Todd and Brittany

Ryan Darton

2012-01-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

Our rockstar friend came to town and let Todd play a show with him :)

They sounded great! Check out his website:

www.ryandarton.com

The handsome drummer:

Snowshoeing

2012-01-27T14:27:00.000-08:00

We went snow shoeing with some friends last weekend. The forecast had predicted one to two inches of snowfall in Park City, so we thought we'd be fine, especially since we now have a four wheel drive vehicle.

Well first off, we barely made it to our destination. The roads were super slick and apparently our tires are bald, and we were sliding all over the place making our way up the canyon. And once we arrived it was snowing so hard and it was so cold and windy I didn't dare bring out my camera. These pictures are from people's phones, thanks guys. The snowshoeing was great but windy and cold! We got back and ate fruit, crackers, and cheese in a lodge. Our cars had maybe 10 inches of new snow piling up on them.

And then driving back... I think snow driving is honestly my biggest fear. I absolutely hate it, I couldn't even watch and closed my eyes and thought about the cat while we slid all over the roads. We barely skimmed between a car and the curb while nearly sliding into a bus, we crashed into a snowbank, we couldn't even get out of the darn parking lot without several people pushing us. Blah, I can still feel the anxiety, and I'm sure I didn't even see 80% of our close calls.

The freeway was just as bad but more crowded- it took over two hours to make the "40 minute" drive home and we passed innumerable crashed cars and semis that had slid off the road.

Our next big purchase: snow tires! They'll cost around $800, but will be well worth the peace of mind they'll bring.

Kyle and others at the car:

The group resting under the shelter of a bridge

I was really hoping to follow this plow down but it took us too long to get out of the parking lot.

Basement Update

2012-01-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

We finally finished the basement! We did the painting and caulking, and ripped

out the carpet and didn't have to pay the $1,000 deductible.

Here are some photos, even though it looks basically the same:

New carpet that looks like the old new carpet:

New floor and replaced toilet & sink

Our front yard is a little lumpy but who cares?

We took the extra carpet (not the sewage soaked stuff) and carpeted the walls

in the drum room. It muffles the sound well and stops echoes.

Smog Lake City

2011-12-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

This awesome inversion is just wonderful. It keeps the warmth from the sun out of Salt Lake by blocking all it's rays. It holds the pollution and junk in the air so we can smell it's sweet aroma. It promotes S.A.D. disorder by keeping everything cold, gloomy, and grey.

On the other hand, it is really beautiful if you see it from the right perspective.
Hmmm. That sounds like a life lesson.

Photos taken at the park by my house and from the top of Grandeur Peak.

Welcome Home

2011-12-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

We were welcomed home from China with a nice surprise... Our sewer backed up and flooded the basement. Awesome.
It's a $1,000 deductible we pay to our insurance who will pay for the basement repairs. Insurance doesn't cover the sewer line 7 feet deep in our front yard, which runs $3,500 to $7,000 to fix.

I thought for sure we'd just bought ourselves a new sewer line for Christmas and our next 2 birthdays!!

Fortunately, Todd's mad skills prompted him to just fix it himself, with a little help from a professional.

It ended up costing maybe $500, and it looks like we'll be able to do some work on the basement to "take care of" the $1,000 deductible. Yesss!!!

Here's our used-to-be-beautifully-completed laundry room. (Toilet is from bathroom, not a permanent fixture in the laundry room ha ha.)

And what's left of the bathroom:

Todd learned the ropes on the excavator.

And Nat ended up helping too.

Our new best friend Tom

Thanks everyone for your help!!

Lost in Translation

2011-12-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

Here are several things we photographed because they just didn't quite translate as intended.Please throw organisms in trash can:

I'm not exactly sure what this one means:

Hungry? Why wait, grab a noodle horse:

I really like tomatoes.

And corn? Delicious.

If you're thirsty in Hong Kong you can just grab a can of sweat:

So good, don't you dare taste them.

Obamao

Believe it or not we saw a lot of this:

This is the pharmacy.

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some Chinese music videos and soap opera teasers:

China Part Four

2011-12-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

We woke up early and took the scariest ride of our lives. Riding a huge tour bus we made our way to the Longsheng Rice Terraces. Our driver was verrry aggressive. And possibly insane.
The bus driver was passing people as often as he could- bicycles, mopeds, semis, etc. But he was crossing over double solid lines into oncoming traffic like it was nothing. I remember one time in particular we were flying along the wrong side of the road trying to pass a huge truck, with our road turning a corner and disappearing around the mountain side. As we got closer to the blind corner, and were still in the wrong lane, wouldn't you know it-- a semi rounded the bend-- heading straight for us! I was having major anxiety (as were half the people on the bus) and the semi-driver slammed his breaks and flashed his lights madly at us, while veering off to the side of the road. The truck we were trying to pass slammed on their brakes and we just kept zooming along, then our driver finally got back to the correct side of the road without missing a beat, as if he'd planned the whole thing.
The whole bus collectively sighed with relief. We'd all been holding our breaths.

Eventually we made it to the Rice Terraces, and Todd and I decided to break off from the tour and make our own way along the tiny villages.

"During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) minorities were forced to flee to the mountains. Being primarily an agricultural society, they needed to find a way to continue agriculture on the steep sides of the mountains. They ingeniously turned the mountains into fields by creating the terraced fields." This makes for incredible scenery year round.
(www.chinaodysseytours.com)

Tiantau Village on the left:

Ping'an Village on the right:

Farmers hard at work:

There are no roads, but there are stone paths all over the place. Everything is carried on a horse or on your back. The tiny women tried relentlessly to carry our huge backpacks for a fee. Our bags probably weighed half as much as they did.
Todd turning down a hopeful "Sherpa":

The Yao women all wear matching pink outfits, black hair-wraps, and silver earrings. Before modern plumbing existed, they would use the bathroom out in the open in front of everyone from the village. With newspaper covering their faces, and the same clothes as everyone else in the village, their identity was concealed and they could poop without embarrassment. Ha!

Thanks to their updated plumbing, you can see our five star bathroom, where the sink water drains right onto the floor:

We backpacked to Tiantou and found a $6.00 hotel. After hiking around we ate a huge dinner for one dollar. One dollar!
We slept in the next morning, then had some adventures as we backpacked the 4 or 5 hour trip to Ping'an Village. The Yao women are crafty!

The women stop cutting their hair after they turn 18. They let you see their six feet of hair if you pay them first. :) I pretty much felt like a walking dollar sign in these villages.

This photo cost us $2:

One of these things is not like the others...

A few ladies got us to pay them to cook lunch. It cost seven times the amount we would pay at a hotel, but it was still just $7. Plus we got to see their house and watch them cook on their "stove" aka fire-pit-on-the-floor.

The food was good, but we worried about the whole "Chinese use human feces for fertilizer" issue. Luckily we didn't get sick.

Then the women kept trying to force a mysterious drink on us, which we realized was rice wine. I guess tourists give more generous tips when they're tipsy.

We saw a TON of puppies all over the villages, but only two dogs. Then we wondered if the adult dogs were used for their meat. :(

Even less appetizing was the rat-on-a-string you could buy to snack on:

Or how about a dried bird?

Once we made it back to civilization as we know it, we bussed back to Guilin, stayed the night at a hostel, and flew home the next day.

We did, however, have an eight hour layover in Guangzhou, the wholesale capital of the world. There was a place named Shoe City there! A multi level enormous super mall full of just shoe stores. I know a lot of women who would have been in heaven there.
We also spent hours roaming around a high rise building with three wings and multiple levels of stuff. Every imaginable chinese novelty was for sale for cheap. And we bought two pairs of gloves, airplane pillows, and lunch. I guess we're just not Chinese novelty kind of people.

Todd did find a permanent ping pong table in the middle of a city block, and played against some skilled kids. This was the highlight of Guangzhou.

Finally back in the USA, we had an overnight layover in Los Angeles. We ordered a huge American pizza and ate most of it laying in bed watching Seinfeld, then woke up at 3 in the morning and ate the rest of the pizza.
It. Was. Awesome!
It's always SO good to be back in the USA, even if everything costs ten times more. At least we supply toilet paper in our public bathrooms, and keep rodents out of our meals. :)

This trip has been one of my best ever. I loved that everything seemed so different from my "ordinary" life. I loved that hardly anyone spoke English fluently, if at all. I loved that everyone seemed to be a farmer or a fisherman. And I loved the scenery.

I loved China.

China Part Three

2011-12-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

We braved the insanity of the streets and rented mopeds! It was pretty crazy weaving in and out of buses, vans, bicycles, motorcycles, and semis. But we made it to some really cool spots. Here's a low-traffic scenic area:

We swam in the Yulong River and jumped off Dragon Bridge.

Next we went to Shangri La, a touristy park. The boat ride was kinda dumb, but the scenery was phenomenal.

After eating lunch back in Yangshuo we went to the big banyan tree that is thousands of years old. It was beautiful!
A farmer at the banyan tree:

We tried to eat the popular "Beer Duck" but only found two morsels of meat among our dinner's skin, bones, and webbed feet.

Mmmmmm... Yummy...

It was Dave and Mikelle's last day before they flew to Shanghai, so we went back to the firework store that night and bought the biggest pack they had.

We got a lot of stares as we made our way to the river:

I let the boys light this one. Todd said it was, "every 12 year old boy's dream come true."

Dave and Mikelle left the following morning and Todd and I rented an electric scooter and went to the Butterfly Cave and then watched the sun set from Moon Hill. Moon hill is the single reason I have wanted to visit China all these years. It is amazing.

Moon Hill:

The view from Moon Hill:

The following day we moved to Climber's Inn, a hostel full of climbers who let us join them at "The Egg."

We went to dinner with the climbers and stayed up late talking about life with some Canadians. They were really cool and super motivated to live a good life. It was really nice to talk to them.

The next day we tried acupuncture! Todd's wrist has been injured for months and has been recovering very slowly so he had Dr. Lily jab him there. She also stuck a needle in his palm- ouch. His wrist felt a lot better after the acupuncture, maybe that stuff really works?

After watching Todd receive treatment, I opted for a Chinese medicine back massage instead. :) It felt great.

Later on, we went to the Buddha Water Cave. The cave was huge! And very beautiful inside. We dipped in the mud baths which were freezing, then relaxed in the hot springs, which were just perfect.
(We're not naked, just muddy! ;)

We were so tired that night we fell asleep at 6:30. I blame the freezing mud pits.

We got up early to watch the sunrise from Lotus Peak (the tower in Yangshuo.) It was misty and hazy which made the city look mysterious and romantic.

Later we went climbing again, this time on Moon Hill! As if that place wasn't awesome enough without being able to climb all over it! This is May climbing, but Todd and I did some routes too.

We climbed with May and Pat, a couple from Australia who came pretty close to convincing us that we need to move to Australia too. Maybe some day.
It was our last night in Yangshuo so after dinner Todd and I sat by the river and watched the moon rise over the karst towers. I wanted to stay there forever and not come back to Utah at all!

That afternoon we went to the market and were scarred for life by this sight. I'll let you figure out what it is.

Not sure what this hideous thing is:

China Part Two

2011-12-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

After arriving in Guilin we decided to bus/boat down the Li River to Yangshuo. The ride was amazing!! There were karst limestone towers were everywhere and it was stunning!

The Cat:

A fisherman on the river:

Dave and Mikelle:

We walked through some super cool old stone villages:

We ate lunch with our new friends from the boat ride (which tasted a lot better than dim sum!) When we got to Yangshuo we found a $10 hotel and went to a night show created by Ang Lee, the man in charge of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremonies. It was very cool to watch and listen to! Too bad they didn't translate, we had no idea what the show was actually about. :)

The next day we hiked a peak in the park for a nice view of Yangshuo:

Mikelle enjoying the view:

There was a fortune teller at the top and for $0.50 I got to pick my fortune.

