East Coast, Mirror Lakes, Landscaping & A Working Rooftop Swamp Cooler

As you can tell by the title of this post, we have nothing but good things to report from the last month!

East Coast Weekend

We went home over Memorial Day weekend for the respective bachelor and bachelorette festivities of Ben & Sara as well as to visit with family & friends. We got in very late on Friday evening and picked up this gem:

I dropped Jonathan off with his friend Dan, then went to Christina’s to stay the night. The next morning, Christina, her friend Amanda visiting from NC, and I went to Woodberry Kitchen for breakfast – it was fantastic. I learned that I adore everything about that place – it is all homemade, local and in a mason jar. What’s not to love? After breakfast, I drove down to LaPlata to visit with the family. Everyone came over to my parents’ house to eat crabs for dinner – delish. That night, we went to my cousin Tom’s new house and started a fire in the backyard and just hung out all night.

Sunday, I made the trek back to Baltimore for Sara’s bachelorette party – it. was. AWESOME! We all met at Chateau de Tara & Katie before heading to Boordy Vineyards for a little tour and tasting. It was pretty steamy that day, so rather than spending too much time baking in the sun, we headed back to the apartment for wine, snacks and an underwear guessing game. Sara was surprisingly very good at guessing who got her which pair of underwear until the last few pair. Also, we never told her that after she guessed them that she had to put them on, but she did, so we went with it! The result was fabulous. Afterward, everyone got ready in their all-black outfits, except the bride-to-be who wore white + sparkles, and then we hopped in Baltimore’s finest cabs and headed down to Fells Point for a lovely, waterside dinner at Shuckers.

Then came the big surprise. We spent the remainder of the evening hopping around Fells Point on the amazing Charm City Pedal Mill! It was fun, hilarious, and even a workout! Stops included John Stevens, Alexanders, and The Get Down (oh yes, we did). My favorite memory of this would have to be when all of us girls were crushing it down the streets of Fells with Alice in Chains blaring from the stereo.

 

We skipped over to Canton after that to finish out the night before heading back to Katie & Tara’s apartment, fresh pizzas in tow. Fabulous night – I think Sara’s bridesmaids did a fabulous job putting it all together! Snaps, girls! Haha. I want to do it again!

After a Dunkin Donuts breakfast (a treat for me nowadays as they don’t exist in Utah) with the girls, I headed to Towson to see my besty, Mrs. Emily Emminizer, who I can now tell the world is expecting her first baby!! YAY. Emily and I went to visit The Olivers and their baby boy, Jackson, who is the cutest lil’ babe! I am mad at myself for not thinking to get a picture while I was there… next time! After a great visit and catching up, I met up with Jon and headed to the airport. I think Jon will fill you in on his weekend with the boys in another blog post.

Mirror Lakes Backpacking Trip

To celebrate 2 years of “officially” being together, Jon and I decided to get out of town for the weekend and check out the Uinta Mountains. We left Saturday morning and made the drive out, which was only about an hour-ish. We were headed to area of the Uintas called Mirror Lakes. Throughout this area are tons of glacial lakes that reflect the sky like, you guessed it, a mirror. They are really beautiful. We hiked in about 5-6 miles on Saturday and set up camp by Island Lake. We guessed the elevation was somewhere around 10,000 ft. There was still ice on the lake! It was gaw-jus. We took Romy with us who was a total champ and loved every minute of it. It got a little cold that night, but it was overall very nice. We hiked back out on Sunday, then stopped at the first restaurant we could find to inhale some good, ol’ American grub – burgers and chili cheese fries. We were pretty tired after we got back, but it was a great trip with beautiful scenery! Sadly, no animal sightings, though.

   

Landscaping

The second weekend in June we devoted to the house. We spent that Saturday out in the yard getting our flower beds cleaned up and looking great. Prior to this, we were borderline growing a jungle out there. I decided to plant black-eyed susans as part of our bed since they are Maryland’s state flower. J The larger ones we bought seem to be doing well, but the smaller ones are struggling a bit. We’ll see how it all turns out. Here are some before and after pics of the front yard.

A Working Rooftop Swamp Cooler!

