tom and brea sorrells

this will never get old...

2012-02-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

yes, he's getting older, but having copper will never get old.

what's new with copper lopper:

new tricks! he understands:

heel

sit

lay down

stay (with treat two feet away from him and us walking around the entire house!!!)

come

we've been super impressed with how quickly he's learning everything. he's seriously a very smart dog and loves to please!

other fun things:

responds to name

ears have doubled in size!

fetching

stopped biting

hasn't stopped chewing

loves belly rubbed

pointing occasionally

it took me an hour to get some decent photos of this guy. he's a busy puppy- always moving.

he's learned where things are...anytime we're within a few feet of the sink he runs to us. his treats are under the sink.

anytime theres treats, he automatically sits. good boy!

he loves tom....and tom bum.

we were working on our house this weekend and we chained him up in the front yard with his pillow. he loved the sun and chewing on all the sticks!

we're adding wainscot to our front room. tom's such a handyman!

copper loves sleeping and nuggles.

this is the day i realized his kennel was too small. we had to expand it that night.

copper

2012-01-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

we have fallen in love with this little guy.

copper is 2 months today. here are the things he's learned in the past 2 weeks.

-potty on newspaper

-sleep in kennel

-sit and stay before meal time

-sit on command

-walk with leash

-walk right next to you

-what snow is

-snow is delicious

-human food is delicious

-tear toys apart

-what treats are

(all you who are not dog lovers- don't continue reading. you will think i'm mentally insane.)

i'm officially a "dog mother" and i'm proud to say our lives revolve around this k-9. tom and i have always loved dogs and it's been so fun to learn everything about raising a pup. when you think of puppies, you usually think of cute little fuzzballs that melt your heart into a pile of goo. but we never. would have guessed that along with that goo feeling, a puppy would prepare us for having a baby someday. we're already starting to see similarities. waking up to puppy cries every couple hours in the night, constant whining while trying to kennel/play pen train him, and trying to be consistent with biting, chewing, playing, and other things. not for a second have i loved him less! here are some of our adventures this past couple weeks.

coppers first hike. he got tired pretty quick. tom took him again a few days later and he stepped in a cactus. copper was pretty sad. this is where we learned he loved being wrapped up in our jackets.

first bike trip. he fit in my hip bag perfectly! it was so dang cute, he just fell asleep with his head hanging out. he loved it.

first snow day. he was super freaked out at first. but once we got him to run in it, he started loving it! now, he really can't get enough of the snow. he digs holes with his nose and just gulps the water. we've had to be careful with his water intake since he pees every 5 minutes.

some of my favorite pics of my boys. i love the snow on coppers face. and his blue eyes outside.

smothering him, which we've got really good at :)

his favorite time is nap time....especially with tom. they are the best snugglers i've ever seen. whenever i try to snuggle copper he just finds a way to chew on my hair. he just chews on toms head.

first time meeting toms bum. he loves sleeping on tom...and he doesn't care where it is!

first night in kennel. we borrowed the kennel from toms friend and it was 10x too big for copper. we build a small space for him. it's so perfect.

this walkway in bountiful is right next to the freeway. copper is terrified of cars so we've tried to walk him around traffic more. he did so good this day. stayed right next to walker.

whenever copper gets the chance, he'll find a nice place to sleep in our clothes or our bedding. he finds the best places. i love when he sleeps on his back...he looks so comfy.

so comfy.

i made this dog bed for copper last week. i found the fabric discounted so the pillow only cost me a few bucks. the applique was super easy too. i love this first picture of him leaping by the pillow. i caught him mid-air.

he's really good about driving in the car. he fell asleep under the seat the other day. it was super cute.

first fire hydrant pee.

first long hike. we took him above centerville and he did so good. it was two miles and we only had to hold him once through the really steep part at the end. there's a ton of bald eagles around centerville so we had to keep him on a leash. puppies don't make good eagle dinners!!

at the top.

oh deer!

2012-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

tom had an adventure at work today.

(tom on right)

they found this deer stuck in the swing and he had been there for quit a while. when the took this video, the deer had been slowing down and getting really tired. they tried cutting the swing from a distance with no success. a cop came by and actually pinned the buck's antlers against the pole and tom grabbed the other antlers. they had the deers head pinned and decided cutting the swing would take too long. the deer was freaking out obviously so tom, being the hero of the day, pulled out his trusty leatherman and started sawing away at the antler. it broke free and the deer ran straight for a person standing close by. he veered off at the last second straight into a tree where he pounded his neck. he got up and was on his was. they think he might have had some damage just from the stress alone.

ya i totally thought tom was joking when he told me the story. but the video proves it. they didn't get a video of tom wrestling the buck to the pole and sawing its manlyhood away. the cop kept the antler, which tom was pretty bummed about, but he had a very interesting day at work today!

our puppy

2012-01-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Say hello to our new puppy.

our new family member is a brittany spaniel. we got him friday night when he was 6 1/2 weeks old. he loves to snuggle, run around, and play with turtle squeak toy. and he's so darn cute. we can't get enough of him. we originally decided to name him ginger, but realized it was a girl name. my top pick is copper and tom doesn't mind it, so we'll probably go with that.

his first potty break in our yard.

his favorite thing to do is sleep. he loves to nuzzle up right next to you.

my boys.

sometimes really get into his turtle toy and just go bonkers on it. i finally got it on video, it's pretty hilarious.

this is a long video of my boys playing.

Windageddon

2011-12-04T13:16:00.001-08:00

it's been a whirlwind this past week.

thursday morning davis county got hit with a massive windstorm. centerville, where our house is, got the worst of it with winds clocking at 102mph, which is considered a category 2 hurricane. tom got called out at 2am that morning and we had already lost power by this point. at 630am i woke up and the first thing i saw was trees across the road bent over sideways from the whirling winds. the next thing i saw was our tree that had fallen over on our neighbors car. i got the day off from work since the freeway was closed from tipped over semi-trucks and debris. they were telling everyone to stay inside and i was glad to....these winds were so scary. i was terrified to even open my door thinking the wind would grab me and pull me out. my neighbors needed their car so we spent the next hour getting the tree off and at the same time a huge pine tree uprooted on the corner of our street. i didn't know until later how lucky we were. many homes in our area and in the city were not as lucky and had trees fall on their house, roofs lost, and fences plowed over. all the trees around us were bent over sideways from the wind (see pic two...the trees in back). the winds calmed a little around 1pm and tom asked me to take some pics around bountiful. they got a ton of damage. i uploaded a video i found on youtube that shows the damage a little (see below).

tom had to work for exactly 24 hours straight that first day. friday and saturday he did a 17 hour shift with a 6 hour break for sleeping. bountiful city has been very blessed to have lots of help come in. the department only has 8 workers, but 95 workers from other cities came to help (provo, spanish fork, sandy, st george, and more). tom said it was an amazing sight when they got in one morning and their yard was full with bucket trucks that came to help. they are all working around the clock to get bountiful up and running.

centerville city runs off of rocky mountain power. the north side of my street, including our house, was all out of power starting thursday morning and we finally got power up saturday around 1pm. we got all our camping gear out for the outage so i slept in our massive fleece sleeping bag with all my winter gear on. my neighbors that had power invited me over for dinner and games on night, which was so much fun. i also was able to shower at their house. toms parents and our friend dan came saturday morning to bring generators and heating devices. by the time we got it up and running rocky mountain finally showed up and had the power going within the hour. i was grateful to have family and friends willing to come help me.

we're expecting another storm tonight. they had the national guard come in to remove a lot of the debris that has not been contained from the last storm. my stake organized a group to go around and gather loose debris and objects. it's no supposed to be as intense, but will still have gusts reaching 75mph. i have our generator and lights ready if the power goes out again. it's also supposed to be a whiteout snowstorm.

can you imagine living in an area where hurricanes are a constant worry? this seems minuscule compared coastal hurricanes, but still one of the scariest things i've experienced.

this is from our back porch. a pine tree had broke in half on our power line and knocked out power to the entire block on our side.

jim repairing some minor damage we got.

yay! repairing the powerline!

this news report shows some of the action on a linemans side. jim and lisa think toms in this video and i agree, one shot definitely looks like tom. he is a hero!

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18323519

i'm a big kid now

2011-10-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

today was big.

can you guess what happened? here's some clues.

my hand is sore

my bank account is empty

i'm eating chocolate

we bought a house!

...and it's going to be totally worth it! the house is in centerville and we're moving in next week. we signed our life away to this little sucker!

since becoming big kids is new to us, we need advice. what's some advice you'd give to first time home buyers??

oh, summer.

2011-08-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

summer, where did you go?

yep, you're long gone.

i made a vow to update my blog.

then, a few months passed.

now, a month later, i'm getting around to it. yesterday was august 1st and it hit me that summer is almost over. i felt super guilty about not recording all the happenings of it.

and today is september 10th and maybe i'll finish this post. lets see. i feel like a failure.

so, i'm going to attempt the impossible. cramming an entire summer in one post. don't hold your breath....

