Update: Goals

Just a quick fyi:

This week is my second week of walking everyday for at least a minimum of 30 minutes. I am in the process of working up to 60 minutes each day.

oh, also I went to the beach last week, it was awesome!

No crafts yet but I have plenty of ideas of what I want to do. :)

Mountain Biking in Spring Canyon

So Robert and I are getting better and better at making sure we get our mountain biking in. This time we went to Spring Canyon in Mission Trails, which is not very far from our house.

The start of this trail was harder than some of the ones we have gone on recently because it felt like you were riding flat but it was super hard to petal because we actually were riding up a slight incline.

One of the first of many rest.

Riding under the 52 into no mans land.

Another Break; doesn't it look flat, it is but it isn't.

Beautiful Scenery

More beautiful scenery

The trail goes on forever but this is where we decided to turn around, at this point we had gone 2.5 miles and climbed 300+ feet.

This hill was our turning around point, but before we did Robert tried to ride up this hill. Needless to say he didn't make it very far. :)

It took us a good 35 minutes to get to the 2.5 miles in but on the way back since it was all down hill it only took us 10 minutes to go back those 2.5 miles. My arms were hurting from going so fast, holding on so tight to the handle bars, and with how bumpy it was.

It was a great 5 mile trip.

Here is Robert putting our bikes on our new bike rack after the trip.

He is so awesome.

School Project

So the other day I had a creative faith based project due for my grad school summer class. It was one of those project's where you are to be creative about how faith is a part of your life and how you will integrate your faith into your teaching. Some of the idea's the teacher gave that students have done in the past were things like: poems, songs, slide shows with pictures and music, and so forth. I always dread projects like this because I am just not that creative. So this is what I came up with:

A rainbow cake

This is what was left after I fed the whole class cake.

I talked about the process of making the cake and how sometimes we can run out of ingredients along the way and how it is important to have back up resources such as in teaching when we are feeling drained we need to have others we can turn to or resources to use to help us fill back up. I also talked about how the cake represents me in that I am made up a bunch of different layers, just like the different colors of each cake layer, but throughout each layer and surrounding the cake is frosting which represents my faith an belief in Jesus Christ and because my faith is so much a part of my life I hope that my students with be able to see that through the examples I set for them.

Mountain Biking in Marian Bear Natural Park

Mounting biking again. :) This time Charlotte came along with us.

Charlotte and Me at the beginning of the ride.

The great scenery.

Half way done!

ah, such a cute couple!

Silly, silly, Charlotte just had missed us sticking out our tongues at each other.

oh look at me, my name's Robert, I'm riding a bike.

hee, smile Charlotte, oh ya smile

This is my, "Are we done yet" smile.

5 miles in Marian Bear Natural Park. It is wonderful to have so many great places to ride.

Mountain Biking in the Tucson Desert

So this past week we went to Tucson to visit Robert's brother and his wife. It was super hot and stormy but we had tons of fun. We brought our bikes along so we could go bike riding in the desert just in case the weather cleared up. Well it never really cooled down but on Friday, July 8, 2011, the storm subsided long enough for us to go on a ride.

We went around 7pm and it was 110 Degrees outside, luckily we all brought water cause it was hot. Robert picked the trail for us and said the website said it was beginner, beginner.....um whoever posted on that website was a liar! It was more of an moderate to medium trail with lots of switch backs, soft river wash that you can't ride through, and a few steep rocky dips.

It ended up taking longer then Robert thought it was going to. We were still on the trail with no sign of it ending when it started to get dark on us. Up until that point, I was having fun, then Robert make the fatal mistake to tell me to "don't get off your bike and keep riding because something moving in the bushes," or at lest that's what I heard him say. So then I started to become a little bit hysterical because it was getting darker and harder for me to see the trail, I was the last person in line, and now I feel like and animal, like a coyote, is chasing me and going to attack me! We finally found a river wash, right as the last bit of light we had disappeared, that we followed till we found the dirt road. Robert and Brandon lifted our bikes over the barbwire and helped us girls crawl through. Then we had to ride, mostly walk because the sand was so loose, for an hour in the pitch black back to our cars.

Overall we had fun but even with taking a short cut we still rode 7 miles.

Here we are at the start of the trail.


Palo Verde Arch

Lizzy in the lead.

Brandon right before he ran into a cactus.

Robert loving every minute of riding!

Still riding as the sun is setting on us!

It was really starting to get dark and we were no where close to the end of the trail!

Oh ya and come to find out later Robert didn't say, ""don't get off your bike and keep riding because something moving in the bushes," he said "don't get off your bike and keep riding," and he said this because there was a rattle snake right where we were stopping to rest, but he didn't want to scare us so he didn't tell us! SO the whole time I am scare that I am being chased when we had already passed the danger!!

Even though there we some mishaps, it was still a very enjoyable ride.

Mountain Biking

When Robert was younger he used to go mountain biking all the time. So about our second year of marriage we bought some really nice mountain bikes and they have pretty much sat in our garage gathering dust until now. Now that he is done with school he has decided that we are going to go mountain biking at lest once a week. At first I was like yea, yea, I'll believe it when I see it because our bike have just been sitting there for years. ummmm well he was serious.

Last Friday we went on our first mountain biking ride and here are the pictures to prove it.

Here is us just starting out on our ride.

We went to Mission Trails Regional Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in the United States encompassing nearly 5,800 acres of both natural and developed recreational acres. The nice thing for us is that the park is located literary right next to where we live.

Here we are taking a rest. Can you see how red my face was, we just had gone up a small hill.

Us drinking out of our newly purchased camelbak's. (I should have realized he was serious about biking when he bought these)

One of the stops we made along the way, Old Mission Dam, made in the 1800's.

We ended up doing an easy ride for me, with only a few hills and some unsteady ground. All in all we ended up mountain biking 2.64 miles. Not bad I would say for my first time ever. It was a lot of fun but the next day my butt was killing me! I decided that if this is going to be a regular event then I should buy some protection for my bum. Luckily, REI was having a blow out sale and I got a good deal on some padded biker shorts, the only problem is that it feels like you are wearing a diaper but my butt will thank me later! :)

2011 Fourth of July!

So this fourth of July we spent it with a few friends. It was alot of fun, Robert grilled ribs and I made potatoe salad and an Boston cream pie. Our friends brought angel food cake, homemade fudge sauce and ice cream, and corn on the cob.