A Picture's Worth 1,000 Words.

First of all, I have to apologize for all of these pictures being out of order and crazily mixed up but that's always been a struggle for me in the blogging world:) At least I've finally had the time to do all of this.

This is a not so great picture of us on our 1 year anniversary, of course we just had to take it, and it's of course, in our yard where we got married.

For our anniversary we decided to get our firearm concealed carry permits so we can be safe when we're hiking deep in the backcountry. Of course most people think of the bears and cougars and other large predatory animals as dangerous, but there are also some very strange and sometimes scary people that you run into more frequently than you would think when you're out that far away from civilization.

This is kind of a funny one to me because I painted this for Ben for Christmas, but of course it was a very long, time-consuming painting so it wasn't actually finished until this spring... I've never been the very best when it comes to timing anyway. Oops!

My parents have a new place in Mesquite that they are very excited about and they have been working on decorating it so my mom asked me to paint this for her to hang on the walls down there. It turned out really well and I think it's now my new favorite painting.

A post by me just wouldn't be complete without a picture of the Hound. She's doing really well, her hips are starting to give her a hard time but only if she overexerts herself... which of course is most of the time.

On our 1 year anniversary, we had a crazy windstorm. Of course my parents (our landlords) were out of town and randomly our blue spruce that grows just outside our basement door blew over. For those of you that don't remember, that was the background for our entire wedding and reception. I was so sad when we had to saw it into pieces and pull out the root ball. I was seriously considering trying to right it again and save the tree. The best part was when my parents came home and my husband was home alone. My dad came downstairs and said to Ben: "son, come here, I need to talk to you for a minute." Ben of course was speechless and nervous, frantically thinking about what in the world he could have done to upset my dad. My dad brought him outside and pointed to the down tree and said: "I leave you in charge for one weekend and you let this happen?!" Then Ben realized that he was joking of course, in my dad's uber serious way of joking. It was so great!

The last three pictures were from our way back home from Sun Valley with Ben's family. We stopped in a small town in Idaho where just off the highway there is this amazing hot spring. It was so awesome, full of little tiny fish and it had a spring bubbling up on one end with a tiny creek running out the other end. We had a good time and it was a nice break from the drive home, but I was sad to see the way other people would treat such a beautiful gift like this one. Apparently some people had decided to throw a party there recently. There was trash everywhere and random socks and broken glass. I seriously can't believe how selfish and lazy people can be to not even consider how their actions and negligence can effect the earth and the other people that come by to enjoy it later. We really wanted to help clean it up like we usually do when we hike but there was too much trash to carry and a lot of it I wouldn't have touched without rubber utility gloves and a long pole.

We also spent St. Patrick's day and the whole week around it in Milwaukee, WI with Ben's sister, her husband, and their new baby Wesley. He's huge but such a cutie I really do love that little man!

We went to the Miller Stadium to see have some appetizers and walk around and bask in it's enormity. I was amazed with how huge it was. I bet those games are a blast... even though I'm not really a big baseball fan.

We went on a tour of the Miller brewery along with a few other breweries that were so cool. It was neat to see the process the the different breweries use and how different Miller was from the tiny microbreweries we went to. Some of them even made amazing hand-crafted sodas that we could try after the tour!

We went to the very best Chicago Stuffed pizza place, Oh my goodness! Now that's what I call a pizza pie!

We went on many what we called "custard crawls" because there were many frozen custard places around where they live and they all had different flavors of the day. This particular flavor was my favorite: birthday cake! It was cake batter custard with yellow cake pieces and frosting mixed throughout.

Insert 2 months worth of posts here:

Yikes! I didn't realize how much time had gone by since my last post! I have been really busy since Ben graduated in April. I've either been working or playing with Ben and our friends and family every day since then and just haven't had a good opportunity to post pictures yet. I'm still missing the post about our awesome trip to Milwaukee to see Jessica, Mike and baby Wesley! We also had a graduation and anniversary in between... I think even a funeral if I recall the dates correctly. Life has been changing so much so fast and yet in some ways it's not catching up. My work has been great and it's been absolutely wonderful to have Ben at home more and not having to study ALL THE TIME! I really love having him around and being able to get out and do yard work together (when the weather actually allows us to). We've been planning trips and getting into new hobbies while continuing old ones as well. The only thing that hasn't happened for us yet is a job for Ben. Apparently the market is really tough right now in his field, jobs are opening and closing so fast that it's difficult to keep up, let alone keep track of where and when you sent which resumes to. We have some exciting prospects and I'm really not too worried about it at this point since I'm working and expenses aren't too big of an issue right now, but poor Ben is getting bored quickly! When I'm home we have fun but when I'm at work, especially when it's raining, he starts going crazy. I really hope he holds on and can find a job that he loves or at least something to do to keep him nice and busy for now!

