy took me out for a spa day. She treated me to a European facial and pedicure at Cameo. It was wonderful and relaxing. It was fun to spend the day with her!! I have been wanting to get my hair cut for quite a while, so I got it cut last Saturday while we were out and about. Then I picked out some color and Stacy dyed it for me. I love it!! I would post pics from our spa day, but I forgot my camera. :( So instead, here's a few pictures of my new cut.

I was modeling Stacy's shades and don't worry, this shirt wasn't what I wore out in public, I had an 'appropriate' shirt over it. :) I was just wearing it until I was all the way ready.

Happy Birthday to me!

Saturday was my birthday so I had the enjoyment of camping and white water rafting for my birthday. We got home from our trip Saturday afternoon. I had plans to go to Harry Potter with a friend, but then at the last minute, I changed my mind and went up to my sister's to hang out with them and somebody that Shawn works with. I hadn't seen them in a while, so it was good to catch up and get hugs and birthday wishes from my nephews and niece! Adria gives the best hugs!!

I got a home a little earlier than my roommate Shelley had planned on Saturday and it seemed they were trying to do something for my birthday as her youngest son, Parker said "Liz, come here, we have a surprise" and Shelley's in the kitchen trying to keep them both quiet :) So I let her know I was leaving for a while and I'd be back later after I was done at my sisters. I got home Saturday at about midnight and walk downstairs to find this.....

I got a gift card to Cafe Rio (my all time favorite Mexican restaurant) and Starbursts from Carson and Parker. They were so excited when they came home from church today to see me and the decorations, cause they got to help put the balloons up. So when I got home from church we tore down the balloons and then they were playing with those and then Glenn (Shelley's boyfriend) blew up some balloons so the boys could let them loose so they'd fly around and they were having a hey-day with those. Too cute!

On Wednesday night, my friend Stacy tricked me into thinking I was going to be looking at an apartment, but in all reality, some of my friends from work were there and surprised me. We grilled, had some good laughs, took a walk over to Memory Grove downtown and then came back for cake and ice cream. I would have pictures, but since I thought I was just checking out an apartment, I didn't take my camera. :)

All in all I had a great birthday this year, lots of fun!

Riding the Rapids

My singles ward had a super activity this past weekend and we went white water rafting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was a blast!!! We left on Thursday and got back Saturday, so it was kind of short, but we all had a fantastic time! Thursday it rained a bit and it was fairly cool on Friday, so our rafting trip was a bit chilly with the wind, but it was still awesome! We camped, cooked over the fire, and had a good time getting to know people and enjoying nature. We played games, sang songs, and a few friends and I took a trip through the field of sagebrush and 'hunted' buffalo. We actually just walked to see how close we could get to them......boys are silly is all I have to say on that topic :) I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here's a few of what I did get.

View of the Snake River as we headed into town...you can see one of the yellow rafts floating down

Morning scenery on Friday as we headed into town to go rafting

Large buffalo that we were trying to get close enough to see.....this was with a lot of zoom on my camera :) He was snorting a lot and sounded angry, so we (the girls) opted to stay away....though the boys got the closest.

Buffalo and the Grand Teton Mountains

Some of our tents and campsite - we had about 95 people that were in our group

The trailer everything was hauled in and our food prep/dining area

Fire that kept us somewhat warm in the frigid cold

Some of the girls did a fun dance and pulled the guys up to dance too

I thought this was a cool arch made out of antlers in downtown Jackson Hole

Now on to the really exciting part.....white water rafting! This was my first experience. I grew up canoeing on the Turkey River, but that's a little bit different than this. We went with a company called Mad River Boat Trips. They provided us with the rafts, gear, as well as guides on each raft.

We went in 2 different groups and my group was the 9 AM group. It was quite cold! A lot of people rented wetsuits, but I braved it and went without. They did offer us 'splash jacket's when we got down by the river and I wore one of those and am VERY glad I did. The temp on Friday morning was about 60 and the water temp was like 52 or something.....add wind into the equation and it's a bit chilly. We had 3 rafts that we took down, about 15-16 people in each. There were some funny guys on my raft, so they kept us entertained. Our guide, Kate, said the water was fairly low, but that if you were to come around the May timeframe, the rapids would be much much bigger. I think also if you go in a smaller raft, the rapids seem a bit more dangerous as well. We were on the river for about 3 hours, covering an 8 mile course. I've put a link, so click here for pictures of us going through the first rapids, "Big Kahuna." I'm towards the front of the boat on the left hand side, second in. You can see me pretty good in the first picture. It was really really fun and I'm definitely up for going again!

YSA Summit 2009

My friend Stacy and I went to a young single adult summit this weekend and we had a blast!! Friday night we had dinner and then Jason Hewlett performed for us. He did singing and dancing impressions of different bands and singers. He was hilarious!! It was getting dark so most of the pictures and videos of him didn't turn out, but hopefully you can see a few and get the gist of how funny it was. We had quite the enjoyable time!

