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!!!

Cows CAN swim :)

I have some serious difficulty getting these pictures to do what I want them to . So we'll just deal with it for today :) Yesterday me and Bri went boating with Mike and Ashley and we had sooo much fun. We forgot to bring the fat sacks so our surfing wave wasn't quite big enough to catch. But it was fun holding the rope and goofing around anyways! Mike and Brian were doing all sorts of stunts. Anything from riding the surfboard with their feet parallel to jumping straight down onto their butts and riding it like a sled! It was soooo much fun. To top it off, we headed off to the ski course at the end of the day. When we were driving around the perfectly smooth water we noticed something very odd. COWS!! Yup. Right there in the middle of the lake!! I don't know how they got there, or even why! Ashley w

anted to ride one and Bri hoped on his surfboard to paddle to them. It was soooo nuts! They ran away t

oo quick for us to catch. Probably for the better. So no

w I think I know the real reason Utah lake smells soooo bad. It's the cows!

Biking Adventures

Hola All-

This story is rather old, but for you all it may be new :) So my husband is into Downhill mountain biking/freeriding and has got me into the sport as well. Why is this so fun? Because you basically go ONLY downhill. Who wants to exert energy and go uphill anyway when you could be flying super fast down hill and be done in 15 minutes and still feel exhausted! Anyway, here is the story of our adventure on Payson Mountain.

Last year this trail was by far my favorite. It was super fast and had a bunch of little jumps that made you feel like you were really good when you landed them. (In all actuallity I probably never got more than a foot off the ground, but lets rub my ego a bit and say I got some sweet air!!)

Well, after a burly winter the Payson trail has been severly flooded. Everytime we go the trail is ruined by horse tracks or just merely the fact that a stream now lies where the trail used to. So we gave it a few months to dry off before we tried it again. The top section was super fun, we had a few run ins with some runaway streams but nothing terrible.

Now comes the fun part. When we were riding there were 4 boys ahead of me, cuz they go faster of course, and then one girl riding behind me. Good old Bizzle. As we are cruising down the bottom section I am finally picking up some speed. I am feeling good and wheeling around turns better than I had in awhile. Then I turn one sharp corner where I face a 2 foot drop located directly between 2 large trees (meaning, I can't go around the drop). Normally this would not be a big deal, except this drop ended in what looked like a small mud puddle. I quickly found this not to be true. Knowing there was no way I could stop in time I decided to ride straight through it and hope momentum was on my side. WRONG! I went down the drop and while my body continued to move forward, my bike decided to stay right where it was and slowly sink more and more into the mud. Needless to say, hit my head on another bike stuck in the mud, completed my front flip and landed squarely on my back. When I looked up I noticed 4 more bikes of all the boys ahead of me strewn about the mud puddle. The riders themselves stood around the pit, some covered in goo and some squeaky clean.

Biz must have heard the laughter from when I hit the ground and was the only rider not covered in the muck! It was pretty funny. Later I found out that all the boys had hid in the trees one by one to see everyone fall. I definately won the best fall award though!

We rode the rest of the way down the mountain and were gawked at by all the campers hiking to spots. I was basically one color from head to foot! I'm pretty sure we won't be riding that trail for quite some time!!!

Wild Dolphins

Hello all!

So, I'm going to try to do this whole blogging thing. I haven't quite figured it out yet so no laughing :) I just realized I finally have a story good enough to post! So here goes.

Brian and I got to go to his home town of San Clemente CA last weekend and had a ball. I'm learning how to surf and having a blast at it. Last year I could barely catch a wave and this year I caught nearly everyone I went for! It was really neat.

So on our last day of surfing we decided to go to San Onofre. To surf at this beach you tend to paddle out super far from the shore. We were out for only 30 minutes or so when Brian caught a wave and surfed his way in. I was left in the middle of the ocean with only my 9 ft long board to float on. (And of course the swarms of other people surfing ;)).

Like the little inlander that I am I started to think about how deep the water was. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Do I want to know what's swimming under me right now??". Quite litterally 2 seconds later I found out. No more than 2 feet from my board pops up a dark grey fin! I had a mini heart attack thinking "This is the end for me!!". Then the guy on his board next to me yells, "Waters clear! Dolphins are here!". And they were everywhere! There were four of them swimming over top each other right next to my board. They would get so close it was nuts!

The coolest part was watching them surf! As you floated in the water you would see the next wave raise up in front of you and inside the wave you would see the outline of one or two little dolphins riding it out!

Probably the neatest thing that has ever happened to me. Brian was all cool about it, "That happens everyday out here". Oh geez, I am from the desert aren't I!

Here are some pics of us at our Bonfire on the beach. Of course I forgot my camera but our friends Chandler and Crystal are always prepared. Let's not forget Phil who ALWAYS has his camera :)

(Left-back row: Amy, Phil, Summer, Crystal, Chandler. Front row - Me, Brian)

Toodles!