Isn't She the Cutest?

Chelsea's friend Cherie is trying out photography and took a few pictures of Karlee. I love this picture and can't wait to see the rest. It's official. Karlee is the cutest!

Ragnar Relay...Vegas

I never posted about the Ragnar Relay-Vegas. Robyn loved Wasatch Back so much she wanted to put together a team for Vegas. I told her if she would be the team captain, I would run the race. With all the jet blueing, I sort of regretted telling her I would run. The race ended up being great. I ran as much as I could while traveling, but my training was less than impressive. Somehow I ran better than ever and had so much fun. I ran the race with mostly old friends and a few new friends. Even though it was my 3rd Ragnar race, it was a whole new experience. I loved it so much I already committed to a team for Wasatch Back next year.

Team Leap Frog

van 1 at the start and finish

Joe had a beautiful run in Valley of Fire/whole team at the finish

start line-I loved being runner 1/Maylene and Brian exchange

running with Robyn and co. was so much fun/in the "van"-Hyundai Santa Fe

Snow Canyon Half

I ran my first 1/2 marathon last Saturday. I've never been one to do things the traditional way so it's not all that odd that I ran a full marathon before a half. The marathon was over a year ago so it's hard to compare, but this race was great. The weather was amazing, and the course was beautiful. The course ran through Snow Canyon and into Entrada. It really was such a beautiful run. It was fun to run with and spend the weekend with some of the Generation Gap girls. I'm already looking forward to the next one in January.

Mary came to the finish line. So fun to see her.

back at the house after the race

post race lunch. i always eat way too much after a race.

Happy Halloween

Halloween at Work

The week of Halloween we always have the kids dress up for trick or treating during their playgroups. Ever since I have been there, no teachers have really dressed up. Last year several of us decided that we would dress up this year. A year later I didn't know if we would really do it, but here we are. I'm pretty sure we enjoyed our costumes much more than the kids.

How Many Girls Does It Take...

...to build a fire? Some friends decided to have a girls campout in the backyard last weekend. I skipped the camping part, but the tin foil dinners, s'mores, and fire were great. Getting the fire going was pretty funny. I said from the start that I had no idea how to build a fire, but everyone else tried everything from hairspray to tiki torch fluid to try to get the fire going. We finally resorted to a duralog and had a great fire the rest of the night. I vetoed the tent when my bed was 2 blocks away, but the other non camping parts of the campout were great. Having the kitchen sink and bathroom so close to the campout sure was nice.

Thank You Jet Blue

Thanks to the Jet Blue all you can jet pass, I've spent the past month basically living out of a suitcase and traveling the world.

total cost...$599(plus $85 tax for the Costa Rica flights)

days spent flying....13

number of flights....20

hours in the air....57

hours in the airport....26

places traveled.....Seattle(thanks to Southwest and my job but it was in the month), NYC, Long Beach(airport only-several times), Chicago, Vegas, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Boston, Vegas again

mucho fun

totally worth it

Joining the Craze

Cupcakes and bundt cakes seem to be all the rage these days. I'm not one that likes to be left out so I got together with some friends and...

made some baby bundt cakes and one big bundt

isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Puerto Rico...Costa Rica...Boston

When we first heard about the Jet Blue All You Can Jet Pass, we didn't really consider it until... we found out they fly to Costa Rica. I have been wanting to go to Costa Rica for years. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. Jet Blue has some crazy flight schedules so staying in Costa Rica the whole time wasn't an option. Instead we went to Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Boston and all our other little trips for the price of one. We tried to make plans before the trip, but it just got too hard. We decided to book our first night in Puerto Rico and wing it the rest of the time. It worked out really well. The trip was amazing! We had so much fun.

Day #1 in Puerto Rico-After a long night and day of travel we finally got to Puerto Rico. We got the rental car and headed towards our hotel. We had a little trouble finding it when the iphone almost sent us off a cliff. We finally found the Gran Melia. It was a great place. We spent the first day hanging out at the pool. The beach/ocean ended up being kind of gross right there. We wanted to find somewhat of an authentic place for dinner, but all we could find was fast food and Chilis so we ended up at Chilis.

Day #2 in Puerto Rico-We took a ferry to Culebra island. The island is amazing. The beach is postcard perfect. The sand is white and the water is clear. Since it's the rainy season, there weren't many people on the beach. It was a nice relaxing day on the beach. We took the last ferry back to Fajardo and raced to the biobay tour. We barely made it. When we finally got back to the hotel that night we were all exhausted from our day of fun and not too excited for the next day of travel.

on the ferry to Culebra

in the ocean

traditional jumping picture on the beach. finally gave up and took a standing shot

bioilluminescent bay with glowing algae. we kayaked through a mangrove to get to this amazing bay. we had a full moon so we had to see the glowing water under a tarp.

Day #1 in Costa Rica-We had a 6:00am flight out of Puerto Rico. With the advantage of the time change we arrived in Costa Rica around noon. We got our rental car and drove to Arenal. On the way we stopped at a soda (cafe) for an authentic lunch. We heard about Tabacon from a friend and decided to stay there. It was a nice resort and included the hot springs.

