How Are We Going To Get To Hawaii

Many of you already know that Cole and I are up and leaving our current life and taking a sabbatical, or something, to Hawaii for a year or two. If you don't know, Cole and I are abandoning our current life: house, friends, cars, jobs, stuff, everything and flying to Hawaii on November 4th with one way tickets. By the way, huge thing I always wanted to do was buy a one way ticket to some place without any plans of where I'm going to live, where I'm going to work, or what I'm going to do. CHECK! Off the list :)

So what are we going to do? Well first we have to get ready. I know you're probably surprised now that we're planning at all. Even being crazy requires some level of planning. Here's what's happened so far:

• Saved our pre-allotted amount of money we decided we had to have in the bank before deciding to leave
• Quit our jobs. Wow. Nuts.
• Got renters for our house
• Lost the renters for our house
• Posted our house again to hopefully get new renters
• Packed 1/3 of our stuff to be put into storage
• Had full physicals to make sure nothing medical or surprising can come up anytime soon (all levels look good!)
• Both been to the dentist for a full check up (no fillings for me! yay! Cole had a couple but he nitro'd it up and probably had a decent time haha)
• Found a storage unit
• Sold: washer and dryer, the truck (poor Leo!), Tyler's mini-- sending him a couple hundred bucks! I'm so proud of how handy Cole was when he just up and fixed it one day, a hand gun, a motorcycle, and probably some other things I'm forgetting
• Bought a back packing tent

What do we have left to do:

• Sell our remaining sellable items: dirt bike, TV, Wii, and anything else we can think of--hopefully have a garage sale? Or just go to DI
• Buy some back packing packs
• Reserve a campground in Hawaii
• Reserve spots at Hostels in Hawaii on Wednesdays and Thursdays when you can't camp, if we can reserve those spots. Don't worry we're not becoming permanent members of a commune or anything
• Get a rental car for the first week
• Get renters for our house
• Pack our crap
• Clean up the house one last time
• Leave for California
• Fly to Hawaii

Once we get to Hawaii our plan is:

• To first pick up our rental car
• Second go set up our tent at our campsite
• Find an old beat up truck of some sort to buy
• Take back the rental car
• Find a place to live
• Move into place
• Get internet
• Find jobs
• Big goal-- don't anger the locals. We don't want to get beat up every day for being white. Thanks for the heads up Troy! ;)

Please know that all in here is tons of playing :) We want to get scuba certified (officially--finally!) and play on the beach, camp a lot, mountain bike, and whatever else we can think of.

I think our families will be glad to hear we plan on working full time out there. Originally we thought we would screw off for the year and just work crappy jobs that would pay the bills. I think Cole and I are too driven to do that, so we'll be looking for full time jobs in our field.

Honestly, most of the hard work is already over :)

We will be missing our friends. I know Logan and Lisa and their little baby will be in our thoughts, and the Huntington's especially. I don't know what I'm going to do without Megan! I'm going to have to skype her while I work out or something. But Cole and I hope to make lots of new friends in Hawaii.

So why are we doing this? Cole and I want to live more simply. We also want to be able to say we did this! It's perfect timing. A big adventure before having a family and maybe not getting to travel and live to rootless anymore. We're really excited and hope that we get plenty of visitors out there!

A Trip To St. George

Last weekend was the second (my first) Smith girls only trip. Super well planned, as expected, and an all around good trip. I regret not taking more pictures! Sunny, Lisa, Addie, Janae and I all traveled together to meet the California girls, Adrienne, Barabara and Amanda. It was weird when we reached them--because there were no children around! Some part of me still expected to see them once we got there (even though we were missing all of Sunny and Janae's kids). Let's not ask how my brain works, because I'm pretty sure it's a moving target.

The first day we got there, we played racquetball. Cutthroat style. Adrienne, Sunny and I were the first match-- um hello Sunny, your serve is amazing. I could barely keep up with them, if you even call what I did keeping up. Adrienne's pregnant and was still holding her own. -- No I didn't hit her with the racquetball on purpose. I was probably going blind from losing, but it wasn't on purpose. :)

After racquetball, the girls wanted to swim. I didn't move from one spot on the pool chair. Just laid there until we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  PS I love Texas Roadhouse. It was an awesome choice ladies.

