St. Thomas vacation and eastern Idaho total eclipse

With my parents coming home, we were able to go on a big family vacation for the first time in over three years. It was a big deal, and so we certainly made it a big vacation. We were able to go to St. Thomas and it was so wonderful and relaxing. I didn't love the long travel time to get there, but it was so nice while we were there.

I mean... how could it not be when this was the view from the patio of our hotel suite?

And this was the view from the deck of a house that a family from the branch lives in. They used to live in Utah and went to the eye doctor's office where Aubrey works, so when they saw her at church, they were so sweet to invite us over for dinner and give us pointers about what we might like to do. They also invited us with them to go up to the top of Paradise Point on Wednesday night (when it's only $5/person instead of $21) and that was neat. It's also where I finally picked up some souvenirs.

Lots of just playing in the ocean and pool. (I got sunburned on the first day we were in the water, though. Whoops.) We ate out quite a bit, and I was able to finally go to a restaurant that starts with the letter X, so I was able to cross off "go to 26 different restaurants starting with each letter of the alphabet" from my 101 list. The deadline for my second 101 list is rapidly approaching! I also slept a lot, which was lovely. Those beds were so comfortable. And heavy curtains to totally block out any and all light is so wonderful... I sleep best in pitch blackness.

We also went to St. John one day and I got a couple National Park Passport stamps and we went snorkeling. When I think of snorkeling, I think of seeing lots of colorful fish. That wasn't quite the case there. But one of places we snorkeled, we saw literally millions and millions of tiny fish all swimming together in these schools. You'd swim right over them, but they'd all move if you got too close. It was a cool phenomenon to see. The other place we snorkeled wasn't as clear of water, but we saw a few sea turtles and stingrays. We also went to some sugar plantation ruins where we got attacked my mosquitos and bees. (That part wasn't so fun.)

One thing that wasn't super relaxing was on Thursday night, I got a job offer. I'm so glad I got that job offer at the end of the vacation and not the beginning, so it wasn't hanging over my head and keeping me from relaxing. I really didn't sleep well Thursday night. When we were in the NYC airport flying back, I called and accepted the job offer and started making my life a little crazy.

But before getting completely back to reality, I took one more vacation day and went with Karen and Stu and some of Stu's family to his grandpa's home in Pingree, Idaho. It was so nice to be away from civilization a bit and just relax some more after having made a big life decision. I enjoyed swinging in the hammock Karen and Stu brought and reading. I liked learning and playing the game Cover Your Assets and eating yummy food. On Monday, we drove up to Moore so we could be in the path of the total eclipse. That was so incredible to see. I'm so glad we were able to go.

Parents home!

The week after Glacier, my parents got back from their mission. They came home on Sunday July 2, and I took the whole week of work off to spend time with them and other family.

The last three years have kind of flown by for all of us, I think, but it was so nice to welcome them home. Aubrey, Tyler, and I made posters and there were a lot of family members that came to the airport to welcome them home. I surprised myself when I started to cry when I saw them coming down the escalators. I wasn't quite prepared for that. But lots of hugs, tears, and laughs ensued for all of us.

We then spent the first half of the week having a reunion with my mom's side of the family, and the second half with my dad's side. It was a little hard at times for me because I'm an introvert and need my alone/recharge time, and there wasn't a lot of that to go around. But it was really nice spending time with everyone and hearing stories, laughing, and catching up.

On Sunday before I drove back, I was able to hear my parents speak/report in the ward my mom grew up in. The chapel was packed with my parents' missionaries, family members, friends, and even some of my dad's former mission companions! I know there are so many stories to tell. But I really want to share some important lessons I learned from things my dad taught his missionaries that I think we can all learn from.

One thing my dad talked about was "so templo," which kind of translates to "only temple." Sometimes, it may be easy for missionaries (and us) to think about getting people to baptism and not past that, but that isn't the right focus. Our goal should be to help people make all the necessary covenants to return to live with their Heavenly Father--not just the first covenant. Our goal should be to get people (including ourselves) to the temple. He helped his missionaries to do that by having them teach a "Spirit of Elijah" lesson, where they could read Malachi 4:5-6 and then ask about close family members who have passed away. The missionaries are inviting their ancestors to join the lesson and use that Spirit of Elijah to bring the the Spirit into the lesson and increase the investigator's desire to make covenants and get to the temple to perform these ordinances for their deceased family members. Super cool.

