the mountains are calling, and I must go (or, this is how we do a ski day)

(I started this last week, laying in bed after our ski day.  just finished it.)

oh hey, it’s been a while.  That’s because I’ve been making lots of notebooks and doing lots of yoga and sometimes there isn’t room for all of the things so some of them get squished tight over to the edges and the more unfortunate things just plain spill right over the edges and drop into the abyss, landing in the land of things that never got done.  It’s a lonely place and my blog doesn’t want to be there but, you know.

But I’m too tired to do anything else, so I’m going to tell you all about our lovely ski day, start to finish.  I’ll start with the night before–that time when skiing never ever ever sounds fun at all.  Is it just me?  I’m thinking about waking up early when it’s still dark and so cold, finding all the gear, loading all the gear into the car, packing a lunch for us plus a days worth of food for the babysitter to feed Camryn.  It all just sounds like such a whole lot of effort to put into something that doesn’t even sound fun right now.  What sounds fun the night before is–sleeping in, being lazy, and staying warm.  Period.  But even though everything in my body is telling me that it’s a dumb idea, my brain is telling me that I love to ski more than anything and when I have the chance, I need to take it.  My brain is telling me that even though all the prep is a pain, it is never not worth it.  The moment I get on the slopes I will be the most genuine kind of happy.  I will spend hours on the mountain feeling elated, alive, and grateful.  Grateful for my body and the amazing things it can do, grateful for my good health, for the beauty of the mountains, for a husband who loves it just as much as I do and for a dad that taught me how.

So, on this night, it was raining hard.  Which meant rain in the valley, snow in the mountains, and a day full of fabulous fresh powder.  Curled up in bed, listening to the rain, my body was telling me I didn’t want to go skiing the next day, but my mind was saying you do!  So we went and it was everything it always is.  Plus more because it was free demo day which meant we got to go trade in our skis for a pair of brand new ones to test out for free.

(mine are the blue ones on the left.  I’ve been using them since I was 14 and my mind was running all day scheming on how and when I could replace them.  What I came up with is 11 years.  Which is the answer to pretty much every question these days that begins with “when do you think we could afford. . .”)

And also, ALSO! I got to meet two 3-time olympian female skiers!! First time in all my life that I’ve been star-struck. They were hanging out near the demo booths (probably getting paid big bucks by solitude to do so) and I shook their hands and talked to them and holy cow.  I’m not much impressed by celebrities, but these ladies were my kind of celebrities.  Shannon Bahrke has a silver medal and a bronze medal in women’s moguls making her one of the best mogulists in the WORLD.  Have you seen the olympic mogul events?!?!?  they are insane.  I watched that event this year in total disbelief at how difficult what they’re doing is.  I skied moguls the very next day, the whole time thinking how?? how?? There was also Emily Cook who just got back from Sochi where she took 8th in freestyle aerial skiing.  freestyle.  aerial.  skiing.  That’s how you impress a Dana.

I couldn’t exactly tell you why, but the snow that day was really difficult to ski.  New snow, but really tracked up and choppy, and nothing was groomed at all since it had snowed overnight, so everywhere you went it was just hard and exhausting (still so fun!) but by the time we got home we were completely dead and there were still 3 1/2hours to go until camryn’s bedtime.  (thanks Kelsey and Ryan for babysitting!!) From what I remember, we basically laid in bed that whole time while she jumped on us and sat on our faces and generally bounced around with all of the energy of the energizer bunny that she is.  And then we slept for 11 hours and felt like we could have slept for 11 more.

the end.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a good one.  I hope it was full of remembering the Savior, singing songs about Him, service to those in need, an abundance of sweets, beautiful colors and pretty lights, time spent with those you love the most, kindness to strangers, lengthy naps, ski days, oversized sweatshirts with comfy leggings, excited children, old friends, ridiculous traditions, sentimental movies, praying your Amazon items make it on time, reading new hardbacks, and eating huge dinners—because isn’t that what this is all about??

