Saturday, June 14, 2008

Biathlon Update: I didn't poop my pants!

Okay, for realz, I had two main fears going into the biathlon this morning: (1) I'd realize I was weaker than weak and not be able to finish either event and (2) That I'd have to go #2. Not the coolest thing to happen in the middle of 5 miles of running. I was good! Haha.

Apparently a biathlon is technically an archery event or something? But this was 5 miles of running and 16.5 miles of biking. Craig, a buddy from work, convinced me to do it. It was in Wellsville, Utah which is just outside the canyon on our side. I only had 2 weeks to train and I hadn't actually just gone for a run in probably over a year. A little soccer here and there, but not recently. I had actually not quite gotten to 5 miles in my workouts (again, way out of shape) so today was the first day to see what it felt like. It felt good! My main goal was to not get distracted by the other runners and just run at my own pace, and also I wanted to do it in around 45 minutes. Well I did it in 43 and felt pretty strong the whole time. I didn't place amazingly but that's okay.

Right after the run we got on our bikes to ride out 8-sh miles and back. Now, I had been training for the running part, assuming that the biking wouldn't be TOO bad, and I'd heard it was mostly flat. WELL there were a few HILLS! Yikes. There were definitely some "oh no" 's and "WHAT the" 's going through my head as I saw the worst one coming closer. I was considering wimping out and I just went for it. I did okay. My legs were troopers :) It wasn't really a burning pain, more of this weird feeling like a cramp mixed with that falling asleep feeling. I just got kinda bored and started thinking of what food I was gonna get after (haha) but I made it to the end!

These pictures are of me at the last stretch that Crystal, Craig's wife took. I'm not too cute on a bike. Oh, btw, I was one of maybe 5 people with mountain bikes, everyone else had road bikes, and a couple had those crazy hard core ones where the back wheel is all solid. Weird.





Overall the whole thing went great. When I was done my legs were all jelly-ish but not too sore (yet?) and I could breath fine. At least the altitude didn't get to me. I wasn't prepared for the biking but it was a great course to ride. Beautiful weather and farms, rivers, trees. I saw a baby horse and said hi to a couple doggies. hehehe I'm such a dork.

Me after the race.

Craig's baby Logan. This kid is a butterball! Adorable.


Showing off our rock-hard muscles after the whole thing. By the way Craig finished waaaay ahead of me. He did great. One of his boys asked if I was a winner and I said, "almost!" Yeah, not even close.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

I'm sooo domestic

Lately I've been feeling crafty. I've been wanting to learn how to do...everything! I've recently learned how to make some jewelry. I need to buy some more beads and stuff, and in the mean time I've been wanting to learn how to sew. AJ's mom gave me her old sewing machine (THANKS!) and I've just learned how to use it. That's right. Young married female Mormon living in Utah, and I didn't even know how to use a sewing machine. Well my friend Blaire (she works with me too) loves to sew and has been doing it for years. While I've been anticipating my personal sewing lesson from her, I found this quilt pattern on my friend Kirsten's blog. I showed Blaire and she loved it, so we're going to try it out. It's pretty cool, because it's non-traditional and kinda funky. It's perfect because if I mess up a little it may not show as bad.

When I looked at fabrics, I just fell in love with all the baby boy patterns. They are just adorable. I decided that's what I'd want to do, but I need a better reason than "they are cute" because, um, I don't have any babies! It would be weird for me to have all these baby blankets and no babies. Then I had a "duh" moment. My sweet neighbor next door is pregnant with twin boys! Yay :) So I'm intending for the two quilts I make to be gifts for her, but after starting them last night, I wonder if that would be unkind. They're a little messy. Hopefully by the time I'm done the edges will all be even, and they will be pretty cute.



We started on everything last night. I messed up a couple times, but for the most part I feel like I'm getting the hang of it. I'm excited to be actually doing okay so far, and now I can say I know how to sew! It's about time. We've got two short people in one house and lots of pants that are too long.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

AJ's Plane and Other Weekend Stuff

I know I've been horrible at posting lately, so this one's gonna be big!

Lately we've really been enjoying the warm weather. AJ bought an electric RC plane (am I the best wife or what) and every time the weather's nice we've been taking it out. There's a baseball field just a block away that's perfect for flying, except that we tend to get followed most of the time. By who else? The kids next door. If they were my kids this is what I would tell them : (1) Put some shoes on and stop running in the street in your socks (2) It's 7pm and you're still in your pajamas-what's wrong with you (3) Quit following strangers. They could be dangerous, and the next time we'd see you it could be on a milk carton (4) I never gave you permission to wander 2 blocks away. I could go on...

I have to mention the pajamas thing because you can see them on the kid closest to the camera. And yes, they're running to see if they can catch the plane. AJ and I were cracking up the whole time..."oh! you almost got it that time!" "just a little higher!" You get the idea.






I has to post this photo of him from a couple days ago. Doesn't he look like a cute little 8 yr old boy? Hehe. I think he's trying.



Today we drove out to Newton where there's a small dam, and on the back side there's a huge ravine where AJ could fly his plane low. He could do a lot more crazy things out there, which also meant the plane got super close to crashing a couple times! It was such a pretty day and we had a lot of fun. The first couple videos are at a different place on our way out of town. We spooked the cows a little :) I dunno what's up with the pink lens.



Changing the battery. Notice the mullhawk is gone. We shaved it off this morning so he'd look more profesh for his trip this week (I'll write about that more later).








