Moab Rain Clouds

Cody acting tough setting up the slackline

But really he is tough, standing up from a seated position

Rachelle is my new fav slackline buddy

My favorite move

Magic

I need a bumper sticker that says "Moab is my happy place." I went to Moab for the first time in college (if my memory serves me right which it usually doesn't, I don't think I went as a child). Now I go several times a year. I have even gone in the winter. Now that was interesting. What til you see the Colorado river frozen. About 5 years ago I took my first trip to Moab for climbing and now it has become an annual trip.
This year sadly, our trip was to be haunted by rain clouds, but that didn't stop us from having a ball (a great way of saying we had a lot of fun). We woke up Saturday morning planning to climb Castleton Towers. Instead we woke up to rain and soggy sleeping bags. Our climbing blues were soon soothed by the Love Muffin breakfast and a shopping trip to Pagan. We then set out to repel off Corona Arch. I'll fully admit, I am a pansy at heart. I really want to be tough, but I'm not. After scrambling up a steep sand stone slab I was on top of the arch knowing that my only way down was the 140 ft repel (going down the slab would have been more dangerous because of the exposure). Luckily, I have great friends who didn't mind if a four letter word slipped from my lips as I prepared to drop over the edge. I made it pass the edge then I was hanging freely in the air for my repel. As soon as I was off the arch I felt stupid of being scared.

Moab view on our way to Corona Arch

This might be where a few choice words slipped out

And I'm off

Mom! Look no hands

Can't get enough of the red rocks

But what would a climbing trip be without actual climbing. The storm held off long enough for us to do a couple climbs on Potash Rd. Too bad the darkness came too soon. With night came our awesome sleeping arrangements. My friend Sterling lives in Moab and so we crashed at his house, sort of. We actually crashed on the trampoline outside. Cody and I played guitars (me giving up really quickly) and everyone sang. You really grow together when you sleep on a tramp, mostly because you are eventually laying on top of each other. But that didn't last long, because bright and early Sunday morning the rains came again and we moved to picnic benches under a pavilion. Every plan we had for the day was instantly crush and we headed home shortly after breakfast vowing to come back in a few weeks to climb again.
This post couldn't come at a better time. I am heading to Moab this weekend hoping to finally tackle Castleton.

That's a big boy

Climbers pack it right

Adam rocking it

Wall Street (Potash Rd)

Cody - Redhead's do it better!

Oh we might have killed the battery rocking out to some tunes

Put your back into it!

Is it too much to ask for no spiders?

I can handle a lot of crawling things, worms, babies, potato bugs, ants, but not spiders. I hate spiders. Is it really too much to ask that there be no spiders in my garden?
Today, when I got home from work I decided to spend the beautiful sun-shinny day pulling weeds. Let's call it weed relocation. I relocated the weeds from my flower boxes (soon to be garden specular) to first the stairs, then to the compost trash bin. And while doing this I encountered what I deem too many spiders (at least 5 creepy critters). They just scamper across the dirt and rocks so quickly I freak out every time. I left most of them alone, but there was one really big one that I just couldn't let live in my garden. Thank goodness for gardening gloves.

Here is the transplanting/relocation action.

Transplanted my weeds from here

To here

Til finally it looks like this

Now to re-terrace, add good soil, build drip watering system (all those years at Orbit Irrigation are going to come in handy) and plant. This is a great start for my list.

Ssh, I'm hunting photos

Because my teacher doesn't think we have enough to do, she threw in a useless assignment to keep us busy until our darkroom opened up. We had to shoot at one location, using film and capture images from a scavenger hunt list.

The List

1. Architecture 
2. Eyes
3. Leaves
4. Movement
5. Night shot
6. Reflection
7. Small creatures
8. Something amusing
9. Something red
10. Windows

Here is what I got (in order)

Note: The images are grainy because the studio who processed the film scanned the images onto a CD at really low resolutions. Don't fight me on this one, this is just what our teacher told us to do.

Hard to see, but there is the blur of car headlights

Can you see me?

This one was a stretch, but there are "small" birds on the top of the building

I thought it was funny

New Favorite Painting

I got a call from Mom last week. She was so excited. My dad and her had just gone to see the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU museum and she wanted the family to go. She called me back an hour later and said she had us tickets to go the following Monday.

Love the etching

The exhibit was fantastic. BYU did a great job. We rented iPads which had a lot of interesting tools such as full views of the "homes" of each painting. I loved Carl Bloch's etchings. I left the exhibit with a new favorite painting. Not typical of LDS artwork, because of the wings, but I felt Bloch captured a moment so agonizing yet deeply gentle. I love that Bloch took a different approach to this moment.

