If you would have asked me five years ago if I thought I'd ever be an avid skier, I would have said "Hell-to-the-no." I started skiing two years ago and this year I have been skiing so many times that I have jumped from a beginner to an intermediate-level skier. I never in a million years thought that I would ever ski any run that had a black anything associated with it. But last month as I was following Garrett down a run, he accidentally led me down the wrong route and we detoured through a black run, and I did just fine. Go me!

On Saturday, we decided it would be our last ski day of the season. Shortly after lunch, we were going down a green run at Snowbird, easy enough. Nearly at the bottom, we stopped for a minute because we realized we missed the turnoff to go down to a different lift. When I started skiing again, I must have caught an edge and literally tumbled. I have no idea what happened, I wasn't even going fast. I just fell. In the process of falling, I slightly tore my mcl. That's right, I killed my knee. I cried as I sat there for a few minutes because I was in so much pain. Two different medics stopped to ask if I was OK. I wasn't, but there was no way I was going down on a sled, so I said I just needed a few minutes. I thought I might be OK to keep going after taking a break, but as soon as I stood up to put my skis back on, I put weight on my leg and straightened only to feel several sharp pains shoot through my knee. I did put my skis back on and went down, but only because it would have been so much more painful to walk down than to ski down. We got to bottom and went home. I was so sad. Sad that we had to leave early, and sad about my knee.
Turns out while my mcl will probably heal without a problem as long as I take it easy and don't run or anything for few weeks, there is a chance that my meniscus could be wrecked. My doctor didn't know if the pain on the outside of my knee was associated with my noisy, crackly knees just bruised and compensating for my mcl or if it was truly injured from my fall. I'll find out in a few weeks when I go back to the docs.

On different good note, the Easter bunny brought me a baby!


My sweet sister and her husband welcomed their first child, a son, and fourth grandchild to our family on Saturday, March 30. I was shocked that she had him -- he arrived 18 days early! Ethan William was born with no complications, healthy, and weighing in at 7 lbs. 9 oz, and 20 inches long. He reminds me of an Eskimo and has the most delicious cheeks. If his disposition is anything like his parents', he will be calm and sweet. I already think he looks like his daddy, Nick, and he has dark thick hair, very much from our side of the family.
I can't wait to meet him. I am so happy that he is finally here. It makes me emotional to see him out in the world. What a beautiful thing.

This Summer has been relatively low key. I have not done much besides work, school, and the occasional play. We have, however, spent some time with Gar's family and a lot of time outdoors (though the outdoors stuff consists of being outside, we haven't been doing the outdoors-y type things like we normally would). We've spent A LOT of time working on the yard--tis the season, I guess. I wish I could say there was more golf, and hiking, and rock climbing, and laying by the pool...but either way, here's to summer.

Gar and I at a cousin's wedding.

S.L. County provides residents with free dumpsters each year in an effort to get them to do some Spring Cleaning. This was the dumpster in front of our house. No kidding, that is all of the contents left behind in the garage by the previous owners. We filled that thing up in less than 20 minutes!

One of my dear friends rented a pony for her birthday party. She turned 26, not 6...but come on, who doesn't love a mini horse!?!?

Katrina's 7th birthday party. A Smurf-themed party, they all had to wear blue. And then they climbed into Gar's work truck and started screaming and being wild. Oh, to be a kid again.

Cute baby Eden in her darling swimsuit.

Love the pig-tails.

Beautiful Snowbird in the Summer.

I got married. At snowbird. It was beautiful and pretty much everything I ever wanted. Small, simple, and less than 3 hours long. I was a no-fuss, no-nonsense, no-drama, type of bride. I could have cared less about some of the traditions that most people worry about. For example,Garrett and I had every intention of not seeing each other until I walked down the aisle, so he spent the night at his mom's house and I stayed at ours. By 11 am the next morning he was back at the house, oh well. We were able to relax a bit together before heading up. It was nice.
It was seriously such a relaxing day. Teenie brought me lunch and we ate it on my kitchen counter after my hair and make-up appointment. We moseyed on up and when we got there nothing was really set up. I figured the Snowbird people had it under control (they did) and I owe pretty much the rest of set-up (meaning the seating, pictures, escort cards and flowers) to Racheal, Teenie, and my sister. They just took over and made sure everything was in place, which is kind of funny because I never really gave specific instructions, I just said, "put this here and that there and make it look nice." I didn't want to be stressed and I wasn't. I figured that if something went wrong, there was nothing I could really do at that point and that it would probably make things memorable any way.
We had a beautiful little ceremony --short and sweet, with moose wandering up the mountain in the background. Family pictures were a bit stressful, but once guests arrived everything went by so quickly. I don't have much to say except I loved it all. I really was so content and I loved having everyone I love so much there with me. Seriously, it was magical. My only regret: not trying all the food that we had. Boo.

In the elevator, about to walk down the aisle.

The weather was absolutely perfect.

The Cattens

The Navejars

The Wedding Partiers

Joshua Payne Orchestra a.k.a. Bad Ass Orchestra Trio

Maybe if I ever feel ambitious enough  I'll post our honeymoon pictures. Maybe.

We stayed the night at Snowbird, so we didn't have a traditional send-off, which was great. I payed for my dress and I was going to wear that damn dress as long as I possibly could. Garrett had our room filled with strawberries and champagne and we stayed up for about two hours after it was all over just talking about the day.
It was so nice to not have to worry about leaving completely and making sure things got picked up. I was able to help clean-up and in the morning we walked around the empty terrace and found wilted flower petals, paper straws, escort cards, and other little pieces of evidence that we were married there the day before.

For the record, we were going to take more pictures... not to our room.