Celebrations

I was looking through my pictures and realized I completely spaced sharing the pictures from when Jared and I celebrated our birthday this year. Since I was flying home from Seattle on our birthday we had to find another time to celebrate. So, we finally celebrated by going to the Cheesecake Factory on July 31st. Hey, at least we got our celebration in during the right month!

Cute Jacob - such a chill kid!

Little Cayden was sooo tired he fell asleep in Jared's arms at the restaurant.

Looks like Jared could use a nap too!

Later that day I watched a movie at Jared and Katie's. Before we started the movie Jared was taking advantage of the last bit of light available to work on the car. It wasn't hard to guess where you would find Cayden- at his side "helping" of course! Such a cute kid!

My friend, Audra, recently got a job which was cause for celebration. I'm pretty sure I was more excited then she was, but perhaps because she will be working at BAFB and that place definitely holds a special place in my heart. So many great memories there! To celebrate we went to Texas Roadhouse this past Friday evening and ate delicious rolls and steak of course!

Carol, Deanna, Audra, Cat

Diana, Candace, Cami

Mark, Julie, Diana

Kim, Gabi, Josh, Mark

After Texas Roadhouse we met up with some other friends for a competitive game of laser tag! It has been years since I've played laser tag. I am not so good, but I still had a good time. Speaking of.... we wrapped up the evening by enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather and eating Good Time icecream, or custard rather. It was a fun evening and was for sure an Audra worthy celebration! Congrats Audra!

Normal Week

I was talking to Mom today and mentioned that I actually have an evening at home- kinda nice! Mom told me with my free time I should update my blog and I replied saying, "but my week has not been overly exciting, it was just a normal week." Granted a normal week is still extremely busy and I am pretty sure I did not make it to bed before midnight any day this week. Anyway, I listen to my mother, so here is my week recap: Last Sunday, August 15th my awesome visiting teachers came over, then I attended a baptism, then I went to a s'mores party. A gal in my ward was moving to Texas for school, so I thought she needed a going away party. I brought the stuff and invited the people and we had a great turnout and a fun evening!

Monday was exercise group and FHE then I worked on my resume and job stuff well into the evening. Yes, I am applying for a new job, but it is in the same exact office I currently work... I would just be a federal employee again, so don't be confused!

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Tuesday was Stake employment night and since I am Ward Employment Specialist I'm kinda committed to going every Tuesday. I enjoy helping others by reviewing resumes, providing job search ideas, and giving interviewing tips, etc, etc. etc. I just wish I had jobs to hand out to people- that would be awesome! Speaking of which, a gal in my ward just got a job which is definitely reason for celebration, so I was on the phone Tuesday evening after employment night trying to coordinate that. I worked more on my own job application stuff well into the evening.

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Wednesday evenings I work in the temple, so I go straight from work to the temple. It is oh so nice to be in the temple every week- I love it! When I got home from the temple, you guessed it, I worked on my job application stuff since it was due the next day!

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Thursday was tennis night. I encourage people of all skill levels to come play. Sometimes we get a big enough crowd to fill a couple courts and other times there are only 3 of us. Thursday there were only three of us, so I pretty much played the role of coach and taught them how to play. It is always a good time! I was able to submit my job application info... with an hour and 5 minutes to spare even! Then it was time to focus on cleaning my house for the party I was throwing the next day.

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Friday I met up with a friend for dinner right after work. Then I went to the store and purchased some goodies, decorations, and a pinata for the party that night. Let's just say I was glad I made it home before people started arriving. Anyway, it was my friend, Katie's, 25th birthday, so I threw her a party. It was a fabulous turnout... 30 people came throughout the evening.

Lisa, Skyler, and David

Nice Artwork Cami!

Birthday Girl

Nice Hats!

I finally kicked Katie out at 2:30am Saturday morning since I had to get up in just over 4 hours, by the time I actually made it to bed, to be on time to my 8:00am appointment the next day. The funny thing was I didn't end up needing to go to my appointment after all! I wanted to get my windshield replaced since there are two big cracks in it. Come to find out they don't do that repair at the dealership- who knew??! So, I got up for nothing- oh well. I came home and cleaned my car, so I guess the time wasn't wasted.

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At 10:30am I met up with some friends in the park where we played some ultimate frisbee and some soccer. We ended up playing 4 on 5 soccer and I was pretty tired when we finished around 12:30pm. I am definitely sore today... mostly from all the bruises rather than sore muscles though, so that is good!

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I had a couple hours before the festivities of the evening so I bought myself some new running shoes. I needed some new shoes if I am serious about running this half marathon in October!

Saturday evening I went to a ward activity at Elsworth Park which is a church owned facility where a lot of socials are held. It has the feel of being in the mountains without being so far away. Anyway, it was a well planned event... we had a bbq, played frisbee, had team contests, had s'mores, walked on a slack line, and overall just enjoyed the company. It was a really fun evening.

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There you have it... my normal week. This coming week is not going to be any different either. I love my life!

