Las Vegas Ragnar 2009

This past weekend I ran a Ragnar relay race in Nevada. I was on a team that consisted of 12 people and between us all we ran 171 miles in about 27 hours. The 171 miles is split between the 12 of us, so the run is comprised of 36 legs all together. The race started in Logandale, a town just outside the Valley of Fire State Park and ended just outside of Las Vegas at the Red Cliffs Casino and Hotel. The entire team was in 2 seperate vans (6 people in each). I was in Van 1 so the people in my van would all run their legs and then the next van would run their 6 legs while we tried to rest and then we'd start the process all over. The Ragnar Relay moto is Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat. Quite fitting for exactly what we did. This Ragnar Relay is just like the Wasatch Back that goes from Logan to Park City that is 187.9 miles. My team was my sister-in-law Emily, a lady from Emily's ward (Lori), Emily's friend (Kara), Karli Anderson, and my brother-in-laws little sister Mallory. The other van was full of Mallory's friends, unfortanatley from BYU but they were awesome so I guess I was ok with them being on our team... We had a blast staying up, cheering each other on, and just being silly. A few highlights from the trip:
-Mallory "thrusting" her way to Vegas - Mallory would get out of the car and say while thrusting her hips "Don't think of the pain. Just think of this...!"
- Mallory also drank an energy drink that didn't sit well with her stomach so a few of the stops consisted of Mallory trying to find cover behind the tiny sagebrush with a pack a wipes trying not to "explode" all over. - Kara was dicussing the type of underwear she wears when she runs and said, "I have plenty of regular undies. Scott likes me to put it on before we, ya know..."
- Back in St. George after the race, Emily was driving to Target and was delirious and made about 5 wrong turns just trying to get into the parking lot of Target. Then once we got in the store we walked around trying to find the customer service desk, which we passed just as we came through the first door.
- It was Lori's birthday on Saturday so while she was in the shower we thought we'd run to the store and buy some cupcakes to surprise her with. We didn't want to make it obvious that we had gone to the store just for that so we left them in the car until we went to pick up our take out order from the Pizza Factory. When we got back from picking up the pizzas our hands were full and couldn't take the cupcakes in. After we finished eating we got busy getting ready for bed and completely forgot about the cupcakes! So the big surprise was pointless and she didn't even get the cupcakes until the next morning.
-Saturday night, with all of us in our delirious states we were looking at pictures from the race and everyone's faces in the pictures. We were dying with laughter, especially thanks to Kara for all of the goofy faces she was pulling. :) Emily was laughing so hard she went to get off of the bed and fell off. Wow.... I don't think I can even explain our delirium....
- And probably the ultimate memory from the trip was getting not one but TWO flat tires! We got a flat tire on the second leg of the run while Karli was running. Luckily, another team (hell on heels) stopped to help us out. It was going to take a while so they helped to shuffle our runners back and forth until the tire was fixed. We couldn't find all the tools that we needed so we had to ask the neighbors for tools. They provided us with a floor jack, a sleg hammer, and crowbar. Once we got the car jacked up and the lug nuts off the tire was rusted to the axle and we could not get the tire off. The neighbors were so nice to help us out. We just so grateful it happened when it did or things would have been a lot worse! Then just as the second van was finishing their first legs they got a flat tire. We had to help shuffle a their last runner back to their car and then get to the finish line before Mallory did so our runner would be there. I think we were the only team to get a flat tire and BOTH of our vehicles got one.
***The sadest part about the entire race was at about 4:35 am Saturday morning. A 35 year old father of two from one of the teams was standing on the side of the road waiting for the runner from his team to met him so that he could cheer him on and give him water. While he was standing on side of the road a drunk driver lost control of his car and hit him. The car continued to skid, going over the center median, and overturning in the desert. The driver managed to get out of his car and run about a half of a mile before the police caught him. The father, who was running the race with his wife was killed on impact. A few of the teams tried to revive him before the ambulance got there but they were never able to. Luckily, we did not see the event take place but we heard about it. My heart breaks for this young family. I can't even imagine how hard things must be for them right now. You can click here to read more about the accident. On a much happier note, here are some of the pictures from the race:

Runner 1: Mallory Phillips

Runner 2: Karli Anderson

Runner 3: Emily Maynard

Runner 4: me

Runner 5: Kara Jorgensen

Runner 6: Lori Meeker

Cooling Lori off... It was HOT!

