Shamu! Shamu!

A couple weekends ago my good friend from college got married in San Diego. We thought it would be a great chance to see an old friend and have a mini vaca!
Russ has a friend from college as well that lives in Carlsbad right next to the ocean so he was nice enough to let us crash there!
We flew in Thursday night after work, rented a car and headed to Carlsbad. We didnt get in until about midnight and Russ was up with his friend at 5 AM to surf.
Russ's friend Rob is a dentist and there was a dentist convention there that weekend so there were 4 other friends of Robs that were also staying there for the convention. It was a full house! But so fun. I spent 3 nights on a love seat, but who can complain when its free?! And literally right across from the ocean.
After Russ got back from surfing we went and had a delicious breakfast and headed to the beach.

We spent the day at the beach and then went back and got ready for the wedding.
Tags and his new beautiful wife Star.

They had a delicious dinner and beautiful reception!
Tags had another friend from Utah that came that I also went to Utah State with so he sat us at the same table. It was fun to catch up him.

The happy couple got married in the San Diego temple. The unfortunate thing is..it was COMPLETELY covered in scaffolding. I couldnt believe. We had heard from Rob (Russ's friend) that it had some scaffolding on it, but we didnt think it was covering every square inch!

Congrats anyway, to the happy couple. And thanks for inviting us!
We went back to Rob and his wife's house and as we were getting out of the car I noticed his neighbors backyard looked like a fairy tail. The picture didnt turn out well, but doesnt it look kinda fun?

The next morning Russ got up once again to surf, he came back, we had another delicious breakfast and went to Sea World! I was so excited, Russ hadnt been there since he was a young lad and I have always loved sea creatures so it was a good time!
Holy crap there are a lot of people that love Sea World too.
Look at how amazing these large animals are!

There was a show that was kind of a spoof on all the other corny shows. I thought it was hilarious. The walrus were making fun of all the dolphin and Shamu shows. I laughed hard.

We saw my very favorite kind of whales, the Beluga! I dont know why, but I sure love them.

We saw some funky lookin fish

Pet some Ray's ( I have no idea why this picture wont turn. Ive tried twice)

And watched them throw dough at the windows and watched the polar bears lick it off.

I was also reminded why sharks are a titch intimidating.

That night we went back and had some delicious pizza, and met the gang for a nice walk to Cold Stone.
We then went back to their house and watched the USA world cup game they had recorded earlier that day. Such a bummer USA.
Speaking of the World Cup, my boss was being pretty dang awesome the other day and let us watch the Uruguay -Ghana game...holy smokes. Best game ever.
The next morning..same drill..Russ got up early and surfed, and we went for the very best breakfast of all! 5 words people..Banana Nut Crunch French Toast. They literally
roll the toast in the egg mixture and crushed up banana nut crunch cereal. Amazing.

Im going to try it at home. Wish me bad luck..because if it works, its going to be bad news. I will eat that all the time.
After our breakfast we went for a bike ride on the beach cruisers. I want one. I wish it made sense to have one in Utah.
We took a nice little ride along the coast a few blocks.

I could see a boardwalk in the distance and wanted to ride our bikes to it. Russ was a little hesitant, and now I know why. It was a LONG bike ride. We peddled our little hearts out though. Our bikes had some issues that made the long bike ride even funnier...every time I hit a bump my seat would lean WAY forward, and Russ handle bars kept falling low as well. It made me laugh.
If you look at the far right of this picture you can see a smoke stack. That's where we started.

We met up with the group that wanted to give the paddle boards a try.
It was a ton of fun. I sucked at it, but it was so fun! I want to try it again. Dang, Utah needs an ocean so bad!


Then we drove to La Jolla. I love it there. It was so beautiful. We went to the seal beach where the seals rest.
You would never know, but there is a bunch of cute little seals sleeping behind us..thanks anyway though to the person who took the picture.

This one was my favorite. He was stretching all cute


Such a fun trip! I was glad we were able to cram as much as we did into a short weekend. We went to bed pretty late that night and had to get up at 4 AM the next morning to catch our flight, but it was worth it! Congrats again to Tags and Star, thanks for getting married so we could come to San Diego :)

PS. Am I the only one that thinks the new blogger layout is kinda tricky?

Nerd Alert!

I will have to confess, that nerd is me.
But I guess it pays to be a nerd because I had a great weekend!
Just to set the story up, I dont own a working TV. I havent had a TV for over 6 months now. I have no idea what is going on in the world or entertainment except for the TVs we have at work that is only on CNN. I only catch up on whatever I can hear as I walk by.
However, there are a few shows that I TVO at my parents house and run and catch up on when I have a chance.
One of them being Wipeout. I love it, cant get enough of it. I love it so much in fact, I applied to be on the show and am just anxiously awaiting a call from ABC telling me Im exactly what they are looking for and come give those big balls a run for their money!
If you could keep your fingers crossed for me Id sure appreciate it.

