Brenda and Rocks and Halloween

This is my cute friend, and my cute husband. We went on a double date to the shooting range. I wanted to write a little about this because I realized I've got complicated feelings about guns. I grew up in Southern California where regular use of guns for hunting, like around here in Utah, is not the norm. My exposure to guns was hearing about drive by shootings, and a gun tragedy at my Dad's employee's house. They weren't something good guys had. The bad guys had guns. 

 A few years ago Jeff talked me into getting my concealed carry permit. I remember being in the class as they handed around a gun to show us how to take it apart.  I was shaking and had a really hard time through most of the class. I felt like an idiot reacting this way, but as I remember and write all of this out, I'm inclined to give myself a pass. Anyway I got on board, and Jeff and I have had some really good times at the gun range with friends. 

 My friend's husband is a great hunter as is Brenda herself. They have been very generous with elk and fish --not a bad gig to be their friends! The guns themselves are fun -- like high tech toys. You just have to always keep in mind at the same time that they are dangerous. It's an odd juxtaposition.

 The bullets themselves are pretty --like shiny jewelry. As you shoot, the bullet backs (the brass) pop out of the back of the gun, and they are HOT. One of them popped right into the neck of my blouse and burned the heck out of my chest before I could get it out. Turtlenecks only for me from now on at the range.

 Monte brought his high powered rifle to let us try. I was scared to shoot it because I remembered the kick of a shotgun and how much it hurt my shoulder, but there was next to no kick on this guy --it was just LOUD. That was one drawback of a date to the range, you can't really have a ...conversation!

 The next day Brenda and I had our Haunted half marathon up the south fork of Provo Canyon. It was beautiful. One of the prettiest courses I'd ever seen. Huge race though --there must have been 2,000 people there, and most were in costume. We saw: the Jamaican bobsled team, Wolverine, the Joker, Tweedle dee and dum, a Home teacher on the last day of the month (that was hilarious. He was in a  full suit and tie), lots of witches and Minnies and Mickys. I wish I could remember all of them. 

 Great props.

 Oh! Alice in Wonderland.

 I liked the big markers --you weren't going to miss them!

 I loved this -- a group of friends dressed as the Pink Ladies. They welcomed us to the finish line. We took our time this race :)

 This last Thursday I needed some centering, and indulged in a drive up to Rock Canyon for my run. Most of the leaves are gone now, but I still loved it. The rock formations are spectacular here. 

 I saw a Western Blue Jay --can you see him? I may buy a dang telephoto lens for my phone camera!

 I don't know why this happens, but every once in a while you see a candle flame of a tree left with its glory. 

 Halloween itself we went to our neighborhood's street of treats. Who need trunks?? My friend Kelli puts herself on the line year after year organizing it, and it's a wonderful time to talk with everyone and just enjoy yourself. When I was little we would have ward potluck dinners that I loved (I have great memories of running up and down the halls --reverence? What's that?), and this reminds me of that casual, fun atmosphere although it's a neighborhood thing instead of church. 

 We take our Halloween seriously around here!

 It was my turn to plan the date night, and I really wanted to go do this Sleepy Hollow ride that Brenda had told me about. Her husband was hunting, and this was the last weekend, so I booked Jeff and I for Halloween night. I felt kind of bad leaving the trick or treating early, but the kids were good with a movie and PLENTY of treats, so we went for it. My other friend called last minute to ask me for a good date idea for her and her husband, and I asked them to come along. Made it twice as fun. We hadn't done anything with them in a long time. 

 I still had my orange "Merida" hair from street of treats, but I figured it matched Halloween.

These were gorgeous horses. They pulled us through Sleepy Hollow village, and we saw Ichabod's school, and Katrina van Tassel's house, and raced through the forest with the Headless Horseman chasing us. The story played in the cart, and they had the whole thing set up around us. It was really cool. I highly recommend it! I tried to take a picture of the Headless Horseman, but...black horse, dark night... you couldn't see much. 

Now I want to go back for this. Brenda are you up for it? I stole your idea for Halloween so I owe you!

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It's all beautiful...

 I've been doing a lot of avoidance strategies lately: facebook, netflix, reading blogs. I realized I was so busy for a while, it gave me a great sense of purpose. When things slowed down a little bit, I had a hole I needed to fill. Add to that a scare I had the other day (well, it hasn't gone away yet really) with a friend's health, and I found I was trying to escape my own life. 

 I was reading John Scalzi's blog, and ran across a post that really resonated: It's all beautiful and nothing lasts.   He talked about a dream he had, and this is something he says in the dream. What struck me, was that it wasn't defeatist, it was motivational: it doesn't last so enjoy the heck out of life while you have it --whatever it is. 

 I went to my daughter's choir concert last night, and they had a mentally handicapped girl there participating. At the end of the first song, she screamed "more more" so the choir sang her favorite song for her. She was so over-stimulated that she kind of lost control, and was rubbing her face and shouting, and flailing, and I thought --her parents! The pain they must feel right now! The pain they feel every day! But I looked at the choir, and those kids just saw that they were making this girl happy. They saw beauty. I realized that you could see the moment in two different ways. I've been looking at things wrong a lot. 

 Excuse the clichéed simile with autumn and death. Each week I see more and more leaves fall, each week the beauty moves down the mountain. At first the brightest colors are the furthest away, but as winter and death gets closer, the color moves down towards the valley, toward my own front yard. Soon the aspens by my driveway will be bright gold; then they will be dead for winter. 

 With more intense feelings, even bad ones, come more beauty. I valued my friend more as I feared for her health. I mourn the loss of having little babies in the house, and passed a mom with a 6 month old in the grocery store yesterday, and said "you are so lucky!" I saw the beauty in the little baby girl precisely because my baby days were over. I don't remember if I knew how lucky I was when I had babies. I hope I did, but there is beauty in the remembering and yearning too. 

