Two Year Baptism Anniversary

Today is my Two Year Baptism Anniversary into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  It's one of the best decisions I've ever made!  I absolutely LOVE the church and my testimony continues to grow!  I have received countless blessing from being a part of this wonderful and amazing church!

With the missionaries.

Today also just so happens to be my Half Birthday!  I am dangerously close to 30!  But it's all good!!!  :o)

Moab Trip from Chris

I did a long post at the Adventure Rider website. I'll compress that version and give you the run down.

My ambitious plan was to leave early on Thursday, find a campsite and check out a trail that I had done on my mountain bike before called Western Rim.

The next day I would ride the Kokopelli trail to Moab. The Kokopelli trail is about 100 miles or so of dirt trail and road. Once in Moab, I would meet up with everyone and do whatever they were doing. Then on Sunday I would ride another long trail in Canyonlands National Park called White Rim. Sounds good.


So I did leave on Thursday around noon and after a stop in Glenwood for gas and food, I got in to Fruita and called Debbie. They hadn't quite left yet. I bought a spare inner tube and headed to the campsite area. I had good cell service and there were lots of spots, so I went to check out Western Rim.

To make a long story short, I got on the wrong trail, got stuck and spent several hours dropping the bike, picking it up and trying to get back out of there. If I was on the mountain bike, I could have just picked it up and carried it to the right trail. I guess I should have been riding with someone else. When I finally got out of there and was heading to the campsite I noticed that the bag with all my camping stuff and clothes was missing from the back of the bike. I backtracked a few miles and found it on the side of the dirt road. I finally arrived at camp and everyone was sleeping except for Debbie. I had some food and went to sleep. I wasn't so sure about my ambitious plans now.

The next day I bypassed Western Rim and headed down Kokopelli. The ride was great! Beautiful views and I didn't drop the bike or get stuck once. About 35 or so miles in it felt like my back brake wasn't working very well. I had new boots that were very stiff and I thought maybe I was just missing the pedal. I stopped to have a closer look and the rear brake line had broken off. There was brake fluid all over the rear tire. I was at a paved road when I discovered this and wisely decided to take the pavement the rest of the way into Moab.




I was just in time to meet everyone for lunch. After that I went to a couple of motorcycle shops and bought the parts I needed. I fixed it in their parking lot and headed to Gemini Bridges where everyone else was. When I arrived there everyone was just walking back to the cars. No rest for me. I feel like I've been going non-stop the whole time.

We found a great campsite and then went to Canyonlands tourist areas to check out the views. It really is amazing there. Back to camp for some spaghetti dinner and then I fell asleep on a large flat rock.

In the morning my phone was dead and I tried to charge it on the motorcycle, but it didn't seem to be giving it power. I went to get the tools to fix it that were strapped on to the front of the motorcycle and realized they were gone. They must have fallen off on the Gemini Bridges dirt road. When we were leaving I rode back down the road looking for them, but I was never to see them again. I almost felt like crying. It seemed like I was having so many problems this trip. I guess I was learning a lot though.

Next up we went to Arches National Park and hiked around in the Fiery Furnace. It was beautiful and amazing in there and I took tons of pictures.

We left there and headed to the Colorado River for some rafting. About 15 miles east of Moab I realized I would have to go back to Moab to get gas before heading home. I didn't want to drive too much in the dark if I didn't have to so I decided not to go rafting. After everyone else left on the raft, I rode back, got some gas and some ice cream to make myself feel better and headed toward home. I figured I would stop on the way to see if they were out of the water yet and sure enough, they were getting out just when I arrived. I missed out.


It was a somewhat difficult trip for me because I was trying to do too much. Live and learn I suppose. I still had a good time. One day I will return to finish the Kokopelli and White Rim trails. I will come back more prepared though.

New Tires

Thanks to our Car Savings, it was no big deal last week when we suddenly needed new tires for my Corolla S. I got my first flat tire ever by myself on my way to work. I called Chris since I was only about 10 minutes away. As soon as I started to change the tire a super nice man pulled over and took over. Embarrassingly I was having a hard time determining the location to put the jack under the car. I thought it would go on a strong, flat area but that wasn't the case, so I was very thankful for his timing. Chris arrived just as he was finishing up. I was so thankful for all of the help!