Saturday we hiked at Zion's. Lisa had an extra heater on her front (named Addie) that didn't make the hike super easy. But it was a good hike and a great way for us all to hang out in the sun.

Sunday was the Brigham City temple dedication. The girls all went, and I stayed home with Addie. Cole and Marcos came to hang out with me, and we took Addie down to the racquetball courts and took turns playing racquetball or playing with Addie. That little burrito is adorable!

That afternoon, Lisa, Sunny, Marcos, Cole and I all played tennis. Again, Sunny you totally wooped everyone. Nice job :) And that night we had Peach Kuchin! Which has become my very favorite dessert and vice. I saved myself all weekend for that dessert and didn't hold back.

We can include a lot of other things in here: shopping, staying up late talking to Amanda, going running, and lot of other little things--but hey, it's a girls weekend and I'm not going to spill everything!

After we all left the condo, Cole, Marcos and I left to drive up to Brianhead by Cedar City. Once there we rented mountain bikes and had the rental guy drop us off at the top of the mountain with a map to Panguich 13 miles away, and we took off. Yes yes, it was my first time. And I want to do it again and again!! I was glad the boys were patient with me, it definitely was a learning experience. I would definitely compare it to snowboarding. Super hard in the beginning because you don't have the skill to go fast, but going slow is actually harder than going fast once you learn how. It's not the same as when you go snowboarding your first time, you're on your butt all day. I only fell twice and they weren't that bad. One fall actually knocked my shoulder back in place as it was kinda off since a bad collision in soccer. Kinda funny. The ride was beautiful! Cold at first, freezing actually... I was wearing sweats and a pair of jeans to keep warm. The boys chose snowboarding helmets instead of bike helmets to help with heat. But after the first 20 minutes or so, we were definitely warm.

Once we were done mountain biking, it was off to Dixie National something or other, where we were going to camp for the night. While we were setting up, we had to keep taking breaks for thunder storms to pass over. They were really cool to watch, and thank goodness they passed over quickly!!  Cole tried to take pictures of the storm with his camera. This picture turned out great, even though it wasn't of the lightening.

Camp fires are one of my favorite things!! We stayed up late around the fire, finally crashed in the tent, and then finally headed home that day (Tuesday) around noon. Overall, it was a great weekend warrior trip.

Don Pedro Reservoir-- Smith Family Vacation

I think if I called this a much needed vacation, there might be a little bit of eye rolling. I sat down the other day and thought about all Cole and I have done this year and these are the trips I found:

• Return from Tennessee
• Hawaii
• California
• Moab
• Pizmo
• Park City Cabin
• Seattle
• California
• Vegas
• Cancun
• Vegas again
• Bear Lake
• Don Pedro Reservoir

I feel pretty good about our adventures this year :) However, I still say Don Pedro was a much needed vacation! It came just at the right time at the end of the month, right after I hit my sales quota at work. So perfect!

Don Pedro Reservoir is past the Yosemite National Park in California. While deciding how we were going to get there, I became our navigator. I decided that going through Reno was the long way, and that instead we should go south across the 6 and through Yosemite. The trip started off great. It took several hours to get to the 6, but once we got there I started looking everywhere for UFO landing spots or tourists traps (in case you don't know already, HWY 6 is known for its UFO activity) BUT I never found anything so that part of the trip didn't get anymore exciting. Around 8 or 9 we arrived at Yosemite. It was beautiful!!! We were only about 120 miles from Don Pedro and hoping to get there by 10 or 11. The last thing we saw before the sun set was this beautiful basin lake sitting underneath gorgeous mountains that were black because of the setting sun and purple and pink skies above them. Then the windy roads kicked in. It took us 3 and half hours to get to Don Pedro-- or something close to that. I was so glad we weren't hauling our jet ski trailer behind us. THAT would have been awful.

But we arrived safe and sound.

We stayed on Tyler's, our brother in law, parent's house boat. Thank you Pittson's! The boat was perfectly named, The Pitt Stop :)

Here's Cole and me, happy to be anywhere but work, and lucky enough that it was on this houseboat in Don Pedro!

I was trying so hard to learn how to jump the wake!! I never made it fully across, but I had one close one... followed by a pretty gnarly crash that I'm pretty sure caused the wakeboard to hit me in the back of the head. A vein in my foot actually popped because the board was ripped off my feet, and my entire big toe was completely purple with blood. I thought I was going to have a massive bruise there, but after about 10 minutes all of the blood had gone somewhere else, and my foot was back to normal. Weird.