 So I run up the mountain, and enjoy the beauty even of the leaves that have fallen. When winter comes, I will no doubt exclaim over snow and ice crystals. I hope I can stop and enjoy listening to Ari and Kai's chatter after school today. Tia still thinks I'm funny sometimes. I hope I appreciate that now -- It won't last!

 To see the beauty, I have to look for it in each moment. Remember with fondness, and not block the pain --there is beauty in the fallen leaves too.

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Running up the paver trail.

 Getting no exercise that  really makes my heart work has been awful for me. I need that burst of endorphins in my system. It's so hot and humid, even first thing in the morning, that after trying it once, I didn't want to do it twice. Yesterday though, I knew it was time. When the kids and I went looking for Playa Redondo the day before, we'd taken a little paver/cobblestone road that went up down and around the hills. I was thinking if I took that, it would be shady, and give me some killer hills in case I didn't last very long time-wise in the heat. By the way, makeup is for Sunday only around here!

From the end of our beach, we can go up these little stairs and hook into the trail. I started in and promised myself that as soon as I was done I would take my shoes off and plunge into the ocean to get my core temperature back down. It kept me going. I'll confess, I went back and took these pictures afterwards so you could see what it looked like.

 There are these beautiful seed pods on the way. I don't know what kind of tree they're from (of course), but I love them. There are a ton of Plumeria trees growing on the cliffs too -I recognize those flowers!

 As I went up to take pictures, Jeff was coming down. He "took my idea and ran with it".

 

 

 Another lovely seed pod.

 

 This is what the trail looks like. When you come by bus from San Juan Del Sur, the first third of the way is paved like this. Our original driver told us it was all laid by hand. This must have been the same project, it just wasn't complete between the two pieces. There were cement drains laid through it, and written on them was a date from 2005. I'm thinking some developer from the US or Australia had big ideas for this place, and then the crash came and nothing got completed. We sure love our little resort though, so I'm glad whoever it was got a start.

 

 There are these vines hanging from all of the trees. Jeff swung on a thick one to teach the kids about Tarzan the other day. When you pull a little one down, it really feels like an elastic band. It's pretty cool.

 

 

 Lots of cactus growing among the trees too. Our driver told us this Pacific side of the country did see a little less rain, so I suppose that's how the cactus doesn't drown.

 

 

 This tree trunk is covered with mean looking thorns. In Uruguay, there was a tree like this, and they called it "Palo de Borracho": Drunkard's stick. I'd hate to be knocked around with this guy!

 

 

 The road weaves it's way around and up the main hill until you get to a little house --Jeff said he thought it was a water tank. I didn't get too close after being chased off some private property the day before.

 

 View of our resort and the ocean through the trees.

 

 

My reward when I got down. I went right out into the waves in my clothes and it felt fabulous. Going running again today!

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Running up City Creek.

Jeff and I won a free hotel weekend. It was Jeff's birthday in June and he asked for free babysitting from my parents for his present.  I don't know if my mom is snowballing me, but she said they just read the whole time so it was easy.  One of the big attractions of staying with Gramma and Grampa is going to their library.  Can I just say in passing that it doesn't speak well for Mapleton that we've GOT no library?  I know we've got the Utah county bookmobile housed here but pickin's are SLIM there.  Scores of multi-million dollar houses but we can't spring for a decent library?  Rant over.
When Jeff plans the weekend in Salt Lake it goes a little differently than mine does.  His big goal is to veg in front of TV and movie screens.  Mine is to see and eat as much cool stuff as possible.  We hit up Starbucks for breakfast oatmeal and that was the extent of our eating out.  Oh well.  We saw a couple of cool movies, more on that in a sec.    One thing we always agree on is the workouts.  We had a 9 mile run scheduled on our training plan for Saturday, and jeff suggested running up the City Creek trail.  It was honestly hard to believe there WAS a trail right near downtown, but what as cool run!  We started out running up west temple past the salt palace and art center.

We turned up north temple where you first see the creek as part of the landscaping in front of the "meganacle"

Soon the creek enters "City Creek Park" which is beautiful by the way,

and through a really neat historical district.  Sorry for the blurry pics, I didn't really stop to take them with my phone, just slowed down.

Then the real trail started, and the creek got big and scary.

Up through a canyon, and onto the Bonneville Bench trail.

Here's Jeff up ahead of me (he's much faster usually, but especially when I'm taking pictures).  Then my camera shut down on my phone because it was supporting my audiobook at the same time and freaked out.  oh well.

 

 The first movie was Potter.  Fabulous.  Just fabulous.  I'm a major Potter nerd, and have read all of the books multiple times, AND listened to the audiobooks --all of them -- multiple times.  I was so excited for this movie.  Usually when this happens, the movie can't live up to your expectations, but they pulled out all the stops on effects.  The best part by far though was watching Snape's memories.  This is probably my favorite part in the whole series, but watching it on the screen, I was sobbing.  I felt so stupid while I was doing it, knowing these are fictional characters, and telling myself that over and over didn't help one bit.  I was completely drawn in.  Jeff kept patting my arm (probably hoping I'd stop embarrassing him).

The next movie we saw was Captain America.  Can I just say, the photoshop/CGI stuff was amazing!  Never again will I watch a movie and lament that an actress is so skinny --impossibly thin.  It IS impossible!  Look what they did to Cris Evans!  Plumps when you cook 'em.  :)

Good show, classic superhero movie.  It was done by the guy that did the Rocketeer, and it felt like that.  Corny, old-fashioned fun.  Stick around after the credits, there's an Easter egg you'll be excited to see after.

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