On another note, I seriously can't wait, Hailey, my sister, is coming to Mesquite this weekend and she'll be home with me on tuesday and wednesday and I get to spend the rest of the week with her and we get to meet her new boyfriend: Bob. I miss her so much and seriously can't wait to see her!

Stressful but worth it in the end...

Well, Ben is doing amazing through his school as always but the poor boy is dealing with a lot of hard classes that seem to be getting increasingly difficult as the year comes to an end. Thank goodness the end is getting closer and closer, Ben graduates in just 6 short weeks! Then it will be both of us working and feeling like we can move past this limbo of education and questions and turn to the development of our future... whatever that may hold.

Aside from this, I must say I'm so excited that spring break is next week! This week has been terrible for Ben, he's basically been putting in over 10 hours/day at school every day. It's seriously nuts and I can see how it's wearing on him even though he tries not to show it. He still takes time out of his crazy schedule to show me that he loves me and to help me with my few chores around the house. Needless to say it'll be so nice to just leave tomorrow to Wisconsin where we can spend a week with his sister, her husband and their new baby!!! We'll finally have the time to unwind, relax and just have a good time as a family! I can't wait. Not to mention we're already planning to go to the weekly fish fry out there and have a great celebration for St. Patrick's day with corned beef and cabbage of course!!! (for those who don't know, that is basically one of my very favorite meals when it's done right and Ben and I definitely have it figured out!!!)

Hosting Nevi

So I randomly decided to enter a small essay contest on the Friends of Hu-Friedy website. Yes, that is a website for dental hygiene instruments... I'm a nerd, you all knew that already I hope, if not... well, Surprise! This essay contest was to convince them that you and your town would be a fun place for "Nevi" the stuffed scaler to come visit while on his tour of all 50 states. Well guess what... they picked me. When the package actually came, this is what I saw come out of the odd triangular-shaped box:


And apparently my assignment was to take this rather interesting stuffed scaler around Ogden with me and take as many cool pictures of/with it as I could in a week. So of course I tried, in the limited (due to family events) time that I had, to show the Hu-Friedy folk and those who happen to be following the tour on Facebook all of "Ogden's Finest". Now what would that entail when your audience is a large group of dentally minded people across the country? Well, I did my best.
I showed them my yard and how amazing the mountains are... who doesn't love mountains?!

I brought him to my dental office... duh!
I of course had to throw a bit of brand recognition in there with the set up of hu-friedy instruments.
I enlisted the assistance of my wonderfully cooperative husband.
I took him to the WSU clinic and campus... what else is little old Ogden well known for in the dental world? ...exceptionally white teeth?
The professors and staff helped out as always.

Gotta love second year students and their stressed out confidence that only comes from being about a week away from the BOARD EXAMS! Dunh Dunh Dunh!
Showed him the football stadium...

You better believe I'd throw a cheesy snowboarding picture in there with the help of our buddy Brandon.
And then, while on the outdoor adventure kick... why not throw in a fake kayaking picture that is obviously not intense nor on a river. ...especially since I myself have never actually taken this kind of kayak on any kind of moving body of water.
And there we have it, weird, but true. Yes, I did go around town with this kind of creepy looking doll under my arm a few different places. Those who know what a Nevi actually is, however, understand completely! Ta!

It's Official, I'm an aunt!!!

Today around 11:00AM, I became an aunt to a 9lb 4oz, 22 inch baby boy named Wesley! Ben and I are so excited to have a nephew for the first time ever, the only sad part is they live in Milwakee, Wisconsin. We for sure booked flights already to go out and see them!Baby Wes, it's crazy that even on his very first day he's so big and looks at least a few weeks old already!

My cute sister-in-law Jessica and her husband Mike and their new baby!

The proud dad!!!

Another family pic!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I'm grateful for all the work this amazing man did to extend civil rights to all American citizens and for how that changed the entire face of this country. I hope what we have done as a nation since his untimely death is enough to make him proud and still feel the impact that he has made on all of us.

On the lighter side, I'm also very glad that because of him, Ben got the day off of school to go out on a great three day weekend trip with the Outdoor Programs. He was working and therefore it wasn't all fun and games but when your job is to ensure that everyone is safe and has a good time it usually isn't too bad :)

Saturday we all woke up early, made breakfast and geared up for a great day of touring. As our usual safety regimen mandates, we skied to the bottom of the slope we were hoping to shred all day and dug a pit to test the stability of the snow. The pit showed us through both the isolated column and extended column that the snow was very weak and unstable meaning that we needed to stay on the mellow, low, protected slopes to avoid any avalanche danger.
These pictures are all out of order but here it goes:

This is the beginning of the extended column test in which we see at what force we see cracking, propagation, and eventually shearing of the snow at any weak layers.

