I am a tough outdoorsy woman...hear me roar

It's been a week since my big adventurous trip to the canyons in Zion National Park and I can finally sit on my less bruised bum and think straight after my gracious fall so am now ready to blog about it! Call me a wimpy ballerina girl who grew up in flat Texas, but this was one one of the hardest things I've done. In my defense a few of the guys admitted afterwards that the weather conditions that day and a few of the unfortunate accidents along the way made it quite the challenging trip when compared to other times they've gone. Regardless, I am so glad that I pushed myself to try this because it ended up being so fun and rewarding.

My friend invited me to join him last minute on this Zion trip with his friends, a group that I later found out to all be experts in this canyoneering business. I LOVE hiking and love Zion but was a little stressed, even prior to knowing this, because I wasn't sure what to expect since I had never done this before. 'Luckily' my friend left out some of the details, perhaps to reduce the chance of a Mary wimp out moment so I jumped on the bandwagon pretty quickly without knowing much about it. I invited my good friend Emily which was the best decision I made that day - we go way back to the dietetics program days and it was fun to catch up with each other and lean on each other in our naivete with repelling. She increased my cool level among my friends by association and let's not forget to mention had some heroic moments in offering to help me on parts of the trip...:)

It started with a hike that was pretty much straight up for miles, climbing up rocks and such and pretty much tested my stamina and questioned the shape I was in physically. I was an ashamed dietitian until I saw that my marathon, triathlon dietitian friend was a little out of breath as well. I now believe my friend when he said the hike before and after the repels would put the Angel's Landing hike to shame. All that information combined, I felt totally justified in my moments of weakness. :)

That day was super windy but nice when the sun was out during our hike. Later as we hiked down into the canyon, the sun faded off and the wind picked up...I think that was the hardest part for me, trying to keep the particles out of my contacts, keep our possessions and bodies from flying off the edge and maintaining normal body temperature. I decided that it's time for me to take a trip to an outdoorsy store so that I'm better prepared for all my future adventures like this! 

Anyways, we had some funny moments and some difficult ones as we started on the repels including but limited to...

-Walking in the splits against some rocks to prevent falling in the cold water

-Breaking not 1...not 2...but 3 of our bags, including the explosion of a red powerade in my bag in the breaking process...we had quite the yummy concoction of food, drink and other items at the bottom of that bag waiting for us, mmm. 

-Not fastening my harness tight enough mid-hike and post change of clothes (to keep one set of clothes dry before a repel into the water) and feeling/hearing the pop open of the harness on a repel that goes straight down...oh the fear that can strike in an individual

-One man to another expressing being impressed with the stamina on the hike, "do you even feel pain??"

-Having heros (yes more than one) carry certain individuals through the cold water on their shoulders :)

-Receiving the best compliment of my life when my backside was promoted to "great butt" status as we were hiking up to the canyons. You can always count on your girlfriends to give the best compliments, even if you just me them hours prior to the hike. 

-Going pee in the bushes after failing at your efforts to hold it the entire 10 hours and getting stabbed in the leg by a poisonous plant along the way

-Losing footing on a repel, going swinging like Jane and hitting a rock with both head and bum through the process of a couple hits...thank the heavens for my belay that day and for my incredibly hard head. Told you that hard head would pay off one day Mom and Dad. ;)

The pictures below should explain a little more of what I may have missed in this short story...I only have a few of the pictures taken that day but maybe that was for a reason so that this blog isn't pages long. :)

Emily attacking the straight up hike...that's how marathon runner RDs do it

Me and Emily at one of our breaks at the top...still don't know why I am so awkward in pictures, the hair however can be explained by the wind :)

The group minus our photographer Brent

Hiding in little caves to try and escape the wind...sadly it wasn't foolproof, that wind was vicious!

First repel down out of many, the least scary one but the picture makes it look real awesome, because it was :)

Emily is hardcore and took control as our trustworthy belay (sp?)

About the moment when my harness snapped off...

All fixed, let's try this again :)

One of the evil repels down into the murky cold water...this facial expression I believe was attributed to a comment I caught Brent making to one of the girls at the top. I'll be nice and leave it to your imagination haha

Terrible pic of me but must be posted to demonstrate my hatred for and shock after wading through that cold, murky water

Emily repelling down

Just hanging out :)

2 reasons for this face - Having to give in and wear Brent's Utah State hoodie and having just recovered from the nasty fall

That is a focused belayer, it took fifty shots to get one of him looking straight on and in the end I ended up posting this one anyways

Last repel and one of our brave and tiny gals decided to be the first one down but noticed the rope was all knotted so the guys decided she needed to be pulled up...this is what you call good teamwork. :) (She ended up taking care of it down in the middle of the repel so didn't need the help!)