New favorite painting of Christ

Photo the familiar #8

This assignment had a weird title. "The familiar." What does that even mean? Basically we could take photos of whatever we wanted. I just happened to be going to Island Park in Idaho for the weekend and took my camera.

My second photo for this assignment came as I was wondering the avenues looking for a park with swings (I love to swing). I came across a city worker  flooding the road. This is what I got.

Happy Birthday To ME! (Cali trip)

I am seating here trying to work on my photo final, realizing that I still have tons of pictures from my semester to post and also realizing that I have this post started and never finished for my California trip. So here goes...
I wanted to do something fun for my birthday this year, so what better way to celebrate then a road trip. My best friend Erika just moved to Mountain View in California to work for 3 months. I flew in to California for a little weekend bday trip.

1. Seeing Erika. I love this girl. She is truly a kindred spirit. We have a lot of fun together. We can switch topics 20 times in a conversation, yet always come back to where we left off. Everyone needs a friend like Erika.
2. Farmer's Market. I love just spending the day at the farmer's market and although here is Salt Lake we only get a few months of it, in Cali they have it almost year around. Reason to love California I'd say. I purchase some banana bread (I'm obsessed as Erika knows very well), strawberries, orange and raspberry sugared flavored almonds, and red potatoes (of which we made the most excellent Sunday dinner with).



Love the flowers at the market



Everyone is enjoying their Saturday morning



Yummy

3. Nature. We spent time in Golden Gate Park and taking a stroll around the "dish" (a hill nicknamed after the large satellite dishes living there).



At Golden Gate Park



My mom is a California girl, I took pictures of the palm trees cause they make her feel like home



Conservatory of Flowers



The DISH



You can see for miles on the dish

4. Stanford Theater. This was amazing. It was a fully restored movie theater where we watch "Lassie Come Home" the first Lassie movie. After which and old movie theater organ rose out of the stage and a talented organist began to dazzle us with classic movie tunes. This was the best suggestion I got for our trip. 



Seriously cool

5. Stanford Campus. Wow! It is beautiful. The Memorial Church is so pretty.

6. "Rock of Ages." We decided to splurge for tickets to see this Broadway musical. The ticket salesman reminded us when we bought the tickets that the show would be a little racy. I figured we must look very innocent which made me giggle (little does he know). The show...hilarious. Not as risk-ay as the gentleman made me believe. Great classic rock and 80s tunes with a entertaining and very talented cast.
7. Countless hours of talking. I'll say it again, everyone needs a friend like Erika.
8. Other random things...

My first real job was at a Boston Market.
They aren't in UT anymore so whenever I find one I have to go
Order the Chicken Carver and get extra sauce

Cool used book store

A List For 28

Twenty-eight is going to be a great year, I can just feel it. Twenty-seven was a tough year and I am determined to make twenty-eight stellar. I was planning out my summer trips with some friends today and I can't wait to get going. A combination of our summer planning and reading my awesome sister-in-laws list made me really excited to finally (2 weeks late) seat down and write out my list of goals for this year. The ideas have been floating around, but I needed to get them all down on paper (or electronic blog format).
I have modified my list this year, it is simplified since last year. I discovered last year was hard to accomplish. What is the point of a list if you can't accomplish it. So without further ado here is the list for twenty-eight.

Rockin' 28

1. Build a bike
2. Repair and refinish wardrobe
3. Visit Canada
4. Visit Glacier National Park
5. Visit Banff National Park
6. Compete in 2 triathlons
7. Compete in 2 bike races
8. Grow a garden
9. Enter my photography into a competition
10. Read all the conference talks for April & October
11. Visit the temple twice a month
12. Visit 4 new temples (previously never been to)
13. Start scholarship fund
14. Sew one article of clothing
15. Learn to use a map and compass (left over from 27)
16. Hike Lone Peak
17. Hike Mt. Nebo
18. Read one book on Geology
19. Post at least twice a month on this lovely blog
20. Go on 2 backpacking trips
21. Share the gospel
22. Design a calendar of family and friend's birthdays
23. Go to Spiral Jetty
24. Float in the Great Salt Lake
25. Take at least one class in a subject I am interested in
26. Create at least 12 week-long meal plans
27. Learn 12 new recipes
28. Finish typing "Helen's" (aka Grandma Berger) life story