The Groves

The Groves

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

30 Before 30

My friend Shazia (who blogs over at the awesome Gap Year for Two- so excited for their trip!) posted this post yesterday and it got me thinking about things we/I plan to do before I turn 30 (since Brady's going to be 30 too soon... eeeeeeeeeek. Eeek eek eek. Eek.). There are a few things that I left out that we'd like to do in 10 years, because I'll be 33 by that point (now you know how old I am, lucky you). So, with number 1 being the most important, but everything else not really being in any particular order, here goes.

1. Own a cabin. Seriously I cannot stress enough how important this is to me. Frankly owning a cabin is more important to me than owning a house. (Which we'd like to do in the next 10 years.)

This is my dad in front of our family's cabin in Wyoming. My parents were around 30 when they bought it in 1990.
2. Get my American Canyon Guides Association certification.

3. Finally leave North America on a trip. (Ha. Yeah. I know. Sad. Hawaii doesn't count.)

4. Have a kid, I guess. Hahaha. We'd like to have both of our kids before Brady's 35, which means I can be 30 when child #2 is born. But that's not BEFORE 30. HA. Gotcha! Hahaha. This plan has since changed to coincide with school, and if everything goes to plan, I'll turn 30 when I'm pregnant with our first. So I guess maybe this goal should be "get pregnant on purpose and be happy about it"?

5. Compete on The Amazing Race with Brady. It's our favorite show, and it would be so awesome to even just be ON the show (though I'll admit, winning a million dollars would be flippin' sweet too).

6. Summit the Grand Teton. (You can NEVER do this one too many times.)

7. Descend every slot canyon on Zion NP's permit list. (There are currently 19.)

8. Learn a second language.

9. Ride in a helicopter.

10. Visit every US National Park with Brady (we've been to 5 7 12 of 58 together).


11. Go to New Zealand. Cry over all of the Middle Earth film sites.

12. Thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail (I'm thinking South bound).

13. Heli-ski in Alaska.

14. Have a cool camper (can be a truck with a topper, or a tent trailer, or whatever). [Purchased March 2015. Renovation completed TBD. ;)]

15. Visit the southernmost (check) and northernmost parts of the United States.

16. Successfully plant a real garden and keep it up.

17. Develop better eating habits.

18. Develop better cleaning habits.

19. Own the Complete History of Middle Earth in its entirety. (There are 13 volumes and they are out of print, except for Print On Demand.)

20. Meet Peter Jackson. Shake his hand, thank him for everything he has done, and (inevitably) cry.

21. Plan a successful Epic Road Trip for my friends that we all enjoy. #ERT_2015 [Completed August 2015.]


22. Complete 5 "major" home improvement projects (including Pinterest projects; including but not limited to replacing the horrible bathroom sink, building a "pantry," and building my gear nook).

23. Get my flippin' passport (which is required for leaving North America AND being on the Amazing Race, but it deserves its own thing).

24. Successfully be able to land a backflip on skis.

25. Reach my goal weight of 140 pounds (and not by getting fat).

26. Compete in (and finish!) a sprint triathlon.

27. Downsize and streamline my wardrobe/closet.

28. Pay off all of my student loans.

29. Visit the states in the US I haven't been to.

30. See a game in every single MLB stadium in the US. Woo! Baseball!

Saturday, November 15, 2014

"Finally" Winter

We woke up this morning to snow ON THE GROUND! I'm happy. Brady... not so much. I love snow. And snow = job security, for me at least. We are right on track to open next Friday at Alta! Woohoo!
The one thing that I don't love about the snow right now is that it makes doing laundry a pain in the rear. Because our house is essentially a duplex, there aren't any W/D hookups in our section of the house, so our landlord put hookups in a shed on the patio outside. Yep, I have a laundry shed. It's actually not that bad, I have a little space heater in there at the moment and that combined with the dryer keeps things relatively cozy in there, but the walk in between the house and the shed is frigid. Yikes. Our landlord is going to talk to the house owners about putting the hookups in a closet up here soonish, which would be really nice. I would definitely be a lot better about getting laundry done regularly, rather than waiting until it piles into a mountain and then doing laundry nonstop for three days straight (which is what I'm doing right now... it's 95% my fault).
Other than that, things have been fairly lovely. I haven't been reading much because I've been working a lot, but I have a post about a few of the books I've read lately that I ABSOLUTELY adore. So stay tuned.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

"The Three B's"

Well, since I'm certainly not getting a bob or having a baby, I figured I might as well do the only B that remains an option for me as a newly married woman - start a blog. Ha! My husband is next to me saying, "no, please not a marriage blog" but let's be real here. Mostly I just enjoy blogging, and I've tried (and failed) enough times to re-start my old blog that the poor dead horse has been beaten enough, and it's time to put my pennies on a new pony. So basically it's my blog, primarily about our various adventures, and occasionally about our dabbling in DIY homey stuff. (Building a "gear closet" where there are currently stairs leading to nowhere, making a shelf unit to go behind our headboard, and making an enormous wall mural of Angel's Landing... you know, the usual stuff.) Since I've recently re-discovered my voracious appetite for reading, it's also highly likely I'll write about good books I'm reading/have read. Basically I'll just write about whatever the heck I want and you can read it if you want.
For starters, I guess I can tell you a little bit about me/us/him (despite his protestations).
I'm Jen. I grew up in Logan, spent my childhood getting lost in the woods and beating boys in ski races, and went to BYU. It was at BYU that my enjoyment of nature bloomed into a full-fledged need to be outdoors pretty much all the time. Various jobs, classes, and professors eventually led me to where I am today, working full time at Alta Ski Area and guiding slot canyons in Southern Utah on the weekends in the fall and spring. On top of being an "avid outdoorswoman," I'm also a huge nerd. My oldest brother Chris originally fostered a love of Star Wars, then my parents started reading Harry Potter to me right before Chamber of Secrets came out in the United States (yeah, I'm a hipster), and then I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie, and that was it. I was pretty young, only 11, so I really had no idea what was going on, but from the second Treebeard showed up on screen... I was a goner. When I met John Rhys-Davies and told him that his character is what got me so involved into that magical world, I cried a little, and I think he did too.
He's Brady. He grew up in Sandy (mostly), and played baseball at Weber State before eventually transferring to the University of Utah. (Yes, can you believe we got married?! Scary.) When he wasn't playing baseball (which was... 98.9% of the time), he enjoyed watching Star Trek (his favorite series is The Next Generation, I'm pretty sure he has a man crush on Captain Picard... but who doesn't?), playing "vidya games," and hiking/exploring. He's way into genetics and early human evolution, and is currently studying anthropology at the U. When we go canyoneering I try to choose adventures that have petroglyphs or ancient Native American ruins near them so we can both be satisfied. He also is really amazing at retaining incredibly random information, finishing my obscure movie quotes, and being the most calm and easygoing person I have ever met.
We met in October 2011, when I randomly stumbled across his blog. I thought he sounded like a pretty cool cat, so I commented on a blog post and hoped he would see it. He did, and we commented back and forth on each others' blogs for a bit, before he finally gathered enough intel on me to add me on Facebook. A couple of weeks after that, we were on our first date, and a couple of weeks after that, we were "official" (aka he kissed me, and I said, "can I be your girlfriend now? Okay cool"). Fast forward 3 years and we've been married 3 months[ish]. So far I have to say marriage is definitely an improvement on dating, mostly because if we want to just lay around in our pajamas all day watching Netflix, it's significantly more publicly acceptable. And not having to share the dog anymore has been pretty great, too.