Ours was lovely. Can’t say I had all of the above, but enough to make me happy as can be and feel like I just having everything I need in life and so much more. Camryn had a high fever all Christmas day which was pretty sad because we had so looked forward to her being so excited and saying “wow” in the ridiculous way she does, and pushing that shopping cart around that we got her from Toy ‘R Us that she picked out herself, and doing her jumps for joy when she got “TEATS!!!” (treats) in her stocking.  But instead she spend most of the day sad and curled up in her grandpa’s arms.  (That girl is so in love with her two grandpas and has both of them totally wrapped around her fingers.  I love watching her make my dad laugh and call her the most animated toddler he’s ever seen, and watch Tanner’s dad chase her laps around the kitchen to exhaustion.)  Two of Tanner’s nieces were also really sick and were quarantined to the basement when they came over, and when you are 8 and 5, being sick and stuck in the basement on Christmas is just the kind of thing that can make you feel like the world is over.  Poor things.

But on to something happier, I have the best gift giving husband in the world!  He seriously is the sweetest thing, it kills me.  If I married someone more practical and frugal, I would totally be in the kind of relationship where we agree to forgo gifts and save the money for something else or put it towards furniture or a car payment or just buy clothes and shoes we need or something.  But that isn’t who Tanner is.  He loves giving gifts and is so thoughtful about it.  His first gift to me was a box full of 5 different ‘options’ for a little 3 day trip for us to take together next month (because I’ve been dying to go on vacation).  He probably should have known better than to give me choices, because I’m in agony over here trying to decide like it’s life or death.  I might have to have him just decide for me.  And also. . .

He bought me a kindle paperwhite!  I’m really excited about it.  It’s one of those things I resisted for a long time (like my smart phone) but I think once I start using it, I’m going to fall in love and wonder why I wasn’t dying for one in the first place. Does anyone have one and have advice for how they buy and read books?  I know the library lends out ebooks but I wonder how good their selection is?  Or if it’s worth it to pay for an Amazon prime account to access the free books they offer through that–again, I wonder how good the selection is?  I don’t have a lot/any money to be spending on books so I’m wondering what the best way to go is and if I can get away with never paying for ebooks.  Either way, I think I will do a lot more reading this way which makes me happy because I haven’t been doing very much of that.  I also need to hurry and learn to like audiobooks because I could be going through a lot of those while I bookbind.

Anyway, I need to be more like Tanner.  I’m pretty lame and hardly give any gifts and I think I should be a lot more thoughtful and giving.  I’m committing to get more into holidays!  I can try to blame it on finances, but really, it’s my practicality that always stops me.  I usually just like to sit back and enjoy the awesome plans, preparations, meals, and presents provided by our generous parents.  Since they do so much to make our Christmas’s great, I feel like I don’t really have to, but it wouldn’t kill me to try a little harder.  Next year I’m planning ahead!  Next year I will start shopping before it’s too late to have anything shipped!  Next year I will give thoughtful gifts to people that I love but could get away with not getting them anything.  Next year I will put up a tree before December is half over! And next year, heaven forbid, if the stairs align and this fire lasts I may even send out a Christmas card. Watch for it people, we’re going places.

I digress, so lets just skip to pictures. Some of these I stole from Thanksgiving, mostly because I felt like Nolan’s cute face should be included.

Camryn @ toys ‘R us, our new winter playground/Lauren with Ruby giving a master crusty/talking to missionary Anne in Tokyo

Sorry Camryn, we don’t like this place either, but sometimes we’re desperate/Big grandkid gift that stays at grammy’s house: car.  Don’t camryn and max make a cute couple?/sick and sleepy in papa’s arms

My husband is SO GOOD LOOKING!!/ O Christmas tree/ my brother’s beautiful family/ mom

my mom wraps things cute/ nephew Nolan–remember how he was a huge baby?  he thinned out quite nicely/my pretty sister

Ryan and Kelsey, Zach and Alison, Anne, we missed you guys!!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night

I accidentally got a smart phone

Truly, it was an accident.  I didn’t even want one, but now I am in love.  Change-my-life, set-my-heart-upon-my-riches, what-have-I-been-thinking-all-this-time–LOVE.  love. love. love.  Ok, I’ll stop.  But really.