Apparently this means good luck: (Actually, I think that's the only thing this guy could say in english, never mind which card I chose)

Dave made a friend named Michael who agreed to take us to the village where he grew up. We took a bus to a tiny village covered with rice fields and helped the Chinese sow the rice!

Rice:

Sesame Seeds:

A farmer hard at work:

It was beautiful, everyone was reserved but quite friendly, and they fed us a lunch of fresh peanuts, chestnuts, and an array of packaged instant snacks. We ate lunch with Michael's mother, and with him translating we were able to ask her about her life. Oh, and of course we drank tea.

Michael's mom:

Her kitchen:

Here's another local farmer showing off his grandchild:

We ended up giving Michael some money to buy a "special dictionary that only he could buy in Guilin." We're pretty sure that was a fib to get our money, but we didn't mind because seeing the farm was so interesting and unforgettable.

Later that night we found a firework store! They're all legal, as long as you light them at the river. We lit a bunch of cool fireworks and then ended with the grand finale. We had an enormous roll of giant fire crackers- at least 6 feet long- and I was nominated to light them since I was holding the lighter. The "wick" was about a third of an inch long, and as I tried and tried to light it I was suddenly aware of explosions in my ears and firework material exploding against my face. Without even thinking I ran away screaming, worried about my ears (and new rip off Northface jacket.) I got firework stuff everywhere! In my hair, my mouth, and I could hardly hear out of my right ear for being so close to the darn thing! After nearly blowing my face off, and when everyone else managed to stop laughing, we found the wick- 6 inches or so with 30 seconds of time to run away.
I'll post the video, it's pretty funny to see me scrambling away in a panic.

China Part One

2011-12-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

Our big trip this year was to China! We started in Hong Kong and met up with Dave and Mikelle, some friends from home.

Utah was stunning when we left it:

Hong Kong is a massive city, with endless sky scrapers. The view at night from Victoria Peak:

We took a ferry to a little fishing village on a mile-wide island. We wanted to go fishing, but how do you act out "take us fishing but we don't want to keep any of the fish?" We thought we'd communicated well, but we ended up with a 2 hour boat ride with no fishing, breathing diesel fumes. Oh well. :)

Our Captain:

The people in China didn't seem very environmentally conscious. Our captain took out a plastic bag with a fish steak in it, put the fish on the boat roof, and tossed the bag right into the sea. It was the most exciting moment of the entire boat ride.

Some of the many boats docked:

Here is an apparently disliked political figure:

Some stuff for sale at the market:
I think these are sea horses. They're also sold at the pharmacy for chinese medicine.

Blow fish skin:

Organs. Thanks to my anatomy class, I could identify most of them and it was pretty strange because they were about human-sized.

I also had my first encounter on this trip with the squat toilet:

There were sometimes normal toilets too:

When we got hungry, we decided to try "Dim Sum," a popular dish among the locals. I got chicken and rice, and after picking through it a bit I found several pieces of meat that didn't look like chicken. Eventually I found one with legs! I was pretty much done with my dim sum upon that discovery!

Dave inspecting his mystery meat meal:

Todd with a mouth full of dim sum:

We went straight to a McDonalds. French fries never tasted so good!

We ended up swimming in the South China Sea- it was full of garbage, but still fun. Sorry no photos of that.

Here's one incredibly tall building (there are a lot of these)

We made it back to our hotel in one piece. Here's the tiny bathroom where you can shower, brush your teeth, and use the toilet all at once:

After a few days in Hong Kong we took a hard sleeper train to Guilin on the mainland. It was a bit tight, but we didn't care- it was comfortable!

Mikelle snoozing:

There wasn't much to do but take photos and play games with some local Chinese. Todd made a friend and had some interesting conversation on the trip. He and Dave played the bubble game on Todd's I-phone with a toddler who nearly broke the screen slamming her finger into it. It was pretty funny.

Todd's "friend"

With nothing else to do we pretty much stared at eachother till we got tired. Todd's eye:

And then we fell asleep.

RAV4

2011-10-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

We got a new (used) car! It's a 2006 Toyota Rav4 with 78k miles on it. And it is bright, bright red.

RAV4 means "Recreation Active Vehicle with 4 wheel drive." That suits us perfectly!

My nephew Asher needed a good commuting car, and I sold him my Camry(which I loved) so he
could drive to college. Well, within a week the darn car was totaled! :(

My poor nephew!!! Someone hit him hard and he cracked the windshield with
is head and wrapped his torso around the steering wheel. :( :( :(
And he's the one who was ticketed. :(

But-- he is OK and I think a little excited since now he can use the insurance moneyto buy the car
of his dreams! No more cool college kid driving an old iris colored auntie's car named Butter Bunz. :)
I think he's looking for a truck.

Anyhow...

I LOVE the new car- it is an SUV but gets 27 mpg and it has optional third row seats that fold down.
We could have 5 kids and be fine! (Or 5 cats that can be safely seat belted in.)

This isn't actually our car, but I don't have a photo of it. It looks exactly the same though.

I hope it lasts us 20 years! Unless another niece or nephew needs a good car for a good deal, that is :)

...I'd like to document for my future self that we paid cash for this $14k car! I am so proud of us. That's a lot of stinkin' money.

The P.E.

2011-10-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

For the past four months Todd has been studying for the PE exam. It is an eight hour hard core
crazy exam. He has to take it to become a Professional Engineer, which can happen after working
for four years as an Engineer In Training. (He became an EIT upon passing the Fundamentals of
Engineering exam- another eight hour test you can take before graduating from college.)

This test is very important in most engineers' careers, as it allows them to approve and supervise
projects like bridge or building construction, street maintenance projects, storm drain
construction, etc.

However, I want my husband back!

I try to stay out of his way since he has serious eight to ten hour study sessions and practice
exams on a regular basis (seriously!) But I'm running out of things I've wanted to do alone.
Like blog about the PE exam :)

The test is a week from Saturday, and Todd won't be the only one overjoyed that he's put it
behind him!

Let's hope he passes and he doesn't have to

do this all over next year!

I just have to document that Todd is so SMART!!! He just amazes me with his self discipline and
commitment to school, work, and everything else he does. I feel so lucky to be married to him.

I sure love that man! :)

This is one of many study books. It is a hair shy of
three inches thick and it weighs a ton!

Notice the clock. 8:18 pm.This is how we spend our romantic
Friday and Saturday nights. And come to think of it we spend
most other nights like this too.

Here are most of his study materials.

My smart babe!

Shifting

2011-10-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was invited to a book-release party a couple weeks ago for a new

book called Shifting. The book is awesome! Paranormal teen isn't typically a

book I'd choose to read, but I literally could not put Shifting down!

Highly recommended for anyone. :)

The beautiful author, Bethany Wiggins:

Author and full time mommy of four!

(I know, she's amazing :)

Signing autographs:

A few of her local fans:

Pittsburgh!

2011-10-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

I have finally found time to blog about my latest trip to Pittsburgh.

It was a great trip! I stayed with Carlee and Brett and took a photoshop/photography

class while I was there. And the class was awesome!

It rained on us, but I didn't care-- it was just fun to be away and relax. Car and

I got facials, went to a movie, ate delecious Thai food, etc. and it was great.

Everything is cooler in Pittsburgh. Look at this cathedral!

The sunrise on my flight home.

We took about 40 pictures of ourselves got a good laugh at most of them. I guess we haven't changed much since tenth grade. :)

The Dirty Dash

2011-10-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

This was the funnest six miles I've ever run! And it wasn't easy... We had to jump

over walls, climb over huge hay bales, climb jungle-gyms, run through endless tires,

crawl through big tubes, wade through swamps, make our way over slippery balance

beams, rope swing, slip-n-slide, etc. etc. etc. And we did all those things in MUD!

And the grand finale? Three pools of four feet deep mud to jump into! I'll let the

pictures do the rest of the talking. :)

Myself, some co-workers, and Natalie pre-race:
We think we are so clever. (We really are ;) Preparing for our flight through the mud
Scaling walls (that's Nat) Scaling jungle-gyms (Abbie, Brooke, Caitlyn, Kim, and Teri)
The top of the slip-n-slide

Half way down the slide (yes that is my bum- shows how crazy it was somersaulting down the slide) The pits at the finish line:
Natalie is nuts (and brave)
See the strain in my neck? My whole body was that tense anticipating the impact:
And she's submerged!   But we survived! Yay! (And it was cold, tee hee)
Nat and I crossed the finish line again when everyone else caught up. Notice the legs at the bottom right of the photo:  And those legs belong to the mud-monster Caitlyn!! Ha ha!

We're wild women!

Triathalon!

2011-09-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

I did my first triathlon yesterday- what a workout!
After watching my mom do all the training, and then complete her first triathlon last Summer, I figured I could complete one too. (I even thought it might be a little easy but boy was I wrong!) Sue, Asher, Natalie, Harrison, my mom and I all did it.

The swim was great- I love the feel of water on my skin, and I surprised myself by passing my family members ahead of me. But I also floundered and gasped most of the way.

The bike went really well... Until I got lost. I ended up at the finish line before someone told me I had to turn around, get back on course and repeat the loop I'd already done. And then my chain locked up and I had to fix it. That cost me a few minutes at least. But I didn't give up.

The run was very difficult- my legs were exhausted and really had trouble running after that long bike ride. But I was able to run the whole time, except up hills, and just before the finish line.

And then I finished! Hooray!

We all went back and crossed the finish line with mom and Sue (Sue also got lost on the run, not to mention didn't really train for this thing at all.)

Asher my grown up nephew did great, beat my time out of the water, even on a slow mountain bike.

Sprinting across the finish line is my favorite part :)

Go Sue!

YAY MOM!!! You're a rock star!

Nat and Harrison had already crossed the finish line by the time Todd (our photographer) arrived. Nat got second place in her group! Harrison got 7th, I think. H beat N by 7 seconds- which happened exactly at the last tri they did together. 7 must be their lucky number. Maybe they'll have 7 kids. Or 7 dogs.

My support team:
Todd would have done this race with us but sprained his wrist and hasn't really been able to do anything for weeks. :(

Grrr we are tough!

Hooray

I finished in 1 hour 30 minutes and I think I was 9th in my division (darn getting lost and jammed chain!) Better luck next time.

PS: After the race I took a 2 hour nap, went to bed early, woke up late today and took another 2 hour nap this afternoon. My body feels like it was hit by a truck- this was a hard race! Can I say again that my mom is super cool?!!

Lake Powell

2011-09-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

This was a GREAT trip!! It's nice to have a kitchen and shower while staying on Lake Powell. Good friends, good fun, gorgeous scenery!

There were tons of spiders, I have more pics on the other blog: http://brittasphotography.blogspot.com/2011/09/lake-powell.html

Look at how big my muscles look! :)

This was awesome to see- some pro divers doing tricks.

Todd going down the slide

Our Hotel

DJ loved cliff diving and had never done it before

Todd had fun too, even tough he's in a brace

Mr. Joe "cherry picker" Anderson

The girls

Curtis "boat-daddy"

DJ "raining men"

Happy Curits

Brooke "Boss woman"

'Till next time!

Paint Night

2011-08-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

This post is overdue but I wanted to record my talented niece's and nephew's accomplishments :)

Todd and I had 13 of them over (nieces and nephews) and everyone painted a canvas. Then 10 slept over, and Todd filmed a movie with them in the morning. It was so fun!!

Here are most of the finished paintings:

Oops, blurry

Hard at work

My grown up nephew helping his sister-- doesn't he look like Christian Bale in this photo?

Picknick

2011-08-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

We went on a picknick a couple weeks ago and I took tons of pictures for fun. I have about 50 of Todd making goofy faces, and three of him actually smiling. It was pretty funny trying to trick him into making a serious face, and we laughed and laughed...

