Lahma Fest

In Spanish Fork every summer they have what they call a lahma fest. It is held at the Hari Khrishna temple. They have about 50 lahmas. They have them go through obstical courses and you can pet them and stuff. They also have indian food that you can buy and some indian singers who perform. It's actually pretty fun.

Hari Krishna Temple, where the festival is held

Me being best friends with the lahma's.

Josh trying to lead the lahma through the obstical course. They were really stubborn and wouldn't do anything that you tried to force them to do. it was hillarious... midway though Josh's leading it though the course, it started chasing me!

Bom dia

Tomorrow I'm going to Brazil. Rio de Janiero to be exact. Josh is running in the Pan American games. It will be fun and very adventurous- you see, I will have to travel there by my self... and try to get myself to my hotel by my self. I've been trying to learn some portuguese, but I hope I don't have to use it. I pride myself in being able to say "O Senhor Fala Ingles" which means do you speak english sir?

Havasu Pie

We went down to Havasu Pie a week ago. If you have not been we would love to go with you! You hike down to the bottom of the grand canyon (10 miles) and then you camp down there for a few days. While you are down there you hike around and swim in all the beautiful waterfalls, and cliff jump, and do rope swings and stuff! It's like a little tropical oasis in the middle of the barren desert! We had a ton of fun, except our packs were SOOO heavy. We'd never really gone "back-packing" before so we didn't exactly know what to expect. We got some of those camping meals (mountain house) and josh didn't think they'd fill him up. So, we ended up carrying down cans of Tamalies, chillie, and litte vienna sausages, homestyle bakes cans etc. Needless to say our hike down was not all fun and games. Our hike back UP was lots better b/c we'd consumed about 15 lbs. of food so our packs were way lighter.

This is how your hike started out, at 5:30 am see how barren everything is?

Then all the sudden these falls pop out of no where! (it's about 150 ft. tall?) This is called Havasu falls.

This was probabally my favorite falls, Navajo falls. you can climb up on top of the falls and jump down into the water below (about 40 ft.) There is also a little cave behind these falls that you can go into.

We went with Josh's sister Christy, her husband Bill, their 11 yr old son Nate and Josh's older brother Lance.

This is called Mooney falls. It's the tallest fall. To get down to it you have to climb down this steep rock face. I was proud of myself b/c I wasn't as scared of it as I normally would be. There is a really fun rope swing at these falls, and there are some other mini falls here that have little caves behind them. In conclusion, I think everyone should visit Havasu!

Stewart Falls

A most well-known location of the provo, Stweart falls. I went on a little hike with my family up here a couple weeks ago. I like this picture b/c you can see all the moss and it almost looks like a waterfall from a tropical rain forest.

This is a photo of my family that went on the hike. Josh is taking the photo. The one in the black shirt is my cousin Christy. I think this is a funny picture because I look like a tom-boy highschooler...

Yellow Stone

We just got back from a way awesome trip to Yellowstone! I hadn't been there since I was about 10! We went with our friends the Jensens. Yellowstone has such great geography with it's mtns., rivers, lakes, waterfalls, colorfull hot pots, giazers, not to mention all the animals...We saw 4 Grizzlies, Mtn. Goats, Cyotes, Wolves, Cranes, Herons, Marmotes, Buffalow, Prong horn, Elk, normal deer etc. It was so pretty that we took so many photos. I wish that I could put them all in, but you'd be bored with them. Our camera isn't the greatest, and doesn't zoom any closer than the naked eye can see, so some of the animals may not look so close, but they were actually really close.We saw a ba-zillion of these! At first you're so excited to see one, and then you start to get sick of them b/c they're all over. I thing buffalo are cute animals.

This was our favorite hot springs. The colors are not inhanced in photo-shop. They really were this bright and colorfull! The blue water in the center was so deep, we I guess it went down to the crust of the earth, that's how the water gets so hot! If you feel in you'd die (at least that's what the sign tells you)

Due to the bad zoom, you may not realize this is a bald eagle at it's nest. It had some babies up there that we saw.

Beautiful scenery... This lake runs through most of yellowstone.

Mtn. Goat. I guess they were shedding, b/c they look ugly and dirty... They were really close! they also had several babies with them.