I’m still on my parents phone plan (yup, 24 years old, holla) and they just switched to T-mobile.  The change meant phone switches/upgrades all around, which for I think most of my family members meant iphones.  Ryan and Maddy (brother, sister, respectively, both in college) were both excited out of their minds for their new phones.  Drooling, x-mas day grins, hugging inanimate objects, the whole deal.  Am I’m like, what?  Why do I need a new phone?   I’d already been forced to upgrade from the best ever greatest phone of all time:

that I loved dearly and had from age 15 until 2011.

And now I was doing quite alright thank you very much with my samsung intensity II.

Texting. calling.  bonus for having a camera.

I didn’t want or need a smart phone.  I couldn’t even tell you why.  Probably there was some anxiety involved.  Fear, too.  Technology hates me and in my brain, new technological device generally equals a whole lot of headache and frustration and shouting of “WHY won’t it just do _____??!?@$#*/?  I think there’s also some pride involved–like some “i’m too wholesome and oldschool to waste my time and money on needing the latest gadget” gibberish.  Gibberish I tell you!

I used my dad’s old android for a week and a half because I didn’t want to spend any money on a new phone.  After much pulling my hair out waiting for the stupid thing to respond to any of my requests, I decided it wasn’t going to work out.  I walked into a t-mobile store and walked out with the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me:

She likes me!  She understands me!  She’s fast and responsive and it doesn’t take me any time at all to figure out how to get her to do what I want her to do!  In other words–I finally have my hands on technology that is user friendly enough for my technology hating self. It’s so easy I’m giddy about it.  I can speak my texts instead of taking 10 minutes to type them while camryn is sabotaging me.   I can check my shops stats, email and facebook all in about 2 seconds.  I can read blogs at the park while Camryn goes down the slide 800 times.  I have aps!  aps are amazing!  OH and it makes a CHA-CHING sound when I get a sale in my etsy shop.  I didn’t even have to program it to do that!! I just–guys I love it.  I feel like I’ve come out of the darkness and into the light.  Where once life was hard, life is easy.

I could go on and on, but  I’ll spare you more melodrama and stop before I hit my exclamation point limit.  Excuse me while I go and get myself full-blown addicted to instagram. bye!

Oh HAPPY day

Dear Husband,

YOU GOT INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!  YOU GOT IN YOUGOTIN YOUGOTIN!!!!

You should’ve been here when I found out.  It was quite exciting.  I had been just about to text you and tell you that your fish were going to the pound because you left the fish food within Camryn’s reach again and the stinky gross expensive stuff was all over the carpet for the last time.  But then I saw you’d texted me already asking (again) was there any mail today?

So I checked and there was!  there was mail!  Among the ads and junk catalogs, a very official looking skinny envelope with KCUMB’s logo on it, with a letter inside signed by a guy whose title is longer than the pledge of allegiance.  You were at work but I opened it anyway.  You told me I could and I couldn’t wait, and what it said was

Dear Mr. Staples:

CONGRATULATIONS!!  Something something something. . . . white coat ceremony August 7. . . more stuff, other stuff. . .   Congratulations again on your acceptance!

That was the gist of it.  I wish I didn’t have to tell you over the phone, but that’s just the way it worked out.  I did tell Camryn but she just stared at me blankly and clearly did not grasp the gravity of the situation. I am so proud of you!  SO SO proud of you.  Words cannot express how proud (and hey, I’m pretty good with words). Didn’t I tell you I was positive you were in? You’re a genius and they loved you.  And I love you.  And you, my darling, are going to be a doctor someday.

Now hurry and get home so we can pop open that fancy pink lemonade and celebrate properly.

Love, me, your wife, Dana

yup, poor college student style

a dozen roses

I thought we’d be to the grocery store by now, but Camryn has been quietly playing on the floor by herself with nothing but a jar of pens and pencils for about 40 minutes now (dump all the pencils out, put them all back in, repeat) and when you’re the mother of a toddler who rarely to never entertains herself, you just don’t mess with things like that.  Nope you don’t.  You don’t get up from your chair, make any sudden movements, make eye contact, or even breath too loudly.

So I’m just going to take this moment of free time to enjoy the beautiful about-to-start-dying vase of roses on my kitchen table.  Tanner and I celebrated our third anniversary last week (one month late.  life happens.) by spending a night at none other than the Grand America in Salt Lake City (funded by momma & poppa Staples as last years Christmas present) Because I had a baby shower in Bountiful and Tanner had work, we split up and met up at the Grand America, Tanner taking his bike, the train, and then his bike again.  There I was waiting in front of the hotel, and that sweetheart of a man shows up on his bike with a vase of a dozen beautiful roses in hand!  He’s a keeper, this one is.