Flat Tire #1

Mallory's Hip thrust position

I'm not sure what i'm doing in this picture but the runners that ran by me an Mallory making fools of ourselves in the middle of the night seemed to enjoy our stupidity...

Van 1 Photos

The whole gang at the finish line

What we've been up to...

So it's been about a month since there was any sort of update from us. We've been super busy with school and haven't had much time for anything else. So here's a brief overview of the our lives for the past month.
Brian (brett's brother) rode the LOTOJA for the sixth year in a row! Go B! So we made the trip to Jackson with Brett's family on Sept 12 - 13. Here's a few pictures of our great adventure...

The next weekend (Sept 19) we went to the Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley concert. It was so much fun! We went with some great friends. We had a really good time but unfortunately I don't have any pictures to document the event because I forgot to get some batteries for my small camera. So you'll just have to trust me that Dierks was looking as cute as ever and that it was an amazing show. It was also kinda crazy because it was at the USANA so it was outdoors and a storm kind of rolled in and it rained off and on throughout Brad's preformance and the lightning was going nuts. It was getting so close but luckily didn't strike anyone or anything at the concert. But it was awesome to have the lightning in the background.
This past week/weekend was Homecoming at USU and Kami's (Brett's cousin's) wedding. USU was successful at winning their homecoming this year. They beat SUU by about 20 points. We're so proud of our Aggies. We sure hope they can have more success this year! Kami's wedding was a smashing success. She looked gorgeous and it was a lot of fun to be together as a family to share in her special day with her. Here's some pictures of the weekend.

My dad is also building a barn and so in our spare time we're trying to help him as much as possible. Here's the latest in the barn building....

And that's what we've been up to for the last month... It's been school every single day with a few chances to play with family and friends every now and again. We sure are thankful for such great people in our lives!

Getting settled

We have now been in class for a week and what can I say...
I'm feeling quite overwhelmed so far. Brett seems to do keeping up and doing fine so far. Meanwhile, I'm quickly realizing that grad school is going to kick my butt for the next 2 years. Once again, my life is owned by something much bigger than myself. So if I avoid anyone in the next two years just know that I still love you very much - I'm just so busy that I'm probably curled up on my couch hiding under a blanket, bald because I pulled my hair out already and bawling my eyes out.
I've already told Brett that I love him very much and I enjoy spending time with him just don't plan on seeing very much of me for the next 2 years.
Despite all of the negative things I have just said - I absolutely LOVE my program. The classes are far better than any of my undergraduate classes were. I am thoroughly enjoying learning and feel like I'm being challenged and actually learning - it's quite a different feeling than that of my undergrad.
Just an update for those of you who do not live by us or see us often: Brett shaved his beard! Yeah! I was quite surprised when we walked out of the bathroom and asked me if he should leave "it" like this for school. I about died when I turned around - what a dork! I didn't really mind the beard too much but I will say that I like him much much much better without the beard.
Don't worry he shaved all the way after he let me take a picture so he no longer has that mustache but he'll probably be start growing out the beard again soon for "the hunt".
So, don't worry if I don't post anything for awhile, we're still alive. I'm just super busy and don't have time for anything but school.

Journey to Zion

It's official. We are back in Utah (or Zion as Brett likes to call it). We said a tearful goodbye last Tuesday afternoon, Aug 11 to the Jones family and started to float down the Alaska Marine Highway on the Taku vessel.We stopped at a few ports on our way down the channel but totaled 36 hours aboard the Taku. We arrived in Prince Rupert at 3:30 am to begin our drive home. We drove from Prince Rupert to Hope on Thursday, Aug 13, for a total of 16 hours of driving - that's straight driving, only stopped for gas. We also decided that on our journey home we would be camping instead of staying in hotels to cut down on the travel expenses. We purchased a 5'X6' kid tent while we were in Juneau so that we could save money and because we already have 2 nice tents at home in Utah and we didn't want to spend the money on yet another tent. So this is what we stayed in our journey home:

Needless to say: we were a little cramped on room/space for a few days.

