200

200 . . . . that is how many miles I biked this week. And yes that is way more miles than I drove.

Tour de Temples . . . . . almost

I had no plans today and so I thought it would be SUPER FUN (touch of sarcasm) to see how many temples I could bike to in one day.

Provo Temple 3.3 Miles

Mt. Timpanogos Temple 18.4 miles

Draper Temple 27 miles

So the almost is up there in the title because my goal was to get a picture at the gate of each temple. Well I didn't actually get to the gate of the Draper temple. Made a couple of wrong turns and headed down the 10% grade and didn't want to bike back up. Lame I know but I went over traverse mountain. My first time ever. I wasn't mentally or physically prepared for it's steepness. It took me an hour to bike 4 miles, it was all 8% and 10 % grades. Here's the sign for remebrance purposes.

Jordan River Temple 43.5 miles

Oquirrh Mountain Temple 47.3 miles

I ended at my Aunt Lorlie's house at 51.2 miles. Now is where I must confess that I didn't bike home. I was tired. There was the threat of rain. I have all kinds of excuses but my cousin Melissa offered to drive me home and I couldn't resist. I feel kind of pathetic but what do you do. My legs will feel much better tomorrow because of that decision.

If there is a next time I will not bike over traverse mountain. Too steep.

Here are my stats, more for me than anyone else I realize:

Miles: 51.2

Time: 4:01.22 that is really slow but someone decided to put all the temples on a hill

Average Heart Rate 145

Time in heart rate zone: 2:17 was out of the zone the rest of the time because of the hills

rain, rain, GO AWAY!

This picture explains all of last week!!

I biked 70 miles on Monday. I stopped at a gas station to buy some food and the lady said, "I just heard thunder are you gonna make it home before the storm." I replied that I hoped I would. Reality: NOPE!! Got poured on for 30 minutes. At one point before the rain I wondered how safe it is to be biking when you could see lightning.

That sums up the week. Lots of unpredicatable weather that really didn't allow me to do much. On a happier note I slept a ton and finally today I woke up and didn't feel sick. First time in like 10 days. I haven't felt horrible just lethargic accompanied with a sore throat.

And I must publicly thank Erica for rescuing me from biking in the rain, she deserves the thanks because it meant she was 20 minutes later to stand in line for KELLY then she would have otherwise been.

This week the weather guy predicts more sunshine. YIPEE!

Summer Break

This week was packed with lots of various activities. I did the following:

• Went to BYU mutiple times to work on some final details of my thesis
• Went to the temple.
• Had a hitch put on my car.
• Biked 100 miles in three days.
• Hiked the Y.
• Cleaned the house.
• Learned to make a new craft and then went wild because they are cute. I will post pictures once I decide where to put them.
• Went to institute (don't die of shock).
• Last but not least spent Friday and Saturday at Arches National Park.

Amber had Friday off and thought it would be fun to go to Arches. I agreed. We left Provo at 6:30am Friday and headed to Moab. We hiked aroun seven and a half miles each day. We hiked every hike in the park except three. We went wild. I am now worn-out. This is why I love summer. You can accomplish so much in one short week. Here is a little but of what we saw at Arches.

Amber taking a picture of Delicate arch through a no name arch

Me overlooking the valley

And some of the beautiful sites.

Fun week. Thankgoodness that tomorrow is the sabbath and I can rest. I hope next week is just as much fun!

learning.

I have wanted to get better at photoshop for sometime. Well not even better, but actually have the ability to do something to the pictures I take. Dan, in all his patience, has taught me some things this past week. We made real progress. He even let me control the mouse for part of it. I have just been playing around with no end goal for the pictures, that makes it hard, but here is what I have come up with. I really do want to practice this summer and get better. We will see if it happens.

H.A.G.S.

It is yearbook signing day. It really is not my favorite. My hand might fall off. Guess I was not quite mean enough this year because I have signed way to many books. I finally asked a student what H.A.G.S. was because I had seen it in so many yearbooks. It means have a great summer. Apparently it takes to long to right that out. I will be done with the year tomorrow at 11:00. Life is starting to look real GOOD!

Angels.

This weekend was the weekend of angels. The first angels were Cyndee and Todd who found an awesome campsite when it seemed like all hope was lost. This is our little camping group. It was smaller then planned but we had an AWESOME weekend.

Our next angel was hiking Angles Landing in Zion National Park. We chose the busiest weekend of the year to visit Zion. It was an international thoroughfare, but the weather was perfect and there was lots of hiking to get done. The hike took a little longer then normal because there were so many people but it provided an awesome view. Here is the point we hiked to (1600 ft drop off on both sides.) No one liked that I kept singing Free Falling but the song was in my head the entire time we were hiking to the top. The trail we followed is basically right up the middle of the cliff. The view from the top was amazing.