So, this hotel.  It’s weird how rich and how poor that place can make me feel all at once.  All the fancy luxury is so fancy and luxurious, but I feel like a fraud who doesn’t belong.  Pretty sure their bathrobes alone cost about as much as our monthly rent, and if it was up to our budget, we’d have enough to cover. . .maybe parking.  The poor-man’s self parking variety of course, not to be confused with the valet variety.  As I pulled in, just finishing up my peanut butter sandwich snack, I was acutely aware of our crooked missing-a-screw license plate and how full of dirty laundry the back of my car was. (to be done at my parents house) Can you say CLASSY?? And then I hit the lobby, and well, there are just well dressed people left and right.  And I’m wearing jeans that I’ve worn 4 times a week since 2010.  But a scene in the parking garage did make me feel better–a couple nicely dressed for a wedding got their toddler out of the car in nothing but a diaper and then tried to pull a fancy poofy dress over her head and she was having none of that at all.  Rich or poor–toddlers still throw tantrums!

Anyway, it was a great time.  We went shopping (new pants :)), we had sushi, we celebrated anniversary style. 3 years 🙂  Congratulations to us.

 

Even though I’m the cheapskate in this relationship (every relationship needs one right?  but only one) I will never ever think buying flowers is a bad idea.  I’ve heard from so many people that flowers are a waste of money and they’d rather have a gift that will last, but no amount of expense could make me say “skip the flowers–let’s spend it on something useful.”  I love with all of my heart a vase of fresh flowers on my kitchen table.

on Kansas City, stunning mountains, and being present

Ok so, we’re still waiting and wishing on (more) interviews but I am thrilled beyond measure to announce that Tanner has his first interview!  It was last Tuesday that he got the email, and let me tell you–thrilled beyond measure are we.  Wait did I already say that?  Can’t emphasize it enough.  I was an awesome moment for us.  Just a really great validating moment like oh hey!  we probably do have a future!  This really huge thing that we have been working towards for a really long time might actually happen for us! I am so freaking proud of my awesome husband.  What a stud that man is, really.

The interview is at KCUMB in Kansas City.  Kansas City, which is a city that is not actually in Kansas (yes, what?) but is in fact in Missouri. And which is absolutely not a place that I would ever have put on my top-5-places-I want-to-live list, and actually sounded like it would be on an opposite sort of list (kind of an oh-dear-please-can-we-not-move-here list)  BUT turns out Kansas City is actually really cool.  It’s a much bigger city than my uneducated self knew even existed that close to the middle of our country, it’s a good school, houses are cheap cheap cheap, there’s a temple there.  All good things.  And we were very happy to discover in our research that KCUMB has an extremely high acceptance rate of those who interview–70, 80, even 90% some years–most schools have way lower than that.  So we are breathing a lot easier even though we haven’t heard back from any other schools yet.

Lots of really good things happened this week.  Really really good things.  Sometimes I find myself frustrated all autumn long that autumn is so dang short.  Instead of enjoying the leaves and the stunning sight that is Mount Timpanogos, and COLORS (the colors!)  I catch myself depressed that it’s almost over already, annoyed that there are so few not-hot-but-not-freezing days, discontented that I’m not getting enough fall– that I haven’t visited a farm or knitted lots of things or jumped in piles of leaves or hiked daily or gone on a back-packing trip or taken stunning photos in the canyon, or. . . you know, those things.  I’ve got indoor guilt like crazy.  But I really do just need to let go of what I can’t do and love every second of what I do get.

Friday we drove the Alpine Loop as a family and I was fighting this hard.  Fighting to let myself enjoy it instead of wishing we had more time.  The sun was close to setting already, and at first that made me disappointed, but I think it made it better.  We’d go through a really shaded part where it was getting dark and everything was grey, and then we’d burst through to where the sun was shining and everything would seem like it was on fire.  We didn’t get awesome pictures.  We didn’t have time to stop for a well-planned picnic or a hike.  We were a week or 2 late on seeing the colors at their prime.  But we did have a lovely family drive through the canyon, and that’s good enough.

