Rexburg Friends!

James and I went to Rexburg last weekend. James went hunting with Ryan and Jordan while I hung out with their wives Megan and Abbie! I even got to see Jamie who was going to pop a baby out at any moment!

Miss you guys!!!

My Lovely Parents

Happy 30th anniversary to my awesome parents (yesterday).

They are the greatest!!!

High school Sweethearts!!!

I emailed these pics to all their friends and fam...

It was pretty neat they got some fun responses from people.

BOO!

Okay, I know I said it snowed in my last post... but now it has really snowed! I tried to do a panoramic shot of the backyard... not perfect, but you get the idea. This was only about halfway in to the storm...

Here are James and Sadie lookin cute as ever in the snow.

There was about 17 inches at that point and then we probably got another 2 or 3 more before it ended. Fun! My office closed early 2 days and opened late 1 day because of the weather. That's always fun!

HALLOWEEN!!!

My office had their annual costume contest and parade on Friday, and guess who won!?!

WE DID!!

My department was Brides of Frankenstein. My boss Jeff was a GREAT Frankenstein, and us girls made pretty scary brides! My coworker Sara and I were able to get another use out of our wedding dresses which is cool seeing how neither of us had even gotten them cleaned or anything since our weddings.. But my other friend and co-worker Leigh didn't fit in hers anymore (already has 2 kids) so she decided to be a pregnant bride in an angel costume. But hey, it worked! We rocked it, and won $100!

Then, on Saturday James and I went up to my parents for a little Halloween Hoopla. A couple of my parents friends showed up with these AMAZING costumes that make you look about 12 feet tall. I was quick to ditch my hippie costume for this serious goblin creepo dude, and James put on the icky Frankenstein...I don't even know what to call it! But oh my gosh this made our night. We ventured out around the neighborhood trying to scare kids. SO FUN!

This is James holding me. I'm pretty sure my neck was about to break trying to hold that thing up!

Here we are scaring the Missionaries! They are living in my parents basement right now so they got recruited to hand out candy while we were havin fun and eatin sweets.

Here we are with my mom, see how big we are... AAHHH I cant see!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!!

Tiny Update

We got snow. Twice now.

James and I got to go to the Rockies last playoff game this season.

Me and my dad took Sadie to a place where you wash your own dog and pay approximately $15 dollars to do so. Is that weird?

He got her face real good.

and... I got a hair cut.

Stay tuned.... something exciting is bound to happen sooner or later... :)

Congrats to my BFF!

Welcome Eden Aftyn Adams! My best friend Joslin just had her first baby on Friday, Sept. 25th! I am so so happy for her and her husband Dusty and I am so proud of them too! I was so lucky to go out and see her at the hospital this past weekend! Here are a couple shots from my phone of the little sweetheart.

for those of you who didn't think i could do it...

I CLIMBED A 14ER!!!!!

14, 270 ft (I borrowed this sign from a 63 yr old lady who climbed the mountain with her 2 sons to celebrate 30 years of surviving breast cancer (hence the pink ribbon) isn't that neat!?)

Here I am looking so hard core (not) by a pyramid of rocks. These things were all over the mountain. Kinda cool. We added our fair share so that (in the words of James) "we can always be a part of history."

We had to hike through some snow that has probably been there for a thousand years. :) And on our way down the mountain it actually started snowing! CRAZY!

Here James is climbing a huge, dangerous mound of rocks while I rested and ate a snack. He is quite amazing. First of all, he could have climed this mountain 3 times in the time it took me to do it once. And second, he waited for me so patiently when I wanted to rest every 30 seconds (litterally) and he didn't complain at all but instead encouraged me and said things like "I like going slower, it gives me time to look around." and "you are doing such a good job, you're so hard core!" :)

So intimidating.

I used James' "trekking poles" which helped but made me look a little amateur. Which I am.

Becoming part of history... :)

And I looked so freakin awesome doing it (not). Sometimes I wish James would tell me when I look so absolutely ridiculous... Like for example he could say "hey babe, maybe you should not pull your socks up so high." or "are you really going to wear navy blue shorts and black pants at the same time?" Just a thought. But the dorky glasses I can't really help. Contacts are not my friends these days with all the allergies and what not...

This is how I felt probably about .5 mile into the hike. I wanted to die. BUT at least I did it right!!!

1 down 54 to go!!!!

Colorado is home to 55 of the 71 14000' + peaks in the continental united states! I have taken on the goal to climb them all and this last weekend I started with longs peak. With over 5000' of elevation gain, over 15 miles of hiking and sections of class 3 scrambling it is one of the more physically demanding ones. It was a ton of fun and worth every blistering step. I took these pictures with my phone so they're not the greatest quality but even the nicest camera could never do it justice


We started at 2:45 am from the Longs Peak ranger station @ 9100'
this is looking back east 3 hours into our hike to see the sun begin to rise

Just past a section called the 'key hole' @ 13150' you pass over the ridge to the west side of longs and work your way south towards the "trough"

the trough turns back east and begins climbing up the final 1100 vertical feet to the summit

at the top of the trough you come to another ridge, cross over and head back north on the east side of longs... just to put into perspective if you look carefully you can see some small dots in the middle-ish left of this picture... that's a large group of people



after scaling your way across this ledge called the "narrow" for only a few hundred feet you come to the ''home stretch" and scramble straight up the last few hundred vertical feet to the summit

my father-in-law fred and tim standing at the edge of the summit

that's actually a pretty big lake in the background but its a few thousand feet below me

14255'!

looking back at the keyhole on our way down

the ''boulder field" if you look real hard you can find people and tents somewhere in there

looking back at longs east face on our way down. at this point we are still more than 5 miles from the car