May: Moab
I had never been to Moab and Tom has never biked there so we decided to give it a try. We had a bitter-sweet experience. Bad first couple days but had a blast the last day!
Memorable Moments:
-Finishing the MOAB Brand Trails
-hanging out after finishing
-First sunburn of summer
-Burning lungs and legs

M

May: Paddle fest in Buena Vista, CO.
Went with dan and nicole and had a blast! got to spend lots of time with my nieces and nephew. Memorable moments:
-taking kids fishing to town lake
-feeding deer
-four wheeling
-aly's graduation

June: Neighbor break-in
Our neighbors lock their keys in the their house on a monthly basis. This was the first time. We learned three things.
1. Angela is freakishly good at breaking in
2. I didn't know credit cards actually work!
3. Its too easy to break into our apartments (it scared us a little)

June: Camping at Diamond Fork
Went with Dan and Oakley. Memorable moments:
-pretty river
-horrible hike to river
-tom missing "the hugest fish ever"
-eating/relaxing in shade

June: Big Springs biking
This is one of our favorite places. The biking is awesome and the scenery is pretty amazing. Memorable moments:
-finding baby racoon on trail
-being glad a momma racoon didn't attack
-flower
-lone tree
-videos with phone
-open field

June: Jesus's Weddng
My brown brother got married this summer. The wedding had a Newsies-type theme. My sister and her family came and stayed with us for the wedding. Memorable moments:
-cinnamon breaded desserts
-homemade caramels
-seeing jesus so happy
-decorating jesus car

June: Little Dell Fishing
Tom and I borrowed Dan's kayaks all summer and used them for fishing. We went to Little Dell, which is pretty close to our house. We had a blast...this place is amazing! Memorable moments:
-glass water
-catching lots of fish
-asprey diving into water next to me

July: Bear Lake
We have the coolest friends in the whole world. So to celebrate our coolness, we decided to take a trip to Bear Lake, courtesy of Tessa's free cabin stay. It was a blast! Memorable moments:
-floating on tubes and getting saved by todd's paddling skills
-wakeboarding
-boat breaking
-frisbee cup game
-meals
-staying up and watching anchorman
-pillow fight
-lightning storm, rainbows
-telescope

July: Island Park Sorrells Reunion
Tom's mom rented an awesome cabin in Island Park for our reunion. It was so much fun! Memorable Moments:
-drive there (tom and I acted like kids...Lisa punished us like kids)
-country land
-cabin, hot tub, fire pit
-fishing!!! in rivers and lakes
-cat scratches
-yellowstone drive
-barbless hooks
-spiral staircase from hell
-looking for animals
-Bear World

Fast-forward halfway to see kids get scared. I love how Hunter gets in ninja mode!

July: Buena Vista Run-Hardt Reunion
Theme: Back to our Roots
This years reunion was awesome, like always. Memorable moments:
-8 mile bike ride in Leadville
-Ducking the Arkansas River
-Fishing
-Four-wheeling
-Minute to win it games
-Frisbee cup game
-pop bottle rockets
-movie night
-Fireside
-Having entire fam there

Summit of bike ride

goblins and wildhorses

2011-05-24T16:36:00.001-07:00

every time i think about spring, my chest starts to tingle.

some call this heart burn.

i call it "get me out of this freakin house" burn.

so, to fulfill my inner tingle, we went on a trip to goblin valley in southern utah a couple weeks ago. tom has been telling me about this place since i met him. i was ecstatic when he told me we were going. our travel buddies, dan and nicole, tagged along. and when i say tag along i mean they drove us there. see how good we are at this friendship thing???

there are some MUST SEE's in utah. my list is for another day, but goblin valley and little wildhorse canyon was added to that list after this trip.

if you live in utah, please go see it. it's better than moab.

speaking of moab, that little red rock tingle was embraced last weekend. pictures coming soon!

goblin valley was originally named mushroom valley, but that didn't last long. it's basically these freakishly looking figures in this huge valley (hence the name). this is definitely a day trip for anyone interested. you go there, spend a couple hours running around and climbing on the rocks, then you're done. it was awesome and totally worth it.
go here to see pretty pics.

it's one of those- you have to see it- kind of places. the figures were pretty interested and super fun to pounce on. we had a blast!

tom's inner child kicked into high gear while there. it's so fun to see him get all giggly when on trips like this.

bum rock!

click on this picture and find tom!!

my favorite pic- courtesy of nic. you had to hike up the cliff edge to get to the top. it was amazing view on both sides of the mountain.

little wildhorse canyon is right next to the goblin valley, so we decided to camp there and hike an 8 mile trail the next morning. this is the place that makes my top places to see in utah list. it's basically a small version of canyonlands, but without the people. i took tons of pics (surprise?) so i hope i can convey how amazing this place is in a few pics.

basecamp. getting firewood....dan style.

getting ready for hike.

this hike seriously blew my mind. i've never been anywhere like this- through the canyons and such. i instantly fell in love with the canyons you have to hike through. i'm not getting sappy or anything, but the light bounced off the rocks creating this amazing glow about the place. the textures and the colors seriously left me breathless. ya, i just shed a tear thinking about it.

this were some pretty challenging parts in the hike. you had to shimmy across the canyon using your hands, feet, and your bum bum. it's a lot scarier than it looks so nic and i took our fancy time going across. it was still so fun though.

hands down my favorite park of the hike...scratch that...my favorite part of the weekend. we started walking to this section of the canyon that was seriously glowing. maybe the light was just right, but we all just stood there awestruck. it was nothing less of amazing. i've posted some pretty pics on my photo blog. go here to see them.

i love these two pictures- nics face is priceless, and toms "helping hand"

i take lots of pics of whoever has to walk in front of me.

after our hike, we sat in the parking lot for about an hour roasting hot dogs on our stove and just relaxing. it was such a fun hike and i already want to go back!

kid history

2011-05-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

some friends at work showed me this. it's genius and i love it. hope you love it too.

the end.

it's mexico...but newer

2011-04-03T13:01:00.001-07:00

bueno.

that means good in new mexico.

and in other places.

but mostly in new mexico.

and that sums up my weekend with my chicas.

Every year for the past couple years (here and here), my mom, sister, and i take girls trip to visit my grandma in snowflake, arizona. we love my grandma, she's the kind that you want to hang out with. this year, we had something special planned for my grandma's 80th. we decided to meet halfway between colorado and arizona in santa fe, new mexico. yes, i know what you're thinking...

"what's there"??

have you ever been to mexico? it's a lot like that. only newer.

driving in leah's minivan-i mean escalade :)

this time, our girls trip included a few more chicas. my aunt phyllis and my cousin tristy came along and made it so fun!

mr. bat also joined the fun! he decided to creep on us outside our motel door all weekend. stalker.

our motel was right in the middle of the city, which meant a lot of walking.

story to be told:
for the past couple years my sister has been working hard at getting into dental school in denver. she is amazing...people that have to take the prerequisites and study for the DAT consider it a full time job. leah does it with 3 young children and only nighttime to do work.

she had applied to 15 schools, got 2 interviews. her hope was to stay in denver and go to school there. it's not uncommon for people to apply multiple years since it's so competitive. the whole drive to n.m. she was telling my mom and i how she wasn't getting in. she was already making alternative plans for this fall (retaking the dat). we kept telling her she still has a chance. i even remember telling her "have a little faith!!"
well the first day in n.m. we were walking around the city and leah comes running up to us screaming hysterically.
MOMM!! MOMM MOM!! I GOT IN I GOT IN!!!!!!!
she throws her arms around my mom crying. it was so fun to be a part of that moment. she was so surprised. i wasn't surprised. my sister is one of those smart chicas.

this is a cathedral with a cool spiral staircase. there's a lot of cool stuff about it that i'm too lazy to tell you about.

our family is craft-fanatics!

book exchange

pajama party (grandma...ooolala!! leah...i give you an A for effort, but i can't tell where the leg stops and where the covenants begins :)

lots of kanasta games were played. lots were won by the youthful minds ;)

we also took a trip to see the ruins outside the city. i love indian ruins. did you know i'm 1/32nd indian? not enough to mention you say? well i came this close to getting a scholarship so i'm practically full indian.

you could even climb up and see the houses carved out of the mountain! i wonder how much the prime spots were back then. maybe a couple goats and some seeds. why can't we pay like that today? i'd totally buy a house with some nutella and cranberry juice (all neccessities of life). ok, scratch that i wouldn't give those for nothin!

pampering each other!

and beating on our aunts!

my grandma's gorgeous dark hair underneath her grey. she's so beautiful.

tristy is a hair stylist so she cut grandma and my mom's hair

looking at moon. and seeing scary people...

mom seeing scary people.

my family is better than yours. we have them crazy genes.

chica trip. preview.

2011-03-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

guess what i get to do this weekend?
here's some hints:

i am excite.

remember me?

2011-02-24T14:16:00.000-08:00

wow, it's been way to long. i don't even want to start making up lame excuses why i haven't posted for months. to be perfectly honest, i've been so busy i haven't even thought of blogging. once in a while i'll have some free time to sit and relax. it makes me think about what life used to be like. i have to remind myself that there was a time when i had nothing better to do but blog. ahhhh the good ole days.

so what have we been doing?

we celebrated our two year anniversary earlier this month. we couldn't take the actual day off so we celebrated sunday, the day before. went snowboarding at canyons. it was so much fun. two years flew by!

tom's getting ready for his big step test. and no, it's not a "see how fast you can step" test. it's a test apprentices have to take every year until they journey out. he's been studying like crazy lately.

snowshoeing.
watching 30 rock.
snowboarding.
sledding.
jumping on bean bag.
falling asleep on bean bag.
making snow angels.
posing for photos.

we've been trying to enjoy the winter while it lasts. it's been a push this year though. we're so ready for summer. here's some reasons why:

we're already planning backpacking trips...which i'm really really excited about!
tom's buying a new mountain bike, so there's plenty of biking trips in our plans
trip to bv in may with friends.
motorcycle
bbq with friends
maybe moving
maybe puppy

see you in 6 months!

5 o'clock shadow!!

2010-12-01T22:32:00.000-08:00

READY FOR THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT?????!!!!!

