Apple Orchard and Mesa Falls

It's been a delightfully boring time in Rexburg this week. We feel great about it! Justin and I worked all week 8-5 and enjoyed the evenings working out. Like I said, Justin is determined to lose weight and he has been hitting the weights hard! Chase has been missing a workout buddy so he was happy to be Justin's for the week. They're doing the "Big Man on Campus" workout on bodybuilding.com. I did some of the stuff with Justin later in the week while Chase was on his survival hike and WOOF! I need to find Justin a new workout buddy because when Chase moves away I am not doing it!

We were doing leg press and I had to take a 45 pound weight off the bar. I realized this is how much weight I've lost total so I had Justin take a picture. I could barely lift it! It's so weird to think that much more weight was on my body once. 

We've been soaking up the summer weather like it's nobody's business. On pinterest and facebook everyone is talking about fall and going back to school. I just got out of school! And I still have three weeks of summer left, thank you very much. Though I am looking forward to fall clothing...but not looking forward to a budget that doesn't allow me to buy any new fall clothes...ha.

Friday we had a date night with our friends Ryan and Sara Miskin. The apple orchard on campus is open and apples are $0.50/pound! Booya. We left with oodles of apples for $3.00. We had a picnic in the Ricks Gardens and then played a few rounds of Bocce Ball. After that Justin and I went for a walk on a path near the river. It was really pretty and we saw a ginormous rainbow. We finished our night by watching "Get Smart."

These bunnies were so cute!

So cute I could die! 

Saturday we worked out together, I gave Justin a hair cut, and we had a really lazy afternoon. I wanted to go to Mesa Falls, but the Mesa Falls Marathon was going on so we waited until evening to go. We stopped at the Lower Falls first because I wanted to do a hike my family had done there a few years ago. We got there just after a guy went over the falls in his kayak! People were all gathered watching it and said we just missed it Darn. We found a sign for a hike that was to the lower falls and it was 0.8 miles away. That sounded right! I started my gps tracker so we could pace how far we were going how fast. The weather was overcast with clouds in the sky and it gave an eerie muffled silence to everything. A bird flew out of its nest as we walked by and we nearly jumped out of our skins. We walked and talked for less than 10 minutes, all the while making plenty of noise to alert the wildlife, when we came to a fork in the road. We weren't far from the car so we figured we could just pick a path and go down it for a while and when we were over it we could simply turn around. We chose the left path which took a steep downhill, and not 30 yards later I stopped and turned to Justin and asked, "What do you think?" I wasn't excited about hiking back up this on the way back. He paused then said, "I'm just not getting good vibes." I was suppressing similar feelings, but when he said he didn't have a good feeling my nerves heightened and we were out of there. So it wasn't just me being silly. It was an interesting situation. Part of it was our own fault. We broke the #1 hiking rule: TELL SOMEBODY where you're going! If something had happened nobody would have known. We talked about distinguishing between your own thoughts and having a prompting and we concluded that in our case we were both feeling very uneasy very quick into the hike (seriously 10 minutes maybe) and it wasn't worth it to ignore the feeling even if it wasn't a prompting. Just last week Dad gave us all serious counsel about listening to promptings. We relaxed when we got to our car and we drove to the Upper Falls, but I didn't want to pay $5 so we headed back to Ashton. On the way home we were caught in what may have been the reason for our promptings: All the sudden we were driving through tons of rain on the verge of turning to hail, thunder, and lightning. A ways into it we looked at each other and concluded, "This is why we felt like we needed to turn around!" Most likely the storm would have hit us while we were at the bottom of the hike which would mean hiking back up in rain and thunder and lightning. We were already near large volumes of water; if there was any sort of flash flood we could have been in a serious situation. Now, thankfully, we didn't hike to the bottom to find out so I can't say all that like that's what would have happened, but I'm grateful that we both received a prompting that made us both stop to ask the other if they were getting the same vibe. Justin said he initially felt it as soon as we started hiking, but suppressed it. When I asked him how he felt he realized it wasn't just him feeling uneasy. 