The next day we drove across the boarder, down to Seattle, stopped in Seattle to check out Pike Market for about 2 hours and then made our way down the coast on the historic Pacific Coast Highway. We first saw the coast in Astoria but didn't get to physically touch the beach or the water until the next morning in Pacific City at Cape Kiwanda. This was the first time Brett had ever been/seen the open ocean. He was quite content watching the waves and the surfers - I think he would've stayed there all day had we had the time. We had fun playing in the water and the sand but continued our journey down the coast. We stopped in Newport at the aquarium and again just outside of Florence to see the light house. That night we stayed at a beautiful secluded lake outside of Sisters called Suttle Lake. Unfortunately, we got there after the sun had gone down and I forgot to take pictures the next morning. You'll just have to trust me that it was beautiful.

And the 5th day of our journey consisted of us drive 10 hours through the desert. This was by far the WORST part of the entire journey. There is absolutely nothing to look at or see and it's hot and miserable. From Brothers, Oregon to Tremonton, Utah there is nothing. Brett told me to stop acting like a kid because on this last leg of the trip I was asking if we were there yet about every 5 minutes and complaining because I was hot, tired, and my butt hurt so bad that I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep. Some how we survived - barely.

We arrived home at about 8 pm on Sunday, Aug 16. We were greeted by most of Brett's family and my parents.

It was so fun to see our nieces and nephew all growing up so fast. It was great to be able to smell the fresh cut hay, the smell of the water sprinkling out of the pipe lines, see the farmer's kids in their mud boots out moving pipe, and a million other things that we were so excited to see/smell again. The smell of home will probably always call us back to the place that we love.

This trip was so much fun. We enjoyed our trip up to Alaska, definitely loved our time in Alaska, and thoroughly enjoyed our trek home. We were so thankful to be able to make the drive there and back with no problems and be able to enjoy a long road trip together. One thing is for sure - you sure do learn a lot about your spouse on a long road trip, good and bad. Luckily, ours was definitely for the better.

As always, here are some pictures from our journey:Ketchikan's Downtown District - a lot of the town is build on boardwalks

Brett enjoyed a Rueben while at Pike's Market

Famous Pike's Fish Market - a halibut flying through the air

The Lewis and Clark Bridge - Washington is in the distance and we're in Oregon

Brett's first reaction to seeing the open ocean for the very first time

Brett enthralled with the surf

If you ever have the opportunity to go on a road trip, we highly recommend making a giant loop, going up the Oregon Coast, up through BC, Bamff area, and down either through Montana, Nebraska, or Yellowstone. Every place we went was absolutely gorgeous. The most beautiful country that we had ever seen. We absolutely loved every minute of our trek and recommend it to anyone. As much as we loved being away from home, it is good to be back. We have started school and are slowly adjusting to the student lifestyle once again.

Always big kids at heart

Last night we drove to Sunshine Cove for some sunshine and for our last campfire on the beach. We had so much fun exploring the rocks nestled along the coast and finding just a few of the interesting creatures that live in the ocean. This has definately been one of our favorite things to do while we have been in Alaska - especially campfires on the beach. As if exploring the rocks and the sea creatures doesn't make us feel like kids all over again, we found something last night that sent us right back into our childhoods. This being a...

ROPE SWING!

This was awesome. We all had a great time taking turns swinging in the tree tops. Here are just a few pictures of the things that make us feel the most like kids:

Brett and I are also preparing for our journey home and one of the things we needed to do for that was buy a inexpensive tent. We already have a tent at home in Utah but we didn't bring it with us because - well I don't know why but we didn't. So we didn't want to spend a lot of money on a tent but we are camping on the coast on our way back home so we need a tent. We ventured to Walmart and made a purchase of a kid tent. We brought it home and set it up to try it out and make sure that we would fit. As you can see, it is a little tight for Brett. It's a good thing that he is a fetal-sleeper and doesn't need a lot of wiggle room when he sleeps. Dax also helped us test out the tent and he loved it. Here's a few pictures to demonstrate. The last one is my favorite. He liked the mesh and he squished his head against it to get Megan on the outside of the tent. What a cute boy!