 

We also picked out pumpkins at the farmers market.

And went rock climbing with our new friends the Sullivans, which was SO FUN.  really.  really fun.  Worlds apart from climbing the indoor rock wall at the quarry.  Rock canyon is stunning (do I keep saying stunning?? It’s just the only word I keep thinking to describe these mountains and canyons!) and Bethany and James were kind enough teach us the ropes and deal with our oh-so-green at outdoor rock climbing selves.  I only wish I’d gotten into this sooner and had time left in Provo to really give this hobby a shot.

#1 reason I document my life–because if I don’t I sit around feeling sorry for everything I’m missing out on, and if I do I feel like my life is so full.  Look-turns out we’ve done lots of fun beautiful fall things! I just forgot.

 

I’ve been going to a fantastic yoga class and this week she said one little thing that I really grabbed on to:

Take a moment to just be present.  Just be here.  Let go of whatever may have happened today and let yourself be happy that right now, you are right here.

NAMASTE

Summer vacation 2013

Here is a slideshow of our August Southern California vacation in all of its photo-dump glory.  I usually love taking pictures and think I’m halfway decent at making sure I get good, balanced, aesthetically pleasing documentation of our trips, but for some reason that didn’t happen here at all.  Sorry if you spent 3 or 6 solid days with us and didn’t even make the photo dump once.   It doesn’t mean we didn’t love and appreciate your prescence! My toddler doesn’t ever let me do what I want might have had something to do with it.

First on our calendar of events was the wedding of my littler brother Ryan and his wife Kelsey in the beautiful Redlands CA temple

And this is our perfectly behaved daughter having a not-at-all-melodramatic meltdown on the grounds of said temple.

What we didn’t know is that this was the first in a series that resulted from a 2-day nap strike that was delightful for all parties involved, I assure you.  I was terrified that this is what I had to look forward to for the entire 10 days we were to be in California, but thankfully she wised up and started taking her naps.

I neglected to get a single picture of just the bride and groom.  oops.  

this is their beautiful garden reception at Kelsey’s parents house.  It’s laughable how little justice I managed to do it with my camera.  A shame really.  

Newport beach with my family

that’s my mom.  and she’s smiling!  not that she never smiles, because she does, except that for the entirety of my existence, anytime I’ve pointed a camera at her she’s given me a raised eyebrow “I hate it when you take my picture” look.  But sometime in recent months she must have realized her smile is much more attractive than that face and maybe she’d like her posterity to remember her this way instead.  good job mom!

This is how the Bramhalls do vacation:

We got to meet Owen!  Alison and Zach’s baby that they adopted in April.  he’s CUTE.

After staying with my family for a few days, we drove about 15 minutes to where Tanner’s family was staying for the next 6 days (which was hugely, awesomely convenient timing/location and I can’t believe it worked out that well)

With them we spent 2 days in Disneyland and 1 day at California Adventure

Who’s happier to be here, Camryn or her dad?

ya know that iconic picture of the kid konked out their stroller after a long day at Disneyland?  this is Camryn at 9 in the morning after a grand total of 2 rides: Peter pan and the teacups.  I guess it was all just a little overwhelming.

We realized after about oh, 1/3 of the first line that Camryn was at just the age to have a REALLY hard time waiting in line for 3 days.  Pretzels and goldfish only got us so far (and girlfriend ate a LOT of pretzels and goldfish on this trip)  so for days 2 and 3. . . we got a toddler leash.  Judge away, but that thing was a life-saver.  And really cute if you ask me.

in line for Toy Story with grammy (Tanner’s mom)

and the whole gang

Waiting for the World of Color show to start which was AWESOME.  Of all of the times I’ve been to these amusement parks, I can’t really ever remember going to many shows (just riding as many rollercoasters as many times as possible.  that’s how we do) , but this time around they were my favorite part.  There was a little “princess theatre” we took camryn to that does plays of different disney movies,  we went to Aladdin at a big theatre,  the fantasma (fantasmic?) show, the world of color, and they were all awesome.   And they helped break things up so you weren’t always in line or on a ride–which, you know, isn’t bad, but if you have more than one day there, it was a really fun change of pace

i also don’t think i’ve ever been to toon town.  we definitely  skipped that on our college roadtrip disneyland excursions

