New Mexico

On our road trip to Dallas a couple weeks ago, we took the longest route possible through New Mexico. Let's be honest... New Mexico has very little to do and see! I think the only things we didn't do were visit Native American ruins, and the White Sand Dunes. I'm sure I will get to see these on some other trip so I wasn't too heart broken about it. 

We booked a hotel in Santa Fe for two nights. While we were there, we saw Walter White's house (for you Breaking Bad fans), hiked around some petroglyphs, toured the Turquoise Trail, ate at Rebel Donuts, and swam at the hotel.

On our way out of New Mexico we stopped in Roswell and at Carlsbad Caverns. These were by far the best things in the state! 

Roswell was hilarious. There were alien signs on every. single. building. Little known fact about me: my best friend and I were voted "most likely to be abducted by aliens class of 2008," so I had to capitalize on the photo ops!

Then the Carlsbad Caverns were as cool as every travel blog says! Holy smokes those caves are huge! Glad we finally checked that off our travel list!

New Mexico was about giving Wyoming a run for it's money in the "worst state to drive through" competition, until we stopped in Carlsbad! Totally worth the detour!

Let's end this post with a sad, short story: I filmed our trip through New Mexico on my action cam. I always put my footage together on my parent's Mac because I can't afford my own. Well, the past couple weeks I have been trying to make a little movie on New Mexico but the Mac at my parents house hasn't been very compliant... so pictures are sufficient for now... sigh...

Olympic Park

A past student of mine came to town and invited me to go with her to the Olympic Park in Park City, UT. Who knew this was so cool?! I'm so glad she invited me! Her mom pushed O around in the stroller while we did the ropes courses and zip lines. I'm still amazed that this was my first time up there. I am going to start recommending this to everyone! Go! unless you are scared of heights...

^^one of the ziplines^^

^^the slide^^

^^one of the obstacles on the ropes course^^

P.S. does this post look a little conceded and all about pictures of myself?! Sorry! I'm legally not allowed to post any of the girl I went with, which is too bad, because I got some fantastic shots of her! You'll just have to go see for yourself what it's all about! 

8 Months!

• Splashing is one of his top 5 favorite things to do.
• He is constantly making noise. He says "mama" "dada" "baba" but I don't know if he knows what any of them mean.
• He loves showing off that he can clap his hands and click his tongue.
• He FINALLY has started moving when you set him down. I wouldn't say 'crawling', but at least he doesn't just roll to his back and stay there when you set him down. He uses one leg and one hand to scoot to the nearest toy.
• He weighs 20 lbs... He hasn't gained any weight the last couple of weeks!
• I love watching him discover things. He is so interested in anything you hand to him. His favorite things to learn about are jewelry, plastic cups, anything with buttons like a garage door opener or a cell phone, and other babies. 
• He has more stranger danger than he ever has before but is still generally pretty friendly.
• He still cracks up when you play peek-a-boo or pretend to eat him.
• I just love him so much my heart could burst.

Reebok Spartan First-timer!

So long! posting things in a timely matter! Or even in chronological order!

A couple weekends ago, I ran the Reebok Super Spartan Race in Soldier Hollow. I signed up because it sounded like a good idea. As the date got closer, I was dreading it more and more. I kept hearing how hard those races are! I only had time to train a couple times a week. Even the day of, as our time approached, I was feeling so anxious!

Well friends, I ended up loving it! LOVING IT! It was an 8.5 mile obstacle race. Hiking through the mountains of Midway, 26 obstacles, and running. They have obstacles like rope climbs, wall climbs, cinder block pulls, mud pits, barbed wire, bucket carries, tire flipping, cinder block pulling, spear throwing- you name it! If you can't do an obstacle (and you only get one chance!) you have to do 30 burpees before moving on. I had to do 60. Messing up on 2/26 obstacles isn't bad, right. One of those was the spear throw. Sorry Reebok, I've never thrown a spear before! Give me another chance!

 ^^This was the only obstacle besides the spear throw where I had to do burpees. Stupid gloves! I desperately want to try this one again!^^

^^uneven monkey bars^^

^^crawling under barbed wire. I saw the camera man and panicked and threw up a peace sign like a freaking ____^^^

If you are ever thinking of running a Spartan, I have some advice for you! I don't know if it makes me more or less credible that I just did my first one. Probably less, but maybe it makes me more convincing if you feel like an amateur too! 

