Work parties, doctor visits, and a ghetto neighbor

My work, being as awesome as it is, decided to make things even better by letting my department take a half day on Thursday so that we could head to All Star Lanes for a fun afternoon activity. I haven't been to All Star before, but it is a really fun place! They have bowling, mini bowling, mini golf, laser tag, arcade games, and bumper cars.

I didn't do laser tag (I get way too wound up when I play and I start cursing so that's out for me usually), but I got to try mini bowling (which hurt the next day...I must've been throwing that ball really hard), we got a group together for some mini golf, and while normally I avoid bumper cars everyone made them look so fun so I decided I had to try them (I didn't regret that decision).

I had to leave a bit early because I had a chiropractic appointment (which is a separate thing), but I loved it. I ended up leaving with some points on my card to use in the arcade so I think Larry and I are going to have to stop by there one night to play for a date night haha.

For the chiropractic thing, it was a deal through my work that this clinic would do some x-rays, a back consultation to see how bad my spine was, do an adjustment, and a free massage appointment. I decided to try it out since I was told before I had a mild case of scoliosis and I wanted to get it confirmed with them to see. It was cool to see the x-rays they did, and having the guy do the adjustment and look at my back felt pretty good, but in the end they wanted me to pay quite a bit to do a year of adjustments and it wasn't something I felt was important enough. They made another appointment for my massage, but I'm not sure I'm going to go back. I don't like the idea of them trying to sell me more things. It was clear they didn't read my forms I filled out because they were telling me to take supplements I already was (and wrote down) so it didn't feel like it was a legit thing.

Either way it was a really good day. Of course, any day that I can leave early and have fun with some co-workers and then head home a little early for a 3 day weekend is a great day in my book :)

As a plus, here are our new neighbors camping in front of our building:

I'm not sure why, but they set up the camper on Friday and they've actually camped in it the whole weekend. They are on the ground floor so they hooked it up to their own home (power wise at least). We'd go out and they'd just be sitting outside pretending to camp, almost like their home was off limits. It was pretty weird, I'm not sure why they didn't go camping somewhere else. But at least their weekend was more exciting than ours. I was going to use this weekend to clean, but I had to take my car in for an oil change on Saturday and have the breaks checked out, but it took 3 hours for them to tell us the breaks needed to be replaced (luckily I'm within my year warranty) and that would take a couple more hours. We're just going to drop it off tomorrow night and have them replace them Tuesday because we were DONE with the place by then...oh well. After that I decided it was a veg out weekend so I didn't plan anything else (translation: boring, relaxer weekend).

Hope ya'll had a great 24th weekend :)

Escape the Room night

Earlier tonight Larry and I got to experience something new and exciting...Escape The Room. Have you heard of this new thing? It's where you get a group of people and you're locked in a room trying to figure out how to get out with the clues that are given to you and you only have an hour to do it. I heard about these sort of things back in New York, but with it only being two of us I wasn't sure we'd want to be with strangers in a difference city so we decided to forgo it. Fast forward to when we got home and I got a magazine talking about all the fun things to do this summer in Utah and saw that we have one of these here.

Luckily we didn't have to be alone or with strangers, Cassie and Justin tagged along with us (I mentioned it to her at work and she said it sounded like something they'd like to do so we decided to meet up together). I can't speak for everyone, but for me once they explained the storyline and let us in the room there I was just so excited to get the puzzle solved. I won't give away any clues or what you have to do except to say that you get 4 hints and while I was determined to get out without taking any of them, I found there were certain circumstances that you absolutely needed them. Plus our guy was good at letting us know if we didn't have enough information to solve one part of the puzzle so we knew to concentrate on other things.

I think we got out with about 48 second left on our clock (it was a really close call for us), but we got our gold bars and got to take a picture with fun little signs. It was funny because Justin kept making comments about Cassie being "so hot" and calling her babe (such cute newlyweds), so that's why he got the sign he's holding haha.

I'm excited because they said in the next month or so they'll be adding another "Nuclear Reactor" room and eventually an "Indiana Jones" room. We just did the Provo Heist one, but it was a lot of fun. I'd recommend this for any date night, even if it is just the two of you (I doubt getting stuck with others would be too difficult, it's just nice to go with others just in case).

Hiking Donut Falls

So I've been wanting to hike Donut Falls for a really long time. Last year for our anniversary we tried it out, but we had Cailyn with us so going up to the falls was out of the question (those rocks aren't really kid friendly). I decided we had to try it at some point this summer and today we had the perfect opening.

