A little road trippin'

My friend Kari's birthday was on Sunday and she invited me to go on a road trip with her down to St. George in celebration. She had never been to Zion National Park and wanted to check it off her list. So Friday afternoon we packed up and headed out. We had a nice drive down talking about whatever we felt like. About an hour before we arrived I got really excited to see The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn and we decided we should sing the rest of the way. Not sing songs, but sing our conversation. It was very entertaining.
We stayed with our friend Blaire at her family's house in St. George. We dropped off our stuff and then piled in the car to head to Tuacahn. Blaire's brother in law works there and scored us some free tickets. Since Kari's third person she invited couldn't come at the last minute we had an extra ticket to the play so we took Blaire's 4 year old niece Anya with us. She was shy for about 37 seconds and then proceeded to tell me everything about everything since I was sitting in the back with her. By the time we got to Tuacahn we were the best of friends.

The play was fantastic!! I had heard the soundtrack to the play before on the way home from my mission in Spain. It makes for a very long flight when the person next to you is asleep, you can't play the games on the touch screen in front of you because they make you sick and you can't watch the movie; A. because you're a missionary and B. because it will make you sick just like the game did. That leaves listening to music provided by the airline, so what else is a poor missionary to do but listen to Disney. I loved the added songs and was excited to see how they played out. I was not disappointed. It. Was. FABULOUS. I really just loved it so much.

The next morning Blaire and I snuck out to the grocery store to get some flowers and chocolate for Kari's birthday while she was still sleeping. When we got back we headed into town for some breakfast at The Bear Paw. I decided to just go with the pancakes. Kind of boring. In my head I was thinking IHOP so I ordered the large stack because I was feeling very hungry. Holy cow! The pancakes were bigger than my face! I barely made it through 2 and gave the last one to Blaire since her French toast was so little.
Then we were off to Zion. I've been there a few times, but I forget how HUGE those rocks are. It's amazing to me the talents of God. I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but seriously! What an artist! The colors and just the size of those rocks is so amazing.

Kari wanted to hike the narrows so we got on the bus and headed in. It was a pretty warm day, but once we got down to the water it was the perfect temperature. Being down in that canyon provided shade and the water was pretty cold. It worked out perfectly.

After the narrows we headed to the emerald pools. It had a beautiful view that has provided a nice new lock screen for my phone.

Saturday night we went to Anasazi, an interesting steak house in St. George. They brought you your meat on a hot stone and you cooked it yourself. It was very different, but fun.
Sunday morning we went to a local ward and it happened to be the primary program. It was very entertaining watching those little kids say their parts and sing the songs.
We finished up the trip with a stop at Blaire's house for lunch. Sloppy Joes, my favorite! And then headed out to Snow Canyon. It was SUPER hot so we only got out for one hike to Jenny's canyon which was only half a mile round trip.
It was a really fun weekend with Kari and Blaire and I'm glad I got to go.

Utah temples

It's on my bucket list to go to all the temples in Utah and Idaho and do an ordinance of some kind.

Logan
Brigham City
Ogden
Bountiful
Salt Lake 
Jordan River
Draper
Oquirrh Mountain
Timponogos
Provo
Provo City Center- construction
Vernal
Payson- construction
Cedar City- construction
Monticello
St. George


Rexburg
Idaho Falls
Twin Falls
Boise- been to two sealings, but I've never actually done an ordinance
Meridian - construction

I'd say I'm doing pretty good.

Decisions

I hate making decisions. Like big ones that are really going to affect my life. Probably in a really big way. I've been feeling the need for a big change for a few months now. New job, new place, new people. And although I know I need the change, I just have no idea what to do or where to go. It's terrifying. I feel like I'm stuck in life and then even more stuck in trying to decide what to do. A neon sign pointing in the right direction would be super. Sadly I know that's not how it works. I'm glad general conference is in a couple weeks. I probably should make a couple trips to the temple as well and maybe find out who my home teachers are. Being an adult really is the pits sometimes.

Camping Camping

I love camping. Love it. Sadly I haven't done much of it this summer, but thanks to my brother Kevin we had an awesome family camping trip this last weekend. He and Marc decided it needed to happen and Kevin took it on, with the help of mom and aunt Tammy of course. They found a weekend that worked for everyone and at pretty much the last minute, it was decided that we would go camping out by Heise hot springs.

Friday I got off work early and headed to Jon and Louisa's. Jamee and I would be taking three of their kids and they would be coming with the other three in Jamee's car. There was a little misunderstanding that led to a late start, but the kids entertained themselves climbing in and around my car while we waited. 

