24th of July

My dad planned our 24th of July activities this year and he did a FABULOUS job! It was so fun to get out and do something different. Here are the day's festivities...

All the family (minus Jonny, sadly, because he had other things he needed to do) started out meeting at Thanksgiving Point's cafe where my dad bought us all a delicious lunch and ice cream for the kiddos.

Mike and I outside Thanksgiving Point

These two are besties!

Goofballs!

All the kids at the ice cream bar

After we ate, we walked around the gardens. They are incredible if you've never been. My parents have season passes so we've been before but every time we go it's always amazing to see the perfectly manicured flowers, bushes, trees and paths. We stopped at one point on some benches and my dad gave a brief talk on the sacrifice of the pioneers telling us how many thousands of miles they walked. It was so neat because as we hiked later in the day, Christian my 8 year old nephew was sweating and chanting quietly to himself, "If the pioneers can walk thousands of miles, I can climb this mountain..." over and over. It warmed my heart and gave me the encouragement to keep going too! This visit to the gardens was even better though because they recently put a huge collection of Angela Johnson's bronze statues of Christ on display. She is from Alpine and has never had any professional training which is absolutely remarkable. The statues are breath-taking. She has smaller depictions of Christ and events in his life and right now there is one massive statues of Christ walking on water. Apparently all the smaller statues will be recreated to life size like the one of Him walking on water. They will all be permanently placed inside Thanksgiving Point gardens. I cannot wait to go back and see them all in life size. They were absolutely incredible and it was a spiritual experience to walk around looking at them.

Marisa, Dustin & Lexi

View over the gardens

Can't go to the gardens without feeding the fish!

These fish are fascinatingly freaky!

I think one of my new fears might be falling into this fish pool. I have no doubt these giant feeding-frenzied fish would just start going at me. Piece by piece...with their giant sucking mouths... Anyway...

They had a ton of lilly pads on the lake. They were beautiful.

Look at that face-- London is just too cute.

My favorite statue-- Christ walking on water. Also my favorite story in the scriptures!

Lincoln checking out the statues. It was so cute to see all the kids staring at the statues of Christ and asking what the story was about.

From there we drove to the bottom of the Timpanogos cave where my dad had made reservations for us to hike up and tour the caves! I was so excited. I've never hiked Timp and I've never been in a cave anywhere. The hike was long and hot (high 90's)-- the kids were super troopers to go the whole way. I loved the hike. Yes, it was steep and uphill the whole way but there's something satisfying about getting the top. At the top we entered through a little door and were able to have a tour guide show us all the areas of the cave with different stalactites and stalagmites, stories about how the cave was discovered and the different formations that looked like animals. Inside it's cold, damp and I never realized how many different colors were in a cave's formations-- green, orange, purple, yellow. It really was very neat and I totally recommend it!

Hiking!

And they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked....

Almost to the top!

We made it!! Sweaty and all--we are proud! :)

After the hike we went back to my parents and starving... ravaged a whole lot of delicious food while sitting on the back porch chatting. Classic summertime evening. Afterwards we went out to the street and did our annual box fireworks. They are so lame and yet I am so fascinated with them. I love trying to get them lit before your eyebrows get singed off by the next one that's already started, I love racing away to turn around and watch the sparks, I love the ones that make your ears ring because they "crackle and pop" so loud, I LOVE the purple and gold shower ones (my favorite), I love setting up the finale and then singing "I'm Proud to be an American" (even though it was Pioneer day).... I love summertime and I love July!

And most of all, I sure love my family! It was so enjoyable spending a whole day with them-- all thanks to my dad! Happy 24th!

Seriously?

So I've been running 5 to 6 days a week for the last 3 weeks straight-- sometimes running morning and night. Over this time we've also gone on hikes, lifted weights, played tennis and rode our bikes in the effort to increase our activity level. To help on the nutritional end... I've cut processed foods almost entirely and primarily eaten whole foods. I'll admit I haven't been perfect because we've eaten out a few times. However, on the whole, I've made huge changes to our eating lifestyle. SO guess how much weight I've lost?? Go ahead, guess! Oh... 3 lbs. Three. Tres.

Seriously? I have been killing myself for three measly pounds? When I was working I worked out maybe twice a month and we ate out probably 4 times a week! Now we're eating out maybe 4 times a month and I'm running 4-7 miles a day. But how much less do I weigh? 3 pounds. 3 pounds??

