Run, Drive, Sleep Repeat?...Not Me.

I had no desire to run Ragnar this year, but I still wanted to participate. My brother has ran the past few years on a team and each year all the teams need to provide 3 volunteers. I have always wanted for volunteer at a race, so I took this chance to. When we had to sign up and Danny and I were going to do it together. But as the race got closer, Danny ended up subbing in for my brother who was injured. I had to find someone who would be willing to volunteer with me on a Friday night from 8pm-1am in Eden. Lucky for me, my good friend Susie said she would!!

We went up early so we could cheer on Danny. His run was from Liberty Park to Carlos and Harley's in Eden. We watched him run on part of the course, then we rushed to the exchange to see him hand off the slap bracelet. It was fun to be a spectator, but I was feeling a little jealous.

After their van left, we still had a little while before we had to check in, so we went to dinner.

We then checked in and were put in charge of writing down the teams and what time they made their exchange. The bookkeeping was a mess. Somehow Some of the teams had double times and we couldn't figure out why. Because we were the late shift, there weren't too many teams that still had to come through. Which means we had a lot of down time. We talked and laughed and and ate red vines and made some new friends. At about 10:30 we were told that the last team was going to be coming through soon and as soon as they passed we could take down the exchange and go home...yeah!! By then it was getting really cold, so we were happy to almost be done.

The Time Keepers

Run Danny Run

Run faster!!

Almost done!!

Getting ready for the exchange!!

Volunteering was really fun and I would do it again, if I am not running!! 

Thanks Susie for helping out!!!

The Utah Arts Festival

Last week Danny and I went to Salt Lake to the Utah Arts Festival. Danny's friends Jordan and Jamie's band Wafer were playing there, so lucky for us we were hooked up with tickets to go. We got there about when they started and they did awesome. Everyone should check them out.  Plus, there were lots of drunk people dancing all about, which always makes for fun people watching. We were lucky enough to talk with one of them after, he was pretty funny.

After they were done, we walked around and looked at a few of the booths set up. A lot of the booths were shutting down for the night, but we still got to see a few cool things. I only took two pictures...I guess there was a knitting booth and they had knitted this car. It was covered with knitted stuff. The inside had balls and balls of yarn. It was cool.

Hanging with the Honsvick's

One of my good friends Kristy and her husband Jeff made a goal to go to all the temples in Utah. They are getting close to making their goal, but one of the ones they still needed was the Logan. They live in Salt Lake and we don't get to see them too often. So when Kristy told me that they still needed Logan, I invited me and Danny to tag a long with them. We planned a day....then that fell through. We planned another day...again it fell through. Then we finally found a day that worked for both of us and went.

Danny, Kati, Jeff and Kristy...yay for camera timers!!

After the Temple, we went to dinner at the The Bluebird. It was good. We had a fun time! Can't wait to hang out with them again!! 

Surfing Injury Update

About a week or so after the surfing injury, the very expensive glue fell off and we were left with this...

It's looking good...not too big of a scar, but enough so we will always remember surfing.

Monday Night At The Movies...with Ogden's Finest

One of our favorite summer time activities is to go to the outdoor movies. The place we go to the most is the one in downtown Ogden at the amphitheater. It is fun to find a spot and hang out with Ogden's finest. Every time I go, I am proud to be an Ogdenite. Ogden is taking good care of their homeless by providing them with entertainment once a week in the summer time.

Last year at this very event we were introduced to the movie of all movies...

If you haven't seen this movie...you are probably okay. We were late for this one and it felt like we had watched the movie for hours and hours and left before it was over. The funniest part is everyone said "McLintock" different in the movie. I still to this day am not sure the proper pronunciation for it or what the plot was. We tried watching it a couple of months ago on our free on demand...but we were done within the first 5 minutes.

Anyway, this years movies have started and we went last week. It was "How to Train Your Dragon". Danny hadn't seen it. It is a very cute movie. We were having fun...but it was a little cold and we were uncomfortable so we left and found the movie at Redbox so we could see the end of the movie in the comfort of our own house.

These are just pictures of us waiting for the movie to start.

Anyway if you are ever in Ogden on a Monday night...feel free to join us!!

Deck the Halls...

Founder's Day

Pleasant View Founder's Day is one of my favorite days of the year, it's my summer Christmas. I think the reason I like it so much is because it kind of kicks off the summer and because it is full of fun/funny traditions for our family. I look forward to it every year.