Saved the best for last, kiddos. You might remember from the last blog post in May that I had a minor breakdown after coming to a realization that our house would be cooled this summer only by a small, portable, ugly-as-crap, louder-than-heck swamp cooler. WRONG! WE HAVE A ROOFTOP SWAMP COOLER!!!! Jon and Ben set to work to figure out if the large vent in our ceiling was, in fact, for a swamp cooler. It WAS, so then they had to get it working. And, now it DOES!!! It cools off the house SO much better than the lame, portable thing, which is now tucked back into a storage cubby, out of sight and out of mind! Alleluia! The world makes sense again.

Other News

Jon’s birthday was the day after we got back from our trip home. I made him a lovely dinner of lasagna and garlic-y green beans with a most fabulous strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert. That. Thing. Was. Excellent. Just sayin. I also gave Jon his gift, which has been a lovely addition to our house so far!

Jon and I treated ourselves to a little impulse buy recently. Behold the beauty of two, matching, his-n-hers, late ‘70s, American-made, Schwinn cruisers. Can’t wait to take these babies around town. And yes, Jon got me a basket for mine. And YES, it is awesome.

That catches us up a bit. I am sure there will be another blog post coming soon to cover my parents’ trip to Utah, which was a lot of fun. Next up on our agenda is a weekend trip to Moab in a couple weeks, then Ben & Sara’s nuptials! SO excited!!

Thanks for tuning in, kids! Love and miss you all.

Okay, so I’m a bad blogger. Once again, I’ve let a promise to update the blog more often fall through. My apologies! I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting another installment of the Jon & Jenn Do Utah saga, so as promised nearly 2 months ago, here it is: We’re still enjoying Utah. The end.

Just kidding! I mean, we ARE enjoying it, but also here are some highlights from the past month or so:

-- I went home for Easter and had a nice weekend with the family. It was good to see everyone, especially the little kiddos. It was an entertaining Easter in that my parents had a pipe leading to their septic tank break, which left us without running water for part of the day and also led to most of the family sitting out in the front yard watching the men dig up the pipe and replace it all before dinner.

-- While I was home for Easter, Jon took Romy camping with Ben, Sara and the huskies. They went on a hike one of the days; Romy is becoming a very good little trail dog. She strays a bit, but rushes to catch up with you once you’re getting too far away for her liking.

-- Jon and Ben built boxes to act as stairs for Romy to go outside through a downstairs window, so that we don’t have to take her out the front door every time she needs to go out. (We don’t have a back door… what I thought was the only drawback to our house until I discovered we don’t have central AC… read on to hear about that fiasco.) Anyway, she’s taking to the stairs very well! Perhaps we’ll get a doggie door for the window eventually and we won’t have to let her out at all and she just take care of it on her own… we’ll see.

-- We had a couple very warm days at the end of April. On one of these days, I got home from work to discover the temperature in our house had crept to 89 degrees. I could not allow this to continue for my own sake, but also for the sake of my pup. Poor thing shouldn’t have to sit around in that heat all day! While I knew that we had a swamp cooler, I didn’t really know what it was. My first inclination was to walk to thermostat, set it to a cool 68 degrees, and then let it do its magic. Boy, was I way off base. When Jon got home that day, he went downstairs and pulled the portable swamp cooler out of our little basement cubby. Let me tell you – this thing is not easy on the eyes. He pulled it upstairs and into the kitchen where he used the removable sink nozzle to start filling it with water. Still confused about how this contraption was going to make my entire house reach 68 degrees, Jon began to explain how this machine would basically pull hot air in and, through vaporization of the water, send cooler air back out – basically, the opposite of dehumidifiers used back east. After doing some research, I discovered swamp coolers are quite common out west because of the climate being so dry. There are such things as roof swamp coolers that are directly connected to your water supply and end up producing very similar results to those of central AC, but this is not what we have. We do not have a roof swamp cooler, let alone central air conditioning, and that was when I realized that this portable thing would be the only means to cooling off our house. It was not a happy moment. After filling it with water, we wheeled (yes, it’s on wheels) it over to be positioned beneath the ceiling fan in our dining area thinking the fan would help send the cooler air around. As we moved it, water sloshed around everywhere, which only deepened my hatred for this thing. Once in place, we turned it on and it was so loud we had to turn our television volume up practically 5x higher than normal. By that time, I was pretty upset. Eventually, the swamp cooler did aid in cooling the house off somewhat. To appease me, Jon also put his window AC unit in our bedroom so that it could at least be nice and cool in there for us to sleep comfortably. After those few warm days, it did cool off for a while and we tucked the swamp cooler into a little corner upstairs to keep it as out of plain sight as possible. Lately, the weather is warming up again though and we’ve had to use it. I’m really not sure how things are going to go this summer when it gets to be in the upper 90s here. We might have to invest in several oscillating fans. The good thing is the basement/lower level stays pretty cool regardless, so we always have that safe haven. (Wow… that story was a blog post in itself.)

