August of 2012

The last few weeks have been crazy packed with summer activities.  Since one of my sisters is a Jr. high teacher and another one is a grad student/ english teacher at the U, we try to do as many family things as possible in the weeks leading up to school.  Not to mention I'm still in school and so is my little brother.  Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of pictures of the things we've done, but I can briefly update this neglected blog.

At the beginning of August I did my first half marathon with my brother-in-law, Ladd.  It was a night one where we started when we wanted and the goal was to be the first one to finish after midnight without using a clock or timer.  It was a blast and I finished 23 seconds after midnight.  I was the 7th person to cross the finish line after midnight.  Pretty lucky.

Then the olympics started (well actually it started before this but I wasn't being too picky on my timeline here) and I constantly watched them.  Except I was often too tired from work to stay awake until 11 so my brother had to throw things at me to keep me awake.  While watching the trials in June I picked out my favorite athletes and so it was fun to see how they did in the big times.  Pretty great actually.  Nathan Adrian, you are a cutie, and Jake Dalton, I don't care what people say, you're not gay because one of your two events is floor, I know that girlfriend of yours isn't just a cover up.

During those two weeks I also went boating and hiked stewart falls with Carson, Jake, and shams and hiked baldy with Annie and my host brother from Spain.

And then I took a day off of work to hike Cascade Peak with Annie.  Let me tell you, I thought I was gonna die.  Seriously, the hardest and scariest hike I've ever done.  The first half is just a steep hike but then you get to the saddle and climb (without a trail) to the summit for the second half.  Cliffs on both sides.  I ended up with a numb toe (still numb by the way), way too many scratches, and a swollen ear (I think it was an allergic reaction from sap).  I'm surprised we didn't have more severe injuries.  Let's just say I wont be hiking that one again.

After the olympics came shark week along with education week at BYU.  Unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to enjoy shark week as much as other years because of that horrible week that BYU loves enough to not allow its students to have spring break.  Seriously, I hate education week with a passion.

This past weekend I went backpacking with some friends from work.  I was really nervous to go because none of them had been before, but it was actually a lot of fun.  I ended up being the mom of the group (even though I was by far the youngest).  I cleaned up after them, I told them what to bring, and I boiled their water and cooked their food for them.  By the end I accidentally called one of the boys "honey" just like a true mom would.  On the second day we decided to explore so we hiked up to some cliffs that overlooked the lake.  I was sitting there with one of the boys and we were timing how long it took a rock to hit the bottom of the cliff when my camera fell out of my lap.  It probably would have been ok if the tree hadn't ripped it out of its case.  It bounced several times.  I about cried.  When we rescued it (which was not an easy task) it was pretty banged up.  And now I'm camera-less for a while.
The End