Amazingly Good Times

Hello all! So, I have to share my adventures from this weekend. It was a fabulous weekend! Friday night I headed up to the mountains again. It is so nice to get away and enjoy good company and see the beautiful scenery! There was an early group and a late group. It was great, when the late group arrived, we found camp already set up and dinner cooking. I think I ate better camping then I do normally... sad!

Master Chef Cami preparing the tin foil dinners

While waiting for dinner to warm up, what better way to spend your time then to have a bubble gum eating contest? I did not participate... nasty! There was a two way tie- somehow they were able to cram 20 in their mouth. Nothing better then sitting around the camp fire being entertained by someone who plays and sings!

We had a massive bonfire going- it was awesome! It felt so good, but you couldn't stand too close to it!

Oh, the crazy things people do... John wanted to jump the fire, so he did! I captured it on video.

The next morning we broke camp and then went hiking. Mark has these awesome shoes... well, they are more like rubber socks, but they were cool looking!

We made it to the Arapahoe lake!

How could anyone not love the mountains... I mean really, look at this amazing scene!

I think frolicking has become the theme for the summer!

Caught mid herkie (is that how you spell that?)

Mark, Anjuli, John, Cami, Julie

So, it was another awesome camping/hiking trip. Love the mountains. We got home around 4:00pm which gave me enough time to put my stuff away, shower, and get ready to head to my next adventure.

A gal in my ward is quite creative and wanted to do something big for the summer. So, she put on 'The Amazing Race- Denver Edition' for a few friends. It was awesome! I've never seen the show, so I was not familiar with what it is all about. Basically, it is a scavenger hunt around Denver. We arrived at the Museum of Nature and Science and there learned who was on our team and received our fancy shirts. Yep, we even got shirts- this was serious business!

I was on Team 'No Trace' with Andi, Kristin, and Candace

Team 'Pace Setters' - Audra, Kristin, Deanna, Anjuli

For our first clue we were given a token with a card that said, "Proceed to the location inside City Park where you can use this token. You will be met there with the other equipment needed to complete this task. Each member of your team must participate in the task."

It turned out the token went to a bucket of balls for the driving range! After hitting the basket worth we were handed our second clue with a book. The clue said, "Tear out each page that has a large letter written on it. As you tear out the letters in order, you will form a sentence directing you to the next location." The letters formed a sentence like, "Buy new, not used at the Pavilion"... which directed us to Barnes and Noble Bookstore at the Pavilion.

We did a lot of running.... seriously sprinting through Denver! The other team even mentioned they overheard people say, "I think those girls are on the Amazing Race!" Too funny!

After we got the info we needed from a book found at Barnes and Noble we were then off to our next stop. The clue read, "Oh help me this day never comes, but, in theory, on January 10, 2013 this building will become much more important to me than the Yale & Monaco building." Let's just say that the date mentioned is someones 31st birthday and the next clue was found at the building that they would go to if they get kicked out of the singles ward!

We were then directed to a "I have a dream" statue back in City Park. There we were met by the course marshal who gave us a bag of colored beads and asked us to tell her how many of each color there were in the bag. There were a lot of beads! By this time it was dusk, so here we were holding up our cell phones and used them as a flashlight to count beads! Good times.

Clue #5 took us to a construction area on Colfax where there was a blue tunnel. The next clue was hidden in that sidewalk tunnel.

Clue #6 was another, how well do you know Dianna clue and it said, this is my favorite place... which lead us to the capital building. There we were met by a couple other Course Marshall's who gave us a 10 question quiz on Colorado. It was hard! For the first couple rounds we were told the number of questions that were wrong and given a clean quiz to start over. It took us about 5 attempts to get all the questions right!

Final Clue, #7, stated, "Alpha and Omega, isn't it funny that we often end where we begin. Proceed to the place where the water shoots."

So, we ended back near the Nature and Science Museum near a children's play area with water shoots. There we were greeted by the Course Marshall and the finish mat! Team No Trace won, but I have a feeling we got lucky! The 'Pace Setters' were ahead of us the entire night, until they failed to get the info they needed from the book at Barnes and Noble and that set them back a good 20 minutes. It was close, but we pulled it off!

Apparently in the show the winning team is to jump on the finish mat?? So we did!

The winners!

All Participants

Team No Trace with the orchestrator of the event. Great job Diana!

It was a fun evening. We laughed a lot, ran a lot, and ummm... broke the law quite a bit. Yes, there was some speeding, jay-walking, illegal parking, driving down one ways, and turning left on a right turn only! That was my favorite, we turned left when you were supposed to only turn right, and it just so happened to be right in front of a police station! Oh, it gets better, we really did need to go right after all, so we ended up flipping a U-turn and headed right past the police station again! Too funny! I wish I would have gotten a picture with all of us trapped on the guard rail in the median of a busy street - we all sucked in when a truck come whizzing by! Oh, the crazy things you do when you are trying to win! There were no injury's, no tickets, and "No Trace" of any wrong doing!

After the event and picture taking we all went to Pete's Kitchen for some food and more socializing. The event was very well thought out- Diana did a great job! It was a really fun evening. I consider myself very lucky to be amongst such amazing people!