the adventures of mr. earl and ms. andersen and mr. and mrs. shaeffer

it was such a pleasant surprise to find out that my friends adam and tessa shaeffer had also joined the utah climbing club a few days ago! the club was having their ice climbing event up maple canyon on saturday so we all rented and gathered our gear and woke up at the butt crack of dawn (a.k.a. 5am) to make it down to the canyon by 8am. andy and i were pretty beat seeing as he had spent all day friday doing some back country touring and we all know i spent an exhausted day skiing at deer valley, pooped from my work out the day before, so needless to say, our bodies were a bit worked already.

none of us have ever ice climbed before so we were all blazing a new frontier together. i've always driven up provo canyon in the winter time and seen those "crazy fools" climbing the giant icicle that bridal veil falls had become. i thought to myself on many an occasion, about how insane that was to get out in the dead of winter time and climb frozen water! i had NEVER considered it that one day i might actually be doing the same thing! so, when it came time that i was actually strapping on my crampons and picking up those ice picks, i didn't know what to think. i hadn't really even taken the time to think about it for myself and then there we all were, hacking up that ice like it was nothing! even andy had never been ice climbing, and now i think we've created a monster with yet another hobby he's adding to his list!

the only words andy had to describe his first ice climb when he got down was "BAD ASS!" (sorry for the language) :) we all felt so cool with all the spikes we had on our feet and spikes in our hands, we couldn't help feeling "BAD ASS."

it was difficult here and there, and at times we all struggled with getting the axe into the ice, but once we got our own rhythms, the best feeling in the world was when you struck that ice with your axe and felt it sink with a resounding thud and knew with a surety that it was not going to budge... there was something sooooo satisfying about that! and at first it was so hard to trust the crampons. it was such a foreign feeling to see that you only have two little spikes sticking in the ice, and they don't even look like they're really in that far, and yet, you had to trust it and put ALL of your weight on those little shiny spikes. low and behold, it held. you definitely had to adjust your frame of mind and put a lot of trust in your tools and crampons. it was a rush to say the least...

"BAD ASS!"

tessa and i were lookin' super smokin' hot from waking up at 5am!

man, it is so cool to have these places to run off to and spend the day creating adventures for ourselves. we are a blessed people! this is only the beginning of many adventures to come...

deer valley with pops and uncle josh

my dad ditched work on friday and asked me to join him and my uncle josh for a day on the slopes of deer valley. of course i jumped on the invitation and made myself available to go with them. it couldn't have been a more gloriously beautiful day to ski. the snow was fantastic and the lines weren't too long.

however, i had two problems: i had an intense work out for two hours the day before so my body was VERY sore (and my soreness was only amplified because i have not been good at working out so any extra exertion of my body almost paralyzes me the day after... i'm working on it ok!); and problem number two was, i got very little sleep. those two things combined caused my legs to want to give out on me on several occasions and i dosed off a few times on the chair lift. it was my own fault and i have learned my lesson... i will never allow myself to work out and get no sleep the night before one of the best days of the season ever again!

have no fear though, i still had a blast!

one of the best parts of the day when skiing at deer valley, is the lunch. oh my lordy... it is fantastic! it's also tres tres cher (that's french for "very very expensive), but you just have to do it. those who snowboard will never be able to taste of all the magnificence deer valley has to offer... and i am quite alright with that!

i had a bratwurst and sauerkraut and my dad and josh partook of the bounteous salad bar topping their salads off loads of brie and sardines and anything your heart would desire for a salad. oh! and let's not forget what i completely downed all by myself, the most delicious carrot cake i have ever had the privilege to put in my mouth! i wish i had taken a photo of it but, alas, it was gone before it had even crossed my mind to capture it! next time... next time...

did i mention we sat on the sun filled deck and basked in the warmest rays the sun has to offer? well, we did.

to top the day off, we always stop at spin cafe in heber to get my dad some tasty gluten free onion rings, and the rest of us get a little scoopin' of some of the best gelato around. for my choice, i got ginger.... boy oh boy was that the best choice i have ever made when it comes to gelato!

the drive home was wonderful, i slept.

utah climbing club

so meera, andy, and i joined the utah climbing club through mountain works! i can already tell it's going to be loaded with lots of adventure and my body being suuuuuper tired. we went to a lead climbing clinic at the quarry put on by the club and it was oodles of fun and we acquired much information imperative to climbing. we had to clip into draws a million times and and belay and purposefully fall and we are just, pretty much, so cool now.

we also decided to take advantage of the quarry and snuck some bouldering in at the end of the night... don't tell anyone.

new stuff

i bought a pair of these...

and started doing a lot of this...

and i feel like...

......AND I LIKE IT......

trying to figure this out...

man alive, you'd think i'd have an up and running current blog by this point in my life. well, i don't. i write in an online journal and i post all of my pictures online... just thought i should combine the two.

so, i figure i should just start with what i've done most recently, as in last night, so as not to feel so overwhelmed to catch up. last night was andy's 26th birthday, which marks a year from when he first facebooked me! at least i think the first time he instant messaged me was on his birthday. i do have one of the worst memories this side of the mississippi, but, i do remember chatting and him telling me it was his birthday and i felt bad that i hadn't wished him a happy one even though i didn't really even know him. oh isn't facebook handy!
so for the little birthday shin dig, we dined on some tasty bbq chicken pizza at pier 49 and then hit up laser quest in midvale. i must say that pier 49 does have the best bbq chicken pizza but i think that once the order is put in, they go and freshly mix the dough and let it rise a bit and hand make the cheese and bbq sauce right on the spot because it takes FOR-EV-ER to cook one stinking pizza... seriously, we probably waited 35 minutes, maybe more! good thing it tastes so good.

andy proceeded to kick butt at laser tag. he took 2nd out of the 8 of us plus 20 other randoms running around. he had pure joy splashed all over his face as he ran around like a crazy person in the arena! Ha ha ha! i wish i could've documented his madness! the best part was, he has two temporary teeth for his top two front teeth, (he's waiting for some shiny new veneers that will be put in at the end of the month) and being that those two teeth are not real, they glowed a little differently then the rest in the black light. he looked like a neon-toothed crazy man! it added quite well to his technique of playing the game. he was also quite pleased to rub it in my face that he took 2nd and i took 22nd.

one of the first times we hung out, we went to play laser tag in provo. i ended up taking 2nd out of about 30 and he placed very, very poorly. his complaint was that his gun did not work and he even left the arena to get it fixed but alas, his game was already trashed. since then he has been hell bent on letting me know that he would kick my butt if he had a good gun. well he did kick my butt this round.. i will admit that. but i also have to remind him, that in the first game, there was only two places that he could've done better than me. he would've had to have taken 1st or pushed me out of 2nd. the chances of that were very slim. my complaint about last night's game was that it was free-for-all... no teams, every man and woman for themselves. i like working on a team... i do better that way. we'll have to have a re-match fo sho!