Once we got loaded up we hit the road for our four hour drive. The kids did pretty well, with Talmage only asking if we were there yet three times. We had to make a stop in Idaho Falls for some last minute supplies. I was super fast getting everything, but then ended up in the longest line ever! We finally got back on the road and made it to camp. It was dark, but luckily everyone had been there for a couple days already and everything was already set up. Dinner was just getting done so we sat down to eat with everyone.

Saturday morning mom and I were in charge of breakfast.We had eggs, hash browns and bacon.

After breakfast we headed out to Ririe Reservoir. Sadly I didn't get any pictures. It was pretty windy and cold. Toward the end of the day the winds died down a bit and the sun tried to make an appearance so there were boat rides and exploits on the jet skis. A couple of the little kids ventured to jump in the water and Julie and I had the great idea that we should push Jamee in. It worked, but that meant we had to go in too. It was dang cold. Seriously. FREEZING. After warming up a bit, Jamee, Julie and I went to change into running clothes to run the 10+ miles back to camp.

It was a miserable run. We know I've been having troubles the last 4 months with running and it wasn't any better this time. I had eaten tacos about and hour before and we didn't bring any water. We decided that instead of running on the highway for a mile we would just run on a dirt farm road until it connected on the other side. It didn't connect like we thought it would so we decided to keep going through the farms. Oh my goodness. It was an adventure. I was slower than normal and SOOOO thirsty. We had to cross a few canals and a river. Luckily there were stellar "bridges" so we didn't have to ford the river.

We finally connected with the road and made a stop at Mountain River Ranch for a drink. Then we were back on the road for the last 3 miles. At mile 9 we called Kevin to come and get us. Shortly after that my dad pulled up  behind us. He had been worried and went out looking for us. Thankfully we were not kidnapped by a trucker, murdered and cut up into little pieces. Just lost in the middle of an alfalfa field. :) We made it back for the end of dinner and then pretty much laid around the rest of the night.

Sunday was full of rain so we stayed in the camper for most of the morning. I took a walk with my dad once it quit and later in the afternoon Jamee, Julie, Kevin, Marc, Dustyn and I headed down the road for a little hike. It was a fun little hike. Julie and Marc are two of the most ridiculous people I know and they made it very entertaining.

we all look pretty homeless

Dustyn may struggle with the duck face ...

but really, no one looks good doing the duck face

Monday morning we packed up and headed out. Mom and Julie convinced me to come home and hang out for a while. Kevin took us out to Warm Slough for a little more jet ski riding. The water there was no warmer than the reservoir, but we had a good time. It was a rough drive home for me and I stopped on Malad pass and took a nap. Overall it was a fantastic camping trip. I love my family!!

Running in the dark

I went on a walk last night with my friend Lisa and she asked what was new in my life. That's always an interesting question because mostly life is just always the same, with maybe one or two turns. This time I reported on Ragnar Colorado.
She asked me about the legs I ran and which was my favorite. The night run was hands down my favorite. I told her I love to run at night and would run at night all the time if I could. She asked me why and these are the reasons I came up with.
1. It's a lot cooler. Temperature wise and in awesomeness.
2. It's peaceful. Not as much traffic and people out and about.
3. You can't see how far you still have to go.
Bonus: If the moon is out, it's just that much better.

Number three is probably one of my favorites. When I run I have a mental block of "Holy crap I still have so far to go, I can't even see the finish, look at that giant hill in front of me, I think I better walk now".
When I run at night, it's dark. I'm not suppose to be able to see how far I still have to go. I can't see the finish; BECAUSE IT'S DARK! I can't see the full size of that hill in front of me. I just keep telling myself one more step and it's easier for me to just keep going.

Lisa commented that there had to be a metaphor for life in there somewhere and last night when I was talking to my cousin Jamee about the trials and difficulties of life we came up with a few ideas. Here's one of them. So many times we wish we could just see the big picture. If we only knew what was coming it would be easier to handle. NOT TRUE. If we could see the whole picture, we'd see that giant mountain we're going to have to climb and we'd be terrified and cry and probably sit down and refuse to move. Sometimes being in the dark is the biggest favor the Lord can do for us. Either way we have to climb the mountain, but maybe if we can't see the end, it will make it easier to just keep going one day at a time, with just a little bit of the road visible in front of us.

Maybe some people would rather see the whole mountain before they start running and maybe sometimes we should try and see the whole picture, but as for me, I prefer running in the dark.