Here AJ's throwing the plane. He didn't have much of a runway, and this looked cooler anyway.



That's the plane footage. Yesterday was really fun too. Our friends Richie and Lori came up from Salt Lake to go camping with us Friday night. We went to Bear Lake, but unfortunately none of us knew where to go exactly and it was getting pretty late so we had to settle for a KOA. It was fine, except for the fact that it cost us $40 to stay there! We could have paid for a hotel room (not that we would have). Saturday we went back to our place, showered, and met up with some of Richie's friends. They drove a jeep and we took AJ's 4-Runner up Providence canyon to go wheelin. It was soooo beautiful! I'm loving this weather. However, now I have my right arm a darker shade of pink that my left. Oh well.

After AJs hair started growing out, I trimmed it this last week, and here's a pic to show you how nice it looked. I was pretty much in love with it and sad to see it go this morning.



I'm trying to show our extreme angle driving up a pile of rocks compared to the mountains...didn't turn out that extreme in the picture.


This is at a rock quarry where lots of off-roading happens (hence the trails back there). It's pretty huge. In the distance the haze under the mountain is Logan.

And this is where we turned around. Slushy snow is only fun to a certain point. The guy on the left is Richie's friend Jake (and that's his Jeep stuck ahead of us) and the two guys in the middle are random strangers that also drove their Jeeps up that day (They were behind us). AJ's on the right. They stood around and talked about the trail before backing out of there. Fun. I stayed in the car.



During Memorial Day weekend (a week ago) we went down to the Provo area to help Matt and Andrea paint their new house. It was pretty fun. AJ and I were happy to paint because we've been itchin' to buy a house and paint it and fix it up and everything. It was good practice :) I had to post these pictures of AJ and Zoie painting her room pink. AJ's main job that day was the pink room. Hehe. What a good team we all were! Didn't Zoie do a great job taking the picture of AJ and I?




Oh yeah and I went to Ikea which was amazing. I didn't spend TOO much :)

SO we've been having fun!

AJ's leaving tomorrow morning to go to Pittsburgh! His company is putting together a project out there and there were some engineering issues, and since AJ's the best, they needed him to fly out. He'll be 65-ish feet in the air in a harness and basket welding away until Thursday. It will be tough being without him. I'm still at the stage when if we go out to dinner and they seat us across from each other, it feels too far away and weird. Haha! So let's hope everything goes well and that he won't get sunburned too bad. I'm curious to find out if I'll still cook dinner when it's just me...

Also in recent news, I've signed up for a biathlon. Not a tri. I'm not much of a swimmer. A guy at work convinced me to do it, and I think I just need the motivation of being committed to something to get my butt in shape. It's only 2 weeks away and I'll do what I can until then. Fortunately it's only a 5 mile run and a 17 mile bike ride, but I haven't done either one in quite some time. Wish me luck! I'll be on my mountain bike, but I'll survive.

That's us for now. If you've made it to the end of this post I applaud you.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

My Distraction Today

Today we were listening to random music at work, and the song "Jump On It" came on. I love that song (haha) and in the past I've mentioned it to people about how it reminds me of the dance Will and Carlton do on Fresh Prince, and no one ever knows what I'm talking about! Or they won't even know what song I'm talking about. Well, it happened again today, so I said, it's gotta be on youTube!

FOUND IT!


So of course I got distracted further. There are some great Fresh Prince moments on there. This one is incredible.


You know...it just makes me feel good.

Jump on it! Jump on it!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

How do you match up?

We were looking at this at work today. There's an article on this website that shows a Marital Rating Scale, or a quiz basically for how good a wife you have (or are). A psychologist in the 30's made it up, and although it definitely shows the way things were back then, he also admitted to having a little bias in the scoring. Now if you're a woman and read through it, just a warning, it's appalling! And amusing. I'm sure AJ would find it hilarious. But I tried to take this quiz and let's just say, I didn't do too well. I mean I know the test is dated, but come on..so I added up all the possible points, and there's NO way you can get an over-average score. So here's the question: Are there missing pages to this test, or is it set up so that no woman could possibly get a high score?


By the way, note that "failures" is in parenthesis next to "Very Poor". If you score that low, do you really need to have it rubbed in? Ouch.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I have been informed a few times (like 1k times) that I need to post something on our blog.  I guess I should start by saying happy bday to Hildo.  She is getting pretty old but still looks like she is in her early 20s.  
We have recently decided that we should get bikes, so for Hilary's bday I got her a mt. bike so that we can both go riding together into the sunsets of Logan (not to be confused with her ex boyfriend).   It was a great idea because there are a ton of cool trails around here that we want to explore.  I just hope that I can keep up with her because she is pretty fit, and I'm not.   Anyway,

Happy birthday!


(I know I posted this a day late) 

Taggy Tag

My friend Amy tagged me...

My 4 favorite:

Places I go
1. California
2. Target (good one Amy)
3. Ikea
4. Bed

People who email me
1. Megan
2. Bernie
3. Facebook
4. Pops

Favorite Foods
1. Churros
2. Chicken Parmesan
3. My neighbor's tacos
4. Guacamole

Places I'd rather be
1. On a roller-coaster
2. At a concert
3. Making-over my house (that I don't have yet)
4. In, I mean, watching the Twilight movie

Movies I could watch over and over
1. Best In Show
2. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
3. Arrested Development DVDs?
4. Elf

People I think will respond
1. Ashlee
2. Megan
3. Livi
4. Andrea

Consider yourselves tagged!