How discouraging. With all the changes I've made, whether it be right or wrong, I had higher expectations. No, I didn't expect to lost 5 pounds a week or anything. I know it comes off slow-- but really? THAT slow? Perhaps my reality is jaded by my husband Michael, who can eat 5 Guys Burger & Fries for lunch and still drop weight the next morning. Oh, the injustice.

So anyway, needless to say it was hard for me to jump back on the pony this morning. I was so frustrated I just wanted to sit on my sofa and watch the Olympics all day. However, digging deep (very deep) I did go and do 4 miles this morning. Now I'm sweaty and tired and just thought I'd communicate my feelings to all you wonderful people. Does anyone else feel like shooting the scale themselves?? :)

This one below also made me smile.

2,052 Miles

At the end of June/beginning of July, Mike and I were very blessed to be able to take a much-needed vacation. Mike was just wrapping up "busy season" hours and it was June! He worked so hard, I knew he was burned out. Even though we couldn't afford to fly anywhere we were determined to get a vacation this summer. We both thought that the "Ultimate Road Trip" we took in 2009 to the east coast was one of our most fun vacations with LOTS of memories. So we decided to do Ultimate Road Trip #2! Due to a business trip we had to shorten our vacation a little and cut out Oregon. Even without Oregon's coast... we were jam-packed on activities. We left at the end of June and spent about 10 days driving from SLC-->Boise, ID-->Yakima, WA-->Vancouver, BC--> Seattle, WA--> Mt. Rainier Ntl Park--> Boise, ID--> and home again to SLC, UT. The trip was roughly 2,052 miles (according to the wonderful Mapquest!) and it was 10 awesome days of relaxation, only one real mini-crisis, driving through some of the greenest beauty I've ever seen, negotiating the best hotel deals possible, listening to awesome books on MP3, laughter and lots of flying by the seat of our pants! And yes, I am capable of doing that, in case any of you doubted. :) The trip was too long to give a day by day account-- and truthfully none of you would read it (we all know we sometimes just skip to the pictures). So I just thought I'd give a few of our 565 photos we took (you're welcome for not attempting to put them all up... could you imagine how long that would take with Blogger?!) and give you some short descriptions. Hope you enjoy!

This is Mike's sexy "I packed the car and I'm ready to roadtrip!" pose.

Thats a "2" for Ultimate Road Trip 2--not a peace sign. I am definitely not cool enough to pull off the peace sign... yet.

Our first stop was the big ID.

Where we got to visit with some great friends from my Au.D. program. We spent that night in Boise with Mike and Ashley who were so generous to put us up.

In our long drive from Boise to Vancouver we stopped for lunch in La Grande, OR.

And ate at Mt. Emily's Ale house. Mike is enjoying his beer battered fish and chips.

Part of road-tripping is the experience of eating on the road. So we packed a cooler and had some thrifty lunches. PB&J, anyone?
You would think 8 hr driving days would kill you but with a view like this out the window, an awesome book playing and your love beside you... it's not a bad life. ;)

After Boise, we stopped in Yakima, WA for the night. It was a mid-way point between Boise and Vancouver. We decided to break out our bikes and rode around the little town.

The next day we made it to Canada! If only we could get in...

See we always pack our gun on long trips. Unfortunately, we didn't think that one through in crossing the border. When they asked us if we had a gun we realized, "yes, we did!" They made us pull to the inspection port and police officers approached our car like we'd just committed a bank robbery. They kept asking us, "Why do you have a gun??" We kept telling them, "We are driving across the country thousands of miles, camping in the forest, we always bring it on long road trips..." They were NOT nice. They made us empty our pockets, lift up our clothes and show them our waists, leave our cell phones and put us in a building while they searched every inch and bag in our car. This took about 30 minutes. Then they sent us back in line to the U.S. to get rid of the gun before we came back. We had to go to the U.S. side and wait in a loooong line to get the gun back. And now we were really presented with a problem. It was a Saturday at almost 5 p.m.-- what do you do with a gun?! Not that we would but they said if we tried to cross and sneak the gun over that we were facing jail time. Ya, never felt like so much of a criminal in my life. So there we were in a little town on the border trying to figure out how to get rid of a gun approximately 15 min. before businesses closed for the weekend. Despite what the Canadians said, you can't just mail a gun. Which we figured out by calling several shippers who again acted like we were terrorists before telling it wasn't legal to ship a gun unless you hired a carrier to ship to another carrier. We also were having a hard time finding a place to store it. Mike said we should just go back to Seattle and forget Vancouver. No way! I had booked reservations and el cheapo that I am, I wasn't walking away from my $200. At 4:55 p.m. we raced to a storage facility which we paid to rent for the whole month (because they didn't do weekly rentals), omitting the information that we just needed to store a gun for the weekend, paid the man $55, unloaded the gun and some of our camping stuff (because at that point we might as well).... and 3 hrs later we crossed the border successfully into Canada. Hallelujah!

