Here is the promised video. Don't watch till you read the bottom posting.

Summerfest, and mountains

Taylor and I spent part of our Saturday experiencing Logan's Summerfest. It's similar to Midway's Swiss Days or Bear Lake's Raspberry Days. The tabernacle perimeter was lined with all sorts of talent ranging from artwork, to photography, to music, to jewelry, to handmade toys, and landscape decor. What caught our eyes the most was the awesome artwork and photography. Being able to capture a priceless moment is breathtaking. We walked into one of the stalls and our eyes were immediately drawn to the picture posted above. This isn't the exact photograph, (the one he had taken was in black and white, and a perfect image) but it's the place, and Taylor and I both looked at each other and knew immediately that it was a photo of the Eternal Spring Shrine in Hua Lien, Taiwan. I've been to that gorge and hiked down the entire mountain, and then hiked up the "Heavenly Stairs" that lead to two other amazing temples. The photographer and his wife overheard us and thought we were the coolest people in the world for knowing the location, and offered a discount. Needless to say, we took the offer. The shrine was built as a memorial to all those workers who lost their lives during the construction of the Central Cross Island Highway in Taiwan.

We had the pleasure of hanging out with Corey, from Shanghai, China, for the past week. He is here for the Global Summit ICON puts on every year. We decided to show him some of the great things one is able to do in Logan, Utah. Taylor and I, along with Seth and Megan, took him up a known, but uncrowded place in Logan Canyon where quietness is common. Tay and Seth wanted to show him one of their favorite things to do as depicted in the video clip.

The second picture is after the video.

Camp trip

We are on top of the World!!! This completely vertical hike took us up to the top in 2 hours.

For some reason Taylor and Seth thought it would be real fun to roll not just rocks, but boulders down this super steep mountainside. The boulders would roll, gain momentum, and literally take out trees--dead or alive.

Only the strong survive.

Boys will be always be boys.

This one, obviously, did not survive.

More pictures from Tour de South.

The redrock was amazing.

hikes, wildflowers, and bike racing

Green Canyon is one of the prettiest places all year round, but I find it especially enticing in the Spring, Summer, and Fall. This is where we do some of our running. Don't be fooled by the wide road. There's plenty of adventurous, hidden trails branching off all over the place. Taylor doing a little mountain climbing in this picture.

"You belong among the wildflowers.

You belong in a boat out at sea.

Far away from your troubles and worry,

You belong somewhere you feel free..."
-Tom Petty

Taylor before and after his bike race victory! Way to go!!!

Bear Lake Classic

Last Friday we were at our friends house playing Guitar Hero and my friend Neil talked me into doing a bike race around Bear Lake the next morning. We were originally going to go to Ogden to watch my running buddy Seth Wold run his first marathon. (Seth won the marathon by 4:45 and almost broke the course record. not bad for a first try). We decided to go to the bike race. I had never really done a long flat bike race before but it seemed fun. There were so many fancy bikes at the race, it was crazy. Most of them were worth about two or threee times as much as my car. I think the other riders got a chuckle out of me because my bike is more like a Huffy compared to theirs and about 20 miles into the 52 mile race I had a spoke break so my bike made funny noises the rest of the race. They weren't laughing however when I crossed the finish line first and sat up like I was a Tour de France champion. We didn't stick around for the awards because we went to help our parents work on their house.

Last night we had a few other couples over for food and games. We played a new game called Apples to Apples. I thought for sure that I would win. However, I was last place and Jen won the whole game. She later let me know that she had "clinched the title" and that I was no match.

Although it is me who writes on our blog Jen sits next to me and corrects my spelling and grammar. So far in this posting I've only needed a few corrections. I was hoping to attend the "Zoolander school for kids who wanna read good...and do other stuff good too" but my application was two late.

Tour de South

This picture was taken at Calf Creek just outside Escalante, Utah. If you look closely you might notice the bowling ball that I carried with me under my shirt.

Last weekend we took quite the trip to Southern Utah with some cousins and friends of ours. My cousin TJ organized the event that will probably turn into an annual thing. There were nearly 20 people that joined in as we rode Fish Lake to Brianhead the first day (123 miles) then from Brianhead to Escalante (107 miles) and then the original plan was to go back to Fish Lake the third day (110 miles) but it had too many mountian passes so it turned into a 60 mile day instead. We rode through some amazing scenery. I told Jen that she is lucky that she gets to see such amazing scenery everyday at home (looking at me) but she insisted that the views of Bryce Canyon and other scenic spots were much better :( We both really enjoyed the hike to Calf Creek on the last day. It was a real desert oasis.

On our way home we stopped at Jen's sisters house to spend the night. Jen got to play with her nieces while I slept for a little over 12 hours straight. What can I say? I was pretty tired after riding a bike for 7 hours a day. This picture is of the cherry orchard by her sister's house. It was in full bloom and really pretty. People have also expressed interest in seeing Jen's new haircut. Here it is!

This is the video that I tried to put up with our last post. I posted it today mostly because I learned how to do it.

Back in Action

I know that all of our blogging fans out there are anxiously awaiting an update from us. Our Internet has been down for a couple of weeks because when the roofers were here they thought it be a good idea to just cut any wires they came across. We finally had a service tech out to fix it today. We also had a service tech some look at our dryer today. Five minutes and $70 later he told me that it was broken and would take a lot of money to repair. I want his job.



The past few weeks have been busy. I finished my finals at school so I have a short break before summer school starts. Jen chopped about 12 inches off of her hair. It looks great.



Last weekend Jen and I did another triathlon up here in Logan. Jen was excited because she hasn't done a tri in a while but she had a bit of a rocky start...because the race starts with the swim. Fortunately she was awesome on the bike and the run so she was able to win the race by 3 seconds! Afterwards she asked me if she was the last one out of the water. I assured her that she wasn't...she was second to last. The rather large, rather old lady with the inhaler in one hand and a kick-board in the other was still going strong in lane one. It was a good day as both of us won our races. Jen filmed a few seconds of my race and was excited to tell me that she did the video "because this will be awesome on our blog". I can see the joy on my sister's faces now...they have created a true blog convert.