Silver Lake

A few days ago for date night we drove a few miles up American Fork Canyon to Silver Lake Flat. I went to the lake above this one a couple years ago and I wanted to show Spencer since it's so beautiful! By the time we got to the lower lake, however, it was too cold and too late to hike the 2 miles up to the next lake. We had a great time anyway. If you want a great hike idea and want to go swimming while you are at it then go to Silver Lake!!

Side note: I failed to remember that the road up to this is not suitable for a 2 door hatchback! Last time we came up here was in Jed Sybrowsky's Jeep which handles this type of terrain a bit better!

The trail head for the real Silver Lake. The trail is beautiful and a great work out. Make sure to go early enough because it is all downhill on the way back and very dark!!

More Pictures from St. George

Cinco dias in St. George, Utah!!

Here is our itinerary

• 
  
  Thursday: drive down to St. George, go grocery shopping for the weekend, unpack, sleep in!
• 
  
  Friday: go on a job (gotta keep the training up!), St. George Temple, random cool hiking place at night, Iceberg, lots of board games: 21, Blokus, and Carcazzone!
• 
  
  Saturday: Red Cliffs Recreation Site (all day!), dinner at Outback Steakhouse, movie
• 
  
  Sunday: lazy day, sacrament meeting, cooking, light bike ride
• 
  
  Monday: Sand Hollow Recreation Site, cliff diving, sunburns, clean up and drive home!

We had the best time with all of our activities! We stayed at our generous grandparent's house off of St. George Blvd. It was a really nice, relaxing, and fun vacation weekend which I think we all needed. I had just finished teaching and everyone else just needed a vacation to break up the summer work load. A goal we all have is to attend all the different temples in Utah this year so this weekend's main purpose was to attend the temple. I talked about that amazing experience in a previous post. You can look at that here.

The weather in St. George was perfect...it was nice to be in the SUN again!!

below: Michael and Spencer (right before we went to the temple)

Some random recreation site we went to. The time was around civil twilight. It was fun exploring--we even found this cool cave where Indians used to live. Hazzaa!!

A tight claustrophobic space. If you know me, you know I'm claustrophobic. But I sucked it up and went all the way through anyway. Even with a big bump on my head from a rock I couldn't see. hehehe.

Jackie Gerber. She's so awesome she climbed all the way up this on her own.

We killed him!

OMG Michael you are soooo high off the ground!

Seconds after this they fell and did like three back flips. That's how cool they really are.

Note to self: Only get one milkshake from iceberg and share. They are ginormous. Oh and don't go into the bathroom...it stinks!

Red Cliffs Recreation Site (day 3). We found some guys that already had their ropes ready for rapelling. So we joined in on the fun! I hadn't been rapelling for like 3 years so it felt great to be doing it again!

The guys that let us used their ropes were going face forward. Michael tried it and didn't die, so maybe I'll do it next time I go :) Maybe

Making sure I don't die at the end. So thoughtful.

Our grandparents have some really fun road/town country bikes. Spence and I like to go riding on the trail at night because it goes along the river.

 Dusk in St. George is one of my favorite times of the day.

The red rock reflecting off the sun is absolutely incredible. Southern Utah has always been my favorite place since a trip I took there about 5 summers ago.

This night was one of the only times we had to ourselves the whole weekend so we really enjoyed it just with the two of us. Talking, laughing, having a gay ol' time ;)

On the last day we went to Sand Hollow Recreation Site. A lot of cliff diving and jumping went on that day. This place is kind of Lake Powell but a little smaller. We got some pretty great sunburns that weekend and loved every minute of St. George. And of course, we can not wait to go again!! Our next trip planned will be in October for the Marathon. But I have a feeling we'll be there before then...if we're lucky!

Down in the Boondocks!

Here are a few pictures we took from our date night a couple weeks ago. We went to the BOONDOCKS in Draper, just like 10 minutes from our house. Spencer only beat me by 5 points!! He got a hole in one...what a lucky duck.

Just look at that smirk!

The ball is supposed to go into the hole. He was too mesmerized by my picture taking skillzzzz

I take my golf game VERY serioulsy. Right Bishop Harker?

Half Marathon

Early, wet, and rainy!

It was a fabulous day though. I didn't think I would like running in the rain but it actually felt very nice. I felt good during most of the race and I finished in a pretty good time! We started the race up Provo canyon at Vivian Park and ended at Provo Town Centre Mall. The canyon is SO beautiful this time of year...lush and green is all I can describe it as. Every 2 miles they had water/powerade stops which was great! I had to wear my new slicker (isn't that an old term)? and long running pants because of the cold! Marci and I had such a blast running together. She was a great pacer for me the whole race! I am excited to keep running and continue my training for the St. George Marathon in October but I still have A LOT of work to do!

My legs are still really sore and yesterday I could barely walk. But it was all worth it.

This is us at about mile 9.

 Here we are post-race. We look happy but we could barely move! I love how we got a nice shot of the port-a-potties hehe. The last couple miles was the hardest, especially when you can see the finish line but it takes a long time to get there!

The man of the hour. He was SO SWEET! He woke up at 5am and waited over an hour for us to come by running on University Avenue. It was nice to see my handsome husband being so supportive and cheering me on. He was also there at the finish line to take pictures of us. After the race he had to go work at the gravel pit while I went home and took a good long nap. I feel so lucky to have him support me through all of this! Thanks so much Spencer. I love you!!!

