Monday, October 29, 2018

Group Dates!

I like to update our ward/neighborhood group dates every few months. We have a ton of fun on these!

The Driving Range:
We went with Natalie and Brady to hit balls at the driving range. I realized I'm a terrible golfer, but I laughed a lot, so I guess that's what matters.  I can't tell you how many times I would swing, spin all the way around, and the ball would still be sitting there. I thought they only did that in cartoons and in movies, but I managed it several times!



We had lots of fun, and we want to go back next summer and play the short course with our mad golfing skills.
Halloween Party:
This was a great date night! The Schaerrer's hosted a fun Halloween party. Everyone came in costumes, we had a yummy chili dinner, and played Werewolves. Good times!

Mark and I went as mustard and a hot dog.


The Coulstons

The Spences

The Knickerbockers

The Schaerrers

The Clark's were tourists, so they whipped out their selfie stick for our group picture! :)

Sprained Ankle!

Well this unfortunate event cut Mark's fall trail running short! We've had really great weather for October, so Mark decided to head up to Kelly Canyon for an afternoon run. He made it about 4 miles and sprained his ankle. He heard it and said it sounded like a shirt ripping. Good thing it happened at the end of the season.  

This is what it looked like right when he got home.

This was the next day.

Ruby Bucket Retreat: Life is a Beautiful Ride

I spent an awesome weekend at the Ruby Bucket Retreat! The theme was 'Life is a Beautiful Ride- Enjoy the Journey.' I loved every second of it! Esther and Stephanie do such a great job. Everything was decorated so cute; it was just a happy feeling place! I got 31 pages scrapbooked, took great classes, won fun prizes, shopped in the boutique, went to dinner with fun ladies, and laughed with friends. I left feeling accomplished and uplifted! you can't pass up a weekend like that, and I'm already looking forward to the next one in April!

Ruby Bucket Retreat!




I love Esther!

At a card class with Kristy and Karen. I wish I would have taken a picture with the ladies at my scrapbook table. We had lots of fun!



I won one of the grand prizes at the end! I got a letter board and I'm super excited about it!

My Birthday

I had a great birthday! I celebrated earlier in the week by going to lunch with some of my ward/neighborhood friends. On another night, I had my annual birthday get together with the Fab Five. We had dinner, opened presents, and chatted into the night. Kassie brought me a cake, with a great story behind it (story below). My family spoiled me with my traditional scavenger hunt, and dinner at Olive Garden. I have no problem admitting how spoiled I am! :)

This is the cake Kassie brought me. She has my name listed as Tricia Varvel in her phone, followed by the emoji of a dog's face, because she knows I love my pups. When she has Siri call me, it says, "Calling Tricia Varvel Dogface." Every time I answer the phone, she's cracking up and saying that it never gets old. Hahaha, so I got this great cake on my birthday!
My fun presents from my friends!

More presents from friends!


This is the stuff I got from my scavenger hunt. 

I asked for a new Happy Planner for my birthday. The 2019 planners were released the same week as my birthday, so it worked out perfectly. This is the one I ordered.

I love planning life almost as much as I love living it! Hahaha, I'm already well into planning 2019!

Mark combined my birthday present with my Mother's Day present this year, so he could get me something bigger. I needed a different chair in the reading corner of my room. The other one wasn't good on my back. This is my new one, and I love it! Now I can recline and read for days! :)
I really don't like how old I'm getting, but I sure love my birthdays!

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Teton Camping-2

We loved camping in Teton Canyon so much, we decided to go back! This time it was just Mark and I. We found a cute little campsite tucked back in the trees, and it was perfect! We went up on a Thursday evening. By the time we got our camp set up, we only had time for a quick bike ride before it got dark.

Our perfect little campsite in the trees.

Mark had his hammock all to his self on this trip!

Riding on the Sheep Bridge Trail.

We discovered this trail with our pups a couple weeks earlier and really liked it.

We got back to our campsite right as it was getting dark. We were rewarded with this sunset on the way back!
Friday morning I was supposed to run 13 miles on the trails. It was my last long training run before my race. But, I hurt my hip earlier in the week, and I was having issues with my side. I thought I might have been having kidney stones. So, we ended up doing tons of hiking that day instead of running. First we did the Aspen Trail because we figured it would be awesome with fall colors this time of year. We were right! So beautiful! This trail was meant to be hiked in the fall. We did a 9 mile out and back hike.






I hadn't been feeling great, so when we got back to camp, I was more than happy to sit in my chair by the river and read for a couple hours! I could seriously do this every single day!

Mark had a nap while I read.
That afternoon we decided to hike up the Huckleberry trail. We did a 7 miler out and back.

Huckleberry trail!

We had to hike back pretty fast to make it before dark. We had another great sunset to glimpse through the trees on the way down.
Saturday morning we decided to go exploring. We saw a branch off trail a mile and a half up the Huckleberry trail and decided to explore that. I was still not feeling great, and our legs were tired from the 16 miles we put in the day before, so we were hoping for a semi easy hike. That's not what we got! Oh my lanta, we climbed the side of a huge mountain! We just kept getting higher, and the trail just kept getting steeper! We ended up going 7.4 miles, with 3,211 feet of elevation gain. I was so drained on the way back. I'm not usually wimpy, but I really felt like crap. I felt even worse after we had been back at camp for awhile. We decided to pack up and head home on Saturday evening. I found out later in the week that I had a raging kidney infection. That explained a lot!

starting up the ginormous mountain we climbed up!


We finally made it to the mountain ridge! 

We were up almost even with Tablerock, and right on the other side of the canyon. We had a great view of the Tetons, but it was hazy and overcast most of the day.


This picture doesn't do it justice, but the whole canyon was so bright with yellows, oranges, and reds! I wish I had brought a good camera.

I love fall!
Great last camping trip of the season! We got in 3 awesome hikes, and were able to relax a lot at our campsite. The thought of winterizing our trailer makes me so sad! I can't wait till next year!

Malad Scrapbook Retreat

I spent a great weekend in Malad at a scrapbook retreat! So fun! I scrapbooked all day Friday and Saturday, and got over 30 pages done! Lisa cooks us amazing meals, so I felt pampered all weekend. I met a lot of fun ladies, and I can't wait to scrapbook with them again at the Ruby Bucket Retreat that's coming up!

Our fun scrapbook group!

I love creating memories!