A lot of the time, Tanner’s parents would take everyone’s tickets and go get fast passes for the good rides.  I think there were 17 of us, half of which were too short/young for the rides we had fast passes for,  and then some of tanner’s siblings don’t like some of the bigger rollercoasters or get sick, so sometimes we got to ride 2 or 3 times in a row with fast passes.  it was awesome!  thanks mark at jana!

our nieces went to the “bibbidy bobbidy boutique” and got the beauty shop treatment from the fairy godmother hairdressers.  so cute.

we had some great pool days

Somewhere in there I also got to go out to breakfast with Corrie, hang out at the beach with Lyndi, and spend an entire day on Huntington Beach which somehow didn’t get a single photo.

and since I love to end things on a negative note, then there was the drive home and that middle of the desert gridlock traffic catastrophe that made me question my willingness to ever drive that far again with children

The end.

Can i go on vacation again please?

It’s the little things.

Last night during Tanner and I watching the season premiers of Parenthood and the Amazing Race (#yayfornewseasons #noonewatchesthesameshowsasme)  I walked to the freezer and feigned surprise as I pulled out a gallon sized bucket of cookies ‘n cream ice cream that Tanner hadn’t known was there.  And people, the man was so happy he cried!  Real tears.  And then I laughed until I cried because I couldn’t believe he was actually crying. Gotta love the little things that make you so happy.

Watch this space because I’m working on getting our Disneyland trip photos up (uh, 2 months later) and we may or may not have gotten a toddler backpack leash for Camryn that is really dang cute.

LoToJa

Well, it’s probably about time I told you how the story ends right??

Short Version: I made it to Alpine–mile 160 of the ride.   I did not make it the full 206 miles.  I felt great most of the day, I simply ran out of time and daylight.  There was a nasty game changing headwind from mile 110 on that slowed us down a lot. The ride was a blast, so beautiful, an awesome experience, and I’m so happy with and proud of how far I made it!  Tanner had mechanical and stomach issues and made it to Afton, mile 125 and I’m so proud of him too!

And now the long version, leg by leg:

Logan to Preston–33 miles

I was so nervous.  During the first 2 miles I thought I was going to die.  We started out much faster than I was expecting and I literally could not catch my dad to save my life.   Did I ever mention we were riding this with my dad?  He does it every year-I think this was #9.  There was a mix-up with our start-times and his riding buddy Dave ended up starting 1/2 an hour earlier than us and we were supposed to catch up and meet up with him at one of the stops.  Anyway– I couldn’t catch up with my dad and my heart rate was completely out of control.  A lot of training and rides like this is watching your heart rate monitor and staying in certain zones to make sure that you’re not working too hard early on and zapping all your energy.  So I was very conscious of where my heart rate was and where it should be and it was already ballparks beyond numbers that they had told me “don’t ever ever hit your red zone or you will not finish”  So that freaked me out and right off the bat I was thinking OH NO this is going to be bad.  But it got better fast.  We slowed down, my heart rate got semi under control, and I got over my nerves and started having fun.

When we got to the first feed zone we found out our support crew (my mom and little brother Ryan)  had run out of gas and weren’t there.   Ha.  There are support crew feed zones and neutral feed zones (meaning no support crew vehicles, only event-run tables/drinks/food) and the next support crew feed zone wasn’t until Afton, another 100 miles, which is stupid, don’t ask me why, but that means I didn’t even see them or all the food and bottles I had carefully and stressfully packed until about mile 120

Preston to Strawberry

Lots of hills.  I was feeling completely awesome because I was with a couple of men who weigh significantly more than me and have a lot more work to do climbing those hills.  So I’m basically taking a break climbing what is supposed to be the hardest part of the course, thinking very positive thoughts like I am totally making it all the way.  Tanner is having the opposite experience.  BYU outdoors unlimited had tuned-up our bikes and is going to get a not very nice visit from me tomorrow because they messed up something on Tanner’s bike and it wouldn’t stay in the very lowest gear, making it ridiculously hard for him to make it up those hills.  He also developed a stomach cramp that he couldn’t get rid of.

