Lazy lazy

So they just put in these automatic toilet paper dispensers in one of the bathrooms in the building where I work. Really? Are we so lazy that we can't even spin our own toilet paper? What will be next? Robots that will feed you and fan you with palm leaves so you don't have to feed yourself? Anyway, I just thought the toilet paper thing was really weird.

Anniversary festivities

This weekend we celebrated our 1-year anniversary. We did lots of fun stuff. First of all, we watched the Tour de France. That was Matt's choice of activity. :) Then we made waffles for breakfast. Then we went on a hike to Lake Mary in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was so beautiful.

And it was nice to get out of the sweltering heat for a little while. We enjoyed the mountains and the lake.

And I enjoyed frolicking through the wildflowers. Matt enjoyed taking pictures of me frolicking.

It was a short hike, but very fun.

Then I got this great idea that we should go over to the temple and have our picture taken. We are going to do this every year. I thought it would be fun to see our family grow throughout the years.

We went to the Melting Pot for dinner. It was so fun. It is a fondue restaurant. Not only is it different and fun, but it's delicious! Oh, and we ate our wedding cake top. I'm writing a whole separate post on that one because it was quite the experience.

Then we went and stayed at the Anniversary Inn. This is where we stayed on our honeymoon. They have lots of different themed rooms. This time we stayed in the Country Garden room.

I loved it! It had a gazebo that the bed was in. It had ivy and flowers all over the room and it had little archways and stone pillars and stuff throughout the room. It was awesome. And the bed inside the gazebo was circle shaped. Very cool.

And the shower was a little watering bucket. It was so cute! It is so fun to stay there. They bring you breakfast in bed in the morning and they have sparkling cider and cheesecake waiting for you in your room when you get there.

Then we (ok mostly me) had this great idea to dress up in our wedding attire. So we did. It was really fun. We danced to our wedding song and listened to our wedding playlist throughout the day.
And then we went for a carriage ride downtown. Wedding clothes and all. It was great. We went around Salt Lake and up through Memory Grove.

This was our awesome horse named Charlie. We got a lot of honks and waves and congratulations and stuff. It was awesome!

What a great day. But mostly what a great year! I'm the luckiest girl ever to have such a great hubby. Matt is so good to me and I'm so glad I married him. Marriage has definately been a learning experience for me. But it has also been the greatest experience of my life. It has been a wonderful year and I am looking forward to many more to come.

How to enjoy a wedding cake. Twice.

Step 1: Order your wedding cake from the Cake Lady. She is AWESOME! And you get to taste test the cakes at her house before you order.

Step 2: Enjoy your wedding cake at your reception. This is actually real cake that tastes like good cake--not the gross-tasting wedding cakes we all hate. And it has real frosting. No fondant stuff.

Step 3: Have your mom package the top layer of your wedding cake exactly as the cake lady has instructed.

Step 4: Wait 1 year. Hope your brothers don't eat it. (This was a close call.)

Step 5: Go dig the cake out of your mom's freezer. You may have to chisel it out of the ice.

Step 6: Open the ice cream bucket it has been chillin' in.

Step 7: Remove the tin-foil wrapped cake from the ice cream bucket.

Step 8: Unwrap Layer 1 of tin foil.

Step 9: Unwrap Layer 2 of tinfoil. (It's kind of like opening a tin foil dinner!)

Step 10: Think, "I wonder if this is going to be any good. It kinda looks funny."

Step 11: Cut the cake. Again.

Step 12: Serve yourself (and your spouse) up a slice. Think again, "Really? Why do people do this?...Because it's tradition!"

Step 13: Take a bite.

Step 14: Enjoy your perfectly moist and delicious wedding cake.

Seriously...it was SO GOOD! We got German Chocolate for our top layer and with this awesome way of preserving it, it tasted so good! Even after it sitting in the freezer for a year. I couldn't believe it. The Cake Lady ROCKS!!!!!!!

Redeeming the holiday

So the 24th was much more festive than the 4th. We got up early to do the Days of 47 10K race. This is such a fun race. It's blasted hot, but it is really fun. The last 2 miles or so are along the parade route, so there are tons of people cheering you on. Plus, some of them bring squirt bottles and hose you down. It's the best!

I did really well. I beat my time from last year by over a minute, and I got my best 10K time ever at 1:05:32. Matt did well too, he came in just barely under the one hour mark and about 30 seconds after my dad.

Then I stayed and watched the parade while Matt went home and watched the Tour de France. The parade was super hot but it was fun. Some of my students were on the BYU float and my uncle Jeff was driving our stake float, so it was fun to see them.

After I got home from the parade Matt and I went to the pool. It's the first time we've been to our apartment's pool since we moved here. It was so nice just to relax and chill by the pool. After that we took naps and had our own little BBQ. Then we went to our friend Alison's birthday party and got to see all her fun pictures from Peru. And then we went to the fireworks. I loved them.

Of course I didn't get a single picture of any of the festivities. Oh well. Happy Pioneer Day!

We survived a whole year!

Happy Anniversary to the most wonderful honey ever! Thank you for bringing so much happiness into my life. Thank you for all that you do for me. Thank you for doing fun things with me and not being afraid to be silly. Thank you for helping me to be a better person. Thank you for helping me to grow and learn. Thank you for being patient with me and most especially for loving me.