-- At the end of April, Jon and I started doing the Insanity workouts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLK28BHJDd8). It has been really hard, but we’re sticking with it and it’s going well. We are nearing the end of the first month and I’m really proud that we’ve even made it that far! I think we have both seen good results in our ability to better complete the workouts and we’ve both lost a bit of weight.

-- During the first weekend of May, a fine lady named Christina paid us a visit. She arrived on Thursday evening. I picked her up from the airport smelly and sweaty post-Insanity workout, but she was still happy to see me. :) We hung out at home that night. Friday morning, I had to go into work briefly (I have been super busy at work over the past month or so) and then we went to Park City for the day. We walked around Main Street checking out the shops, then enjoyed lunch on the patio at Wasatch Brew Pub. We also went to the Utah Olympic Park where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held and saw some pretty neat stuff there. We went to dinner with Ben & Sara that night at an Italian place called Cannella’s. Saturday morning, we drove up Emigration Canyon to get breakfast at Ruth’s Diner (famous for their mile-high biscuits). Then we toured Red Butte Gardens (very pretty) and stopped by their annual plant sale where Jon & I bought veggie plants to start our garden. We took it easy that night watching the Jazz game at home, then went up to Ensign Peak to see the Super Moon, which was really cool to see over the mountains. Sunday, we did the full Ensign Peak hike in the morning, went to the Great Salt Lake marina, toured a bit of downtown, saw The Five-Year Engagement, then went to Red Iguana for delicious Mexican dinner and margaritas. It was a wonderful visit and I hope she comes back soon! :)

   

-- This highlight is still part of Christina’s visit, but it gets its own bullet. On Saturday, whilst driving to Ruth’s for breakfast, we passed a yard sale where I saw something. It looked like Fabio. AKA: I can’t believe it’s not butter. Thinking my mind might be playing tricks on me, I made Jon turn around. Sure enough, these people were selling a life-size, cardboard cut-out of Fabio. As if that weren’t funny enough, later on while Jon was visiting Matthew McKinney in Ogden for the collegiate bicycling nationals, Christina and I passed the yard sale again on our way to grab dinner. Fabio was still there… the wheels in our heads started turning and thus a plan was hatched. On our way back from getting dinner, we stopped and purchased Fabio. They wanted $15. Not much of a negotiator, I said ok if they also threw in this old Bingo set (which I just so happened to need for work – coincidence, much?). We collapsed Fabio, threw him in the backseat, and brought him back to the house where we eventually (after doubling over in laughter for a good 20 minutes) decided to set him up in my shower to shock, surprise, and scare Jon whenever he got home and decided to use the bathroom. We were practically DYING of laughter and could not wait to see Jon’s reaction. Jon got home later that night and we all started watching the Jazz game. We were drinking a few beers, but Jon never went to the bathroom. We started watching the movie Horrible Bosses. He never went. Christina and I, both trying to keep straight faces, were texting each other while in the same room wondering if Jon’s bladder was gallon-sized or something considering we had both peed at least twice in the time we were waiting for him to go. FINALLY, when the movie was over (people, we’re talking like 4 hours of drinking and no peeing… what the hell? AND having to keep a straight face? UGH!), I was starting to think it wasn’t funny anymore, but rather somewhat infuriating. So, out of desperation, I asked Jon to bring me a q-tip from the bathroom and finally we were able to get that reaction we’d been waiting for. It was hilarious.

