24th of July Temple to Temple 5k

The 24th of July was a blast. It was one of my first celebration here in Utah and we tried to live it up! The morning started off with Jed running in the Temple to Temple 5k run which went from the Provo Temple to the new Provo City Center Temple. It was Jed's first 5k and we were both really excited. We prepared the night before by picking up his shirt, number, and time chip. We also bought a good pre race breakfast of bananas and yogurt! We had an early start where I dropped Jed off at 6:30 am at the Provo temple.  I didn't get to start with him because I was working cross country camps in the morning, but luckily I found him about a mile into the race! Jed and I ran the rest of the race together and he did a fantastic job at pacing the race and passing a ton of people at the end. Jed's goal was to 8 minutes a mile and he was pretty stoked to run 7:58 a mile! I was so proud of him.

That night my teammate Kelsey Brown invited us to her neighborhood "cul-de-sac of fire." It was a fun night of food, endless soda (via a soda fountain), and fireworks! A couple of my teammates and their spouses came and we enjoyed a fun night of entertainment. The night started with endless food and then followed by hundreds of popper type fireworks. Then it was time for the real fireworks which started off with ground fire works and then aerial fireworks.The night ended with a sparkler bomb. We put together over 500 sparklers and lit one as a fuse and watched the whole thing ignite. It looked like the tail end of a rocket bomber and the heat from the bomb was incredible!

There was so much smoke in the air after the fireworks we couldn't get a decent picture

Red Rock, Red Necks

Winter Semester was very busy this year so Andrea and I decided to take a quick vacation for ourselves just after we finished our finals. We had a short weekend between finals and when I started Spring classes and we decided on going to Moab for two days since #1 - I am in love with Moab and #2 - Andrea had never been to Southern Utah before. It also happens to be only a 3 hour drive from Provo so that was convenient as well. We decided to "camp" at an RV park that my brothers and I had to resort to staying at a few years back that actually has turned out to be our favorite place to stay at when we visit Moab. They have relatively cheap camping plots in the middle of a huge RV park so it's not exactly out in the wild but it comes with incredible scenery, running water, grill, patio, and showers (all that no one uses because they already have these in their giant bus-sized RV's). Before getting to Moab though, we made a quick stop at Goblin Valley. Andrea loves the movie "Galaxy Quest" that had a scene filmed in Goblin Valley. I don't think they could have picked a better spot to use as an alien planet because it looks so other-worldly there. It's such a unique spot and we highly recommend visiting it at least once. Both Andrea and I have always loved climbing and exploring so we knew this would be a fun place to go. We spent hours there exploring the rock formations and trying to find our way to the top of the cliffs that are on the far side of the valley. We finally were able to find a way to the top and were surprised to see that the strange rock formations kept going on for miles behind the cliffs. We'll definitely be back to do some more exploring there later.

We made it to Moab in the evening and set up our tent and began cooking our brats on the grill. Like I said, it was probably not even close to camping but it worked for us at the time. We got up early to visit Arches National Park so we could see as much as we could in one day. We were sad to find out that the basic fee you pay to get in is good for a full week and we could have seen a few things the evening before but at least we know for the future. Seeing all of Arches in a day is impossible but we made sure to see the main sights. The drive through the park alone was beautiful but we also wanted to do a few hikes. We first made the short hike up the mountain to Delicate Arch which is the iconic arch of the park. It was very busy but eventually we got our turn to stand under the arch for a quick picture. It was a beautiful day and the arch always amazes me! Also I personally think that the chipmunks up there survive purely off of donations from hikers and just hibernate during winter when there are less visitors. It was insane how many fat chipmunks were running around eating their little hearts out. Anyway, that's beside the point because no one visits arches to just see welfare chipmunks. We had heard that one of the better hikes inside the park was Devil's Garden at the very farthest end of the park so we went there next. It was our favorite hike of the day! It took us about four hours and we were able to see several unique arches throughout the hike. The hike starts out on a dirt trail and then turns into a ungroomed trail loop when you get to the large Landscape Arch. The loop was fun as it took us over rock formations and into surprisingly green valleys in the middle of the orange and red rock. There was a fun part where we were hiking in soft red sand the whole time and Andrea took the opportunity to walk barefoot for a bit. The only downside was that we had both forgotten to put on sunscreen and we got baked during the long hike. We knew we were getting fried and made sure to purchase a large bottle of aloe vera on our way back to Provo. With our bodies fried and our legs tired we called it a day, but we loved our visit to Moab and hope to go back again while we're still in Utah.

