Saturday Fun Day

After playing around with Kara all day, I went to meet Justin and his buddies at the pool at Skip's. Skip lives in an amazing neighborhood in Draper....I mean, seriously, these houses were insane. Evidently half of them are not lived in due to the market conditions right now, but WOW, they were awesome. The one that Skip lives in right now is about 7000 square feet, and it's really so cool. We had fun taking the tour to ALL the rooms, and then headed out to enjoy some sun at the pool.

Tanner had a little extra fun managing to throw me into the pool at some point during the afternoon. I was a little scrappy, and he ended up a few scratches from the ordeal....oops. I still never learned how to play nice with others. Ha!






After watching the sun go down, we were starved and headed to Guadalahonky's for some mexican food and margs. I honestly thought that they were messing with me when they mentioned the name of the restaurant....but they proved themselves right when we pulled up. What a strange name...not sure that it'd fly in Texas. Honky's? Really? Anyways, I was quite impressed....no Jardin, but really not too shabby. :)

The "Y" In the Mountain

The first time I came to Utah, in April 2006, it was me, KB, JD and Dean. We arrived in Provo and noticed this big white "Y" in the mountains near our hotel. We had about a 5 minute conversation amongst the 4 of us (or at least we thought all of us were part of it), wondering what it meant, how did it get there, who put it up there, etc. Well, about 10 minutes later, Dean, out of the middle of nowhere, goes "Hey! Did you guys see that Y in the mountain??". KB, JD and I just lost it. So, it's been a running joke since then, whenever one of us would say something stupid, we'd follow it up with "Hey, did you guys see the Y in the mountain?".

So....when Kara mentioned that it was possible to hike up to the Y, I knew I wanted to do it!! Plus, our morning at the falls wasn't really much of a "hike", and so I wanted to go ahead and do that while I was here. It was a gorgeous day, and I wasn't ready to not be outside anymore.

We picked up Alan to join us, and we were off. I definitely was feeling the effects of the 5500 feet above sea level, and boy, am I out of shape. Not even half way up and I was pooped, and my heart was beating SO fast. Both Alan and Kara said that we didn't have to go all the way, but I was determined, and so we powered through, and made it to the top.





The view of Provo from the top was amazing. We had a little fun at the top.....making our own "BYU", and of course we had to get some JUMP pics, and then headed back down.






The walk down was easier, and we made the entire trip up and back down in an hour and a half. Such a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Kara and Alan are going to try to do that same path 3 times a week from now on.....I can say that I'm happy that I will be going home next week because I would be tempted to join them, and I'm sure it would kick my butt every time....just like it did today. :)

Bridal Veil Falls

Kara and I grabbed a quick bite to go from Kneader's this morning, and then drove over to take a walk up to Bridal Veil Falls. It's a waterfall up in Provo Canyon that I'd driven by a few times before, but never been any closer than the street. :)

We were in flip flops, so we couldn't do anything crazy, but we made it up to a neat spot where we enjoyed breakfast croissant sandwiches and some great girl talk.

Friday night in SLC | The Hotel

After another long day of training, I was happy to be getting out of my room again with my new friends in Utah. Russ, Justin and Tanner came by to get me, and we went to The Hotel in downtown SLC. We met up with Chantalle too, and she is awesome. She is so sweet and we hit it off immediately. She had just come from seeing the Sex and The City movie with some of her friends. They were all dressed up, and took a limo to the show. Now THAT is the way to enjoy that movie! :)

The Hotel was another VERY cool spot that you wouldn't expect to find in Utah. The main part of the club was playing great hip hop music.....which Tanner and his buddy Jason tore it up breakdancing for us.....and the other part was being DJ'd by some famous DJ guy that I didn't know. Both parts of the club were such a great time.....I had another fantastic night with friends. I'm not going to want to go home next week!

Bees and Huka

When I found out that I’d be in Utah for training, I got in touch with Justin to see if he and his friends would be in town while I was here….lucky for me, they were. (Lora and I met Justin, Jake and Steve when we were in Park City earlier this year). So, we talked this afternoon, and made plans to do something fun after work.

