Honeymoon - The Drive To The California

This is the first of five posts on our honeymoon that we took in June. We got married last year and spent almost a year planning a two week road trip. We drove 8,000 miles through 8 states. 

We left South Dakota and drove to Colorado to celebrate my birthday with my family. My brother had turned 21 in May so we went to the bar and took shots as a family. My brother wanted to take a birthday cake shot, which is way to sweet for me and my dad. My dad decided to pay him back by ordering shots of tequila. Drinking with family is something I have always avoided, but I must say it was actually a lot of fun.


After the bar we headed to the mountains to sleep at a rest stop for the night. Our plan was to stop at the top of Vail Pass. When we got there it was 30 degrees out so we headed down to find a warmer place to sleep for the night. Thankfully there is another rest area just past Edwards where the temp was 60. 

Day 2 of our trip we went white water rafting down the Eagle River. There was so much snow last year that the river was extremely high and we weren't able to raft all the way to the normal take out point. We had a blast and plan on going many more times.

Once we were done with the rafting trip we were on our way to Ely, NV where we planned on spending the night at a friend’s. Driving through Utah was a lot more fun than we thought it was going to be. I'm pretty sure we stopped at every scenic spot, but I am so very glad we did. 

Since it was my birthday I really wanted a treat of some kind. The original plan was to stop in Grand Junction and get some yummy fruit. This turned out impossible. Who would have thought that buying fresh fruit in the place where most of the states fruit is grown would be impossible? Since we couldn’t find any fruit stands we continued on and planned on stopping in Utah somewhere. We stopped in the biggest town along the interstate and felt like we were in Radiator Springs. To get to the town you take an exit to no-where and drive for a little ways. There was a gas station at each end of the town and nothing in between. I got a popsicle and we continued on our way.

This was one of our favorite stops, the San Rafeal Reef. It was absolutely beautiful. Driving west through it blew our minds. I am really glad that I was able to show Jason how beautiful the desert is. I have always told him how amazing it is, but he never believed me. I’m pretty sure he thought it was more like Nevada where we went over 100 miles without seeing any other vehicles or buildings. Thankfully it was dark out, which made this part of the drive less painful.

We stopped in Ely, NV for the night.

 Day 3 was started with a drive threw a town that made us think we were in Mexico instead of Nevada and deciding how to get to Yosemite since the Tioga Pass was still buried under snow. The drive was beautiful to Lee Vining, California was beautiful. One part of the road was like a roller coaster. It was so much fun driving the truck over the little hills was one of the highlights of the day.

Once we got to Lee Vining we had to decide how to get through the mountains. After studying the map for ever we decided to take the Sonora Pass Hwy. 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 3

Clouds

The clouds were too low for us to take the picture at my moms house. So we drove to the top of the hill and took some pictures at the dog park. I was talking to my sister in-law on the phone so I wasn't putting as much attention on my pictures as I usually do. This is the best one I got.

30 Day Photography Challeneg - Day 2

What you wore 

I decided that today was going to be a lazy day so I wore sweats. I tried to put up a good fight with the light, but in the end had to revert to using a flash. Without the flash the pictures were very orange. 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Day 1

Self Portrait

My mom and I took a photography class and decided to do this challenge to practice. Day 1 was a self portrait. We both forgot our tripods and decided we still wanted to do true self portraits. It was really difficult to find places to put our camera's in the open space.

Mexican Chili

I am going to start posting the recipe's that the husband and I come up with.

Mexican Chili

(The picture is dark because my moms kitchen has terrible lighting)

1 can of Rotel
1 can of Chili Beans
1 can of Pinto Beans
1/2 can  to a whole can of Enchilada Sauce
1 can of corn
Chili Powder

Put all ingredients in a saucepan and cook until it has the consistency of Chili.

I don't have a picture at this time, but I will post one when I make this next.

Weight Loss Plan and Goals

I have decided to really work on losing my college weight. All those boxes of pasta-roni and liters of dew have added about 40 lbs to my body. I have been trying to lose the weight since i graduated about a year and a half ago with about zero luck. I have joined That Wife's second weight loss challenge. My weight goal is to lose 25% of my body weight by the end of the challenge (April 15th). I am going to make some "life" changes to help me with losing the weight and keeping it off.

1. I will run/bike 3 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Whether I run or bike will be determined by how my knee is feeling. If I run I will go out for 30 minutes. If I bike I will go out for at least an hour.

2. I will do some form of strength training on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday/Sunday. For the first 6 weeks I am going to be doing the 100 Push up Challenge. After I finish that I will start lifting weights.

3. I will limit my sugar intake (minus whole fresh fruit) to once a week. I have a really bad sweet tooth that I need to curb. If I am in a social setting where it would look rude if I didn't have dessert then I will allow myself to have it even if I have already used my weekly allowance of sugar.

4. I will limit my carb intake to whole grain/ whole wheat products. I will continue to eat sour dough in place of most of my bread intake.

5. I will only eat when I am hungry and take a picture of everything I eat. I will put all of my pictures in OneNote.

6. I will take measurements once a month. The body measurements will serve as another way to gauge my
success.

7. Always eat at the table. If I’m not hungry enough to eat at the table, I’m not hungry enough to eat.


8. I will reassess these goals at the end of November and change and adjust as needed.


I am hoping that by writing down my goals/changes that I will be better at sticking to them. The end goal is not so much weight loss as it is getting in shape so I have more self confidence and so I can do better next year in triathlons.

Goals For The Remainder of 2011

I have 6 years to complete my 30 by 30. I have decided that I need to make a plan for how I am going to get each goal completed. This post will be the first of many on my plan.

By the end of this year I would like to have:

• Read 2 classic books
• Volunteered for a race
• Climbed at least one 14ner

I think that is a manageable number of goals considering my current life situations (which I plan on trying to write a post on).