Triassic

Yesterday we gathered a bunch of our friends together and went on a day trip down to Triassic. Triassic is a bouldering area about 40 minutes south of Price in Utah. The weather was amazing and it was fun to leave the freezing temps of Provo to the warm T-shirt weather of Triassic.

I had way too much fun climbing and realized at the end of the day that I hadn't yet taken any photos so these are all from the end of the day while the sun was setting.

Bret...

(Can you see the 2 moons in this picture? hee hee)

Me...

Christian...

Where's Bret?

After climbing we went into Price and stopped at Groggs the local Burger joint and sat by a nice warm fireplace and ate our favorite after climbing meal... BURGERS!

gobble gobble gobble

We traveled to Arizona for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with family. The drive was a long 12 hours and very boring but hanging with the family was a blast!

Bret trying to keep the drive exciting...

The first day we went to the Pima Air and Space Museum. Both of Christian's Grandpappys were air force pilots spanning three wars. It was cool to get a brief history lesson from Christian and see the planes his Grandpas flew.

Christian pretending to be a pilot...

This is one of the Planes Christian's Grandpas flew...

Walking among the huge planes...

The second day was Thanksgiving and I'm sure we ate twice our weight in Turkey! I was too busy eating to take pictures but trust me it was amazing! Afterwards we decided to take a hike up Madeira Canyon to help the food settle and digest. It was such a lovely day and a great view. The boys followed Old Man Crapo to the top of the saddle for a 6 mile hike finishing just after dark.

After the hike we returned to the house for pie and more family fun. This Thanksgiving was extra fun because I got to meet my brother John's fiance' Becky for the first time. She was absolutely adorable and we all love her so much! They are getting married December 12th and Christian and I are very excited to travel out to California and see them.

Sorry I don't know how to make it not sideways...

The family fun couldn't last forever and sadly on Friday morning we had to leave. Before we left however, my sweet draddums made waffles with strawberries and whip cream for breakfast. To top it off we had toasted almond hot cocoa steamers just in case anybody felt as though their calorie intake was lacking that week.

The drive home we took a detour past National Monument, Mexican Hat, and Valley of the Gods. It was late when we got there so we didn't stop and get out, thus the picture quality is less than good because when you're traveling at 70 mph things are blurry. The sunset was fun to watch though and it was worth the extra hour we spent in the car to drive through it.

Mexican Hat...

Home at last!

Doing Crack Over The Weekend

Indian Creek is a world famous destination for crack climbers. Lucky for Christian and I it's only about 4 hours from home. We spent the first day doing some incredible hand crack climbs with near perfect perpendicular cracks that extend upwards for 100 feet or more. The idea is to jam your hands into the crack and then squeeze your thumb or palm outward until your hand is stuck inside the crack. Then you jam the toe of your climbing shoe into the crack and twist it until it feels like a crappy foothold and you step up. You repeat this over and over with much pain and screaming until you reach the top of the crack! It really is tons of good fun and the spectacular views of Indian Creek never leave you feeling wanting.

This is Christian on a climb called "Run Like Hell." It is named for the extremely challenging, yet unique horizontal crack that appears in the middle. Most people are pumped (really tired) before they even get to this hard section so they have to hurry fast through this section before they fall.

This is me flailing through the same climb...

This climb although rated harder was actually much easier for me because of my small hands and dinky digger fingers...

...and yes I did coordinate the pink harness and chalk bag with my pink hat!

Nothing beats an Indian Creek sunset after a full day of climbing...

The following day Christian and I headed into Arches National Park for more desert climbing. This time we tackled a couple of fun towers. The first is called "Owl Rock"...

Christian led this one... Nice stance sweetie!

I had the opportunity to lead my first desert tower named "Bullwinkle"...

Here is me leading...

And here I am proudly riding the Bull on the top! I don't really know why its called Bullwinkle...

After Climbing we hiked around and saw some of the Arches...

It was a wonderful weekend spent together:)

Shopping with Babies!

With my Mom being in town comes LOTS of shopping. Here are a few pictures from our many shopping trips in the past weeks. Shopping with babies can be extra fun when there are hats galore to try on.

The Eskimo look...

The Garden Gnome look...

The French baby look...

The Canadian baby look...

Sometimes we forget that they're boys...

They're just so pretty!

They get sleepy...

So we get a little pick-me-up...

(don't worry it's only hot cocoa)

When that doesn't work we stuff them in display cubicles...

and when that doesn't work Grandma puts them to sleep...

Pride & Prejudice with Steamers & Rolls

The Girls in my family absolutely adore the BBC Pride and Prejudice movies!

We've been watching one a week for the past month and today we finally finished the last one... actually we couldn't wait any longer and watched the last three today! Mom is in town and we thought it would be a fitting way to celebrate her arrival. We made hot chocolate steamers with toasted almond syrup and frothed cream on top sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. They were oh so delicious! Mom did her motherly duties and brought some raspberry rolls with cream cheese frosting to go with the steamers. It was a knockout duo of deliciousness!

Here are all the Crapo girls...

Every time we watch the Pride and Prejudice movies we have to spend several minutes arguing over who has to be the Mary of the family...

Not it...

After we all gave reasons why we shouldn't have to be the Mary we made the delicious steamers...

Lucas helped with the syrup...

We all ate raspberry rolls...

Got the babies to smile...

And thoroughly enjoyed a fun new tradition!

Our favorite scene... Heeheehee...

Little Cottonwood Canyon

Christian has been teaching me about Traditional (Trad) climbing. Usually when I go climbing I do a lot of sport routes where the bolts are already drilled into the rock, however, sometimes there are climbs where there are no bolts and you have to place your own protection. These climbs usually follow a crack system so there are ample places to put in Nuts or Cams. This idea while very hard core and cool has always been a wee bit daunting to me. Luckily Christian is here to pull me out of comfort zone and encourage me to try new and exciting adventures.

Here is the rack...

Several jokes are made about the size of ones rack/nuts...

Many are envious of the size of Christians...

Me leading my first trad route...

See how difficult it is to squeeze up this crack with my very large rack (heehee)...

Bret led an amazing section of a scary slab climb...

Christian did some climbing too...

Bret and I did some posing while Christian climbed above...

We had way too much fun on a beautiful sunny day in LCC!!