Here are a few:

Sometimes the picture just before and just after a jump are the funniest ones.

Poor Todd and his lame-o wrist brace. Another freak injury for my poor husband!

This is actually 2 pictures combined- we were pretiending to sit at a floating table. I put Todd's pic into mine for fun.

2011-08-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

We were invited to camp at Calf Creek Falls with some nieces and nephews this weekend. It was awesome! Great camping, pleasant hike, beautiful (cold) waterfall, and monstrous thunderstorm-flash flood!

Luckily we were back in the parking lot by the time the monsoon hit- but it literally was dumping rain in sheets while we ran around and played in it. :) And the thunder was amazing- it was super loud, and echoed through the hundreds of slot canyons in the area and rumbled way longer than any thunder I'd ever heard. And then we saw waterfalls forming along all the top cliff lines, water gushing into canyons below. Then a new layer of waterfall would form half way down the cliffs, muddy and red, still gushing wildly toward the ground. After a few of these layers, the violent flood finally the flood made it to our level in the parking lot and zoomed straight for us- then was routed away and down along the side of the road. (Thank you, civil engineering!)

Now THAT was cool!

Hiking in:

Nathan, Jessica, and Heather go for the freezing plunge:

Todd and I goofing off as usual:

Emily (on the right) looks like her hair is taking over her face, ha ha:

More goofing off:

We spotted this fat mermaid on the beach:

Todd professes his love for m and the cat:

Todd's Picassoesque- earth art: those eyelashes are definitely Hammond eyelashes!

These Hammond cousins are all best friends- and they have so much fun together!

The hike was beautiful and perfect temperature in the morning. But very hot on the way out.

While camping I got Todd to pose with me for a romantic shot:

know I have a lot of star photos, but I just can't get enough of these babies. They're so fun to take!

We took some light graffiti pics as well:

Bedroom Update

2011-07-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

I've refinished a bed for our room (now we need a bigger mattress.) Also a few more finishing touches.

Close up of the new painting:

And... Todd was out of town all weekend, and I'd found a cabinet at a garage sale, so I installed a cabinet myself! It took me 6 hours between watching youtube videos, measuring and remeasuring, and trips to Lowe's. And the darn thing was very heavy- difficult to lift, hold against wall, level for accuracy, draw lines with pencil, and drill at the same time. All while standing on a toilet. But I love it- and I'm proud of it! :)
I also got a road bike for 5 bucks and... can you believe it... I took it apart myself and fixed the brakes and tires! I'm a whiz when Todd is gone. Probably because I can't bug him to do all the hard stuff for me.

Trip Report: The Nose, El Capitan

2011-07-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

I (Todd) climbed the Nose with my brother Mark in early June 2011. I had wanted to climb it for more than 10 years. Soon before I graduated from high school, my friend Carter convinced me to do it with him. He had zero big wall climbing experience and I had climbed only one big wall: “Prodigal Son” on the Northeast face of Angels Landing, which is only one third the length of the Nose. Our plan was to train by doing a few multi-pitch routes near home, go down to Zion and climb Prodigal Son (for my 2nd time), and then attempt the Nose. Because we would be climbing in Zion in the heat of summer, we made up something called “heat training”, which lasted no more than a day. Heat training involved wearing layers of winter clothing to our highschool classes and drinking nothing but warm water from a thermos. It was more about getting a reaction from our friends than anything else. On our way down to Zion, our car broke down, which gave Carter’s parents an excuse to step in and forbid him from doing any more training. It was probably for the better because based on our training plan we wouldn't have been well prepared to climb the Nose.

An internet photo showing the Nose. The first 600 feet are out of view.

Summer 2010, a decade later, I got a text message from my little brother Mark who also didn't have any big wall experience. He asked if I’d want to climb the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. I was interested but as we talked more about it we decided for various reasons to go for the Nose instead. For a month we trained in Little Cottonwood a couple times a week and climbed longer multi-pitch routes on the weekends. Then we spent 10 days in Yosemite in October where we climbed the East Buttress of El Capitan, the South Face of Washington Column (in 2 days), and the first four pitches of the Nose, among other routes. Our training was going reasonably well so we scheduled a return trip for the first part of June when we’d attempt the Nose. We picked early June for its long days and for having the best chance of good weather. Scheduling vacation from work is always a gamble when the weather is such a critical factor, so we tried to put the odds in our favor. The only downside of June is that it may be the most popular time of year to climb the Nose, so dealing with crowds becomes a major issue. In the Spring we resumed our training by climbing Touchstone Wall in Zion, the desert tower Jah Man in Castle Valley, and lots of shorter routes in Little Cottonwood.

Spring 2011 turned out to be relatively wet and cold, even in Yosemite where one climber claimed it was the worst spring in 20 years. The forecast was so bad that we delayed our trip a few days despite not being able to add them to the end of the trip. Mark, Britt, and I headed out on Saturday, June 4 and drove through heavy rain in the Sierra Nevadas. Our cloth roof bag actually did well keeping things dry. The Tioga Pass was still closed so we drove the 13 hour route, passing through Sacramento. We had a camp site reserved in Yosemite Valley that night.

We crammed ourselves and all the gear into

my trusty Civic Hatchback

Sunday morning we got up early and stood in line to snag a site in Camp 4. The rainy weather had driven all the crowds away from the valley, so there were plenty of vacant sites there. We were glad to see the sun shine and dry out most of the rock by early afternoon. Without skipping a beat, climbers all around Camp 4 were racking up and heading out to the crags and we decided to follow suit. Three parties were already starting up the Nose, so we decided to kill some time in Yosemite Village until the log jam cleared up. Back in El Cap meadow, as we were racking up, a group of Japanese tourists approached us treating us like celebrities, and took a group photo with us.

The pitches average about 120 feet each. I’m at Belay 1 and Mark is leading Pitch 2.

Around 4:30pm, Mark and I scrambled up to the start of Pitch 1 (P.1). I led the first pitch and unfortunately found that the crack was very wet, which made it take longer and feel much harder than the last time I climbed it. Wet rock requires less free climbing (faster and more fun) and more aid climbing (slower and more tedious). Mark led P.2 and took a couple falls but wasn’t fazed by them. He then had to wait 15 minutes for a party of three North Carolinians ahead of us to clear off from the belay station so he could fix the lead rope for me to ascend. Mark also led P.3 and, again, we had to wait for the party of three. By the time I started to lead P.4 the sun was setting. P.4 is technically the most difficult of all 31 pitches to aid climb and I was a little nervous about the dimming light so I climbed it aggressively, remembering the technique from the last time I climbed it.

Lightning in Yosemite Valley. Britt took this photo while we were finishing Pitch 4.

By the time I got onto Sickle Ledge, it was dark, other than flashes of lightning from a thunderstorm that was brewing. The thunder was rumbling through the valley and I was quickly fixing the lead rope for Mark and setting up the rappel. Meanwhile, team North Carolina was getting ready to do the 600’ rappel and fix their ropes with only one headlamp between the three of them. Mark had some problems cleaning P.4 because a loop of his rope got snagged below him. While he was still coming up I was sure that we were about to get drenched by rain so I put all my rain gear on and worked feverishly at untangling a gigantic knot that had mysteriously formed in one of the ropes. By the time Mark reached the belay station, I had sorted through everything and we were able to start rappelling. The thunder and lightning fizzled out without ever releasing more than a few drops of rain, so I took my time fixing our three 60 meter ropes to the ground. Britt was waiting for us at the car in El Cap Meadow with a pot of pasta for me and Mark to share.

Rain was forecasted for the next day (Monday) so we decided to make it a rest day other than hauling our bags up to Sickle Ledge in the evening and rappelling back down. The North Carolinians said they didn’t mind us starting up the Nose extra early (ahead of them) Tuesday morning, so our plan was to wake up at 3:30 am to ascend our fixed lines by headlamp and commit to the whole route. Unfortunately my alarm clock didn’t go off and we all slept in until around seven. This of course ruined our plans to get a head start and beat all the crowds of climbers that would converge on the Nose that day. All the rainy weather caused a pent up demand to climb the Nose, and it was the first day of a forecast calling for at least a week of beautiful weather.

We decided to go investigate the action on the Nose anyway, racking up in case there was an opportunity to jump on the route. We arrived at the base of our fixed lines and saw a few parties just past Sickle Ledge and the North Carolinians at Sickle, slowly hauling their bags up. A party of two Japanese showed up ready to ascend their ropes up to Sickle and there were a few other parties climbing the first pitches, nearing Sickle. It was the typical “clusterfuck” of crowds on the Nose, and I didn’t feel like adding to the mayhem on Sickle Ledge, especially so late in the day. I suggested getting an early start the next morning. Mark was more inclined to just jump on right then and get started before the route got even more crowded. We had a portaledge which meant we wouldn’t have to worry about making it to a bivy ledge before dark. We stood there for what seemed like hours, debating about what to do. Finally I insisted that it was too late to start and we started hiking back to the car. Mark still wanted to jump on and I started having doubts about waiting. After 10 minutes of hiking I gave in, turned around, and started quickly hiking back up. Mark gladly joined in and Britt trailed behind, confused by my erratic behavior.

Debating at the base of our fixed lines

We ascended our fixed ropes up to Sickle around noon, letting the extra ropes fall down for Britt to collect. The North Carolinians were right in front of us and already having problems hauling their bags. I led P.5 and P.6, linking them together and wedged myself inside a corner at the top of the Sickle formation just 15’ below the hanging belay station occupied by the three North Carolinians. I waited there for a long time while the team argued about their hauling woes. Eventually they decided to bail and while lowering their bags back down to Sickle Ledge, one of their bags somehow clipped into a cam that I had placed in a crack. Mark teamed up with one of the North Carolinians to free the bags which probably weighed 150 pounds. My cam was destroyed in the process.

Team North Carolina’s haul bags being lowered to Sickle Ledge

By late afternoon the North Carolinians were on their way down and Mark and I were ready to start P.7. A party of climbers (Laura from Colorado and Andrew from South Africa) joined us at the already-crowded hanging belay. They assumed that Mark and I were going to move slowly and said they planned to pass us. But Mark was already leading and he surprised them by quickly climbing a variation linking the next two pitches that traverse into the Stovelegs. The wind picked up by then and made our ropes and aiders constantly whip around and get tangled. Mark hauled up the bags while I lowered them out toward the Stovelegs. It was necessary to lower the bags out because otherwise they would swing into a corner and possibly burst open. By the time I jugged the lead rope up to Mark we were parched because neither of us had drank anything since breakfast. We opted not to bring personal hydration packs because we had a haul bag, but it really drained our energy to go long periods of time without drinking despite the cool temperatures. With Laura and Andrew well behind us we took the time to rehydrate and snack before moving on.

Mark cleaning a pitch in the Stovelegs

I led an amazing long pitch of perfect hand jams up the Stoveleg Crack. The crack size stayed the same for the bulk of the pitch, which forced me to back clean most of my protection. By the end of the pitch, I was extremely tired from all the back cleaning so I resorted to hang-dogging. As Mark led P.9, thick clouds moved in and shrouded the summit. Just as he finished the pitch, it started to pour rain. We were both wearing rain jackets because of the cold wind, but we didn’t expect rain that day. Mark and I helplessly hung at our stations, 130 feet apart, getting drenched, even in parts under our rain jackets. Growing sheets of water ran down the wall. Mark happened to be in a bad spot that funneled a small waterfall directly over him. After about 20 minutes, rain turned to hail and then died down enough for us to act. We could have made it to the big ledge on Dolt Tower that evening had it not rained but now our only concern was to get dry and warm because the temperature was dropping into the 40's.

