Wow, what a week!

Well we have piled most of our summer vacations into the past 10 days. We've had a blast, but I'm so happy to be home and back to my routine. I am going to attempt to document our trips in chronological order, but I'm still trying to get the hang of moving pictures around after they're downloaded, so we'll see how it goes.

Our first destination was Vail, Colorado. Mitch's sister EmRee lives there and her 2 twin girls were getting baptized. The whole family (all 6 kids, spouses, and 19 grandkids) made the trek to Vail to hold the first Moncur family reunion. It was a HUGE success!

We made a little stop in Moab on our way to Vail. Having grown up in St. George, I cannot believe I have never been to Moab, it's super cool! Now I know why my roommate Christine is obsessed with Moab! We stayed at this little cabin/RV park where we swam (Marin's favorite parts of our trips all revolve around water... she's obsessed with swimming we have found and she's not a bit afraid of the water. Scary, I know). We hiked to the delicate arch, ate at Zac's Pizza, and then left at 5 a.m. the next morning for Vail.

As a teenager, I probably would have thought this was lame. Now that I am older (and MUCH more mature) I appreciated how amazing this phenomenon of nature is. It is HUGE!


We arrived in Vail Sunday morning, made it through church, and then we got to see where we'd be staying. A man in EmRee's ward was able to get us some condos up at Beaver Creek to stay in and they were LUXURIOUS! Vail, Colorado is a pretty upscale ski resort town. It's very much like Aspen, as in "A little place called Asssspen...where the beer flows like wine and the women flock like the salmon of Capastrana..." (from "Dumb and Dumber" if you're not familiar with one of my favorite lines). Anyway, we were right up at the ski resort and it was amazing. There were pools, spas, gyms, shops, and my personal favorite-- free hot chocolate stations. Here is a picture of our lodgings for the week:


And one of the best things was seeing the wildlife right outside our window every day!

Yes, that is a black bear with her 2 tiny cubs!

Vail really is a neat town. You have to park in a parking garage and then walk into the town. There are a ton of amazing shops and the landscaping is so beautiful. This is Marin's grandma, Marin, and me walking around the shops.


There were a bunch of little fountains for Marin to play in. Right after I took this picture, she face planted and got her clothes sopping wet. Luckily, I found a restroom with a hand dryer and was able to dry her clothes!


We walked to this fun park that was just a big pirate ship. The kids had a blast and we even managed to get all 19 of them in a picture. Marin is the one in the stroller. She wouldn't get out of the stroller for anything.








We went to another little park that Marin loved. She had a blast!



We went on some paddle boats


And floated sticks and dandelions down the river


The adults (or the girls, I should say) got some great shopping in too. We also had access to the Park Hyatt's gym and spa. Nicole, Jana, and I kicked some butt at the nicest gym I have ever been to!

Anna and Allie's (my two twin nieces) baptism was so nice. They are the cutest little happy girls you'll ever meet. Mitch's sister EmRee (3rd from the left on the back row) made the whole event so fun and the fact that she prepared awesome meals for all 33 of us all week was amazing. It was so fun to have the whole family together. Here is a picture of Mitch's cute red-headed family at the baptism.


Would my husband let us just drive home after all this excitement? No way! Since he (and his brothers) are the ultimate sportsmen and love to play more than anyone I know, Mitch planned to head back to Moab with his brother and bike the slickrock trail. They left after the baptism, arrived in Moab at 1:00 a.m., then woke up at 5:00 a.m. to bike. His brother's wife Alisa and I stayed behind in Vail for the night, then picked them up in Moab and proceeded to drive back to Utah. Marin was a champion in the car, driving for 9 hours in 1 day! Here are a few pictures of the bikers:


At 6:00 p.m. on Thursday night, we finally got home! Did we kick back and relax at that point? No! Mitch and I had a cruise to pack for! We drove to the airport Friday morning at 6:30 a.m. It was Mitch's firm's 60th anniversary, so they took all 50 employees and their spouses on a cruise to Mexico! We had an absolute blast! Mitch works with wonderful people so we couldn't have picked a greater group to go with. We took a total of 7 pictures of the whole event (you're probably thinking that's great because this has been the longest posting ever). We're not used to taking pictures without Marin in them! Anyway, we did tons of fun things, ate lots (way too much!) good food, and got a lot of sun. Thanks mom for watching Marin the whole time for us! We had a blast! Here is a sampling of the few pictures we did take:


All in all it was a great 10 days!

Miscellaneous Pictures

Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to in the past few weeks. Mitch hiked the Grand Canyon from rim to rim a few weeks ago with my dad and some of my uncles and cousins. To prepare for it he went on a few hikes-- this is the one Marin and I accompanied him on. It's a fun little hike to the Wind Caves. Lots of switchbacks, but worth it at the top. The hike was much easier for me because I wasn't carrying a 26 pound little girl on my back!




While we were in St. George about a week ago we took Marin to a little water area downtown. It was the perfect scenario for her because there were fountains and rocks to play on, but the water was only about ankle deep. For those of you who live in St. George, isn't this the coolest little water area for toddlers? Marin absolutely loved it!

Bum Print

Well, I had another funny experience at the gym today. I've been thinking about why all my funny experiences seem to relate to the gym. After all, it's only an hour of my day and not a very big part of my life at all. I've come to the conclusion that it's because when I go to the gym I'm all alone-- no kids, distractions, stresses, etc. It's my time from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and I think because of this I notice things that are happening around me a bit more. Or it could be that I'm a clutz and the gym just brings this out in me :) At any rate, here is what happened to me at the gym this morning:

I was doing the weight machines and I sat down on a machine that had recently been cleaned off by the previous user (I watched her cleaning it, thank goodness). Well she had very thoroughly cleaned the machine and it must have been quite wet when I sat down, because my gym shorts stuck to my bum when I stood up. Luckily they are black. Then I sat down at the next machine and when I stood up, lo and behold, a nice big bum-print on the seat. It didn't go away after 1 second either, because I was waiting, shielding my machine until it evaporated. I made a nice bum-print on the next 2 machines I went to. There was this guy waiting to use each machine after me, and I really wanted to tell him that I had sat in some cleaner. It's like that first stage of pregnancy when your stomach starts to get big, but not pregnant-looking and you want to wear a sign and let everyone know you're pregnant and not just fat. Anyway, just a warning to all you gym goers, wait a few seconds to sit at a machine someone has recently cleaned or there WILL be consequences.

I wasn't aware that I was in a race

Another gym story-- not too funny, and kind of random. Today as I was doing my cross-trainer cardio machine there was a guy next to me on the same kind of machine about my age. I always set my machines on the random setting to mix it up a little (and also because on that setting there are always several minutes of super easy work-out). Well this guy kept looking over at my machine display and me. I think it's kind of gym etiquette not to stare at the person next to you while they're working out, so as you can imagine this kind of caught me off-guard. Then I started to notice that every time my machine or I sped up, so did he. He had to go just a little faster and harder than I did. The "random" setting really is pretty random (hence, the name) so it changed every 30 seconds, and so did this guy. This went on for 30 minutes until I finished my workout. When I stopped, so did he. Well I was not aware that I was in a race, so I'm pretty sure he beat me.... THIS TIME. Next time he is at a machine next to me I will know that we are racing and I will have my game on. I will out-treadmill, out-elliptical, out-bike, or out-whatever he tries to beat me at. Yes, racer-man... consider yourself warned!