Just a weee 3 years ago….

Yes.  It’s been 3 years.  Is this when the honeymoon is supposed to wear off? 

 

Hmmm.. Not yet!  Still love ya sweety pie :)

 

Leaf Elves?

Last night we finally got to take a ride on our bikes down the beautiful Alpine Loop.  Apparently everyone else decided to have an FHE adventure there to take family photos and stand dumbfounded in the middle of the trails at all the amazing colors the leaves were presenting.  We ran into (literally) a few old friends from the Belmont days and raced down the hill on our bikes as hikers continually ignored us and decided NOT to move off the trails.  In other words, it was a slow ride :)

Classic Brian moment: On the way up to the summit I kept insisting I smelt paint and for the life of me couldn’t understand why!  Brian looks over so matter-of-factly and says, “Have you seen the leaves?  They don’t change color by themselves, the Leaf Elves paint them!”.  HA HA HA! I LOVE him :)

PEZ

It started out as a gift…. And grew into this!

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I love how you never truly know everything about someone. They will always find some magnificent way to surprise you. When I met Brian's family they told me about the amazing PEZ collection. It wasn't until his cute mom left a giant box on our porch Aug 19th, 2009 did I truly understand the intensity of this collection.

Apparently back in the day Brian had accumulated a few PEZ dispensers as a gift. He proudly displayed them in a glass case in his room. Anyone who came into his room soon after immediately thought of him when they saw PEZ at the store.  Slowly his collection grew as the gifts kept coming.   I’d say it was quite an easy hobby eh?

Each PEZ character had been wrapped in tissue paper and placed in separate plastic baggies for protection. Here is the wonderful result of the unwrapped adventure.

I would be lying if I did not think this was quite the accumulations. Now we just need to find a way to display them or auction them off. Any bidders?? :)

Jackson Hole!

7/4/09 Day 1:

Attendance: Heidi & Brian Phillips, Devin Lindahl, Dayna Larsen, Ciara & Ted Bell,

Got stuck at work until 6:30 pm. Late start for a midnight drive. Met at the Bell residence by 7:35 (miracle). Got to Jackson by 12:15 (miracle). Placed tent in the middle of night 5 feet from a cliff (miracle I didn’t fall in).

7/5/09 Day 2:

Woke up and got food at Yankee Doodle. AMAZING pancakes - got me a full stack. Ted showed us what the photo of the bikini chicks in the boys bathroom looked like saluting the American flag (see pose below). Found out Spam has a 'season' (aka didn’t want to go to the store to get it today). Hilarious. Returned to camp and got dressed for Kayaking! 



(Ted in background with the Salute!)



Oh Brian….



The Double D’s

Skipped lunch. Ate early dinner at a sports grill in Jackson. Watched the Oklahoma vs. BYU game. Ashley and Ty left to have a happy anniversary night in a real hotel (not the wild outdoors).

Stopped for ice cream on the way to camp at the Chevron in Alpine. They really know how to scoop ice cream. Ask for Jack. Brian was told he'd get his free if he ate it on the spot. Mission accomplished. (He felt bad and paid anyway… good boy)





This cone weighed at LEAST 3 lbs and was made of 4 different layers of ice cream!!



 

 

 

 

Went to camp FULL.

7/6/09 Day 3:

Woke up LATE. Had breakfast at Yankee doodle again. Stole Brian's English muffins and switched them with Pancakes. Sad boy, happy wife. Egg sandwich was delicious. Back to camp to prepare to ride.



Hit Jimmy's mom about 2 pm. Rode it twice. Good times.

 



 

 

 

 

Ate dinner at a little Mexican place in Jackson that had salmon burritos. Delicious. Then roamed the streets of Jackson for entertainment. Ted replaced his Shants much to Ciara's displeasure..



Jackalope siting.





Went back to the Alpine Chevron for another round of ice cream. Made our selves sick playing on the BIG kids playground! Giant swings, Giant teeter totter, giant monkey bars and more!



 



 

 

 

 

Had a bonfire and roasted the mellows.



Fell asleep soundly. Massive rainstorm at 2 am. Dirty dirty rain….

 

 

9/7/09 Day 4:

Woke up by 9 am. Ate at the Yankee Doodle - again. Last round of pancakes! Determined 56* was too cold for Kayaking part 2. Packed up quickly and set off for home 11:30. Got to Ted and Ciara's by 3:30.

