What's keeping me from blogging

In the three months since I last blogged, these are the things keeping me so very busy:

 A beautiful wedding

 A Ruby Trip

 A new housemate

 A new job (car wash training in Florida)

 Chicago

Las Vegas

 Another Ruby Trip (all international participants)

 Global Convention

 Snowbird weekend

 Washington DC

 Arizona

 Thanksgiving

 Costa Rica

It's been a great year, lots of good stories and experiences that I'd love to share if life ever slows down again!

Summer Sendoff: Dew Tour 2011

I always look forward to the Dew Tour in Salt Lake City as the last great weekend of summer.  It's usually still warm and beautiful and we have so much fun spending the day outside watching the competitions.  This year we kicked the weekend off with the Nu Skin summer party.  We had a fabulous time riding our favorite rides (Wicked 3 times in a row making Gary sick), and being with some of my favorite coworkers.  I especially loved going on rides with Lucy, who you may remember as one of my bff's from Florida.  She's getting so big and so brave, she was hilarious at Lagoon.

    

We only went to the Saturday events of the Dew Tour this year.  They didn't have BMX Park at all, which disappointed me, but Skate Vert and BMX Dirt landed on the same day and made it easy to go up for the afternoon.  It rained just after the indoor Vert competition, so we went to the Gateway for lunch and to watch college football.  The day was a win win for both of us.

 The one and only Shaun White, he took second to Pierre-Luc Gagnon who we then passed shopping at the Gateway. It must be great to be an anonymous professional athlete!

 My traditional gate photo, except no skate deck with autographs this year.

 Heading into the dirt competition. It's gorgeous on tv with the SLC Temple in the background.

 

Waiting for BMX dirt, notice Gary's die hard attire.

 The sunset post rain storm was so pretty when the riders got started!

 

I really love going to watch bmx and skateboarding.  They are they perfect mix of talent and insanity, but they make it look so easy and so fun.  The Dew Tour is truthfully what inspired me to take up snowboarding.  However, kids today make me crazy and ruin the whole experience for me.  They are rude, trashy, and think they are so freaking cool.  The crowd hardly knew what they were watching or what to cheer for. It was a bit aggravating and I think it was probably our last Dew Tour weekend. An end of an era, I'd rather be running an event than attending one most of the time.

My Silly Dogs

Here is yet another round of dog pictures. I think we all know what kind of mommy-blogger I'm going to be if this is how much I like taking pictures of my dogs.  What can I say?  Monkey and Coco lead adorable and fascinating lives!

 This is Monkey after a few hours with our nephews. She was very kind and patient, and then she was very sick of having 4 kids in her house.

 Here is Coco testing out the door Riley installed. It has been life changing to have a dog door.

 Recently both dogs renewed their interest in their Christmas bone. Coco likes to try to carry it around and jump up on the couch with it.

 Monkey takes shelter from our smoke alarms in the give-away pile of my closet.

 Both dogs taking in the sights and barking at bikes at a stop light.

 The toy mess after their first ever work-day home alone! Leaving them home is also a life changing thing for me, even if we are only doing 1 or 2 days a week right now.

 Labor Day swimming in Grandma Liz's pool (they prefer a lounge chair and towel post swim).

 When Gary goes somewhere they watch the door until he comes back. Even if it's 2 hours for basketball.

 Monkey, sleeping under the down comforter (probably hiding from Gary's snoring).

 Coco got a little cut on her paw and wore a baby sock for a few days. Pretty funny.

 Monkey is the loving dog...

 She spends a lot of tv time snuggling me.

We let Monkey get on the counter to sniff the new fish.

The Fun Part of Work

Last week I was able to join some of my coworkers on the East Coast half of a tour doing distributor meetings, book signings, and shooting some videos for our convention.  We went to Washington DC, New York City, and Miami/Boca Raton.  I love traveling for work, but I love it even more when it's traveling to awesome places. 

In Washington DC I visited my friend Melissa and met her 2 Frenchton puppies.  We took them up to Capitol Hill to walk around and get some amazing dinner at We The Pizza, a restaurant by Spike Mendelsohn from Top Chef! One of the really yummy things about this place is the homemade soda, I had the best Shirley Temple on the planet.  The next day we shot our video right at the Jefferson Memorial, it was perfect!

In New York City I had just a couple hours between arriving and working, and I seriously skipped lunch to just walk around Midtown.  I walked through the diamond district, went to the Sweetery truck for a brownie, then walked to Times Square to sit on the red steps and watch for "I'm a Mormon" ads and cabs, then I walked around a little more and made a stop by my favorite place, Bryant Park.  Since I pride myself on being a cupcake connoisseur, I absolutely had to have a Crumbs cupcake (banana split eaten for breakfast at JFK), and also got one at Metro Cafe that was like a giant hostess cupcake.  After our meeting we ate dinner at Bobby Flay's AMAZING Bar Americain, where I tried duck for the first time and had the best sweet potatoes known to man.  Another super short visit, but I think I fell more in love with the city.

Favorite pic of the trip, by far!  We flew from NYC to Miami to film some incredible distributors at their home right in between downtown Miami and South Beach.  I love meeting incredible people who have compelling stories behind their success.  After filming we rushed out to Boca Raton for our meeting that night and I was more than amused that the South Florida crowd still felt like NYC.  Believe Seinfeld, it's all true.  The night before we flew home we got to spend a couple hours walking around South Beach and seeing sights like the Versace Mansion, Miami Ink, and the art deco hotels.

My job is a lot of hard work and sometimes we are greatly rewarded by doing the hard work and long hours in beautiful places.  This was the kind of week that reminds me why I wanted this job so badly!

P.S. Still no camera, all these pics brought to you by my iphone. Special shout out to Kyle for taking pictures of me and never making fun of me until I cry over our 6 days together.