Sometimes I need to bake...

My favorite chocolate chip banana bread. Oh how i love it! Taking pictures of it afterward was also fun. It almost made me feel better after going back to school today. Almost.

we DID IT!

Yes it's true: after months of training, Klane and I - along with his mom Kaylene and sister Lynsie - ran 13.1 miles today in the Top of Utah Half Marathon. It was amazing! Last night was sort of like Christmas Eve, I woke up like 5 times because I was too excited to sleep and also worried that we would oversleep and miss the race. But we made it there and then the run went great. The last 1.5 mile I was chanting "We can do this! We can do this!" over and over but we made it, and in less than two hours, which was my goal. My wonderful parents were so supportive and drove all the way to Logan to watch us cross the finish line. Klane's dad Dave also came up with us Friday night, and our good friends Bryce and Michelle came this morning to see us finish! (We didn't get a picture with them, dang it!) It meant so much to me that they all came to support us. After the run we showered off and went to Maddox in Brigham City for a very delicious and well-earned meal. It was a great day! It was fun to make a road trip out of it, but we all agreed that if we do another race like this we'll try to do one a little closer to home.

Klane and I about to cross the finish line and we're HAPPY!

My sweet parents - THANKS GUYS!

The Fab Four, we're relieved we all made it! Everyone did so great.

Bear Lake 08

We took a weekend trip to Bear Lake with the Harding Clan. Almost everyone - Sara had to work (tear.) - was able to come up! We stayed in the Ross' condo and spent two days boating and enjoying each other's company. It was such a good time! We wakeboarded, skied, and tried something new: wake skating. It's like skateboarding on the water and Klane loved it. You wear these cool water/skate shoes and you can fly all over with no consequences because you aren't connected to your board. Good times. And of course there were a lot of crazy tube rides. Check out the pics by clicking on Klane's crazy wake-skating jump above. :)

The Last Frontier

Once again, the Grafs and Markhams headed up to Gustavus Alaska for our annual fishing adventure. This time Klane got to come along! It was his first time visiting Alaska and he loved it. We fished the ocean for halibut, hiked through gorgeous scenery, fished rivers for salmon, saw bears, whales, moose, sea otters, sea lions, seals, dolphins, and other wildlife, stayed at our friend Larry's amazing lodge where he cooked us delicious meals, went on a ride in a 6 person plane over Glacier Bay National Park to see (what else?) glaciers, toured through beautiful Juneau, visited Elfin Cove... and much much more! Every trip to Alaska is always different but always exciting and so much fun. We loved spending time with the Markhams laughing and talking. It is always a party when these two families get together. I also had a lot of fun taking pictures and learned a lot about photography while we were there. Click on the picture above to see more of our adventure. (If you want to see descriptions of the photos you can click on Options in the slideshow window.)

Dawn has broken

I went to the midnight release of Breaking Dawn with Lindsey and Michelle Markham. It was hilarious. There were some creepy people there. Don't get me wrong, we were super excited to get the book and talk about it and everything, but to some of these people, the world Stephenie Meyer has created in the Twilight series is reality. They were saying what they would do if Jacob or Edward came to their house ("If he would have me, I would take him in a heartbeat!" they said. I wanted to ask them if they realized Jacob and Edward aren't real,) and saying how Alice was their best friend, and talking about their trip to Forks, then they got to the front of the line; one girl bought six copies and the girl with the funny hat bought a whole box! Why? I have no idea... standing next to these people for 45 minutes was super weird but also so funny. I'm just glad I at least had my phone to snap a couple pics.
And in case you were wondering, Breaking Dawn is AMAZING. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and I am loving it!!

Happy Friday!

Today at work was unusual: we worked a full day even though it is Friday! That may sound normal to you, but SmilePerfect usually has Fridays off, so in honor of our five day workweek we all had a potluck lunch. I just have to say how much i love the women i work with. They are all such high energy people, are great examples to me, have hilarious senses of humor, and are so much fun and i love the friendships we share. They make coming to work FUN. And they are great cooks! (Must be all the Food Network we watch in the clinic.) Everyone brought yummy food today. These pictures are of just some of us enjoying our delicious lunch. Love you girls!

Changes!