TOM HAS HAIR!!!!

go here to see it!!

your welcome for giving you the best christmas idea ever.

doughnuts- not the yummy kind

2010-11-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

we don't let the snow get the best of us. that's why we're fully equipped with blankets, hot chocolate, soups, candles, and window scrapers. oh ya, and doughnuts. but not the yummy kind.

the first snow storm we tried making a snowman in front of our neighbors door so they couldn't get out. we failed, but enjoyed clobbering them with snowballs. this weekends snowstorm, tom and i decided to create our own fun. and since we're borderline rednecks, what's a better way to have fun than to get pulled behind a truck on a sled??? if you haven't tried it you haven't lived. it's so awesome. especially when there's a church parking lot nearby.

tom gave me a beating in the parking lot, but it was worth it! he got his truck doing so many doughnuts, i almost puked. i think the church should thank us for plowing the entire lot.
we also had some friends over this weekend for a big fish taco dinner. we ate loads of our stripers, played things game, then went to 127 hours movie. it was a great night, minus the fact i saw an amputation.

dan left this beauty in our freezer. this was the result. this pretty sums up that night. thanks dingus.
for thanksgiving, we went to vernal to see my grandparents and family. i have more pictures coming soon but i wanted to get this picture up. my grandpa is a big dried fruity. he has dried fruit since i was a cub and i have memories of his famous bananas. he stocked us up with some yummy snacks. apples, fruit leather, bananas, and pears. needless to say we had to go buy more toilet paper because of this, but it's so worth it.

oh ya, and the beans are going to be spilt soon!! check back in a few days!!

hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husbands, because we be spillin the beans on everyone out here.

its a dads life.

2010-11-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

livin' it up, as a dad. this made me think of my brother. he makes cruisin' in a van look good.

lake powell fishing

2010-11-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

blogging has been on the back burner lately.

there might be some big changes with us soon. i'll spill the beans when the time comes. no, i'm not pregnant. which brings me to my philisophical question of the day. why do people automatically assume i'm pregnant when i say i have good knews or i say, "guess what?". the only thing i plan on growing inside me is another kidney stone.

anyways...

i'm pregnant.

haha, just kidding!

a few months ago, i took a work trip to lake powell. i love my job, but work trips are just about as fun as the teacup ride. so, after that trip, i convinced my mom and my step-dad to meet us there for a fishing trip. they didn't even think twice about going.

we decided to go at the end of october. the fishing is hit or miss since the water temputure has to be just right. we got pretty lucky because the weather was perfect! we pretty much fished all day every day and we were in heaven. lake powell has so many different kinds of fish. it was a blast going from trolling for stripers on the boat, to fishing in the rocks for bass. but we seriously caught everything in between too. here are all the ones i have pictures of. i didn't get a picture of a blue gill pat caught. blue gills are my favorite fish so i was sad i missed the picture.

stripers:

mom caught a walleye:

sunfish:

small and large mouth bass:

catfish:

we took home 10lbs of fish. yes, we took home a large newborn! our freezer is packed full and we're planning a fish feast soon. delicious!

here are some snapshots.

we got super lucky with the weather. the day before we left a huge wind storm came through and tore everyones campsite up. it was so cool to see all the dust and water tornados. not so cool to see massive rugs and other objects flying in the air. wizard of oz, here we come!

it created some amazing clouds and rainbows though!

this was a cool truck boat ramp thing-a-majiger. we think they were testing it on the lake. you hoist the boat on the top of the truck and it basically creates a parichute-like object. it was cool, but didn't seem effective.

after lake powell, tom and i drove to st. george for his hotline school (post soon to come). we got to drive through some of captiol reef, which was amazing! we even stopped to look at some rock art. tom and i have an obsession with rock art. click on the rock picture below to see the cool antler carving.

it was an amazing trip and we can't wait to go back...maybe next spring?

doritos and pepsi commerical

2010-11-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

my friends and co workers, tyler and eddie, are bad a. they do some cool stuff...and tagging along is sometimes not an option. their level of coolness makes me feel like a hermit. but i'm proud to say i work with these clowns. never a dull day here in the office.

they are always looking for fun commercial contests. they recently did some contests and ended up winning quiznos and sniagrab!

they recently went up on my cool list. they did some killer commercials for a super bowl commerical contest. one is for doritos and the other is for pepsi max. the top 5 contestants win $25,000. then they'll have viewers vote for the top 6. those will be aired during super bowl. AND THEN if you get in the top 3 best super bowl commercials on usa today you win some big moola! and even though i'll take no part in the $$ i'm still super excited for my cool friends!

click on the links below to see!

doritos

pepsi max

i like to color.

2010-10-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

sometimes, when i'm bored, i think of craft ideas. i don't consider myself creative. growing up, my creativity didn't progress further than coloring books. but i never colored outside the lines, so that tells you how lame i am.

usually my creativity has something to do with sewing. i took sewing classes all through high school and love to make blankets and homemade necessities. i recently finished a quilt my grandma helped me hand quilt...which was a great experience. but after a couple months i'm back to the coloring books, trying to devise another creative sewing project.

i discovered a new technique of decorative sewing. it's called applique. it lets you combine fabric, sewing, and pretty much any object or shape you can think of! it's opened a whole new world to me and i'm seriously loving it! here are some examples i found online. these are what really inspired me!

sooo cute, huh? it definitely makes for some great gifts! so i decided to make a blanket that has applique on it. i'm super excited to get started on it, but first i needed a little practice. so i spent time making some wall decor for our living room.
i loved the raw applique the best, although there are cleaner finishes. the raw fits our style a little more. tom and nicole helped me draw out these little outdoor scenes. what do you think??

mountain.
fish.
campfire (a little harder to recognize)

i love home made stuff!

my sneak peak into the afterlife.

2010-10-19T20:49:00.002-07:00

yes. monday i almost checked out of this life. there's a story that leads to my near death experience. here it is.

for about 5 years i was on a birth control pill called yaz. i had been taking yaz for my acne and when i got married, as a birth control. earlier this year i got melasma, a skin discoloration, on my face. i found out from the dermatologist you can get it from birth control pills. so i was off the pill that same week and got an iud.

iud's are intense (sorry for those of you who are sensitive to private parts...but this supports the story). the iud goes into your uterus and is a small plastic object shaped like a T. sounds pretty harmless, right? except for the part about it going into your uterus. you see, this might not be a big deal for a woman who's had a baby. but since i haven't, opening the uterus was the most painful thing i've ever experienced. i'm going to just leave it at that.

so, for the past 5 months i have been feeling a lot of changes go through my body. cramps, spotting, stomach aches, bladder infections, yeast infections, acne breakouts, etc. i figured all were associated with my iud. but one symptom became more than just "a pain that passes". my stomach aches. these started getting more and more painful. they got to the point where it was in a certain spot- lower right side of my stomach. they would last maybe 30 minutes. i usually could take some ibruprofen and fall asleep and they'd go away.

until they became more intense. my first big episode with the stomach aches was a couple months ago. i was at work and it hit me so hard, i just flopped on the office floor curled into the fetal position. i was so nauseous and light headed. it took all my energy to drive to tom's mom's house a few blocks from my work. i didn't know how to explain the pain. lisa (tom's mom), said it could be a bladder infection. since i've been getting all sorts of infections since the iud, it made sense. she said some people get really bad stomach aches before a bladder infection. this attack lasted about an hour. the next day i went to my physician and i was tested for bladder infection. i did have one so i was given medication.

the pains didn't go away. over the next couple months i didn't get another big attack, but i did have lots of mini episodes. it was too hard to believe i was getting more bladder infections. i went to my physician twice for yeast and bladder infections and had inquired about the stomach pains. since my bladder test results came back negative these visits, they told me the same answer i had figured...it's my body adapting to the iud.

a couple weeks ago, i woke up with a stomach ache and decided i needed to do some research. this is not my body adapting, this is something serious. all i googled was "pains with iud". the first medical website that came up said a side affect of iud is pelvic inflammatory disease. i was experiencing all the symptoms of this disease. after reading more about it, i realized it was a complicated version of an std. what the??

so i started making calls that minute. some of you remember me calling you. i needed to find a good gynecologist and one that could get me in immediately. i ended up going with one that takes my insurance, dr. rawson, at the mountain west hospital in slc. i was able to make an appointment that next day, but due to some emergencies with the doctor they had to reschedule for the day after. i was very anxious to get it. the whole std thing made no sense to me (literally, did not make sense), so those two days were very very stressful. but, i had no doubt i had PID.

i finally got in. the doctor ran many tests. he explained that PID is a form of std, but it's not always sexually transmitted. he said by opening the uterus for the iud, some bacteria that is naturally on the outside of your uterus get inside. he calmed me by saying he didn't think i had PID. he said usually the uterus is very very sensitive when tested, which it wasn't at the time. but he still ran a urine test just to make sure.

the results came that next monday.

negative for PID.

ok, so great for not having an std, but what do i do now? the doctor mentioned it could be because the iud is too big for my uterus. he said the pains i'm feeling could be associated with it not sitting right inside me. he said it happens to a lot of girls who have not had babies. ok, good explanation.

this solution the doctor gave me was better than no solution, so i ran with it.

since that doctors appointment three weeks ago, i've been feeling ok. haven't felt any stomach pains and no more attacks. until this monday.

it happened at 11:45 that morning. this attack was different. the last one, certain positions, like the fetal, made the pain subside to bareable. this time the more i tried to curl into a ball or push in my stomach, the more it would hurt. anytime i would get up to go to the bathroom (since i thought maybe it was feces), just walking 10 steps made me feel so dizzy and nauseous. i again barely made it to my car. i needed to get some ibruprofen and maybe some pepto-bismol from lisa's house. that 2 minute trip felt like hours. i was in so much pain.

when i finally got there, i about collapsed trying to unlock the front door. i stumbled inside to the couch and laid there. i was hoping this relaxing would help. it didn't. it seemed like the pain was getting worse by the minute. i crawled upstairs and got some ibruprofen from the medicine cabinet. after, i sat over the toilet because that exertion about pushed me over the edge. since i only ate yogurt covered cranberries that morning, i couldn't throw up. just gagging. my fever was out of control to the point where i stripped my pants and underwear and laid on the bathroom floor partially naked (sorry lisa!!). the cool tiles helped me relax a little but the pain was still horrendous.