Tabacon-after checking in we were greeted with drinks and cool towels. we rested then hit the hot springs. we played in the water, relaxed, and took the traditional jumping picture.
outside our hotel balcony. arenal volcano-one of world's most active volcanoes
Day #2-We drove to Monteverde to the rainforest/cloud forest. The drive was one of the greenest places I have ever seen. It was so pretty. Once we got there we raced to find a place to stay for the night and sign up for our afternoon adventures. Carrie was really nice and stayed behind with me while the others did a zipline. We decided we needed to do something so we did the suspension bridges tour-basically a guided tour of all the plants and animals in the rainforest. We saw a grey fox, black squirrel, sloth, tarantula, and probably some other bugs but sadly no monkeys.

suspension bridge tour
our hostile. it slept all 5 of us plus the buffet breakfast for $35 per person.
Our last day we drove to Jaco, the beach town. It was the most touristy of all the places we went, but it was still different than I expected. It's the rainy season so there weren't many people. The ocean had good waves, but the beach was pretty rocky.

everyone else rented surf boards and did pretty well in the waves

Jaco-beach/surf town

some pictures from all the driving we did

thanks to the GPS narrator we stopped at this bridge to see tons of crocodiles
The last stop on our trip was a day in Boston. With Jet Blue's flight schedule we couldn't get from Orlando to Salt Lake so we stopped off in Boston on our way home. We were there long enough to walk the freedom trail and meet up with a friend for lunch.
Bunker Hill-we walked up all 294 steps and wanted to die. my legs hurt for 3 days.

walking the freedom trail

lunch with BYU library friend, Tara

Road Trip

As part of my 30 things to do by the time I am 30, I made a goal to go to all the temples in Utah. Luckily I have already been to some of the further away temples (St. George, Vernal, Manti) but never Monticello. Since the big 3-0 is fast approaching, Anne and I took advantage of fall break and took a road trip to Monticello. It really was a road trip. That place is practically at the other end of the earth. It was totally worth it though. The temple is of course beautiful and very peaceful. I loved being there even if I did have to drive to the middle of nowhere to get there. Anne and I had a great time. We talked and laughed and even made a stop in Moab to eat at the Moab Diner. When we got home after our 14 hour day, we were both really glad we went to Monticello and happy to check one more thing off the list.

Yikes!

I can't believe I am posting this. I even more can't believe that my room really looked like this. I don't think my room has ever been this big of a mess in my whole life. I have been living out of a suitcase for the past month and a half. I basically dumped my suitcase in the washer when I got home and dumped the clothes back in my suitcase for the next trip. I am happy to say all my laundry and the suitcases have been put away.

Chicago...Vegas

The travels continue. Thanks to Jet Blue I visited my friends Tonya and Jared and Chelsea and Jeff this past week. They were both quick trips, but there was a little time to sqeeze in some fun. Tonya and I went downtown for some shopping and good food. We also had time for a quick run on the beach before I had to leave.

Tonya and her baby Sam

In Vegas we took Karlee to the strip for the first time. She loved the water. She was so excited to see the water inside the Bellagio.

it was beastly hot, but we still had fun

Outdoor Girl #2

I know it's hard to believe, but I went camping 2 weeks in a row. This time a group of friends headed up to Jackson Hole for a quick river rafting trip. I missed the trip last year when i was in the hospital so I was determined to make the trip this year. I have always been scared of the river due to the many horror stories I have heard. i knew the trip would be a good time even if i didn't go down the river. I skipped the morning run to get in a quick run up the canyon. We almost got rained out in the afternoon, but the weather got better so we hit the river. It was actually a lot of fun and not nearly as scary as I imagined. It was so much fun to spend the weekend with old friends.

Courtney and I drove up to Jackson Hole. We had fun catching up. We talked and laughed the whole way there.

For $20 we get 2 runs down the river, camp sites, and all our meals. It is quite the setup.

sitting around the campfire

I Love NYC

Thanks to the Jet Blue all you can jet pass, we took a quick weekend trip to New York City. We got hooked up with a great deal on our hotel. Even though we were only there for a couple of days, we packed it full of fun.

we walked across the brooklyn bridge from brooklyn to manhattan

theme of the day-CLOSED
we saw In the Heights and Mary Poppins


Matt Damon's movie trailer was right by our hotel. We saw him 2 days in a row.
we love NYC
our appetizer at the family style restuarant
The trip was quick but totally worth it. We also met up with a friend to have dinner at the Burger Joint. We shopped for purses, hit H&M, walked around, ran to make it to the subway to transfer to the train to get home and had a lot of fun.

Seattle

I saw an email for a conference in Seattle. I like Seattle and wanted to go back. I talked to Anne. She wanted to go too. We had a great time on our trip. Here's our top 10 list for a successful trip to Seattle...

10. have picture taken by drunk couple in botanical gardens

9. search for Bill Gates' house. we're not really sure if we actually found it.

8. search for subaru driving, dog loving, chaco wearing recyclers but instead we found this

7. see salmon spawn and die (yep that's a dead fish in the water)
6. see gum wall (that really is a wall full of chewed gum) and take picture with pig

5. get restuarant suggestions from beer loving, fudge selling boy at the space needle

4. eat dinner in the dark under a giant umbrella on bainbridge island

3. starbucks. they are everywhere-10 in a 1 mile radius. we discovered the pumpkin steamer and the apple cider drinks. so yummy.

2. successfully drive around seattle with maps, lots of maps

1. tasting tour of Pike's Place market with a local

I loved Seattle. It was so much fun. We had great weather the whole time which made me like it even more.