Mark nearing the top of Pitch 9 just minutes before we got hit by a rain storm

Britt came in on the two way radio to tell us she was headed back to camp for the night and, surprisingly, didn’t seem too concerned about us. In contrast I felt that a long and chaotic night was only beginning. However, I tried to keep my cool and objectively relate the facts to her: we got wet and we might have to bail if conditions didn’t improve. Britt interjected with “No!, don’t bail!” As I learned later, “don’t bail” was the advice some big wall veterans wanted her to pass on to us earlier that day. It was said that 60% of first attempts on the Nose end in retreat, and in most cases the reasons are psychological. So in other words, the advice was to not give in to our fears.

Immediately after talking to Britt I pulled out the portaledge to set it up and unfortunately the wind picked up at the same time. Trying to set up a portaledge from a hanging belay in the wind has to be one of the most frustrating and futile tasks I’ve ever attempted. The Metolius portaledge is described as "cantankerous," even without wind, so when it starts behaving like a kite you’re better off saving your energy. It took me about 20 minutes of wrestling with the portaledge, being whipped around like a rag doll, to realize it wouldn't work. The gusts of wind wouldn’t let up long enough to make any progress and it was already dark, so I yelled up to Mark and told him to rappel down so we could bail. I was really disappointed to admit failure, but there seemed to be no other safe option. By the time I got everything packed up, the wind died down significantly and Mark was still setting up his rappel, so I decided to unpack the portaledge again and give it another try. This time I got it set up – we wouldn’t have to bail! I basked in an emotional high with my triumph over the portaledge and bragged up to Mark just as he was rappelling down. Back up he went to fix the ropes so we could ascend them the next morning. By the time he made it back down I had unpacked the haul bag and changed into dry clothes. We ate a warm dinner and talked to Britt again over the radio.

Wednesday morning we woke up at first light, took care of business, and racked up. We could see the lower pitches of the Nose being populated, including a “Nose-in-a-Day” team quickly approaching us. By the time we were ready to climb, they were at our belay station, so we waited 20 minutes for them to pass. During this time Mark dropped his new helmet while applying sun block. We later radioed Britt and asked her to find it but somebody beat her to it. I linked P.10 and P.11 to Dolt Tower, again having to back clean long stretches of a fist-size crack. I felt that this pitch was the most physically draining of all pitches I led on the Nose. The hauling was also difficult because of severe rope drag over Dolt Tower and invisible features that snagged the haul bag.

On top of Dolt Tower we relaxed for a while and laid out clothes to dry. Then a party of climbers ahead of us bailed from El Cap Tower because they weren’t moving as fast as they needed to, so we had to wait for them to get down past us. Mark linked P.12 and P.13 and I led the remaining pitch to El Cap Tower where an Austrian team was on an intersecting route. Mark then led the Texas Flake which is a 40’ long squeeze chimney protected by one bolt half way up. I led the Boot Flake pitch, taking a short fall when a nut placement popped out.

A shot taken by Andrew of Mark in action on the King Swing

Mark lucked out again with another money pitch, the King Swing off of Boot Flake. I lowered him down 70-100’ until there was a big enough radius for him to do a massive pendulum to a crack out left. He gave it several attempts, each time asking to be lowered a few more feet. Once or twice while running along the wall he slipped on the rock and tumbled out of control. After six or seven attempts, he made it over and slowly climbed back up a wet crack system about 50’ to my left. By the time he reached belay 17, it was dark. After the bags were hauled over to his station, I rappelled out and ascended the lead rope to clean the pitch. Belay 17 turned out to be a terrible spot for a portaledge because it was located in a big low-angled scoop. Instead of killing a bunch of time by rappelling to a more accomodating station, we gave it a try. Just when we seemed to get it level, the portaledge would shift on us. I tested a large flake of rock above and to the right of us to see if we could use it for an anchor, but was shocked to feel the flake move! We settled for the unstable but bolted belay station. The haul bag was pinched such that we couldn’t access all of our bivy gear without a ridiculous amount of effort. I knew we wouldn’t get much, if any, sleep that night and wondered if we would be too tired to keep climbing the next day. As we tried to figure things out, Britt came in on the radio to check in and say good night. She sounded so cozy on the valley floor and I tried to sound optimistic. I slept on the outer edge which was sloped down and away from the wall. Therefore Mark ended up sliding down onto me. We spooned all night which, although uncomfortable, actually had the benefit of keeping us somewhat warm without access to our pads and bivy sacks. As expected we got very little sleep that night.

Our terrible Wednesday night bivy

Yosemite Valley on Wednesday night. A speck of light from our headlamps is visible halfway up the Nose

Thursday morning I am seen taking down the red portaledge. Other climbers are on the Boot Flake. Tom Evans photo

Thursday morning was very cold and our hands were swollen and sore, but after the morning routine I felt surprisingly energized to keep climbing. I belayed Mark from the portaledge while he led P.18/19 to the optional belay. We left our haul bag there and traversed through the Grey Bands to Camp IV. Mark led P.21 which leads up and right to the base of the Great Roof pitch and then we hauled our bags up from where we left them. At this point two Nose-in-a-Day parties passed us. One of them was a really young guy named Mason who was climbing solo.

Mark cleaning the Great Roof

Looking down at more than 2,000 feet of air from Belay 22.

I led the Great Roof pitch and Mark led the famous Pancake Flake which features spectacular and exposed free climbing up a juggy flake. Half way up he passed a ledge and then began aid climbing a difficult section when his cam hook popped out of the crack. He took a 10-15’ fall upside down, coming to a stop not far above the ledge. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet since he lost his, so after that we started having the leader wear my helmet. I led P.24 which featured a nasty flaring crack in a deep corner. I groveled my way up to the complex of natural ledges known as Camp V. We set up the portaledge next to the largest of the natural ledges and enjoyed the extra space to move around. Britt lost her two way radio that day so we hadn’t heard from her. We did see a head lamp from El Cap Meadow flashing on and off but didn’t flash back because we didn’t know it was her. She later told us that it was her, and everybody on the wall except us flashed her back. As usual we didn’t get to bed until after midnight and had to wake up at first light to stay ahead of the crowds below. The sleep we did get was blissful.

Friday morning at Camp V

On Friday morning our hands were even more swollen and sore. It took a while before I could even close them all the way. Mark led up to the Glowering Spot and then I led up to Camp VI. Laura and Andrew caught up to us and I chatted with them at the Camp VI ledge while Mark led the Changing Corners pitch. This pitch took a very long time partly because it was so wet and mossy. Mark also used the beta that made him go a harder and longer way that cuts right into the corner before reaching the top of the bolt ladder. Andrew had better beta and was able to lead it very quickly so they were on our tail again. I was confident we could finish the climb that day. I led P.28 and fell trying to free climb a 5.10d section. Mark led another very long and wet pitch which took us to the “Wild Stance” where you get an impressive view of the southeast face and the route below you. Unfortunately all three of our cameras were dead. I led P.30 which was short but involved fun free climbing up a flake. Mark quickly ascended up to Belay 30 and I kept leading up a bolt ladder that goes up and over a giant overhanging bulge to complete the final pitch. The rope drag up this pitch was incredibly bad. From belay 31 the technical climbing is over and all that remains is some exposed scrambling up to level ground and the “summit tree” where speed climbers mark the end of the route. I belayed Mark up to the tree where he set up an anchor and belayed me while I shuttled loads up to the tree. We finished at sundown.

Mark at Belay 27 above the Changing Corners. Tom Evans photo

Britt was planning on meeting us up at the summit so instead of celebrating I was immediately wondering where she was. I didn’t know if she got lost or if she was safe, and of course we couldn’t communicate since she lost her two way radio. We saw a campfire several hundred yards up the slope. After the joyous act of removing all our gear and harnesses, I ran up to see whose fire it was. It turned out to be a team of Spaniards who were out of water after finishing a different El Cap route, so I donated three liters of our water to them. We briefly got lost just trying to get back to where Mark was, which made me realize Britt probably couldn’t have found the top of the Nose because there was no trail.

Mark and I ate dinner and found flat spots to sleep on next to the summit tree. It was very cold at the top – lower 40’s or upper 30’s. Saturday morning we slept in. For the hike down we divided up all our gear the best we could. One of us carried all the climbing gear and the other carried all the bivy gear (including portaledge) inside the haul bag. Unfortunately we left the haul bag waist strap with Britt. We saw a climber passing by and asked if he had seen her. He had actually met her on El Cap Bridge the previous day but said she probably wouldn’t have been able to find her way to El Capitan from the Yosemite Falls Trail. We all figured that she probably tried to come up but turned around when the trail disappeared. We hiked/scrambled down to the East Ledges rappels having some difficulty with the haul bag. On the way down I said “I wonder what’s up with Britt?” Literally within a few seconds Britt’s voice came in on my two way radio: “Todd and Mark, are you there? This is Brittany. Can you hear me?” I responded but then she didn’t reply. A minute later her voice came in again, saying the exact same thing. We could hear her but she couldn’t hear us. We tried to respond with Mark’s radio but that didn’t work either, so we just kept moving on, helplessly listening to Britt’s calls every 5 or 10 minutes. It was obvious in her voice that she was getting frustrated and worried about us. At least it confirmed she was safe on the valley floor and not lost in the wilderness. We rappelled about 500’ off the East Ledges and switched loads. More steep downward scrambling and hiking brought us to a picnic area and parking lot at the valley floor. I went straight for the garbage receptacle and emptied out our poop tube. Neither of us realized that we could have caught the shuttle bus from that point so we just walked about two miles along the flat road back to our site at Camp 4. It was nice to be walking over flat terrain for the first time in four days. The joy of completing our climb was finally sinking in for me. Our descent from El Cap took three or four hours.

Red = The Nose (the bottom portion of the Nose is actually out of view).

Blue = Our descent via the East Ledges

Back at Camp 4 we dumped off our stuff and relaxed a while, eating and drinking. I started walking around camp, asking if I could borrow a two way radio to contact Britt but nobody had one and the park ranger wouldn’t let me use hers. I gave up and took a nap on the ground at our site, eventually moving into our tent. I woke up to a sound of stomping and heavy breathing coming toward my tent. It was Britt. As she threw open the tent door she was in tears and I thought she was angry with me. I spewed out my explanations of the malfunctioning two way radios and how I tried to contact her. She just threw her arms around me and sobbed. She told me how worried she had been because we weren’t responding and she expected us to be down much sooner that morning, and she was emotional because she was happy and relieved to see me. We spent a while telling each other stories from the last few days and then headed for the car with Mark. There were two things I was craving. First, a shower; second, pizza. We made a stop in El Cap Meadow to return a two way radio that Britt had borrowed. Britt took some pictures of me and Mark with the Nose in the background. A glorious warm shower in Curry Village was followed by pizza at The Loft in Yosemite Village. On Sunday morning we packed up and headed out, stopping at El Cap Bridge to thank Tom Evans for taking photos of us with his telephoto lens. The Tioga Pass was still closed so we made the extra long drive again, returning home after midnight.

A happy ending the story, other than us finishing our climb, is that Mark pretty much got a new helmet for nothing. While we were on the wall, Britt met some climbers that were staying in Camp 4 under the radar. One of them asked Britt if he could stay in Mark’s tent since it wasn’t being used in trade for some beer. She said Mark wouldn’t want beer but he would want a new helmet. The climber, named Dario was an employee of Miguel’s Pizza/Climbing Shop (the climbing hub of the Eastern US) and just happened to have a really nice spare helmet with him that had been at the lost & found for too long. He gladly gave it to Mark when we got back down.

Mesa Verde Family Trip

2011-07-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

We spent the last few days in South West Colorado with Todd's family. We rode this awesome train, saw amazing Native American ruins, and ate a lot of good food. I't s great to spend time with family from out of town!

The drive was stormy and rainy- which made for some great pictures:

Rainstorm:

Calder in his "happy place." He used to work for the railroad, and has a love for trains.

