Little Cotton Wood

One of the most extraordinary places in Utah to Paul and I is Little Cottonwood Canyon. At the entrance are beautiful cliffs and boulder fields of pure granite. And further up the canyon are lakes and trails. a Few weekends ago we backpacked to a small lake called Ceacret lake and the next day we climbed down in the granite. This is what it looked like.

Oregon/ City of Rocks

A week and a half ago Paul and I were in Oregon! We went for Paul's cousin Keaton's Wedding to Sarah (the greatest girl) While there we climbed, baked in the car for hours, ate sushi, scrambled on rocks naked, went to a wedding, Slept in the creepiest motel of my life!, went to a clothing optional soaking tub, drove the coast, meditated on the beach, ate Mo's clam chowder with oysters, and...... Broke our sugar rule for VOODOO DONUTS. Us outside the Portland temple

With the Happy Couple

Paul being an action spy in down town Portland

Me in the beautiful forested beach area

Paul shore climbing on crumbly rock

I love the Rocky beaches of Oregon

Soo foggy that day

Paul standing on lava rocks in the back is two of the three sister peaks

Paul climbing Bloody Fingers a vicious 10a that I followed up very terrified

Me on a climb called Skyline in City of Rocks Idaho

This is the far away shot of the climb in the before picture

A VOODOO DONUT which I tried along with some other crazy donuts... sure enough a stomach ache followed, but hey BACON on a DONUT. I love bacon.

The Highest Point

At the end of July Paul and I went on a backpacking trip with most of Paul's family. King's Peak is the highest point in Utah and is located in the beautiful Uinta mountain range. The trail we took had us hiking 10 miles the first day, something like 7 miles the second day and 20 miles the 3rd day where you summit the peak, then you hike the same way back. It was a spiritual and cleansing journey. I can't wait to do something like that again! On summit day by a cool carin (not sure how that's spelled)

On the peak letting the Tibetan pray flags fly in the wind carrying the prays to all the world.

Atwood Lake

The Kiss on King's

Paul, Shelley and Me, Paul looks mad about something?

Everyone on the Peak

Laurie, Paul's sister, being a wild mountain woman

The Wedding Day

Here I am almost 8 months later and I am finally posting some of my wedding photos, Unfortunately I don't have copies of the temple photos yet, but here are some from that day. My lovely sister Meghan made it out to be the photographer, you can look at the temple pictures and more of her work at macaskillphotography.smugmug.com. So here they are some of my favorites from the big day! Paul telling everyone at the reception "you can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind, because if your friends don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of mine".

Grandma Robertson so happy for us!

Paul and myself getting down wedding style.

My mother's dress which we altered only the sleeves for me to wear on my wedding day.

Aubree braids my hair as I stare lovingly into Paul's eyes

Paul makes us eggs for breakfast, some of the only food we had all day

Our reception decor, I was going for a woodsy vintage feel and that's totally what I got, Paul's sister shelley helped the whole room together with real trees, and wild flowers.

I adore this photo, Paul and I dancing alone before the reception starts and Reese, Rhianna and Avonlea came to play in my long princess dress.

Here these girls are again, being so adorable, one day they'll feel as beautiful as I did that day.

Three generations happily married

Shelley's flower arrangements, I loved the wild flowers mixed with traditional flowers in mason jars, made for a brilliant fleet foxes wedding

Pictures and story about our Kings Peak Adventure soon to come!

Training

It has been my goal and dream for the last two years to run a marathon, that's 26.2 miles.
Training so far hasn't been horrible, however I'm still new to the whole running world.
I have had sore calves, then that faded, then I ran barefoot and had sore calves again.
They got better, as I went up in miles my usual side ache got worse, one time doing 8 miles
I ate a little salt half way and that helped! But the worst is I think I pulled my hip flexer. It hurt
for a few weeks, I rested it, Iced it, put heat on it. Life caught up with Paul and I and now we are
back to square one and moving up, my hip flexer still gets very sore, but hopefully that will ease
in time.