Just a little story of my Founder's day history...

When we first moved out here to Pleasant View, I had no idea really about Founder's day. Founder's day is a random Saturday in June and if you don't know about it, it can sneak right by you. Anyway our first Founder's Day out here my parents had gone to St. George that weekend to visit my Grandma and Autumn was gone away somewhere, so it was just me at home by myself. I was sleeping peaceful early Saturday morning and all of a sudden I was awaken by loud cannons being shot off. I had no idea what was going on. I thought for some reason Pleasant View had gone to war with who knows who. I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do...run, hide under my bed, fight back...anyway after a few minutes of getting myself back together and waking up a little, I realized it was just part of Founder's day flag ceremony. I was relieved!

  

Anyway...the next Founder's Day I was a little more prepared.

The next few years we made Founder's Day a "Haun  Family Tradition". We usually start with breakfast (this has been an optional tradition, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't)...down at the church bowery usually a Young Womens/Mens fundraising activity. It usually consists of pancakes, eggs, ham, hash browns and milk or orange juice and very sticky tables.

Then there's the parade. It is the perfect parade...not too long, hometowny, and candy that is thrown. I have always said that parades are the complete opposite of Halloween...the paraders dress up and the candy is brought to you while you just sit there. Love it. 

This is from the 2010 parade

The next Founder's day activity is the Salmon Bake. This always reminds me of a small town get together...like what you see in the movies. Everyone in the town talking and catching up, the Hale Family Singers singing in the background...LOVE IT!! One of our biggest Family traditions is the smashing of the cupcakes. The funniest is when we bring in a "new" person and they have no idea what is going on.

Cupcakes 2010

Then are the fireworks....the best.

Anyway...this year things were a little bit different. They moved Founder's day up a week, which kind of threw us off a little. My parents planned a trip to California, so they weren't going to be there. Troy, Tiff and Danny were running the Ragnar race, so they couldn't participate in most of Founder's day and Autumn and Josh were working. 

But that didn't stop me, Maddie, and Gracie from doing as much as we could.

Maddie and Gracie came over to my house to watch the parade. Danny and I live on the parade route now so we can just watch it from our house, which is nice because we have plenty of shade and anything we need we can just run into the house to get. The parade was good, as usual. We got lots of candy and otter pops and advertisements.

Some of the tractors in the parade

The girls with the cougar...
not sure why the cougar was in the parade.

After the parade we had tickets to go see the matinee of Mama Mia at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. Maddie and Gracie love the movie, so I took them with me. 

It was really good and I think the girls loved it too.

For some reason the Mama Mia sign didn't work...oh well.

Waiting for it to start

Then we rushed back so the girls could make it to a bbq at Grandpa Ken's, but we missed the Salmon bake, which was a bummer. Then the Ragnar runners made it home and most of us made it to the fireworks. (Of course my parents didn't come and Aut and Josh family was too tired.) The fireworks were awesome...I was glad that Danny was able to make it to a little Founder's day with me.

It looks like a pineapple

More fireworks

I love fireworks.

Founder's day is over...we have to wait a whole year for it again. 

But luckily we have winter Christmas to look forward to now!! (ha ha)

The Tale of Two Dresses...

Since I am out of school for the summer, I have a little bit of time to catch up on some of the things I want to remember. Looking back, I realized that I didn't do a wedding or honeymoon blog. This one isn't really either, but has to do with the wedding so...here goes.

Danny and I had talked about getting married late last summer (but weren't officially engaged until October). My mom teaches up at Weber State and the first part of her semester is really busy, she has always told us not to get married during that time. And since we were both out of school, and her thinking that finding a dress would take awhile we went dress shopping before anything was official. I felt really awkward doing it, but mostly did it just to humor my mom.

We went to a little place out here in North Ogden and found 2 dresses that I loved. There was one that was really simple, nothing much to it and another that was a little more poofy and had a train. The simple one I really liked was on sale for $100, I have a couple of pair of pants that costs more than that. I decided I liked it and we bought it. It was crazy.

My cute mom took these pictures and always seemed to catch me with weird expressions on my face, therefore I cropped them.

The front of the simple dress

The back...

Adding accessories

With the black sash

My mom wanted me just to try this...
it's so not me.