The hike itself is fairly easy. Although I will say at one point I wanted to stop for water, but these high school girls we were following stopped for a minute and as we passed by I heard one of them say "Oh I'm so out of shape." I thought well now I have to keep going...if I'm in better shape than high school girls then I'm doing good haha. Although once we got to the top I ended up chugging a whole bottle in about 30 seconds, but it felt good knowing I didn't stop once.

I LOVE being in the mountains!

We didn't realize you could drive up the road a little to the parking lot for the trail head so we "hiked" a bit longer than expected. But it was worth it. We got a nice parking spot, plus a lot of people were getting tickets when we came back down.

I would NEVER encourage carving trees (it's just wrong!)
But I found my initials in the woods :)

I'm so glad we decided to try this one again. The falls are something you can't miss. We did see some young kids climbing on the rocks up to the cave (I'd say they were probably 5-6 years old), but it was pretty slick so I don't know that I'd recommend it. I wore the shoes we got for Kings Peak so they grasped the rocks and logs pretty well. Plus I felt I could walk through the water a lot easier.

Donut Falls! So pretty

 I guess it's not really recommended to hike above the falls, but we tried it. In fact, we found this little nook where we could stop for lunch and no one was there. Plus we saw lots of chipmunks and birds up there so it was fun (there were a TON of chipmunks up on this trail when we went. We saw a lot playing with each other and two were rough housing a bit right in front of us haha). We probably had a good half an hour up there before others decided to come up and by that point we were ready to head down anyways. Once we were down we noticed quite a few people went up there so we really lucked out (we didn't even head up for this hike until 1 so I'm surprised it wasn't more busy/crowded)

View from above the falls

Weird angle, but you can see the hole the water goes into here

Lunch time

I ate before we left so this was all I needed

The blue and green in this picture
Amazes me! No filter was on this either

Cute couple selfie
I forgot sunscreen, but I'm pretty sure I'm just red from being flushed

 

 

Overall I'd recommend this hike to just about anyone. It's not too difficult so any hiking skills aren't needed you just have to be able to climb up the rocks. I just played follow the leader for that so it wasn't too bad. Coming down is more difficult though, so keep that in mind. This made me look forward to more hikes this summer! Hopefully the warm weather lasts through August and into September.

Healthy Motivation

So let me tell you, this new thing I'm doing is hard some days! My main thing has been to see if I could stick to the food pyramid guidelines without going over my calories (from the MyFitnessPal App) and also cutting out as much sugars as possible. I'm a candy freak! I love it, I would eat it all day every day if possible. I knew I had to get a hold of my self when I'd find myself choosing candy over my lunches some days.

 

So right now my basic meals go something like this:

• Breakfast: Cereal w/almond milk (which doesn't give you dairy, but I can't switch back to normal milk at this point).
• Morning snack: Veggies (usually carrots and tomatoes) and wheat thins.
• Lunch: Sandwich w/a fruit side and fruit juice
• Afternoon snack: String cheese and a piece of fruit (except on weekends when it's granola in yogurt)
• Dinner: Something w/meat and veggies

I've found I mostly ate okay before, I just avoided veggies like the plague. I just needed to replace candy with those things and I was good. Unfortunately saying I can't have candy and need to have a carrot instead doesn't help some days.

I've also tried to incorporate working out a bit and eating out a lot less (even if it's something that would fit into my meal plan, I don't feel I'm ready to gamble that just yet and lose site of what I want). This weekend I was able to finally fit into the pants I used to not be able to so much (the black ones above). I could wear them, but usually after I ate a meal they became too tight and I would get uncomfortable in them. I was able to wear them all day without any issues, I was so excited! I know I still have a ways to go, but it's a nice push to stay motivated.

Also, all these motivational posters I keep in my phone help. I took screenshots of a lot from Pinterest and I've found almost any day one of them will help me through it. It's just a matter of sticking with it this time. I've known (when attempting something like this before) that I should say yes when I don't want to, but I'd give in and think that I'm an adult and can do whatever I want now, but that's where I went wrong. I need to find a way to push through that thinking and stick with this. Luckily Larry has been such a great supporter. I've text him several times saying "They are going to Noodles for lunch today!!" or "It's so-and-so's birthday and they are having ice cream sandwiches!!" and he'll be my voice of reason haha.

Speaking of great husbands, look at how sweet he was this week:

He had those delivered to my work yesterday "just because". I think it's because he knows I've been having a hard week with staying motivated. He's such a sweet heart!! Love him to pieces!

