Ragnar 2013...How many years is this??

Brent is the Ragnar Aficionado, and this was his 9th year running.  I only have 3 years under my Ragnar belt but we have a blast every year.  And we were actually on the same team this year (yay), it was a miracle!  This year we joined a team of prospective new friends and it was awesome.  Crazy things always happen at Ragnar, and this year 2 of our runners dropped out 7 hours before we started.  We were leaving to drive up to Salt Lake the night before and I was calling people to see if they could run with us.  It went about something like this:
"Hey, so we're driving up for Ragnar tonight and we need 2 extra runners! Do you want to run? We're leaving in 30 minutes."
We didn't get anyone recruited from St George.  It might have something to do with the fact that our team ran from Thursday - Friday instead of the normal Friday - Saturday schedule.
 We did however, recruit Brent's longtime friend Jarom who lived across the street from him growing up.     We picked him up the next morning and luckily he was prepped to jump into the 14 .4 miles we assigned to him.  He ended up being one of the stronger runners on our team.  But I suppose you would have to be in order to run a race with last minute notice like that.  My cousin Dylan ran with us again this year and KILLED it, literally!  He got 97 kills on his 3 short legs.  48 of which came on a 4.2 mile leg.  CRAZY!  [FYI: a kill is when you pass someone]

Let the race begin! GO BRENT!

At the Snowbasin exchange

Brent and Jarom

Tractors happen.

Brent getting ready to run

The whole group.
Is anyone else a little disappointed that Brent is rocking his man tank OVER his t-shirt?

Birthday Season at the Rowe House

We love birthdays around here.  And summer time means birthday season.  Since my birthday was the second day of work at Patriot Home Mortgage, they had to have a birthday party to welcome me!  Brent got me my favorite sour cream lemon pie from Crowshaw's and as usual, it did not disappoint.  It was a pretty low-key day with just Brent and I.  We went to my parent's for a little party on Saturday and my mom made dinner and this huge ice cream cake!  It was amazing!  It's so fun living close to family and being able to see them for little things like that anytime we want!

Hike in Leeds!

Our first week in St George wouldn't have been complete without a hike.  We are so happy to be living here and to kick start our time, and since we both had a few days off work after we moved, we decided to do the river hike in Leeds.  Last time I went, there was tons of water and you could jump off the cliffs and slide down the natural water slides.  This time, we went a little bit later in the year and a lot of the water was dried up and the water that was there was pretty nasty.  The one good thing about the water being so low, was that we could hike in the canyon as far as we wanted.  We packed a lunch and had a grand ol' time!  It was a pretty great intro to this amazing place!  We love it here!

We moved!

It's official, we live in St George! We moved on June 1st and in true southern Utah fashion, were welcomed with 104 degree weather! We had lots of help from our wonderful new ward with moving in! It only took about an hour to the truck and trailer unloaded. We love it here and luckily, Brent and I both had a few days off the beginning of last week to get everything sorted out a little bit. We ended up ditching the unpacking for a little bit on Tuesday to go hiking. :) we have quickly realized that we desperately need some mountain bikes to fully enjoy the red rocks down here. We love it, and can't wait for all the adventures!!

Hike in Zion: Hidden Canyon

One more post sans Brent; on Memorial Day I went hiking in Zion's with my parents.  They are avid National Park season pass holder/users to this amazing place.  I've been there quite a few times and I still get awestruck on the bus ride in. I want to bike the Zion loop with Brent and really have the opportunity to drink in all of the red rock goodness that it has to offer.

We expected there to be tons of people so we left early to start our hike around 8. The plan was executed flawlessly!  We got there just in time to get on a bus without having to wait, and by the time we left, it was just getting hot and we waved goodbye to all the people!

The Hidden Canyon trail wasn't too busy (shocking, I know! But it is hidden after all.)  I thought that this would be an out-and-back hike where we were just at the bottom of a slot canyon.  Boy was I wrong. 1000 feet elevation gain in 1.1 miles.  In case you don't know what that means, it's uphill ALL THE WAY. And totally worth it.  It's pretty much Angel's Landing's baby brother.  Really short, but still amazing views and a hint of the vertigo you get from the Angel's hike.

"We're going up there!"
"Why?!" haha

At the overlook about .75  miles in.

Some elevation gain

That's the trail. Promise.

The Slide!

Hello Mr. Bus driver!

Seriously, this place is Zion. 

At the top!

And a cool arch where we ate lunch!

Brent and I are going back.  And soon.  It was an awesome hike!   It's so short but it has some awesome overviews of the canyon.