Sports and Shaved Ice

This year Jed has had the opportunity to work for BYU Intramurals. He started this last fall as a football referee and worked really hard to be the best ref out there. All of his hard work payed off because at the end of the semester he was awarded as the rookie ref of the year. During winter semester 2013, Jed continued to ref but this time he did basketball and football. We quickly learned that football was way more fun than basketball because everyone seemed to be a little bit nicer. There seems to be a continuous theme of BYU students forgetting they haven't played school ball for several years and that this isn't the NBA. Needless to say Jed had to put up with a lot of rude unintelligent players who thought they new the rules better than the refs. But hey Jed got his picture in the daily universe (BYU's school paper) and I thought that was pretty neat.

Halfway through the semester Jed was selected to be a candidate for the opening office job the next year. After several interviews the field was narrowed down and he was selected as the new BYU intramural Program Coordinator for fall 2013 until winter 2015. This is an incredible blessing for us because not only does this include a pay raise but Jed also gets to pick his own hours! In the past he had to work every night from 6-10:30. Now he can work during the days, during school breaks and when I'm at practice!

This summer both Jed and I have been working hard and have been able to have great summer jobs. Jed is a supervisor during the spring and summer for softball, kickball, and football, which worked well when he was taking spring classes. I have had the opportunity to work at Hokulia shaved ice! For those of you who have not had it, you should. It's real authentic Hawaiian shaved ice with ice cream in the middle and sweet and condensed milk on top. All the islanders that come always say how it compares so well to what they have in Hawaii.  It has certainly been an experience but it also is super fun. Jed sure has enjoyed the benefits of having his wife work at a shaved ice stand. I've also been able to coach at the BYU cross country sports camps and that has been a blast!

Catching Up! Christmas and Track

So it has been a long time since we have made a new post so we have decided that over the next few weeks we are going to try to play catch up to record all of the incredible things that have happened this year. After a successful semester of school last fall, Andrea and I went to visit her sister's family in South Dakota for Christmas. It was a fun and exciting week full of late night movies, freezing temperatures, family puzzles, and a whole lot of food. Most of her family were there to visit and it was one of the largest Christmas' either of us has had. Carolyn was an incredible hostess and we were happy to be there with the Petersen family while Aaron was overseas. South Dakota was beautiful in the snow, especially when we went to see Mount Rushmore. Andrea also used the trip as an opportunity to turn me into a Harry Potter nerd as we listened to the first three books on our road trip to and from South Dakota. Since then we have listened to almost all of the books on the road to and from visiting family in different parts of Utah. I'm a little embarrassed to admit how much we now quote from/refer to/imitate the magical world of Harry Potter these days so I'll say no more about that.

Preparing for a cold Christmas

Setting up our tree!

At Mt Rushmore

The Black Hills of South Dakota (behind Carolyn's house)

We returned from Christmas break with Andrea going straight into her indoor track season. Andrea's coach had her running the 3k to train for steeplechase in spring. Her first race in Boise was an incredible breakthrough race because it was her first college win and a PR. She was so diligent in training throughout Christmas break (like running for 8 miles straight on a treadmill in South Dakota because it was 0 degrees outside) and it paid off! Her season (and times for that matter) kept getting better and better. She qualified to run at conference after her PR of 9:42 at the UW invite in Seattle. Unfortunately she caught the flu just before her conference race and wasn't able to run as well as she wanted to at conference. Honestly though, the fact that she was ill and still ran a 10 minute 3k puts my running skills to shame. However, Indoor was just a warm-up for what she was able to accomplish in her outdoor season. With the confidence of a great indoor season behind her, Andrea started training hard for her steeplechase races. In the first two races she learned quickly that as well as running hard she also needed to run smart. Things seemed to come together so perfectly at her race at Mt. Sac in California. Almost all of our family members have experienced the thrill of watching the video of the race where she goes from 7th to 1st in the last two laps, beating the last girl in the last 20 meters or so. My sister Emily shared with us a story about how her son Cooper was so intensely invested in the recorded race that she had to remind him, "You remember I told you that she already won, right?" One of Andrea's favorite races was in Princeton at Conference (BYU's first year in the East Coast Athletic Conference - I know, it makes no sense that we're in an east coast conference...) where she finished 3rd with a time of 10:23. All her success eventually led her to an invitation to UT Austin for the NCAA West Prelims where she finished in 21st place, missing nationals by only 9 spots. To top the season off, her coach also met with her later and offered her an incredible scholarship to continue running, which many members of our family know is something that Andrea has been working toward for many years now. We feel so incredibly blessed with how this track season has turned out. We know that Andrea could not have done anything without both the Lord's help and our family's support. She has been training hard all summer and is very optimistic about what will happen this next year. Go cougs!!!!