I LOVE YOU HONEY! Thank you for a wonderful year and for an eternity of more to come. You are the best!

Brianhead in less than 24 hours

This past weekend was the Robertson Family Reunion (my mom's side) down at Brianhead. We weren't able to stay the whole time so we were there for less than 24 hours. But it was fun. We ventured over to Cedar Breaks for a few minutes since Matt had never been. We also went on a very short hike up a mountain biking trail. The rest of the time we were playing day camp games, eating, getting scolded, and hanging out with the fam. And driving. A very long way of driving. But we did stop to sample the world's best ice cream at the Big Red Barn on the way so it was ok.

Anyway, here is the crew! We had most everyone there except for Scott & Mystie, John, Tim and Trevor and their families. I think that was it.

It is always fun to get together with my cousins. I remember when we were little, we used to love going to visit my cousins. Rachel and I would even build traps to get the boys. Of course the boys were building their own traps for us while we were at it! Hee hee! A big thanks to Grandpa Russ for organizing it all!

One thing that was really cool that we did at the reunion was learn about some of our ancestors. One of my ancestors, Ole Madsen, was in the Willie Handcart Company. He was one of the 13 who died at Rock Creek Hollow. I have always wanted to learn more about him and his family. Well, Grandpa Russ brought a video about the Madsen family's trek over from Denmark and the whole journey. It was awesome. I definately don't descend from wimps, that's for sure!

Question

Where is the line between striving for improvement and progression and being satisfied with your efforts and not beating yourself up for not being the person you would like to be?

A few more tri pics

3 minutes too slow

We completed the Echo Triathlon this weekend. So fun! My dad, my uncle Mike, Nathan, Kyle, Matt and me all raced. My goal was to beat my time from last year, and I did. By 15 minutes! Granted, I did terrible last year but still 15 minutes is a lot in a race like this. My final time was 1 hour and 52 minutes. (They don't have the official results posted yet, but that was my watch time.)

That was pretty good for me. My best triathlon time was 1:51 at Lake Powell, so 1:52 was pretty good. My swim was terrible but I feel like I did well on the bike and run. My swim time was about 25 minutes, my bike time was about 47 minutes, and my run time was about 33 minutes. It did take me forevor to get my stinkin' wetsuit off.

The saddest thing though was that my dad promised me that if I beat him, he would give me $100. I was three minutes off. THREE MINUTES! If I could have just done a little better on the swim and gotten my wetsuit off more quickly, I would be $100 richer. Oh well. Maybe next time. The offer is good for the next 5 years.

My mom had our camera and let's just say that she didn't get very many good photos. So I'll have to wait to get the good ones from my auntie Jill. Anyway, here are a few. Matt did well...his goal was to beat my dad, which he did. And he didn't crash on his bike. :)

My dad's goal was to beat my uncle Mike, which he did not. He claims it was in the transitions that he fell short.

I felt really good about the whole race. I wasn't as prepared for it as I would like to have been, but for the training I put in (as in not very much), I was very happy with my time. And I got to get a cute triathlon suit thanks to our leftover REI gift card from our wedding. It always helps if you feel cute. :)

Kyle did not even train one bit. The only reason he did it was because it was his Father's Day gift to my dad. Yes, my dad is THAT obsessed with triathlons. Anyway, he finished and didn't look like he was going to die afterwards, so that was good.

Nathan did the Olympic distance race and did pretty well. I ran into some of my good friends from college, Steve and Sunny, at the race. It was really fun to see them. Anyway, it was a good day at Echo all around.

Since it was 7-11, we had to go get our free slurpees while we were out house hunting. Fun. fun.

I made these cupcakes last week for the 4th and wanted to share. I thought they turned out really cute.

Costa Rica here we come!

I just booked a trip to Costa Rica!!! October 10-17 we will be lounging on the beautiful beaches, zip lining over the rainforest, and hiking up volcanos. Woo-hoo!

Camping adventure

Last weekend we went camping at Pineview with Matt's family. It was a lot of fun. I love camping and I love boating so a combo deal was great. The weather didn't exactly cooperate with us the first day. But we still had fun huddling under the canopy thing and trying to set up our tents and start a fire in the rain. (OK, I mostly just huddled under the canopy while Matt set up our tent and started the fire!)

Kyle loved running around with this umbrella. Matt successfully started the fire in the rain so we didn't starve since tin foil dinners were on the menu.

We played cards and ate cookies while the dinners cooked. :)

And it did stop raining enough to make some smores. It rained off and on all night, which was interesting in our teeny tiny little two-man tent. But we managed to keep mostly dry during the night.

And we did see a very lovely rainbow. The next day we woke up and it was beautiful all day.

So we spent the day out on the lake. We got in some waterskiing, wakeboarding, and tubing.

It was my first time getting up on the wakeboard! Yay!

And these tube things were so fun!

We also brought our bikes and went for a lovely 16 mile ride around the lake. It brought back memories of the marathon. Some of the mile markers were even still there! I enjoyed it much more on my bike than on foot. :) We also practiced our open water swimming and spent some quality time on the beach.

Yay for camping!