after about 30 minutes of going from the guest room bed, to the bathroom, back to the bed, back to bathroom, i finally decided to call tom. this entire time i kept reassuring myself that it wasn't anything serious. that it was because the iud was too big. but i knew this was just a dumb solution i devised to calm my mind. i knew deep down i needed to call an ambulance. the pain was like someone was punching my stomach over and over again. now that i look back, i would have taken someone punching me over and over. atleast the pain from a deck to the face would have ended eventually.

i tried calling tom. i called him on his normal cell and he didn't answer. i knew this was an emergency and i should have called his work cell, but something inside me told me to just call me mom. when i called her at work she told me to go to the ER as soon as i can. looking back now i realize that hearing this from my mom made me realize the severity of the situation. i think if i talked to tom, i would have felt differently. not that he has no sympathy, but he is more of a "let your immune system fight it" kind of guy. this was probably a blessing not getting a hold of him.

my mom told me to call jaime, my sister in law. i considered, but realized even though she would have been willing to help me, she probably couldn't leave immediately since she has 3 kids. so i called lisa, tom's mom. she got to the house in 5 minutes and we were off to the hospital. i don't know why, but any kind of movement created the worse feelings. that's usually when i felt feverish, nausea, and light headed. it was a big blessing that lisa has the same health insurance as us. she already knew the ER's that would take our insurance. so we drove to utah valley regional center in provo. on the way there, lisa called tom and told him everything. he was headed our way.

i got to the ER around 2pm. the nurses were so calm while i was constantly shaking and wiggling my body to hopefully dampen the pain. i wanted to scream. i knew they needed all my information before they could do anything, but i felt like my insides wanted to be on my outsides. they wheeled me to a room and asked me undress and get in a gown. this is the part where the yogurt covered cranberries from 7 hours earlier decided to come up. and this is when i finally cried. puking always makes me cry for some reason. i despise that feeling of everything coming up. lisa stood right by me holding the bucket and rubbing my back. i was sad my mom wasn't there, but so very grateful to have lisa there, who is my second mom.

it took all my energy to get that stupid gown on. i didn't even care about my nakedness, all i wanted was the pain to go away. after i got dressed, we had to wait. i think i gave lisa a few gray hairs that day because i was struggling to keep my sanity during that wait. my side hurt so bad, i was considering yelling to get the nurses attention. it was probably only 5 minutes but my mind convinced me it was hours.

the nurses finally came in, hooked me up to an iv, and had me talk to the doctor. he asked all the basic questions about my pain, then left. the chief nurse then brought me a pain killer. oh thank you lord!! she informed me it was called dilaudid and it would hit me instantly...and that it did. she also informed me to keep breathing. okay...why would i stop breathing?? i immediatly relaxed and gave a sigh of relief. it was a crazy feeling and i was loving it.

little did i know that this vile of pain killer was a little too much for me. my relaxation quickly turned to napping which led to a deep deep sleep. i lost it from there. according to lisa, my face instantly turned white and my lips turned blue. my legs flopped over. a few seconds later my oxygen levels sounded alarms. they took lisa out of the room and put her into a small waiting room. this of course, did not relax her.

i had stopped breathing.

i'm not sure how long i was out. but i came in and out of consciousness to the sound of 4 nurses and the doctor. there was an oxygen mask over my face. i heard a nurse say, "her color is coming back". the doctor said, "brea, you need to take deep breaths". this part of the story is unexplainable. i felt like i had no control over my body. even my brain felt numb. i had a very very hard time processing what was in front of me.

when i started gaining consciousness, i was a little frustrated. i was so relaxed and having such a nice nap...but it hit me that something went wrong. that nap was not a sunday rest. it was deeper than that. later, i joked that i was in the 5th level of inception. if leonardo dicaprio was there, i may have never come back!! ;)

i was very confused. they brought lisa in and i could tell she was crying. i still was confused on what just happened. lisa was instantly by my side. she told me everything and i realized while i was sleeping, i forgot to breath. how do you forget to breath? the nurse said i was very sensitive to the pain killer. looking back now and through talking to some resources, i have learned that 1. they gave me a very very powerful pain killer 2. my body was very sensitive to the pain killer, which resulted in my falling asleep instantly 3. they overdosed by giving me the entire vile 4. they didn't inform me to not fall asleep. sure, i can control my breathing while awake, but when i'm asleep, it's not up to me.

the rest of the day was a roller coaster. tom finally got there about 30 minutes after that episode. he said he drove 90mph all the way from bountiful. i guess as soon as he came in, my blood pressure dropped from 80 to 50. i was so grateful to have him there.

the doctor informed me of some tests they wanted to run. they still didn't know what was wrong with me. he said since the stomach pain came instantly, it could be a few different things. it could be a problem with my ovaries being twisted, it could be my appendix, or it could be a kidney stone.

i got an ultrasound to check my ovaries. they found no problems there. so they did a cat scan and vualla, the answer.

a kidney stone the size of texas.

the stone was lower in my bladder, which explains the location of the pains. the doctor said since it's so low, it might pass through my system soon. but there were different options for me. he wanted me to talk to the urologist about details.

i had a kidney stone in high school. the pain then was much higher on my side...probably actually in my kidney. i lost 20 lbs from it and i didn't even realize it was a stone until i passed it at school. i looked in the toilet and thought, "i just peed a rock. i don't think that's normal". it was a little smaller than this one.

i was very curious on how you get kidney stones and how to prevent them. i've learned it can be in your genetics. my grandparents have had a couple stones so that is a possibility. not drinking enough liquids could also cause it. this could also be the case. tom always nags me for not drinking enough liquids. dagnabit, why is he always right?

lisa left around 5pm. i forgot to mention that the pain did come back a couple times during testing. they gave me a different pain killer- morphine, and half the dosage. it had a better affect on my body.

tom and i had to wait another 2 hours for the urologist. he told me i have a few options. since the stone is so low, they won't be able to blast it (which is what they usually do for a stone this big). he said i could pass it in 2 hours, in 2 days, or in 2 months. so i could wait and try and pass it, or he could surgically remove it the next morning. since i had been feeling these pains for at least 4 months now, i knew there's no telling when it would pass. so we decided to have it removed.

i had surgery the next morning around noon. they went up my urethra and took out the stone. everything went great. we even got to bring the new addition to our family home! haha, here's a picture so you can imagine the size.

my brother jake called it a petrified booger. my neighbor danielle told me to imagine this going through a hole the size of a strand of hair.

i have so much to be grateful for. this experience has really helped me realize the power of prayer and family. thank you so much for everyone's prayers and for your support. thank you for your calls and for your concerns. it meant more than you can know.
thank you jim and tom for the priesthood blessing you gave me the night before my surgery. i'm so grateful to have a husband that holds the priesthood and is worthy to give me blessings.
thank you dan (tom's friend) for bringing me "it's a boy" balloons and candy last night. it was so nice of you!
thank you to everyone who continually checked in on me. it made me feel so loved.
thank you lisa and mom for being my support group. i couldn't have made it without you both. sorry for the added gray hairs!! i love you both so much!

havasupai: hike from hell. water from heaven.

2010-10-12T11:06:00.001-07:00

we recently took a trip to havasupai in the grand canyon. tom and me, including two of our neighbor friends, tried to go in the spring, but quickly learned that getting a reservation is impossible when not made in advance. so we planned the trip for october to avoid the heat of summer. a few months ago, danielle and todd found out they couldn't make it. we were super sad they couldn't come. but tessa and brent were still all game!

to see some pretty photos and time lapses from this trip, go here.
(note: this is the longest post of my life. it's to help us remember everything but i hope you enjoy :)

here was our schedule:
leave wednesday at 1pm. stay the night in kingman az
get to grand canyon thrusday morning. get to supai village around noon
play friday
saturday hike out. drive to st. george. stay the night.
sunday get home.

havasupai is a part of a indian reservation. the tribe is named havasu and the village is called supai. the main attraction is the waterfalls. it's a 10 mile hike to the falls.
in the desert.
with a 40lb pack.
with foot blisters.

i don't even think twice when i say it was worth it!

the nice thing about postponing the trip 6 months is that we had time to prepare. all summer tom and i were able to get killer deals on backpacking gear. backpacking has always been on our "someday" list. we didn't have the proper gear since we mostly do car camping. so we were very excited to get mummy bags, pads, backpacking stove, camping food set, and we even had time to make some homemade necessities too! through all the sales we hit up we saved around $200!
it was fun to plan for this trip, being our first full on backpacking experience. meals were the most exciting part for some reason. it's a big challenge bringing something not too heavy, but tasty. we were able to try many different meals during the summer. most meals are pretty stale, but we got lucky and found a couple very good ones!

meal list:

thursday dinner: chicken tacos
friday breakfast: oatmeal
friday lunch: peanut butter and jelly tortillas
friday dinner: spaghetti
saturday breakfast: oatmeal

we also brought along some hearty snack for the hikes. we found most of our snacks at winco grocery store. they have a great selection of trail mixes, sweets, fruit, etc.
sweet side

2 lbs of jelly belly's. ya, this was a necessity! delicious snack ideas- gummy life savers and yogurt covered cranberries
salty side

nut clusters with pumpkin seeds. pb&j crackers- tom's fav.

one obstacle we faced while preparing is my backpack. my bag is more of a one-nighter bag. we couldn't decide whether to buy me a bigger bag, or just deal with it. it was borderline too small. we decided we can made due and i had a bag stuffed to the rafters! i even had to hook a ton of extras on the outside of my bag. which brings me to another subject. what to pack. our meal items took up most of the room in my bag. and my camera gear of course but we had to go easy on clothes and accessories. tom's bag carried our sleeping bags, tent, clothes, and pads. it ended up barely working out. we had to leave a few things behind.