The finish line at Provo Towne Center mall. There were lots of people and lots of food including pizza and french fries from Red Robin. We didn't get our t-shirts though! I guess they are going to mail them to us in a couple weeks. I thought that was so retarded because they said we would get them at the finish line. At least we got medals!

So excited! Go Marci you did so awesome!

                                     Up next: more date nights and our trip to St. George!

June 7th - June 10th

So right now I'm supposed to be filling out a job application for a second interview at a brand new charter school, but the task is tedious and I just wanted to write some things down to clear my head! This past week has been absolutely crazy but really neat at the same time. Spencer and I are doing really great. We tell each other almost every day how much closer we feel we grow together every week. I love it! He is working hard at the gravel pit and loving it. I went to his work the other night for a luau party and I was able to ride one of the loaders. Those things are so big and hard to drive but it was really fun. I picked up a big load of dirt and then dropped it. I felt cool.

Our carpet situation has gotten worse! Currently our house is full of a huge humidifier, 3 enormous fans, and our carpet is completely torn apart. We had to move all of the furniture out of the living room and put it in our room and the kitchen. So we've been staying the night at the Bagley's the past couple days. The fans will be gone tomorrow but then our wall is going to get torn down to get rid of all the mold that has been building up for who knows how long! Needless to say it is terribly inconvenient. They said the whole project will take about 3-5 weeks to complete! I'm asking our landlords for a rent discount. Doesn't that seem reasonable? The good news is that we might get some new carpet!

In other news I started my ballroom/teambuilding class this week. I was really nervous and worried about it last week but today I feel confident and excited. I have people helping me with the dance part and the team building aspect of the class is super fun and the kids seem to really enjoy it! It is good for me to be out there teaching a class again. I am gaining ideas for my pe classes as well which will start up in the fall. I am currently on campus at BYU. I haven't been here in about over a year and as soon as I walked on campus I started to get super nostalgic and missed all my good and fun times I had as a student here. I LOVE BYU!!! It will always be a big part of me. Today I bought a BYU Alumni license plate cover and I know Spencer will hate it but oh well! Haha. Luckily he won't be driving that car very much. He's more of a Utah State fun. But oh well, what can you do right? My half marathon is on Saturday morning at 5:30am. Yes. That's. Right. 5:30! So early. But at least I'll be done early :) Marci and I are getting excited and nervous together but it should be a fun day. Anywho...I'm proud if you made it all the way through this post. Have a great weekend everybody! Sorry there are no pictures this time.

This and That

It was ANOTHER sunny day today.The sun makes me so happy! My friend Marci and I conquered another 10 mile run today. She did so awesome and we had a great day together. After our run we treated ourselves to Zupa's and then we went to Sports Authority to pick out an outfit for our half marathon which is NEXT SATURDAY! I hope we are ready. We'll at least look good with our new running clothes.

 

In other news, our carpet started flooding a few days ago. We live in the basement so I was confused as to how, why, when, what, etc? How could our CARPET be surfacing water aka h2o? So I went upstairs today and realized our cute and nice neighbors had moved the hose to right above where our carpet was flooding. They were watering the grass and yard and apparently the water found an outlet which led right down to our floor aka carpet! So I spent a lot of today soaking up the water with towels and trying to dry it up with an oscillating fan. So annoying! Oh well :)

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the St. George Temple that we visited last weekend. We have a lot more pictures but I'll share those later. We went with some of our good friends Michael and Jackie. Michael and Spencer were best friends growing up. It's nice that they have continued the friendship!

• St. George Temple. First temple to be built in Utah! This temple is one of the most beautiful temples I have seen. I LOVE how white it is!

 

The GANG

Michael, Jackie, Spencer, and ME

These guys have been our temple buddies (aka we go to the temple with them once a month) since Spencer and I have been married. It has been a great tradition and a great motivator to keep us going!

Getting excited to go inside together! The temple really is all about families. I can't wait to have my family be sealed to me someday.

I'm a picture freak so I had to get pictures of EVERY angle of the temple :) Chelsea Sybrowsky is the only one who understands this :)

We had a photoshoot session before we went to the temple. Isn't my husband sooo handsome?

Farewell St. George temple! Until we meet again! (Hopefully it's not too far away!)

pictures from last week of teaching

I can't believe how quickly my first year of teaching went by. The days were long, but the weeks went really fast. I can't imagine how it would feel to be a teacher for 25 years and retiring like some of the teachers at my school did this past year. I know I grew a lot as a person and especially as a teacher. I not only taught physical education to k-4th grade but I also taught after school classes including reading, writing, math, health, and arts and crafts. I finished my radkids classes which was incredibly rewarding and a lot of fun for me and the students. All of these teaching experiences were unique and taught me so many lessons every day on how to be a better teacher. What a blessing it was in my life to have this job. I really did love it and I can't wait to teach again in the fall!

Here's just a few pictures that I took of my students. Luckily I get to go back next week and teach a ballroom dance/team building class for 6 weeks. This should be a great learning experience for me! I'm trying to find someone who has experience in ballroom to help me teach the class. Let me know if you or anyone you know can help!

My Monday afternoon fourth grade class. These guys are great. So fun and cooperative! And a little goofy too ;)

Thursday afternoon kindergarden class. They LOVE playing with the parachute!

2nd grade dual-immersion physical education class. They love playing capture the flag!

My Wednesday afternoon fourth grade class. One of the most ATHLETIC classes, but also the most difficult to please!

I love teaching the kindergardeners. They are so innocent, loving, and will do anything you tell them to!

These guys were one of my favorite 3rd grade classes. I will really miss teaching them! We had a lot of good times and they are all very special to me.