This was the best starry sky I think I've ever seen. It was beautiful!

Bedroom Makeover

2011-06-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

I had the day off from work and didn't want to spend it sitting around or watching movies. So on a whim I bought a gallon of paint and redid our bedroom. :)

I've also been refinishing a table & chairs I bought at a garage sale for $40, and finally completed that project. It took me forever with work and vacationing, but I love how they turned out.

Bedroom before:

The paint I bought wasn't dark enough so I found some old black and some dark brown paint to mix in (and thought it looked cool:)

I painted subliminal messages into the wall, ha ha:

And after all the work:

I got a cool frame for $3 at a garage sale, and after refinishing it hung my wedding bouquet :)

Here's the beautiful chair cushion I sadly removed to reupholster:

And the table with paint stains and lots of scratches:

I ripped the fabric off the cushions:

And stapled new fabric on:

I also refinished the wood table top- sanded, stained, and applied poly-acrylic. And I repainted the chairs and table legs to lighten them a bit.

The grand finale:

Yosemite June 2011

2011-06-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

We went back to Yosemite this month for eight whole days! (It's usually a 14 hour drive there and back for a three day event.) It was awesome! I don't want to say too much about Todd and his brother Mark, because Todd PROMISED me he would blog about his adventure. :)

But I will say that he completed one of his life goals! And while he and his brother were climbing I was free to drive and hike around and do whatever I felt like. It was really fun to be on vacation without having to accommodate anyone else, lol! I enjoyed the solitude, especially because it basically forced me to make friends with anyone willing to chat.

I met some really cool people, had some great talks, and will never forget some of the things I learned from them. But enough of that, and now for some photos!

As usual, to see more photos click the other blog:
www.brittasphotography.blogspot.com

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls

The guys gearing up for the day:

Sizing up the challenge

See how much fun I was having all alone? ha ha

My man

OK, this might give away what Todd has promised he'll write about- but do you see the climbers on top of the boot-shaped flake of rock?

That is Todd on the top left part of the boot, and Mark is running below and to the left of the boot doing the "King Swing."

Can you see that same boot-flake on this cliff face? Look really closely...
And I'm serious- just look for it before you scroll to the next pic.

Here it is:

C.R.A.Z.Y!

What kind of adventurous, free spirited, active, fun, free, wild guy did I marry?!?

One who can keep up with me.

(Ha ha, if only! ;)

Goblin Valley

2011-06-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

We went camping in Goblin Valley state park with some friends. It was a little windy... OK, it was a LOT windy... but it was still fun. :) The wind blasted the sand so hard against our legs it was painful!
But I took a million photos because there is so much beauty in the desert. (To see the frameworthy photos, click here: http://brittasphotography.blogspot.com/2011/06/goblin-valley.html )

Dave and Mikelle

Dave and Mikelle

Self Portrait

We found this awesome river to play in. It was almost as amazing as the beach. Almost.

Riding in the Rain

2011-05-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

I picked the wrong week to start riding my bike to work.
Actually, I didn't have a choice- my car was in the shop and it sounded better than sharing a car- with our crazy and random schedules.

It's been an incredibly wet year. Everyone's worried about the pending floods that are sure to ruin basements galore when it heats up enough to melt the snow. I rode my bike (and trax one-way) to and from work through the rain for a couple days. It was very wet. And the 100 minute ride home involved climbing a fence (with my bike) trudging through mud puddles in construction sites on busy roads, getting lost and backtracking multiple times, and a $40 bill from the car-repair guy for "having no idea what's wrong" with my car. [This is after I paid him $850 last week for a repair that I "may not have needed."]) Awesome.

Needless to say, my bottom is bruised from the darn bike seat and I'm relieved to have my car back! But I think I'll start biking once or twice a week... when the weather warms up and dries out.

And seriously, it was kinda fun. :) And I'm just really glad that I can afford a $890 bill right now. It could be worse!

Spelunking

2011-05-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday my super cool brother-in-law took us caving caving in the Spanish Moss Cave in Rock Canyon. It was a little scary but mostly really cool! I haven't rappelled down a twisty tight corridor before- I'm used to lowering off a wall or through thin air. So that added an element of fun :)

Asher and Todd getting ready to Spelunk!

After a serious hike/scramble we reached a locked hatch. (Luckily we had the key, ha ha.)
Harrison, the master spelunker setting up the first rappel:

We rappelled down this tight corridor- here's Nat:

Todd coming in after me: (Keep in mind everything is PITCH BLACK except our headlamp light.)

And then we reached this ledge lined with sandbags.

Then descended into the abyss:

It was very slippery and slimy- we got nice and dirty.

Then there's a series of awesome formations all over the walls, ceiling, and floor we navigated along to reach the bottom:

The lighting changes the look of the cave walls:

We had a lot of fun playing with flashes and lights:

And we met Michael Jackson's Ghost:

He got in a fight with Asher:

And then with Harrison:

Luckily, he didn't win. And we climbed, ascended, and hiked out alive. It was so cool! I've got to do it again some time!

More Art

2011-05-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying this new painting-thing! I could hardly wait to finish this one so I could start the next.
I have to admit that I copied a painting I found on http://www.etsy.com/ to create this masterpiece. The next thing I paint won't be a knockoff, lol! (Starry Night, and now this.)

Happy Easter!

2011-04-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

We are blurry monsters! Happy Easter, Rar!

I had such a fun Easter this year! My friend Becca had 2 free snowboarding passes for the last day of the season at Brighton. To save money, Todd stayed home and let me use the pass.
Becca and I started the day by waking up at 4:30 a.m. and took the tram up to Snowbird to watch the sunrise. They do it every year for free, and supply hot chocolate and have an Easter service. It was awesome.
We then came down the valley and ate breakfast at Rich's bagels, meeting some people who were headed up to Brighton as well.
The snowboarding was GREAT. It reminded me why I used to love it so much. It was warm and beautiful and challenging and hard and we did jumps and spins and tricks. Or tried to jump and spin and trick anyway. I wish Todd were there with me. : )
We ate lunch at Molly's and bumped into the Rich's Bagels crew, who invited us to a "Season's end party" that we decided to check out. We snowboarded and hiked to a ridge overlooking mountains, clouds, and Heber- it was gorgeous. And someone brought a Djembe drum. Did I mention that I wish Todd were there with me? lol
We didn't stay long and rather than hike back down we sat (me) and laid (Becca) on our boards and used them as sleds to get back to the run. And boarded back to the car.
Then my parents-in-law supplied me with a subperb Easter feast. They take good care of me!

And then we showed our families our condo we got as a rental property. (Pictures to come.)

By the end of the day I was pretty wiped out but happy for having had so much fun.

Happy Easter

And one more for fun:

The Dresser

2011-04-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

I found this website that has totally motivated me to start refinishing furniture and redecorating my house:
http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/

I love the stuff she does on there! Tiff and I refinished an old dresser of hers, and it's now in my bedroom.

Before: (I really think it looked cool before, but I wanted the white with black glaze look)

We primed and painted it antique white:

And then painted black-tinted glaze on, then wiped it off. This left a nice effect in the crooks and crannies of the dresser, making the details pop:

And after more glazing and reattaching the hardware, she's finished and sitting happily in my bedroom!

All things Crafty

2011-04-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

This creative monster has emerged from inside me, and I'm loving all these projects I've been working on! I've been painting, crocheting, photographing, and I even refinished a dresser with my sister Tiff. Here are some of the latest things I've been working on.

It all started with wanting to copy the Starry Night by VanGogh- I LOVE that picture! So I bought supplies and surprised Todd with an "art night." He was a good sport and painted a portrait of the cat, lol.

The dining room AKA art studio:

Oops I didn't mean to upload this blurry one. Oh well.

The finales:

The cat checking out her portrait:

After I posted a photo of my Starry Night ripoff my brother-in-law asked me to paint his house for him. It took me a long time because I was worried about giving him a lame painting! But I really liked how it turned out in the end.

While in Portland Becca Eike and I did some art projects:

We glued maps onto canvas, and then painted on the maps:

On top is our attempts at painting birds. Eike's lovely masterpiece is in the middle, and mine is on the bottom. Somehow I managed to paint flying dolphins instead of birds ha ha!

I also did an owl in a tree.

Here is one of many beanies I've crocheted. I make a lot of stuff to use with photography and to give away. I considered trying to sell some of them them on etsy.com, but they take so long to make that it'd be really hard for me to let them go to strangers. So I'll just use them as gifts. :)

Here's to all things crafty! It's soooo nice not to have homework to do every evening. I can't get enough of the freedom of not being a student any more!!! :)

Vernal

2011-04-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I visited my sister who had a beautiful baby girl! Her name is Coraline Isolee. Cora has been one of my favorite girl names for a long time and I'm glad it's in my family :) Isolee was made up by her daddy. Here are a few photos. To see more click here: http://brittasphotography.blogspot.com/2011/04/cora.html

More of Moab

2011-04-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago we went to Moab with some of Todd's coworkers. We rode slickrock, which was hard but so fun, we camped under amazing stars which were beautiful, and we lost a fight against a sand storm, which sucked! The sand storm was pretty crazy- you could hardly see anything because the sand clouds were so thick! And then it started raining, so the red dirt stuck to everything. And I mean everything!! It's still in my purse and all our camping equipment, all over inside Todd's car, and who knows where else.
It was a great trip, totally worth redoing, minus the sand.

Some of Todd's coworkers: (One of them only has one arm! He's better than I am at mountain-biking, It's pretty dang cool! He's not in the photo)

Me near the end of the ride muscling up hill:

And walking because I couldn't do it! Ha ha

Our great campsite view:

We also found a live band to listen to with free entertainment. The people dancing were pretty fun to watch, lol! Here's a video of one such person:

Castleton Tower, Moab

2011-03-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

OK here was our day yesterday. Wake up at 4:50 A.M., drive to Moab, hike 1.5 hours to the base of Castleton Tower (see photo) climb the 4 pitches on Kor Ingalls to the top, summit with near-freezing temperatures and aproaching snow, rapell hundreds of feet back to the base, hike back to our bags, and then 2 hours in the dark back to the car, grab Wendy's drive through and then drive home to Sandy, arriving at 1 A.M. What a long sentance that was :)

Look closely to see tiny climbers at the top. This was the group ahead of us:

Me peeking up from the chimney on Pitch 1:

Todd and I in our "happy place" :)

Todd looking down from pitch 3:

The summit!

My dirty hands:

Someone rapelling from the top- they're hard to see so look closely:

The view with the setting sun:

Here's my take on the climb!
The hike was as sketchy as the climb! Tiny sand particles and pebbles rolling under our feet as we switchbacked up the steep slope, and then some bouldering moves to get to the base of the tower. Other than that it was a relatively easy and beautiful hike.

We had to wait in line to climb, and relaxed for a couple hours with a great view.

Pitch 1: An "easy" squeeze chimney which took Todd a half hour, and me 94% of my strength to grovel up, and some crack and face climbing. It was really cool climbing, but that chimney was pretty darn hard for a 5.4!

Pitch 2: Awkward crack climbing and face climbing with terrible to none foot holds, poor sloping hand holds, and smooth calcified surfaces leading to slipps and falls. This one looked easy when Todd did it but took 105% of my strength, leaving me hanging on the rope quite a bit.

Pitch 3: Crux pitch involving an exhausting scramble up an off-width crack ending with a boulder problem, and then to the crux: a poorly protected offwidth 5.9 chimney with not much to hold or step on. This is pretty much a useless sized chimney that is too small to fit your body in, and too big to use for anything else (unless you wear a women's size 12 shoe and place your toe on one side and heel oh the other.)
The first half of this pitch took about 146% strength for me- I simply couldn't do it. With nothing to stand on, my arms were so tired they wouldn't hold my weight and I kept slipping off the cracks and meager holds I was clinging to. Needless to say the rock won this battle. Lucky for me, Todd led it like a champ and with no problems (he really enjoyed it!) and he helped me up the climb by practically pulling me up the darn thing.

