Top of Utah

Headed down to Logan, UT for the Top of Utah 1/2 Marathon. I was a little worried about the down hill course (my knees don't love it), the hot temperature, and the altitude but was willing to give it the old college try. Melissa and I picked up our packets and after driving the course I was feeling much better.


Did not sleep well the night before as I was thinking about the race. Up at 5:00 a.m. and excited to get my run on. Bussed up to the top of Blacksmith Fork Canyon and were ready to go.

The first 7 miles were down the canyon and the wind and slight downgrade were great. Lots of hydration and a packet of GU later I was feeling great as we turned into Hollow Rode. This was pretty much the worst part of the course. Long and boring. Saw the Maverik and knew I was close. Rounded the last corner as my knees started to kill and the blisters on my feet were about to pop. Past mile marker 12 and knew I would make it. Another 1/2 marathon done.

My chest felt a little tight while running, but really no issues with the altitude. The downhill slope was not bad and the overcast weather kept me cool. So there was no need to worry, but it's what I do best.

So fun to run with Mel and Adria. You girls are great running partners. We all run at the same pace and around mile 11 when I wanted to walk so bad, I just kept seeing Adria out the corner of my eye and knew I could do it.

Ran past Mandy, Josh and the boys and was happy to see Amelia, John, Leah, and Cesar at the finish line. It was a fun course and an overall great event. Glad I did it and hope to do it again.

Amos Lee

I heart concerts at the zoo. Amos Lee hit the spot again. His singer songwriter, soul filled voice was the perfect ending to the day. My one suggestion, he needs to work on his wardrobe. I get that he wanted to relate to the locals, but everyone knows wearing Mariners gear outside of the game is kind of white trashy.


Not only did Amos sound great, but the company was superb. Quote of the night goes to Clay while I was harassing him about his neon jacket. "This jacket makes all you ladies act like bugs to a night light." Good one Clay. Good one.


It feels like Summer is ending which makes me a bit sad because it's been one of my favorite, but there is nothing that I love more then fall.

Do the Rockaway

Nope, that's not Hawaii; It's the Oregon Coast. This weekend we went down to Rockaway Beach for a quick weekend getaway. Drove down Friday afternoon and after one speeding ticket and a time warp stop in Aberdeen we made it. Hit up the Upper Crust pizza joint and made friends with the shift manager, Mary and some crazy lady that told us she called people from Utah "carrot snappers," but had no explanation why. Ended the night playing games and laughing until it hurt.

Woke up early Saturday morning and put on my running shoes. It was an amazing morning. The sun was shinning, the tempature was perfect and except for a few elderly people out for a walk, I pretty much had the streets to myself. Being a small town and needing to run 8 miles I had to get a little creative, but managed to run past the crazy "carrot snapper" lady 4 times. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm the cray one.


My favorite sign of the trip. I could not resist giving out a "Kaa-kaw."
(Side note: who's head is large enough to fill that jumbo hole?)


Little did I know, we had a crabbing extraordinaire amongst us. We hit up the crabbing dock and quickly learned how to crab. It involves dead fish heads, smelly water, and lots of throwing crabs back into the water.


Don't we look like professionals. Let's just say we did not fit the crabber mold.


My A.D.D. kicked in after about an hour so we left a few behind to catch our dinner and headed up to Cannon Beach. I always think of my Grandma Lyman when I'm in these parts as she loves the Oregon coast and use to spend time here every summer.


Spent a few hours at the beach, almost died from the crazy kit flyers, and sugared up on ice cream and salt water taffy from the local candy shop.


We may have been strangers on Friday, but my Saturday night it was love. :) Baby face Grant was a trooper. He let us style his hair, mock his crappy fire and suffered through our group hugging.


KC and I practiced our favorite prom poses, but the smoky special effects are all natural. No Photo Shop needed here.


Spent Saturday night at the beach. Ate delicious smores and looked like this after multiple attacks from the smoke.


Up and out the door early Sunday morning to make it back into town for church. Aside from a few housing mishaps, it was a great weekend. Can't wait to do it again soon.

Indigo Girls

Here we are just doing what we do best.


David Ryan Harris (he is a guitar player in John Mayer's band) can sing to me anytime. We discovered him on the the cruise and were ecstatic to hear him open for the Indigo Girls.


As always, the girls sounded great. We ran into a few friends we met on the cruise and thought about a few that live far away. Honestly this concert got me all sorts of excited for the cruise again.