Me, goofing off while they dig the pit...

Tim and Chase watching the digging of the pit.

This would be Ben's usual craziness, we was thinking he could jump from where he's standing (in the blue coat) onto the little jellybean snow clump in the middle of the stream. He finally decided it was a bad idea because if he missed he'd land in the stream and be soaked and it was only the first day of the trip... therefore, not worth it!

And now back to the pit, this is Phil and Eric watching the pit as well.

Mike watching while Ben and Daniel dig the pit and isolate the column.

After a huge chunk popped out on our extended column test, we felt the snow on top of the fracture line and there it was: the "surface hoar." Basically, it's like dry, crystal like, sugar snow that doesn't adhere to anything else and makes the snow unstable and quite dangerous!

Ben writing down notes about the isolated column while Daniel prepares the extended column.

And finally, the first photo, Ben and Daniel preparing the isolated column test.

On Saturday night it snowed all night and continued on through all day Sunday and into the night. Sunday we were stoked about the 12 new inches of soft but wet snow. We skinned up and out, dug a pit again (expecting it to be even more unstable than the previous day) and to our surprise it was a lot more stable. We were feeling pretty good about our route, we were on about a 28 degree slope that flattened out and became very thick with trees above us so we were set to shred. We skied the best run of the season in these soft squishy pillows of powder and it was amazing! We were so excited to do it again so we quickly changed our skis back and started skinning up the hill again. On one of the switchbacks near the top of our trail, we saw a horrifically scary sight... A huge 2-4 foot deep avalanche had ripped out about 600 yards long just to the right of our trail! We instantly switched directions and went straight down that hill and took off to go find a new slope with a different directional aspect and less risk. We went to the hill directly across the river from where the avalanche had ripped out and we saw exactly why it happened. There was a huge open narrow chute that went from the peak all the way to the river. No wonder it slid! The scary part to me was that we were just there, we skied right by it and we didn't even hear it happen!!! How do you explain that?!

It continued to snow all night until the very early AM on Monday when it changed to rain! The rain made the snow so thick and heavy that none of us even wanted to go ski so we just had breakfast, geared up and headed home. We Made it home nice and early enough to clean up, hot tub, de-rig, and still have time to enjoy the amazing sunset from our patio.

What a great weekend!!!

...And a Happy New Year!

Oh my, 2010 really did end with a bang! 2011 isn't starting out too slowly either. It was an awesome year with graduation, wedding, honeymoon, moving (to the basement, yes, but it still counts!), great parties, starting work, and awesome family and friends.

For Christmas, as usual I went with my family to Manzanillo, Mexico but this year was extra special... Ben was there! It's always just been us 4 Allens there for Christmas for the past 10 years but this year I got to bring someone (of course he had to marry in to the family in order to get the official invite:) It was so much fun to show him this place that means so much to me. He loved it to I believe. He rode with us every day and rode really well too. He joked with the cowboys and played on the beach and ran and ate delicious food and even helped me with the annual christmas puzzle! My sister and I also really loved that we were spared the cat calling and whistles when he was around making our time that much more peaceful. I didn't get as tan as I usually do down there because we really didn't take the time to lay out, instead we were playing and going constantly. We even went to the sea turtle/iguana/crocodile refuge and got to hold a baby sea turtle as well as see all different sizes of turtles and iguanas. They even had a pretty big croc! However, their croc was not quite as impressive as the 3 1/2 meter wild crocodile we saw from about 25 ft away as we rode by the lagoon. It was so crazy!!!

New years was also a blast, we stayed out partying until 3AM and we were dancing and singing and just having a great time with a room full of strangers. The next day, of course we rode again at 8AM and we were able to find 2 little branches where a bunch of butterflies were sleeping so we shook it to wake them up and it was like a slow motion explosion of fluttering colors.

On the 2nd of January we were supposed to fly home but the flight was overbooked so they bumped Ben and I until the next day. To make up for the inconvenience they put us up in a 5 star hotel, with free taxi and food and two $400.00 vouchers for future flights! Holy freakin cow what a great deal. And they flew us home first class (on the first of our 2 flights home 1st class doesn't exist... but on the 2nd it was free movies and endless drinks and pretzels in the wider comfier seats.