Summer Lovin'...

Movie in the Park with my main man :-)

All My Vacation Days...

I often ask myself why I rushed through high school to rush through college to rush into my career where I now have to work for time off. Why didn't I ever just take a summer off to be a normal kid that sits around looking for cures for boredom? But I was always just so busy. Now I use my one week of vacation and my five days of paid time off all within a few weeks of each other all for summer vacations. But what can I say... I love me some summer time!

So we showed up a day early... no big deal. Because the trip was planned by men we just waiting until all workers went to bed (2 am!) and then sleep on the benches of random tour boats until the sun woke us up around 6 am....

I mean, I'm not complaining. Invite me to Lake Powell anytime and I'll sleep on a rock but I'll look like this...

I'll tell you what though. It was all worth it when we arrived in this breathtaking location!

Lake Powell trips are a lot more adventurous when you have a few inspired men a ski rope, a pulley, and a few spare ropes... Say hello to the makings of a zipline! And... a few injuries.

Lake Powell. What an incredible place. One of my favorites - but so is this little gem... :-)

Oh Cali...

California. Jake and I love it. How much do we love it? Well... we have been together 3 times in the 2.5 years that we've been dating. And we're probably going to keep that up. I mean honestly - does it get any better than seventies, sunny, surfing, swimming, smiles, and sleeping? Sorry, the alliteration just got a little out of hand there... but for good reason.

 Our most recent sunny adventure was with Jake's family for his mom's 50th. Happy Birthday, Linda!

Our adventures included runs along the boardwalk...

 Bike rides...

Surfing and fly boarding (look that one up online if you've never seen it before - so cool on so many levels)...

...and of course a nostalgic photo in the same restaurant we went to the first time we went to California together. I couldn't help myself

Cafe Crawl #4...

Another good and fancy one :-)

A Trip for a Cookie...

Sometimes you just want a hot cookie. And sometimes you get a coupon in the mail for a free one. So what do you do? You take a 2 hour trip to get yourself that cookie dang it!

Ragnar Zions 2014...

Let's talk about Ragnar Zions. 127 miles, 8 runners, in the beautiful Zions National Park. Camping, running, camping, running, etc. I went down with a group from my office and had some quality coworker bonding.

What started like this...

Turned into this...

It rained for 4 straight hours. I kid you not. Utah does not rain like that. But this time it did. And 4 hours of rain brought mud. Sooo much mud. Oh. And after the rain and mud? Snow. Yes. Snow. About a half mile into my 8.2 mile run it started. And how long did it snow for? No short of 2.5 hours. 

Running literally turned into taking a few steps and waiting as I slid around on the mud. Trees became hand holds to pull myself up the hills. I lost count after 20ish total wipe outs. I'm not talking slips in the mud, I'm talking cartoon like banana peel wipe outs.

I wish I could explain better the yards of mud up to my knees, the hills I practically had to crawl up because the mud was so slippery I couldn't even stand, the horizontal wind on the crest of the hill that made it impossible to see the next hill, and the beautiful silence running in the snow, in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of the night. It was surreal - and freakin' crazy!

So after all of that, what did I do last week? I registered for Ragnar Zions 2015...

Best Mother's Day...

Mother's Day at its best... for your viewing pleasure...

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