I did pretty good on his hair cut, don't you think? Ha it's just because you can't see it up close...;)

We drove through some excitement on the way to Ashton and when I turned to see where we were it was like two storms had combined. It felt good to be driving away from that. It felt even better to stop at FrostTop in Ashton and get a delicious bacon cheeseburger with tater tots and a caramel, chocolate, oreo shake. Yum! We watched "Far and Away" that night. Justin had never seen it! It reminded me of Chase since it's one of his favorite movies and he is moving to Oklahoma soon.

While we ate we saw 4 ambulances drive by. There must have been a ton of accidents because of the storm.

Sunday the Rose and Hunter Families got together to do the annual NFL Fantasy Football draft. Justin and I tuned in via skype and while I waited for my turn I did a craft I've been excited about. Justin's mom gave me some cork board when we were in Washington and I've been wanting to do this since.

Originally I wanted to just wrap the whole thing in fabric. This way I wouldn't have to worry about fraying edges and it would be done in about 30 seconds. I didn't want to spend money so instead of buying new fabric at Porters, I looked in my old scraps of fabric and found a huge piece left over from when I reupholstered our kitchen chairs. Unfortunately, it was just shy in width to be able to wrap around the whole thing to staple nicely, so I had to get crafty.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the outside has 1" trim of different fabric to compensate for the width problem. There are no frayed edges from cutting the fabric and I didn't sew a thing. This is how I did it! ! 

First I meticulously cut out several pieces of fabric that were 2" wide. The pieces of fabric were all about this size, so I had to do a lot of overlapping to cover the perimeter of the board. 

Then I folded and ironed 1/2" of fabric on both sides like this so there wouldn't be any fraying edges showing.

At the ends where I stapled two pieces together I folded and ironed the edges so there was no fraying anywhere.

 

I also cut the folded piece in toward the center because if I didn't, parts would stick out when I stapled it down.

After all the pieces were done I laid them all out perfectly and when I decided I liked it I started stapling away! The fabrics are so similar you can hardly tell it's different. Originally I wanted to do a yellow trim, but I didn't have enough yellow so I went with this. I think I like this better because it will go with any color I put on it. Like I said this is cord board so I plan on putting pictures, spiritual thoughts/scriptures, friend's wedding announcements, etc. on here. It's so cute and I love it! Thanks again Judy for letting us have the board!

And that is how I did it! It is truly pinterest-worthy. I think it could be so fun with the same folding/ironing technique with strips of fabric all the way toward the center. Next time!

As for this week I'm babysitting my friend's 3 month old for two days from 7:30 to 5:00. I may as well get some good practice in! Hopefully all goes well.  

Long Time, No Update

It's been over a month since I've updated and the task of catching up has been haunting me...but I'm finally doing it! The second to last week of Spring Semester our Frisbee League did our banquet. We recognized champions and coaches, and since my assistant and I coached AND won the championship, we earned two discs! We've decided to retire our competitive frisbee days because she's burned out and we're a package deal. When she said she was done I knew I'd have to find someone else to coach with, and I'm just not motivated to do it in cold fall weather with 19 credits and my work schedule. I loved playing this season though, and it was awesome nearly going undefeated again and winning the championship! Jessica and I are by far the best two man team in the league; I can't really imagine doing it with anybody else.

Championship team!

Jessica Hill and me. Black disc for coaching, Gold disc for winning. =]

Keaton had his homecoming talk the following Sunday, and Justin and I headed to Arco Friday afternoon to join the Beals at my parents house. Gabe and Christy brought two adorable puppies that everybody went nuts over. The nieces and nephews were of course dying to play and hold them all day, but I found myself also dying for a turn! These puppies are just ridiculously adorable. They also brought their swimming pool which was great to have in the yard for the kids to play in. We had a fire that night and enjoyed visiting. 

Saturday morning Keaton and I ran the annual "Fun Run" for Atomic Days celebration. I joked that I was going to beat him because I was training for my sprint triathlon, but I was kidding of course...until we started the race and I actually did beat him. Ha! The whole time I kept thinking to myself, "Keaton will pass me soon" but after the race Keaton reported that he just saw me get farther and farther away. It was pretty fun to gloat since this is the one and only time I will ever beat Keaton is a foot race. It was fun to run it with him, and I won a raffle prize of free shampoo and a hot pink camouflage purse (which I hurriedly D.I.ed). 