Pitch 4: More chimneys and easier climbing (there were in-cut holds on this one!) Which was still quite difficult for me, having little strength and even less morale. I made it up on my own though, and was amazed at how cool the top was! Amazing views of the surrounding towers (The Rectory, Priest and nuns, Sister Superior, etc.) And a "fort" of rocks to hang out in while reading notebooks full of previous climbers experiences. Unfortunately time was short due to a looming snowstorm and little remaining daylight, so our summit celebration was quick. I was freezing and did squats on the summit, and then on the rapell station to stay warm while Todd rapelled down. I hope someone saw me from the bottom doing squats on top, LOL, I probablly looked crazy! We did 2 double-rope rapells down the other end of the tower to the base, grabbed our bags, and hiked out with just enough light to get past the worst parts of the hike. It got dark quickly and we lost the trail several times, but made it back to the car and enjoyed hot Wendy's chicken sandwiches. Yum!

Overall it was SO cool and totally worth it! But next time I've got to train and climb regularly for several weeks to prepare. The funny thing is that last Fall I was training pretty hard for this climb, but the weather was too cold to visit Moab and we never did it. And now that I haven't been training or climbing much at all we decide, "let's go to Moab in the morning and do that Kor Ingalls climb! :)

Portland

2011-03-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

I road tripped with my friend Becca to Sun Valley, Idaho, and then to Portland, Oregon. What a fun trip! We snow-shoed and looked (unsuccessfully) for hot springs, accidentally backed into a very hard snow bank, listened to radiolab, laughed a ton, and ate a lot of junk food. When we made it to Portland we stayed with my old college friend Eike and her hubby Reid. They are so accomodating and the best people to visit ever!! We had so much fun in Portland, it was really hard to leave and return to work on Wednesday. Here are some photos from the trip:

Sun Valley snow:

Portland Japanese Gardens:

Portland Art Museum showing Andy Warhol art:

And the girls:

Wedding pictures

2011-03-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of our wedding pictures, in honor of it being our anniversary and all :)

Happy Anniversary!

2011-03-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

It's our FIVE year anniversary! To see my post for our 4-year click here:
http://toddandbrittsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/it-is-our-four-year-anniversary-ive-put.html

I kidnapped Todd and took him to Zions National Park, where our love story began :) Here is the short version:
Once upon a time my good friend Todd invited me to go canyoneering in Zions with him. So we rented wet suits and hiked/rapelled/swam through a slot canyon in Zions. It was FREEZING but so cool! And we were cold and so tired... but stayed up all night talking anyway. We slept on his bouldering pad under the stars. And the rest is history. :)

We hiked to the top of Angel's Landing- a georgeous cliff that Todd had climbed up (and spent the night on a porta-ledge on!!) back when we were in highschool.

Here's a climb Todd was scoping out last Fall that he'll probablly do before too long. Can you see the climbers?

And a star photo:

Grandma Helen

2011-01-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

I asked my Grandma (who kindly obliged me) to pose for a photo shoot. I love that her hands are lined but soft and her face is wrinkled but beautiful. We visit every week and for the first time in my life I feel like I know her as a person. We often talk about how lucky we are, and how many things we are grateful to have had in our lives.
I'm grateful to have her in my life. :)

Patagonia!

2011-01-16T14:04:00.000-08:00

Let me start this blog post by saying this was probably the most amazing trip I've been on!! Of all my vacations, this one was the most work, the most traveling time, the most incredible scenery, the most exercise, and the most expensive. But totally worth it. To see my favorite frame-worthy photos go here:

http://brittasphotography.blogspot.com/2011/01/w-trek-torres-del-paine.html

I'd like to share more personal experiences on this blog.

It took us 36 hours just to arrive in Puerto Natales, Chile to begin our trip. That's including an eight hour layover in Santiago and a three hour bus ride from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales.
It was December 25th, and we were lucky enough to see Santa in down town, Santiago:

Todd enjoying an airport nap:

The next morning we took a three hour bus ride from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine and began our adventure by hiking the "W trek." It takes three to eight days to hike and camp around Torres Del Paine National Park, depending on how much area you cover.
One thing we didn't foresee was the lack of, and high prices of food there. Here's a $5 can of soup:

So on our hike we'd wake up, eat a packet of instant oatmeal, hike 10 miles with our 40 pound packs on, split one can of palm hearts for lunch, hike 7 more miles to our destination, then eat plain boiled noodles and a can of tuna for dinner. Oh, and split a $10 candy bar.
Did I mention I lost some serious weight on this trip?

Here we are at sunset after a very long wonderful day:

And our view from this sunset- beach:

By the third day of this I was getting pretty sick (try having a fever and cold with no medicine while hiking 10 hours a day) and Todd's knee was bothering him. We decided to skip out on the last day of the trek and miss out on Glacier Gray to hunt down some medicine and a real bed to sleep on. The next morning we left an amazing camp site and took a ferry to a bus stop, passing the most incredible view ever, and then had to wait two hours for a bus to head back to Puerto Natales.

Our campsite:

The view:

I was still feeling pretty sick on the ferry:

The next day we took a seven hour bus ride, crossing into Argentina, to the City El Calafate. And then a 1.5 hour bus ride to Perrito Moreno, the most photogenic beautiful glacier I've ever seen. We paid our entrance fee to Glacier National park with a $100 US bill (this is important for later in my story.) And got Argentina dollars back for change.

The glacier:

We hadn't eaten all day and so we spent some of our money at the glacier gift shop on food.

More glacier photos:

The glacier is 250 feet tall! And 650 feet deep under the water. And three miles long. It advances, pinching off the "L" shaped lake every few years. Because of this natural ice dam, one side of the lake rises up to 90 feet before exploding through the ice dam. When we were there there was an ice "bridge" left.

The bridge:

We left the glacier and made it back to the bus stop 15 minutes late. 15 minutes after our next bus had already left for El Chalten, our final destination. When we ran into the bus station and asked the employee what to do, he convinced us to take a cab and chase down the bus, "Because buses are slow, and people do this kind of thing all the time."
So we hopped in a cab and took off after the bus. We zoomed down the freeway nervously watching the cab fare rising. (We only had 120 Argentina dollars after getting change earlier that day from our park entrance fee and spending money on lunch.) When the fare reached $130 we told the driver our predicament. And he pulled over in the middle of nowhere. And we got out. And he drove off without us...........

I want you to ponder this for a moment, because we were 200 miles from our destination, and 25 miles from the city we'd just left. In the middle of nowhere. With no way to get ourselves anywhere except by walking........

See for yourself- here's the view:

We probably could have convinced the driver to take us back to town to a bank to pay him for the return. But we decided to hitch-hike 200 miles to our destination.

We sat for an hour hoping someone would stop, and one lady did, but could only take us half way. That would leave us even further into the middle of nowhere so we turned her down. With only an hour or so of daylight left we decided to walk the 25 miles back to El Chalten, hitch-hiking along the way.
After an hour, we calculated that this walk would take us about seven hours, and we'd arrive in town between three and four AM. We watched the sun set and got more nervous the darker it got, when no small miracle occurred: someone pulled over!! We'd had TONS of cars pass us, and I'd lost hope of getting a ride from anyone, when this local guy who didn't speak a word of English stopped for us.

We got in his car, and Todd noticed buckets of blood and guts at his feet. And behind his seat were skinned bodies partially wrapped and covered in tarps. To our relief, he was a hunter and had just shot some sheep. Fewf.

We made it to town and wandered around till we found a hostel, and shared a room with a couple of guys from Israel.

The next day we bussed to El Chalten, Argentina. It's like the Emerald City- having more amazing gorgeous views than I'd ever seen!

The city:

There's a campsite (with showers!) at the end of town, and we set up there for a couple days. It was December 31 and we tried really hard to stay awake until midnight to celebrate, but could hardly keep our eyes open. We counted down at 10 PM and celebrated, figuring it was midnight somewhere in the world, lol, then went to bed. We got up ad midnight anyway because the celebrations and festivities woke us up. We both resolved to live life to it's fullest.

The next morning we got up early and hiked to Laguna Torre- just below Cerro Torre. From here we did a Tyrolean traverse where you pull yourself across a rope to get over a river:

And made our way to the glacier below Cerro Torre.

We then strapped on crampons and trekked along the Glacier Grande, jumping over and making our way carefully around crevasses. (If you fall into one your body heat melts you deeper and deeper until you suffocate.) It was sooooo cool!! And the scenery looked fake, like we were in front of a green screen. It was so beautiful it didn't seem real.

Man, it was hard to leave! A quick side note- the perfect weather brought with it huge biting flies that would swarm us in groups the entire hike, but they left us alone in the cool temperatures on the glacier.

We hiked back to camp (I was still feeling pretty sick) and barely made it! This was probably the most exhausted I'd ever been from a hike, and we limped through town and basically collapsed at our camp site, then didn't move for a long time. It was only 16 miles, but after however many miles we'd gone the previous few days I was totally spent. Here's our awesome tan-line or dirt-line:

What a way to start 2011!

The next day we decided to trek up to Fitz Roy and stay overnight. We made our way (VERRRRY SLOWLY) up the trail, stopping for an hour for Todd to boulder:

Eventually we made it to camp and dove into our tent to escape the flies. They're relentless! They get the best of you even if you kill them-- instead of having fly bites you're smeared with fly guts. Gross!

Fitz Roy:

After a delicious lunch of rice-a-roni we hiked to the Piedras Blancas Glacier. You hop along stones in muddy shallow streams for a few miles, and then up over and around enormous granite boulders. These boulders ranged from the size of my toe to my house! It was pretty fun hopping and scrambling over these things.

The glacier was incredible! There were icebergs floating all over and Todd grabbed a small one for the most glorified finger-icing experience ever. Ha ha. (He's always icing an injured finger, but not usually with ice as old as time.)

Icebergs:

We sat and watched ice fall and avalanches for a while. It sounds like cracking thunder. So cool!

Hiking back with the setting sun:

After eating dinner we walked in the dark to a lookout to photograph Fitz Roy. Some animal watched and stalked us for a while. We could only see it's green eyes reflecting in our headlamps, which made us nervous- maybe it was a puma hoping for a feast! It turns out it was a huge fox, not exactly man-eating but pretty cool anyway.

Fitz Roy at night (notice the climber's headlamps in one of the gullies:

And the Southern Cross in the sky (it can only be seen from the southern hemisphere)

We woke up to a rainy overcast Fitz Roy, but it still looked beautiful:

We hiked down and left El Chalten by bus, stopping in El Calafate again for the night.
We shared a hostel with 20 or so crazy Israelis- they were up ALL NIGHT drunk and partying, singing yelling, laughing, and coming in and out of our room. I was VERY grumpy after being kept up most of the night listening to their jabbering, and gave them a piece of my mind when we left the next morning! Rude people!!

On a lighter note, we made it back to Punta Arenas and found a nice hostel where we didn't have to share our room with anyone, and took it easy for the last days of our trip. It was Todd's birthday and we celebrated by doing whatever we felt like.

We kind of traced Ernest Shackleton's footsteps through Punta Arenas, as it was an important city in his miraculous story of endurance and rescue.

Here's the ad (literally!) that he posted when looking for a crew to be the first man to cross the South Pole:

Todd touching the "Lucky Toe" in the Plaza:

Todd preparing to see penguins outside Punta Arenas:

Meditating in the Cemetery, which looked like something out of Willy Wonka's factory:

Todd pointing at our location, and the South Pole at the bottom of the plaque:

The next day we visited a penguin colony! And a sea-lion/seal colony! The first island we visited is home for over 150 thousand penguins that raise their young there. It was pretty smelly (we found out what penguin poop smells like) but so neat to see the birds. They're not afraid of humans, but watch out because they're very protective of their young. Todd and I received a few bites and pecks while on the island.

