Spring break in Fort Lauderdale

We are still disappointed that Covid continues to thwart our plans to go to Hawaii or Mexico but we still wanted to do something fun, especially since this was Matt's last spring break.  We decided a trip to Florida would satisfy our warm beach cravings. We had a great time and loved being in a different beach location.

First on the trip agenda was surfing lessons.  We all love trying to surf and feel really cool when we can actually ride a wave!  I hung with Abby on the beach this time around. My legs weren't quite recovered enough. 😂  

Jerry had some good rides.

Matt was dealing with a sore wrist but he still managed to get up.

Kate also had some good ones.

Jerry again.

Sara rocked it.

Kate again.

While they were surfing, Abby and I made some sandcastles. We were all so happy to be back at the beach!

We definitely spent most of our time laying on the beach but we tried to also do some Florida things that we can't do in California.  One of those was visiting the Flamingo Gardens.

Abby and Sara both loved all the turtles.

There were some of these random picture boards so we had some fun 😂

Abby wore her flamingo Goodr sunglasses just for fun.

One morning Kate, Jerry and I got up to do beach yoga but it was canceled for some reason so we were forced to go walk on the beach. Ugh! Rough life!

Another fun thing we did was go on a jet boat ride through the everglades. That was really fun and we got to see an alligator.

We were lucky and saw an alligator.  While we were looking at the alligator, a turtle swam right up to the boat.  It was pretty cool.

We also tried to find the most fun places to eat.  We had some awesome Cuban and Puerto Rican food.  We found some places away from the beach that were as authentic as you can get.  We spent a lot of time at the beach enjoying the warmer Atlantic Ocean. Some of the days had some strong rip currents but we could still get in the water, we just had to stay closer to the shore.  We made up this silly football game and had so much fun playing. Haha.

This beach was right at our hotel. So awesome!

Our last full day we decided to head over to the gulf side and visit Naples.  We needed to have the water on the west side, best side, again. 😂 It was a cool place and a little more our vibe over the Fort Lauderdale spring break side.  It was pretty and laid back and probably where Jerry and I would choose to go back to.

The coolest thing in Naples was we had some dolphins swim right up to where we were in the water.  Matt, Kate and Sara swam out closer to where they were so that was cool.

We're so glad we got to do something different and fun for Matt's last spring break.  We made some good memories and that's what it's all about!

Behind the Rocks

Last year I trained all winter for the Behind the Rocks 50k. And then 12 days before it was supposed to happen, the day I ran my last long run in preparation, it got canceled. Just like everything else at the beginning of Covid. It was a huge bummer, but it was also a bit of a relief.  My IT band had started hurting and everything became so stressful overnight that I didn't spend much time feeling sorry for myself about the cancelation.  I just tucked it into the back of my mind and kept running. I knew it would happen again and that I'd be there.  This year was a much more fun training block for it anyway.  I followed a training plan and I had Amy with me for my long runs and I did most of it on trails.  Unfortunately, Amy's foot started hurting her so she ended up pulling out so I finished the training by myself.  I had put a lot of work into it and I knew I was ready.  I estimated an 8 hour finish but I knew I really wanted closer to 7:30.  I came across the finish in 7:15 and the course was long! I surprised myself a little and surprised Jerry a lot.  He and Matt had been biking since spectators weren't allowed so they weren't even at the finish. I was glad because I came across the finish line in such an "ultra shuffle"!😂

It was such an awesome experience.  I really can't wait to do another one but the trick is fitting in the training so we'll see when that happens. It was also so hard. I stayed really strong mentally and that was a big help.  Physically, I was also really strong but 50k is a long ways and I was so tired at the end! The whole time I just kept telling myself "I am doing this"! It was awesome! The views and absolute solitude helped me so much! What a great day.

The sunrise was amazing. Such a great start to the day! All day I was just amazed at where I was and what I was doing!

 

My legs were so dead by the end. I was almost in tears waiting for Jerry to pick me up.  They hurt so bad.  I didn't want to sit down because I knew I wouldn't be able to stand back up. 😂 but it hurt so bad to stand. They dropped me off at the hotel and Jerry had to help me out of the car.  Then I laid in bed and they just ached while I was laying there.  It was rough. 😂 But it was SO worth it.

More snow fun

 Sara and Matt both had so much fun snowboarding last year that they were excited to go again this year. Kate decided it would be fun to try as well so on one of our free Fridays we headed up to Brighton with boards instead of skis.  Kate and Sara each took a lesson and while they were out Abby and I went off without them. Matt and Sara had a ton of fun but I don't think Kate will be giving up her skis anytime soon.

Every time we ride up the Crest lift and we pass the "decorated" tree, we exclaim, "Ugh! We forgot a bra again!" But then we remembered and were able to drop one in! Proud moment!

Winter finally hits

We had kind of a disappointing winter. We skied some of the worst snow I've ever skied in my life! Bummer. But when winter did finally hit, it pretty much came all in one storm. It made for some really crazy avalanche conditions in the back country and even in the resorts. We got like 7-9 feet over the course of a few days.  We finally got a small amount of snow in the backyard so Abby and her friend, Ruby, could make a snowman even though it was a very small one!

Some facts from the crazy storm. 

This is the imprint of a UDOT truck that got caught in an avalanche while they were blasting Little Cottonwood Canyon. Crazy!

We were able to take advantage of some of the snow though so that made it all fun!

 We had some serious bad luck with the Cruiser this winter and one day it had to be towed from the high school parking lot. It was a huge headache all winter but I told everyone I was pranking Matt and towing it as a senior joke. Haha, if only!😜

Ski jumping-the next level

This is one of my favorite pictures of Kate.  Love this girl and love how much she loves skiing!

 

After one of many trips down the Snake Bowl! Yes, please!

After this particular storm we finally had enough snow to make the Ziggy cliff a little more manageable and also the fresh snow made a soft landing, so we headed over there...

Abby isn't quite ready to jump.  Fine by me!

Matt is kind of a pro at this cliff.  He's jumped it the most and is the one who always talks us into heading over there.

Sara also opted to skip the jump.  She hit a jump earlier in the season and hit the ends of her toes on her boots and ended up losing a toenail over it.  So it hurt a little too much to jump still.  Sad for her.

Kate was the most exciting to watch.  It took her a minute to get the nerve up to jump, but I loved her cheer when she landed!

Abby is working on letting go of that wedge.  When she's brave enough, her ability level skyrockets.  It's just hard to get her to believe that sometimes!

One of many snow day posts

We love our ski days, what can I say.  We also love our Milly lodge selfies.  Haha.  We missed Matt a lot this year as he had to work every other Saturday.  We still managed to have fun, but it just wasn't the same!

We finally managed to have some decent storms, but usually this log is totally buried.

Covid wore on us as it did everyone.  We decided to have a staycation and stayed a weekend up at Snowbird.  We lucked out big time and had a decent storm come through while we were staying there.  It ended up being such a fun weekend.  We skied hard and steep runs, wore everyone out and just had an overall blast.  The best part was sitting in the hot tub at the end of the day and then sleeping in and watching zoom church the next morning.  Zoom church is really convenient!!