Birthdays, those annual reminders that we are growing older and will someday have less years in front of us than behind us, are unwelcome by many. However, I am not one of those many. As far as I’m concerned, looking back is a waste. Why squander time mourning the loss of time? Isn’t that doubling your losses? I’m not going to spend my awesome “now” moments lamenting wrinkles or passed decades. No way, I plan on rocking this party ‘til I drop.
Doesn’t our group look amazing all harnessed up? Safety has its price: ugliness.
Since I don’t have an aversion to birthdays, I was happy to oblige Jason’s scheme of holding another grandiose bash for mine. Although every year I tell him that such celebrations aren’t necessary, I am always happy to get together with my many fabulous friends. Jason, once again, did a great job planning a fine event. Nearly twenty of us met up at Provo Beach Resort to hit their ropes course. If you’ve never done a ropes course before, it’s more of an adrenaline rush than you’d think. Sure, you’re hooked in and you can’t fall but try telling your brain that. It’s one thing to just hang around up high and something else entirely to convince your legs to move across a tiny board at intimidating heights. Fortunately, the stress of the course only put one of our participants in tears.
Heights and I don’t get along very well but I told my pounding heart to shut up and I took those skinny beams on.
After we’d had lots of line time, we tested our sweet laser dodging moves in the resort’s Lazer Frenzy maze. It turns out that none of us really have any sweet laser dodging moves. Drat! I guess Catherine Zeta-Jones is on her own.
Although you are safely strapped in, trying to make your legs go places your brain says they shouldn’t takes some gumption.
Next, we walked across the street to Malawi’s Pizza and feasted on some of my favorite pie. Our giant table of boisterous gobblers probably disturbed a number of the other dinners but that didn’t stop everyone from increasing their volumes even further with a few belted birthday verses. Yes, I was sung to and presented with fine gifts like LOTR PEZ dispensers. One PEZ to rule them all!
Jeremy was intimidated by the distance to the ground too but he got over his fears and started climbing around like the monkey he is.
I’ve got some superb friends. I love to laugh and they make sure I do often.
Following dinner, most of us challenged each other to a game of Miniature Croquet, which was surprisingly quite fun. The competition was intense though and I think more than one husband may have had to sleep on the couch as a result.
Andrew and Adam pulled off the aristocratic condescension befitting a croquet match quite well. Practice?
The handful of partiers that still had a few bits of energy and vocabulary in them joined us back home after all that for some games even though it was almost midnight. It was nearly 3 AM before we gave up on 25 Words or Less but I think some of us should have given up much sooner. (And, of course, by “some” I mean the people not on my team.)
I have one terrific husband. He makes me feel special every day.
I thoroughly enjoyed my birthday shindig. Thanks for celebrating me everyone. Here’s to another year older and another year feistier!
Jason and I have done the dirty several times but we’d never transformed ourselves into speeding human rainbows…until now. We thought we could use a few more shades of awesome in our lives so we signed up for Color Me Rad along with my brother Drew, his wife Simone and our friend Abigail. Color Me Rad, a 5K with color bombing stations, is one part athleticism and two parts nonsensical dye dumping. As it turns out, plastering yourself with pigment under the guise of exercise is pretty rad.
Jason didn’t keep up his usual quick race pace but slowed down to blitz all of us frequently with his many bags of colored powder.
Our group, Refraction Action, didn’t hurry too fast to the finish line but relished cavorting in the clouds of color.
By the end, Drew looked like what would happen if Crayola started making crayons in a TNT factory.
Color Me Rad, for the most part, proceeds like any other race except periodically a giant cloud of purple or orange appears in front of you and you quickly find yourself in a swirling monochromatic haze. Although most of the participants run through these dye mists without covering their noses or mouths, our group decided to wear bandanas through the fog so we could breathe a little easier. Gulping fluorescent dust just isn’t as refreshing as gulping fluorescent Gatorade even if they contain the same FD&C. Despite our precautions, I still woke up a few times the following night coughing like crazy but I’m sure I spared myself some extra wheezing by donning that unstylish handkerchief.
Yes, I wore a shower cap. My hairdresser informed me that dyes like these + blonde hair = not blonde hair so I wasn’t taking any chances.
Just one of Jason’s many naughty acts during the race.
After our scamper for color and follow-up attempt to pound ourselves back into pallidness, we stopped at our favorite waffle spot, Bruges, for some waffles and frites. Although the strange looks we got from some of the other patrons may have suggested otherwise, frites do taste just as good when eaten with neon fingers.
The colors flying around at the stations made the whole world seem bizarrely tinted.
We stuck around after the race for a color toss ensuring that our multihues multiplied.
Although Color Me Rad wasn’t an energy sucker like The Dirty Dash, it definitely left its mark.