Strawberry to Montpelier

Almost all steep downhill.  I’m expecting a break and instead–I was working twice as hard as I had been on the hills to try and keep up with the men.  For parts of it, they were literally coasting or barely working while I was pedaling as hard as I possibly could to keep the same speed.  All the while my dad is yelling for me to stay as close as I can to draft behind him.  Weight gives you a ton of momentum on the downhill and flat and I just didn’t have it!

In Montpelier we expected to find a mechanic to look at Tanner bike, but the guy wasn’t there!  It was so frustrating.  There was a station set up with all the tools and everything, and all the volunteers said he’s been there all day and they didn’t know where he was.  We waited a while but had to keep going without getting his problem fixed.

Montpelier to Salt River (mile 110)

We had to leave Tanner behind at mile 98.  His stomach cramp wouldn’t go away and he couldn’t keep up, and we knew we were cutting it close on time and had to book it in order to make it in time.  It was so hard to leave him!  He threw up a lot, couldn’t keep anything down, but still made it up all of the mountains because he is amazing, but didn’t think it would be safe to go on after Afton.

My dad left me behind shortly after Salt River (also know as King/Queen of the mountain,  mile 110 the highest point on the course) because again, I couldn’t keep up on the downhill and he wanted to make sure he got a finishing time.  At this point I was still super confident I could make it all the way. . . .but then I hit the headwind.  First of all, after King/Queen of the Mountain, there is supposedly 50 miles of downhill–NOT SO.  The map and what my dad had told me was insanely deceptive on that point.  It may trend downhill, but it’s mostly flat, and there are quite a few uphill parts (it’s rolling).  So with the headwind,  instead of the 50 miles of coasting and rest I was expecting, it was work, work, work.

Somewhere along the way, this kind of old guy comes up behind me and says “ya know,  someone once told me the way to finish this ride is to find a fat lady and draft behind her the whole way.  You’re just too damn skinny!!” Ha.

It was so nice to see my mom and Ryan in Afton.  It really gave me a boost and I knew I had to keep the pace up but I was feeling great!  This is me in Afton

Well, ok, great + halfway exhausted + my back hurt.  After that though I really started getting tired and the wind started getting to me.  (that.  freaking. wind.  why, why, why??)  And I really started slowing down.    (long side explanation:  another big downer was our late start time of 7:12.  My dad has always started @ 6:00 a.m. or earlier, so that is what I had been expecting.  This not only gives you more time, but the big advantage of having a lot more riders around to so you can join pace lines and draft.  Drafting makes a huge difference, and in previous years, my dad always has had tons of strong groups passing them that they can join onto the back of and draft with.  This year they changed how they did start times and we were one of the last starting times meaning all the strong riders were way ahead of us and we never had any pace lines to join.  It was also pretty discouraging to hardly ever see many other riders and have them be pretty much taking down the feed stations by the time we got there.  ok done.)

So I’m out there all alone on my way to Alpine, haven’t seen a single other rider in a while, and along comes this complete angel to save my day.  Her name was Maddy, she’s only 18 years old, and she passes me and asks if I want to hop on and draft behind her.  UMM, YES.  yes, yes, yes.  She was so happy and so nice and maybe the only reason I completed that leg of the race.  She was on a relay team, so she was well rested, had tons of energy and was keeping a pretty fast pace.  Not only did drafting behind her help with the wind situation, but she gave me someone that I needed to keep up with instead of slowing down, and she kept my morale up and my mind busy.  Her relay partner had ended up in the ER and Maddy was trying to finish for them.   She carried me for 25 miles, almost all the way to Alpine, and I am so grateful!