-- Jon & I dug up an area in our backyard and started a veggie garden! We have two varieties of tomatoes (jetstars and early girls), red peppers, green peppers, jalapenos, and sugar baby watermelons. I am super excited about this little project. It will probably be a month or so before we start seeing some crop, but I am amped to have our own fresh stuff! I also started some herbs indoors including mint, parsley, basil and dill. We also started some spinach inside to see if we can get it going then move it outside later in the season. Very fun! We also plan to plant some flowers in our front and backyard, probably in a week or so. Our landlord has a landscaper coming out this weekend to kind of get things cleaned up and then we should be able to get started.

-- This past weekend, we went with Ben & Sara to a food tasting at Kimi’s Mountainside Bistro where their wedding will be held in July. The food was delicious, and the atmosphere is just awesome! There’s just something about being way up in the mountains that oozes contentment and instantly makes you feel happy and calm. Their wedding is going to be super fun and we can’t wait! After trying all the food, Ben & Sara made some executive wedding decisions while Jon and I hung out on the patio, sitting next to a fire, wrapped in the fuzziest
blankets ever, and soaking in the mountainside. It was lovely. Sadly, no moose (mooses? meese? No?)  appeared though I was hoping they would.

That kinda catches us up to now. Both of our jobs are going very well. I have been riding my bike to work about 2 days a week and I really enjoy it. Jon is working on building me a mountain bike, so I can try that out soon. He has been mountain biking a couple times a week, too, and he’s identifying trails that will be good starters for me. :) We are also looking into joining a local social sports club this summer – kickball, bocce, and volleyball are the options we have. I think volleyball would be cool, but I’m afraid I will suck tremendously. The bocce league games are held in the park right across from our house, so that might be the winner. We also discovered recently that our closest bar, The Garage, has a really great patio complete with cornhole! FUN. :)

We are headed back east this weekend to visit with family and friends and I will be helping to celebrate Sara’s last days as a single lady at her bachelorette party in Baltimore. I am excited to see some friends, but it is another compressed trip (Fri-Mon), so it will be hard to see everyone. We will be back again in October for the Shetler-Anderson nuptials! Also, my parents are coming out for a long visit in June, so we’re looking forward to that and starting to make plans. So far, a trip to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone is planned and I’m very excited!

Well, this is another incredibly long post… I guess I would avoid that if I were to post more often, huh? I’ll try to remember that. Love and miss you all. :)

P.S. Does anyone have use for a cardboard cut-out of Fabio? I have one for $15...

Good News!

Well, I really wanted to make it a goal to update the blog at least once a month, but I was waiting and waiting to write the next post in hopes that I would have some good news to share, and… well, I do! Jon got a new job! He was offered a job as an Environmental Analyst/Geologist for JBR Environmental Consultants, a firm based out of Sandy, Utah and he started March 19! Wahoo! Yay for being grown-ups!  How perfect of the job offer to come right as ski season nears its end and we no longer need free skiing and rentals. The man upstairs is really looking out for us! ;)

Since our last post, we’ve been staying busy with work and life in general. We’ve done quite a bit of skiing (especially Jon) and continue to enjoy Utah! My job is also going very well. We’ve also had a few visitors. At the end of February, Jon’s parents came out to visit. Highlights include:

-- Went night skiing at Brighton the night they arrived. I skied the blue trail mentioned in an earlier post and it was a much more successful run this time around! ;)

-- Went to The Pioneer Museum and Museum of Natural History. The Pioneer Museum is all about the first settlers here in the valley (i.e., Brigham Young and his ump-teen wives) and it was more just a collection of all the stuff they left behind. Some of it was very interesting, and some of it was kinda weird – i.e., a room full of porcelain dolls staring at you and wreaths made from real human hair. The Museum of Natural History is one we’d been to before, but it was still cool a second time. We especially enjoyed the elaborate description of the rock cycle given by one of the guides – oh wait, that was Jon.

-- Jon & I learned how to play Pinochle and we played it a lot.

-- Jon & Sara both got brand new cowboy/girl boots for Sara’s wedding! Now it’s my turn.

-- Ate lots of delicious food.