This week Klane was called to serve as the 2nd Counselor in the bishopric of the BYU 24th ward - an off campus singles ward. It was quite unexpected! Today we attended the ward for the first time and Klane was set apart, and we are excited. We will miss the 148th ward (and I'll really miss my primary kids!) but this is going to be a great learning experience and an opportunity for us to grow. We love Bishop Green, he is way cool. He is a pilot and has had a lot of cool experiences. We are also excited to serve with the the Baumgartens, Matt and Tamara, who live in our ward, just one building over from us.

Listen to John Mayer

We went to see John Mayer last night! The concert was so entertaining! We surprised Klane's dad with tickets for Father's Day, so the whole family went together. We had such a great time and the concert was amazing; John Mayer is such a talented performer and musician. He can play the guitar like nobody's business. He would do these five minute guitar solos mixed in with his songs that were mind-blowing. Plus he can sing just as well live as on his CD, plus he was pretty funny too. It was fun to watch because you can tell that he absolutely loves doing what he does, making music, and he just, i don't know, exudes this joy up on stage. It was very cool. All in all it was a fun night. We're so glad we went!
As usual you can click on the picture of John to see more.

July

It has been a busy month! I really cannot believe we're wrapping up July already; wasn't the Fourth just last week? We have had a lot of fun things keeping us busy. We had a great Fourth of July weekend with Klane's family. We watched the parade, played Slip N Slide with the boys, and had a BBQ and fireworks at Annie's. (Click the sparkler pic to see more.) We also went out to the Magleby's to swim and i just wish i had the video of Klane and Mike launching Ethan over the volleyball net in the pool. It was EPIC.
Other recent happenings: Mike and Sara kicked our butts at bowling, we had a fun "cousin date" at the cabin with Kyle, Michelle, Ashley and her fiance Matt (who we met for the first time and really liked), more boating with Grandma Marilyn, Sheralyn and Sheralee, and we also took family pictures last week with the Hardings.

I like this picture of just the girls. I just love my sister in laws, they are so much fun and such wonderful women. And I'm excited Sara is officially becoming part of the family so I'm not the only tall blonde! Love you girls, you're the best.

P.S. Running update: Klane and I ran 7 miles on Saturday. It's fun to see how much endurance we're building, last week it seemed impossible to run that far, but it felt great! We're gearing up for 8 next weekend.

Camping down South

Last weekend was mountain lakes and streams, this weekend was dry deserts. But equally fun! We camped in Moab with Dave, Kaylene, Mike and Sara, hiked to Delicate Arch at sunset, ate at yummy restaurants, and on Saturday did a 10 miler through the Needles District of Canyonlands. It was HOT but we had a fun time. We saw some cool stuff. And hey, we love these people! We have so much fun together.

Thanks Kaylene for being our photographer. :) Click the pic to see more.

Strawberry Days

I'm waiting to get pictures of our camping trip this weekend, so in the meantime I'll post our pics from the Strawberry Days Rodeo. We didn't bring our big camera so the pictures aren't amazing, but we love the people in them and we had fun at the rodeo. This year featured motocross riders doing backflips! And there's always the delicious strawberries and cream.

P.S. There are also two random pics of us after a wedding reception... notice my mom and my coordinating outfits. No we did not plan it, yes we think alike.

Evening at the Lake

We loved trying out my family's new boat on Utah lake the other night. The boat is so fun and we had time for some crazy tubing and our first attempt at wake surfing. Awesome! We're looking forward to many more boating trips this summer. This is the first year in a long time we won't be going to Powell so we're going to make up for it. Gotta get that skiing in! Check out our pictures by clicking the one above. The sunset lighting was perfect!

P.S. Running Update: I ran 5 miles today! Woo!

Silver Lake

We had a backpacking adventure with Kyle and Michelle up American Fork Canyon to a place called Silver Lake. Camping, hiking, fishing and great weather. We took our camera and got some great pictures. It was so fun.

Happy Birthday, Klane!

I am so grateful for my wonderful husband. He is so good to me and he is such a deeply good person. Klane teaches me every day with his example of patience, integrity, testimony, hard work, dedication, kindness... the list goes on and on. Thanks for being the perfect husband. Happy birthday babe, I'm so glad you were born!
We had a fun birthday celebration with Klane's family yesterday. We celebrated Lynsie's and Klane's birthdays. Delicious dinner, cake and ice-cream, and touch football in the yard. It was such perfect weather we had to take advantage of it. We love our family and we love doing fun things together. Click the picture to see the rest.