Can’t pretend I’m not thrilled that I made the cover shot on the Ski Utah page this week. Tuesday was totally the best day of skiing I’ve had. Great friends and incredible snow.
Category Archives: Adventures
Let It Marinate
Sometimes it can take a while to reflect on a big adventure. I hardly know where to start. My mind is somewhere between the feeling of my feet in the sandy beach and reminiscing over giant noodle bowls.
Last month, I left Park City and drove to Sedona and saw a ton of family: grandparents, parents, brothers, and uncles. One of my brothers was a complete surprise that my whole family actually managed to keep the lid on!
It was a wonderful trip. The family took my Meme to the Grand Canyon and spent some really great time together. My Daddy spoils us <3 and everyone had the perfect time. And Cowboy Club steak dinner, of course.
From there, I went to San Diego and saw a bunch of friends. I got to surprise some of them and celebrate a dear friends birthday.
Then I flew to China for two weeks.
What can I even say? The food, the culture, the sights…the whole thing was so much to take in. My brain is almost as full as the camera SD cards, haha.
After returning home (via San Diego again), I can’t believe the month that was.
I saw so much, experienced even more, maybe even grew up a little. Time will tell on the last one.
So I’m letting everything marinate for a while. I kept a diary and plan on doing a little daily update to share my China experience, like I did when I went to New Zealand forever ago.
Stay tuned. 
I’m excited to have something to write about and share. I hope I can do it justice! Giving myself some time to unwind from travel should help.
Three Countries
This is the first topic of the year over at The Daily Post. Often times I discount things like this, but play a game with me: let’s use these a little like those table topics cards: I’ll go first, then you go. If you have a blog or something like that, put it over there and link back to it, or just reply to me in the comments!! Please?
List three countries you’d like to visit, and why you want to go.
This is easy:
- France: I’ve been, but MK hasn’t. I like it. I want to show it to him. And see how much French I remember.
- China: For a million reasons, including that my Grandma and I talked about me going, we have family there, and I’m betting it’s the opposite of anything I’ve ever experienced.
- British Virgin Islands: If we go broke and can’t ski anymore, MK wants to go be a beach bum for life. I’d at least like to check out the place before that happens. Which knowing us is likely.
Amazing
There’s no way for any picture to do the Grand Canyon justice. We took 1000 anyway. I’m so happy my parents invited us to AZ and we made the drive out. Getting to see it with my own eyes and experience it with them yesterday was remarkable. The white line you see at the top rim is 800 feet wide, 12 miles away from us.
Traveling
What is your number one most favorite thing on earth? Ice cream? Deal or No Deal?
Broke or homeless, sick or healthy, no matter what we face in life, the one thing that really drew MK and I together was our love of travel and adventure. My grandma had me hooked at a very young age, coming home with pictures of places I wanted to see. Not the travel where you still eat at Chili’s (although when we got sick in New Zealand McDonald’s was all our sad little bodies could take) but the travel where you are forced out of your element and see new things with your own two eyes.
I foolishly always think everyone is like me but have gotten more perspective in my old age and realize it’s not for everyone, which makes me even happier I met MK. I spent my high school graduation money on a trip to France with my aunt (dunno if the relatives knew that’s what I did with that moolah) and had to take out student loans to finish school. No regrets. I learned more that month than a year in college, even though at the time Texas was a foreign land too. MK and I traveled a bunch together right when we started dating. I’ve traveled with roommates, family, and friends. I’ve loved having company travel to me, when we moved to Seattle, San Diego, and Park City. We’ve lived in some amazing places!
MK and I discuss what would happen if we couldn’t even afford to travel, although our amazing friends have made it so easy, especially in Park City and San Diego when we were running around in between. We reminisce about our New Zealand trip, our trip to St. Lucia. We crave more experiences like that, in even more foreign places. Fact of the matter is (sorry Momm and Dadd) we have toyed a bunch with the idea of going somewhere crazy for a couple of years. Even if we were working at a Coffee Shack, the idea of BVI sounds fun. You never know. I don’t ever want to be limited to a place when there is so much amazing world to see.
Where are the places you’d like to travel to most? I’m dying to see Hawaii, Greece, and China.
Can’t Sleep
I have to wait two more weeks to learn my fate.
I put a video entry in to a contest for a season pass at all the Utah resorts. It was hard to do, and harder to watch. As I mentioned Friday, it was nuts to see myself ‘acting’. I tried to be cute, funny, charming, and all I came out with was nerdy. It was nerve-racking!