Short video of the penguins honking and sqwaking:

Todd on the island:

This is my leg receiving a nibble:

And a close up of a penguin in it's burrow:

Some tourists taken in by the penguins (this photo wins the funniest picture award from our trip)

And the light house on the island. The black specs are all penguins:

You've got to watch this video of the sea lions yelling and snorting at eachother. It was pretty funny:

And a photo of the sea lions and seals:

And that pretty much sums up our trip! We flew into SLC which was covered with nasty inversion-smog, but it sure looked beautiful from the sky.

Here are a couple volcanoes in Chile we saw from the plane:

The smog in Utah County wasn't too bad:

But SLC was just gross.

And for the final picture, our cat was so happy to see us! She wouldn't leave us alone for about a week straight. Here she is smiling with her nose in my armpit (strange choice of location.)

Best Lumpy Dog Ever

2010-12-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

My buddy Shay died Tuesday morning :(
I hope she's in doggie heaven eating butter and bacon and canned dog food galore.

Here are some of my favorite photos of her. I REALLY loved that dog!!

Here she is preparing for doggie heaven:

Singing me a song

Giving mom puppy eyes

Hot dog

Snoozing with me

Enjoying a bone

Waiting for a baby to drop food stuffs

Best friends with my mom

Best lumpiest dog ever!!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

My new camera has a filming function, and this week I decided to try it out. Our friends Meredeth and Jake have this darling video of themselves and their daughter walking around and smiling with Christmas music in the background- like a movie-Hallmark card. And since Todd and I don't have kids yet, I wanted to copy their cute idea and use the cat instead.

We're off to Patagonia next Friday! I'm so excited, and I plan to take about a million photos :)
Happy Holidays to all!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-12-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! After eating with my family, Todd and I headed to St. George for the long weekend with our friend Bryce. We biked and climbed, and we had perfect weather. I am thankful for vacations! (Tis the season to thankful, right?)

Todd on the Cougar Cliffs

Me toproping at Gap Creek (I know toproping is kinda lame, but I'm just getting back into climbing after a looooong break. So give me a break. ;)

AMAZING sunset

2010-12-07T19:30:00.000-08:00

We went to Yosemite again in October. Becca and I left the boys after a couple days and did some kayaking on Lake Tahoe. What a trip! We already have plans to return to Yosemte next Spring so Todd can tackle some more big wall projects.

Here's Todd hanging a ladder.

Mark just hanging out

Todd eating some lunch (never mind that he's on a tiny ledge hundreds of feet above the ground!)

While Todd and Mark tackled big walls, Becca and I hiked Yosemite Falls and swam in the pooles that have been carved out by falling water.

Todd's two loves: me and his climbinb equipment. ha ha

El Capitan- most beautiful and amazing cliff in Yosemite and the world for all I know.

Here's the semi-wildlife of Yosemite:

Kayaking at Tahoe

And I just love this picture:

2010-09-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

We went for a quick backpacking trip last week to Red Pine Lake. Here's our site- amazing view! (A little chilly for August!)

On our hike out we were met by an enormous Moose! He seemed as interested in us as we were in him!

The Subway

2010-08-18T20:12:00.001-07:00

We hiked the Subway in Zion National Park a few weeks ago. It was incredible! Nine miles of hiking, swimming, scrambling, freezing, sweating, photographing, (have I missed anything?) oh yeah- water-sliding- through fields, slick rock, and slot canyons. Highly recommended for anyone in good enough shape!

It was so fun, and our "host family," the Holdens- Natalie's in laws- were so fun to spend time with. I hope to repeat this hike in the future. And if only I could upload more than 2 or 3 photos at a time I'd post a few more. Oh well.

2010-08-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

We went camping and climbing in the Uintas several weeks ago. It was beautiful!!! And only a two hour drive! (I've traveled countless hours for adventures of the same degree :)
Here are a few photos from our trip. And yes, that is snow on the ground, even in July!

The last of the Costa Rica photos!

2010-06-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Huge spider in the girl's bathroom at a hostel.

Here's a crab we apparently slept with- I found him nestled
snugly in our pillows on the second morning at a hostel. The
crab was more freaked out by me than I was by it! We caught it
in a cup and let it go.

Can you spot the lizzard?

Zebra underneath, turquoise on top. Cool bug.

Almost done with Costa Rica Photos

2010-06-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

There were butterflies EVERYWHERE.

Monkeys all over me and their poop! Oh how gross it was,
and I'm pretty sure it was intentional!

Todd checking out the surf

Here's a smiling three-toed-sloth sleeping in the trees :)

More Costa Rica Stuff...

2010-06-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

A beautiful flower

Todd surfing the waves. He was really brave paddling
for the enourmous waves! I stuck to more moderate sized ones.
OK fine I surfed the baby waves!

Shell hunting

Todd the scare crow aka karate kid

One of many incredible sunsets.

The Bungee Jump!

2010-06-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

We arrived at our much anticipated destination, only to find a rusty old rickety bridge. Some 280 feet over a gushing river. In the driving rain. I held it in pretty well, but my brain was screaming: AAAAAAA!

Here I am taking the plunge! I was nervous as heck walking out on the platform, but it felt pretty cool jumping off and sailing through the air! Until the whiplash, that is.

By the time they raised me back up to the platform (still hanging by my ankles) I was pretty anxious to upright myself to let the blood drain out of my face.

Todd swinging by his ankles:

Todd had so much pressure in his head from the jump that the capillaries around his eyes burst! This shows how harsh that whiplash really was.

And later we rode horses through the jungle to some waterfalls. The ride was pretty jolting (no running allowed, only walking or trotting) but the falls were beautiful! We swam in one.

Cute little frog. We whities may or may not die if we touched one of these critters!
Some are poisonous.

2010-06-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

We visited La Fortuna, which has the most amazing views of Arenal Volcano. (But the town doesn't have much else to offer in my opinion.) The Volcano had just erupted so powerfully the day before that the surrounding parks were evacuated. We were lucky to catch it on a cloud-free day, which made for great photos!

Notice the Smoke billowing out of the top.

Leaf cutter ants making their way to their queen.

We saw the lava flow at night. With binoculars we watched
20 - 30 foot wide boulders tearing down the mountain,
bouncing sometimes hundreds of feet at a time, and exploding
into orange lava every time they hit the mountain. AMAZING!

Todd catching a very tall waterfall.

Flower in the courtyard of our fancy hotel.

Zip lines

2010-06-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

We did the zip-lines and suspended bridges in Monte Verde. These are serious zip-lines: you fly up to 40 mph through and above the cloudy rain forest. What views you get sailing over the canopy of trees! These guys don't mess around with their zip lines- some are a kilometer long! Here's a video of someone disappearing into the mist of the jungle:

An employee fixing something on the suspended
bridge. He was hanging by his waist over a couple
hundred feet of jungle!

That little speck of red is someone zooming down
the zipline.

Coffee berries. Each November these are ripe enough to harvest.
The skin is removed, leaving a bean that is roasted and sold all
over the world, but mostly to America.

Monte Verde Cloud Forest

2010-06-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

The Monte Verde Cloud Forest is particularly enchanting at night. The clouds create an orange glow; it's as if you're walking around half awake in some kind of dream.

The thick forest! It would be so easy to get lost,
and nearly impossible to survive if you
wandered off the pathways.

A hanging bridge (hundreds of feet
above the rain forest floor!)

Just gettin' ready for bed. Our hostel had a nice balcony with
comfy hammock-chairs to enjoy the misty view.

Costa Rica- the first few days

2010-06-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

We spent a lot of time playing in the water. :) I love the beach. It is about 200 billion times better than endless cold snowy winters if you ask me. Here's a video of a monster wave that sucked everyone in and spit them out on the sand:

More fungi in the rain forest:

Todd's sandy hair after being tossed in the waves:

We decided to head inland and made our way to Monte Verde Cloud Forest. Apparently winds from the Atlantic and Pacific collide there on the continental divide, creating a constant cloud coverage over the area. The clouds are full of nutrients, feeding all kinds of plants that grow on trees.

The bus road was narrow, unpaved, and muddy.

Here's a video of us passing a truck on the

mountain side:

Costa Rica!!

2010-06-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Our Costa Rica trip was so amazing! I'm going to have to blog
about a couple days at a time because there is so much to tell!
We arrived at 6 AM and shuttled to rent a car for $100. The agency
informed us that including the required insurance, the total was over FOUR
hundred dollars! We said, "No way!" and took a cab to the bus station.
Our first stop was at Jaco (pronounced Ha-ko,) a muddy but
beautiful beach. The surfing was great! But we had to watch for crocodiles
because several rivers emptied into the ocean where we were.

We stayed at a tiny
hostel called Nathon's Hostel:

The food was Delicious. Typical Costa Rica food is called a
casada, and included rice, beans, meat, salad, and a fried banana. After really
long exhausting days, this food was the best tasting stuff in the
world.

Caution: three-toed-sloth crossing. LOL! The sloths eat
something that makes them move vveeeerrrrryyyyyy slowly,
as if they had no cares in the world and nothing better to do
than hang around, eat, and sleep (sloth pictures to come...)

We traveled to Manuel Antonio, a small but full wild life refuge with beaches and rain forest.

Here is some hairy fungus in the rain forest

There were a lot of enormous lizards
lounging in the sun.

Las Vegas, baby!

2010-06-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

I know this is way overdue but I had to at least mention my trip to Vegas last month... One of my best friends is getting married so we did a bachelorette party to celebrate her last days as a single woman :)
The beautiful bride:

Brooke the ladie's man. This group of guys were also doing the bachelor party-thing so we hung out with them for a bit.

2010-04-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently our cat is crazy because this is what goes through her mind all day :) This pretty well sums up what it's like to have a pet cat: the cutest sweetest animal is at the same time some viscious carnivorous fighter. She thinks so, anyway.

Todd spent an afternoon creating this masterpiece, hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Salt Lake Marathon 2010

2010-04-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

I ran the Salt Lake Marathon! Again!

And I hope I never do another one for the rest of my life.

It was so hard!!!!!!!!! I really wanted to beat my score from last year, and I wanted to beat it into the ground. So I pushed really hard at the start. That was probablly a mistake, because I hit a wall around mile eleven. ELEVEN!! With fifteen more miles to run! It became markedly harder to continue the pavement pounding, in spite of my best efforts at ignoring all the pain.

Todd met me at mile 14, (more than half way) and he could tell something was wrong.

"Are you hurt?" He asked.

"Yes!" I cried.

"What hurts?"

"My legs!"

Of course my legs hurt. Everything hurt at that point. With 12 more miles to go.

I kept running, and somehow things got a little easier for 4 or 5 miles. I was feeling hopeful of making my goal until around mile 21, where I hit a SERIOUS wall. I could not run. And it was breaking my heart. I walk-ran and saw Todd again at mile 22- he ran through Liberty Park with me and I probablly complained his ear off about how I wanted to stop running and be done.

To say that I struggled is an understatement- I practically clawed my way along and at mile 24 came to an aid station and burst into tears. The lady handing out Powerade put her arm around me, walked with me, and gave me a pep talk. I coughed her powerade all over the road (oops) so she gave me another. She told me that she had walked an entire marathon, and I could walk too. And if she could finish it, so could I! She hugged me and told me she loved me, and sent me on my way. Thank you, powerade lady for the support!

