NRC/St. George and more:
August 25-Sept 4

Wow, I have had a really fun week and half, thanks to my amazing hubby who works so hard and allows me to play so much. My dad is a Utah Delegate and asked me if I wanted to go to the National Republican Convention with him in Tampa Florida. Of course I wanted to go but I was thinking a week of politics would be kind of boring but I was wrong. I had such a blast! I learned so much and loved every minute of it....I even gave up a whole free spa day (facials, massages, yoga, food) because I wanted to hear the speakers of the day.
Dave was in town for some business so he was able to meet us so I gave him my guest pass for the first night of the convention, so I went to a movie, the mall, swimming then watched the convention on TV in the hotel room. I was cheering when I heard Anne Romney's speech and was excited that we got to be a part of it. I was able to sneak down onto the floor the second night and even made it onto the jumbo tron. The last night the speakers were amazing. I have so many great memories and awesome stories from that week. We were having dinner with the Lt. Governor and an old veteran and a young veteran came up to us and started talking about what they were doing in Florida to get people to vote...they even threw in some nice comments about Mormons ;) whether someone is a Republican or not I just think we live in the greatest place on earth and I am excited to practice the right to vote.
I got back at 9pm on Friday night the 31st. Dan worked until 9:30 and right when we both got to Farmington we packed our bags and drove (Dan drove) to St. George for the weekend. We had a blast! We got to hang out with his family (I lost our camera otherwise I would have pictures.) His brother and Brother-in-law took us shooting, Dan was able to bless his niece Olivia and we even went rock climbing which was a blast! St. George is always a good getaway.
I had a meeting in Salt Lake on Tues Sept 4 so my mom and I decided to go to Hot Yoga. It's yoga but in a really hot room and it's not so "find inner peace" as it is to get your whole body in balance. It was hard....and HOT but it was so much fun! That night I was able to see Jasmine, Brittany and Lacey again...They made me dinner and gave me some of their favorite recipes for my birthday. I have such great friends!

And so it begins!!!

I made it onto the floor with the Utah Delegates

My dad being interviewed for the 4th time

I loved her speech!

The infamous chair speech....

There were TONS of balloons, this doesn't do it justice!

Such a fun experience....ya I know, I'm upside down but I don't know how to fix it haha.

Boating!
August 20 2012

I love love love boating. I used to go at the very least once a week in the summer but it has been a lot harder to go as I've gotten older. I was lucky enough to have a day off the same time that Dave/Mandi and the kids decided to go so I was able to join them. It was a blast! Poor Dan was working away while I played but I'm determined to get him out for a good day of boating! :)

CAHOOTS!
August 11 2012

I have been really wanting to try one of this hip mud runs but I can't believe how expensive they are! So our good friends Bryan and Lacey found one called Cahoots that wasn't as expensive and had all the elements I wanted. It was a 5K run mixed in with tons of awesome obstacle courses filled with water mud hay and much more. It was such a blast and by the end I think we were all pretty sore. I am definitely not in the best of shape but it has got me wanting to do a lot more races like this :) Sadly I couldn't find my camera and so we used Lacey's phone but couldn't take it with us on the race because we got so wet and muddy. So we did get to take a few pictures but it definitely couldn't capture the whole experience.

                                                               Before:

After:

 We were a lot muddier during the race, at the end they had water to spray off with.

Dan and LJ's Day Off:
July 24 2012

Dan and I both had the day off work so we decided we were going to make it a great day. We started Monday night with a movie at Mike and Michelles. When we were leaving we climbed on Dan's truck and watched the fireworks. When we got home we decided to make a fort in the living room and tell scary stories. It was a great start! Tuesday we got to sleep in, then Dan made a great breakfast and then we headed out to kayak at Bear River. It was so much fun to just be outside together. We then decided that we wanted to take it down the Logan River, the one we had tubed down before but sadly it was too low. It's ok though because we had much more to do. We hurried and showered and then went to Willow Park where there were a bunch of booths. Afterward we all went and ate. We decided to watch a movie until the fireworks and then we sat really close to the fireworks, it would rattle our rib cages. It was a lot of fun. Needless to say it was a great day off. The rest of the week was also really good. Dan and I had our own little Olympics and on the headstand event Dan fell over and put a hole in our wall, it was actually really funny. We went to a local production of "Big River" and then Friday we went to St. George and were able to go to Aladdin at Tuacahn, so all in all it was a great week!

Subway Hike in Zions and a week in Lake Powell :)
June 29-July 6

A few years ago I did the Subway hike with some friends and it was so much fun. Brandon really wanted to go so we decided to just do it. We applied for a permit and was granted one for Friday June 29. It is such an amazing hike! We all headed down after work Thursday so we got there pretty late and we had to be up early to get started on the hike, it is 9 1/2 miles and has lots of obstacles, water, rappels and more. Kelsi's friend and me both split our pants while sliding down the small waterfalls so that was pretty funny. It took us a little over 8 hours but we eventually made it out and were already starting plans on our next hike. I don't have any pictures right now of Lake Powell but it was definitely a blast.
                                                    So it begins....

Backpacking:
June 22-23

Michael, Michelle, Bryan, Lacey, Dan and I all decided that we needed to go on a backpacking adventure. So we packed up our bags and headed out. We were dropped off at Tony Grove around 6:30 pm and we started our adventure. We had walked a few miles when we lost the trail, the sun setting and we had to get over the peak of Mt. Naomi, so we just headed straight up. At times we were on our hands hoping we wouldn't fall because if we did it would be a huge fall. It was such an amazing view and I was having such a blast. It soon got dark and we still hadn't found the trail so we just went straight down the hill, it was super steep and we couldn't really see much (which is a good thing....it was pretty intense). Finally we made it to the bottom of the mountain and decided to get some sleep. It was 10:30pm by then and we had only gotten half way so we just found the flattest place we could and pulled out our sleeping bags....it was really rocky. The next day we headed out for the last half. We went up one peak and then down, over and over. We ended at the mouth of Cherry Creek Trail in Richmond (about 15 miles from Logan).Thankfully we hitched a ride to a bus stop. Overall we went about 12 miles and boy did we feel it. It was so much fun I am thinking I might have to just grab a backpack and live out of it for the next month ;)

                                                    Tony Grove...so it begins!

There was a lot of snow...forgot about that ha ha

Keep on trekking....

What we were climbing straight up....

Beautiful view at the top of Mt. Naomi!

What we woke up to....yep...we climbed that

Happy for the day ha ha

The end!

Outdoor Fun
Well it is finally summer. I have waiting and wanting to get outside. I've never spent a summer in Logan and I'm excited to do so. There have been plenty of days that I haven't put my time to good use....but here are a few things we have done....I went on a bike ride by myself after work one of the days. We floated the river for the third time...it was so fast and a whole new experience from the other two times. Mike got trapped under some over hanging branches and I couldn't stop laughing. The water was freezing but I feel like we're really getting the hang of it. We want to go for some Kayaks soon. We also pulled out the slack-line one of the nights, it is so much harder than it looks! Dan took Mike, Michelle and I rock climbing where I did my very first lead and clean! I had such a blast.