Moab Wedding

Our second weekend in October was spent in Moab celebrating the nuptials of Megan and Dasch. For them, boating has been a huge part of their lives, both together and separately. It made perfect sense, then, that their wedding would be in Moab, the boating mecca of Utah. We started our weekend with a BBQ on Takeout Beach. Megan looked beautiful as always. When it got too dark to see there, we moved the party to the Moab Brewery.

The ceremony began early the next morning at Sandy Beach. Megan's dad paddled her to the aisle. Ben, the person who introduced Megan and Dasch, performed the ceremony. Their dogs, Ruby and Tappan, were the ring bearers. After exchanging vows, Megan and Dasch skipped down the aisle to "All I want is you." After a brief, but sweet, champagne toast, Megan and Dasch floated away in their pink tulle-wrapped boat.






Between the ceremony and reception, Rod and I checked out Arches National Park. It is one of my favorite national parks. We had gorgeous weather for exploring.

The reception was held at the Sunset Grill. Rod spent most of the reception checking the LSU/Florida score. I actually had a song dedicated to me and one other girl as "The Single Ladies." :) Clem was determined to get Rod on the dance floor and attempted to steal his iPhone. Immediately after grabbing it from Rod's hands, though, he tripped and ate it. And that is what we call karma. After the game was over, Rod made up for lost time. He even made a (hilarious) attempt at mimicking Scott's butt dance. Too funny!

We finished our perfect weekend off with brunch at the Takeout Beach and a float trip on the Colorado River. Congratulations Megan and Dasch!

October--What happened to the summer.

I think this is the first time since July that I am actually blogging in the same month as things are happening. Although we were technically home in the larger sense of the word during this first weekend in October, we did not actually spend much time at home. Shantel and Tom stopped in for lunch at Red Iguana on their way to Moab. It was great getting together with old friends, even if it was just for lunch.

Friday night, we were invited to a very fun dinner party at Steve and Kathy's house. Steve is one of my favorite people to work with. He is so interesting and is happy to listen to me bitch anytime. Every year, he hosts a post-ride dinner at his house. We skipped the ride--my road bike hasn't seen anything but a trainer in two years--but were happy to enjoy the wonderful meal his wife Kathy cooked for us.

Saturday was a great day for Kellies. I started my day at a baby shower for Keli and ended it at a birthday party for Kelly. Robyn, the hostess for Keli's baby shower, threw such an adorable shower. The cupcakes alone were worth blogging about. I think they were homemade. Robyn also thought of lots of cute little details. Like most baby showers, though, there were several horror stories about childbirth. I'm not sure why anyone ever thinks it's a good idea to tell someone who is 8 months pregnant about every horrible labor, pregnancy, baby story they have ever heard. It is enough for me to re-think the idea of ever having children. I always pity the guest of honor who no matter how bad the horror stories get cannot back out.

I've heard some people rationalize this behavior by saying that you should be prepared for the worst. Personally, I would rather read about "the worst" in a detached book where (1) I don't have to picture my friends in less than flattering positions or (2) realize that the horror story is closer than I realize. At my shower (which will be far, far in the future), I'm going to make all the guests sign an agreement not to share any scary/gross/embarassing stories.

Keli took it all in stride, though. She was so cute opening her presents and looking at the tiny little outfits. She is going to be such a great mom. Congratulations Keli and Dave!

Immediately after Keli's shower, I headed to Kelly's birthday party. For Kelly's birthday, our book club group headed to the Trappist Monastery (the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity) in Huntsville. We were too late (or early) to see the trappist monk's chanting, but we did pick up some honey. The monastery itself was much more modern than I expected. The setting was lovely, though. Since we still had some time to kill before our dinner plans, we stopped at the Shooting Star, the oldest bar in Utah. This is a hidden gem. The beer selection wasn't great, but the food and decor were very quirky and memorable. There are stuffed animals (the taxidermied kind) all over the wall. We sat underneath someone's St. Bernard. We had dinner plans so we didn't sample any of the burgers, which sounded so yummy, but we did try a local favorite appetizers: potato chips and dill pickles. A strange, but surprisingly tasty combination. We will be making a trip back here this winter for the end of day skiing at Powder Mountain.

We headed back to SLC for dinner at Settabello, where Rod joined us. We ended up fitting in a pub crawl to two new bars, Poplar St. and Beerhive. I'm not sure if the word is out yet, but Beerhive is the next big thing in SLC. I'm sure that within months, we will be waiting in line to get a table. We ended our day with a Deschuttes Black Butte XXI. It tasted like chocolate covered coffee beans. It was so tasty and rich, I couldn't have possible finished the big bottle by myself.

The next morning, we met up for brunch at Em's with Dave, Inga, Ivan, Monette, Daisy, Dave, and (the guests of honor) Karthik and Eve to meet their new baby: Sita. She is sooo beautiful! And Eve had the most perfect birth story--3 hours!--to counteract any lingering negative mental pictures from the day before. Gabe is getting so big! He is such a cutie.

Happy Engagement!

For the last weekend in September, Rod and I headed to Louisiana to celebrate Stephen and Elise's Engagement Party. We missed our first flight by 10 minutes (we were there in time, but American Airlines' ticketing agent wasn't). With enough tears and sobbing, we were able to fly standby on the first flight out the next morning. We had to get up at 4 a.m. to make sure we were the first ones on the standby list.

By the time we landed in Baton Rouge, we were exhausted. We grabbed lunch at Zeeland Street Market and then spent the afternoon napping. By the time we woke up, it was time for dinner at Acme Oyster House's new location in Baton Rouge.