The last mile was awful. My knee hurt like the dickins, and felt ready to rupture with any extra pressure. So I did this limp-run thing where I looked like Forrest Gump when he ran with braced legs. I didn't want to walk- the faster I completed the race, the sooner I could STOP MOVING. So I forced myself along, and saw someone leaping beside me calling my name. It was my dad :) Cheering me on! And then I saw my mom cheering for me too! :D Dad, if you read this I realize you probablly weren't leaping, but that's what it looked like to me, lol.

And eventually the finish line was within view. It's the strangest thing, I thought I had completely used up all my energy but boy did I get a surge of adrenaline when I saw the end. I ran-- full force-- toward that bitter end. (And saw my niece Allison, which was awesome!) And I crossed that finish line without a tear, but filled with anger at the pain and relief at the completion of it all.

I beat my last score by 20 minutes, but didn't make my four hour goal. I guess I'll settle for 4:19, because I'll be darned if I ever try to run a fast marathon again!

Moab!

2010-04-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

We visited Moab last weekend to climb, camp, bike, and hike. Natalie and Harrison joined us for the climbing and camping. It was such a fun trip!!

The multi-pitch climb Stolen Chimney on Ancient Art was particularly breathtaking and exciting- the pictures speak for themselves! Let me just say that it was very WINDY and each gust felt like it could sweep any of us off the cliff into the bowels of the earth! (Impossible considering we were tied to the cliff and each other, but still...) We each had to wait for the wind to die down before we could stand at the peak of the climb for the standard "I'm on top of the world" photo.

Here's me almost at the top:

Todd on top of the world!

Natalie repelling off the cliff

The biking was so fun- I was surprised to find myself really enjoying a work out. I've been running way too much for my taste lately, and mostly dread the time I spend pounding pavement or on my treadmill. I'd say that mountain biking and I have a bright future :) My only complaint was that the first day of biking left me with such a bruised bottom that the second biking outing was equally incredibly painful and incredibly exhilarating. I basically rode standing up or "sitting" on my thigh for 13 bumpy miles mostly down hill and was quite relieved to reach the car and get off my bike seat.

Riverton Running

2010-04-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

I ran the Riverton half marathon! It was the worst race I've ever run! I had disturbing dreams and slept restlessly the night before-- a bad way to start a race day. The temperature was 34 degrees with freeeeeezing gusts of wind, which made me shiver all morning. While shivering and walking toward the starting line, I threw my neck out! It was so bad I literally couldn't raise or turn my neck at all! I panicked and called Todd crying, "What do I do?!" I had about 40 minutes before the race so I sat and sulked in my car, slowly trying to stretch my neck waiting for a miracle to save the day. A few minutes before the race started I got out of my car and jogged in place to test the waters, which were very painful! One of the volunteers gave me some Advil, and when everyone started running I started running too! Very slowly at first, and by mile 4 my pain was minimal. It was a miracle!

I ran into Jeff Jackson, a friend-ish from high school who was also running the race. We ran together most of the time, laughing about old friends and the dumb things high school kids do. That really helped distract me and pass the time.

I completed the race in 2 hours 7 minutes, my worst time ever (but not far from my best :) celebrated, then went home to take a HOT bath and a nap. Glad I did it, glad it's over!

A Cry for Help

2010-03-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

I came home from the gym the other day to frantic "meows" coming from the back yard and a note from our neighbor taped to the front door...

"Your cat has been stuck in your tree all evening, we tried to get it down but it just climbed higher... call us if you need anything!"

Sure enough our brilliant kitty had made her way clear up a tree in our yard- 15 feet or so above our roof. She was pretty antsy and kept walking back and forth along these tiny branches till they bowed beneath her weight. There was no way we could reach her without the serious risk of falling 20 or 30 feet.

Todd and I weren't sure what to do- call the fire department? Leave her there all night? Risk our lives climbing up to rescue her? When all of a sudden, Todd had a brilliant idea.

We harnessed up, and Todd layered on slings, quick draws, climbing shoes, and a backpack, and basically rock climbed up the tree. I was pretty sure we'd get the cat down alive until I looked up at her-- just in time to see a branch snap under the cat's weight. She fell, but caught a branch with one paw and dangled there, crying. It was the kind of thing I thought only happened in movies. Because I was right below her, I prepared to catch her or at least break her fall, but she managed to climb back into the tree.

By the time Todd made it to her level she was so frantic that she practically dove into his chest. He stuffed her head-first into his bag, zipped it shut, and climbed/repelled off the tree.

Boy was that cat happy to be on the ground again! Hopefully she learned a thing or two, because next time she gets stuck up another tree she's on her own. ;)

Happy Anniversary!

2010-03-13T17:30:00.000-08:00

It is our four year anniversary! Time flies, especially when you're married to someone like Todd :) We've visited a lot of great places and done some crazy things together. Todd is a great man, and he is my best friend!

We spent our first summer together in Puerto Rico and the windy city Chicago.

We visited Thailand before we were married, and pretty much fell in love there. Sometime during that trip I realized that I wanted to be with this man for the rest of my life.

When I graduated we visited Hawaii, my old stomping grounds. We camped all over the island, and then stayed in a crummy hotel on Waikiki. Camping was so much more fun!

Last year we traveled through a lot of British Columbia. It was amazing and well worth the trip.

Romancing the beach in Spain where we spent a few weeks camping, climbing, driving around, and dodging rainstorms:

On one crazy trip to Yosemite, for the first time in my life I thought that I might die... Obviously, that didn't happen- and I've tried not to take anything for granted since that experience. We've been back to Yosemite since then, and are planning more trips in the future.

Climbing in Mallorca, another destination we hope to revisit some day. Todd picked this vacation destination when he graduated. Anyone want to guess why he'd choose such a place?

Here's to four years, and to eighty-four more!

2010-02-16T18:31:00.000-08:00

We climbed a multi-pitch route in Redrocks, Las Vegas called Frogland. It was unforgettable!

Eight pitches (we combined a couple) up exposed amazing creative rock, totaling about 1,000 feet. We started the day at 8:30 am, hiked to the cliff, climbed the cliff, and hiked down, making it to our car starving and exhausted around 7:00 pm.

Todd on the first pitch:

Me on my way up. Can you tell how steep and high up we are?! These pictures don't come close to capturing the real thing. Oh man, I'll admit it: it was SCARY!

Right about here I had a meltdown because I was so scared. I felt like any wrong move and Todd and I would explode off the cliff, plunging to our deaths 600 feet below. I couldn't get over the height and exposure! Todd had to talk me through it. He helped a lot, but I'm not sure if I'll ever do one of these again.

Don't be fooled by my smile, it was all for the camera.

Todd celebrating at the top. We survived!

Todd on the way down. I never feel such an overwhelming urge to survive and LIVE until I do something crazy like this.

The new house

2010-02-01T11:21:00.001-08:00

We bought a house! I'm really bad a blogging and can't figure out how to coment on each picture so I'll just write a little about the house here.
We love it! It's nice to FINALLY have room for guests and parties and space to store all our junk! We've entertained friends and family every weekend since we've lived here and had a great time spreading out in the space. I do think the outside of the house is ugly but we're planning on putting a real roof on and painting the siding, which should help.

The yard is big with huge trees and a little raised garden. The house also came with a dog run and a huge shed, but NO SPRINKLERS! There is little hope that our grass will survive the summer if I have to go out and water by hand every day or so. But I'll try to remember.

We also got a kitten- she's in the living room picture attacking something on the couch. Fearless kitty, ha ha.

Employment news

2009-11-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

I got a job! A real "career" type of job at the Utah Heart Center in SLC, Utah (see image.) I've had one full day there and so far it seems like a good fit for me.
Todd and I are going to buy a house. I'll be looking at a few this weekend- we're trying to live close to trax in Sandy because that's the mid-point between our jobs.

We bought a trad rack for traditional climbing. Todd is so excited! We completed the rack but Todd had hurt his finger and couldn't climb. :( Instead he would pull out all the new gear and sit in front of it staring at it all evening. LOL! I guess he was mentally climbing in preparation for the real thing.
Here's some of the new gear:

Hooray!

2009-11-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

I've had a great week! Yesterday was my birthday, and even though I don't love being in my LATE twenties I do love getting presents and surprises! Todd gave me a hooded camera lens- no more sun spots all over my pictures. We couldn't celebrate yesterday because I studied all day for the CT boards- which I took this very morning and passed! Woo Hoo I'm officially done with all my education! I never have to open a text book for the rest of my life if I don't want to! It's a joyous feeling when you've been in school for eight years. If I were more organized I could be a doctor by now, LOL. But either way I'm just glad to be done :)

Tonight Todd and I are going out to eat for a birthday-graduation celebration.

Tomorrow I get PRK- corrective vision eye surgery! I'm nervous but everyone has been telling me it is SO worth it and I'll be very glad when all is said and done. I'm excited to see my alarm clock in the morning and not have to poke my dirty fingers in my eyeballs when camping!

If anyone is considering PRK, click on the link to watch this video, it may just change your mind! Wiping the eyeball off with those things? Yuck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmFIAcIu-j4&feature=player_embedded#

2009-11-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween! Todd and I dressed up as Wayne and Garth- it was so fun! Everyone said, "No offense Britt but you look just like Garth!" We walked around "scha-winging" all night and saying "Party on" and stuff like that. Todd had an especially good time at Brooke's party goofing off with our friends.

Can you see the joy in his eyes?

I don't know why Waynes World is backwards on Todd's Hat...

Last month Oregon Health Science University flew me up to Portland for a job interview! Since I have now finished ALL my education, I'm finally eligible for a "real" job. I'm still waiting to hear back from them, but they sound very serious. I never thought I'd end up in Portland, but I'd love the chance to move there! It's waaaaay closer to the ocean than Utah even though it's very cold, and the temperatures are cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. I'd rather have it rain all the time than snow all the time, and as everyone knows I'd love to leave good old Utah again. I appreciate it more when I'm far from it.

Anyway, here's a photo of Eike (my only friend in Oregon)'s cat.

Daisy is really cute, she even made me want a kitten for myself.

Here's Portland with Mount Hood in the distance. It's about a 45 minute drive to the mountain.

And a 45 minute drive to the beautiful coast! Who wouldn't love to be there?

A few weeks ago I took Becca and Jake climbing in American Fork. They wanted to learn to lead climb, and long story short Jake fell 25 feet with the rope in his mouth and landed on the ground!! As you can see it ripped out his four bottom teeth, as well as dislocating his jaw, shattering his ankle, and breaking his tibia and fifth proximal falange (I think.) And then he had to hike down steep unsteady terrian to get back to the car. It was awful!!! Especially for Jake- since then he's had surgery, two root canals, and has to use crutches and a cast for four weeks or more. Man oh man, does anyone want to come climbing with me now??

Becca carried the only completely uprooted tooth all the way to the dentist in her mouth- something I'd learned in a first aid class.

Here's a photo of Poor Jake feeling thrashed. I have to give him mucho credit though, because he kept a calm demeanor and steady head throughout the whole fiasco. And he hasn't disowned me as a friend yet...

September trip of the month: Yosemite!

We bouldered in Bishop and climbed in Yosemite. This trip was quite uneventful, thank goodness! Last year's frostbite is still messing with Todd's climbing injuries and my IV starting skills. It's hard to poke someone's vein if you can't feel or see it...

Anyway here's Todd considering the down-climb from a big boulder in Bishop. Mark had just done the same thing and lost his footing- and literally ran down the steep wall and landed on his hands and face! He has since fully recovered.

One of my favorite photos from the trip- the amazing HUGE redwoods!

We hiked to the top of the Half Dome this trip, instead of climbing the other side of it like last year. It's got to be one of the most amazing hikes in the USA! 14+ miles of breathtaking views, with the slick cable-tied push at the end to reach the tippy top of the Half Dome. Highly reccomended for everyone.

Todd trying Midnight Lightning, apparently the most famous boulder problem in the world.

He did pretty well on it! But didn't complete it. Mark and Bryce did well too.