So the next morning Chris took the car into Discount Tire to see if we could have the tire patched. As Chris had suspected, all of our tires were ready to be replaced. We only had about 45,000 miles on them and they were supposed to last about 100,000, so we got new ones prorated which saved us $184.80! We also got a $70 rebate so four new tires will end up costing $284.58. Not bad! And hopefully these Michelin Destiny tires will work better in rain and snow than my previous Yokohamas.

25 Weeks=SIX MONTHS

Nothing exciting, just an update. I'm now 25 weeks which means I'm over SIX MONTHS. That just seems so far along! Time's flying! According to my iPhone calculations Keira is now about 13.6 inches and weighs approximately 1 lb. 10 oz. which is about the size of a rutabaga whatever that is. I love feeling her move and letting Chris feel it too. And it's so funny when we can actually see the movement!

I'm still not showing all that much, especially considering I'm six months and my uterus is supposed to be the size of a soccer ball. Everyone's always telling me how small I am. I had my prenatal visit last Friday and she measured my fundus and said I'm measuring a week behind. Did that happen to any of you ladies? She suggested we do an U/S at my next visit in four weeks to make sure everything is A OK. Nothing wrong with seeing our little beauty again! I'm not really worried about it, it seems like a pretty unscientific method of measuring. And I'm hoping that my abs of steal are just keeping her tightly snuggled up! ;-) Ha ha! Just joking! Actually I think we're in the midst of a growth spurt. We'll see...

Moab Trip

Our trip to Moab was awesome! It was fun to get away in the great outdoors with good friends. We went with the Averetts (Andrew, Jessica, and Cameron), and Jessica's younger brother and met up with Andrew's dad in Moab. The weather couldn't have been more perfect! Chris (mostly) enjoyed his dirt biking adventures which is a whole other post. And I'm letting him take care of that one. He did write about it on some Adventure Rider website so if you want to know every single detail of it and see lots of pictures, you can check out this site:

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9858037&posted=1#post9858037. Or if not, you can just check back here one of these days.

We got a kind of late start and ended up getting to our campsite outside of Fruita, CO at about 11pm if I remember correct. Chris was supposed to have already picked out a campsite but due to his (mis)adventures and being stuck for a total of about three hours, we were left to find a spot in the dark, which ended up being super easy. Chris arrived about 45 minutes later.

We got a VERY early start (for me at least, thanks to a super excited two year old ;-) ) and headed to Moab. We found a neat spot near a little river where you could've chosen to cliff jump but we just waded and played in the river. It would've been nice to know about this when we needed a little cool down/rinse off during our Moab mountain biking days. We ate lunch at a nice park while waiting for Chris and then checked out Gemini Bridges.  

We then did some light hiking/walking and admired Utah's desert beauty overlooking Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point.  

Jessica, Cameron, and I at Dead Horse Point

We found another campsite near Canyonlands and cooked a yummy dinner of spaghetti, Chris' favorite.

This was a few minutes from our campsite.  That's me on the edge of the cliff.

The next day was the most fun! We went to Arches National Park and hiked in the Fiery Furnace. Usually you need a guide to go there but Andrew and his dad had been there several times and were able to be our guides. It was really fun and beautiful!

Andrew, Jessica, and Cameron

After that we cooled down with about a six mile float trip. Having a two year old and two pregnant girls, we didn't do any major rapids, but it was so much fun to be rafting again! I was in great hands since the other three adults in the raft (Chris wasn't able to come with us) have all been or are raft guides. (That used to be one of my dream jobs.)

Then we drove five hours back home. It was an awesome trip!

I Have Bangs.

And it's NOT going well.  I forgot to mention the haircut I got last week.  My sister referred me to her yoga instructor's wife and she was awesome!  I pretty much told her I'm up to just about anything, I'd just like a stylish haircut.  So she probably gave me an awesome, cute, and stylish haircut.  The problem is the bangs, I have no idea what to do with them.  And they're long bangs, the get in your eyes and up your nose bangs.  I haven't had bangs since about the fifth grade.  Not to mention, I'm not really one to do my hair, I'll throw a few curls in it with the curling iron for church or other special occasions, but that's about it.  So now I don't know what to do.  I've mostly been working since and have just been pinning them up.  So I don't have any pics of the dreadful things, and unfortunately I forgot to take the "after styling" pic so I don't even know what it was supposed to look like.  What a mess.  I was talked into doing highlights for my next visit, so maybe I'll have that sooner and get some more styling tips.