brea's custom CAHOON pillow.

we left wednesday around 1pm. we drove the fofolocous. it was packed to the ceiling with all of our crap.

we drove most of the way wednesday. we decided to stay in kingman, az for the night. it was an 8 hour drive to there.

the drive surprisingly went fast...and was occasionally fun! we listened to a audio book, the hunger games, listened to rockin music, made fun of tessa for knitting, ate lots and lots of snacks, and laughed a ton. we can always guarantee either two things from tessa and brent: constant awkward silences or constant gut ache from laughing. usually the latter but sometimes i can fart on a conversation :)

stop for din din in kingman

we woke up at 4:30am thursday morning. did some last minute packing and left at 5:15. it's a 3 hour drive from kingman to the parking lot. on the way there, brent spotted two ginormous elk, just right off the road! until then, i had been feeling all groggy and nasty from the early morning. after i saw those i had a little spike of excitement! we were almost there!

we got to the parking lot around 8. the first thing we realized was how packed it was! we could barely find a spot. the second thing i noticed was a dog wondering around. i was trying to give him some lovin since i fall in love with every dog i see. little did i know that there's about 60 stray dogs in the village. i gave out lots of doggy love :) the third thing we noticed is my soaked hiking shoes. brent's camelbak had leaked during the drive, leaving my shoes soaking wet. we panicked for a second, then realized i still have hiking shoes...chacos! i actually usually like hiking in my chacos and have developed pretty thick calluses on my feet from wearing them so much. i think i was better off using them! it was like having a natural mole skin!

the parking lot overlooked the canyon. it was so exciting, but also a little scary.

sad shoes.

we're off!!

the hike to the village was great. this is because
1. the first mile is a steep decline. it was nice to get this done right off the bat so your knees don't give out.
2. you're in the shade almost the entire way. since we left early enough, the wide canyons at the start shaded us. definitely a good idea going in the fall. in the summer, you'd be in the sun most of the way.
3. you're so dang anxious to get there, so it's nice to have an easy hike.
4. nothing can make you upset. even though the hike was easy, the length made it difficult. towards the end of long hikes, i usually feel like going insane and giving up, but we were all so excited to get there.
5. tessa and i entertained each other. we made up nick names for everyone.
tom-batwing
me-wild mongoose crook
brent-squatting burrito
tessa-chief gramama

we took a break about every 30 minutes. none of us were used to carrying so much weight, so regular snack breaks helped. tessa soon realized that her backpack didn't fit right, which probably wasn't fun. but the last couple miles i don't think any of our bags sat right on our backs. i thought i would get bruises on my shoulders.

bat wing and back sweat.

hee-man

the terrain would change regularly. you would be walking on rocky hills, then suddenly be in deep soft sand. it left a white dust all over our feet, including my crook.

gotta love the chaco lines!
it was fun to go from desert landscape, to the bottom of a canyon!

the village offers transportation options...for payment of course. one was a mule for $85. about every 20 minutes a herd of mules would run by us packed with backpacks, mail, groceries, or just saddles. we all considered just throwing our bags on one. they seriously wouldn't even notice.

another option is a helicopter. it's about $120 one way per person. yes, this was tempting. tom brought cash with us just in case we had an "emergency" and "needed" a helicopter. sometimes i thought it would be worth it to just break my ankle and get a 5 min. flight to the car.

heli.
about a mile from the village, we met up with the river. the water almost looked fake it was so clear and blue. we couldn't believe it!

tom dipping his hat. bridge to village.
when we finally got to the village around noon it blew our minds how much it looked like a normal rural town. for some reason, i had envisioned a tribe. not so much teepees and mudflaps, but a little more indian culture. they had normal houses, a cafe, grocery store, school, and churches. everything was a bit trashy, which also surprised us. another thing we noticed were the trees. we saw the first one by the lodge while checking in. they had some kind of fruit on them. we realized they were pomegranates! if they weren't so yucky looking we would have snatched a couple but none of us had seen a pomegranate tree!

so green by the river!

entrance to town. lds church.
the indians were very nice, but also very large. i don't think we saw one skinny indian. isn't that kind of weird? you think with them always hiking to and from the parking lot they'd be more in shape. on our hike back we saw a big herd of mules...all carrying soda (only diet dr. pepper and this cactus drink). that explained a lot.
we checked in at the lodge and got our little backpack tags. the campground is 2 miles from the village, but also the hardest 2 miles of the hike. the entire way is deep soft sand that we encountered here and there before. 2 miles straight. by the end it felt like i was crawling i was going to slow. it's hard to walk for so long in sand like that. it felt like i was getting shin splints.
we did see our first waterfall- navajo falls. this is a smaller fall, more of a cascading affect. we were so excited to see it though. it gave us a spike of energy.

bridge to campground
the second falls we came to was havasu falls. a few years ago there was a massive flash flood in this canyon that caused the falls to look different. some even got redirected. havasu falls was very impressive, but i found out after the trip that it used to be the biggest falls, and the funnest to swim in. maybe it's different in the spring, but when we went the dam was broken so there was only one small pool that was about waist deep. it was still so gorgeous and something you can only fully experience in person. when we saw it for the first time we practically ran to the campgrounds so we can unpack and go swimming.

the campground was pretty cool. we later explored the grounds and realized how big it was. we found a great spot right next to the river. it got more packed the next night so it was nice to have a campsite to ourselves.

basecamp.

we set up our tents and got into our swimsuits. then hiked back to havasu falls. we had a blast swimming in the pools, jumping off mini waterfall, seeing gay men in speedos, and going close to the big falls. we were a little bummed about the sun going behind the canyon at 3pm. it got a little chilly once it left but we still had a blast!

mrs. tessa. tom getting out rocks in his shoes.

beautiful falls. sexy european gay men.

(thanks for pics tessa!)

after spending a couple hours at the falls, we headed back to camp. we soon realized that even though the village is trashy and the campground looks like a someone dropped a bunch of scrap wood on the ground, the restrooms at camp were top class. seriously, amazing. like i'd take those outhouses over my home toilet any day. sometimes i'd just sit there. how often do you actually sit on an outhouse seat anyways? i usually try and pull off the no contact hover poo. these ones didn't have a trace of air feces. they have these buckets of wood chips next to the toilet. they had directions that say you're supposed to cover your bm with a scoop of this stuff and it "creates a hummus like substance" that removes the stank. ya, i'm buying a bucket of this stuff for home. except for the reference to hummus (which i can never eat again), this stuff rocked my world.
any how....
we came back to camp and soon started dinner. tessa and brent brought mre's for all their meals. for dinner this night tom and i made chicken tacos. these things were so delicious! we found the recipe in toms backpacker magazine. here is the recipe. we left out the avacado since tom doesn't like it. we added black beans which was a good choice. the pictures below is the original then our version. soooo good!

Chicken Guaco-Tacos
by: Kelly Bastone

Chicken Guaco-Tacos (Justin Bailie)

4 small flour tortillas
1 7-ounce chicken breast in foil pouch
1/2 white onion
1 4-ounce block cheddar cheese, diced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ packet taco seasoning
1 avocado
Several salsa packets*

At home
Put the oil in a spillproof container and the avocado in a hard container like a cup.
In camp
Heat oil in pot on medium heat, chop and add onion, and sauté until it softens (3 minutes). Add seasoning, three tablespoons water, and chicken. Simmer until water is evaporated and meat is heated through (about 5 minutes). Meanwhile, mash avocado (in a zip-top bag to save a dish); mix in sauce. Scoop chicken into tortillas; top with cheese and guacamole.

making din din (notice stray dog?)
one thing that did suck about the campground was you can't have campfires. ya, that blows. camping just isn't the same without a zoning out to hot flames. but we made do. we played cards and ate jelly belly's til our teeth hurt. we had a lot of fun making fun of tessa's various laughs, tom's air poops, moths constantly running into our faces (except for brent), dogs that randomly laid at your feet, and annoying screams from a guy down the river.

that night we all slept pretty restless. it didn't really cool down so we all slept sweaty. next time we go we'll ditch our mummy bags and just get some small fleece covers.

friday, we decided to explore the other falls. the first one we came to was mooney falls. this waterfall was much more scenic that havasu falls (which, in the past, is not the case). you come to the top of the cliff looking down at the falls. beautiful.

this waterfall is very misleading. getting to the bottom is suicide. no one warned us of the cliff you have to climb to get to this. all you see along the trail are these signs. "descend at your own risk". we laughed at these signs, not knowing what's ahead. well, you aren't laughing when you're holding on by a chain looking down 200 feet of sheer cliff. i repeat- nothing but a chain drilled into the cliff side.
i soiled myself.
i just soiled myself thinking about it again.

you start off by going through these already sketchy tunnels. they're almost fun at the start...we were laughing and taking lots of pictures. until you face death itself. i only got a few pictures of the descent since my man hands were swollen and clammy.

