Redwoods Trip

About a year ago, Garrett and I had planned a road trip to Montana's Going-To-The-Sun road.  Incredibly scenic, and location of The Shining & Forrest Gump. But due to getting a 9-5 job around the same time we'd planned on the trip, we had to postpone it. We discovered that the road is under serious construction right now, so we're going to wait for it to be all finished up. Road trip CHANGE!  Where did I want to go that wasn't too far, and I'd never been to before? The Redwoods of course.

We planned to leave after I ran Aida on Friday night. Before going, we made a stop at the store and stocked up on snacks. I was pretty happy we chose a lot of fruits and veggies.

Around 7am, we saw signs for Lake Tahoe, so we took an hour detour and went to check it out. It was really pretty!

Here's Garret driving past Whiskey Lake. 

So happy I'm not having to do all the driving!

Northern Cali is stuffed with national forests, it was gorgeous! 

We were pretty lucky going when we did. The weather was perfect, and peak season had ended 2 weeks before.

Saw some crazy lumberyards.

Garret hadn't been to the ocean since he was a kid, he was pretty excited. 

Thought his one-toed foot looked really weird here.

Saw a huge batch of seagulls down the beach, so I asked Garret to go pull an Indiana Sr. moment.

It was pretty cool.

Finally taking the ocean trail to our campsite.

 The trees were incredible.  Never have I felt so teenie.

I am officially a tree-hugger.

Got to the campsite.  Right on the beach, it was the perfect spot!!

The closer you got to the beach, the more we found that everything was coated in sand. It made everything look so desaturated!  

Garrett got sick on the last bit of our drive, so we nicknamed this special spot "Puke Point" for obvious reasons. This photo was taken a few days after the incident. 

We were walking on a forest trail and found the end section of a fallen tree. We decided to hop on it and walk down to the fallen trunk section (which surprisingly took a while). Never thought the trunk would be this huge!

 One of the craziest things about the Redwoods was how HUGE everything was, and how quiet it was. Another crazy thing was that unless you had something in the photo to put the trees to scale, a photo would never show how huge the trees are!

 There aren't any big chain or able stores out there, everything seems like you've walked into the 70's. Local owned everything. We would fill our water bottles at little wells at the forest centers. It was kind of creepy to see how white it came out at first, but it cleared up pretty quickly.

We'd searched a while for the "drive through tree" and found it! We were the only ones there, it was awesome.

And yes, I was crazy enough to drive through it. veeeeery slowly, with the mirrors folded in.

We went to a nearby beach and discovered something that looked like an old farmhouse. It had a plaque near it that said it was actually a building hiding some huge aircraft guns in case of the Japanese reaching the mainland coast after Pearl Harbor. Crazy.

On our way home we decided we'd stop and have dinner in Reno. Because...why not.

After an AMAZING dinner, Garret wanted to try a slot machine for the first time. I looked around and immediately shouted "Kitty Glitter!"  

He put in $5 and came out with an awesome $9!!!! Yay for Reno right???

Had a ball with Garret!  A fun weekend road trip!

Before/After

I knew that when I arrived at Tasha's house, I'd be starting up exercising again. I'm a big fan of running, although I had to cut down on running in Japan, which got me out of shape.

I was super stoked to get back into running!  Tash and Dewy taught me how to make 

protein pancakes (egg, oatmeal, cinnamon, vanilla, almond milk)

They are delicious! I got in the habit of waking up at 7 to eat breakfast with everyone, and then Tash and I would work out at 9.

On Mon, Wed, Fri we'd go to the gym and do weights & running, while Tue & Thurs had us running outside, P90X, or running up & down Tasha's 2 staircases 50 times. My favorite one is running outside. It's finally warm outside, and Tasha lives by river with a jogging path next to it. So pretty!

 I'd assumed that things would be difficult in the beginning, which of course was true. I felt like Jabba the Hut. I got shin splints, my face stayed beet red for a few hours, and the longest I could run without walking was 8 minutes. Did I mention Tasha regularly runs for an hour? I understood that it was all due to not running much last year, but I was still mad at myself. Back in Utah, I'd gotten to the point where I felt like a bullet when I ran, and I loved running. So even though I was frustrated and slow compared to Tasha, I just kept reminding myself that I'd gone through all of this before and succeeded. Knowing that helped me keep going.

