What a busy July!

This past month has gone by so fast with all the activities we have been doing. Here is a quick run down:

July 4th - Independence Day - We get up at 5:00 am and serve breakfast in the park in Huntsville with Tyler's Mom and Dad. T is back there flip'n hot cakes and I am pouring hot chocolate. Then we head back to his parent's house and start setting up for the neighborhood BBQ and fireworks later that night.

July 10th - Tyler's 28th Birthday! We had Chris and Shyan, our family buddies, and Jeff and Melissa, our friends, come up and go to dinner. Then on Sunday we had a little Ames Gang get together and played some Crazy Golf!

July 12th - Our High School 10 yr Class Reunion, which took up a lot of time in the first part of the month because I was on the planning committee. But it was all worth it to see all of our friends from high school. I just wish there was more time to visit with everyone. We have a facebook group that has a bunch of pictures if your interested look it up!

July 13th - Weber State Fire Works and Concert with the Williams group.

July 16th - Sidney's 5th Birthday! She is our cute little niece and I can't believe she is going to be starting school this year.

July 24th - Utah's Pioneer Day. We went on a 35 mile bike ride with a group in the ward. We went along the last part of the Pioneer trek from Henefer, up and over Heartbreak Ridge, up and over Big Mountain, and then down Emigration Canyon. It was a beautiful ride and really cool to hear the stories and struggles of the Pioneers. Then later that night there was a ward Dinner in the park, which I got to help with the kids crafts!

July 26th - Spudman Triathlon - We had a great time with this race. I fortunately have a friend from college that is from Burley, ID and let us stay with them and his family. The race itself was much better than the SG TRI we did in May. The weather was perfect and the swim was down the Snake River, so I was super happy! We almost didn't go because we had not kept up with our training at all since the SG TRI, but we decided we would go see if we could get some wetsuit and if there were some available to rent then we would go. Sure enough they had one more women's suit for me to rent and Tyler's parents bought him one for his birthday. So off we went to Burley. We both did great and were very please with our results, however, when we finished the race we found out that there was an older gentlemen that went under the water before his wave started the race and they were not able to get to him in time to save him. Our deepest condolence's go out to his family and friends. It really hits close to home when something like that happens, and really makes you appreciate the time you have with those you love.

Ragnar Relay - Wasatch Back

Well, we had heard about and seen video's of the Wasatch Back for a couple of year and well we just couldn't resist! My work, The Jack Johnson Company, generously sponsored our team and 12 of us ran 182 miles from Logan to Park City. No we didn't each run the entire way, it was a relay team and each of us had 3 legs, varying in length and difficulty. Both, Tyler and I ran around 15 miles overall. The race took us about 29 hours, yes we ran through the night. It was a crazy event but I think we all had a great time!

Grandma and Grandpa's House

When I was young I was fortunate enough to live a block away from Grandma and Grandpa Hawes' house. Needless to say we spent most of our time down there. Grandpa was a school teacher and loved to work on cars, mostly Suburu's. Grandma, well she's chased kids around her whole life! They would always make mush for breakfast and leave a stick of butter out on the table, which we would all sit around, dip our fingers in, and eat it like it was candy (that makes me sick to think about now!). Grandma, would always have a bucket of brown sugar down stairs that we would still chunks out of and suck on all day. They had a garden out back with rubarb and rasberries and a walnut tree with a tire swing. It was the perfect house for kids to get into mischeif and we did! They have a closed with a secret passage to the addict, it was one of our favorite places to play! If only we could live in such a carefree state as we did when we were kids!

Uinta Campout!

Jeep'n in Moab!

So every year the Williams Family does a Spring Moab Trip and we always have a blast!

I shouldn't encourage Ryan by posting his pictures but... I did get some good shots!

Kane's Creek was a lot of fun! My favorite is fly'n through the creek bed and splash'n through the water! We got the water to go up and over the Jeep!

That can't be good...

The jeep trail is about half way up the cliff on the left you can see the rest of our jeeps on the trail!

Saturday we hiked up to Delicate Arch, I think it was everyone's first time up there. Here we are all from Utah and we don't even go see our cool sites. Well I guess we can all check this one off now!

This stud, we call him Little T because his name is Tyler too, caught some big time air off the sand dunes! I think our Jeep was airborn twice once from the dune and then again off the bounce. My neck was pretty sore for the next couple days.

Wait to go Little T!

We all had a great time!

Thanks Ma and Pa for the trip!

US President in Park City

Mr. George Bush Jr. came to visit our little town last week and we got some cool pictures of the Marine One Helicopter. These two pictures were taken from our bedroom window... it's not every day that the President lands a block from your house. T and I road our cruisers over to the park to see them lift off. There were 4 of the big Helicopter and who know how many circling over head! It was pretty cool!

SG TRI

Our first Olympic Distance Triathlon...

15oo meter swim (almost 1 mile), 40K bike, and a 10K run.

I can honestly say that this was the hardest race I have ever competed in! However, I perservered and finished the race and that feels good! Tyler, as always, powers through and had an outstanding finish! The weather played a major role in this race as there were 20+ mph winds. In fact, at 3:00am there were 40+ mph wind gusts and they almost canceled the race. But I guess by 7:00am they felt like it had slowed down enough to start the race. Tyler was in the first heat and I was in the 3rd. Initially we were going with the wind and current but the majority of the swim was against the wind and waves. We both felt like it was twice the effort to make any progress in the two foot white caps. My first 15 minutes in the water were frankly scary, but the ignorance of being in my first open water swim and the comfort of having a lot of others around carried me through it. After that it was a purely mental challenge to just keep swimming! When I reach the half way mark I stopped along with an older gray haired woman who said "Are we the last ones" and from what I could see over the waves, it looked like we were. Again, I put my head in the water and just kept swimming! I eventually made it to the boat dock, to be greeted by my Dad standing at the waters edge. I was so exausted but so happy to have my feet on the ground! As I slowly walked to the transition area my Dad informed me that the race officials canceled the swim for the rest of the racers because the conditions were too bad! It turns out that they had pulled around 100 swimmers from the water.



This is me getting out of the water, you can kind of see that the waves were white caps.









And Tyler looks like a pro as he prepares to enter the water.


The bike was interesting, for me I was either riding like I just had a V8 or flying up hill and wondering why the downhillers were having such a hard time just to find out that the again the wind was just too strong.

The run was a lot of fun on the trail, suprisingly I felt the best on my second lap. Tyler just had to go get a tri-suit before this race and he was thrilled about it until he saw some pictures and well... he says he'll never wear it again. I think he looks great!

My wonderful family was there to cheer me on at the end and my little niece Sidney and T ran me in to the finish line. It was a beautiful moment!
Mom and Dad, I want to thank you for your amazing support! You were out there for 6 hours in the freezing winds making sure we were both OK. It really does make all difference to have you there. We love you!