About a week after Jon’s parents’ visited, we got a visit from Andrew Schmidt! I will let Jon give the highlights of his trip:

Boom. Dr. Schmidt has two goals in mind for his visit to Utah: ski and drink. When he landed I still had to finish a day of work at the ski shop, so Andrew went with Ben for take your little brother to work day. What ensued was a 12 pack priming the pump for a liquor store purchase over $100 of beer - like taking a starving person to the grocery store. We were ready for three straight days of “bluebird” skiing. I borrowed Atomic Bent Chetlers for Andrew, I was on my favorite ski - The Rossignol Sickle. First day was Park City - hitting Jupiter bowl and some other cruddy tree runs - searching for a little late season powder. Although he was stoked, I wanted to show him real Utah powder skiing - but the weather was too warm and dry. So I suggested a slope new for me - Powder Mountain. Another new for me - Snowcat skiing. We decided to take a few warm up runs before the cat and got separated immediately in the massive terrain of Powder Mountain. We meet up hours later around lunch time and headed straight up to the cat. We started down our 2000’ run and we were in partly shaded areas hitting some partly heavy powder. I stopped after a little and spotted a little bowl - up slope. I knew it would be good cause as we tried to hike up, the snow got deep. I traversed, while the good doctor tried to climb straight up a snow filled cliff unsuccessfully. It was worth it, we finally found transplant-acceptable powder turns! We were both beat after that. Our third day was capped off at Solitude with Jenn, Sara, and Ben - and more trips to the bar between runs. It was in the high 40’s that day, and although conditions were not the best, there was no better company to be with on my last ski day of the 2012 season.

Okay, back to moi. Meaning Jenn.

After Andrew’s visit, I went to Chicago for a long weekend over St. Patrick’s Day to visit one of my best friends, Geoff, and my friends Jen, Jason & Ashley, who were also in Chicago visiting from Baltimore. It was great to see everyone and celebrate not only St. Patrick’s Day, but Jason & Ashley’s engagement! One major highlight I’d like to include, and yes, it is more major than the engagement: I started reading The Hunger Games on this trip and became obsessed. Oh, I also finally saw the movie Ever After.

The week after I got back from Chicago, Jon’s friends Will and Sam from WVU came out to visit over their spring break. Highlights include:

-- Will brought me a growler of Almost Heaven from Mountain State Brewing Co. (one of my favorite beers ever) all the way from WV and it was glorious, and very, very appreciated. Thank you sir.

-- Took them to a Jazz game.

-- Took the WVU nerds, uh, I mean, kids, to the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Reachable only by dirt road (btw, the Saturn handled great), this quarry is the largest source of dino bones for museums all across the world. It is a big mystery as to why there is such a large concentration of bones in this one area and there are several theories, but nothing has been proven. So, we checked out their little museum and then did a little nature hike around the area to check out some really amazing points of interest like rocks, rocks, and more rocks. Oh, and rocks. There was also an old hippy man running the place and we were pretty sure he was on something, so we skedaddled before he could take us to see a “fossilized clam bed.”

-- Camped for our first night of the season! We camped in the San Rafael Swell, which was very beautiful, but unfortunately my camera died right before we set up camp, so I have no pictures to show how amazing it was. Before setting up camp, we drove around the swell to see some sights, including: an actual dinosaur foot print (no pictures), original pictographs from many, many years ago (like 20 I think… just kidding; again, no pictures), and the Little Grand Canyon overlook, of which I got two pictures before my camera died. No, I’m not bitter. What? I’m not.

-- Went for a hike near Spanish Fork, UT up to some natural hot springs called Fifth Water Springs. Very, very cool and very, very hot (literally). Many of them were sectioned off with rocks, so they looked like little hot tubs in the middle of nature. They were all positioned near a really nice waterfall, so the whole scene was super beautiful. We took a nice soak in the hot springs to relax before heading back down.

-- Ate. A LOT. Took them to Red Rock Brewpub, Red Iguana, and Ahh Sushi. This could be assumed, but we also drank. A lot. I am tired. ;)

-- Sam and I saw The Hunger Games after I nagged her to finish reading it while they were in Utah so I would have someone to go see the movie with. It was awesome!

They were all great visits and we are looking forward to having more of our friends come out! My near and dear Christina is coming in May, my parents are coming in June, and a bunch of our favorite kids are coming in July for Ben & Sara’s wedding.