The weather was a little sketchy during the day, but the rain went away and the clouds cleared up…so it was the perfect night for a Salt Lake City Bees baseball game. Justin, Ross and Steve came to get me, and we met Jake, Dalan, Sam, Richard and Skip at the stadium for the “Thirsty Thursday” game.

I think that my favorite part of the game was the view…..it’s so beautiful to see the mountains as the background of the game. Seriously, so gorgeous.


I REALLY wanted to hang out with the Bee, but he didn't make his way to where we were. Oh well, maybe next time.




The guys were so much fun; I had a smile on my face the whole time that I wasn’t already laughing. The Bees pulled out a win over the team from Colorado.....so we had to continue the fun and celebrate the victory! :)


After the game, we headed a little bit north to a place called The Huka Bar. I would have never expected to find a place like this in the middle of Utah. The place was packed and the crowd was awesome. We enjoyed the band playing Reggae music from the best seat in the house. All the tables were taken, but we scored the small couch that was under the big screen TV. :)




I had such a great time tonight….I’m sure I’ll be tired tomorrow, but it was worth it. Hopefully I’ll get to hang out with this gang again before I head home. :)

Living Large in Sandy, Utah!!!

I'm at my home away from home....Utah. I really can't put into words what it is about this state that makes me so happy. When we were flying in, the pilot turned the plane to the side to make a turn to land, and when I looked out the window and saw the water and the snow capped mountains, it just put a huge smile on my face. Forgive these photos, they were snapped with my phone, but I just had to try to capture the beauty for those of you that haven't been here before. It was 75 degrees when I landed......ahhhhh....perfect!!



There is something else to note about me when I'm in Utah......I know where I'm going. I walked straight from the gate to the rental car place.....to my car.....to 80 to I-15 S.....all without having to ask a single person where I was supposed to be going. I think that this is the only place on earth where I know where I am without a map. It might be because everything is pretty much right off I-15, but still.....I like knowing where I'm going. Me and my Impala are going to enjoy that very much!

I called a few folks to let them know that I was in town, and started setting up things to do during my stay. I haven't been to Sandy before, but so far so good. I found the Residence Inn without too much trouble, and WOW, I am impressed. I walked into my room...the odd numbered room (yay!!)..... in the corner, right by the stairs, on the 3rd floor (love it that I really don't have any neighbors), and was seriously shocked. I am in my own little apartment, complete with a nice kitchen (including a microwave, fridge, stove top, dishwasher, and a nice bowl for popcorn), living room, bed and bathroom....all very spacious. The decor is awesome too, I honestly feel like I'm living back at my old apartment.....well, there is a MUCH better TV here, but it's just like being at home. I am very happy with my casa for the next 9 nights. :)

Another first.....

Flying the friendly skies today with Frontier, for the first time.
This is the airline that has the tagline "A whole different animal".
How fun!!

I'm in Denver right now....on my connecting flight to Salt Lake City.
I'll be there for the next 9 nights for training.

Luckily for me I know a few folks in UT so I should have plenty to do
over the next week and a half in my spare time. :)

I'm already so excited. I just talked to Kara and we are going to do
lunch, a movie, and possibly a hike on Saturday!! Woohoo!! It is
supposed to be in the 80s the whole time I'm there so I HAVE to get
outside as much as possible. :)

The only issue with this is that I managed to get 9 days worth of
clothes into one carry on suitcase, so that means that I didn't bring
any tennies. Oh well, guess I'll be getting a long overdue new
pair. :) I just might have to ship some stuff back to myself after my
stay.

Wish me luck in the 6 full days of training I have ahead of me. :)

Florida Vacation - Saturday, Day Two

We decided to head into Miami today to wander around, see the sites, and possibly spend some time on the beach. After searching for what seemed like hours to find a place to park, we got lucky with a spot on the street....and headed towards Ocean Drive.