Here's Cole catching some major air! He came SO close to landing a flip this trip! He pretty much landed a few of them but then fell. He'll get it. It was so much fun watching Cole and Tyler. Tyler is legit-- his wake boarding abilities are definitely refined.

Barbara and I on our last ride in the boat! This lady is amazing

Logan and Tyler. The best drivers on the trip :) Tyler was a stud and drove every single time the boat went out. 

Sun bathing beauties: Seirra, Brookie, and Hayley

Truman did not miss a single boat trip!! 3 years old (we actually celebrated his 3rd birthday while we were in Don Pedro)  and loves the boat! Every time we left, there was Truman. It was adorable. 

It may just look like Cole is doing a backwards dive into the pool, but he's doing a back flip :) I just couldn't get it on video because the camera had no more space left.

On the way back from Don Pedro, we drove through Yosemite again. We were originally going to try going back out through Sacramento, but this ended up being better and faster. The windy part was easier this time because it was in the day light and the first part of the drive instead of the last.

Aww so cute! 5 days no showers.... lol. Unless you count the 3 we took in the lake every day! That hat didn't leave my head unless I was sleeping, or wake boarding.

Well after this picture, there was a lot more driving, and then we were home. The next day, we were back at work. On to the next month! Thanks Smith family for an awesome vacation!

5K Mud Run! Mudder X

Since getting married, Cole and I have made it a huge part of our lives to remain active. We don't want to let anything get in the way of the happiness that we have when we eat well and stay in shape. One thing I've done to help us eat well is that I make everything out of whole wheat. I have an awesome recipe (thanks to my best friend's sister and a few minor changes to the recipe) for whole wheat bread. I make it once a week and that's the only bread we use for sandwiches or any other needs. We love it.

We also do most of our own cooking. Not only does it keep us healthy, but we've found that it saves us a ton of money!

Cole's new effort to stay in shape has been doing triathlon related activities: biking, swimming and running. I have also been doing swimming (once, I'm not a strong swimmer), biking, and I am running again (and love it, running is my favorite). A while back, Cole signed up for a half marathon!! He ended up running a 5K instead, but he did great! The 5K was cool because it started at night and everyone had glow sticks attached to themselves. Cole ran it with our friend James (who finished in 10th place!! Go James!) and then we sprinted off to a soccer game for Megan and my girls team. It was a really fun night. Barbara came to watch, which was so fun and great to have her support there for Cole.

I forgot to mention that Cole came in 39th place!! Go Cole :)

The next morning, Cole and I woke up super early and went to run in the mud :) It was the mudder X! We ran with Adam and Maranda Crop. It was SO much fun! We also found out that Adrienne is expecting her third little one and we were told in the coolest way.

Look at those cute little guys :) Thatcher's shirt says "biggest big brother" and Truman's says "big brother." I guess Tyler was the one who puff painted both the shirts. 

Here are some pictures from the race. It was a lap of just over one mile (we completed it twice haha). The lap has mud, obstacles, hills, slides, everything you can think of-- we definitely want to do another one.

Also I think you'll enjoy these videos :)

We plan on having a lot more adventures like this one. It definitely makes life more fun!

Memorial Day Needed Vacation... To Vegas

Before I tell you all the fun Cole and I had in Vegas, I first wanted to say how awesome it was to have my little brother here for a day before we dropped him off at the MTC. We've already received his first letter, and I can tell that he has learned so much in just the week that he has been there.

Now on to Vegas! Cole and I had been needing another quick trip away from home, and Memorial Day seemed like the perfect opportunity. We planned the vacation with my best friend Bethia and her husband Jeremy (who happens to be my boss--meaning I got off work early on Friday to drive down to Vegas, which was awesome! Thanks Jeremy!)

The trip down was pretty uneventful. We made it to Vegas by about 8o'clock Pacific Time and got into our hotel room. We managed to get ourselves into the Monte Carlo from a sweet deal on Price Line, so we actually had a pretty nice room. After, we went to dinner at Diablo, a Mexican Restaurant by our hotel-- and then we hit the strip! From there on it was gambling, pool, sand volleyball, shopping, gambling, dancing, gambling, pool, and pretty much that was our weekend in some order of all the previous. Yes I meant to put duplicates :)

Sand volleyball was one of our first activities of the first morning we were there. Cole and I had two clutch wins against this these other two pool go-fers that morning. It was awesome.

