June report

June. I guess in January I thought June would be a GREAT month to run lots of miles. Originally the goal was to run 75 miles, but when I ran 73 miles in April preparing for my half marathon I upped the goal to 100 miles. June proved to be a SUPER BUSY month. My dad had his half Ironman in Boise second weekend in June. My sister also got her mission call that weekend. That week I was doing two a day runs a few days to make up for the runs I would miss while I was in Boise. The next weekend Julie got her endowment in Rexburg so I was home again for that. That week I just didn't run as much. Luckily I had run those first two days in June so I had some fudge room. The third weekend we were off to Moab for skydiving so I was running 6 miles a day for 4 days. That made me super tired. :/ This last week was great though. With the extra miles from the first two days I was able to skip a couple days of running this last week, which was very helpful since I needed to take some tests at BYU in the mornings. Friday night I ended up going with my roommate Megan and some other people from the ward up Spanish Fork Canyon to the hot pots. It was loads of fun, but we got home at 1:30. That doesn't work so well when you need to get up early-ish to be able to run before it's too hot. There was no way I wasn't going to go. With only 2.8 miles left of my June goal, I dragged my sorry self out of bed and made the last run. My 5 hours of sleep won't be the greatest idea for my day today and I'm sure I'll pay for it tomorrow, but I did it!!

And I love that this tells me how many donuts I burned. I'm pretty sure I'd want to die if I had eaten 70 donuts.

Skydive: Moab Style

What do you do when you find Skydiving for half price on Groupon? You buy it and make a whole big trip out of it of course! I think we bought these back in March, could have been April, and then we all took a look at our schedules and made plans for an Epic Camping Trip to Moab.
Thursday we headed out at about 7 p.m. We took 2 cars and we were packed in tight. We got to camp pretty late and set up in the dark. Friday morning we got up to make breakfast and get ready for SKYDIVING!!!

Sadly at about 8 they called to tell us that it was too windy and they were doing dives that day. LAME SAUCE. Aubrey made it pretty clear that this was unacceptable and asked what they were going to do about it. After some calling, weather look-ups, and talking to the man in the front office of our campground we decided they were probably being honest with us and decided to go at the crack of dawn on Saturday. So we switched our plans around and headed to Monticello to go to the temple. Aubrey and I have a goal to go to all the temples in Utah and since we were so close to Monticello it would be ridiculous to not go and have to make the long trip out another day.
We barely made our session. Seriously we were running into the temple with the session starting in 5 minutes, but we made it. I'll have to get temple pictures from Aubrey and post them later. After the temple we headed to Loyd's Lake for lunch and swimming. The lake wasn't exactly what we were thinking it would be so we decided to just eat and head back to the campground and swim in the pool. It was pretty darn hot. Dinner was nice, but for me the highlight of the night was making cake in an orange. I found it on pinterest and thought I'd give it a whirl. It was AWESOME!!!

Saturday morning we were up at 5:15 a.m. to make it to the airport by 6. Luckily the wind was mild and we had high hopes that we'd get to jump. And jump we did!! It was a lot different from our jump last year in Ogden. No jumpsuits or funky hats. And the airplane was TINY! In Ogden you could fit 6 pairs of jumpers. No such luck here. There were two sets of jumpers and the pilot. Aubrey and I were up first. Good thing we decided I'd be the first jumper since I sat right by the lack of door. It was AMAZING! The view was incredible. The actually free fall was really short and the parachute ride down didn't seem very long either, but it was still really awesome.

 I have a video of us coming down that my brother took, but it doesn't appear to be working, so it will have to wait til another day. After skydiving we headed back to camp to pack up and head to Arches for some hiking.

Delicate Arch. It was SO windy, we decided not to walk out to the arch for fear of being blown off the rocks.

 It was HOT, but seriously kind of ridiculous. And SO windy! We had a lot of fun and were completely wiped out by the end of our hike only to get back to the car and have to drive the 3.5 hours back to Provo. It was a good trip but I was completely worn out.