From there Justin and I drove back to Rexburg so I could take my Health Praxis test. I tried to reschedule but it was impossible, so I spent the next few hours taking a stupid test. Upon finishing we drove back to Arco and stayed for Keaton's talk the next day. He did a tremendous job speaking on repentance. I'm so proud to be a Beal! I have dang good parents and siblings and I love them all very much.

Puppies! With little Bennett

4-wheeler fun

Talks around the campfire

We had a roaring game of volleyball. Rachel and I tag-teamed it for the girls side!

Late one night some of us decided to try some P90X legs and back and ab ripper videos. 

After church we had the grueling task of taking a family picture. Everyone was there so my mom decided to seize the opportunity to update the family picture (which was last taken when I was 8). 

We had a hard time keeping it together, and every time we laughed it threatened to get out of control. Poor Dad was in pain from laughing.

Finals week I just had to turn in a final paper and give a presentation. I used my nieces and nephews as props to show the proper way Earth rotates and orbits the Sun on its tilt to show in my presentation. Good job guys!

Upon finishing our semester it was time to head to Washington for some Rose family time! Justin and I stopped in Boise on the way to break up the horrible drive. We went to Sonic for half off shakes and my caramel chocolate oreo shake was a winner. We chatted it up with Mitzi until bed time, and early next morning we set off for Puyallup. We pulled into Jon and Laura's house around 2 PM and planned the rest of our stay. 

The following day we drove to one of the many locations in the Mount Ranier national forest. This huge strato volcano is over 14,000 feet high and very active. Other than height the mountain has tremendous volume and 25 glaciers. Evidence of glacial activity was in the river run off. It's fun to study things and then see them in real life. 

We had lunch and sent off for a hike. James, Justin, and I heard a mysterious noise high above us in a tree. I was skeptical of a bear, and upon seeing mysterious fur-looking material on the ground my nerves heightened, but Justin reached down and assured me it was, indeed, moss. That's the Shelley Beal in me I guess. The mysterious noise remained unidentified. We had a great time and finished our day with dinner in downtown Puyallup. Thanks again Jon and Laura!

I hear bear noises!

I'm not crazy -- this is from a bear raking its claws against this tree. I had a right to be paranoid.

We spent a few days in Silverdale with Justin's parents. We went to a ward activity on the beach and enjoyed a plethora of barbecue. I enjoyed visiting with Judy while we watched the boys toss a frisbee. Earlier that day we made cupcakes for the occasion which were a huge hit. Judy is so talented!

Unfortunately, Justin was feeling under the weather for most of the trip, and I became ill Monday and was sick for the rest of the week. I had a high fever all day Tuesday and was really scared I was going to get baby Clara sick. I stayed quarantined in the guest room all day until the evening when everyone came over for dinner. I ventured out to say hello and had a bite to eat. We said our goodbyes and it was another sleepless night before a long drive to Boise.

Mitzi didn't mind that I was sick since she thought she may have been the one to infect me so we stayed with her again. She was exhausted from a fail attempt to potty train Piper so Justin and I obliged her to some Taco Bell and more Sonic shakes. I felt better after that. ;) The next day we headed back to Rexburg and back to work. We really enjoyed our stay in Washington. You can't beat their summers. On the way I clipped a bird and it got stuck in our hood, and I made a deal with Justin that if I cleaned it out we would never drive make that drive again. This was of course very motivating. We'll see if he keeps his word. ;)

We had a boring week of work in Rexburg (though we were very glad for the work, don't get me wrong) to gear us up for our Beal vacation in the Sawtooths. But before that adventure we made our way down to Utah for my sprint triathlon. Since I learned to swim last semester (actual strokes and breathing patterns) I decided I wanted to do one and this is the fastest growing triathlon in Utah. We stayed at a friend's house Friday night and early Saturday we made our way to the course. I felt very lost but I got all my transition areas set up and Justin dropped me off at the reservoir. It seemed like everyone around me had a $1,000-$10,000 bike as I sheepishly maneauvered Justin's mountain bike to my transition area. It's a great bike, but not built for speed. Oh well. 