In the mornings in Vancouver we rode our bikes about 5 blocks to two little french bakeries and enjoyed a breakfast of ham and cheese croissant, danish and juice. Yum! Interesting fact about Vancouver, the city is built to be seen by bike so they have designated bike lanes that are separated by cement medians on the roads. It was pretty cool and definitely convenient for us.

Our favorite thing about Vancouver was riding our bikes all over. We rode along the water into Stanley Park. Miles of green forest with trails right on the edge of the city. It was incredible!

Above Mike is riding through the trails at Stanley Park. It also happened to be Canada Day while we were there which was really fun because everyone was decked out in Canada gear with painted faces. Kind of fun to celebrate Canada Day in Canada and then be back in the U.S. for the 4th of July.

We rode our bikes to Prospect Point at the edge of Vancouver. Here we looked out across the mysterious looking water to the ferries going back and forth-- so mystical and so cool. I could watch the ferries for hours, I am so fascinated by them.

Inside Stanley Park we ate packed lunches in the park and then hit Vancouver aquarium. Mike is a good sport to go with me. I love aquariums and we went to one on our last road trip in Chicago-- so we had to go to this one. It was fantastic. Beluga whales, dolphins, jellyfish, otters, octopus, butterfly garden... I loved it.

We rode along the ocean on bike paths almost the whole way back to our hotel.

After 2 nights in Vancouver we drove to Seattle and spent the night just outside the city. When we went up to our room at the hotel it hadn't been cleaned or made up. So when we went back down to the front desk they upgraded us to a suite. Sweet!

The next morning we woke up and hit Pike's Place Market. We had read that Lowell's had the best breakfast in the market and we weren't disappointed. It was delicious!! Mike got the corned beef and hash (one of his favorites). He orders it most places we go for breakfast and is on the search for the best in the U.S. I had a breakfast sandwich that rocked my world. Buttered texas toast hugging scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, cheese and spinach... yeah, it was GOOD.

Lowell's

Pike's
I absolutely love Pike's Market. I could walk around it all day. All the fresh produce, flowers, smell of fish, great energy... it's infectious and I would love to own a bakery there.

This is the famous gold pig that sits right next to where they throw the fish. We actually got to see them throw 2 fish. I don't know why that is so fascinating but it is really good entertainment!

Outside Pike's Place Market

We spent 1 night in Seattle and then drove to Mt. Rainier Ntl Park for 4 days. These were some of our favorite nights! Here we were able to just relax, not worry about hotels or restaurants, see some gorgeous nature and play some intense card games! And learn that Mike is desperately bad at games that have absolutely nothing to do with skill and just luck. ;)

You have to roast hot dogs while camping! I am not a hot dog lover but for some reason eating them after being roasted on a fire make them delicious to me? In the background you can see our amazing campsite. It was so green and lush. It didn't rain on us once while we were there but the temperature was always really comfortable in the day-- high 60's. I think because it was so moist as well, I didn't have any allergies while we camped. Which is pretty much a modern day miracle.

Is this scene not amazing?!

Keeping with the thrifty theme... we had chili and corn over fritos chips one night. It's amazing how delicious things taste when you're camping. I was also proud on how cheap we could eat. Dont judge-- It's my jewish blood.

We hiked to Silver Falls. It was huge!

It wouldn't be a vacation without a kissing picture.

This is on our hike up to Silver Falls. I mostly included it because I just find him so darn attractive. ;)

One day we went up to Paradise-- the base of Mt. Rainier where there is a visitor center.

We also went to the famous Grove of Patriarchs where trees are over 1,000 years old!

We took some goofy pictures...

and some forced ones (where I made Mike do this)...

