Q2 2024
Hello! I feel like a bit of a broken record here, but once again I’ve neglected to blog. We’ve been pretty busy! We survived several large, pain in the butt work projects. Things are moving along swimmingly with our house. We ran four half marathons. All that plus generally living, adulting, seeing friends, and doing boring things like going to Costco and cleaning the stuck on mystery goo off the stovetop. Life is busy but good.
What have we been up to?
Stressing about work (what else is new?). Two different audits over the course of just a few weeks plus general burnout for me. More burnout for Ian plus false promises from management. People also seem to keep getting irritated with him that he’s not internalizing their stress as his own. Not everything is on fire all the time, Kenny.
Waking up at 3 AM to catch a bus at 4 AM to run a half marathon at 6 AM. We’ve run three halves in June, and my circadian rhythm now wakes me up at 2:45 AM religiously on Saturday mornings.
Watching a ton of O’s baseball. I have the game on now as I’m writing this.
Watching the Olympic trials. I am not patriotic in the slightest, but I do love the Olympics. All the trials have been fun to watch. Maryland has been well represented, and there’s even been a few Utahns too.
Baking banana bread. Shout out to Katie for answering all of my emergency baking questions.
Ian and his best friend have been working on the 4Runner, which is a fun problem solving/male bonding project for them.
Eating copious amounts of Thai food at the new Thai restaurant that opened up across the street from our house. The drunken noodles and red curry are our favorites.
Anxiously awaiting our new house to be built! We had a walkthrough a couple of weeks ago, and they’re starting insulation and drywall soon. Photos included later in the blog post.
Here are a few things we’ve done that are more photo-worthy than my banana bread.
Zion Backpacking
Back in May, we did a one-night backpacking trip in Zion National Park. Believe it or not, this was actually our first backpacking trip ever. We are masters of the day hike, but had never done an overnight where you carry around all of your food, water, sleep system, tent, etc. and haul a 40 pound pack instead of a small daypack. Let me tell you what, backpacking is hard! It doesn’t help if your pack is two sizes too big and rubs and chafes in places it shouldn’t (a hip belt should not be digging into your thighs, for example). After our trip, we went to REI to get properly sized for a pack and I was borderline in the kids’ backpacks. Not sure what I was thinking back in 2018 when I bought the ginormous backpack. Wishful thinking that I might hit a growth spurt in my mid-20’s?
Despite the wildly inappropriately sized backpack, the trip was still amazing. We car camped outside of Zion the night before our hike in an absolutely spectacular spot.
Pretty pretty, right?
The next morning we started our hike by dropping our car off at an overnight parking lot for hikers and getting a shuttle to the top of the trailhead so we could hike the whole things down one-way instead of an out and back. That morning started off stressful because we had a much harder time finding parking than we anticipated. Our shuttle driver, Eric, was so nice and so helpful. It was particularly special that his name was Eric because this same morning I found out that a childhood friend from church, also named Eric, had died unexpectedly. It was unsettling to hear such horrible news in such a beautiful place.
While the morning brought on much more emotion than we had planned for, we still set out on our hike. 12 miles, a thunderstorm, and a couple thousand feet of elevation gain later, we finally made it to our campsite.
Ian’s handywork in using the tent rainfly to cover my pack from the rain. His pack came with its own rain cover. Mine, we had to get creative.
There were several points throughout this hike that we thought campsite 2 didn’t actually exist. We passed sites 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 1 before we finally made it to the promised land. Up that last little hill and we were there. So close yet so far.
Campsite 2 is the smallest and most secluded of the 9 campsite options. We saw several campers at the other sites on our hike, but you can’t see us at site 2 from the trailhead. Quiet and peaceful, with the exception of the well-meaning couple who came to check out the campsite the next morning after they stayed at site 5. Had they walked up a few minutes earlier, they would have caught me right in the middle of pooping in a hole.
There was one brief torrential downpour overnight, but we were warm and dry in our tent. We took a quick walk down the hill to the main trail and down another little hill to the stream to refill and filter our water. The second day’s hike was just five miles to get back to the car, mostly downhill but with one or two uphill stretches.
Two days and 17 miles later, we were tired, sweaty, smelly, and grateful to be walking through town back to the car as a pretty gnarly thunderstorm rolled in. Overall, we had a positive first backpacking experience and are excited to do more! I got store credit from trading in my gargantuan pack at REI and have one that actually fits me properly now. We discovered those dehydrated backpacking meals are surprisingly tasty, and that you should always pack Boogie wipes (my mom, if no one else, will get that reference).
Backpacking is awesome! But we’re not ready for bear country yet.
Running, Running, & More Running
Are we a little crazy for running three half marathons in four weeks? Yes, I am self-aware. People keep asking me why I do it. For Ian, he does it mostly in solidarity with me. For me, I do it because I can. I’ve come a long way when it comes to fitness and exercise and outdoor recreation that I’m grateful that my body is capable of running like that in beautiful places like this. Ten years ago, five years ago, or even three years ago when we first moved here if you told me I’d be capable of skiing and hiking and running and doing all of these things I would have laughed in your face. Now, look at me go!
This isn’t to disregard any of Ian’s accomplishments, but he’s always been athletic so it’s less of a shock that he does all this stuff. For me, I’m grateful for the ability and opportunity to get out there and challenge myself in new ways. I have so many little gratitude moments each time I torture myself with another 13.1 miles. It’s fun torture, though. Type II fun.
Anyway, personal reflection rant over. I also run because the race day atmosphere is amazing and for the bling.
Salt Lake City Half Marathon (4/20/24) featuring a post-race pancake
Utah Valley Half (6/1/24) featuring this random lovely garden
Drop 13 Half (6/8/24) featuring my sweat and bonus medals for setting personal bests. We did not need first aid despite standing near the first aid truck.
Runtastic Timp Half (6/22/24) featuring us half dead on the grass because this race had hills and was way harder than we thought it was going to be
House Updates
Things with the house seem to moving along quite well. It has electrical, plumbing, windows, and soon insulation and drywall. We had a tour with the builder just a couple of weeks ago, and we’re excited! Not so excited with the fact that interest rates aren’t going down like they were expected to back at the beginning of the year, but we’re just not going to think about that right now because we’ve made our choice and now we’ve gotta run with it.
The current state of the economy aside, we’re excited for the house. We gain a ton of storage on the first floor, and it’ll be nice and cozy on the second and third levels. Technically, the rooftop deck is the fourth level. With those views, it deserves to be its own level too. We can’t wait to show you when all is said and done! (Approximately Sept-Nov).
We may even have a little patch of grass on our front porch area.
There’s now a door under the stairs there on the left and we have a little Harry Potter closet under the stairs!
The future living room
The future dining room. We’ll have to take better pictures next visit.
Ain’t she a beaut?
We Have No Chill
On what was supposed to be our rest weekend between half marathons two and three this month, we accidentally hiked a triple crown three peaks in one day over 11 miles and 4,000+ feet of elevation gain. Oops. We randomly ran into Ian’s best friend and his wife on this hike, which was a fun surprise.
Basically, we (I) have no chill and need to learn how to rest and relax. Shoutout to Ian for doing all of this crazy stuff with me and being the best adventure buddy.
The twisty brown line on the right is the road we ran down the week before in a race. So one weekend we ran down Big Cottonwood Canyon and the next we hiked up it. This is why I get home and am too exhausted to blog.
The road is a little easier to see in this one.
Thank you all for joining along on our adventures! We have a whole month off until our next half marathon but will surely be hiking or paddle boarding in some amazing places soon. Love and miss you all!
Chloe
Banana bread bonus pic!