The red one is  mine. I rode with my snowboarding helmet and a camel back to drink water while I rode. Like a boss!

Before the race the commentator gave a brief introduction where he said there were 2 people signed up from Idaho (woo!) and that of the 350 participants or so, 93 were newbies -- doing their first ever sprint triathlon! Woot! Hart and Jory let me borrow their wet suit and at 8:10 my heat hit the water. It was so crowded swimming. It took about 1/3 of the course for me to get some space to actualy front crawl. The swim was definitely my favorite part. For a minute I had a fleeting thought that I could drown and nobody would notice me, but other than that I quite liked it. 

From there we transitioned to the bike and I plugged in Pandora and turned on my "RunKeeper" app that tracks how far you're going and how fast. It was excellent to have for the 14.78 mile bike ride since I had no idea what the course was like, but I knew it was roughly 14 miles so I was able to keep track of how I was doing. The first three miles were a breeze but then the incline began and Justin's bike is stuck in a hard gear. My goal was to stay on my bike the whole time so where others dismounted I kept chugging along. We rode all the way to the base of the Bingham County Copper mine, and after all was said and done my app told me we had inclined 1000 feet! I kept telling myself "What goes up must come down" and sure enough it eventually leveled off around mile 9 and I was CRUISING down a spectacular hill. I thought of my mom and how she'd die if she saw how fast I was going, and I just prayed an animal wouldn't run in front of me because I was going so fast. I pushed the last five miles hard since it was level ground and upon dismounting my backside was in agony! I thought, "Gag now I have to run three miles??" woof. I sucked down some energy gel, started my running runkeeper app and was off. 

The running part had plenty of uphill which was really hard. My app told me when I was a mile and a half in and I kept thinking to myself, "In 15 minutes it will be over!" After turning a final corner I saw the finish line and sprinted to the end. I knew Justin was at the finish line and it's always spiritual for me because I think this is what dying will be like. Justin will already be dead when we're old  (ha just kidding honey) and when I die I picture him and my parents and other family waiting at the "finish line" ready to greet me. My goal was to do it in under 2 hours and I did it in 1:55 so booya for making the goal! They had a "harriest man/woman" challenge where the harriest man and the woman with the longest hair would get $100. I was ONE AWAY from winning the prize! I looked around at the other girls and thought I had it in the bag but then someone with hair to her hips showed up and she won. Oh well. 

I got a really nice t-shirt and a tremendous feeling of accomplishment from this experience. I haven't done many hard things physically, so up to this point I'll say this is the hardest thing I've physically done. I want to do a full triathlon next year (mile swim, 28 mile bike, 10k run). 

We met up with our friend Todd and had lunch and fun at Boondocks. His dad is the general manager there so he paid for our lunch and a free pass on the go carts. I had a blast, and my burger was especially delicious after my race. We headed home only to pack and get ready for our next adventure: Redfish lake!

Fresh after the finish line

Sunday after church like the sinners we are we packed up our camping gear and headed to Rigby to pick up Hailey and Shae then off to Arco to drop them off and carry on to our campground. On all our long drives Justin and I have been reading out loud to each other to help keep things interesting. I'm reading Harry Potter again after years of famine. We just finished book three....I LOVE Harry Potter. If I had one wish it would be to forget it all and read them new again. At about 7 we pulled into Glacierview and found the Beal clan. We set up camp and biked to the dock to watch everyone do our evening swim ritual. In the past the best time to swim has been right when the sun goes down because the sun has been out all day to warm the water and it feels amazing This year, however, it was particularly cold. We kept the tradition but it was apparent that this year we were all reluctant to enter the water. We had a fun visit around the campfire and Justin and I fit perfectly into his 5 pound 50 miler tent. 

Monday we did a short hike with Brynn and Braden while Chase, Rachel, Hart, and Jory did a 17 mile bike ride. We spent some time at the lake of course. Mom and Dad showed up that afternoon and everyone was there except Trisha and Mitzi. Justin and I didn't want to cook while we were there - and to be honest we didn't have anything to cook with - so we did all our food before hand and just had to heat it up before eating. We made yummy barbecue pork and ranch chicken for our dinners. 