(thanks tessa for the pics...before you're camera got dunked)

this angle that brent had really shows the crappiness of the climb.

but lo and behold, the waterfall!

brent was crazy about this descent. he said if he could go up and down that cliff all day long, he'd be a happy man. silly squatting burrito.
we hung around this waterfall for about 30 minutes. we were entertained by the 40 man group coming down the cliff. i even did a time lapse of it. one lady cried the entire way down. you can see her struggling at the end of the time lapse. i felt bad for her but everyone gave her a round of applause when she finished.
we played around some more at mooney falls, but decided to go swimming there on our way back.

so, we started our hike to beaver falls.

we found out beforehand that mooney falls was 1.5 miles from camp and beaver falls was 3 miles. from talking to other hikers, we realized that beaver falls is easy to miss. it's not as big as the other two. more of a cascading falls we took it. so we just kept hiking. trying to not miss it.
the hike from mooney falls to beaver falls is very interesting. you have to cross the river multiple times. probably every 5 minutes you had to cross over. even sometimes just wade through for a 1/4 of a mile. it was fun, but a little scary. i fell in once and got my camera wet. about had a heart attack but it was ok. tessa fell in all the way a few minutes later and her camera stopped working. sad day. that would have sucked if both our cameras got ruined. good thing i take enough pictures for the both of us!

crossing river.

it's so funny hiking through the canyons. you'd think it would be mostly rock and sand...not much greenery. we were so surprised to hit a tropical area on the hike. you walk over this hill and bam, it's so green it's growing up the side of the cliffs. it felt totally out of place. there must be a few springs along this cliff because it was so thick, you could barely see where you were walking. it felt like you were in a totally different environment.

where's tom? find him in the picture below!

got tp?

view of cliffs around us. cool tree tunnel.

crook.

we didn't expect to see much wildlife while in the grand canyon. we kept our eyes out for snakes and little critters like that. so we were very excited to see a big horn sheep family. the little baby was so dang cute! see my photo blog for some pretty shots of them by the river.

my favorite picture from the trip. this shows the color of the water the best. gatorade blue!

some parts of the river were pretty sketchy crossing. we learned our lesson from falling in, so we tried being more careful by sending one person first with toms trekking poles. they kept trying to volunteer me but i threw tessa in as a sacrifice :)

i love havasupai.

this is where we gave up on beaver falls. we never found out if we actually did see or pass by it. there were so many cascading falls that look similar to beaver falls. but we were satisfied with our hike and all the cool things we got to see so we headed back to camp. at the place where we turned around there was this cool rock where people had imprinted their fingers.

on the way back we got to see the baby big horn sheep next to the river. so cute! like i mentioned before, we also saw the family by the river later in our hike. go here to see it.

we decided to wash our stank off on the way back too. so we took a little dip in the river.

coming to mooney falls again.

we found a king snake. yuck.

along the trail there's this killer rope swing. we were so excited to hit it up on the way back. the river was a bit shallow, but after a few test runs we found the deep spots. i bet this swing is so much fun in the spring when the river is higher! we still had a blast though.

playing at mooney falls.

cute us.

tessa angry. brea blurry.

back to the climb of death. going up wasn't as scary. maybe just a little pee squirt here and there.

see that face on tessa? that's the look of pure terror...or the look of soggy bottom.

after surviving the climb, we said thank you prayers, changed our underwear, then headed back to camp. we were all pretty tired. we did a little more exploring around camp but for the most part, we relaxed. our camp was so nice, right next to the river. i could have relaxed all day.

for dinner that night, tom and i made spaghetti. it was very easy. we brought a full ziploc bag of shell pasta. for the sauce we bought one of those instant spaghetti packets. it called for tomato paste and water. it was actually very very good. we gobbled it up.
after dinner, we all started getting stuff together for the hike out in the morning. looking back now i'm sad we only got to stay one full day. i wanted to stay for a week just to get the full experience.
the next morning we woke up at 5am so we can beat the sun.
we packed our tents...

packed our junk....

said goodbye to doggies...

and covered our nasty feet in moleskin.

ya, that stuff saved our lives. good thing tessa and brent brought a yard of it.
goodbye basecamp.

we stopped at the village because hiking 2 miles in deep sand is like a slap in the face.
tom bought a sprite at the local grocery store. delicious.

the hike back was horrible. we all struggled. you're exposed to the sun a lot more and it's mostly uphill.

tom's HYA pillow. tessa hating me for taking a picture.

the last mile of the hike is seriously hell. it's basically going from the bottom of the canyon to the top. the elevation gain on this part is huge. we had to stop and rest every 5 minutes. and it was sooo hot. being right in the middle of the day, it couldn't be worse timing. but we made it! we finished with sweaty pits, swollen hands, blistered feet, and red in the face but dagnabit we made it!!

at the top!!

the drive home went well. we hit a major rain storm. i thought for sure we'd get blown away in a tornado. i guess the fofolocous is too hard core for that kind of stuff.
tessa knitting away and blabbering about the old days :)

since this day was my birthday, we decided to stop in las vegas for a some din din. we went to cheescake factory and it was tessa and brents first time going. i got some kind of chicken with asparagus and mushrooms. tom got pizza. brent got some yummy tai food. and tessa got a weight conscious meal. aren't those for people who need to loose weight?

after our trip i was talking with my grandma who's from arizona. she told me about going to havasupai when she was 50 with my grandpa and friends. at first i couldn't believe she did that hike at age 50. until i remembered it's my grandma. she's amazing. she decided a day later she wants to go again....at age 80. her reasoning? she wants to go before she can't go. so....we might be going again next spring!!! yayyyy!

havasupai is amazing. if you're thinking about going, go. it's a must see and a once in a life time opportunity. and if you do decide to go, take us along. tom can provide some funny poop jokes and i can bring 2lbs of jelly belly's.
this was a perfect birthday trip (not intentionally planned that way, but still considered my bday trip). i am so glad that brent and tessa could come along. they're so much like us we have no choice but to like them.
love you guys!

rest stop: visit from lynds

2010-10-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

this is my best friend, lyndsey dras. we went to the legendary buena vista high school together. there, we became best friends through our sewing class and volleyball. i don't have many high school friends that i stayed close to, except lynds. she is an amazing person.

she's also a travel nurse. sometimes i get jealous she gets to travel so much, but then i remember i'm socially retarded and couldn't handle meeting new people all the time. she was recently working in oregon and will be transferred to a new area soon. on her way back to colorado, she decided to stop by and visit for a day. it was great to see her. she always makes me smile!

her birthday was last month so i made her a little message/jewelry board. i ironed on some sweet pictures of us. her favorite colors are baby blue, brown, and yellow so it was very easy to pick the colors out.

lyndsey and i have a lot in common. along with our love of snowboarding, photography, sewing, and spitting (the kind that don't quite detach and string down your chin), volleyball is one of the main reasons we became good friends. i play volleyball every tuesday night and it was so fun to have her come along. we had a blast and she's still a stud muffin as always.

another thing we have in common is our love for the outdoors. we decided to go on a hike while she was here. i took her to dog lake up big cottonwood canyon. the aspens were amazing and we had a lot of fun together.

after hiking, i took her slack lining at the park. it was her first experience doing this and she was a complete natural. she was already doing better than i was, but i guess i suck pretty bad.

that night, we went out to eat for my birthday. tom and i were leaving for havasupai the next day so i wanted a meal from ruby tuesdays, my fav restaurant.

i love my lyndsey. she's sweet as honey.

3rd stop: lake powell

2010-10-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

i've always believed lake powell to be one of the greatest destinations on the planet. so what if i haven't explored the entire planet. anyone that's been there can agree that it's pretty dang cool. my family used to take trips there every summer for family reunions...until our little house boat decided to take a nose dive into the lake. but i have some amazing memories going there and every time i go back i can't help but fall in love with it all over again.

but going for work is some risky business when it comes to love.

combining powell with work is like a chocolate covered feces. it looks delicious and fun on the outside but it will almost always lead to dissapointment and gut ache on the inside. there's something not so great about watching bikini girls have all the fun while i bust my farmers tan off.

two years ago i took a trip to lake powell with my work and it was totally different than this trip. this time, spouses were invited so even though tom couldn't come along on the merry-go-round ride, i did get to hang with some fun people. i spent some time with a co-workers wife, kumari, who i love, and i also got to know some new friends tani and dustin bybee (who's related to my sister in law, jaime). we had a fun group of models, including my cousin, cameron runyan, and his girlfriend, jaci twiss. they were loads of fun and i had a blast getting to know everyone. but seriously, working 10 hours a day carrying heavy gear only covers the fun spectrum so far. but, looking back i'd have to say it was memorable. just not like the powell i'm used to.

mark, my boss, driving his houseboat that's bigger than my apartment.
now tyler, my co-worker, driving the massive house boat.
ray, our model, was a serious character. he can always make us laugh.
dustin and his baby maya, kumari, and tyler.
cool chick!
tani and maya.
hanging.
here is something that made this trip worth it. i was dreading the trip for so long, then it dawned on me...i can bring my fishing pole!! i was instantly excited to go! and it was a blast fishing! i caught 4 small mouth bass. mark even let tyler, kumari, tani, dustin, and i go out on the boat during our break and we all got to go fishing! kumari caught her first fish!! she was super excited...it was so fun to be a part of that! great job kumari!! the whole experience actually inspired kumari to do more fishing. after powell she went to cabelas, bought a cute pink fishing pole, and now she's a natural fisherwoman!

here is one of our many set ups. this is the track and dolly. it creates fun looking shots but is a pain in the rear to carry around.
another fun experience! i found a dinasour foot print!!!!!! i was soooooo excited! it was actually kind of ironic because tyler and i were walking over to the track and dolly and we were talking about fossils and how he used to find them growing up with his grandpa. on the way back we walked a different route and i looked down and said "holy cow, is that a dinasour's track?" since tyler had so much experience in finding tracks and fossils he knew right away it was. it was amazing...definetly a first for me. the pictures don't really give it much justice. you could really see the definition in the nails and fingers in person. i wanted to take a mold right then and there. or drill the print out and take it home. instead, i took a couple pictures. i love dinasours, most of the time they scare the poop out of me. until i find their track, then i like them.

grumpy dinasour.

all in all, the trip was pretty fun. i even convinced my mom and my stepdad to meet tom and i there at the end of the month for a fishing trip!! yay for more trips!