Other things of note since our last blog post:

-- Romy has started staying outside of her crate while we’re at work during the day. She’s doing great! She is still the cutest dog ever. And don’t you argue me on that. You won’t win. She has bewitched Jon with her cuteness and he loves her almost as much as I do now. Almost. ;)

-- Been to a few more Jazz games. We’re excited to start going to see the minor league baseball team, the Salt Lake Bees, once their season starts.

-- Jon & Ben are brewing their own beer for consumption during Ben & Sara’s wedding weekend. The bottling phase was just completed.

-- I got to watch a surgery in the OR at the hospital where I work last week. I am fortunate not to have a weak stomach when it comes to viewing people’s insides. I thought it was awesome. I had to get all suited up with a hair net, booties, a mask and everything, and I really wanted to get a picture of myself, but I was too embarrassed to ask any of the nurses who are there doing that every day. Big deal, Jenn. Anyway, I don’t want to say a lot about the surgery because I don’t know if it violates patient privacy, but their story was being covered by local media, so that’s why I got to be in there. So really the patient agreed to share their story with the public, but I still err on the side of caution.

And that brings us to the present. Weather is getting a little warmer here, but we were surprised to find it snowing yesterday (April 1) when we left church. It turned to rain later, but the mountains definitely got some snow. We are done skiing for the season, though. We’re looking forward to warmer weather activities like more camping, biking, and outdoor happy hours. I have ridden my bike to work a few times which is great, and Jon’s office is only about 5 miles from mine, so we’ll probably be able to ride together to work quite a bit. Hoping to do that this week.

I am leaving on Friday to go home for Easter, thanks to my parents. Jon & Romy will stay behind and hold down the fort. I won’t be able to see many friends over that visit, but we are coming home again over Memorial Day weekend and I will have some time in Baltimore, so hopefully I can see some peoples!

Once again, this is an almost unbearably long post and I commend you if you made it through that. I will try and give an update sooner next time. Love and miss you all!

The Past Month in Review: Holidays, Skiing, LB's Visit & Other Events

Greetings, blog readers! There may be only one or two of you out there, but greetings nonetheless. It’s been over a month since our last update. Let’s see, what has happened…

-- Jon’s contract working as a pipe insulator ended a little bit before Christmas. Shortly after, he was hired as a ski tech at Canyon Sports downtown after enduring a grueling, six-minute interview. Still not exactly where he wants to be, but he does get free skiing and rentals. Silver lining, people. He’s still applying to jobs in his field, so keep sending us the good vibes.

-- We had our own “Christmas” morning the week before Christmas and exchanged our presents. I got SKIS and tickets to the Nutcracker! Jon got a national parks annual pass, a wool bike jersey from New Belgium brewery, and some natural soaps/shampoo (good for camping)! It was a really nice morning. We enjoyed mimosas, an awesome breakfast, and family time! Romy liked her present, too. Later that day, we exchange presents with Ben & Sara, too. J

-- Saw the Nutcracker at the Capitol Theater downtown. Slight anxiety when the huge mice were scampering across the stage, but otherwise lovely! We both really enjoyed it. We also checked out the Christmas lights at the Mormon Temple that night which are RIDICULOUS. There have to be literally millions of lights. That whole place is practically covered in lights. Every branch of every tree. Insane! I’d hate to see that electric bill…

-- We went home for Christmas. It was a short trip due to the fact that my vacation time wasn’t usable yet. Highlights include:

• Getting a flat (or, more accurately, completely exploded) tire in my parents’ Explorer on our way to Jon’s parents’ house on Christmas Eve. It happened around 2:30 a.m. EST only 20 minutes from the Zerbe house. Talk about Jon & Jenn luck right there. Fortunately, Jon changed it with relative ease and we got to the house by 3:30 a.m.
• We exchanged presents with the Zerbes on Christmas Eve. We gave Jon’s brother a Bichon Frise calendar. Hilarious. We also watched the Zerbe 1991 Christmas on VHS and it was very entertaining… for me.
• Shared Christmas morning breakfast with the Zerbes before making the 3-ish hour drive to LaPlata to exchange presents with the Bridges family and have Christmas dinner and played board games.
• I got my godson, Matthew, a head lamp that was a total hit!
• Had a post-Christmas brunch the next day with lots of my family. I also colored like 3 pictures that day and it was glorious.
• Summary: delicious food, awesome presents, and time spent with family (and friends because I did get to see Christina!). J