Ran up to Kaysville for the annual Phillips/Meaders croquet tournament! Big deal. Nicolai won for the second year in a row!

Drove home. Slept like a log.

End transmission.

Inspiration from Julie & Julia

If you have yet to see the movie "Julie & Julia" I highly suggest it. I went in with extremely low expectations, mostly because I hadn't seen any previews and the description I was given seemed quite dull. 5 minutes in and I was sitting there with the biggest grin on my face ready to burst into belly wrenching laughter at any minute. First, Julia Childs is a riot. I had never see her shows before the movie and had nothing to compare the acting to, but I must say she was portrayed PERFECTLY.

Anyway, the story is about a girl who is nearing her 30's and doesn't know what happened to her life. She had ambitions to be a writer and in the twist that is life she ended up working in a small cubicle being yelled at on the phone all day. Happy life eh? Well, one day she realized what made her truly happy... cooking! (Oh of course, why do we always find comfort in food...) So she set herself a goal and decided to cook every recipe in the Julia Childs cook book (some 500 pluse recipes) in 365 days. She started a blog and slowly got quite the following. Anyway, in the end her blog was a huge success and she ended up writing a book about it and that book was turned into the movie I watched.

Okay, so I know I'm no fabulous writer. Half the time I reread my sentences and try to figure out where my brain was going and how the one before it was supposed to somehow connect! Reguardless, my inspiration from the movie was all about this blogging thing. I'm not wanting to create some big following or anything, but I think it would be fun to have some goal to blog about. I have been a slacker at blogging because, quite frankly, I don't think many of my adventures are things people would actually want to read about.

So the countdown is on... what should my next goal be, and how do I blog about it. First thought? Lose weight. I'm 3/4 through a P90X regime right now so timing is off. Anyone have any other suggestions? Maybe I should learn to sew, or learn a language or cook! (Brian would be pleased with the last one I'm sure, however, I can see it countering my weight loss goals...)

Anyway, I'm an open suggestion box. Anybody have some good ideas for my new goals in life??

Oh the Chaos of life....

Tme for a quick moment on my soap box for the day. Instead of harping on the pure chaos that I currently survive daily, I would like a moment of praise amazing people who can create functional SYSTEMS and STRUCTURE. These mechanisms can always be created, but it is those amazing few people in life who can make them law and fully explain them to all who would use them that I appreciate. Mini shout out to people who have their ducks in a row.

I can't say there is anything I appreciate more than people who know what they want, where they are going and can explain such. The forethought that it takes to do things in life effectively never ceases to amaze me.

So here's a thank you to all of the mom's, bosses, and other leaders in the world who can whip their children, colllegues or minions into shape and make life easier by laying down structure and systems for them to follow. Thank you for letting us work things out on our own by letting us know up front what is good and bad, acceptable and not acceptable. It makes us feel clean and less handicapped!

THANK YOU! (Oh, and would you please come work with me :))

JULY 11, 2009 A NEW MECHAM

CONGRATS TO MIKE & ASHLEY!!

Wedding highlights:

1. Poor Ashley woke up to a dress used as a latrine by her puppy and no one to help! Thank you to emergency work, her dress was clean and ready in time for the wedding and she looked AMAZING!
2. Flawless ceremony.
3. No crying or whining from the bridesmaids about the adorable dresses. No hair fiasco's either.
4. The amazing fiddling Moore's took center stage at the luncheon and blew the socks off people!
5. Ashley's dad wrote her a song and somehow made it through without crying to death.
6. Best dance EVER at the end :)

My brother is the luckiest guy in the world and couldn’t have picked better. I couldn't have asked for a better sister-in-law! - Okay, drop this "in-law" business. I'm just gonna call her sis :)

My First Award!!

This week I got to go on my very first business trip! For the past two months I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get 8 new prototypes ready for the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas. I am proud to say that I work with some amazing people who continually make miracles happen. The hard work is going to be making these products actually come to life in a matter of weeks post show! Wish me luck!!

Anyway, we got to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel. WAY NICE! Being the only girl I got a whole room to myself which I was pretty stoked on. Our rooms overlooked the pool. PS, if ou ever go to Vegas this is definately a pool you must go to. It had a few nice sandy beach areas where the sand would lead into the pool. There were a bunch of cute cabana's for sunbathing or sunhiding depending on your skin type :).