One thing I didn't mention is that we went to see the Cirque De Soles show "Ka." Definitely one of the best things we did on the trip. I'd never seen any shows in Vegas, and Cole had been talking it up for months. It was very native, if that's the right word, with lots of drumming, war paint, fighting, and fire. There were fights with arrows, there were take overs, and captures. It was really cool. The best part was when this guy and this girl use cords to swing through the stage and wrap up in the cords, and twist around each other in ways that you couldn't imagine. It was amazing to see people who were that strong and amazing that they never faltered or fell. The stage moves almost the entire time... in short, it was a really cool show.

After the show we went out dancing and the Luxor. Redman was there... surprisingly. I love 90's music, so you won't find me complaining for a minute. However, he was only there for about 15, so not much to complain about!

Overall it was an awesome weekend, one that I'm barely feeling recovered from.

Day Trip To The Dunes

Cole and I have had a really hard time making a solid trip to the dunes happen, but last minute for the past two weekends in a row we have totally been able to pull it together. Problems have been friends who are too busy, families not getting any attention from their husbands, no money, or a bad case of the throw ups. But each time, just minutes to hours before the trip we were able to rope someone into coming with us.

This Saturday was supposed to be the biggest trip, Cole, me, Stetson, Debi, Ammon and his wife, and one of Stetson's friends. The end result? Everyone bailed except Cole and me. Friday night though we were able to get Marcos to come with us. So the trip to the dunes was still on. Saturday morning came, and the three of us packed up the trailer, 2 quads and one dirt bike.

On the way, we stopped to get food for the dunes-- One important stop we made was at Beto's for Cole. Can't do the dunes right without a breakfast burrito.

Finally we were on our way. Part of the way there Leo (short for Leonitis, and the name of our truck) started acting up, which sucked because we just paid to have it fixed and chipped so that this problem wouldn't happen. It didn't happen to the same degree as it had before, but it wouldn't accelerate well (if at all) up the hills on the way out there. It would get to 50 mph and then the rpms stayed so low you couldn't go any faster. So both on the way there and on the way back we stopped several times hoping to fix it. Not fixed. Looks like another trip to Gillette is in the future.

Still, we made it to the dunes!! Then the truck got stuck in the soft sand, a little 4 wheel drive fixed that. Although we didn't realize right off the bat that we had to lock the front tires even for 4-hi. You do.

Finally, we were set up. The day was beautiful! The boys were trying to get some sun (mostly Marcos since he has the pallor of piece of chalk, no offense Marcos!).

We pulled the bikes out to ride--have I mentioned Marcos hasn't ever ridden quads before? The three of us started out. Marcos did awesome!! I think we owe it primarily to the fact that he wasn't afraid of anything and therefore had several rolls and falls. But Cole and I were so impressed! Although on several occasions we said to each other "this guy is crazy! he's going to kill himself." No one got hurt though, and it was an extremely successful day at the dunes. So glad we were able to go after all.

A Little Date Night

My sister and brother in law live up in Salt Lake, and as often as possible, Cole and I try to hang out with them. Because, well let's face it, they're pretty freaking cool.

The plan for this week (I think we went up Monday night), was to use our Trafalga Season Passes to do some free bowling. Awesome. So Cole and I ran up almost right after work (I went for a quick run as I'm determined to make sure I do something 5-6 times a week) but right after that we left! We met them at this Indian Food restaurant called Taste of Punjab. We had a little bit of fun with that name, and hopefully you don't judge me for that, but if you do--we totally earned it. Well... it was delicious! We love love love Indian food. A little tip: if you don't eat much or any of the rice you can totally leave feeling wonderful. But with expanding rice in the mix, you may get way too full. It's just impossible to stop eating once you start with good Indian food.

It was Adam's first time eating it, and like the Indian food connoisseurs we think we are, we advised him to eat the Chicken Tikka Masala. The most basic and delicious first step to Indian food. Well the rest of us proceeded to order that meal, and then Adam goes and is adventurous and orders something completely different that none of us have tried. So much for being connoisseurs and way to go Adam for being gutsy. It ended up being delicious.

