We are living during a pretty remarkable time in history. The global coronavirus pandemic has affected every part of our day-to-day business. School, work, church, stores, travel, regular socialization; the list goes on. There have even been months-long food and supply shortages (tp, flour, hand sanitizer, dish soap, I'm looking at you). It hasn't been the most serene time for our family either. We've had multiple earthquakes, which was really bizarre. But they've left enough of an impression that whenever Nate gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I wake up a little panicked when he returns to the bed and tosses and turns to get comfortable, thinking that we're having another one.  A couple weeks ago a huge water pipe burst on our street and blew a hole in the asphalt and shot up in a 30 foot geyser until they got it shut off. We were without water all day long and were sure grateful that we'd stored a little in our basement! Also o...

Whew! We made it through the holidays, which leaves me hopelessly behind on the blog. So what will follow on the next several posts will probably be photo-heavy and light on the text. Here we go! Nate has made a tradition out of summiting mountains on his birthday. This past September he decided to let us all join him. He strategically picked a peak that our family could handle and that would add to our summer adventure miles. Bald Mountain, in the Uintahs, elevation 11,943 feet. Due to the elevation, we spent most of the hike winded and also got totally fried, despite our liberal sunscreen application. We were mostly troopers, though, and played lots of rainbow I-Spy and I Went to the Kings Feast to power ourselves through. The birthday boy himself. A tuna sandwich picnic at the top. A crazy-huge cairn. We lost count of the number of lakes we spotted.

Nate and I ran our race! I was so, so nervous, as I tend to be, but it rocked. The weather was perfect - we even got a couple little rain showers. The first three miles were straight up, the next seven were so, so fun - down the mountain on a nice dirt trail. Couldn't have asked for anything better. I did faceplant once, but luckily, there were no rocks around and I just got really dusty and scraped my knee and my elbow up. Then the last four were along the reservoir. So pretty, so fun. Nate killed this race! He was so fast! Fourth in his age group and something like 20th overall. And then he ran back to me and hauled me across the finish line. Just kidding about the hauling, he was a very welcome companion, though. I walked some and ran some during this race, and I felt good about it. Lots of walking during the last four miles. Also, it's worth noting that I totally ate a pickle at an aid station around mile 10, and I liked it. I feel like I get life experience points for tha...