I am still alive...

I managed to make it out alive, but I am definately sore today! LOVE IT! The professional games we went to were really fun as well. Thanks for coming with us Brett and Casandra!

Rounding out October

Well the rest of our October was fairly uneventful and boy was that nice! I don't think that we have been home for 3 consecutive weekends since - well before we even met! Our weekends have consisted of planting trees in the rain, staining our deck with the resulting sore neck, and hiking up Adams canyon with our neighbors. The hike took us took us to a beautiful waterfall. Most of the leaves on the trees had fallen but it was still fairly colorful.

On the second to last day of October my hair took the chop. I have been contemplating cutting off 10 inches for Locks of Love and the final push was when Kendra (a college friend) cut her hair for the 3rd time for Locks of Love and she is several years younger than I. I guess hair really does grow back-thanks for getting me to take the step!

We also had a visit from my Dad and sister Kaley. It was a weekend filled with food, cute little Madison, and many games of Killer Bunnies. We did go bowling and we killed the competition around us. There was 6 of us and we had 13 strikes and 17 spare. Jace took the #1 spot willing by a small margin with 163 points. Way to go Jace!

We also did our civic duty today and voted on a presidential candidate and also local leaders. We are lucky to live in a country that gives us a choice in our leaders.

Now the last update is not from October, and hasn't even happened yet but I recieved the most wonderful news today - I GET TO PLAY RUGBY THIS WEEKEND! I am so excited! But don't worry it gets better! After the game that I GET TO PLAY IN! Team USA is going to be playing against Team Uruaguy at the REAL soccer stadium. There is acutally another professional game that will happen before that game too! What a great day to come!

Yellowstone

We took an anniversary/birthday trip to Island Park and Yellowstone this last weekend. We had lots of fun, and as with any trip we had a lot of adventures. The adventure started as we wandered through the pitch blackedness (in Idaho speak), searching for Lindsey's grandparents cabin. However, after shining the brights in numerous residents cabins and placing a call to her Father, and her Aunt Lori at midnight, we finally found our way.

We spent a little time at the cabin, but most of the time was actually spent in Yellowstone (we rented a little cabin of our own in West Yellowstone for two nights.) We saw lots of elk, bison, and deer, but alas, no bears or moose (unless the dead one on the highway by Rexburg counts.) Don't worry though, we did carry bear spray...all 8 ounces and $45 dollars worth! I will find something or someone to use it on someday.

Since Lindsey and I both have a fondness for waterfalls as opposed to other geographical phenomena, we spent much of our time visiting different falls. We visited upper falls, lower falls, fairy falls, mystic falls, tower falls, firehole falls, and a couple of wannabe waterfalls called cascades (which Lindsey just informed me was her favorite part.)

We also visited a number of badly smelling, water or mud spewing thermal features. We thought maybe the air would be warmer around these features, however, we just ended up colder as they spewed steam on us and then the cold breeze hit us. While it was stormy off and on the whole weekend we were lucky because we never actually got rained on, and it only snowed on us a few minutes here and there.

So, without further ado, what you really wanted to get from this posting: the pictures.

Our First Century!

Well, we did our first (and possibly our last) Century ride yesterday. The ride by definition is 100 miles, however, I was severely disappointed when we hit 100 miles and still had 3.5 miles left to go! Especially since my tire blew out twice at mile 1o1.5.

As an good race (or tour) would start...at the bathrooms.

Overlooking Jordanelle. And yes, we did have to make quite a climb to get up to get this view! Lindsey loved it...I was just dreaming of the downhill on the other side. Joce thought this picture would make a great Fidelity advertisement.

One 4-5 mile stretch was actually on dirt road. Lindsey looks happy in the picture, but I can tell you she wasn't happy with the road! Nice scenery though. A lot of dead skunks, however.Finally!!

The end. Riding a tour instead of a race is a bit anti-climatic. You get to the end, and everyone is just packing up to go home. There's no finish line, there's no balloons, and nobody cares that you just finished 100 miles! Well, almost, Mom, Sarah, and Laurissa did come to cheer us on at the finish! Thanks guys!

Our Summer Story (or what we took pictures of!) PART 1

So...I decided it's way too hard to post the whole summer in one post, therefore, I will post several in succession.

We started off our summer with the Salem Spring Triathlon. Okay, I guess that means this is finishing off our spring, but let's not get picky this early in the post. It felt a little more like winter, but we had lots of fun even though it rained and they cancelled the bike portion on us. Oh well, what's not to love about swimming in ice water!? Oh yeah, and we got these really cool, yellow, cheap, plastic water bottles. Could life get any better!?

We then decided we should delve into our mythologically greek past and see what really was at the top of Mount Olympus. It's not a leisurely stroll, in case you were wondering. I think Ashley was calling hellfire down, or maybe she's just really, really sure...she probably shouldn't have been.

It turns out that there is nothing at the top of Mt. Olympus, besides a great view, some big rocks, a mailbox, and about 20 other people eating PB&J's. Mystery solved. I'm kind of glad, Greek gods were kind of freaks!

The first part of the "run, sleep, drive, repeat." of the Wasatch Back. Luckily Chad just bought a new limo...err...Yukon and was gracious enough to do most of the driving. We were the R.O.U.S.'s so we had to watch princess bride during the in between run time.

Come on... two days for $85, you can't really expect a luxury hotel! I would have to say, however, that this was much better for sleeping that the high school gym we slept in later on. But alas, no sleeping was had here. We did lay in our sleeping bags and think about it though!

Apparently the 45 minutes of sleep on the gym floor went better for Joce than for me. This is her last leg, starting at about 7:30 in the morning and she's rarin' to go!

Finally! The end! Nobody was raring to go here! Here is our whole Wasatch Back team heading for the finish line, custom shirts and all! It was a lot of fun, but I had two huge blisters on my feet from the last, severely downhill portion of my last leg.

And of course we all got lovely Ragnar medallions for posterity.

Next we're off to the dam Waddoups Reunion, or Waddoups Dam Reunion, or whatever.

The first stop of our annual motorcylcle ride. We headed out from the Mackey dam, went up to Challis, and then headed over to redfish lake. This is Lindsey's self portrait, helmet et al.

Of course, the bikes. I swear we didn't stagger them like this on purpose. I just kind of worked out that way, I guess we just have natural talent.

We stopped in Stanley (you may recognize this as consistently being one of the coldest places in the lower 48!) We decided to stop at this nice little pizza and subs place. We figured that would have something for everyone....turns out it was pizza and SUDS. That's okay, the pizza was really good so no one complained about not getting as sub.

Lindsey and I got really excited when we got to Redfish. Not excited enough to get in though! It's freezing! Just like I remembered it!