-- Went skiing at Brighton on 12/30/11 for my first time this season. I wanted to stay on the “bunny” slope, which I will henceforth refer to as the BEGINNER slope because there’s nothing bunny about it since it requires a lift and everything. Highlights include:

• I started feeling really good on my skis. I was making good turns, controlling my speed pretty well, and didn’t fall once…
• I wanted to try a green slope after practicing for some time. We mistakenly took a lift that led to only blue trails. Hysteria ensued. I skied-fell-skied-fell-cursed-skied-fell-walked my way to the bottom. Not pretty. But, at least we know where not to go for now. Again, silver lining.
• We saw a porcupine cross the ski slope. Tried to get a picture, but failed. He turned up on the news a few days later after he was spotted at the same ski resort chatting with some skiers on the deck.

-- We decided to plan our own New Year’s Eve bar-hopping adventure through downtown Salt Lake City since we had no idea what else to do. Jon had to work until 9 p.m., so we were starving by that time. We drove downtown, parked in the first spot we could find, and ducked into a little Italian place for dinner. After dinner, we started our “crawl” with The Beerhive Pub right next door. We ended up not hopping at all, and stayed there chatting with a couple from California. Good beer selection and super cool ice block surrounding the bar to keep your drink cold, but they had no champagne for the New Year’s toast. I was slightly saddened, but not really. Good times.

-- Spent New Year’s Day on the couch. Oh wait, that was just me. Jon had to work at 7 a.m. He did bring me a ginger ale over lunch, though. Nice guy.

-- We went to a Utah Jazz game! I got free tickets through a vendor at work. The seats were great and the Jazz won! We rode our bikes to the stadium, which is only about a mile or so from the house, which was lots of fun.

-- Skyped with our MD friends Danielle & Jason who gave us the VERY exciting news that they are ENGAGED! Wahoooooooooooooo!! We are very excited for them and send our love and congratulations again!

-- LB came out to visit 1/13-1/16! YAY! It was a great visit. Highlights include:

• Lauren got to see Romy (the highlights could really end after this bullet, right? ;) )
• Went to Red Iguana for dinner. Played Logo with Ben & Sara and Jon did NOT win! (I’m really not competitive, I swear…)
• LB & I walked Romy in City Creek Canyon, got manicures, toured downtown SLC, checked out East High where High School Musical was filmed, etc.
• Went night skiing at Brighton. It was LB’s first time and it was a rocky start, but she stuck with it and by the end made it down the BEGINNER (there’s that word again) slope twice without falling. She’s all amped for skiing now which is cool.
• Did a hike on Antelope Island. Saw mule deer, coyotes and bison. Oh, and a BISON STAMPEDE like 50 feet away from us. Cool, but also scary. I don’t mess with large, beasty animals. (Okay, it wasn’t really a stampede per say, but they were running.)
• Had a fabulous dinner and night of laughing with my cousins Brandy & Lance, their kids, and my Aunt Linda & Uncle Tom! And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention their entertaining dog, Charlie! J
• I did not go to work on Monday and therefore we all laid on the couch for a very long time. I am not exaggerating when I say 3 on-demand movies were purchased that day. Don’t judge.

-- We went skiing at Brighton last night. It started snowing a lot in the mountains finally, so all the Utahns are excited. Skiing went pretty well, I was on the green trail the whole night and only fell one time. I’m getting better. Jon makes it look so easy, though… and I hate it. J I have made a personal goal to do a blue trail by the end of this season, but you know willingly… not on accident like that time before…

And that brings us to the present! We’re enjoying our time in Utah and know we have only just scratched the surface on all the adventure that awaits us! Enjoying the winter (although, I’m seriously considering getting long johns for underneath my work pants…), but we’re also really looking forward to warmer weather activities like biking, hiking and camping!! We also have some more visitors lined up: Jon’s parents in February, Andrew Schmidt in March, and Jon’s friends from WVU Will & Sam also in March! PLAN YOUR TRIPS! Love & miss you all. This post was really long, so congratulations if you made it this far.

