huckleberries and half marathons

 By no means am I trying to do a politically- incorrect- squinty-eyes- face. The sun was in my eye balls. It's the only picture of us both.

On Friday Robert and I decided to go huckleberry picking. On our "run" down the mountain last week we saw tons of huckleberry bushes that had a lot of ripe huckleberries, so we decided to go pick this weekend. We left the house at about 8:30 and spent the rest of the afternoon up at Natalie & Mark's sweet huckleberry picking spot and scored, big time. Granted, we only ended up with about a half gallon. It may not seem like a lot, but that was four + hours worth of huckleberry picking.

Last Sunday, Robert and I had the opportunity to speak in church. When I was speaking I mentioned how Robert and I met because I needed a "running buddy" and he decided to train for a marathon with me. (our first date was a ten miler. I know- so romantic). One of the members came up to us afterwards and told us he a free entries to the MAD marathon (half and full) for the upcoming weekend. Robert wanted to do the full, but I had to remind him he hadn't run over 8 miles in about 3 months. It was free, and it involved running- we were in. (even if we had 6 days to train)

Our goal was to beat my time from my first half marathon last January. We did, and it was awesome. 1:44:50, baby. (8 min mile pace, flat) I came in third for my age group and Robert came in 4th.  For not training, I was pretty impressed.

The Osbornes (as in Donnie and Marie) were the founders of the MAD race series; it was a marathon to support the deaf. Justin was there- I wish I was able to to get a picture, but I only talked to him for a few minutes. He is such a neat guy!

They also had free Jamba and massages after the race. It was probably one of my most favorite races I have done.

the piano guys

excuse the awful picture :) It's all I could get.

By mere luck I was able to get tickets to see The Piano Guys (Jon Schmidt & Steven Sharp Nelson) here in Rexburg. It was originally supposed to be a surprise for Robert since his idol is Mr. Schmidt, but I didn't think it was going to happen since the tickets were sold out about 10 minutes after they went on sale. Alas, we lucked out and had an awesome date night. 


Robert plays the piano, and I play(ed) the cello, so we were loving every minute of the concert. There wasn't a song that they played that we didn't like, but below are my three favorites. Enjoy.







PS- Mr. Neilson has three different cellos he used; classical, electric and semi-electric. He was able to use a loop (which I think it the coolest thing ever) with two of his cellos, and it just made the concert.

the valley of swans, and cows, and llamas.

In celebration of completing our Junior year of Higher Education, we decided to go camping! There is so much to do up here, and we were stoked to finally take advantage of it. On Friday night we headed out to Swan Valley to camp.

I guess Swan Valley is famous for square ice cream. So we got some. It was pretty good.

Nat & Mark used to live up here in Idaho, and they told us their secret camping spot where a moose walked through their camp site. We didn't get anything that cool, just a bunch (about 15) cows. It was pretty sweet though; our camp site was right next to the creek and we were about the only campers in a mile radius.

Did I mention that somehow our suitcase/clothing bag got left at home? Yeah- that seems to be a trend with me. I had 16 mosquito bites within the first 15 minutes of being at our campsite, so wrapping my legs in a blanket and putting on Roberts hoodie was my saving grace.

Also- roasting Starburts are a million times better than s'mores. You should probably try it. Just sayin'. (If you hadn't noticed, I had my life time intake of sugar in about 3 hours)

On Saturday morning we got up and made the 7 mile hike to Upper Palisades. It was gorgeous!

We have become pro self-timer photographers- except maybe a few times. A fail in action ^.

Since we are training for another marathon (and a half this weekend, whoot whoot!), we decided to just run back down instead of hike back down. I think it's our new favorite way to hike.

Also- while we were running back down we saw llama's. Yeah. I thought I was going crazy too, but people were really riding Llamas up to the lake!