2nd stop: strawberry reservoir

2010-09-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

our friends went with us to strawberry reservoir for a little fishing trip last weekend. tom and i love strawberry for it's prime camping spots, great fishing, and crawdads. i think this is becoming an annual event with dan and nicole.

i wish i could say why tom looks gay in this picture. his sexuality is a mystery to many.

basecamp.

tom and dan turn into kids when they go get firewood. what is it with men and axes? they had a blast breaking down a ginormous dead tree this trip.

best part of camping. stealing nicoles chair and being lazy.

my new favorite picture of tom and me :)

yummy crawdads!

he was gunnin for tom's freakishly long tongue.

those eyes make me wiggle every time. it feels like he's staring into my soul.

we made a delicious dinner that night. soup from a can. it was actually pretty dang good.

ya i'm lethal with my flash.

so fishing this year was a blast!! well, for me it was. i ended up catching 4 rainbows and 1 cutthroat. tom and dan caught nada. nicole caught one. i like to call myself a fisherwoman.

1st stop- uintas

2010-09-15T21:28:00.001-07:00

this past weekend we went to the uintas. we decided to get a trip in before it snowed. we were too late. but it ended up being perfect. a little chilly but nothing a camp fire can't handle.

we went to the uintas a couple months ago and realized it was too hot and the mosquitoes were out spreading diseases. there is only a small window of perfection for uintas...and we made it. we showed those blood suckers.

pumpkin seeds are the best hiking snack. delicious.hard core.

we were super excited to use our new backpacking stove. we made our first official meal on it- chicken noodle soup. it was a nice warmer-uper since it was a little chilly at night. it seriously boils water faster than our home stove. impressive!

tom toasting some bread. ya, it was a gourmet meal.

for the first time in a while we both slept crappy in our tent. decided we needed to make us some custom pillows. i've been working on them all week and can't wait to post some pictures! (i find sick joy in little projects like that)

we invited our friends, tessa and brent, to come with us. they could only come up saturday for a day hike. we met up with them a little later than planned. they ended up going about 6 miles too far past our campsite. silly-bo-gillies.

we love the rushanders. they make us giggle.

fun is this.

2010-09-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

tom and i have a busy month ahead of us. why can't every month be fun like this month??

uintas this weekend. hiking, camping, fly fishing.

lake powell for work trip 21st-24th. the work part of it makes me not so excited. but hopefully i can do some playing too!

best friend in the whole world is coming to visit me after lake powell. we do some crazy stuff when we're together...like sew quilts and play volleyball. i'm planning on taking her biking up american fork canyon this visit.

end of the month we're going to havasupai!!! havasupai is in the grand canyon and it's a pretty rough hike. we've been preparing for this trip all summer and we're sooooo excited! i'm going to make a full documentation of the trip since we had the hardest time finding information online. look at that blue water!!

quail fail.

2010-09-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

so we have a new family in the neighborhood. and they're so dang cute we can't help but sneak up on them and watch them while they eat.

quails are the best animals to stalk. they are fun birds...i love the little floppers on their heads and how when they cross the road, it's like a cartoon. one momma, 20 little babies, and one daddy all in a row.

we have these little baby quails by our apartment every summer and this year we got up and personal with a couple. two of the nuggets jumped into a window well at our complex (is that what there called? windows underground?). tom heard them chirping and the mom was looking down at them chirping.

so he played hero.

da-dadaaaaa dadadddaaaaaaaa (ya that's right, tom flies to the superman jingle)

they were so dang fast he had to pick them up with a pot. i got a quick picture of one. they are so tiny and adorable!!

when is it ethical to keep a bird as a pet? when they fall into a window well? i think so!!!

well i hoped so. that little momma was about to fall over dead over these little nuggets so we had to give them back. someday, when i have my farm, i'll have baby quail.

WINNERS for Commercial Contests!

2010-09-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

so good news! my co-workers won some big commercial contests this past week! they are for quiznos and sniagrab. i assisted on the sniagrab one and had a blast. if you see these commercials i give you the right to say "i know who filmed that" so you look cool. check them out!!

meet my family.

2010-08-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

hobble creek 4 wheelin

2010-08-15T18:53:00.001-07:00

tom and i are pretty redneck.

we like doing things most people find repulsive. maybe repulsive isn't the word. i guess we do things that people don't do. for example, today we went fishing at deer creek and it was so freakin hot, i decided to take a swim. my swimsuit was not there to assist me and my clothes did not want to come along. so i went solo. just me and my life jacket.

ok, maybe repulsive is the right word.

four wheeling does not fall into this category. but when you ride for 4 hours on the rockiest road on the planet, it comes pretty dang close.

this past weekend we rode tom's parents 4 wheeler up one of our favorite canyons in utah valley. hobble creek. this place is gorgeous. the houses alone up this canyon are jaw dropping. tom told me the biggest house in utah is up there. the biggest building (and i say building because i still won't believe it's a house) looked like it could serve as a ski lodge at park city resort.

someday i'll live there...

after i rob a bank.

these ponds we went to had the coolest little creatures. they actually looked similar to blinky off simpsons.

they were a mix between a frog, salamander, dinasour, and octopus. they were the coolest things. if the ponds didn't smell like cow manure i would have tried to catch one.

i would have named it salafrosourpus.

run-hardt family reunion 2010

2010-08-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

this past weekend we had our annual run-hardt family reunion.

i talk to so many people that dread family reunions. why can't i dread my family reunions? why can't i make up an excuse not to go?

oh yeah, because our family reunions look something like this...

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

tell me this.

does your family reunion let you balance 9 sweaty chocolate cup cakes on your forehead??

mine does.

does your reunion allow you to play with popsicle sticks and glue for three days?

mine does.

does your reunion make you so excited that a horn grows from your head?

mine does.

this reunion was fantastic. we had it at bear lake in utah. this place is was perfect for our crazy family.
to see some fun time lapses, go here.

so my family is very competitive. just give us 100 rubber bands, 8 bodies, and a living room and we'll figure out a way to gain the title "winner". but i like it that way. i may be the one snapping my own eye out but i'm always triumphant.

if you do win, you get a hideous looking monkey face. it's so ugly i can't even post a picture of it. think of the children people!

tom and i are good...dang good. monkey face liked living with us the past couple years. we decided to go easy on everyone this year so the monkey face can hang in someone elses kitchen.

here are some fun things we did this reunion.

stayed in a roomy house with a sweet view.

played with some adorable neices and nephews

boating

played on the beach (tom thought it was a nude beach)

ate lots of food.

and played lots of games! (that i won)

our theme for the games was "minute to win it". it's a game show with the most random games. we loved it so much it may be a reunion tradition.

every year we also have one big competition.

2010 competition: make a bridge with nothing but 200 popsicle sticks and a tube of glue.

but don't worry, with rules that clear there was bound to be some cheating. so some of us found ways to use clamps, tape, ovens, hairdryers, clothespins, and saws.

you do a weight test on each bridge to see whose can hold the most weight.

the weight test was a close call. jake and us were neck and neck. jake finally broke away with 320 lbs. take one zero off and that's what our bridge held.
yay for letting others win!!

rick and jenny are the 2010 winners!! the sorrells winning streak broken!!

thanks leah and cliff for everything!

things i want to remember:
rubberband war
i will fly with you
things
homemade salsa
water so blue
finger or toe
yoshi
swollen eye
baby smiles
swimming

camping mill hallow

2010-08-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

tom and i like to camp. so this past weekend we decided to go camping at mill hallow reservoir. mill hallow is near kamas and strawberry reservoir. it's a very small reservoir but it's an awesome place to camp!

we also decided to bring our neighbors, the rushanders and the shermans. they're pretty cool...mostly because they're friends with us :)

to see some extra special mill hallow pictures, go to my photography blog.

neighbors couldn't make it until saturday evening, so tom and i went solo for the first night.

basecamp.

fishing at mill hallow is very fun. the fish are pretty tiny and they love to munch on flies, so we broke out our fly rod and started catchin away!

we caught tiger trout, which is a mix between a brook trout and a brown trout. it was our first time catching these little beauties!

when neighbors got to basecamp the weather decided to turn on us and create a massive thunderstorm (of course right when they get there). it was so crazy!!

tessa was screaming like an 80 year old man in our tent.
i was brave and fearless!!
tom was out outside playing in the mud.
danielle and todd hadn't even left their car yet.
brent sat in the rain with his parachute of a pancho.

the storm finall blew over and left us with wet firewood and lots of puddles. but we still had tons of fun! within 5 minutes the boys were already trying to dry out the wood and the ladies were having fun watching them!!

sadie girl.

i don't think the neighbors will ever look at tom the same after our campfire conversations. especially danielle!! i think tom corrupted her for life!

the next morning we had a delicious pancake, egg, and bacon breakfast, packed up, and went fishing! i was super excited to take ryker fishing since he's never caught a fishy before.

tessa the turd.

tom teaching brent to fly fish. brent caught two fish in like 2 minutes! of course that's how it always goes.

ryker's first fish!! a keeper! it was so funny because ryker was horrified of the fish. i think his face is priceless in this picture.

thanks guys for coming along! we had a blast!

uintas

2010-07-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

tom took me to a new favorite place in utah; the uintas.

check out my photography blog for some uinta eye candy.

it was fun and so beautiful. i fell in love with the place instantly.

but there were a few drawbacks to this trip:

mosquitoes like that place too
my head felt like a crushing watermelon due to elevation sickness
tom being sick makes mosquitoes and elevation sickness worse
no camping due to above statements

since we both felt like poo poo, we had to pack up our just recently set up tent and leave. we decided it was just the wrong time of the year to go. the mosquitoes were unbearable. and we realized the only way to catch fish there is by fly fishing.

but despite the downfalls to the trip, the picture below made it completely worth it for me.