When I was a couple miles short of Alpine, I saw my dad riding towards me–not a good sign.  He had hung back with us for too long, not counting on the wind, and hadn’t given himself enough time to finish.  When we rolled into Alpine it was almost 7:00 and we had 47 miles to go–not possible in the hour & 15 (maybe 30) minutes left before sunset.  Tanner (who had gotten picked up by this point), my mom, Ryan, my dad’s buddy Dave (he didn’t finish either) & his wife and son were all there cheering to meet me.  I was seriously so happy and so proud that I had made it so far.  160 miles!  I still had some strength left (not a ton, but some)  and wanted to keep going, but my options weren’t good.  I could try and pound out 10 or 20 more miles before it got dark, or I could try and finish the entire 47, but that would mean several hours of riding in the dark and even then, everything would already be taken down and I wouldn’t get an official finish.  I wasn’t sure I could even make it that far, but in the dark it wasn’t safe.  Busy unfamiliar road with narrow shoulders–yikes.  I’m still not entirely sure what it was that made me quit, and part of me wishes I had kept going, but I was pretty dang exhausted and a few more hours alone in the dark wasn’t happening.  And if I wasn’t going to make it the whole way, was there a difference between 160 and 175?

What’s done is done!  No regrets.  I really thought I would be a lot more disappointed if I didn’t finish, and I won’t lie and say I wish this post ended with I’m awesome I did it! I did it, I did it!!!!  But there’s no way I could do myself the disservice of being disappointed in myself after participating in Lotoja and getting so far.

prepping our bikes

 Tanner posing for pictures while I way-to-nervously-to-be-funny-right-now stuff pretzels into my food pouch

Lame photo gallery, I know.  My camera was almost dead and I had 18,000 things to worry about more than pictures.  Hopefully I can get some from my parents, I don’t even have one of the whole group at the end!

And as if this post isn’t already long enough, I feel like I have so many people to thank.  (like, you know, the academy) So so so many people have babysat for us over the past few months so we could train–more than I’d like to admit–my family, tanners family, awesome friends and neighbors THANK YOU.  People who lent or gave me equipment, everyone who encouraged me either in person or through texts, calls or online, wished me luck and told me I could do it–thank you!  And thanks to my dad who pulled me most of the way, I definitely couldn’t have gotten as far as I did without him.  Not to mention his countless calls, training advice, equipment, buying me the bike, and inspiring me to do this crazy thing in the first place.   And the love of my life (who I will be married to for 3 years this week!) he is the best and this is just one more thing we got to experience together, for better or worse!

Our 4th of July

On the 4th of July, we thought we’d be really ambitious with our family fun and wake up bright and early at SIX in the a.m. to see the Hot Air Balloon Festival .  It sounded really cool.  Apparently it’s a big deal and they inflate and launch 25 hot air balloons.  So we hopped out of bed–our chipper, early bird selves I assure you– woke up the baby (and we never wake up our baby) and the first person we saw when we got out of the car informed us that they weren’t doing the festival because of possible lighting.  bummer!   and all too reminiscent of the city easter egg hunt that was a bust because some kid ran under the partition way before it was supposed to start, started an ambush, and all the eggs we gone 45 minutes before the thing was even supposed to start.  But I digress. . .

So, by 7 a.m. we were back home with 2 out of 3 of us ready to crawl back into bed, and 1 (guess who!) wide wide wide awake.

We’re not really into parades (do people really truly enjoy parades?  or do they just go because they’ve always gone and it’s a deeply embedded tradition?) so we went on a hike instead.  Stuart falls, which is one of those ones that I can’t believe I haven’t done yet.  It was fun!  and overcast, rainy, so green,  and not at all hot.  We felt like we were in Oregon and probably spent all of our conversation time loving on Oregon.

pretzel pacification      

And since Tanner just uploaded all the pictures off his iphone, here’s some photos of this and that
That one time we went mini golfing (actual date status right there) and decided couple selfies were something we should do Tanner’s brother got married to the lovely Lauren in the Salt Lake Temple

I made their pretty sign in book one day we visited Tanner while he was on campus doing medical school application stuff and. . . I took this adorable picture.   Tanner’s little sister Anne left on her mission to Toyko!  I don’t have any pictures of her sendoff, but I do have a couple of the journal I gifted her before she left.  When I have time I think I’ll start marketing these in my shop as missionary gifts.  In the meantime, if you know anyone who might like one, I’ll do custom orders with the map of where they’re going and stamped quotes or scripture   We went to the Spanish Fork 24th of July fireworks (which didn’t start til ELEVEN,  we’re not having the greatest track record with city events this summer–but they were worth it. )

Lately, Camryn has decided she’s a total daddy’s girl and rarely wants anything to do with me.  It’s. . . unfair but also way endearing.