I also really enjoy watching Brothers & Sisters.

Sadly, I am a whole season behind because when I do have time to go to my parents and watch TV I am getting caught up on THE BIGGEST LOSER!
I love pretty much everything about that show except the lame commercials by the contestants they try and squeeze into the already 2 hr show.
I feel so inspired when I watch, I love Bob with most of my heart, I want to smack Jillian around, and a million other reasons I think its great.
Who thought watching obese people work out would be so entertaining? But it is. Was that an insensitive comment? I apologize if so.
This weekend was the Ragnar. For those of you who dont know what that is, it is a race from Logan, Ut to Park City, UT which I think it was like 180ish miles.
I caught wind that 2 previous contestants Philippe & Sione from the show would be up in the VIP section. Naturally, I knew I had to go look for them and hope for a picture.
We headed up to Park City and once I saw the bazillions of people and the security guards guarding all the entrances I knew It wasnt going to happen, and I was instantly sad I didnt bring my zoom lens.
Luckily, I have a awesome BF that was excited for me to see these guys so he went in for the kill and I followed.
He walked right past the people at the front VIP desk and acted like he was walking toward the bathrooms. He thought there would be a "back way". Sure enough, there was an elevator. We hop on, and Im laughing the whole time thinking...whats next?
We get off and BOOM! There stands Sione. He is an ordinary person, from a reality show, but it still intimated me and I just looked, smiled and walked right on past and hid behind a wall. Russ rounds the corner and I smiled and said, "That was him".
Russ's reaction was probably my favorite moment of the whole day.
Here we are, 2 adults, hiding behind a wall with Sione on the other side. Russ said we werent coming all this way to walk right past him so he went back over to him by the elevators and asked if it was him. He then proceeded to embarrass the livin day lights out of me by saying I was his biggest fan, and we had driven all the way up to see just him, and could I get my picture taken with him.
Just a heads up, if you ever plan on going and stalking someone, and you dont think you will actually see them, be prepared to look cute regardless. I hate even posting these pictures of myself because I think I look hideous, but still! Its Sione!

He was on the second to last season with his cousin Philippe who wasnt able to come to Park City. Here is his before and after.

After I got a picture with him he asked if we were on our way up to the VIP. Russ continued to embarrass me by saying we were coming up just to see him. So he showed us to the deck and we chatted away.

A lady came up to us and asked us if we had our VIP badges and Sione jumped in and said we were with him and asked if she could get us 2 VIP passes.
So here I thought Id maybe see them, and if I was lucky get a picture...turns out we hung out for an hr.

We got all the scoop from behind the scenes of the BL.
I confessed my love for Bob the trainer

He told us about some of the other people on the show, and who he still stays in touch with.
I love her as well, even though some of her outfit choices are questionable.

Overall, I was super D duper happy. Mission...totally and completely accomplished.
After that we went down to the finish line and cheered for some of the runners.
We went back to the VIP, had some grub and I got a picture with one of my friends and an interesting group of runners.

What a day!

We hurry and ran back down to SLC to change for the Strawberry Days rodeo in Pleasant Grove. I had never been, and was excited to attend.
I am so glad its finally summer and time to do these fun summer activities!
Even though we were already running late, I still stopped and bought my first pair of cowgirl boots! What do ya think?

We had a nice big fun group. Im sad I didnt get any pictures of everyone, but we did get a couple pictures in our rodeo gear.

And of course, I indulged in some much talked about Strawberries and cream.

Bring. On. Summer!!

Love Thy Neighbor

And I sure do. I have the greatest neighbors ever!
They have been so good to me. They are an older couple that lives across the street and they take such good care of me. They bring me dinner at least once a week, they water my flowers, they give me relationship advice, they compliment my outfits some mornings, and they are just FUN.
They are in their late 60's and early 70's.
I will give them an Alias for todays story.
The Mrs will now be known as Jane, and the Mr will be known as Jack.
I am horrible at gardening and yard work. For one, I just dont know how to do it, for two, I have no tools at all but a cat pooper scooper which is not intended for yard work, three, I hate spiders and overall I just dont like it.
I dont mind mowing the lawn at all. In fact its kind of nice.
Jane is always telling me I need to plant...see I already forgot what kind of flower...but anyway she is always telling me to plant this flower in my front yard since I have a huge nice tree that shades most of the front yard.
One morning, I was walking out the front door for work when I noticed a laundry basket full of dug up flowers. Jack, just like most days must have seen me staring at these flowers and sticks his head out his door and says "Chels, Jane is going to plant you some flowers". How nice I thought!
I go to work and return a dreaded 8 hrs later to my front flower beds dressed in tons of flowers. I loved it!
I walked over their house and Jane answered the door. Our conversation:
Jane: Do you like it?
Chels: Are you kidding? I love it! It changes the look of my house so much! Jane, that must have cost a lot of money, how much do I owe you?
Jane: Nothing.
Chels: Nothing? I want to pay for the flowers.
Jane: I stoled um' from the park.
Chels: Hahahaha ....(Then I think to myself, uh oh, I think she is serious).