Independence Day - What Not To Do

So we got to celebrate Independence Day yesterday...only we did things a little different than normal. Usually we go over to Skyler and Jena's house, but since Skyler is gone this year and we did such a big show last year I thought we could go to Stadium of Fire this year. I had heard good things about it last year and it would, surprisingly, be much cheaper than the fireworks we get so I bought tickets a few weeks ago and we made those plans. Luckily Larry and I got a three day weekend - our jobs let us have Friday off. I wanted to make the most of it and go on a hike one day, but Friday we had a lazy day instead (we both accidentally slept in much later than usual and I felt it was too late of a start on the day so we might as well enjoy it). As for Saturday Larry slept in so I decided to watch our Netflix movie, Unbroken, until he woke up. That movie really moved me, I wouldn't say I loved it, but to see how POWs were treated and what they had to go through really made me happy to be in this country. It made me feel more proud to be American, which was weird, but a good day to feel that way right?

Larry got up a little before noon, and I felt that was still too close a call. I knew we'd have to be back from a hike around 4 to take showers and be ready to leave around 7 for SofF and since it was about an hour just to drive to the hike I wanted to do, Donut Falls, I thought we'd just take a relaxer day again...that lasted a couple hours. Finally around 1 I told Larry we HAD to get out of the house and do something. It didn't feel right to just sit around on the holiday, even if it was just a short bike ride around the neighborhood. He mentioned that it might be fun to ride to the bike park nearby that we had heard about. After seeing it was only 15 minutes away on Google Maps we made those plans. We rode through our neighborhood, across the street, through that neighborhood and found the trails. I didn't realize it wouldn't be paved (I have bad luck with bikes and rocky roads...I always end up with a flat tire, no matter what), but they had an "easy" section marked off that circled the trick part that Larry really wanted to try. I told him I would go for as long as I could and then we could head to the trick part where I could relax and he could do tricks. Seemed like a good plan. Well as we were going up the hill I started to get really winded and tired. We were close to the top, but I just felt I had had enough so I told him I was calling it quits. He decided to ride up to the top of the hill and I stayed behind to take pictures. All of a sudden I got super sick and light headed and had to lie down on the trail. He came back and tried to help me, but I was down for the count. It was one of those "don't move me, don't ask me to speak, don't touch me...I will throw up" moments.

It took about 20 minutes for me to feel somewhat normal again and we decided to head to the trick part. I started to feel queasy again so I set my bike down and took pictures of Larry riding around until I felt better. He ended up on this boardwalk-type area that had three sort of "steps" down to the ground. I saw (and took pictures of) him going down the first two. I was anxious enough, but he handled them like a pro so by the third I didn't worry as much...that's when his handle bars slid forward and he completely biffed it. I thought I saw his face hit first and I was prepared to see a lot of blood, but I guess it was his shoulder that hit broke his fall. Unfortunately his hands were all scratched up, his shoulder had road rash all over it, and his arm, while looking completely normal, felt to be in the most pain. He said he could hardly stretch it out before his forearm started hurting real bad and sending a pain up to his shoulder. I felt so bad and decided we should both call it quits before we ended up in worse shape. While going home I caught that sickness again and had to lie down on some poor person's yard. Luckily I think they were out of town so they didn't notice us, but I still felt bad because I thought for sure I was going to throw up this time.

Again, after a few minutes I felt fine, but knew I had to walk the bike back home (at least I got my steps in from that, right?). I made jokes on the way home that the next time we only have a few hours to do something and I complain it should be outdoors Larry can remind me of this to shut me up haha. Once we got home and decided showers were a must, Larry noticed a huge gash on his right thigh as well...one we didn't catch at first. My poor babe just got beat up out there, I felt so bad. After showers I decided to watch Independence Day while I waited for my hair to dry...something I felt I should've done to begin with.

Larry's wounds clockwise from top left:
His shoulder road rash, his thigh gash,
His right hand, right writs, Left hand

Around 7 we headed down to Provo to the Edwards Stadium to watch the lovely Stadium of Fire show (featuring Journey, how cool is that?). Unfortunately, we had to park about a mile away from the stadium...but once again I was just excited to get my steps in. Plus we got a nice parking spot we felt would be easy to leave from so it should pay off. I didn't realize the show went on for so long though. For some reason I thought it would be an 8-10 PM thing. I don't think Journey got onto stage to play until like 9:30 though. It was an amazing show still. Montel Williams going over POWs now made me flash back to the movie and really got my heart strings going, but that was probably the only "downer" side of the whole thing. The fireworks were really cool. They decided to do a "Rock N Roll" theme so they played songs by Elvis, The Beatles, The Go-Gos, Joan Jett, etc. That was probably my favorite part of the whole thing.

These were the only good pics I got on my phone before
My batter died. I'll have to upload what I got from Larry's phone

In the end I decided I think I'd rather put on our own show next year, but I'm glad we at least got to say we did this one year. I think it would depend on who performs in future years to say if we'd go or not. Last year was Carrie Underwood and I bet that was amazing!