Tash is the best workout buddy ever. At first I felt bad when we would run outside, because I'd have to stop and walk a lot. She'd stop and walk with me even though I knew she had plenty of energy to keep going. She'd also be really positive and motivating, and she'd time my runs to show me that I was improving. Timing my runs motivated me to try beating my previous time every day.  I don't think I'd have made as much progress if Tash hadn't been here! 

A few days ago, I'd worked up to running for an hour straight. I don't think I've ever run that long in my life. I was so freaking proud of myself that I sprinted for the last minute. It was a big day for me.

This is from today's workout. It was chilly, but I'm finally at the point where I enjoy it again. I still have random days where my energy doesn't feel very high, but I push through them and feel great afterwards. I'd always hated running outside til I tried it here, so I hope I can keep with it back in Utah. Tash has a busy life, so we can only run for an hour each day. So now my goal will be to keep achieving that hour mark, and hopefully start adding more speed into my run. Thank you Tash, for your motivation, and for  helping me get back into working out!

Castles, Turtles, and Dinners

Sorry, a catchup post of some of the small stuff in between the trips.

We went out to dinner with Liz and friends

Spinach Soup, anyone?

Tasha's gang, minus Kristina.

On the way out of dinner, we saw some flame throwers in the town square.

Tasha's batch of friends here is really great, she's so lucky to have them!

Some fun at the house. Tucker and his spaceship.

Some of the kids got carried away with goldfish on the driveway ha ha!

We tried a new place, chinese. Absolutely terrible, and the egg roll was bigger than Tasha's hand for crying out loud!

The kids are a fan of the "lyssa train", a 2 second ride down the slide. 

We took Liz to a castle on her last day here. Saw a frog sign ha ha! 

We passed lots of these. I'm told it's some sort of crop for a beer.

Ah, the castle ruins.

It was so fun chilling with Liz in Europe!

Wes was a bit insane, he wanted to hop down each step. Gave me a heart attack.

The boys, Liz and I climbed to the top.

Hi Tash!

We had lunch there as well.

Wesley showed he could hold my camera responsibly, so I let him take photos. It was tough for him to hold a heavy camera while trying to take photos, but he managed. He took around 150 I think? 

Mr. Danger Zone, sitting on the wall.

Here's one of Wesley's photos, he was a fan of taking Tucker photos.

Ah, Liam's 4th birthday party (neighbor). It was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed, and Max was given the role of Splinter ha ha! He had a rat tail, and Wesley would drag him around with it ha ha

The women out here go all out with their events.

Krang for dessert.

Michaelangelo!

A shredder Piñata ha ha! Man Angie did a great job with all of this.

Tuck already had a jacket, which added to his awesome costume.

Oh, 2 Easter photos I forgot about. You saw fountains decorated like this all over the various towns. 

Yes, they are real. I honestly thought they were wooden until I went up and saw a few that had cracked! Wow!!!

Tasha's yard is in full bloooooom


Just discovered Simon and Liam have a bearded dragon lizard. Is it just me, or did the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" suddenly make this little guy look really cute?

Aaaaaand here's a picture of a fun/crazy night. It was a military ball I got invited to by Kyle, a friend of mine out here. Luckily, one of Tasha's neighbors (Kristina and her husband) came along as well. Yay for Kristina, because she got me loosened up and chatty, not to mention she lent me a dress to use ha ha! There were some German officers seated at our table, Henrich and Stephan, who were a hoot. There were also lots of British officers, and I gravitated towards chatting lots with 2 officers named Phil and Prahkesh. And then I hung out a lot with Kyle's batch of friends, including a Sergeant Bassa who taught me some very energetic polish swing moves on the dance floor ha ha ha. It was a fun night!

Selfieeee!

Sister Selfie!

Dad just emailed me these 2, AWESOME