You Should All Come!

Okay, images always give me trouble on blogger. Here's what it says:

Kimberly Gail Brown will graduate from Brigham Young University with a BA in Family History-Genealogy on December 17, 2010.

On December 29, 2010 Kimberly will enter the Provo MTC in preparation to serve in the Córdoba Argentina Mission as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Kimberly will speak at the Canyon Chapel on Sunday, December 19, at 11:00 am (1965 Canyon Road Springville, Utah).

Please join us in celebration and farewell at an open house held in her honor on Sunday, December 19, 2010 from 12:30 to 5:30 pm --2200 East 850 South Springville, Utah.

Hiatus

(this blog is ugly, I need to change it up)

Maple Hike: III

Hey, I hiked Maple a third time! 5 hrs up, 2.5 hrs down

The group this time was Alex and Eric Mageno, Eileen, Allyssa, and Tori and Taylor Strohecker (Alex's cousins from Colorado).

It was a blast as always. It was fun to get to know Tori and Taylor and hear about their super-exciting hometown. It was also fun to get to know Eric a little better. Allyssa can finally cross Maple Mountain off the list. Eileen can look up at the mountain and say, "Yeah, I climbed that thing. Piece of cake!"

The flowers were beautiful! Oh, and at the summit a plane buzzed us twice before doing a spin and flying away! It was awesome! Scott should've been there!

..and now Alex is gone away. I really wonder how Alex and I didn't hang out much until the final months before he left! He's such an outstanding man.

So, who's coming on another hike up Maple Mountain?

1/2

I said goodbye to Eric on Tuesday...







...what more was there to say?

How did we get here?

We finally found a bank that would change our euros for dollars.

Shouldn't most any bank be able to do that?

The clerk told us they don't take euro coins, "You can't exchange coins anywhere in the U.S., consider them a souvenir."

Really? Lame. Well, let's just exchange these bills then.

Then she told Evan he needed two forms of I.D.

What? Why? It makes absolutely no sense that I should need I.D. to trade money with you. If we came in with a dollar and asked you to trade us for quarters you wouldn't need I.D.

Will my German student I.D. work? No.

scheiße

But it wasn't the clerk's fault. It probably wasn't even the bank's fault. It is most likely a federal regulation to 'fight terrorism'.

"Yes, I'd like to exchange my Iranian rials for dollars, I'm shopping for an airplane --a BIG airplane...."

Really though, there is no reason for us to be so bass ackwards about things. Evan tells me that in Germany he could exchange money virtually anywhere, and he certainly didn't need bloody I.D.! Evan visited Germany,Austria, France, Switzerland, and Turkey without any trouble at all. But to get into the United States he had to empty out every single item in his luggage and send each through the metal detector one at a time. He nearly missed his flight because TSA thugs enjoy flexing their muscles and knowing nobody can do anything about it.

I'm not advocating open borders E.U.-style, I think people ought to show passports when coming into the U.S.. But the intimidation practiced by the TSA is violation of property rights and privacy under the name of 'security'. Requiring two forms of I.D. for something as simple as exchanging money is no different.

I don't know why anyone would want to come to our nation.

Maple Hike: The Sequel

Evan, Kimberly and I hiked Maple Mountain today. We went with the First Warders: John Gay, Eric Evans, and Scott Evans.

Until this week it hadn't hit home that Eric was leaving. Today felt like a farewell hike.

Of course, it was also the annual Maple Hike, which meant Jeremy should have been there. But Jeremy is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And soon Eric will be somewhere in Connecticut or Rhode Island (after consuming large quantities of chocolate milk in the MTC)

We made really good time today, 3:15 up and 2:00 down! The snow Alex and I encountered was almost completely gone, though we still found the ridge-line trail to be much easier than the woods.

A great hike, as always. Really, it never gets old.

Guess What!

Evan comes home tonight!

GO BIG OR GO HOME

I ran the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay for the third year in a row! Three in a row means it's pretty much a tradition now, right? So I decided that next time I run it, I really ought to train for it.

I haven't done any running since last year's Ragnar.

It was a blast! I met a few new people. Sarah, Amy, and Matt were in the other van and I didn't get to know them as well as I'd have liked. But hanging out with the Asbell family and Brother Bunch was a lot of fun. Brother Bunch is an interesting guy, I enjoyed talking with him. He was like a strange mix of my Uncle Russ, my Uncle Dale, and maybe even a little Jefferson McClain.

As for the running, it went extremely well, considering my lack of training. I was runner 9 which means I had an 'easy' leg, a 'very hard' leg, and the the first section of the Ragnar hill.

Unfortunately I'm not as awesome as Evan or Alex --I had to walk my whole third leg, because running was simply no faster than my walking.

I survived. It rocked.

And a special thank you to the Asbell family for letting me tag along on their team.

Maple Hike

Heck yeah!

Maple Mountain (aka Spanish Fork Peak) this early in the season was a blast! There was still a bit of snow up there, enough to make Alex and I glad we'd rented snowshoes but not enough to get us lost. (Evan and I once tried to hike Maple really early in the season. We were in snow from the start of our hike and somehow ended up on some precarious ridge, far from where we wanted to be).

The coolest part of the hike though, was the fact that we were hiking in the clouds. As we hiked we got closer and closer to the ceiling above us until we finally were up inside a cloud! It was a whole different world with the white fog swirling around us, phantoms breaking, hiding, and reappearing. Trying to see the landscape around us was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle because the tufts of cloud would only allow us to see small bits at a time.

I'm sure Alex has/will have pictures on his blog. I haven't checked yet.

In short:

Amazing weather.

Great summit hike.

Good company.

Snowshoes for the first time.

6 hours up, 2 hours down.

and restarting a blog.. ;)

A New Baby Sister

Looks like Evan beat me to the punch on his blog.

Violet Mary Brown, as you see, is pretty darn cute. I forget how small babies are! And she has the sweetest little cry! Anyways, I thought the birthday of this sweet girl was a good reason to get my blog going again(since it has been dead since my birthday!).

Speaking of which, thank you, Jessica, for your mini-blog of comments on the previous post. You're such a stalwart friend, even when I'm completely absent.