This one is one of the bears. We actually were about 150 meters away from it, which was pretty close, but it doesn't seem that close b/c of the camera. Our video camera got some good footage of it though. It had 2 little cubs. If you blow up the picture, the mom is the brown spot just below the upper row of snow, and to the right you may see 2 darker spots that are the babies! The other Grizzly we saw was fitghting a wolf! so cool to watch, wish we were closer!

This was a huge waterfall that we "hiked" down to .

If you have not been to yellowstone, you need to go. It's a pretty cheap trip and tonz of fun!

sneezing

I have just sneezed 6 times in the last min... and the 7th sneeze is just about to come out! Some people are double sneezers, some are single sneezers etc. Normally I just sneeze once. You know the feeling of trying to get a sneeze out? I really don't like that feeling, but the feeling that is worse is when you sneeze but you only sneeze half way? Does anyone know this feeling? Also, Did you hear about the girl who had hicups for like 36 days? what if that happened with sneezing?

olympic standard

This is my first post for a LONG time. I'm sitting here at the computer waiting for the results of Josh's race to pop up on the computer. At this very moment he's running the steeple at stanford. He's going for the Olympic A standard which is 8:26- that would be a 4 ish secong PR... I hope he gets it! This photo here is one from a video interview that he did for a website called flocast... go google it and see what you can find!

My New Home

Yes, Here it is. Tennessee. Our future home. I might be able to find room in my heart to call it home, once I learn how to spell it. Tennesssee is known as the "Volunteer state." People make fun of the Behive State but if you ask me the Volunteer state sounds a bit lamer... We move in the summer. I'm pretty excited but a little nervous b/c Memphis is supposidly the 4th most dangerous city in the US. AHH!

Hungry?

Ever been to Cafe Pier Pont in SLC? Ever seen how much Josh can eat? We went to Pier Pont for dinner and josh ordered this "Macho Grande Burrito"... the size of a new born baby (it weighed at LEAST 6 lbs.) If you eat it all in one sitting you get a free one the next time you come in. What do you think... was Josh able to do it? Did he earn the free Burrito?

Christmas Card

This is a multiple choice question... which one would you sent for your christmas card. Both lame. A. "warm wishes" christmas greeting or B. a Cosmo Christmas greeting. "Warm Wishes" was the one that got sent out. What's your vote?

St. George

We went out to St. George and stayed with Sunny and his fam. They have some 4 wheelers so we got on them and cruised out to these underground caves. I have been spelunking in Nutty Putty and that was a little bit scary but nothing compared to this. I really thought I was going to die! Remember my grave fear of heights, and rocky drop-offs? These came into play. In the caves there were several places with huge drop offs and there was a place or two where you had to "repel" down a steep, slick rock face. You held on to a little rope (which was tied around a rock up above) the rope was about as thick as a shoelace, so as you can imagine it was hard to get a good grip on the thing... if you fell and let go of the rope you could have fallen off a drop off on the edge of this rock face. Even though I look happy in the photo my insides are screaming "Get me out of this place!"

Kelly's married!

It's a miricle! Kelly finally got married... JK. She is now Kelly Beck, and her husband Sunny is pretty awesome. They are a great couple. They got married a few weeks ago and then went on their honey moon to Itally. That's one place that I definitely want to visit some day.

the California

You know the feeling when you're so sick of day to day life and you think you might explode if yu don't get away? well that's how I felt right before this trip! Josh and I headed out to San Jose to visit some friends Jami and Layne... (sorry Jam, this post basically looks like yours- sorry, but what can you do?)


Look at these 2 Gnarly dudes getting ready to catch a wave... The funny thing is that it was about 43 degrees out side and the water was way cold, but these guys couldn't resist. They choose a spot that they thought was totally great for beginners. After an hour of attempts and no successes these 2 dudes swam back to shore totally wiped out and debriefed their experience. (The next day we went to church with Jam & Layne and a sufer in their ward was like "wow, you guys went there? That's some pretty Gnarly stuff... he also said that by going there they just increased their chance of shark attack by 10% I'm terrified of sharks and that's why I didn't want to go surfing in N. Cal. glad I didn't b/c with my luck I would have had a run in with a GREAT WHITE!!!)