The next morning, we watched an uncomfortably close between LSU and Mississippi State, stopped by to visit Aunt Jumy, Amy, and family, before heading to Jennings. The party was at a remodeled country club on Lake Arthur that has been in Elise's family for a couple generations. The decorations were fabulous and the food was even better. I would have bet money that they spent a fortune on both, but they were completely homemade. Every detail was perfect down to the last monogrammed napkin. The party really got started when Mr. Lagarde (Elise's dad) started pouring Patron shots and playing, in Rod's words, "music white people can dance to."

We were in the last shuttle group of the evening. We had 22 people (and several open bottles of wine/liquor) in a 15 passenger van. It was a long, but entertaining ride back to the hotel. When we got back, no one was ready to go to bed. We spent about 15 minutes talking about going to the Waffle House--apparently a Louisiana post-drinking tradition. One by one, people eventually went to bed.

In front of the hotel.

After getting back from Jennings--where we later learned from CNN News that a serial killer is loose--but before catching our flight, we stopped in for one last great seafood meal at The Chimes and made a quick visit to Mrs. Caroline, Rod's third Grandma. Amazingly, despite being one day short, we were able to see almost everyone on our trip. It was at breakneck speed, but we did it. Congratulations Stephen and Elise! We are so happy for you and cannot wait for your wedding.

A beautiful weekend without any photos

I can't believe I forgot my camera! I never leave home without it. On Friday, September 18 (yes, a whole month ago), it was a time to say goodbye to Jess and Sarah. I've known Jess since we started law school in the fall of 2001. Rod and I could always count on him to be up for a mountainbike ride. I met Sarah at Rod's surprise party the day I got home from South America. She came bearing a tacky t-shirt for Rod, which has become a birthday tradition. She has the amazing ability to light up a room and make anyone feel special. I know we will see them again (and soon when we make a ski trip out to Germany), but Utah just feels emptier without them. Come back soon!


We had to leave the party early to get up to my firm retreat. We were assigned to the very important role of bringing cocktails. By the time we made it to Wolf Mountain, dinner and dancing were over, but the party was just getting started. Due to a case of mistaken room assignments, Bryan realized that the entry code was the same for both our house and the house next door. Our house had a fuseball table. The house next door had a pool table. We spent the night bopping between both houses. We didn't go to bed until 3-ish a.m. I haven't been up that late in a long time. It was a very early morning! Luckily we started the day with a very interesting presentation by Alan Fine about how you can improve your performance by merely focusing on the right things.


Later that night, we went to Rod's work party in Lamb Canyon. We had a great time visiting with his co-workers and eating Linda's cookies. Yum!


The next day, Rod and I went with Megan to Deer Valley for a day of mountainbiking. We only got slightly lost, but we ended our ride in the pouring rain riding up the road. We warmed up at our favorite post-ride salsa bar: Chubasco. If only our hot tub was already hooked up!

I love this time of year!

For our only weekend at home this month, we decided to get out to enjoy one of my favorite pastimes: the State Fair. We went with our good friends Carrie and Joel. Although there was no elvis show, there were a lot of cute animals,


fried food, great outfits, and hot tubs. Okay, we didn't plan on the last one, but it was such a smoking deal that we couldn't help ourselves. We've been hot-tub-less for two years and coming home from skiing is not the same without it.

The next day, Stacia and Dave had a housewarming party. Their house is amazing. The spread was better than at a wedding. There were little lamb chops, ceviche, homemade jellys, star cookies, fruit, and anything else you could possibly imagine. Of course, I didn't get pictures of any of that because I was too busy taking pictures of Beck--the cutest baby. I want to steal him!

Havasupai: Day 3

All good things must come to an end. In this case, it was not just our incredible weekend. You see, this trip was just a few weeks before Jess and Sarah moved to Germany. They are only going for two years, but they are planning on starting a family while they are there. Justin and Sil are already expecting. And Rod and I have talked about it. The whole weekend we were planning our next trip, but we all knew that next time will be different. This was truly an end of an era. It was so bittersweet.

Four hard cores headed out early to hike to the rim. The rest of us decided to spend the day playing in the waterfalls and riding the helicopter out. In the beginning we had the waterfall all to ourselves. When the sun came out enough, I decided to explore around the falls and found a way to get behind it. The sunlight behind the falls was incredible, dancing everywhere. Once we started jumping, the crowds gathered and our courage grew. Before we knew it, we moved from behind the falls to on top of them.

Justin was nice enough to run ahead and put our names on the waiting list for the helicopter. What little time we had to wait, we spent eating indian fry bread in the cafe and getting ice cream sandwiches from the store. The ride was short, but incredible.

At the top, we said our goodbyes and started the long trek home. We passed the Hoover Dam just in time for sunset and cruised into Vegas in time to catch a late dinner.



After passing a bad Lady Gaga impression, we decided to call it a night. We were exhausted! The next morning, I got up early to enjoy a bloody mary by the pool. We used the last of my quarters on video poker and hit up two Vegas essentials--Trader Joe's and In-n-Out Burger--before heading home.

Havasupai: Day 2

It was a long night, sleeping in the bottom of a slot canyon while the thunder echoed down the canyon and the rain filled our dreams with floods.

The next morning we headed to Mooney Falls.

The hike down was a bit treacherous, but well worth it. We spent the day hiking down river and playing in whatever waterfalls we could find.

Although we never made it to our destination (Beaver Falls), the journey was so beautiful we didn't mind.