We're Off to Moab

Tomorrow we leave for Moab with the Averetts!  Chris is going to ride his dual sport bike while I ride with them.  We're going camping, hiking, and rafting!  I'm SUPER excited!  It will be so nice to get away!  And Moab always brings such fond memories of blood, pain, and exhaustion.  But not this time, we're taking it easy.  I've never been there for anything besides mountain biking, so this will be fantastic!!!

Here are some Moab pics from 2006, I'm not sure what happened to the 2007 ones.

The Backyard

Will now that spring is finally here and it's warmed up a bit and hopefully won't snow again, it was finally time to work on the backyard.  My brother came up for the day and was a tremendous help!  With five truck loads to the yard waste recycling center, we finally removed the humungous pile of branches we've built up over the past year.  Then we finally planted grass.  So hopefully soon Jason's muddy paws will no longer be a problem.

But until it starts growing in and he can play in the backyard, it's going to be rough.  The poor guy seems to be a bit shy about going to the bathroom in other places besides the backyard.  We've been taking him to the front and he just sniffs around, he doesn't even mark his territory.  It had been about 40 hours since he really relieved himself.  He didn't even want to eat his food this morning which he LOVES.  So Chris took him on a leash to the backyard and I guess he went big time!  Poor guy!  And now I'm going to take him for a walk and hopefully that will inspire something too.  Usually we're grateful that he only goes to the bathroom (#2) in our backyard, but this could be a problem.   Wish him luck that he'll be able to use other areas and that the grass will grow quickly so he can use the backyard again.

We tore up the bare spots even more and put down this PatchMaster stuff, so hopefully it will perform the miracles my brother claims.

I LOVE spring!  I love when everything turns green and blooms.  And I LOVE the short time the lilacs are in bloom!  And I love that we have a lilac tree!  :o)

New Roof

When we bought our house two and a half years ago the inspector mentioned that the roof would need to be replaced in the next few years.  About a month ago some roofing companies were doing free inspections because of some hail damage last summer.  Well our roof had the hail damage and our insurance company approved a new roof.  We only had to pay the deductable, which saved us over $4000!  And now one of our house projects is totally FINISHED!  What a great feeling that is!

Here's a "before" pic.  This was before we bought the home.

Note: Notice the condition of the grass BEFORE you look at the after pics.  It's getting there. 

New roof

23 Weeks and I've "Popped"

At least that's what some people call it.  I think it actually started last week, so that's when these pics are from.  I finally look pregnant, if I'm wearing tight clothes, but not quite pregnant enough for an acquaintance to ask how far along I am.  But it's all good.

Everything is still going great!  But I must say I have had some frustrations with clothes not fitting, especially when I purposely bought them a couple of sizes too big and thought the pants would be low enough to avoid the belly.  And I'm definitely not a fan of anything tight around my belly.  But seriously, if that's the worst part of this, I have it easy!

We're pretty sure we're going with the name Keira.  She is doing great!  Chris and I love feeling her move all over the place!  Her crown to rump length is about eight inches and she is eleven inches long.  It's amazing to think I have something that big inside of me, about the size of a papaya.  She now weighs a little over a pound which definitely explains the ten I've gained so far.  ;-)  Although this is the first and maybe the only time I will admit this, I think I might be getting very slight braxton hicks contractions.  Sometimes it feels a little crampy down there.  I don't like to say this because the word contractions before about 37 weeks or so scares me.  But I just read that they're completely normal and beneficial because they're preparing my body.  They're also gripping and massaging the baby, and that certainly isn't a bad thing.  I wish I could get massaged too!  So therefore, they might be braxton hicks or maybe as I originally thought, just some stretching and growing of the uterus.

A couple of pics at 22 weeks

Women's Conference and Bathroom Project

A couple of weeks back was our Stake Women's Coference.  It was so much fun!  We had a nice dinner and a wonderful presentation on Jesus Christ.  Many of us stayed in a hotel that night and stayed up until 2:30am chatting.  The next morning there were tons of crafts and we took the lightrale downtown and hung out down there for a couple of hours.  It was so much fun being with the wonderful women in the church!

Some of the lovely ladies who attended the fun-filled weekend

After ditching my husband for 24 hours, I came home to a wonderful surprise.  Chris had done a ton of work on the shower and he had also worked on our downstairs TV room project and had even torn down a wall with the help of our friend Andrew while their wives were out having fun.  So as of  a week and a half ago, the bathroom is usable!  And how wonderful it is to have my shower and sink back!  It looks awesome!  It's not quite done; we're also going to replace the cabinet, counter, mirror, and tile on the floor.  But that will come in the near future.