After dinner we went to the bowling alley. The first game, couple versus couple, seemed like a total blow out at first but Cole and I came back to ALMOST make it a close game!! We weren't necessarily brining our A game. So we lost frozen yogurt to the Toblers. The second game was Cole versus me, and Adam versus Leslie. I think Adam and Leslie lost the competitive edge and didn't care anymore, but this is where Cole and I bring the intensity. I think in order for you to understand what it means for Cole and I to bring the intensity, I need to tell you a little story.

The night before our wedding, Cole's family put together a song that was meant to be representation of our relationship. What song did they choose? Anything you can do I can do better!! It was hilarious, in fact! Here it is:

Girls:Anything you can do, I can do better.

I can do anything better than you.

Greg: (talk)No, you can't.

Sunny: (talk)Yes, I can. 

Greg: (talk)No, you can't.

Sunny: (talk)Yes, I can. 

Greg: (talk) No, you can't.

Sunny: (talk) Yes, I can, yes I can!

Boys:  Anything you can be I can be greater.

Sooner or later, I'm greater than you.

Mom: (talk) No, you're not. 

Dad: (talk) Yes, I am.

Mom: (talk) No, you're not. 

Dad: (talk) Yes, I am.

Mom: (talk) No, you're NOT!. 

Dad: (talk)Yes, I am.Yes, I am!

Girls: I can drive a jetski, drive it with my hands free

Boys: I can ride a wakeboard, flying high, I just soar

Adrienne: (talk) I can sell most anything

Tyler: (talk)  Can you sell Vivint?

Adrienne: (talk) Yes!

Tyler: (talk)  I can’t do that.

Boys:  But when we scuba dive, I can go deeper

Girls: I can go deeper, much deeper than you

Logan: (talk)  No, you can’t

Lisa: (talk)  Yes I can

Logan: (talk)  No, you can’t

Lisa: (talk) Yes I can

Logan: (talk)  No you can’t 

Lisa: (talk)  Yes I can, Yes I can

Boys: Anything you can buy, I can buy cheaper

          I can buy anything cheaper than you.

Amanda: (talk)  fifty cents?

Matt: (talk)  forty cents!

Amanda: (talk)  Thirty cents?

Matt: (talk)  Twenty cents!

Amanda: (talk)  No you can’t 

Matt: (talk)  Yes I can, Yes I can

Boys: I can ride a snowboard, boogie with my skim board

Girls: I can drive a fast quad, snorkel, paint and cook good

Matt: (talk)  I can race most anything

Amanda:  (talk )  Can you race a plane

Matt:  (talk)  No!  that is insane!

Girls: Then there’s that time when I beat you at tennis

Boys: You didn’t beat me—I let you do that

Girls:  I won that game fair and square, just admit it

Boys: Yes, you are right, now I must admit that.

Tyler:  (talk)  You’re the best

Adrienne: (talk) So are you

Tyler:  (talk) You’re the best

Adrienne: (talk ) So are you 

Tyler:  (talk) You’re the best 

Adrienne:  (talk) So are you, so are you

Girls:  So when we’re married, we’ll do things together

Boys: We’ll conquer everything, we’ll be a team.

Girls:  We’ll ski and scuba dive, jet ski and rock climb

Boys: Boogie board, dirt bike, join a soccer team.

Girls:  And every day we will grow even closer

Boys:  Our love will deepen as we go through life

Girls:   We’ll serve each other and cherish each moment

Boys:  I feel so lucky that you’ll be my wife.

Sunny:  (talk) You’re so sweet

Greg:  (talk)  So are you

Sunny: (talk)  I can’t wait t’say “I Do”

Greg:  (talk)  You’re the best

Sunny: (talk)  So are you

Greg:  (talk)  I can’t wait t’say “I Do”

So now that I've explained THAT, you can understand how the second bowling game went between Cole and me. Well, I am awful at bowling, but some how this game I managed to get a 136!!! Totally smoked him. I'm pretty sure Cole wasn't too happy, and we may have gotten a little mad. Soon to be soothed by some frozen yogurt, or so we thought. One of my favorite treats was not so favorite at this crappy place I chose in Salt Lake. Such a disappointment. Oh well, good indian food and a great game that I won?? Still a terrific night. Thanks to Adam, Leslie and Cole :) I have an awesome family, I'm so lucky.