What's not to love about this puppy? 

Yes, I rode with "Feadore" in a baby carrier (or whatever you call it).

Tuesday we did a nature walk and saw some red salmon. Wednesday we went to the fish hatchery and watched almost everyone catch a fish. I took a turn on Braden's pole and reeled one in, but that was nothing compared to my other nieces and nephews who pulled in 5 or 6 a pop, and Rachel took the cake catching 12 fish! That day at the lake was by far the best. Justin bought me a huge ice cream cone, and the adults played a game of ultimate. Chase was playing dirty and rough laying me out and our older brothers Hart and Gabe several times. It was a lot of fun. We said goodbye to Chase and Rachel as Rachel was off for her new adventure student teaching in Utah. We will definitely miss hanging out with them.

Our nature walk

What a dang good lookin' couple! My parents.

Lance made two treasure hunts: one for the younger kids and one for the older kids. They had a blast finding the treasure!

The redfish at Redfish Lake

Mt. Heyburn in the background (hard to see because of forest fire smoke)

Best swirl ice cream ever!

Early Thursday everyone packed up and headed home. We headed to Arco to wait to pick up Hailey and Shae, and then headed home. It was a great trip. Redfish lake is my favorite place on this Earth next to my mom's house. We have so many great memories there. 

Someone else took this picture and posted it on fb and my mom found it. They left their shutter open at the dock for 15 mintues and got this! Pretty incredible.

But the adventures don't stop there. Friday Justin and I played hooky from work and spent the day recooping from camping. In the late afternoon we picked up Chase and headed to Idaho Falls to go to the temple. This was my first time doing work other than baptisms in the Idaho Falls temple and I was excited and nervous. Good thing there are temple workers everywhere because  it is easy to get lost. My parents were working while we were there and we were able to see my dad and give him a hug on the way out. He is doing much better and we are all heaving a great sigh of relief at his recovery. Anytime I think about how close he came to being killed I get teary. At Redfish he took some time one night to share with all of us his personal side of the story and I marvel at what a great dad Heavenly Father has blessed me with. He's the best man in the state of Idaho as far as I'm concerned. I firmly believe he was saved by the Grace of God. The timing of my twin brother Keaton getting home was incredible. If he hadn't jumped in the pin (which ultimately distracted the bull giving my dad time to scramble out) who knows where my family would be right now. Anyway, the eternal perspective the temple gives me is a huge blessing, and if anything were to happen to any of my family, it's that persepctive that would give me hope; because we're sealed in the temple we have the promise of being together forever after we pass this mortal life. We ate at Red Robin after that and enjoyed hanging out with Chase. 

Saturday Justin's uncle was in town for a firework show. Madison county celebrated their centennial and they hired him to come from Oregon to do a firework show for the occassion. He offered to pay us to help put it together so I got Chase in on the deal and early Saturday morning we began assembling the fireworks. Chase, Justin, and I worked together on a few pallets of firework shells. It was Chase's job to place each shell, Justin's job to attach the wires properly, and my job to attach each wire into the $10,000 contol panel. It was important to get each number right, otherwise the firework wouldn't shoot off. We were there helping until 2 in the afternoon. We broke for a spell and came back at 9:30 to watch the show right from where we set it up. The fireworks were incredibly close and there were a few times I felt like I was in WWII. It was a great show! We stayed to clean up and after it was all said and done we marvelled at how close we really were to those fireworks! It was so sweet. 

We had eight stations with several pallets of fireworks like this. Crazy!

Well that is my huge update of our recent adventures. Justin and I are compiling a "healthy lifestyle" competition to do with his family between now and Thanksgiving. Justin is motivated to lose weight, and while that's not the purpose of the competition for all, it will be fun to get everyone involved. We are setting up a point system for practicing healthy behaviors. For example, you get so many points for getting sufficient sleep, drinking so much water, exercising 30 minutes a day, eating so many fruits and vegetables, and you get special points for doing things like eating 25 grams of fiber a day, walking 10,000 steps a day, or if you set a goal in the beginning and make it you get extra points. The person with the most points come Thanksgiving will win a $100 prize! If anyone else is interested in participating let us know. Until next time!