We ate some delicious food...

And saw some take-your-breath-away scenery! All in all, it was an awesome trip and we were so grateful to be able to take one this year. We hope to carry on the road trip tradition and one day be taking our kids on Ultimate Roadtrip #15!

A Dabble in DIY

For years, I've seen tons of DIY projects that I've wanted to attempt. Now that I finally have some time... I'm too afraid to start any of them! Crazy, I know. I didn't see that one coming. I mean, hey, my mom is one domestic, costume-making, re-upholstering diva. And we share blood after all! I may also have had a small history of sewing quilts, baking cakes, painting, etc. that I was hoping to rely on. However, I'd like to make an important note and recommendation here... the skills you want to actually keep: don't ignore them for 15 years. Ground-breaking, I know. But really, you think you can fall back on those "Pssht, I used to do that!" until you sit confused looking at the bobbin and sewing machine wondering how these two parts once magically entwined to make a stitch. SO after a few failed trips to Hobby Lobby & the Fabric Store where I left empty-handed and kicking projects to "the future when that domestic bone kicks in" again... I decided to pick something uber simple to start.

So here it is! It's basic ladies. BASIC. Don't judge. This isn't Pinterest & I am not the Pioneer Woman (wait... she cooks). Well, whoever her crafting equivalent would be.

Back when I was selling my home, I invested in a few pieces to stage it to get top $. (PS. Not to be random here-- but did I even blog that we sold our home in February of this year?! Hmmm... maybe should do that.) Anyway, one of the pieces I bought was a Target breakfast tray. It was brown and worked well with some books & candles on my old coffee table-- but now we have a new sofa and all the brown was just BLAH. When we moved I also introduced a new color scheme. Mike and I actually use the tray quite a bit and I was tired of storing it after every use. So I decided to make the piece fun with some color so it could be part of design as well as dinner.

To begin, I made a very manageable trip to Hobby Lobby and for around $10 bought my supplies.

Then I laid out my tray in my garage where I could get crack-a-lackin at it! See the tray: functional but not fun.

Let me just pause here and say, "How cool is spray paint??" Really, this stuff turns painting into the easiest job on the planet and for the impatient of us... it dries in less than 10 minutes. Sweet! So after a few coats of the modern day miracle called spray paint... I now had the same tray in white. An improvement but not necessarily fun yet. So I took some scrap paper of my choosing (golden yellow damask) and mod podge-d it to the inside of the tray. Yeah, mod podge is pretty cool too. Glue + Sealant = Happy Girl

And in a very simple jiffy... I now have a new tray that instead of blending into the brown of my ottoman-- pulls in my little pops of yellow in the room. Ta-da!

Meg can craft (if only simplistically)! It may seem simple and lame to all of you blog-following, pinterest-loving maniacs out there (I'm included in that group actually) but it was one small step towards doing all those big things that made me want to panic in the Michael's aisle. A little spark to warm up the fire, we'll say. Hope you enjoyed my dabble in DIY!

If you haven't heard...

My husband rocks!!

One day Mike came home from work and announced he was going to run a marathon. Say what? He loves sports but I don't think he had "ran" for the sake of running a day in his life. He and his coworker had signed up for one and committed to run it together. He downloaded "The Non-runners guide to marathon running" and went for it. I was so impressed how dedicated he was. After working 12+ hr days during busy season he would come home and run at 11 p.m. at night. That's impressive. He ran a half marathon a few months ago on a whim (one of his coworkers strained a muscle and couldn't run it himself) and then he ran another one two weekends ago. Mike's mom came out to support him and it was so fun watching him finish with 20 seconds less than his target time (yay!). Two weekends later (just last Friday) he ran the Ragnar relay with some of his company. Not only did he run it-- but he took some of the hardest legs in the group. I am seriously so impressed and so proud of him. One day I hope I can rock a race with him like this... Good job babe!

His 1st-- Salt Lake Half

His 2nd Half-- Utah Valley (his AWESOME support group!)

