21 and Invincible

Exactly one week ago today, I turned 21 years of age. In case you were wondering, it feels just like 20. Shocker. But, I did have a great time celebrating. On the Saturday before my birthday, Jen took me to Seven Peaks, the local waterpark. It was so fun! We nearly burned our feet off running from ride to ride but it was really fun. Then on Sunday, I went over to Jen's and she made me dinner and we opened my presents. Dinner and the cake were delicious! Thanks Jen.

I had my "birthday party" at REI which was just awesome. After we all wandered around for awhile and bought some climbing equipment, we all went to dinner at Cheesecake Factory. DE-licious. As always. I got a slice of chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake. Yikes. So good.

Thanks to Shayla for capturing the great moment of the waiters singing to me in the restaurant. And thanks to everyone who drove all the way up to Salt Lake to celebrate my birthday! It was a lot of fun.

Because we live in Utah, this last Friday was a holiday. My good friend Mike Barney and his twin sister Nicole were nice enough to invite a bunch of us up to their family's cabin in Bear Lake. We had a great time! We drove up there on Thursday night and then woke up at 6 am on Friday and Saturday to get some good boating in. Unfortunately, it's pretty much always windy and it was way crowded so the water was never really too good. And by about 3 everyday the water was basically unusable it was so choppy but we still had a great time on the boat and hanging out on the beach. And, not gonna lie, the choppy water made for some awesome rides back to the boat ramp.

This picture definitely doesn't do it justice, but the last night we were there, we drove over the border into Idaho and to this amazingly beautiful place called Bloomington Lake and had a campfire. It was great.

This is the sunset I woke up to out the window on Friday morning. Amazing.

Lee got buried in the sand and we made him into a beautiful, if slightly overweight, mermaid.

I got buried in the sand. And molded into a man apparently.

The girls. I don't know if you can tell but Jessica (the girl to my left) has blood all over her shirt. Small incident on the boat that ended with three staples in her head. As you can see, she's doing just fine.

The boys.

Dave and Lee, just being cautious in the car.

So thanks Mike and Nicole for letting us enjoy the cabin life for a weekend! It was so great!

11c Grandma!

I'm not sure if it truly was amazing or if it was just the juxtaposition with this last week that made it feel so amazing, but I had a really great weekend. After a week of h-e double hockey sticks at boys lacrosse camp, it felt great to have a couple of days off to just play. Not to sound negative but, the only good thing that I got out of that camp is some really hysterical tanlines. Anyway, here's just a few of the reasons why this weekend rocked.

I climbed an 11c. Probably none of you have any idea what I'm talking about but an 11c is simply a rating for a rock climb--a high rating (meaning it's hard). Two of my guy friends that I climb with all of the time both gave up before the top. Also my friend Ben, thinking I couldn't do it, said he'd give me a quickdraw (a piece of equipment used in lead climbing--pictured below) if I made it up. So guess who just inherited a new piece of climbing gear?? Oh, this is also where the title of this post came from. Ben told me that next time someone tries to tell me I'm not hard core I just have to say, "11c grandma!" I'm definitely planning on using that one in the near future...

We got free chick-fil-a. Apparently Friday was dress like a cow, get free chicken day. We didn't know that but we wanted Chick-fil-A anyway. On our way into the mall, some kind strangers gave us their construction paper cow spots and we got free chicken. It was awesome.

Lacrosse camp is over. Period.

I spent a lot of time reading. For fun. Just because I wanted to. Do people still do that? I love the book I'm reading too; The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Quality book--so far.

I ran ten miles, totally unprepared, and I'm not sore. Booyah.

So, you see? It was a great weekend. That means all these other weekends have a lot to live up to...

Home!

So last week, I went home. It was of course fantastic. Here's the week in pictures.

We had plans all week to go boating. Unfortunately, the lovely Chicago weather had different plans. It was cloudy and cold pretty much every day I was home. We're talking in the high 60s low 70s. For any of you who know how hot it usually is at this time of year in the midwest realize that those temperatures are basically unheard of. Anyway, we were struggling with knowing what to do all day when our neighbors called and asked if we wanted to go strawberry picking. None of us had done it before so we figured...why not! It was actually really fun.

Notice: We are wearing jackets and long pants. In July.

I like this picture. Just showing off our best sides while picking berries... Also a sidenote: this farm was in Wisconsin. Of course! When bored in Chicago, go to Wisconsin. It will never disappoint.

On our way back into the great state of Illinois, we searched long and hard for this replica of the great pyramid that you can see from the freeway. Unfortunately, it was closed. But can you believe this guy actually lives in the pyramid? Good thing he's got that sphyinx guarding it...

Still looking for ways to fill an otherwise empty day, Mom and Jen and I tried our hands at making deep dish pizza. I'd say it went very well. Until I dropped one on the floor.

Eventually we realized that we were going to have to go boating in terrible weather or not at all. So of course we went boating. It was chilly, but it was still boating and the water wasn't so bad since no one else was insane enough to go boating when the water was warmer than the air temperature. This is us trying to stay warm on the boat. In July.

On our way to the lake, mom and dad decided that a wakeboarding helmet was a worthwhile investment for me. You see, I have this habit of falling and hitting my head really hard on the water... So, mom and dad were kind enough to buy me a concussion-preventing helmet. And since Brian is now throwing things like 360s around (no I'm not jealous...), they decided it wasn't a bad idea for him to have one too.

Our humble "village" of Gurnee has the best fireworks ever. They are always the highlight of the 4th of July. For some absurd reason, Gurnee decided not to do fireworks this year. I know, right? Who are they to just go messing with our traditions like that? So we adapted. We watched fireworks in Wauconda from our boat on the lake. It was actually really great. Who knows, we could have a new 4th of July tradition. This is us just chillin' on the lake waiting for the fireworks to start.

While we puttered around the lake and waited for the show to start, we played games.

The fireworks made sweet reflections on the water.

And that was my week at home. It was so fun to be with my whole family even though the weather didn't cooperate. It was still a great time. Too short, but great.