Jane walks through the park every morning and picks up trash. She decided the flowers in the park would look better in my front yard.
So, she got a laundry basket, dug them up, and started planting. Then she realized she didnt have enough so she came back, got her husbands truck and dug up more!!
Thanks....I think?!?!?
What do you do? What do you say?
I have to say, every day when I pull into my house I feel guilty.
I have blurred Janes face to protect the guilty.

She still is young and hip. She has grandchildren older then me!
A nice little row of "stoled" flowers.

Turns out Jane is not a thief...no no. She is a hero. Because just a week later that park was completely under water. It flooded. So really she saved their lives. And I am proud to say I was a part of that.

These would have looked nice in my back yard...

For any of my cousins or siblings that may look at my blog, 2 words for you:
900 E, crunch!

Turns out these flowers are maintenance free.
Jane installed them and sends Jack over to water them.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Yesterday Russ & I went to a wedding up in Farmington.
The wind had been blowing like crazy, and there were tree branches and debri all over the place! It looked as if a tornado had touched down.
But the weather cleared for their wedding and it was a very touching outdoor ceremony and reception.
After the wedding, we decided to take a drive up Farmington canyon.
It was beautiful! So green,fresh rain, and this amazing rainbow!

The further up the canyon we got, the closer the rainbow was. Usually when you get closer it goes away. I was hoping to find a pot of gold, no such luck.
But I did spot a mighty cute leprochan.

Mighty fine Saturday afternoon drive if you ask me.

PS. Its the middle of June, and Im wearing a winter coat! What is up with this weather?

You & me go fishin' in the dark...

We actually didnt do any fishing this Memorial day, but that was definately the theme of the trip.
For memorial day a group of us went down by Escalante for some camping and hiking.
Russ & I drove down with his friend Dan. It was fun getting to know him and listen to boys talk...holy cow, its funny listening to guy talk.
We got to the camp site around midnight and I had my first experience wearing a head lamp. I liked it.
The next morning we started out for a 12 mile hike! Im not a huge hiker so I was a bit nervous I wouldnt be able to keep up.
Good thing Ive been playing on a couple soccer teams! I would have been toast!
The group was great, the scenery was awesome, and it was so nice to have some warm weather!
The start of the hike

Here it goes!

We started out the hike as a group, but stopped at a stream. Russ left his sunglasses at the water so we went back and ended up walked a few hours behind the group. It was fun to hang out and go at out own pace!
Some pictures from the hike:



We walked a lot of the hike through water. It was so nice during a hot day to walk in some cool water! There were beautiful water falls through out the hike and a ton of lizards, some we even gave names.

Russ filled up his water bottle in a fresh stream


We met up with the rest of the group under a beautiful arch for lunch.

I thought this was a great picture Russ took of this lil critter walking on the sand

Russ's friend came up with a funny game. Stand up against the rock, eyes closed and wait for a water filled nerf football to fall and see who it hits!
Someone would stand in front of the group, and through it up high and wait for it to hit someone...crazy you might think, but it was hilarious to watch.

We found this cool tree stump that was hanging in the air like on the movie Dirty Dancing.

That night we had a delicious dinner around the fire, as well as a noisy night full of angry cows waking us up in our sleep.
The next morning, we all woke up a little store! So why not a little yoga in the dessert?

After yoga, we went to some slot canyons.

The slot canyons were awesome! There were some tight squeezes but it was so beautiful!

Group shot

It was a super hot day, so half of us went an hr away to a little river to swim.
The water was freezing and I didnt get any pictures but it was so nice after spending 2 days in the middle of the dessert!
That night we had yummy dutch over fajitas and Russ became the king of the camp out by starting a huge fire and then jumping over it!

The next morning we hung out at camp and started the 7 hr drive home.
We stopped at a cool look out for a picture.
It was crazy to go from hot hot desert to snow!

It was a nice Memorial Day. The whole drive home we just listened to music and it gave me a good chance to think of my family that has passed, especially the last couple months.
I hope everyone had a good safe Memorial Day!