Color Me Rad was a lot of fun and a lot of messy. But dye, oddly enough, is considerably easier to clean off than dirt. (Apparently, I have a lot of experience coating myself in all sorts of tenacious goo.) Sure, we had purple sweat circles covering our inner elbows that were none too eager to be removed and we were the proud owners of vibrant boogers for a few days but, all things considered, we tidied up pretty nicely. Yes, we colored it rad and rad wasn’t half bad.
When Jason and I visited Kodachrome Basin State Park last fall we noticed a group campsite that was isolated in a beautiful area and my plotting mind instantly recognized its potential as a future base of operation. Thus, when I got nominated to plan our first camping trip of the season I immediately thought of Kodachrome. As it turns out, I am indeed a bit of a scheming genius.
Our group campsite was comparatively plush and superbly situated.
Peculiar boulders and spires knotted the landscape around the Panorama Trail.
We usually go camping at least once every summer with a group of our buddies that includes: the Rowleys, the Bresees, and my brother Drew’s family. We’ve stayed in everything from state parks to RV parks on these excursions along with some cozy little cabins. The stress and success of our outdoor outings have varied considerably. Since our recent Kodachrome trip went pretty smoothly, I’d say it now ranks among my favorites.
This “Indian cave” contained petroglyphs that were definitely not of prehistoric import.
Boys will be ballerinas.
That group campsite, as anticipated, ended up being absolutely ideal for our raucous assortment of friends. It was solitarily situated among cresting red hills and equipped with a covered picnic table pavilion, a fire pit encircled by benches, and plenty of flat space for tents. Did I already mention that I’m a genius?
The texture of these wrinkly dirt mounds was fascinating.
My morning tea was too hot to drink before our hike but there was no way I was leaving it behind.
We arrived on Friday evening and spent most of our Saturday hiking. I was impressed with how well the little kids in our group held up. Our first trek took us along the Panorama Trail to such exciting places as the Secret Passage, Hat Shop, and Cool Cave. The Cool Cave, though really an alcove not a cave, was a favorite with the kiddies. It provided plenty of difficult dirt to challenge their climbing skills. Our diverting stops, remarkably, kept the children going for the entire 6 miles of our journey without many complaints. They were all too tired though near the end to make a slight detour to the Panorama Point lookout, which Jason and I checked out on our own. And just for the record, Drew and Jeremy were exhausted from backpacking their tiniest family members around and probably complained more than the youngsters.
The Cool Cave was not actually a cave but it was definitely cool.
The boys climbed up the sides of the Cool Cave much farther than I thought they’d be able to.
Jason and I took a little http://quotecorner.com/online-pharmacy.html jaunt on our own later that afternoon when lethargy infected the rest of our group. We explored the Grand Parade Trail and its offshoots into a couple of box canyons. The unusual rock shapes and shades in those canyons were the most intriguing parts of this hike.
Kodachrome was full of unusual rock formations including these flinty nuclear smokestack facsimiles.
Later, we got back together with the gang for a trek through Angel’s Palace. We were hoping to catch the sunset from that aerial vantage point but missed it by minutes. Still, this path, which is my favorite at Kodachrome, did not disappoint with its curious colors and slender fingers of precipitous rock. Surprisingly, most of the kids, even after all their earlier walking, wanted to join us for this climb.
Jason and I bought ice cream for everyone at the tiny camp store after our first hike; it was eagerly received.
The Grand Parade Trail had its grand moments.
The weather at Kodachrome was nearly ideal (Yet another detail meticulously accounted for by the genius of Rachel.) but the pleasant temperatures plummeted after dark making the fire pit a very popular spot in the evenings. Most of the adults gathered around the flames’ glow each night until 1:00 AM or so chatting and gazing at the stars, which pricked the sky so numerously in that remote region it’s a wonder the heavens didn’t leak light.
Our line of hikers paused on a ridge while ascending to Angel’s Palace making our youngest explorers nervous.
We barely missed seeing a spectacular sunset atop Angel’s Palace by minutes.
Our trip was over quickly but even demolishing our campsite on Sunday morning proved exciting. Drew found a small pale scorpion under his tent as he was packing it away. Yes, that’s the kind that’s quite poisonous. Maybe Drew will think twice now about unzipping all of his tent doors at night in a claustrophobic rage. Maybe…
The narrow spines of stone that jut out from Angel’s Palace offer a dizzying view of the warped surroundings and the distant ground.
Jason and I are solid explorers. We never run out of curiosity or steam.
Kodachrome Basin was rather fantastic. The temperatures, except for the first night during which we all froze sheathed in our ineffectual sleeping bags, were perfect. The scenery was gorgeous and the stars overwhelming plus the kids handled their explorative exercise unexpectedly well. As with any group as large as ours, some organizational challenges were unavoidable but I think those were pretty minimal this time compared to other camping trips. May all of our tented sprees be as successful as Kodachrome!
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