The rest of the story

Brett’s parents have come and gone already. We did a lot of playing while they were here and are so grateful they made the sacrifices to come up to Juneau to visit us. We were able to show them a lot of the area and I think they had a good time – we sure did! There was not a day of rain while they were here which also helped in allowing us to show them so much. Every single day was packed full of lots to see and do – I’m pretty sure they are going to need a little R&R to recover from their trip. As previously mentioned in the post below we saw lots of great stuff on the first two days they were here. However, we saw great stuff every single day they were here. So here’s a recap of how they spent their week in Alaska:
Wednesday and Thursday: shown in previous post
Friday: Craig and Suz were able to get on a helicopter ride. They were able to see the HUGE ice field that surrounds Juneau. Brett and I didn’t go with them so I don’t have a picture to add here from their trip up in the air but here is a picture that I have taken in the past: Friday evening we did a small hike/walk called the Treadwell Historic Trail. This trail takes you through the ruins of what was one point the largest mine in the world. The hike also goes along the beach so we enjoyed playing in the water and the sand. Dax especially enjoyed the feel of the sand between his toes. After we were done exploring we headed over to the Island Pub and had some amazing pizza. YUM! Here are some pictures of our explorations on the Treadwell Mine Hike: Saturday: I had to work in the morning so everyone came to visit at work and got some yummy breakfast. After they finished eating they headed up Gold Creek and checked out one of the mining museums there and saw were Brett likes to do his gold panning. Then they picked me up and we headed up the Mt Roberts Tram. We were able to have a great view overlooking the Gastineau Channel and Downtown Juneau. We really enjoyed the view and the sunny weather. Unfortunately, on the way down Craig was not looking where he was headed and tripped over a root sticking out of the ground. Suz and I saw it out of the corner of our eye and thought he was joking when he said he sprained his ankle. At this point me and Suz were cracking up and couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, we realized he wasn’t joking and felt bad for laughing so hard at his expense. Sorry Sparks…
Saturday night we drove out to Amalga Harbor to have a campfire and do some snag fishing. The fish were jumping like crazy but unfortunately there weren’t as many as there appeared to be and we didn’t catch very many fish. However, Craig did catch a few and Suz even got to real one in…. Let me say I am quite proud of her! Here’s proof: Sunday: Brett and I had to work so Craig and Suz went to church with Megan and Zach. After church, a nap, and dinner we headed out to the glacier to look for bears again and to walk out to Nugget Creek falls. We didn’t make it right next to the falls but we made it pretty dang close. Suz had to rock hop in a few places and I’m proud that she didn’t give up and go back to the car or anything. Way to go Suz – what a woman. We did spot a bear on our way back to the car. Suz was a little obsessed with seeing the bears but I do have to admit is quite the sight when you do see them and you can just sit and watch them fish and eat. They are quite the creatures. Monday: Brett had to work so it was just me, Craig and Suz hanging out. We went up to the Glacier to see if we could spot any bears but were unsuccessful. So we headed to the end of the road, the roads ends at a place called Echo cove. We got out of the car and checked out the area for a few minutes and then made the 30 minute drive back to the valley. We stopped by Skater’s cabin and Montana creek just to check things out and show them a little bit more of the area. There is a large fire in the Whitehorse, Canada area making the Juneau area very smoky. It was very hazy and we couldn’t even see the Chilkat mountain range just across the Gastineau channel or the glacier from Skater’s cabin (which you can always see both – even on the really cloudy/rainy days). It was kind of an eerie feeling and you could smell the smoke everywhere we went.
Craig got on a tour of the AJ Gastineau Mine and left time for the girls to do some shopping. Suz found a very cute ornament for her Christmas tree and two cute sweatshirts. Then we all met up and went to dinner at a favorite restaurant – The Twisted Fish. Good food, good fun, great company! After stuffing ourselves with yummy fish we headed to the glacier to see if we could bait in some bears one last time for Suz. We stood around for about an hour and decided to head back to the car when on our way back, Suz spotted a bear. We stopped to watch it for a minute and then headed back home for the rest of the evening to hang out and enjoy each other’s company and to let Suz and Sparks get packed for their trip back home.
We are SO glad they were able to make the trip up to see us. We’re so grateful to have such wonderful family on both sides, who are so supportive of us. We also grateful for Megan and Zach for allowing Brett’s parents to stay with us for a week – we are so blessed. Thanks Suz and Sparks for a full week of great memories!