Michael and his coworker Bill who committed to run together

The bottom of the barrel

A few months ago, I was kneeling next to my bed at 10 p.m. feeling like I didn't have the strength to stand and lift myself into bed. I laid my head on the side of the bed and felt so emotionally, physically and spiritually depleted. This wasn't the first time I'd felt this way in the last several months and yet here I was again. All I could feel was stress and exhaustion. How those two emotions can so intensely coexist simultaneously... I dont know. Let's just call me psychotically talented. I was undoubtedly and unsurprisingly unhappy. What was worse though was I felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. In the midst of happily trekking along a giant tornado of anxiety, stress and chaos sucked me up and haphazardly dropped me in foreign territory. Where was I and how on earth did I get there? I wish I could have cried. That would have been a great release. But I couldn't. I was so far past empty I couldn't even cry (which if you know me, is not hard to do). I just lay there wondering how I got to where I felt so completely unfulfilled.

I had sudden impression to take a step back and look at my life on paper. So I got a sheet of blank paper and wrote down the "major areas" I thought my life did or should be comprised of. These were my areas: my career, sleeping, eating, cleaning, spiritual growth, getting ready, watching TV/unwinding, service for others and physical exercise. I drew a circle and cut it up into 24 pie pieces-- my 24 hrs a day. Then I started coloring in a pie piece for every hr I spent doing that thing. It was so interesting to visually see my day (essentially my life) colored in front of me. And at the same time- it was depressing. I had this giant green area gaping at me: my career. This wasn't a huge surprise since I spend every day there. However, as I looked at what was most important in my life-- spiritual growth, physical exercise, service for others... they were these tiny slivers of color on my paper. Barely recognizable. When I calculated it out-- collectively, they made up less than 2% of my day. Two percent. I don't know how long I stared at that paper.

That was it. We had to make a change. A big one.

There is more to my life. More to me. More to my existence. More than God intended for me to do in this life then spend my days, nights, weekends and even my nightly dreams as an audiologist. My problem was I wasn't disconnecting from work-- ever. The stress was affecting every part of my life. I had lost myself in the pursuit of success. I didn't want to look back on my life in 10 years and still feel this way. Realizing I had spent 12 years helping people in the hearing world and at the same time completely losing myself, my soul and true happiness in the process. Mike deserved more in a wife than that and honestly, I had to believe that I deserved more than that too.

So I made probably the most difficult decision I've ever had to make in my young life. I quit my job. It's ludicrous really-- completing 8 yrs of college to get your doctorate and then leaving the field. And at the same time, I have never felt such a release in my life. I know I won't be gone from my field forever. I loved audiology. But there is a balance in all things and I lost mine along the way. So in short (too late, I know), I'm taking a hiatus. A break to hopefully allow myself to refocus on what's most important in life: God, family and growth.

Leaving my job was incredibly hard for me. It was almost excruciating to leave my patients, the people I worked with and really-- my identity. Audiology was my life for the last seven years. That was it. That was me.

On the bright side, I learned something really important to me in this process. One: I can do hard things. I can take control, even when I think I've lost it. I can free myself even when I feel trapped by myself. It's very empowering. Lesson learned #2: money, success & promotions... they aren't enough for me. I always thought I'd be motivated by a lot of money. It wasn't until I felt like I was offered a lot to realize that that was not going to make me happy. For the last 2 years we had the big house, the new cars, exciting career possibilities and I still wasn't fulfilled. I've learned there's so much more to life than money and the world's view of success. I really didn't think I'd ever say that honestly. But I've gained a desire for a deeper fulfillment in my life. The fulfillment that comes with a family and relationships.

So since you all are starting to get glassy eyed now (or 20 min ago)... I've decided to post the new changes this big decision had made in our lives later. Here's the good news I want to end with though: when you're devastated that you've reached the bottom of the barrel-- pull your head up and look around. Life has millions of barrels... pick another one and start digging.

World Market -- Heck yes!

Ummm... do all y'all know about World Market?? Yea, so while perusing blogs for the one millionth time to find light grey chairs for my dining table... I stumbled onto a blog showing me these chairs sold at World Market:

I quickly googled World Market and found one in Cottonwood Heights. Can I tell you how exciting it was to drive to a new home decor store that I've never been to before?! Wow, I couldn't wait... and I wasn't disappointed. World Market had tons of furniture, home decor, cooking supplies and food from around the world! I can't believe how long I have NOT known about this store. So I just thought I'd share with you all the wonderfulness of this store.

I bought two of these chairs and they're even better in real life. The grey is more of a taupe and it matches perfectly with my countertops. I love them!! Can't wait to post pictures of our new place once I get it all done! :)