And what do you know, our favorite singer made a guest appearance. Love it when that happens! Just one of the many perks of living in Seattle.


Another perfect concert! I wonder if it will ever got old?

Blue Angels

Every year the Blue Angels do their air show as part of Seattle's Seafair Festival. We did not want to pay $25 to watch the air show because....it's in the air which is free to look at.


So maybe we did not have the best view of the show, but there was minimal traffic and we enjoyed spending that $25 at the outlet mall shortly after.

Little F'er.

Never a dull moment with Farah.

The Fray concert: hit on by the 2 guys sitting next to use while cursing out the scalpers that would not take out picture our front of the venue.


Free Mariners games with drunk co-workers.


Seafair 5K before we spent hours watching the trashy parade. We were a hit. The guy next to us loved our trashy cometary and I managed to get almost every "princess" to wave at me and even had some congressman talk to me and ask if I had won the race. (I was still wearing my number) Topped off the night with LOTS of Diet Coke and a huge dinner at El Ranchon. Umm....cheap Mexican food.


At our Diet Coke stop on the way to get Farah's car from impound (that's another story that we are trying to forget) we found the worlds largest "mug." Scary that people actually drink that much soda in one day.


Thanks Farah for always making life an adventure. Can't wait to see what comes next.

STP

Steph and I were all to eager to leave church early and drive up to Portland to pick up the amazing Melissa and Cara at the end of the Seattle to Portland ride. Ya, these crazy girls thought it would be fun to ride their bikes to Portland.

We loaded up on the essentials and hit the road.



Talk about perfect timing. As we were pulling up to the finish line we drove past the girls yelling and doing all we could to embarrassing them.


The girls finished strong, but were in a bit of hysteria after biking 100+ miles, 2 days in a row. Luckily we had a hookup to a hot shower as the news of closed down finish line showers almost did them in.

So proud of them. What an amazing accomplishment.

Most important meal of the day

My favorite place to be Saturday mornings at 9:30 am is Jack's with by brothers.


If we all look tired and like we just crawled out of bed its because we are. Lyman's don't do mornings well.

Hot, Hot, Hot

I wanted to remember this moment in Seattle when it snows again this winter. No complaining from this girl. Bring on the heat!

NKOTB

This was the BEST $20 I have ever spent on a concert. It's not everyday you get to relive your childhood music dreams. WE WERE IN HEAVEN and I have to admit, the show was better then I had thought. There was dancing, confetti, and lots of screaming.



Jesse McCartney opened and I'm not ashamed to say I knew all the words to a few of his songs.


So they are no longer "kids" but they still are great entertainers. Now if we can just get Whitney Houston out on the road singing, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" I can die in peace.

4th of July

Not wanting to battle the entire city of Seattle to watch fireworks, I invited myself over to BBQ at my brothers house.


We did a lot of this: (eating and laughing)


And some of us were clearly pissed there were no sparklers in our cake and they were not impressed with the match instead.


It was pretty much the perfect night. I think we might have to repeat it again next year. Thanks brother for letting us crash your place.

New Friends, New Adventures

I'm trying to "get out more" and decided to officially kick off summer by attending the Summer Solstice parade in downtown Ballard. It's pretty much the most bizar parade you can think of. Anything and everything goes. It's most famous for all the naked people in and around the parade which always makes for a good time, but really it's filled of weird stuff. Take this for example:


If you click on the picture, you can better see the bird eating a naked baby. WTF? These dresses were my favorite. They are made entirely out of paper.


We had such a great time, but between the parade and the people watching it was pretty much stimulus overload.


Oh, and who does not want to end the day with an outdoor Mama Mia sing along! :)

Buddy and the Girls

Nothing tops off a day better then an outdoor concert with Buddy Miller, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris and some great friends.

Brandi Tripple Door

Can you ever really have too much of a good thing? I think not. 2 Brandi Carlile shows on 1 week = AWESOME.



(Don't worry, I've got tickets for 3 more BCB concerts.)

Brandi in Portland

Guys -

Remember how I love this band:


Well I love seeing them perform even more with these people:


While the day trip to Portland was fun and the concert was amazing, I think the overall highlight was meeting up with this crazy girl. We met over 12 years ago and can go years without seeing each other, but still feel like we are BFF's when we me up again. My favorite quote of the night was from Tracey on the phone to her girlfriend, "I'm at the bar with the Mormons."


Ladies....thanks for another great concert night.