On the plus side we went shopping today and look at how red this watermelon is:

I've had crazy cravings for watermelon lately, I used to hate it, but it's all I want now. This one was amazing too! Hopefully we keep getting lucky with our fruit selection this summer :)

Happy Birthday Larry

So today was my wonderful husband's birthday and let me tell you how long I had today planned for...pretty much since he made my birthday spectacular last year so I knew I had to return the favor. Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as I had hoped (he just gets so lucky, and sometimes that rubs off onto me, but not today). A couple of years ago for his birthday I surprised him with a card in the morning and then just made little plans throughout the day and I kind of had the same idea this year.

Here's some back story real quick though, for one he's always talked about wanting to try "The Beast" pizza over at Tenney's (his new favorite pizza place near us), but it's so big he said he'd only order it for a party or something. Also, he's talked for a few years about wanting to learn how to fly a plane. There's been a deal on KSL where a company will take you up and teach you how to fly for a little bit and someone (i.e. me) can go with you to take pictures and document it. However, we've never gotten it because he's just always said he'd like to do it "one day." Lastly, he used to talk about wanting to see that "Book of Mormon" musical by the guys who created South Park (we're big South Park fans here). So my thought was I was going to surprise him with a card in the morning again, order the pizza to arrive around noon (I previously took one of his old receipts so I'd know what toppings he'd want), come home with some Old Fashioned Donuts (he loves those!), and then take him out to dinner and give  him the tickets to "Book of Mormon". That was the plan.

My post with this caption: Happy Happy birthday to the man I love taking pictures of  When he least suspects it
(they are little moments I'm reminded why I love him so much).
You are the greatest husband, dad to our fur babies, and best friend I could ask for!  I hope I can help you have an amazing day!

Unfortunately, I spaced the card until the day of. I knew I had to stop by the store for the donuts so I didn't worry about that part, I just hated that it didn't get to be a surprise in the morning. I did post a cute little thing for him on Facebook though that he loved (which was a surprise because he normally doesn't get on Facebook and I didn't think he'd think that was my big thing, but he gave me a big hug and kiss when he read it). I got to work and told myself it would be good to wait until 11 to order the pizza so it didn't come too early (I was also going to put in a request that the guy who delivered it told him Happy Birthday as a haha). Unfortunately I had a meeting that made me forget (I normally watch the clock like a hawk when I know something is coming up) so it wasn't until 2 that I realized I didn't order the pizza (UGH!!). My desk mate, Becky, made me realize it might be better for dinner anyways so I could order it before I leave and it would work out. I put in an order before I left and then as I was walking out they called to tell me they didn't have boxes for "The Beast." They said I could order 3 larges as an equal size or something else entirely (blah, he needed The Beast!) I just told them to cancel it and we might come in later. Then as I got to the store I realized I left work later than usual and I didn't want him to suspect anything so I didn't have a lot of time to get a card, the donuts, and get home. I didn't see any good cards in the time I had so I just grabbed the donuts and left. I had the papers from the Flight Experience (that I was able to get, so one thing went right) so I had to write a sad little "Happy Birthday SLP" on that as his card (so sorry babe!).

His donuts and gift/card

As I got home I handed him his donuts and the paper, but I guess he thought the paper was just a paper so he put it off to the side. I had to tell him it was his gift and I think he might've been a little disappointed. Once he opened it and saw what it was he seemed to register how big and exciting it was. I told him I was going to make it happen and all he had to do was let me know when he wanted to go and I'd call to get it scheduled. As for the Book of Mormon play...well when we were in New York I mentioned how I still wanted to see that one and he mentioned that he heard it was weird and didn't seem to into it so I scrapped those plans right then.

Luckily he was a good sport about not having the pizza and I just paid to have one delivered to us with his favorite toppings and sides and he was content. I told him if he wanted to do something we could, but he likes being indoors so we relaxed the night away. So while I had big plans to make it a special day, they kind of went somewhere else. Hopefully I can make it up next year...I'm definitely getting a card earlier than the day of that's for sure. Although at least we know now balloons are out (the cats were TERRIFIED of them from my birthday).

So Happy Birthday babe, so sorry I couldn't make you feel as great as you made me feel on my day, but I promise you are amazing and I'm so very grateful to have you in my life. Everything that's great has been because of you, every day I'm happy before going to bed is because of you. I know no matter what, you're there for me. You're the greatest husband and partner out there! I can't wait to get you in that plane! Hopefully you can say I made a dream come true for you :) Love you forever and then some!