We got in wednesday afternoon (a day after the show started) to go roam around and see what new stuff was coming out this year. When we reached our booth we were greeted like rock stars! Apparently one of our older projects had won an award the first day of the show and everyone was asking who was behind the project. Tada! I'd like to say it was us, but we caught the tail end of the project as a few others left the company. Either way, it's always fun to get an award!

This is a photo of our Innovations group. Me (the coordinator), Ryan (the engineer) and Steve (the industrial designer). Huge group eh? You'd be suprised what we can do! We constantly suprise ourselves :)

Many Trips to St Gerorge

So as you know I am married to a man who gets cabin fever during a 10 min rainstorm. Being inside is NOT his favorite thing in the world. I think it's rubbing off on me, because I seem to be more antsy about life now too. I used to be able to sleep a full day, and now sleeping in for me is waking up between 7:30 and 8 am!! Never would I have guessed I'd be a morning person :)

This being said, in order to maintain sanity we take frequent trips to the warmer climate of St George as soon as we hear the snow has melted. Brian checks the weather forecast daily to make sure there is no rain for 2 weeks so we can have clear trails to ride. Trust me, pushing a bike 12 miles through mud isn't the sort of thing you'd like to do on a vacation (Trust me!! Experience is the worst way to learn these things. I nearly threw that 100 lb bike caked with mud and clay off the top of a cliff. Luckily my sanity grabbed a hold of me as I realized I was NOT going to die of starvation on a trail only 15 miles from a city).

Needless to say, I'm still an average mountain bike rider. Nothing too special here. I enjoy going, and occasionally kicking my butt trying to catch up with those boys cruising 25 miles per hour down those trails (Not sure if that speed is accurate. In fact it may be too slow! I will track it next time for a more concise number. Either way, they go too fast).

I am always impressed at how brave these boys get when it comes to jumping. Brian has been eyeballing a few of these jumps since our last trip down. Luckily we ran into the most carefree rider on the trail this trip. I wish I would have taken video of some of the drops this kid took. He didn't even flinch! He would look at it, smile, shrug one shoulder, throw on a helmet and race to his death. Oh to be so bold.

I finally caught Brian on tape some random jumps. My angles make them look a lot less scary than they are. Standing at the top of these you would be SURE you'd break a few bones. But then they take them and they look so smooth and easy.

While he was jumping abroad I was daydreaming and noticing the cool colors that form on the rocks! I'm a dork. I wish I was a better photographer, I'm sure someone out there has the skills that would make this look really cool!

Anyway blogger friends, I will try to be more vigilant in my writing. Mind you, this event was at the end of February, so I'm not too far off :)

Laters!

I suck at this...

When I started this blog I thought, "Hey, my life is way exciting. I should totally share my adventures for others to enjoy". Turns out there is a problem with this, what I didn't realize was that I would rather be out doing stuff than writing about it. Plus I fear my writing talents have slowly been swirling down the drain. I have become the queen of short sentences and too many comma's! So if you can ignore all of this, I hope you enjoy my silly and sporadic updates.

Lately I have been wondering what on earth I did growing up! I grew up less than 15 minutes from Little and Big Cottonwood canyons. Yet I'm pretty sure I still can't tell you which is which or what you would find should you drive up there. Pathetic....

On top of that, I am pretty sure I rarely snowboarded, skied or did any sort of snow activity until late high school. Strange.

So what is my point? Well, I saw the movie Yes Man in the theater yesterday and I realized I need to start saying YES to many more activities. I've experienced the fun of wakeboarding everyday for a full summer. I've had some crazy adventures on my mountain bike going down trails like "Lithium" and "Jimmy's Mom" (yes, that's the real name of this trail. Best part is, Jimmy is real and I hear if you go to the bar at the bottom of the trail and make bad jokes, he might put up a fight!) in Jackson Hole. "Bobsled" and "Squaw Peak" are frequently bringing even more adventures in Utah.

What's next?? The summer is full of amazing and fun activities. But what is it that could make winter just as fun? Snowboarding has been fun, but my skills and wallet are limited here. Snowmobiling is also entertaining, but again brings the wallet back into the issue.

Well, I have the answer for you. Puzzles. Yup! Ridiculous as it sounds I have become subject to $2 puzzles from Allen's and they make up hours of entertainment. Have you ever had 6 friends gathered around a table giggling for hours over the most frustrating puzzle you can imagine? I have! I have to say thanks to Ashley for starting the old man's puzzle club! You have saved winter entertainment!

On an unrelated note.... if anyone seriously has some good ideas for winter fun I welcome any ideas!!!