Mormon Mania!!

A few friends and I went up to Plamyra last weekend for the pageant and had such a fun time. I fell in love with outdoor pageants when I served in Mesa so I was super duper excited for this one (I may have been running around before the show like a child taking pictures with all of the characters...I just think its so fun! ha...notice the extremely excited look on my face)
I hadn't been to Plamyra or Niagara Falls for about 6 years so I was excited to see all of the church history sites. As we visited each of the famous sites there, I was overwhelmed at how sacred each of those places are. Events that changed the world happened in the sacred grove, the Whitmer farm, the Grandin printing building, the Hill Cumorah, etc. I am so grateful for the sacrifice of Joseph Smith, the whole Smith family, and the early members of the church for enduring the difficult challenges so that we can enjoy the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ today.
Whats a road trip without a few things going wrong, right? On the way up, one of the cars had trouble so they ended up renting a car in Harrisburg, PA. It poured rain during the day Saturday and completely soaked all of our camping stuff (I was against camping from the beginning...), and the kicker...2/3rds of the way through the pageant it started pouring rain so they cancelled the rest of the show! I was super bummed, but considering we saw most of it and had some great experiences at the other sites, it turned out ok. The pageant was so cool, I loved the Book of Mormon stories they portrayed. Here's some documentation of the trip:
We found some absolute gems up in Palmyra though. If you haven't been to the Chill and Grill, you haven't lived. Spicy waffle fries, giant ice cream sanwhich cookies, and huge ice cream cones are among the menu favorites. A small cone, complete with 4 scoops was $3; I felt like I robbed them, but hey, it was 4 scoops! (There's a fine line between quality, quanitity and price, kind of like Little Ceasar's versus Papa Johns...you can pay more for better quality, or less for more not-as-good pizza).And now to the title of my post: Mormon Mania. I think this pictures just says it all!Guys, you can purchase this at a local bookstore up there or for the ladies you can get the "I'm an 8 cow wife" shirt. I think 'peculiar' is the perfect way to describe us Mormons!

Ragnar # 2, will I ever stop!?

So I decided life is more fun when you take last minute, spur of the moment, verging on crazy trips...and thats just what I did last weekend! My brother Dave and his wife were scheduled to do the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay with Becky's cousins, the Armstrongs, and one of their teammates had to drop out, so they gave me a proposal 4 days before the race...they would fly me out for the race and a quick trip up to my parents cabin in Idaho if I could maneuver to get work off. I had SUCH a good time and am so glad I did it. Here's some pictures from the race:

I was kind of worried about the elevation and dry air, which turned out okay, but the biggest thing I was worried about was my first leg of the race. This beastly 800 ft., very hard difficulty climb had me worried, but thanks to an ipod and good music, I made it up (nevermind that right in the middle of it I vowed never to do one of these again). I'm glad I got it over first. I don't think this picture does it justice, but maybe the map does.


Yes, I know I'm a runner and I've played sports all my life, but I don't run straight up hills regularly, so it was dang hard. Ironically, I was runner 12 so the outlier (unrelated person) got to finish the race for the family! Notice I do not have the family t-shirt. The person I was covering for was a guy so it just didn't work.
Highlights of the trip:
1. Cafe Rio - this was my first order of business when Julie picked me up from the airport. I had it Thursday and Saturday...yummy!
2. Hanging out with Dave. My brother is SO funny, I laughed the entire race!

3. The sight of a good Honey Bucket. All you runners know exactly what I'm talking about.
4. Finishing the race right before the 3 hour downpour in Utah. I do not envy any of the teams behind us.
5. Seeing some cousins. I decided that I have the best family ever and I am so grateful for them.
6. Going up to the cabin in Idaho. We did some fishing, canoeing, and we saw a Grizzly bear and moose right by our cabin! I missed my mom and dad so much up there. It just isn't the same without the crack of dawn fishing wake up call from my dad.


So this makes the 2nd ragnar race in two months for me, the 3rd one of the year. I'm thinking about the DC one in September and the Vegas one in October. I am crazy!

Run, Drive, Sleep...Repeat. RAGNAR RELAY!

Last weekend some friends and I drove up to New York to do the ragnar relay Friday and Saturday. It was so much fun and totally exhausting. My sister in law Heather has a great quote that totally applies in this situation: "The more miserable, the more memorable!" Totally memorable in my book: running in the middle of the night, no sleep, horrible BO smell in the car, etc. Love it!

We left early Friday morning to drive up for our 1:00 start time in Woodstock, NY. Then we proceeded to run 181 miles for 25:08 and ended the race in the Bronx (upper NYC). We had an awesome team and everyone was great runners. My van (#1) ran from 1-5ish, 11:00 pm-2:30am, and then 6:30-10:30am Saturday. Here's some action shots:

I am so sore and totally exhausted, but so glad I did it.