Gorgeous view as we hiked out of the canyon after all but the final repel

Final repel...straight off a cliff!

After 10 hours of hard work, we're looking a little rough but we made it!

I love this picture - Zion is so gorgeous at sunset!

Next on the list of firsts this year to complete this summer are scuba diving, skydiving and Havasupai Falls...bring it on.

Life in Paradise

I had the best weekend last week and that's because I was finally able to reunite with my best friend and see her new stomping grounds! I was so impressed at how she just picked up on her own and moved out there and started this intimidating, stressful new job. It became more real to me when I was out there as she was showing me around. Sadly, I only had a few days out there and although we didn't do anything big and exciting due to limited time and transportation, it was the perfect vacation for me because we were able to relax and just catch up on well, everything. Janae was out there helping her friend Ali move so we met up and had some adventures as well.  I sure do miss Michelle and wish so bad that I could move out there but am starting my countdown for when she'll be back in Utah to visit in July!! Yay!!

I think I'll just have the pictures and captions tell the story...

"Dressing to Impress" at Michelle's house in preparation for Michelle's ward party that we went to the night I flew in

Janae totally 'one-upped' us with this sweet hair-do

Laguna Beach

What what

Knee poppin fun on the beach

Applied Medical's new truck...big things are happening!

The Glamorous Applied Medical Tour

Michelle took us on a tour to the area
where she now works!

Little Corona Del Mar

A feeble attempt on my part to capture their awesome jump 

My first try at a jumping picture and this is what you get, haha. Side note, I may have twisted Michelle's finger in this shot so the expression on her face is half excited-half pain

Michelle is awesome at getting some fun candid shots

Ali teaching us about marine biology

We find each other entirely too funny

Running away from 'danger' after trying to take a cute pic together...good thing we held on to each other like that :-P

Everyone else was still playing on the rocks so while I waited for them I just decided to look out over the beautiful ocean and take it all in. Michelle caught me in my moment on her journey back

Just another beach picture...still rocking the popped knee. Ali must've forgot the rule of popped knees in group beach pictures, we'll just make sure that doesn't happen again :)

Ali, Janae (with a fill in by her shorts, shirt and shoes), Shell and Me just 

laying out on the beach for some last moments to soak in some beach time 

Wouldn't want to pass up an opportunity to capture a shot of Michelle and Mary trying to eat like normal people when sharing food...and um ps, that brownie a la mode at Ruby's was the best  5 year long decision that we made that day, mmm....

I say,"Show me your I'm way too full face" and this is what I get...okay okay I'm convinced . :)

Downtown Disney

Some people go to Anaheim to visit Disneyland...others just stick to visitnig Downtown Disney.  (We were limited on time and couldn't figure out what to do and somehow in our sleepy state ended up choosing to play right outside the park...biggest tease ever and won't happen again haha)

First on our tour of places we saw at Downtown Disney was the parking lot

"Mary, go fly, just like Buzz!" Apparently this is how I'll look in my next life when I'm an Astronaut toy

Can't wait for Janae to play Snow White in the sequel...she's a natural

Next stop - the Lego store, where we were the only adults to be found playing with the toys

So naturally we sat down with the other kids and starting playing. Janae spelled out my whole name for me but I'm not as talented so stuck with just "JB"

Then we headed to the disney store where I found my long lost crown

Next on our tour was Rainforest Cafe, where we passed time in waiting for our table by sitting on these goofy chairs at the bar and laughing at the other person. We did not make friends with the girl on my left but that's okay.

Simple pleasures

We then picked Ali up from Pasedena and went to Seal Beach, Long Island area...it was super windy but also gorgeous

Luckily we found a Ferris Wheel there to make up for missing the rides at Disneyland.

Ali let Janae and I ride together, just to give us that alone time we needed to strengthen the friendship, (or maybe she just didn't care to ride the ride...we sure did miss her though as we spun around waving like crazy everytime we saw her!)

Another almost adventure- attempting to hit up the Aquarium didn't work out so we decided taking a picture in front of it would count for something and keep with our tradition of the day

Me and my new friend Ali :)