It’s also hard to wonder what the people in charge think. Or think about what I could have done better, or differently. But we had a great time, knnocked it out, and I have to say MH made me look good! At least that whole deal was good.
Family Reunion
This past weekend we ventured out in to nature and camped with the K family. It’s hard to describe just how hilarious it was. It started trying to explain what was going on on the 7 year old hand in this photo…
Get Motivated
So when we met up with MH she invited me to a seminar with motivational speakers she was going to for work. I had to say yes since I knew that MK thought I couldn’t get up that early the next morning after our crazy night out.
I really don’t think I have been up at 6am in four years. But I did it. And showered and was ready by 6:30. I rule. I got a coffee in the car, and a water when we sat down. Energy Solutions Arena was packed. I got to hear Gen. Colin Powell, Rudy Guliani, John Walsh, and Mitt Romney speak. It was interesting. As long as you take what you hear with a grain of salt, those things can serve the purpose of a little reminder to pump you up about life or work or whatever goal you’re trying to achieve.
On the other hand, the thing was super religious (perhaps because of where we were), super patriotic, and super sales pitchy. Fine for me, but I was hoping the other people there didn’t put all their eggs in the basket of the guy promising to make them rich with stock or real estate investments.
Also, in spite of Rudy Guliani telling people to get with it technologically, no one was tweeting. I kept checking searches to see what people were saying. Like I mentioned, there were tens of thousands of people there. I thought it was strange that there were maybe three people tweeting their thoughts. Totally gave MK proof it’s not as major a resource as I keep trying to tell him.
It was a big adventure for me to be out all day, people watching and remembering what it was like to be all done up in business attire. Reminded me of lots of good times in Austin. Almost made me want to get back to a career and busy business stuff. Almost.
Taco Tuesday Torture
You know we are big old fans of Taco Tuesday. We don’t eat out all the time, and when we do it’s virtually impossible for me to finish a huge serving size of anything. So we end up doing small snacky things and appetizers. Taco Tuesday is a cheap way for me to get a little snack and MK to eat as much as he can. We went on the prowl for some yummy cheap eats on Tuesday night. We started at Windy Ridge. I had one 2$ taco, MK had 2$ taquitos, but the margaritas were 4.75. MK remembered Davanza’s did tacos, so we went there, and were told they DON’T do tacos. Pfft.
We had a drink at Easy Street, which was DELICIOUS and NOT CHEAP. MK wanted more food so we tried a new place called Reyes Adobe. They didn’t have a bar. The call themselves a restaurant and margarteria or some crap and didn’t have a bar. In Utah that means you HAVE to order food to get a drink. We should have left. The taco MK got was gross, the tortilla soup I had to get was gross, and the drinks were even more gross.
The soup was like pureed rice in tomato broth. I gagged it was so bad. Kind of a bust, we won’t be going back there! We learned we should have just stayed where we were.
In other news of the day, I thought Momm would like to see what the mountains look like:
And we ran in to TB and the kids and went back to their place with them to visit for a bit. It was super exciting because I forcibly got MK to hold the baby:
We went to O’Shucks and had a drink with MH and watched the Celtics suck. It was kind of a 45 hour day.
Life Is Blurry
Since JB was nice enough to let us do our laundry, and we heard it was still SNOWING in Park City, we decided not to go home. MK surprised us all by leaving super early in the am (sorry for all the goodbyes we missed) and driving me up to Dana Point. We had a nice breakfast and got on the Catalina Express over to the island. It was pretty choppy (read: hubby close to puking) but thankfully after he sat still while I had a coffee he was all better.
Catalina Island is really beautiful, we picked the perfect day too. It was warm and sunny. We played mini golf on the cutest little course. We rented a golf cart – which the entire island uses as a main mode of transportation.
Have you ever driven a golf cart? It was the best part of the day. MK drove up to the botanical gardens and I drove from there to a few view points and around the theatre (they just need to stop calling it a casino) to see the divers. I could’ve been happy just driving around all day.
We ate some expensive pizza and looked in the cheesy shops. All there is to do on islands is buy terrible souvenirs and eat ice cream, and we don’t do either of those things. MK let me play photographer with the nice camera so I look forward to sharing those pictures with you.
The boat ride back was much more calm, and we enjoyed the scenic drive up the Pacific Coast Highway through Newport, Laguna, and Huntington, where we spent the night. The drive and the sunset were so amazing.
The only thing is, I could live like this forever. My blog, my daily mom call, even keeping up with friends, would suffer. But I am evil and selfish and would sacrifice all that to be able to have these long random vacations. Who wouldn’t?