Here are some highlights: 1. KA getting "punked"...they changed the race course last minute and instead of running 2.9 miles, moderate difficultly for her first leg, (the categories were easy, moderate, hard, very hard) it got switched to 7.4 very hard! 2. A few of us getting lost because some genious thought the sign to turn left was the wrong way, so he switched it around. 3. Absolutely no shame about the potty business...literally. Our legs were not the only thing running, if you know what I mean. 4. KA and Ryan talking the front desk lady into letting us have a hotel room for 2 hours to take showers...and the best part of all was that it was FREE!

5. Courtney Gartz's beautiful display of the race Bible (the rules, exchange info, etc.) and Ben Harwood's excel spreadsheet predicting each runners start and finish time. This guy is amazing! He created this formula to calculate in the degree of difficulty and stuff, it was really cool. 6. Beating our predicted time by over an hour! 7. IRONMAN. So some "ultra" teams only had 6 runners instead of 12. Each person would do 2 legs. This one guy was absolutely incredible...I think he was the best athlete I've ever seen in real life. He was running at a 5:50 mile pace for like 15 miles each time!

I'm so glad I did it and I think the Fife Family is shooting for the Ragnar in Las Vegas in October! We've definitely got a whole team, thanks to in-laws. http://www.ragnarrelay.com/lasvegas/index.php . The race goes from the Valley of Fire to Lake Mead. That means no more pregnancies and stuff, ok gals? Priorities are priorities. Totally kidding, of course. Bronx or Bust!

Viva Orlando

Last week I had a little gettaway to Orlando to spend some time with my family. Dave and Dan had endodontics meetings down in Orlando and Dave took his kids a few days early to go to Disneyworld. Because Becky is pregnant with her 6th and is still in the sick stage, they gave me this proposal: I come down and help with the kids while Dave is at meetings and they'll pay for all the park tickets and food and everything. DEAL! It was a pretty easy decision and I'm so glad I did it. Before I got there they went to 2 Disney parks and then when I got there we went to a waterslide park and to Sea World. The kids were adorable and the weather was perfect: 85 degrees and sunny, I loved it. Another thing that made it great was that I accidentally forgot my cell phone! I realized it when I got to the airport but it was actually nice to not be able to get ahold of, it was a true vacation! I've decided I need to wean myself off my phone a little bit: yes its not quite as convenient but things still work. Dave picked me up curbside at the airport (it was great, I only had to wait a few minutes) and we were laughing about what it was like in the pre-cell phone days, you just kept driving around the loop at the airport until you saw your person on the curb...sometimes it was 5 minutes, sometimes like 30. Or you could also send someone in to the baggage claim area to find who you're waiting for, then go out to the curb. Anyways, here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Julie's Visit, Cherry Blossoms, and Birthday Fun

It's almost been a month since I posted last...yowsers! I've basically been basking in the joy of visitors (esp. family), reading great books, the beautiful spring weather, and being one year older. Here's what I've been up to lately:

Julie came to visit for her spring break and it was so much fun. I love my sister so much. Don't get me wrong, I love my brothers and all, but there is nothing like a sister and best friend. We did all kinds of things here in DC: The Supreme Court, Library of Congress, Capitol Visitors' Center, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Washington monuments, Georgetown, etc. We also took a weekend trip up to New York City to see Mary Poppins, which we loved. It's adorable. We also attempted to win "Wicked" tickets but didn't win the raffle. We ate some amazing food (thanks to Ben's incredible recommendations), saw the Manhattan temple, went to the MET, did some shopping, and reminisced about the night we slept in Times Square 6 years ago during that big blackout. It was so much fun and I can't even express how much I love Julie. As my brothers say, Julie's "one solid chick," and I would have to whole-heartedly agree.

Two weeks after Jules left Doug, Heather, Evan, and Audrey came into town. They came during the peak blooming of the Cherry Blossoms which we loved! We did the whole touristy thing: saw monuments, went to the Air and Space Museum (Evan was literally in heaven, I've never seen him so happy!), saw planes take off and land at Gravely Point near the Regan Airport, went swimming, and much more. It was so fun to have them here, I've still having Evan and Audrey withdrawls!

Last Friday I turned 26! I had a really fun day thanks to my amazing friends. Ben and Laney planned the evening; a bunch of friends and I went to a Nationals game and then had cake and ice cream after. Laney made a delicious cake from scratch that was a huge hit. I also had a lot of fun blowing out the candles...haha, as evidenced in this picture. What a great action shot, huh!?

