Busy Bees

Friday we were back to our old shenanigans up in Green Valley. Ah-mazing. Hopefully my dad and Taylor are ready to climb because it's totally happening when they are here.

Saturday was full of photography madness! In the best way! We woke up to rain but decided to press on with a Senior shoot that we had planned. It worked out so well. We got some great pictures in a cute little bookstore and were able to meet up again after the rain dried up to finish his shoot in Snow Canyon.

In between the Senior shoots Chad had another one lined up with my boss' family. They are so fun and we had a blast with them. By the time we finished up we were both dead. All that running around and hiking pooped us out. So we finished up the day at Culvers for our first meal of the day lol.

We were going to go out Sunday and hike around and take even more pictures but I was toast so we hung out at home in our pajamas eating swiss rolls and ice cream watching food network and HGTV. The perfect lazy Sunday!

We're back kids!

It's been nice to take a little break from writing this past little while. Not that things haven't been exciting, in fact it's been very much the opposite. One of the best parts of the month was getting to spend a week with Val and Bill and all the babies. One of which we had never met and the other spitfire we had only met as just a little baby.

They rushed into our house puking up a storm, isn't that the rule on vacation? Oh and Kinsley was scared to death of us. To death. Of course after Chad offered up some ice cream we had pretty much won her over. While the ice cream my have md us all BFF's it did lead to a puke fest later that night all over poor Penny. Hiding behind toilet wasn't her best move to avoid the vomit. After all of Penny's peeing and puking and general ruining of things though that cat deserved every bit of puke she got. High five Kins!

Everyone in the house managed to make it though the sickness, I was the only lucky one who escaped, work happened to come in handy this vacation :)

Our plans were slowed down quite  bit and although we couldn't fit in everything that we had planned on doing we did quite a dang bit. Our favorite being rock climbing, duh. My personal favorite being Cade rock climbing. That little guy was a freaking champ. He climbed to the top of two different pitches and did so awesome! Bill got in on the action as well even after smashing his finger working on their car, and Val was the climbing superstar surprise of the visit. She kicked serious butt up on those mountains!

We had an absolute blast eating too much Café Rio, staying up way to late every night, visiting Zion's, climbing the narrows at pioneer Park, splashing around at the splash park and Children's museum and eating way too much goodies in general. In was perfect and we wish we didn't have to let them go home.

P.S. Pain pills are real kids, so please excuse any ridiculous spelling errors or grammatical fumblings. So basically just the normal....

Dinner in Bed

This weekend was full of laziness, with little bursts of energy/productiveness. Sleeping in until noon, but after an afternoon of climbing. A day of laying out in the sun, followed by finally doing our taxes. Watching an outrageous amount of The Office, but we found a new and faster hiking route to one of our favorite crags. See, little machine gun bursts of sobs energy.

Chad was thoroughly assaulted on one of his climbs. It was the hardest one he's tried yet, and it kicked both of our butts. He was swinging around, monkey climbing the rope at the end with rope burns on his chest and a bloody hand, and I was swinging around just as crazy beneath him. We were quite the sight. At one point Chad was dangling by a rope in a bush. Ridiculous. Luckily we were the only ones there so we didn't make complete fools of ourselves. All of a sudden 80 degrees is too hot for these desert folk to climb in. Works out fine for us!

By the time Sunday rolled around we were both exhausted. So we slept in as long as possible and then were as lazy as possible. Yay Sunday! We hauled the tv out onto the patio and then laid out in the sun while we watched the office. It was brilliant. When we were too hot and red to stay out there any longer we moved the whole setup upstairs to the bedroom. Pizza and cake in bed for dinner makes for a great Sunday night. To make up for our relaxing day we finally did our taxes. Every year we have the best intentions of doing them early and it just never happens. Once a procrastinator....

We'll see if we can carry over this semi-productiveness into the week. Chad's got a photography job he's working on and we've got a room full of clean clothes that should probably be put away sometime soon. But like I said, the tv is currently in our bedroom sooooo we may be having dinner in bed again tonight ;)

Taking the Long Way

Now that I'm doing a little better standing wise we've been able to get out and do a little bit more than the nothing we have been doing. We've gone out twice this weekend to rock climb! Chad climbed, I belayed and then we watched his friend, Taylor, work on his crazy hard climb.

Saturday we headed out with Taylor to Cougar Cliffs. I was assured it was a 5 minute hike to the crag. 5 minutes. It was in fact much longer than the promised 5 minutes. I was originally going to stay home so I could relax and recoup and lay out in the sun, but I figured I could lay out in the sun while watching them climb up cliffs. Chad's poor friend. He had to deal with a slow crippled lady and a dog that is not a great climber/jumper/hiker. It took soooo long to get down where we needed to be. Soooo long. We had to go up and around and then all the way down and back over. Once we were there it was great though! The sun shined, I got some sun, the boys climbed, Rukia ran around, and no one got hurt.

Then we had to hike back. Which should have been fine, we found a trail that was right next to where we were, saving us the ridiculous hike back. Except Rukia really couldn't hack it. Chad had hauled her up to a certain point in the rocks when he realized they were both stuck. Our poor Rukia was not built for climbing rocks. After struggling for a while Rukia and Chad both remembered that she was a dog and she scampered back down. So we let Chad's very patient friend hike up that way while we went all the way around and met up with him at the top.

We finally made it home and Chad got a text that his friend had left his shoes at the crag. We felt SO bad. Until he texted back that it took him, a normal person with a functioning back and no crazy animals, 10 minutes to get down and find them. Ha. Next time I think Rukia and I will stay home and nap.

Happy and Tired

We wrapped up our last weekend with Debi and Barry with a bang! We ran around doing and seeing everything we could fit in to our last weekend together! On Friday Chad started by climbing his hardest, most impressive climb yet. We've seen so many people fail on this beast, it was awesome to watch him conquer it! To celebrate we burned our old dining room table in the gorge, first flinging it off the edge down to the bottom. It's always more fun to start off a bonfire by tossing the wood off a cliff. We roasted hotdogs, made smores and just plain ate ourselves silly after playing with all the fire.

Saturday we soaked up all the sunshine on a new to us trail that follows part of the Virgin River. We only went around 4 miles, but that just about killed poor Rukia. After biking we caught up with one of our favorite Elders, Elder Mulvaney! Between climbing,  biking and all the sunshine we were pooped so we relaxed in the best way possible: pizza and breadsticks, a giant chocolate cake and ice cream, and cards. Mmmmmm, so fun.

Sunday started off with an even better Mmmmm. Debi made us cinnamon rolls for breakfast. No better way to wake up than to the smell of homemade cinnamon rolls. The four of us devoured them in a flash. After a few noon naps we were out the door again to Red Cliffs. I always forget how awesome this place is. Red Rocks for days and mini waterfalls from all the snow melt. Chad jumped in more than a few times and Rukia was overwhelmed with happiness. Home girl loved the water. Really, we all did. It was a gorgeous hike and a fun way to spend our last day together.

Insta-Yoga

Thanks to instagram Chad and I have a new hobby of sorts. I'm following a bunch of awesome yoga girls and guys. They are crazy strong and bendy and super motivating. After a day of climbing you can usually find Chad and I rolling around on our living room floor, smashing into walls and seeing if we can do the crazy poses too.

To spice up our hikes we've started taking yoga pictures wherever we go now too :) It's been fun combining our love of nature, photography and yoga!

Mukuntuweap

This place never, ever, gets old.