This post summarized in photos:

     

  

 

   

Our First Month in Utah

Well, we’ve been living in Utah for a little more than a month and we are loving it! It is still a little unreal even to us. We often catch ourselves staring off at the beautiful mountains and then saying to each other, “Hey. We live here.”

The first couple of weeks were spent unpacking and settling into our new house and starting our new jobs. Our new house is so nice, and we are settling in well. All of our unpacking is basically done, but there is some organizing left to do. The house actually had more rooms than we had furniture for, so there is a big, main room downstairs that is kind of collecting our empty boxes for the time being. Eventually, this will probably be a kind of TV/Game room. We did buy a new sleeper sofa for this room at a whopping $30; it is in good condition, just a little 80s looking, haha. Here are a few pictures of the house:

I (Jenn) started my new job on November 7, and it’s going really well. My boss is so nice and easy-going, and everyone I’ve met is also nice and welcoming. I have slowly been learning about the hospital, and what my personal projects and responsibilities will be. I am starting to feel more comfortable as time goes by and I’m already “owning” projects. So, I’m feeling good and looking forward to being there longer! Here is the view from my office:

Jon started working as a pipe insulator at a nearby refinery just a week after I started my job. It is paying him pretty good money (especially for being a newbie!) and he also gets to drive a company truck, so he doesn’t have to pay for gas. We are still looking for open jobs in his field and we actually found one for the state of Utah that sounded pretty perfect, so we’re hoping he hears back from that one – send him good vibes!

Shortly after getting here, Jon did buy a “new” truck. Here is his 1991 Jeep Comanche:

It is 4-wheel drive and came with tire chains, which will definitely come in handy on any trips up the canyon in snowy weather! The truck also came with piece of plywood fitted for the truck bed with padding on it, so we can sleep in the back for camping trips and put gear below it! Pretty sweet.

After spending the first couple weekends mainly doing things around the house, we were excited for our Thanksgiving visitors, Danielle & Jason! They drove in from Denver the night before bearing gifts – more New Belgium beer! After catching up for a few hours, we were all pretty tired, so hit the hay. I was SUPER excited about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. I was, of course, super-prepared with lists and recipes ahead of time, so everything came out delicious! During the day, Jon, Danielle & Jason went on a hike behind Ben & Sara’s house with their dogs while I started food prep and took Diva Romy on a much shorter walk at home. After the turkey was in the oven, we all munched on appetizers and then headed to the park across the street to throw the football. When dinner was ready, we set the table next to our crackling fire and poured some fine Pennsylvania wine. It was a great Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

The next day, I had to go to work, but Jon, Danielle, and Jason went out to Big Cottonwood Canyon for a hike to Dog Lake. They didn’t quite make it to the lake; the trail was not so well-traveled – as they neared the top, the snow was about waist-deep on Jon and without snowshoes, that wasn’t working out so well, so they turned back. Danielle and Jason hit the road to visit Jason’s family that Friday afternoon. On Saturday, Jon and I headed back to Big Cottonwood, armed with snowshoes, to try the hike to Dog Lake from a different trail. The trail we chose was much more traveled, and we made it to the (frozen) lake without needing snowshoes at all. But, since we’d both never used them, we put them on anyway and walked through the ungroomed snow around the lake. Pretty awesome! We are looking forward to doing more hikes like that one. We spent the rest of that weekend relaxing and pulling out the Christmas decorations!

That brings us to this past weekend. We finished our Christmas decorating (Jon did help) inside and out, including our Christmas tree. The house looks great and the tree smells wonnndeerrffulllll! If you didn’t already know, I am a lover of all things Christmas. I have been listening to the music pretty much since we got out here, so I am really happy to have all the decorations up now.

 

So, I think that’s it for now! We will be coming back east for Christmas, but it will be a very short trip because I can’t use any vacation time yet. We will be in Berks County from Fri., Dec. 23 night through Sun., Dec. 25 afternoon and in LaPlata from Sun., Dec. 25 evening to Tuesday, Dec. 27 afternoon. If you’re in either area, maybe we can see you. Otherwise, plan your trips to Salt Lake City because we are ready for lots of visitors!