The detective in me...

I've recently re-discovered the detective in me and the yearning to become as cool as Sydney Bristow from Alias, here's why: we've discovered there is a high profile diplomat or maybe someone on Obama's cabinet on my street that gets 24 hour secret service type surveillance! A few months ago (we think around January 20th sometime, interestingly enough) Laney, Mandy (roommates), and I noticed a black SUV with two guys in suits with earpieces parked on our street quite often. Laney noticed them at 5 am when she goes to the gym, I noticed them getting home late at night, etc. We thought...hm...who are they and who are they watching? They always park at different spots and sides of the street so we didn't really know specifically which house(s) they were watching, but our curiousity kept us watching them. I visited the secret service website to find out who is entitled to 24-hour surveillance. Here's what I found out:

Today, the Secret Service is authorized by law to protect:

• The president, the vice president, (or other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President), the president-elect and vice president-elect


• The immediate families of the above individuals


• Former presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes, except when the spouse remarries. In 1997, Congressional legislation became effective limiting Secret Service protection to former presidents for a period of not more than 10 years from the date the former president leaves office
  
• Children of former presidents until age 16


• Visiting heads of foreign states or governments and their spouses traveling with them, other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States, and official representatives of the United States performing special missions abroad
  
• Major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election


• Other individuals as designated per Executive Order of the President
  
• National Special Security Events, when designated as such by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
  

Kind of exciting wondering if any of those people lived on my street, huh!? So one night last week Julie (sister), Kim (cousin), Ben (significant other), and I were playing tennis at the park right by my house and I noticed the SUV parked in the parking lot (it was about 9pm). I'm freaking out, wondering if its someone in the park or something and in the meantime Ben decides we should just go up to them and ask them who they are and what they're doing. Here are the answers we got: 1. They are not secret service, but are "of the like" 2. They do 24 hour surveillance of someone on my street 3. The person they are watching is in neither House nor Senate 4. We "shouldn't be alarmed."

The next development: last Monday for FHE we went door to door on behalf of the "Save the Aurora Hills Library" campaign to get petition signatures. The county is doing budget cuts and wants to cut our library hours in half so some members of the church organized this campaign. We were encouraged to go on our streets to get to know our neighbors and I thought, PERFECT! Laney and I had narrowed it down to a few houses on this one side of the street and so I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to go up to those doors, find out who lives there, and get their name and signature on our petition! We had considered taking around cookies, casually playing the "we're new in the neighborhood" card, pretending to be JW's, selling girl scout cookies, etc. to try to go find out who it is, but never did anything until now. So as we (Jane, Ashley, and I) go up the the first of the suspected houses, I see the black SUV parked down the street start to pull out. As we were at the door they drove by really slowly and were totally watching us. The circled around and went back to their parking spot as we left the house and went on to the next houses. BAM...knew what house they're watching. A nice lady answered the door and we explained what we were doing. She said her husband wasn't home and that they were from out of town and that the owners of the house wouldn't be back until later that evening...a little fishy if you ask me. Why would it matter if her husband is home if they are from out of town? There were to cars from Pennsylvania parked in the driveway that I had noticed in the past...also fishy. So we continued down the street getting signatures and we had the urge to ask people about who lived in that house, but didn't do it. So needless to say, we now know what house they're watching, but still don't know who it is. We'll get to the bottom of this! Actually, maybe we shouldn't because we might end up dead. Kidding. Go US Secret Service (and anyone "of the like")!

Stacey and Clinton wannabes

So last weekend Laney and I had a fun little adventure. One of the many advantages of living in a big city is endless shopping. Growing up in Merced, CA we were seriously shopping deprived. The best that Merced Mall had to offer was JCPenny and Mervyns, literally. I think now its moving up a bit, but still no Gap, unbelievable. No longer do I have to drive 40 minutes to Modesto for a Gap and an hour for a Nordstrom or Banana. So one of our roommates said she wanted to dedicate $1,000 to her wardrobe and she wanted Laney and my help, so we for sure jumped on the challenge. Laney knows all the staples you need in your closet and she's got way better fasion sense, I was mostly there for the practical opinion (I definitely have Karen Fife and Beth Callister genes in me). We spent almost 3 hours at H&M and had her try on pretty much everything in the store. We talked Em into some skinny jeans (both denim and grey, I was really proud of her, they looked amazing on her), a few cute cardigans, and some other shirts. Needless to say, it was a very successful trip and thanks to the cheap prices at H&M, she still has about 700 bucks to go! Em had a hot date that night and man did she look good. I see many more good times in the future. Thanks Stacey and Clinton. I really want to be on that show and get $5,000 for shopping. Yowsers!