Another thing that stood out to me is the importance of listening to the first prompting. My dad pointed out that spirits speak spirit to spirit, so we should be very aware of those "thoughts" we have, because they are likely promptings. As one of my uncles would tell his stake, "A thought is a prompting until proven otherwise." (Assuming it's a good thought, of course.) My dad shared some really neat experiences of following that prompting and the miracles that came from that. However, going along with that, Satan is a spirit, and he also communicates that way. So he will come after the first prompting and make us doubt it, make us think it's only our thought and that it was a silly idea. That's why it's even more important for us to hang onto (an do) the first prompting. I know it's definitely something I need to work on doing better.

I know I probably am not doing these concepts justice. I think I should just convince my dad to start a blog where he can talk about all this great stuff. (Hint, hint.) :-)

Glacier National Park and Half Marathon

Man... I'm so behind on blogging! Where has this summer gone?

I went to Glacier towards the end of June and it was absolutely amazing. I had never been, and so I used the excuse of doing a half marathon through Vacation Races to go and I convinced my friend Chelsea to join me.

We flew into Kalispell and got bumped up to a truck from the much smaller vehicle we had originally rented. I'm glad Chelsea was driving, because that thing was huge! (And she really enjoyed driving it, so win/win.) We stayed at a lovely Airbnb with a very nice couple in Columbia Falls the first couple of nights. I'm going to mix up timelines a bit because it's been a while. I know the first day, we went ziplining, which was super fun. And I think we explored some cute little shops. On Thursday, we went on a hike to Avalanche Lake and explored the park some, including going on a horseback ride. Exploring the park that way was neat, but man... that works your legs!.I got pretty sore.

Luckily, we had a day to recover from that before we had to run. On Friday, we went over to East Glacier Park Village to a motel where we got a little cabin. We were originally supposed to only stay there Saturday night after the race, because it was already booked Friday. (It was really hard to find lodging with this race going on!) Luckily, somebody cancelled and since I had let the manager know we were also interested in Friday, we got to stay there and had a much shorter drive to the bus loading for the race. We were also able to explore the park a little more, pick up our race packets, and drive the course.

The race was absolutely beautiful. So, so gorgeous. There's a pretty intense climb the first five miles, but man...awesome views. Can you believe these are pictures that I took literally in the middle of a race?

I stuck with Louise and a couple other Galloway people in addition to Chelsea for those first five miles. At that point, everyone else kind of went ahead as it started going downhill. I stuck with Mandi, a Galloway gal who has run with my group when she's there as she's coming back from an injury. It's been hard for her, as she's normally so much faster. But she was great company and super supportive. We did :20/:30 pretty much the whole race (with a few extra walk breaks and some photo stops). There was another tinier hill towards the end that didn't even register as a hill to me when we drove it, but I definitely felt it. It seemed harder than that insane first hill! We also lucked out with the weather. Gorgeous day. But a really fantastic race. And I just love the huge community feel during the race. Everyone is so awesome and supportive and us back of the packers were really just enjoying it. And there were people around us! Big change from the Tulip Festival. My mental game was definitely better. Plus, even with the walking, a bathroom break (my first every in a race...So momentous), and the photo ops...I got a PR! My Garmin clocked me at 3:34:20 and my official time on the printout was pretty close to that. 

My first vacation race was such a good experience. Now I want to do all of them. :-) 

The only downside of the vacation was I was talking to a Galloway guy who was in our same motel the afternoon of the race and I got burned. Luckily, we tracked down some aloe vera (which was hard in that tiny town) and I survived. But boo for sunburns! Oh. And I guess the other downside was that we didn't get to stay longer. It was such a gorgeous area and such a fun race! I would have loved to explore more... especially since not all of the Going to the Sun Road was open. But I had a blast, got another few stamps in my National Park Passport and more smashed pennies. Yay for awesome vacations!