Spot The Difference

Kevin and I went for a bike ride with Sean (Kevin's cousin-in-law) on monday, the difference between biking in Arizona and Utah was HUGE!

Can you spot all the differences?

1. No dad in Arizona

2. Kevin's and my outfits don't match

3. My jersey, well Kevin's, is way too big (hint hint, Dad)

4. Lush green v. desert waste land.

5. Cacti! If you look carefully you can see them in the background, they were everywhere!

6. I had to carry my own backpack with Kevin!

7. Kevin is sporting his Cougar pride (he actually got a few comments from fellow riders)

8. There are clouds in Utah!

As fun as it was, 20 miles in the super heat isn't necessarily my first choice to spend a holiday. Maybe next time only 10 miles?

"Yes Master"

Kevin was accepted into the Southern Utah University Masters program for Exercise Science and Conditioning!

Everyone should start preparing themselves now, as Kevin has requested that once he graduates to be referred to as "master." Apparently if you become a graduate student you are ranked up there with Major Nelson.

SUU is the home of the T-birds, which means Kevin has gone from a proud BYU Cougar to:

or if you are/were a nerd and grew up in England one of these:

Either way he now has a halloween costume for life!

You are all invited to Kevin's graduation, which will be held in Cedar City, hopefully in the summer of 2012, where Kevin will receive his "hoodie" (or more commonly known as a hood.) Hope to see you there!

The Grand Canyon State

We have moved from what claims to be a desert to what really is a desert....Utah is a lush beauty of green compared to Arizona!It took us 12 hours to drive from SLC to Phoenix, and this is what I got to stare out for 12 hours, the back of our U-Haul. And when I wanted a break from that I got to look at this: 

Thankfully to make the journey a bit more enjoyable Kevy and I had walkie-talkies, and with code names such as Rubber Ducky and Foxy Loxy how could we not have fun?

It may be 105 degrees today ....and for the rest of the month ....and quite possibly all of next month. But I shall be having the last laugh come November and still wearing shorts while you are bundled in everything you own!!! Except if you happen to live in Arizona or maybe Texas and actually Florida too....But for all you others HAHAHAHAHA

Final Countdown

With our last week in Utah coming to an end, things have been somewhat hectic. However we have still managed to do one or two things. For example, we both finally graduated:

To celebrate our graduation we had two parties. A "Nicole Party" and a "Kevin Party". For my party I requested we spend the day at a water park, which was hydrotastic! Kevin's party of course centered around food, and lots of it. I think my party was better, especially as I got to wear this!

My final request before we left Utah was to go down the Alpine Slide. I like to think it was symbolic of how we are sliding from one phase of our life right into a new one. You don't know what is coming around the next corner, it takes a lot of effort to move forward (the sleds were actually really hard to control), blink and you miss everything happening around you. 

The Converse Club - cool kids only

"Tour"ture de Midway

After a week of training a new lady at work, packing for the move and studying for my last final, my dad decided what I need was a bike ride! My dad is a very "focused" (read intense) bike rider. He took my Uncle Steve and I up by Cascade Springs in Midway, which was very pretty but only had two gradients: straight up or straight down! 

Call me crazy, but I have never been a fan of spandex, but my mum told me that I should really wear the padded bike shorts. I'm so glad I did, otherwise my poor bottom would be super sore today (versus just sore!) 

As fun as it was, I'm thinking next time I would rather have a ski lift take me to the top and I'll just ride down....

We found some pretty deep puddles (I chose to avoid this one)

I don't like getting my feet wet!

The only sunglasses I could find were Kevin's. I choose to think I look ravishing in them, and not that they made me look like I have a big nose and a wonky head. 

At Long Last

My family has finally arrived! This is the longest I have ever gone without seeing my family... 7 months, thankfully Kevin took good care of me while we were apart. 

Kevin and I took the little girls miniature golfing. Miniature golfing is not really the "done" thing in England, in fact, I don't even know where a miniature golf course is in England. So although we British girls may not be the best at putt-putt, we sure look good doing it!

We Made a Huge Mistake

Friday was Pioneer Day here in Utah. So in honor of the pioneers, we got the idea to make our own trek up to the Mount Timpanogos Summit. From our 7,000 feet starting point, it was only a 4,800 feet up...easy. A little TOO easy.....so to make it more up to Kevin's standards, we decided to start at midnight, in the rain. Finally a challenge.

At 12:30AM us and the, always up for a challenge Fox's, started the 7 miles to the top. With our headlamps set to red (we later became known at the Red-Light Group - you know you have made it on Mount Timp when you are given a gang name) we set out on what turned out to be the longest 10 hours of my life.

After about 4 1/2 hours of hiking we got lost, and ended up on a huge snow bank. We could see some lights from other hikes high above us, but just couldn't figure out how to get up to them. We came to a huge rock slide type thing and decided the only way was up. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. I'm not sure how many of you have ever scrambled straight up 100 feet of loose rocks, in the dark, but it is almost impossible. After about 20 mins of scrambling, slipping, praying, and a small amount of silent crying, I did it! I declared myself there and then the Warrior Princess. It was after 5am by now and all I could think was: "I've made a huge mistake". 

Here are the reasons behind the insanity:

We saw the sunrise for about 5 mins before it went behind the clouds, but I was far too tired to get my camera out for that.

Yes I am wearing thermals under my shorts, brightest decision I ever made. Shorts when it was hot, thermals for when it was cold! 

11,800 feet high! 

Where we got lost. We started at the far side of the picture, slipped away across the snow/ice, then scrambled up the rock pile closes to the camera - the whole rock pile/slide didn't fit in the camera, that is how big it was!