there was a herd of mountain goats at the top of our hike. they were amazing. i was able to get within 30 feet of a momma and baby. the little baby was so dang cute.

going back here is at the top of my list for the fall. anyone wanna come?

fourth and fishing

2010-07-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

we love to fish. if you haven't learned this about us already, then you know now.

we decided to try a little east canyon fishing the past couple weeks. east canyon reservoir is up parleys canyon, then exit on east canyon exit. then you go over the big mountains. it's somewhere on the other side.

this place is a must go for anyone who loves the water. it's great for fishing (in a boat or on shore), boating, and camping. the water is unusually warm, especially for being high in elevation. tom and i fished there last year, but just in the river. still caught some amazing fish. this year we love it even more.

meet mr. giant.

the lure mr. giant decided to munch on was bigger than him.

sometimes i wonder if fish are evolving. i wonder if they are realizing shiny lures with treble hooks are not food. thanks mr. giant for solving the question of the century!

we decided to eliminate the devolving species.

this is the catch of the day on another trip to east canyon. tom and i don't have boat fishing experience since we just got maria and we prefer river fishing instead. so we've learned nearly everything about boat fishing from watching others around us. trolling is definitely one of those things. i actually didn't even understand the point of trolling...until we tried it.

vualllaa!! two large rainbows on our dinner plates!

delicious.

my first small mouth bass!!! I was like a child when i caught that thing!! too bad it wasn't big enough for the fish string. maybe next time little fella!

tom and i hate crowds. i sometimes wonder if i have a slight crowd phobia. i always start to sweat and get bloated (more than usual). don't ask why. maybe it has something to do with growing up in a one horse simpleton town. there's something very different about grand experiences with just a handful of people.

so for the 4th of july, tom and i decided to hike to the top of a mountain, yes a mountain. you may ask, "why the dingle-berry would you do that?" well...

it was grand.

it was fun.

i was bloated.

it was a great experience!

if you haven't done this, please do it! it's amazing. no better way to celebrate than with 10 different firework shows, a bag of stale popcorn, a pack of swiss rolls, and a mosquito candle. and we got to see the most gorgeous sunset!

check out my photo blog. i had way too much fun with some time exposures.

three of the fireworks shows.

weird grass mole.

brea the explorer.

brea hiking all hardcore for the picture.

rock climbing and fishlake

2010-06-29T14:32:00.001-07:00

tom and i decided to take out our rusty rock climbing gear and take a trip to our favorite climbing spot, rock canyon in provo, utah. we had a blast and it brought back some good memories. usually this place is packed with hardcore climbers, but this time there wasn't a soul in sight! it was a fun ole time!

this is where "tom and b" began. this is the rock where tom proposed to me. i gave it a high five as we passed.

this past weekend we decided to go camping at fishlake. i thought and prayed long and hard about this, and decided fishlake is one of my favorite places. it has a bit of everything you'd ever want in camping- aspens (which create great hammock spots), shade, lake, fishing, you're guaranteed to catch a fish, and it's beautiful! we brought along our little brown friend, eman, and our boat, santa maria. we had a blast!
to see some eye candy, go to my photo blog.
for some reason i got nominated to sit in the butt seat in the back. this was my view the entire 2.5 hours. don't worry, those sleeping bags didn't move an inch!

the sunset was gorgeous. i somehow got this picture through the foot opening out the back window.

tom and eman harmonizing. ahhh, look at the cute pink cooler :)

there was a partial linear eclipse that night and i was totally stoked for it! except i only knew it was early saturday morning. so for some reason my body decided to wake me up every hour throughout the night to look at the moon. it finally happened around 4 in the morning. hmmm, sleep or stay up and watch eclipse? sleep.
tom's dad let us borrow his little henry 22. we had a blast setting up our own gun range and shooting beer bottles (i always call dibs on those things), coke bottles, groundhogs (yes, real ones), and anything else we can find. it was tons of fun! i nicknamed myself calamity jane....but they kept calling me brea. so i shot them. then they called me calamity jane.
tom and b with their explorer hats. hard core!

tom and i woke up early saturday morning to do some fishin. we were so excited to get our boat out on the lake. we unloaded it like we owned the place, and then our motor decided to suck. so after tom tries for an hour to get it going, we decide to just use the trolling motor to get us around. this thing is pretty much a joke. i actually started paddling because i would forget it was pushing us. we still caught tons of perch. we're going to make some fish tacos with them this weekend. num num!

random note: i've decided the real reason why i take pictures is because it helps me relax. i think i have a photo anxiety because if we go on trips and i forget my camera, i'm mr. grumpy volcano. so anyways, sometimes, just because i have a camera in my hands, i take pictures of tom. ok, not just sometimes, all times. he just loves that i take so many pictures of him, so i keep doing it! hey if the kid loves broccoli, feed him broccoli!

this pretty much sums up another reason why fishlake is so killer. for some reason while you're there all you want to do is be lazy and sleep. it's awesome you should try it sometime.

we also got a couple small hikes in. while driving, we found another area that's even more beautiful than the original. we're planning another trip there soon so that'll be the new spot.
eman being legit with his indiana jones hat.

tom with dirt stache. or real stache. either way i like to point and laugh at it.
tom scopin out the deerskees.
most amazing camp spot ever...until we drove and found better spots. but it's still a sweet spot.
that night we convinced eman to cram on the santa maria with us and do some night fishing. it was scary. maria told us on the warning "weight limit: 150 lbs" and we couldn't decide if that was total or per person, so we decided to find out. i was afraid our little santa maria wouldn't make land ho! let alone take sail. once the water started getting choppy i started getting a little scared. ya, i about peed my pants. no joke. every time we get on the boat and get out in the middle of the lake, i have to pee. i've decided it's becoming a problem. i had to wiggle my foot to help dampen the load. tom hates wiggle. i love wiggle. big fish hate wiggle. little fish love wiggle.

the next morning we went on our last voyage on maria with the three fatsies. we caught lots of perch for delicious tacos, and tom caught a pretty good size splake trout. num num!

awesome video!!

2010-06-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

this is a must see! i laughed my face off today because of this

bike wrecks are no fun

2010-06-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

yesterday we went on a little bike ride with our neighbors and good friends the shermans. they recently got new bikes and we've had a blast riding with them! along with their new bikes, they also got this cool little extension bike for their little 3 year old, ryker. it's basically a two seater bike, but the back bike is smaller. so we all decided to go to sugarhouse park. we had a lot of fun riding there. my favorite part about this park is the huge hill you get to fly down. we were in this order; danielle, me, tom, todd and ryker. so we got the bottom of this massive hill and i look over to see this golden retriever darting towards something behind me. he was a dog on a mission and he was running top speed. my heart started racing because he was going towards todd and ryker. i look behind me to see the dog go straight into the bike and send todd and ryker tumbling. you can hear todd screaming in pain and the dog yelping loudly. i slam on my breaks, get off my bike, and start running. it was scary. it doesn't seem like a big deal when you say, "a dog hit them", but it was more like a car him them. during the hit, the extension that ryker was on pinned him under it as it slid across the pavement. todd was about 10 feet from the bikes since he got thrown off. at first i thought he had a head injury...but realized soonafter it was a hip injury. ryker was balling so hard. danielle, who is an rn, helped the two stay elevated and also called the paramedics. by now there was a group of people there to help. when the paramedics got there they inspected both and found no major injuries. ryker had a hard time calming down. during all this, tom rode his bike home and got his truck to bring the bikes back. it was a scary 30 minutes! todd had cracked his helmet and ryker had road rash all over his body and helmet. we were so grateful they were both wearing those...this could have defietly been a different story. as far as the dog goes, we figured out the owner had let him off his leash and we think the ducks in the pond are what made him dart that direction. whatever made him run, he for sure didn't see the bike going at full speed in front of him. he ran directly in between todds two tires and even left a little fur there for us to laugh at :)

when we got home, danielle bandaged ryker up. he calmed down a ton and was even laughing. todd was limping from his hip injury. danielle wanted to take him to the er so she left ryker with another neighbor, and their youngest, sadie, with us. while they were at the emergency room, we had a good time with sadie. she actually ended up falling asleep in this pile of blankets we have in a corner. it was so cute. i was able to get some pictures later that night.

we're so grateful todd and ryker were able to walk away with no major injuries. like tom and i always say, "where would we be without the shermans??" we love you guys!

white wash sand dunes

2010-06-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

tom and i went to the white wash sand dunes with family this weekend. the dunes are right next to moab. it was such a blast! i never been to any sand dunes so that alone was a great adventure for me. but throw in a little slick rock, four-wheeling, hawgs, and explorer hats and you have yourself a mega adventure!!

tom's family was able to get there a day before us. we got there friday night and it was gorgeous! a big cloud cover was just blowing by and i was amazed at the view from our campsite. that night we took a little hawg/four-wheeling trip to the dune hills. tom was working on the pull string for one of our hawgs so he came a little late. but don't worry. he did not hesitate to ride those hawgs with his belly out and his shirt tied to his head. it was awesome!
tom and i set our tent up out on the sand. it was nice not to worry about rocks and things like that. the next day we went on a couple fun four-wheeling trips. one was with lisa and all the cousins. we went up the flood wash and found this fun little cove at the end. we got to sit in the shade (oh ya, it was so freakin hot there!!) and play in the cool sand. it was a lot of fun!
after our ride we came back to the men (tom and jim) sitting in the trailor with the air conditioning on full blast. little pandsies!! so we all crammed in there and cooled down.

riding on the dunes is something you can't really explain. so i took lots of videos so i could always remember how much fun it was. i compiled a little short video. watch it at the bottom of this post.

everyone enjoyed our twins!

explorer hats!!!

hawgs

2010-06-03T12:58:00.001-07:00

say hello to our new toys! thanks mom and pat!