There were lots of these street performers. This one was one of the most bestest... He would hide behind these bushes (yes, it looks like he would be totally conspicuous) and then he would jump out when someone was passing and scare them half to death!



A classic San Fran photo of the trolleys. I love San Fransisco- so many cool places and the ocean in view!

Gardner Villiage

One of my favorite places in the fall- Gardner Village! They decorate it with all sorts of witches and things. Every fall, around halloween, my mom and sisters go up and shop around... It's this olden time village and all the little old houses have been made into shops. The biggest shop has an old mill on it!

Halloween

For Halloween Josh and I went to a Masquerade party... We searched so hard to find masks but couldn't find any. So, we had to make our own- ha ha! (that's why they look ugly) So. I basically just wore this mid-evil times dress and Josh was a Jester. The idea was great, but the execution not so great... Josh went to target and bought a pair of womens tights with an argyle pattern. I wish the photo showed them, but you will just have to use your imagination. He had a shirt that was about 5 in. lower than his waiste so it was kindof short. Then I guess he decited that his tights were as good as pants so all he wore under them was undies! most people were a little worried about that.

Second!!!

The state cross country meet was a few days ago. My little runners came in second! We were way excited to be second, we knew that the first place team would be WAY tough to beat... but when the announcer read off the results and announced that we were 30 pts ahead of the 3rd place team and only 4 points away from the 1st place team (mountain crest) we didn't know what to think!!! We were soo close, so happy to be so close to a great team but so sad to loose by 4 measley points! (this photo is of our top three gals: Sam in front; 6th place overall, Steph in the middle; 5th place overall and Amelia in back; 11th place overall) I was so proud of them!

The end of the world

While in Moab we also went to Canyonlands. The day was cold and rainy. Lots of fog settled in over the canyons. This picture here is my family looking at the canyons once the fog cleared up a little bit but I think it's funny because it looks like they are looking at the end of the world.

This is one of the cool formations of canyonlands. As we were looking at this we saw the famous Utah photographer Tom Till... he was taking photos of the same thing. I'm going to venture to say that his photo probabally turned out a little better than mine, but I still think mine's pretty awesome.

Those of you who know me well might know that I have a little obsession about indians. I was very excited when we found these old indian petrogliphs on one of the rock walls near the Canyonlands (look closely and you will see them!)

Moab

This past week was UEA. We took advantage of the break from work/school and went on a little trip out to moab. We hit the arches and took a hike out to delicate arch. Even though I was freaking out for a little bit of the hike because I was afraid I was going to fall off the Mtn. (see example below) it was way fun.

Here is an example of something that would freak me out. Even though this doesn't look scary, Josh is actually standing on this overhang that has a 2800 ft. drop off. At any moment this rock could have just given way. Josh wasn't too worried about that though- I think I was more worried for his life than mine on this trip (he's a dare devil and I'm to afraid I'll die to do anything risky)

This is just another one of my favorite formations... balancing rock. We hit it at just the right time of day- the shadows and lighting on the thing were great... If I would have been a professional photographer I would have gotten some sweet pictures of the thing! (this trip did inspire me to become a professional photographer so just you wait!)

Region Champs

Last week my Cross country team had their region meet! Both the boys and the girls won! To be honest we were very nervous for the girls... one of our varsity runners had her hip out of place so we had to put in a JV girl. Our top varsity gal had a (minor) surgery for an illness she'd been having just a few days before the race, another of them ran through pretty bad achilles tendonitis, and another ran through a stress fracture... If you didn't get the picture these girls are tough! I was so proud of them! State is in 4 days, we'll see what happens.

cedar city

This weekend Josh & I went to Cedar City. My cross country girls had a race down there so we made a big trip of it. There was a cross country team flying in from Hawaii to come to this meet and then they are going to stay with the timpview kids and work out with us for a couple days. On our way down to the reace we stopped at SUU to learn a polineasian dance from a couple kids on our team. (On monday we're having a luau with the Hawaiian team and we wanted to impress them... I mean obviously- look how great we look in the photo!) But, It was so pretty down there though! After the meet we stayed in a hotel at the Brian Head ski resort, and ran a couple pretty runs up there around cedar breaks.