CrossFit Certification & Park City Escape

Todd and I had a great few days this past weekend.  Todd's CrossFit coaching certification was this weekend in Park City, UT.  We left the kids with a college-aged babysitter (she was awesome) and drove to Park City.  I was moral support, a study buddy, and one very animated tourist.  This trip included my favorite things to do: CrossFit, hiking, and shopping!  In addition, it was some VERY MUCH needed away & alone time with my sweetheart.  

We'd been planning this trip for a while, but I was a little stressed out when I found out it fell on our last in-church practice for the the Primary Program coming up next week (I am the Primary President).  Thankfully, I have awesome counselors who probably did better than I could ever do running the show yesterday.

Hitting the Wasatch Front.

We made a brief stop at Ute CrossFit in Salt Lake City on our way.  Their team took FIRST place at the CrossFit Games this year.  One team member was a coach I've worked out with a couple of times when I had visited Devan's gym- he used to coach there too.   I got a good wod in to loosen up from the long drive.  I HATE sitting that long- everything starts to hurt!

Practicing rope climbs.

I used internet images for the next 4 pictures of our resort hotel.  It was the nicest place we'd ever stayed in and I couldn't believe I forgot to take pictures of it.  It was just SO beautiful.  At sunset it really looked like it came straight out of a Kinkade painting or something.  VERY cool and relaxing place to stay.

Eating at the hotel restaurant our first evening there.

Day 2: I got a massage at the resort spa and then kinda wasted it by hiking and trail running while Todd was at his certification... :-)

Todd didn't take many pictures for me to post, but here's one shot of a hill side on my hike.  Many of the trees had already lost their leaves, but the ones that hadn't were glowing so pretty,
though you can't really tell in the picture. (Phone camera)

Dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.

We spent that evening studying and quizzing.

Day 3: Exploring historical Park City while Todd did his certification and took his test.

While the CrossFit certification program was going on, Chris Spealler had to close his gym to the public.  So I didn't have box (CrossFit gym) to work out at, which meant I had to use a "Globo Gym".  I'm to the point now where I can't stand normal gyms.  First of all, I stick out like a sore thumb in my crazy barbell socks and my dramatically different style of exercise than anyone else in the gym.  But they are FULL of machines that work single join muscle movements that do not mimic anything we would actually do in real life.  In a CrossFit gym, you walk into a seemingly empty industrial room/garage with a few pieces of exercise equipment/weight along the sides because "YOU are the machines," as they say it.  :)  And they do functional movements and lifts- things that mimic real life movements like deadlifts- picking something up off the floor, push press- putting something up high on a shelf, squats- sitting down to a chair.  You learn how to man handle a barbell safely and effectively and you feel super awesome doing it!

The globo gym I went to had a few forms of free weights in the back and I put together a workout and left satisfied, but just kind of annoyed.  It always draws so much attention.  I had people saying things like, "Don't kill yourself!", and "Where do you get your workouts!  That's amazing!".  I hate feeling like I don't fit in at the gym and I hate being watched like a spectacle.  It was, however kind of cool to not only be able to tell the people there about CrossFit but to be able to say that their local CrossFit gym is owned and ran by literally THE number ONE CrossFit coach/teacher in the WORLD! (Chris Spealler)  That raised some eyebrows and sparked some interest.

Todd's certification crew.
(He's on the far left in green next to Matt Chan.)

With his certification staff, Chris Spealler, Neil Maddox, Kimmy ?, and Matt Chan.

I brought Todd his lunches both days and we ate there at the gym.  Chris Spealler worked with me a bit on my muscle ups.  And we got to talk a bit with the coaches.  Matt Chan was by far the funniest.  We ran into him again at Whole Foods that first night there- caught him red-handed, actually pulling a donut from the bakery cabinet there!  "Cheat day!", is what he shouted with a smile.  We are doing a 30 Paleo challenge with our friends that come work out at the house and don't get a cheat day for another week or so.  I've eaten Paleo for about 2 years now, but never gone this long without a cheat day.  That was hard temptation to see HIM eating THAT!  We gave him a hard time as he was about to teach the section on nutrition the next day

After the certification ended, we grabbed dinner and then drove home, arriving at about 12:30 at night, to a very clean house.

Even my laundry room was immaculate!

  This room looked HORRID when we left.

Apparently while we were gone, our next door neighbor lost control of a fire they used to burn weeds and their shed caught fire and burned down.  The entire field between our property and theirs burn up as well, stopping at about 6 feet before our property line!  Kind of scary.  We're so glad our children were safe and that our house was not touched. But their shed and everything in it literally burned to the ground in shambles.  It was more of a rustic old shop, really.  A lot of equipment inside.

The black pile of rubble is all that is left of a rather large shed/shop.

This picture shows how close the field burned up to our property.
(The rocks are where our property starts.)

The view of where the field burned out back.

Anyway, back to life and the pressures of daily responsibility!  We sure loved getting away for a few days.  We find out tomorrow via e-mail what Todd's test results are.

Switchfoot Concert

We had a blast tonight!  My brother and sister-in-law took us to the Switchfoot concert (one of my favorite bands) in Boise.  We went to dinner Barry Hills first, which was incredible food.  We were all super happy with how good it was.

The concert was held at the Knitting Factory.  We saw our friend, Mike there.  No other familiar faces.  It was a very enjoyable evening.  Switchfoot is a Christian based band, though their music is more positive themed than being about religion.  I love good clean happy rock 'n roll so I LOVE this band.  They had an impressive opening act as well.  Standing in high heels all night (very limited seating there and we didn't arrive early enough to snag any) was a little rough.  But otherwise, a very fun time!  Thanks for taking us, Kris and Amber!

McCall

We spent conference weekend in McCall.  Our good friends, the Skeens also stayed in their family cabin there that weekend so we met up a couple of times- first Sarah and I got a good workout in at Legends CrossFit there.

A lot of Lainey pics in this one as she was sweet enough to let me practice using my manual setttings on my camera a lot this trip.

The Skeens had us over for dinner and we brought the kids' bikes for a walk/bike ride with them.

I love my friend, Sarah.  She is such a beautiful person inside and out.  

Everyone needs a friend like her!

Breakfast at the Pancake House and shopping the decorations at "The Christmas Shop" store next door.

We also visited a couple of hot springs each evening, but it was dark and 

wet and no place for my camera- so no pictures.

We spent most of the time doing things at home in the cabin while we listened to conference and watched for updates on facebook from my very good friend whose 5 year old son was in a terrible accident.  Their situation turned out to have a very lucky and fortunate outcome, thankfully.  But our hearts were pouring out prayers all weekend for them.  Our time in the cabin provided a restful and fun opportunity to bond as a family.

Lainey snuck into Todd's things and went about imitating Daddy.

We stopped at a pretty bend in the river on the way home to get some pictures.