Ragnar Colorado

Sometimes your friends get you to do dumb things without even trying. Like run a Ragnar when you haven't been training and have been struggling to run 3 miles on 8 hours of sleep, but that's exactly what Brenda got me to do. Run Ragnar with absolutely no training.
She had been on the Ragnar team for a couple of months. She ran it last year and was happy to do it again this year even though she didn't have much time to train with all of her school stuff. Friday the first she messaged me and asked if I wanted to do it too, since the other team was still short runners. I've wanted to try a regular road Ragnar since I did trail last year and this seemed like a good opportunity. It was a sponsored team so all I had to pay for was food and gas and Brenda said it was a beautiful run. I thought about it over the weekend, recruited my friend Spencer to come too and we committed to the team on Monday.
Thursday morning we had two people drop out and we still weren't sure on the vehicle situation. It was really starting to give me anxiety. We finally got the runner situation figured out, van 1 would just take our leg 7 and we would just do a 5 man team in van 2. Since we were only going to have 5 runners, our team captain decided we would just take her car to save on gas.
Thursday night we left Provo at about 7 and headed for Colorado. It was a long drive, but we made pretty good time and crashed as soon as we got to the hotel. We only got about 4.5 hours of sleep (if we were lucky) and then the other team's van 1 was up and getting ready to leave. Brenda, Spencer and I had nothing to do about 6 hours waiting for van 1 to get to the exchange and for our other two teammates to get there. We sat around at the "lake" at the resort for a while and tried to not be too bored, but I think we were all glad to get things started.
 Brenda was our first runner. It was pretty warm and she had a long run. She ended up running even longer, because it was a moving exchange and we were pretty far down. I was the next runner and I was afraid between the heat and the altitude I was going to die, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It was beautiful and I just might be in love with Colorado.

3 runners later and we were at a rec center sleeping on the gym floor.

It wasn't the best sleep I've ever had and it was only about two hours before we were packing our stuff back to the car and driving to the next exchange. Some vans really get into the whole thing and decorate their vans and it is awesome. This was one of my favorites.

It was about 2 in the morning at this point and we were running through Glenwood canyon. I was sad we were running it at night because it looked like it would be a beautiful canyon, but it was a great night run and we had an awesome moon!

 Luckily after this run we got to stay in a hotel. I slept much better there for about 3 hours and then we were dragging our sorry selves back out to the car for our last round of running. I was pretty gross and super tired by this time. My last run was really hot and even though it was only 3.3 miles it was slower than I've run in a LONG time, which is saying something since I've been so slow the last 3 months.
I was so glad when I was finished. The last three runners did great and we actually made pretty good time. We had a while to wait for our last runner. We got cleaned up a bit and Brenda caught a few zzzz's

and then we were off to wait for Spencer at the finish line. I was SOOO glad to be done and then we just had to wait around for everyone to be ready to drive us back to our car at the starting line.

Sadly it was a two hour drive to the car and then the six hour drive to get home. We left the finish line at about 6 and left for home and about 8:45. We stopped for pizza because we were starving and wanted some "real" food and then we just pushed it through the night. It was nice having 3 people in the car so two could keep each other awake and the third could sleep. We pulled into Provo at about 3:30 a.m. 8:30 church was definitely NOT going to happen so Brenda and I dragged ourselves out of our house for an 11:30 ward. We barely made it through sacrament meeting and then came home and crashed.
It was a fun weekend, but I don't know if I'm really cut out for road Ragnar. I think I'll stick to trail.

The gospel is simple

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend the day with my family for some very important events. My cousin Jon baptized his daughter Sadie.

 After the confirmation of Sadie, he blessed his new baby Aubree Grace.

After this we headed up to Ogden for the temple open house. I had never been to an open house so I was excited to go. After a slight detour (thanks to Siri) we made it to the temple and miraculously met up with everyone else.

Whitni wanted to be carried like a baby

The tour itself was not that exciting. I guess once you've seen one temple, you've seen them all. It was very beautiful, but what stood out to me was the significance of a lot of my family going through at the same time after having had a blessing and a baptism already that day.

As I stood there talking about the significance of a temple and how it should be our goal, I was just so grateful for my testimony of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. I realize we all have our trials and struggles, but the gospel is easy, at least for me (I know it's not for all, especially in the beginning). Satan would have you think that it is not, but really it is. The natural man is what makes things hard. Satan is so good at his job. He would have you doubt, he would have you take the "easy" way, but when everything is said and done, it is not any easier. You won't be any happier. The gospel requires a lot, but at it's core it is very simple. Come unto Christ, strive to follow him, make and keep covenants and he will bless you beyond what you could ask for. I say the gospel is easy, but there will always be hard times. That is the nature of this life, but just because something is difficult doesn't make it any less true or worth it. The contrary is actually true. It will be that much more worth it when you have to fight for it. Wherever you may be in your testimony, fight for it. Don't let Satan win. Don't let him pull you away from the Spirit. Don't let set backs keep you from trying again. God is your biggest fan, he is rooting for you to succeed. He will help you. Jesus Christ will help you. What better team could you ask for?