• Say a prayer. I said a prayer before the race that I would be able to feel the spirit and find opportunities to share the love of Christ. This totally gave me the right attitude! When it got really hard to hike, I saw flowers popping up in the mountains, and they felt like a motivational gift from my higher power. I also had my eyes opened to strangers who needed help with obstacles. I helped a lot of people over a wall while waiting for my teammates; I gave a guy who was cramping my Powerade for the sodium; and a guy's feet fell off the monkey rope but I ran to catch his legs before they hit the ground, and helped him get his feet back on the rope. This prevented him from doing burpees. I'm not telling you this to toot my own horn. I'm telling you this to convince you to say a prayer.
• Hike! I was nervous because I was only up to about 8 miles of running on flat ground, and I had heard that the Salt Lake Spartan contained a lot of hills. I didn't know that my love of hiking was preparing me for this race! There are parts of the race where you basically hike straight up and straight down. Nobody runs this part, and it totals probably 3 miles. All my hikes definitely gave me an advantage here!
• Climb! I have this completely useless talent that I can climb anything. And I love climbing everything! Climb trees, monkey bars, fences- whatever you can find! This will prevent you from having to ask for help on a lot of obstacles. It will save you from a lot of burpees too!
• I wore Nike hot shorts, a breathable tank (NOT cotton), and a water bottle belt. I believe I had a very accommodating wardrobe. I'm glad I wore the belt because they only have 4 water stations. I took my belt off for the mud pits then just picked it back up when I was done. I also brought gloves, but I think they hurt more than they helped; hence, my first set of burpees. 
• Take a gas relief pill before the race. This helps get rid of the pre-game poops. Or the running craps feeling. TMI???
• Clif gel energy blocks. You're going to need at least one whole bar. Take as directed. I credit me finishing to these gels!
• Something salty. I've heard that salt helps muscle cramps. Remember how I said I brought a water bottle belt? Well I filled up the water bottle with Powerade and salt, then just refilled it with water at a water station.
• Bring fans! The course weaves in and out of the starting area, so spectators can watch you do all the obstacles, and take pictures and cheer you on. The only person there for us was a guy on my team's mom, but I was glad she was there for moral support! She was so nice to help us all out even though we had just met her!
• Work smarter, not harder. Use your team mates to help. Ask strangers for help. There's no point in working harder than you have to.
• Do your research. The experts have great things to say! Just Google Spartan advice and you'll learn all the tricks of the trade!

Let me know if you want a team for next year. Like I said, I seriously LOVED it! I would do another one in a heartbeat!

Independence Day 2015

Gavin's busy doing an internship thing this summer, but he got four days off for the fourth! Woot woot! We celebrated having him home by attempting to hike the Brighton lakes, and spending time with family. 

I say "attempting" because we didn't actually make it. Halfway into the hike, Gavin bit into a starburst, so we had to turn around and head to a dentist because the stinkin starburst pulled off a crown from one of Gav's back teeth! LUCKILY he has a family friend who is a dentist and he was able to do a quick fix on his day off. Thank you thank you!! 
I will post info on this hike once we actually do it! Gorgeous nonetheless! Plus... if Gavin hadn't eaten that starburst the wrong way, we never would have seen that beautiful moose! 


We dropped by my parents house to say hi and hang out, then went to his parent's house for a family party with lots of funny little kids! 

We wore O out! He was more interested in glow sticks than anything else. He fell asleep during the city's fireworks! He hasn't fallen asleep in my arms in months, yet alone when explosions are going off! I'm glad he was happy though and let us enjoy the show! Thank you to everyone who helped make it a fun holiday!

Four Corners

Day two of our road trip consisted of a whole lot of driving through the middle of nowhere. New Mexico, apparently, is almost as bad as Wyoming.
We stopped at the four corners, which is what I expected- boring and worth seeing. The monument was  run by Native Americans trying to sell their jewelry and decorations. I thought I'd see that everywhere in New Mexico, so I didn't give much thought into buying anything there. Looking back, I wish I would have! They had some really cool, authentic stuff! 

Little O in four places at once!

That other family photo bombing us <<<

And a postpartum back-bend. Yikes!

Then, we were back on the road! I wanted to see Chaco Culture- a National Park of Native American Ruins. So, we drove way out of the way in order to spend time here. We turned when we saw the signs and discovered that in order to reach Chaco Culture, one must drive about 12 miles (45 minutes) on a dirt road. It was this point in time that I discovered my fear of being alone. 
A couple miles onto the road, we were out of service, in the middle of nowhere, with LITERALLY no one and nothing around. Completely alone, and I was terrified! I chickened out and told Gavin to turn the car around, It was hot outside, we had a baby in the car, and we were driving a Mazda that had just reached 200,000 miles. If something were to have happened to us, we would have been screwed. I've never been so scared in my life. If anyone every wants to go back here in a car that is more than 5 inches off the ground and has less than a six digits on the odometer, let me know. I'd still love to visit this place.

Not going to lie, there were some sketchy parts of New Mexico. And the only other things I could find to do were hikes to hot springs. That did not sound appealing with the weather conditions! In all, day two consisted of a long long time on the road. (A.K.A. lots of Signing Time and Baby Einstein on the portable DVD player). We finally made it to Santa Fe and booked ourselves into a hotel where we spent the next couple of days.