Me and Stacy

Impersonation of.......I can't remember

Jason playing the harmonica as well as the piano - amazing!

Hilarious video of him being Michael Jackson - check out that moon walk!

On Saturday morning there was a 5K walk/run and then slip and slide and volleyball after. For the afternoon there was a carnival and then dinner and a speaker and another concert. We ran/walked the 5K (I'm practicing for my other 5K I'm running in 3 weeks) and we had a super good time! Stacy isn't a big fan of exercising, so she was sporting a brand new pair of shorts bought specifically for this event :) I finished with a time of 44:37, so not horrible, but I definitely have room for improvement.

Me and Stacy before our run with our 10 cans of non-perishable food
(that was needed for entry to the race)

Us after the race....it was very warm and we were tired

After the race and between the carnival we were being silly girls and giggling and having a good time. We also gave ourselves an easy 'facial' with a mask you basically lay on your face for 5 minutes. Don't be alarmed by the below picture as we were being goofy during our 'facial' :) We were laughing at ourselves for like 15 minutes - hence the cheesy grins!

Sunday night there is a fireside with Alex Boye, which should be awesome as well. I've never heard him perform but I've heard he's really good. All in all, we had a great weekend and it was good to spend some time with other singles and enjoy each other's company. Thanks for a great weekend Stacy!

4th of July

For the 4th of July weekend I was out in Grantsville with the Miner clan. We had plans to go camping, but we were worried about the rain again, so we ended up just hanging out and having a good time. I took off work on Friday so I had a 3-day weekend which was nice!

Thursday night we decided to play some badminton, but to make it more fun, we wore crazy hats and goofed around.

Then on Friday, we got up and drove out to the Salt Lake and played around in there a bit and then climbed what's known as 'Black Rock.' I'm a little scared of heights, so I wasn't going to climb it, but then I did and it wasn't too bad.

Here's the view of Black Rock and the lake from the road.

Alicia and I at the top - we conquered the rock!

Me posing pretty with the Salt Lake in the back.

Me and the lake again :)

We waded out in the water a ways, but the sand and mud was really gross getting out there and Crystal didn't want to walk in it, so I gave her a piggy-back ride....but we almost got sucked down by some 'quiksand.' But we made it safely to the less gross part of the lake.

Me, Alicia, and Crystal standing in the lake, getting attacked by brine shrimp - they don't really attack you, but there were sure tons of them swimming around in the water.

The below video is what you would see if you were down by the water. These little bugs hover around, but when you walk up to them, they go away. They don't bite or anything, they're just really gross. You can see the 'wave' of them move as Alicia scares them.

Then on Saturday Alicia and I took the horses out for a walk, then we all played some volleyball, card games, and the Wii. Then for fireworks, Crystal and I drove over to Grantsville to see the ones there, but they weren't too impressive, so we headed back home and just as we got there, the fireworks at the Deseret Peak Complex had started. So we sat on the front lawn and had a great view. All in all it was a great weekend! I had lots of fun and was around good company!

I'm running a 5K!

The Wasatch Woman Love your Body 5K is at Sugar House Park in August. A few of my friends from work are running it with me. I'm really excited as I've always wanted to run a 5K, and eventually a marathon on down the road. This is a small step to getting to where I want to be. These are the beautiful shoes I just bought especially for the run that will take me across the finish line! I'm so excited to be achieving a goal I've had for a long time.

Rain, rain go away

Alicia, Crystal and I went camping again this weekend and it was quite an eventful trip. Crystal and I headed up first to set up camp and then Alicia was meeting us after she got off work. We went up one of the canyons by Grantsville again. The sky was a little overcast, but we were hoping for no rain....well, our wish didn't come true. We had barely gotten the ten set up with the rain fly over it when the downpour started. We had tried to light some briquettes, but they got rained on, so we tried to get them under a rock and keep them dry....but that didn't work.

We started to hike this trail, but it got the best of us after a short while

After our 'hike' we tried to find a way to cross the little creek and ended up going across on some logs, so here we are, 3 bumps on a log over the creek.

Our cozy camp after the rain stopped.

Alicia got us a fire going and we ended up having pizza for dinner, smore's for dessert, and a breakfast casserole on Saturday morning.
The only odd thing with this trip was the cows. We probably saw about 15 or so during the whole trip and they didn't make the normal 'moo-ing' noises, I don't even know how to describe the sound they were making. We actually got woken up in the middle of the night by them, because they sounded really close and it was kind of freaky. There was also this huge white albino cow with reddish-pinkish eyes that was really scary too. Luckily they didn't chase after us, but they were still a little scary to share the campground with. :)
All in all we had a great time and can't wait till our next camp-out!