VACATION!!

The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Teams won a total of 21 medals at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, a new record. As a thank you for all the hard work we all put towards the Olympics and it's success, the CEO decided to close the office for the first two weeks of August!

What will I do for two weeks you ask? Well, this first weekend, I will be venturing to Boise to visit these two losers:

Amy Alvord Shaw and Emily Alvord LaRacco. My sistas from anotha mista. Is that a real saying? Maybe I just made it up.

While I'm up there, I will be hanging out at the Basque Festival and catching up with my second family, The Alvords. I believe there are plans to go see Eclipse, perhaps tube down the river? Ya never know what to expect when us crazy kids get together.

More importantly, I am SOOOOOOO EXCITED to finally meet Emily's little munchkin, Olivia!

Olivia was born in November 2009, but Amy had to go and get married in October, so I spent all of my vacation up in Boise for pre-wedding and wedding events. I apologize, Emily.

We should have a BBQ at your new house! I'm inviting myself over. And bringing margaritas!

That about sums up my vacation, even though I come home on Monday. I have two weeks of nothing to do. I'm pretty excited about it. I will be watching Shark Week all next week, and then I'll probably have movie marathons for the rest of the time. Maybe take a few hikes. Who knows? Who knows.

Salt

Last night at about 7:30pm in the middle of summer and no air conditioning in the house the power decided to go out. I went for a walk in the cool mountain air and returned home. Still no power. We decided that if the powere wasn't on by 9:15, we were going to go to a movie. Whelp, 9:15 arrived and still not power. We left for the theater, which is always cold, not matter what time of year. We sit down and the movie began.

First, I just want to say that I was never a huge Angelina Jolie fan. Now I am. She kicked ass in this entire movie! I had one of those moments where I got so excited that I almost cried. It takes a lot for me to feel this way.

The only thing that I didn't like about it was that Evelyn Salt could very easily be compared to Jason Bourne, which is another movie where I get so excited that I almost cry. In fact, the very ending of the movie could be compared to the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum, where Jason Bourne gets shot and falls out the window into the river below. Then the amazing tunes of Moby play and Jason Bourne swims away. Queue the ending of Salt.

So, I highly recommend this movie if you're craving a really awesome action/adventure flick.

Amazing

Lately

I have been having a hard time sitting down and reading. I always read before I go to bed, but have only been able to get in a chapter or two, which is making it impossible to finish this book.

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every word of it, but I have recently started watching The Office....and I can't get enough of it. I have fallen in love with Jim Halpert and his crazy facial expressions.

I can't wait to see what happens with him and Pam.

I know that he proposes, they get married, and have a baby.

I have recently taken up trail running. I've been meaning to take a video of me running down this mountain with my dog in front of me. We have so much fun! I never thought I would be caught dead saying that running is fun, but trail running is such a great way to exercise. I'm in the beautiful Rocky Mountains chasing my dog down a really awesome trail through green trees. I am slightly afraid that I'm going to trip on something and roll down the mountain, but other than that, it's GREAT!

I did make a mistake last Saturday. I went on a pretty intense two hour hike...but the mistake was that I went at 1pm. By that time it had to have been about 90 degrees in Park City. I specifically remember about half way through the hike, saying outloud, "Wow, it's hot today!" I should have turned around at that point, but ended up going for another hour or so. By the time I got home, I had an excrutiating headache, and water and Advil weren't helping. I ended up vomiting, and I wouldn't be suprised if it was heat exhaustion. I don't think I'll go hiking in the middle of the day like that again. It was fun while it lasted.

Last night I went out to dinner with my friend, Whitney. She's actually my brother's best friend, but she has become a very good family friend over the years. She is currently living in Boston, but was home visiting family for a few weeks. We went to the Wasatch Brewery up on Main Street. She had tried a really great beer a few weeks earlier and told me how amazing it was, so I had to try it. It was probably the most amazing beer I've ever had. It's called Wasatch Jalapeno Cream Ale. Only Wasatch Brewery would come up with a jalapeno beer. It was DELICIOUS! You can taste the jalapeno as soon as the beer enters your mouth, and then as it's going down your throat, you get a little bit of a kick, and then....beer. It's amazing. I highly recommend this beer!

