camping in orchard blooms and rappelling big drops.

in march my dad and i took a trip down to capitol reef.
some of my best memories growing up are the road trips we took as a family. everyone else would be asleep and i'd be in the front middle seat, listening to music with my dad and talking his ear off.
this trip was no different. we talked the whole drive down about the upcoming election, current events, and anything and everything else.
our camp site was in a town called fruita, for obvious reasons; the whole place was covered with fruit trees. the trees were all in bloom and it smelled insanely strong and sweet.

the night we arrived, we just walked around and kept sniffing and sniffing.

we walked up to a lookout spot.

i did a few tree poses.

there were deer everywhere. in the orchards, by the tents, everywhere!
no, i did not hop this fence and chase all the deer.
that would be harassing the animals.

i didn't take any pictures of our camp site, but we had a great time cooking dinner, roasting mallows, and hanging out with the hults, our longtime family friends who met us down there.

after everyone else went to bed, my dad and i decided to take a walk to go check out the stars and find some constellations. every since my astronomy class my sophomore year of college, my dad likes for me to point out points of interest in the night sky.

we walked along the highway, it was silent, pitch black besides the beams of light from our super cool headlamps. somehow the conversation turned to the best way to hide a body. pretty standard for dad and me conversations.



the next morning we got up early and had a huge pancake and egg breakfast, geared and sun screened up, and headed out to hike and rappel.

we hiked cassidy's arch, which was a gorgeous, but very steep hike. even if you weren't there to rappel, the hike alone was worth it for me.

here's the arch, which we then rappelled down.

apparently i didn't take any more pictures during the rappels, probably because i was busy. there are 7 drops in this canyon, two of them being 140 feet. canyoneering is something i hope to get more into after school is over, it's so empowering to climb a mountain and then take yourself back down via rope.

the canyon took about 7 hours and we were pooped and hungry afterwards.
we went to a cool park in fruita after and made lunch, looked at the deer, and the enormous trees.

then we drove home, stopped for milkshakes halfway, talked some more.
it was an amazing trip with one of my favorite people in the world.

towards the end my dad, who is not the most affectionate person on earth, said the words, "i had a great time with you this weekend, you're a really fun person to be around."

it was the best moment ever.



and then i got to come home to this cutie pie, so win win.
:)

spring 2016.

so since i'm so behind, i've decided to consolidate months into seasons. maybe this will motivate me to catch up and actually keep up. i have so many nights i have things to write about, but then i'm too tired, or i don't feel like explaining things and my type A mind is annoyed that pieces of the story are missing. so here we go!

also my 3 year old who used to go to sleep really easily and well now needs bribery to go to bed, so he is currently singing loudly and may be calling for me momentarily. hopefully the promise of chocolate milk with breakfast holds strong.
don't judge me you.


spring 2016.

opening up with a nice self photo.
i dyed my hair red, switched things up.

we tried to spend as much time as we could outside in march and the weather was pretty decent for the most part.

travis started doing flights with the army. because you know, being a firefighter isn't enough excitement for one person.

we climbed. a lot.

my bff benny came to town! (he moved to colorado. :( )

i told you we climbed a lot.
i've tried really hard to find that balance between pushing remy to try climbing and letting him discover it on his own and like it. for the most part he likes it, but he still doesn't like getting too high.

this was the day i found out i was accepted into the master's program for social work at the university of utah. it came in an email and i starting yelping and calling and texting everyone i knew. travis bragged to his parents about me and made me feel all warm and gooey.

of course we went out to celebrate.

the spring ahead time change couldn't come soon enough for us and we celebrated by going to wheeler farm.

ohhhh the things you call celebrations when you are a parent.

this was the first time i saw the house we currently live in.
we were driving around one night, remy and i, and i saw a for sale sign on this beauty.
we went to look in the windows and then i tried the door knob and low and behold, it was open.
walked in, jaw dropped to the gorgeous floors, and i knew we needed to live here.
so i talked to our realtor that night, we put the house up for sale a few days later, and two weeks after that, we sold our house and bought this one.
it was a little crazy but we love it here.

food truck thursdays and malasadas, the perfect donuts that helped me gain 30 pounds in hawaii.

this lune/amazing stranger lead climbing this crack upside down. notice that he isn't using holds, just has his hands and feet shoved into that crack and inches his way up.

waiting at a park while a family looked at our house.
shit got a little wild with the 3 families a day thing looking at our house.
thankfully it sold quickly because sustaining that level of cleanliness is not realistic.

we went to a concert one morning.

and then stopped for pizza at rusted sun.

and then went swimming indoors. it was nice to break up the chilly weather with fun activities we don't usually do together.

my sister in law/bff sara conquering her fears of heights.
this lady can scale 5.10as now with no problem.

yes, i have become addicted to coffee.
yes i know some people don't consider starbucks to be real coffee.
i do not care about you.

the easter bunny brought remy a kite. let's be honest, the easter bunny brought me a kite.

chewbacca came to work one day!

remy has started to want to climb over the past 6 months. obviously i couldn't be happier about it.

we went to the park with benny while he was in town.

of course we ended up having an impromptu sing a long with a class having a field trip.
it was all fine and good until they only wanted us to sing taylor swift.

always the food truck thursdays.

got a nasty cold.

jeez, all you do is go to the climbing gym.

fun random fact about me. i always have super low blood pressure. this is normal for me. my pulse was a little high that day though.

well that was our spring this year.

i'm back bitches.