It was too hot to sleep in the tents, so Julie just made do with the ground in the shade.

Aubrey was really tired in the car and didn't like the sun in her face so the cooler lid provided some much needed shade.

I slept 10 hours Saturday night and managed to get a 1.5 hour nap in on Sunday. I slept 7 hours last night and I'm ready for a nap now. It was a good weekend, but man I'm tired!

A rut

How do we get stuck in a rut? Better question, how do we get out?

No bueno

There are some things in life that are just no bueno. Passing out is one of them. I've had quite a few experiences in my life with passing out. None of them have been positive. I do have a pretty good embarrassing story out of one of them, but it's really just no fun.
Yesterday was a close call. I went to plasma and they stuck my arm. It hurt like crazy and it wasn't flowing. They moved it around a bit and then decided that it wasn't going to work so they pulled it out. They gave me the option to try in my left arm. I should have just said no. They've tried once before with no luck, but I figured if it worked then I'd have two arms to donate with instead of always going with my right. She found a vein and it was going decently, but not great. It took forever and then on the 3rd return the machine just shut off. Lame. She played with it and got me most of my blood back, but I could do the last draw or get the return with the saline. Luckily since she got me most of my blood back I don't have to be deferred, but I left with two wrapped arms and missing a bit of blood.
I got home and started making dinner. It was hot over the stove and as I was just finishing up when I felt it. The no good, you're in big trouble lay down now, feeling. So I did. I tried to get a drink but knew I wouldn't make it. So there I am laying on the kitchen floor with my food burning on the stove. I called up to my roommate to please come turn off the stove and then I just stayed there on the floor for 10 minutes. Kinda freaked my roommate out when she came down and saw me on the floor, but I was okay. I didn't actually pass out, but I still got the cold sweat that comes with it. Gross. Once I felt a bit better I got up, finished my dinner and had a lovely evening.
Basically what I'm trying to tell you is if you can, AVOID PASSING OUT at all costs. It's really awful. Having a slight lack of blood mixed with being super hot is a bad combination. I'm just glad I was at home and that no embarrassing stories will come from this one.

Once I went to an Ironman

And it was REALLY REALLY cold!!! We started out the weekend Thursday night with my sister reading her mission call. I knew she would get it Thursday but thought she'd just read it in the morning and I'd listen over the phone. Nope. She had a big ole party with tons of people so she had to wait until 9 p.m. My mom convinced me that I should drive home and surprise my sister. Only my mom knew that I was coming, so my sister, dad, and brothers were all quite surprised. It was awesome! She is going to the Philippines, Laoag mission. Friday morning we got up and packed the cars and headed to Boise for Ironman 70.3. Julie and I took my car and dropped it off in Burley at my grandpa's house and then continued on with mom and dad in their car. What a long, dull drive. Luckily we like to sing and had a pretty good time. Once we got there we went and got dad all checked in and then headed to Lucky Peak Dam to drop off his bike. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Saturday morning we woke up to wind and overcast skies. No bueno. We headed into town to drop of his running bag and then headed to the Dam for his final preparations. On the way there is started to rain. He went up and checked his bike and then came back to get my sister and I. It was 43 degrees and the water temperature was 59. Sounds like LOADS of fun to me. :/ Mom stayed in the car since it was quite a hike to get up to the dam from the parking lot and hiking isn't really her thing. I took her sweater that had a hood and put in on over my jacket. Julie had a hoodie on and then when dad shed his hoodie to get ready (and get 'cooled off' so the water might seem a bit warmer) Julie put that on. We stood out in the rain FOREVER before the race actually started. It was SO cold and we had shoes and coats on! The poor athletes were standing down by the water in their bare feet and just a wet suit. We were cheering and being quite silly and were relieved when the race finally started. We were trying to let mom know that the race had been shortened due to the wind. They took the bike from 56 miles down to 15. Lame weather.