I'm planning on trail running this evening, so hopefully I'll remember my camera so I can take a video running down the mountain behind Babs. Hopefully I won't eat shit on the way....although it would make for a great video!

Books to Movies

Whenever a movie comes to the big screens, the first thing I do is check to see if it's based on a book. If it is, I will take the time to read the book before seeing it in the theater. I cannot believe how many movies are completely destroying the book. Just to name a few that I've read recently, My Sister's Keeper and Dear John.

Usually, most of the movie is accurate. I understand that they have to take out some of the details in order for it to fit into an hour and a half period. However, when they completely change the ending of the story, that's when it hurts.

SPOILER ALERT

In the book, My Sister's Keeper, Kate has cancer and is fighting her parents in court for property of her own body so she won't have to go through anymore tests. In the end, Kate ends up winning the case. There's a car accident that her sister, Anna, is involved in. She's close to death, but then Kate dies and is able to donate her organs to Anna, who survives the accident. In the movie, Kate beats the cancer and Anna ends up dying in the car accident.

In the book, Dear John, Savannah ends up marrying another man and breaks John's heart when he comes back from the Middle East. Of course, this other man, Savannah's best friend from growing up, now has cancer. He survives and John ends up alone, watching Savannah and her husband from a distance in the woods (creepy?). In the movie, Savannah's husband dies of cancer and John wins Savannah.

I don't get it. Why would you completely change the entire ending of the story when the original ending was amazing in itself? Who has the answer to this? Anyone?

Utah

I have to get out of Utah as soon as possible! I hate being here. I hate the people. I hate the government. I hate everything about it, with the exception that this is my home and my close friends and family live here. Other than that, I just don't care. I have to get out. Someone give me money so I can afford to move.

New Goal

As you know, my 2010 New Year's Resolution is to read a book a week. So far so good! I have downed 28 books in 28 weeks. Go me! So, since I have become a reading fiend, I decided that I will read all of the books on The Pulitzer Prize list. Basically I will be pulling a Kali J.! Kali is in the process of reading all of the Newbery Prize winning books.

No time limit is needed. I would just like to get through the list. I have only read about 5 books on the list, so I have a long way to go! Oooh! Maybe I'll switch off, a Newbery then a Pulitzer. That could be neat.

Bucket List

I started creating my "to do before I die" list a few years back. Let's make it official. Here's my bucket list:

1. Travel to every continent in the world
2. Backpack through Europe
3. Be successful
4. Make a family
5. Figure out what the point of life is
6. Get more into astronomy -- possibly travel to the moon??
7. Ski the Swiss Alps
8. Join the Peace Corps
9. Volunteer in Africa
10. Attend a Summer Olympic Games
11. Invent something
12. Learn as much as possible
13. Live in a foreign country for at least a year
14. Play the banjo (in West Virginia)
15. Safari through Kenya
16. Flying sharks off the coast of South Africa
17. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
18. Walk through the Louvre
19. Moped through Rome
20. Drink wine in Tuscany
21. Coffee in the south of France
22. Trek across the Himalayas
23. Wear ushanka in Moscow
24. Surf Australian beaches
25. Oktoberfest in Munich
26. Hike Machu Picchu
27. Fall foliage in New England
28. Neuschwanstein Castle
29. Stone Forest in Yunnan
30. Travel to:

• Alaska, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Philadelphia, Nashville, Louisville, New Orleans, the deep south, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Myrtle Beach, Raleigh, Portland (ME), Newport (RI), Lake Placid, Niagara Falls, Nantucket, Boston
• Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto
• Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallerta, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicarague, Costa Rica, Panama
• Valencia, Rio de Janiero, Peru, Chile, Argentina
• Moracco, Egypt, Madagascar, South Africa
• Norway, Finland, Iceland, England, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Brussels, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Ukraine, Serbia
• Turkey, India, Vietnam, Israel, Moscow, Japan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
• Philippines, Australia, New Zealand
• Fiji, Jamaica, Bahamas

This is only the beginning...