Then as the wedding got closer and some things happened or didn't happen, and I realized that I was going to be walking down the isle, I started thinking about the poofy 2nd dress and decided that I would be happier in that and that was the one. This was now in November, the 2nd dress was also on clearance clear back in August, so I hoped that it was still there, but telling myself it was okay if it wasn't. I called and they said they still had it and it was still on sale...YIPPEE! I went there right after work and of course they wouldn't let you try on just one dress. I tried a couple on and again narrowed it down to 2...the one I really liked to begin with and another. But after much flip flopping back and forth...I bought the original 2nd dress. So yes...I own two wedding dresses. (But...the total of my two dresses was still less than a lot of people pay to even rent one.)

It was a good choice. It was the perfect dress.

Aloha...part 3

Hawaii-The Conclusion
The up side to Danny's injury was we got the CD with our pictures free...the down side was Danny had to stay out of the water. Because of this we decided that we would drive the road to Hana. I had never been and heard it was a pretty drive, long and curvy, but pretty. Everyone we told that that's what we were going to do just looked at us and said..."It's really long!" with a disgusted look on their face.  So I thought I was prepared...but I wasn't.


It was L O N G and CURVY which causes much carsickness. In fact, even just typing about it is making me sick. The further we went in, all I could think was that it was further that we had to go back out. We stopped at a State park pull off and had lunch. I was glad to be out of the car. Then we went in further...hiked around at one of the stops and decided that we didn't want to go on, we just wanted to get out and out fast. So we headed home. We had heard about the how good the stands on the side of the road were and we wanted to stop and get something. Danny really wanted a coconut to drink the milk/water.  The stand we stopped at had ran out of the coconuts...so Danny got a smoothie and I got a crepe with bananas and Nutella. Yummy!! Again, we were really glad to be out of the car.


We finally made it to the bottom and found a look out and because it was windy, we were able to see wind surfers and surfer surfers. We sat and watched them for a while.

This was on the final hike before we turned around...
These are really cool trees that were bright orange and lime green.

Just some of the scenery.

A cool flower...

...and another cool flower...

and one more.

I love Hawaii.

Here is a picture of the ocean from the road.

One of the surfers we saw

Us at the look out point.

I pulled this off the internet...you can kind of see how obnoxious the road is.

One our way back we saw another stand that was close to our hotel that advertised coconut drinks. We stopped there so Danny could have one. Coconut is not one of my favorite things, but when in Hawaii, do as the tourist do. I tried a little. It was okay...probably would have been better if it was cold, but we wanted to drink it there so the guy could crack it open for us.

Scooping out the coconut meat.

Danny enjoying the coconut.

That night we went to have sushi at a place that Danny's family ate at before we had got there. It was pretty good, but I have my favorites here and they didn't have any rolls like the ones I like.

The next day was Friday...it was the day I was dreading since we got there...it was the day we headed back to reality. We had to check out of our room by noon, so after we just walked around town and picked a few last minute souvenirs. We ate at Bubba Gump's...it was pretty good. We had a great view of the ocean and we were taking it all in. 

At Bubba Gump's

Run Forrest Run

Ha ha...love the look.

I love him...

I love the view.

After that we still had a few hours before our flight. We had seen an aquarium on the road that takes us to the airport. We thought that would be fun and take some time. It was fun to walk around. There was a shark tunnel, star fish petting place, turtle viewing and much more.

Look at all the fishy!!

Octopus

This guy was cool, he just blended in to his background!

More fishy

A pineapple...I think it's cool how they grow.

Danny petting the star fish

The turtle

Jelly fish

More Jelly fish

Danny in the shark tunnel

Us

After the aquarium, we still had an hour or so until we had to be to the airport and we didn't want to spend the extra hour at the airport, so we found a beach. We walked around and there happened to be some kite surfers. That was cool to watch. It was really windy, so they were jumping almost 40 feet high. It looked way fun and scary! 

Our last moments at the beach

After we made it to the airport and came home. It was a long red eye flight. I was able to sleep a little, but Danny didn't sleep at all. We came home and slept. 


Here are some random photos from the trips just for your viewing pleasure:


This first photo is proof that wherever we went, we were getting ripped off. Before we left on the long road to Hana, we stopped at the McDonald's in Lahaina to get drinks. For both of us our total was $4 something. Down the road a little we saw this sign at a different McDonalds. Argh!! This happened almost everywhere we went.

Sign at McDonalds

Random stop signs we saw.

A bunch of stickers

Only one sticker but it says..."and smell the roses"

And finally...

Our room.

Hawaii was a blast. I am glad that we were able to go.