It was really cold

After an hour of standing in the rain, that was sometimes sleet, dad emerged from the water. Hallelujah!!

Hurray the Swim is over!!!!

We cheered like crazy and then ran up to the top to cheer some more. By this time both Julie and I were soaked to the bone. If we hadn't been wearing belts we would have lost our pants because they were so wet and heavy. Dad was shaking pretty hard trying to get everything changed for the bike. He said it took him half way through the bike for his teeth to stop chattering.

Dad trying to get his gear on with his poor shaking hands.

We went to the hotel during the bike since we knew we wouldn't make it for the transition to run. We tracked his progress online and then headed back into town to watch the finish. It had finally warmed up and stopped raining so the run was good for dad and he finished strong.
It was disappointing that it wasn't a full half Ironman, but we had fun, he learned a lot and we are his #1 fans!!

Best Calling Ever!!

As I have mentioned before, I am the compassionate service coordinator in my ward. I really like this calling! I've found it to be a little bit tricky in a single's ward. There aren't people having babies, people having hospital stays or funerals to help with. I wrote about service "without the casserole" in this post here if you want to read it.
This time it was different and there actually was a "casserole" so to speak. I've been trying to think of something to do for the girls on their birthdays. I tend to think big when I should be thinking much smaller so I asked my roommates. Megan was inspired when she said, "Maybe just a cupcake?" So that's what I did.
When my May challenge of no treats was finally over I made a bunch of cupcakes. Now they are NOTHING fancy. Not even close. They're from a box, frosting from the store and some sprinkles. I did try to make them cute with the packaging. I got the idea on pinterest and set to work to find some cute cellophane bags. GO TO THE DOLLAR STORE!!! I went to craft stores and Wal-Mart and they had NOTHING!! The dollar store (Honks) was a success. I spent last night frosting cupcakes and then wrapping them up.

I should have taken a close up of one of them. Maybe I'll do that tonight when I get home. But here is what my counter looked like when I was all finished. Then it was time to deliver them. Who knew that a cupcake could bring so much happiness!? I did cupcakes for May and June birthdays so some of them were a bit late and others were early. One girl, whose birthday was May 7 was so HAPPY! She said I made her night! There were similar reactions throughout the night. By the time I was done I was feeling really happy too! I finished up the night with a run (2 a day runs. Gross) and then watched the end of Goofy Movie with some friends. I need to find some more service to do! My calling is the best ever!! I get to do nice things for people and feel great and the girls get a little boost in their day as well. Hurray for service!!

Hello June

Maybe I'm the only one who sometimes really has a hard time being happy for people who are getting married. And maybe it's not that I'm not happy for them, but that my own disappointment for my lack of relationship overshadows any happiness I have for the happy little lovebirds. You may recall from my birthday month of dating that I had a third date who bailed on me because he got a girlfriend. That was a hard one to take and then they broke up after 2 weeks. By then I was knee deep in April Fools and "obviously unavailable". Not that I really think anything would have happened with him, but there's that tiny little voice that says "what if?" Honestly I don't think it would have worked and I'm okay with the fact that he's engaged. My favorite part is that he gave me SUCH a hard time about not knowing "Jordan" for very long. According to my story we had been dating for 2 months-ish. Now here he is, engaged after only 2.5 months. smh. Hypocrite. :) Oh well. I hope they will be very happy. I really honestly do. And more than that, I hope I will be very happy. Oh man.
On a different note, I started out June in style. No treat month is over and this was my breakfast.

That's right. A smoothie and a cupcake. I did make some eggs as well. My roommate made cupcakes last night and she decorated this one especially for me. Earlier in May she made brownies and one pan didn't turn out how she wanted so she put them on a plate on the counter with a sign that said "Eat me" and then in tiny letters below "except Cathy". My roommates were very supportive of me in my May challenge.