TurkeyClimbing {2}

That's right, we spent another year rock climbing!

We made a big breakfast and chatted with some of Chad's family while my family texted pictures back and forth all day. After we were thoroughly stuffed from breakfast we packed up some snacks and headed out to Green Valley. We went there because the hiking isn't as intense and it has my favorite easy climb.

Except it wasn't so easy. ha. I'm trying to get my strength back, and get rid of some of my "I'm sad and broken" weight and Chad is trying to use his left hand more to get all of his strength and range of motion back. Needless to say our climbs weren't as spectacular as last year, but we climbed and soaked up the sun and were sore afterwards :)

We thought ahead a little better this year and had a roast in the crockpot just waiting for us to get home. We also made an apple crisp/pie. We put pears and cranberries in it as well and dumped it all into a graham cracker crust with as much crumb topping as would stay on. Mmmmm. So we still managed to eat pretty well even though there wasn't a turkey in sight.

It was a wonderful long weekend. There was a lot of hiking, and we both couldn't have been happier to be outdoors.... hiking. We went to Snow Canyon, Green Valley, Gunlock, and cleaned the whole house lol. It was wonderful to spend time together doing the things that we love, reflecting on all of our blessings. Although it's been a rather horrible year we have a lot to be thankful for. We are happy, (getting) healthy and surrounded near and far by family and friends who love us unconditionally. And really, that's pretty darn good.

TurkeyClimbing

Happy December everyone!

Our Turkey Day plans sort of fizzled out this year, so there sadly was no feasting or family for us. Don't worry though, we made out pretty good regardless.



We kicked off the long weekend with a bit of rappelling and bouldering at Pioneer Park on Wednesday afternoon. Man did that work my baby arms! I had a slight meltdown before rappelling but managed to get over it.

For Thanksgiving the next morning, we woke up early and headed out to Chuckawalla. We mountain biked in to Turtle Wall where we spent the whole day climbing and swinging around. Our Thanksgiving dinner was a picnic lunch complete with turkey sandwiches. Close enough! We were there until dark and we had thoroughly exhausted ourselves. All we wanted was to go home, get in a hot shower and eat cake.

Of course we didn't have anything to make a cake with so we headed out to the Pre Black Friday madness. We stopped at KMart quickly and realized they didn't have everything we needed, so we tried WalMart. Wow, that was a huge mistake. I dropped Chad off at the door, he went in and then immediately turned around and came out. Ha. So back to KMart we went. Since the deals didn't start until 7 we got to be first in line, thank goodness it was 6:50.

We continued to search high and low for cool whip to make a delicious ganache to cover our cake in to no avail. We lucked out and ended up having some in the freezer, a Thanksgiving miracle!

Friday we took a break from climbing and headed out to do a little shopping.... for clothes to climb in of course :)  We wore them the rest of the weekend but will be sure to wrap them up in time for Christmas!

Saturday we went back out to Green Valley. Chad worked on his climbing project and I finished up mine. I tired a beast of a climb, for me, and made it to the top and the very end. I wanted to give up, and would have a couple weeks ago, but not this weekend! We both worked h-a-r-d. Sunday I was beat but we went out to Moe's Valley so Chad could boulder. I hadn't been back in the valley before and it was gorgeous. We both had a good time and by the end Rukia, Chad and I were dead tired.

So that's how we wrapped up our long weekend: exhausted, dirty, sunburned and just a little bruised and bloody. And it was absolutely fantastic.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We thought our Thanksgiving might consist of the two of us at home in our p.j.'s eating a giant chocolate cake and watching Christmas movies Frasier. And while we would have enjoyed that we did get a better offer ;) Ashley and Pat invited us to tag along with them to his mom's house in California. We happily agreed and before we knew it we were off to a new state, walking along the beach, eating Mexican food for every meal, watching our crazy dog play with Linda's fun pups, and eating way too much turkey. Yup, that's right, turkey. It's the holidays, we splurged and went nuts.

 

Some things we are thankful for this year:

free meals from Cafe Rio

friday night Date Nights

snuggly scaredy cat animals

skype
a fancy smancy camera

a husband who likes to snuggle while sleeping, even in our king bed

mountain bikes
a dishwasher
mountains and sushine
a wonderful home (with windows for the sunshine!)
friends and family who travel so far to see us

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

Five {Holiday} Things Friday

It's almost October, which I can officially let out all of my holiday crazy!!! Singing Christmas carols in July all of a sudden makes planning out a Christmas bucket list in (almost) October seem very much acceptable. Clearly I'm overly excited for all of them! Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, Talk like a Pirate Day... What? You didn't Talk like a Pirate on September 19th? Ok, so maybe my Dr. was more into that one than me.

I am compiling lists of things to do for each and every holiday so that I can milk each and every one for all of it's goodness and glory! Thanks Pinterest for all of your ridiculously wonderful ideas and feeding my crazy!

Here's some things I'm digging for the upcoming Holiday Season:

1. Scarecrow Treats. There's candy corn, a cake mix and peanut butter involved. Sounds like a good time to me! Now I just need to make friends who also like candy corn so I don't have to eat them all by myself.

2. I think I'm gonna have to set aside some time to decorate sugar cookies. I love decorating cakes and cookies! Ridiculously cute and tasty? It's a win, win.

 3. Face Paint.  F-r-e-a-k-y. Now we just need to find a Halloween party to go to.

4. I made a Countdown to Christmas for Chad the first year we were married and it was a lot of fun. Last year we were in the middle of moving and it was crazy. This year we'll either countdown again or do this: The 12 Dates of Christmas. Or a combination of the two! Either idea is a nice way to sneak in as much celebrating as possible!

5. A Thankful Tree. What a cute way to bring in the spirit of Thankfulness all November long! Plus it's cheap, and when I say cheap, I mean pretty much free. woot.

What are you most excited for this Holiday Season? Crafts? Food? Shopping?

Share any fun ideas you have and let us all in on the action ;)