I am extremely grateful to Paul during this whole process, before I met him i had run a big 3 miles!
The second week we were married I said let's start a running routine, run Tuesday, Thursday and do
a long run Saturday, he looked at me and said, 2 miles Tuesday, 3 miles Thursday and 6 on saturday.
I thought he was crazy, and I couldn't do it. That was my first problem, I'd like to say we did 6 that
Saturday, but I think we would have injured ourselves, But we did do 4 miles, which broke my record!

Running is a real mental thing for me, one week I ran 6 miles and was dragging my feet and getting
mad at Paul for yelling at me to go faster, I was even mad when he told me I was doing great, because
I knew I could do better, but I hurt! But then the next week Paul was on a bike due to an injury to his
ankle and I ran 7 miles with no pain and a smile on my face most of the run. I had been saying to
myself most of the run "I can and I will", or "I am Strong and Able". It totally helped.

For now I am training, not sure which marathon I am going to run, but I am enjoying this part of my
life so much right now, and love Paul for joining me in my goal.

Lucy

So a couple of weeks ago Paul's sister Shelley told us about a couple we know (Argie and Jean) who are having dog problems. They have a adorable young pitbull mix (their actually not sure what she is), they've had her since November and Argie is brought to tears because Lucy is tearing her beautiful yard apart.

So before Shelley finishes her story, Paul and I say "we'll play with her!" and here we are two weeks later and every tuesday, thursday and saturday we either take her on a hike, or take her running. It's awesome! When we've hiked she is pooped! and when we run our muscles feel all sore and definitely not balanced in the soreness (not good! we need to figure that one out.

It's the beauty of having the fun of a dog, but not all the taking care of stuff.

So three weekends ago Paul and I went on a overnighter to Moab. A place I enjoy a lot, but haven't had a lot of chances to go there. And Paul loves it, because his family spent a lot of time in arches while he was growing up, probably one of the reasons Paul loves southern Utah so much.

We went with our friend Marty, and the three of us were the adventure providers for our 5 other friends who came, Weston, Stephan, Anya, Nina and Natasha. These are some photos Weston got on our adventure.



We got to a campsite late and set up our things, Anya/Nina/Natasha rock! they brought all the fixin's for dinner. And Paul and I got to sleep in our new tent for the first time! woot.



In the morning we went up by Gemini bridges to a place called the Crack house, it's this sweet tunnel like cave with a huge crack running the whole ceiling from end to end, Paul took a crack (haha) at it and did really well, this will probably be a project of his every time we go to Moab till he gets it. (I'm sure he will he is a really good climber).



In the morning we also taught everyone who didn't know how to repel off a small 30 maybe 40 ft cliff. We had everyone who was new to it try it at least 3 times till they felt comfortable..... then we went to Gemini Bridges.



This beauty is a double arch forming out of a big ol' wall in the canyon. and a 140 foot drop to the landing below... we all repelled off it. even the new repellers. It was awesome! everyone was awesome. Then there was a pleasant (heh) scramble to get back on top.

That was all, Triassic tales coming soon....

No pictures, but yummy nontheless

So for a wedding present paul and i got a ninja.... that's right a bon-i-fied, black clothed, kickin ninja!
hahaha actually it's a blender/food processor, still kicks the living daylights out of the food we put in it.
Anyhow, lately I've been buying frozen fruit and making morning smoothie creations!
it's a great way to get a few servings of fruits and veggies that tastes great!

This is our latest combination:

A few strawberries
one banana
one kiwi
an avocado
couple handfuls of frozen blackberries
quarter to a half of a cucumber
a couple spoonfuls of raw black chia seeds
And water (however you like, thick or more drinkable)

I love it!
try it!
especially if you have a hard time with your veggie intake, you can put celery or spinach, broccoli try whatever!

Marriage!

I'm sure most of you know, but I got married! WOOT.
If you are happy about my blogging again please comment on this one and I'll keep them coming, you can also let me know what things you like to hear about. My emotions, our goals (paul and i), adventures, our diet (recipes too!) and so on.