We had lunch at News Cafe after walking around for a bit.....and it was awesome. We got seats right on the sidewalk, so we had prime spots for all the people watching. You pretty much walk right through all of the restaurants when you're on the shop side of Ocean Drive, so everyone was going right in our path. It was a crazy crowded weekend due to it being Urban Beach Week, bonus for us. We ordered ourselves some nice frozen cold beverages and relaxed for a bit. It started to rain.....rain HARD....and so we sat there and enjoyed another round. :)


After the rain cleared up, we walked across to check out the beach. Hey, you can't go to Miami and not check out Miami Beach!! We had a lot of fun trying to get our classic JUMP picture, but didn't have the best success. We DID however, notice a guy sitting on the beach with a nice SLR camera, who was taking pictures of us while during our attempts. We went over to him afterwards and laughed so hard at the one he captured....it was awesome. Hysterical.


It started to rain again....and it was coming down hard while we were walking around. We looked ridiculous when we had to put our towels over our heads and make a run for it to the car to get back to Weston.


For dinner, we headed into Fort Lauderdale. After driving down Las Olas, it started to rain.......AGAIN. I mean, it was coming down so hard that we couldn't even park and run into somewhere or we would have been soaked. We even sat in the parking lot of Walgreens for a few minutes while it poured because we couldn't even make a dash for the door. But alas, finally, it slowed enough to where we could get in and get ourselves a few fun colored umbrellas. More on those later.....but we ended up for dinner at a local place that Nita had scoped out....Himmarshee Bar & Grill. What a great find....way to go Nita! We had a few appetizers and entrees, all shared family style at the table. All SO yummy.


We spent the rest of our evening doing a little dancing at Tarpon Bend and The Porterhouse Bar & Grill - great times with fun girls.


BUT....the most fun part of the evening was our little photoshoot that took place at the elevators of the parking garage on our way home. People were coming and going and looking at us like we were nuts....but we were laughing and having such a good time, we didn't really care. And hey....it's all about the pictures, right? :)

Friday Night in.....FLORIDA! :)

I found Lora at her gate about an hour after I landed.....and after we got our rental all squared away, we were on our way to get Mindi & Nita from their Ft Lauderdale hotel. They got in a night before us....went out, had a great time, and then spent the entire day at the pool. Lucky girls!!

The sun was setting right as we were going to meet them, and it was gorgeous. When we got to the girls, you could definitely tell that they had spent all day in the sun....Lora and I had some catching up to do! :)


We were staying at Vacation Villas in Weston, about 20 miles West of Ft Lauderdale. The place we were staying was a cute little suite condo thing in the burbs. The burbs part gave us all a giggle, but hey....we were not complaining. Mindi totally hooked us up for the vacation accommodations from an old time share thing, so the room was all taken care of...score! :)

We scouted out our options for a bite to eat and stumbled upon a gem at El Mariachi. It was one of the only places still open at 1opm in the very quiet town on a Friday night. We got some strange looks from the locals when we walked in....I guess they could tell we were from out of town. We decided it was because we were too young to live in Weston ourselves, and none of the local people recognized us as their friends' kids. :)

For Mexican food in Florida, we were all pleasantly surprised. It was darn tasty. Mindi and Nita were still feeling the effects of their Thursday night, so Lora and I were on our own for the yummy margaritas. Not a better way to start off a vacation in my opinion. :) Our dinners were yummy too!! We had a good time getting all caught up on each other's lives....so much so that we shut the place down.



We turned in early after din din for an early start to our Saturday. I'm so happy to be on vacation with the girls, and looking forward to some fun in the sun over the next few days!! :)

On my way to Ft Lauderdale.....

This is my first time to fly JetBlue. How exciting!! Heehee. Hope we get there soon. I am so excited to see my girls....Lora, Mindi and Nita!!! Woohoo!!!

Hope everyone has a GREAT holiday weekend!!! :)

EDITED TO ADD: Just landed in Ft Lauderdale....and how cool was JetBlue. I turned on the TV that was right in front of me and flipped channels the ENTIRE time. So cool!!!

Now I will wait a little less than an hour for Lora to land....go get the rental.....pick up M & N and then we are off to find what trouble we can....I mean.....to find the closest museum or library, for some fun. :)