Meagan, my more than just basketball friend, chose to lay on the side of the cliff to get a better picture.

We also hiked up the Narrows for a while as well. That was awesome and I can't wait to hike it later this year. I am really going to do it this year.

We also decided to hit up Grand Canyon National Park since we were so close. That was nice because there were less people and it was a lot cooler. We went to the North Rim. The first hike we did was to Angels Point. It was a beautiful overlook of the canyon.

Then we also hiked out to Angels window. This is Angels Window from a distance.

It was a stormy day at the grand canyon we got hailed on, the hail was the size of dimes, luckily we were in the car eating lunch for that storm. On the point of Angels window there was an electrical current mounting because your hair would begin to stand straight up. We didn't stay out there for long.

That is a very brief overview of a very fun, short weekend, with lots of Angels. Oh yea and Cyndee gets another Angel point because she has a National Parks Pass so we didn't have to pay any entrance fees. That kept costs low!!

My Day

Today is not a great day and it is only 11:00am. I am hoping to vent and then get all frustrations out. The day has gone like this:

• wake up and realize I am still sick
  
• get to school and my phone rings and an unreasonable parent tells me how horrible I am (her daughter is failing and has missed class 13 of the 21 days we have had class because it is hard to get to school on time.)
  
• spill my spinich and blueberry shake all over my hoodie I have worn three times
  
• student brings cousin to class and I send them to the office because you can't just have random visitors = entire 1st period class thinks I am a devil. Followed by at least 10 questions as to why the girl couldn't stay in class.
  
• janitors turn the sprinkles on my entire class during 2nd period and leave them on so they can fix them until I go ask them to turn them off. (apparently they couldn't see the 50 students out there on the field playing lacrosse or here them yelling as they were getting soaked.)
  
• My gym is being used this summer as storage and no one is supposed to bring anything down until Tuesday, let's just say that the sidelines are completely full.
• Can't count the number of students that want to make-up their grades today when the deadline was yesterday.

All of this equals me boderline tears because I am so frustrated. I wish I didn't get frustrated none of it really matters, but it is still frustrating. One more class to go. I feel better all ready. And then I am off for a weekend of fun to this place


Zions National Park. Assuming we can get a campground. I have lived in Utah for so long and have never been. I am pumped!! Hopefully everything works out and the weekend is great.

There I feel so much better already. Only four days of school left, but who's counting.

Well it's hard to say goodbye

It has been a hard week. I found out on Monday that my first car ever, a car that I love very much, a car that has been paid off for two years, would not pass emissions without $3100 of engine work. REALLY!!! Lame, the car runs great. I haven't had any problems. It was extremely frustrating. I think making cars pass emissions is a conspiracy, but I won't get into that.

Here is the beauty!! I really loved this car. It was an awesome car and I couldn't say enough good things about it.


My experience with my first small SUV was so good that I knew I wanted another SUV. I shopped around online and looked at CRV's RAV4's - toyota's version and Rogue's - Nissans version. I kept coming back to the CRV's because I loved my car so much. So I purchased this as my replacement:


Bye, bye life savings. Bye, bye New Years resolution about amount of money I wanted to have in savings. Bye, bye not living on a budget. Bye, bye trips I had been dreaming of. Bye, bye bedroom set.

HELLO - 2009 CRV. It is a beautiful car. I am afraid to drive it. I like it but I am not in love yet. Maybe because the racks haven't been put on. I really was sad when I dropped off my old car. I really really loved that little bopper. Now I have to fall in love with the big bopper.

And all I keep thinking is who buys brand new cars - CRAZIES!! I am officially a crazy person. My car has 50 miles on it. I am crazy and poor!

Birthday Boy

It's Dan's birthday. Anyone that knows Dan knows he is a great guy. One of Dan's best qualities is that he doesn't have any enemies. Everyone likes Dan. He is easy to get along with and fun. I have loved having him in Provo for the past few years. Here are some of the reasons why:

He always makes road trips a little more fun

He can take our siblings to the MTC so I don't have to take off work just to cry through the entire opening exercises

I usually have someone to ride home with over holidays (he's not so much of a help on weekend trips, he doesn't do those anymore)

He is always willing to barbeque and he is quite good

And as you can tell he refuses to smile normal in any picture. Even all of his pictures from elementary school are hilarious, he always had a smirk of some sort.

Last but not least a little video of what Dan is like at 1:00 am. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN!!!

If I were a richman. . . . . .

The first thing I would do is hire a cook. I hate cooking for myself. It is almost 10pm and I haven't had dinner. I don't want leftovers, anything in my house, or fast food. In my desperate, hungered state I learned about a new awesome snack. Frozen blueberries. These blueberries are from costco so they are huge, deliscious, and frozen. Yum . . . . . I may be an addict.
And just so you know how many I have eaten


Katie just reminded me there is pizza in the freezer maybe I will eat a piece.