Our 4th and 5th of July Celebrations

July 4th was super fun and relaxing this year! Nathan and I did the Firekracker 5k again with our friends Karly and Wade and their family. This year I ran it in under 30 minutes, which was my goal! Woot! I came in at 29:15. I shaved off more than a minute from last year. Nathan didn't even train and he still finished in about 25 minutes.... of course!

After the race the four of us decided we didn't want to stick around for the parade, so we went and got Jambas and Egg McMuffins for breakfast. Then we went our separate ways.

Nathan and I enjoyed a bbq lunch at home and accidentally took a super long nap right in the middle of the day. We hardly ever take naps!

When we woke up, we biked to the green belt, grabbed dinner from the Cafe Sabor food truck, and soaked in the fourth of July atmosphere. Then we went and found the perfect spot for the fireworks! We were so confused that there was such a big spot open still just an hour or so before fireworks.

Well as luck would have it we ended up about 40 feet away from Karly and Wade and their family. We moved on over to join them and watched the fireworks. Their little Ivy wasn't the biggest fan of fireworks, but she did awesome!

Once the show was done we zipped home on our bikes! We were home in about 10 minutes. It's the best way to travel down by the crazy crowded Green Belt.

...........................................

The next morning Nathan and I headed down to Utah for the Blietschau Family Reunion aka Crazy Germans Party! Ever since our Oma and Opa had pasted away we haven't been able to all get together. It was the first time all of us Germans were able to all get together for some fun and delicious food. 

It's so cool to see what just two amazing people could create starting their lives in America! 

Road Trip Part 2: Hiawatha Bike Trail and Glacier National Park

After visiting our friends for the first part of our trip we made a loop to head back home. We stopped at Coeur d'Alene, the Hiawatha Bike Trail, and Glacier National Park.

We didn't stay in Coeur d'Alene very long. When we got there the Ironman was going on. So we parked, checked out the lake and race, grabbed lunch from a food truck that made amazing crepes, and continued on.

We went to the Hiawatha Bike Trail to check it out, but we didn't have enough time to do the trail that day. Nathan and I found a place to camp about 10 minutes away and enjoyed the night. We did a miniature nature trail and right when we got back to our campsite it started pouring rain! We jumped in our tent and watched the sun set while we listened to the rain. It was breathtaking! Golden rays shot out of the dark rain clouds and through the pine trees complete with the soft sound and sweet smell of rain. It was my favorite!

The next morning we woke up, quickly packed up camp, and headed straight to the trail head. The tunnel was long, dark, damp, and chilly. The bike trail is super easy and the views are inspiring. Don't look over the side of the bridges if your are afraid of heights. They are pretty high up. Once we made it to the bottom we waited for the bus to shuttle us back up to the top where you have to ride through the long tunnel again to get back to your car. For some reason the second time through I got a wicked muddy fish tail up the back of my hoodie.

Right when we were done we packed up our bikes, grabbed some lunch, and headed to Glacier National Park. We found a nice camping spot with nice trails for walking and biking. We biked all around our area and checked out the lake. Then we went to bed as soon as it was dark so we could get up bright and early the next day to explore the park.

We headed up to take the "Road to the Sun" only to find out it was closed due to an avalanche!!! We were devastated! We'd have to drive for 3+ hours to go around to see the other side of the park and we didn't really have time for that! We decided to do a 1 and a half hour extra drive to the Southeast corner of the park where we did some cool hikes to waterfalls.

Before we knew it, it was time for us to start heading back home.

Road Trip Part 1: Seeing Friends!

Nathan and I made some pretty great friends while at Utah State that we don't get to see as often as we would like. So what do you do at the end of June when you have summers off they move far away from Utah, but are only a couple of hours apart from each other?.... ROAD TRIP!

We started off our trip toward Boise where we were able to stop and see Mindy, another great friend from Utah State. She works at a bakery and shared some delicious cookies with us. She is going to start up her own baked goods called "Sugar Whipped" (cute name huh?!) which is way cool. On our way out of town Mindy mentioned we should grab lunch from a place called the "Bleu Bird" down town Boise.... Oh. My. Goodness. It was so good! I was nervous because the sandwich I got us had turkey, brie cheese, apple slices, arugula, fig jam, and mustard... Pretty sure I wouldn't think to combine some of those things, but holy cow was it tasty!

Our next stop was Walla Walla, Washington to see Brooke and Brad. They live in the the cutest little town where Brad is finishing up school. They showed us around town and we ate some awesome food at "The Olive". Our pizza had grapes on it... Again I was skeptical, but it was super good. (We are all about the cool places with unique amazing food. We spent the night at their place and then checked out the farmers market before we left. We got a nice juicy bag of cherries for the car ride to our next stop.

We made our way over to Spokane to visit Doug. As luck would have it, we ended up visiting the same weekend as Hoopfest! You know... Only the biggest 3 vs 3 basketball tournament in the world! No big deal. We had fun walking around downtown and checking out all of the different games. And believe me... There were a lot of different games going on! I've never seen so many basketball hoops in my life. After we checked out Gonzaga University and Jack and Dan's Bar and Grill because we are big John Stockton fans. We spent the night at Doug's and then hit a ward by the Spokane Temple on our way to our destination.

It was awesome seeing everyone on our trip, and I'm really glad it worked out to see them.

Beginning of June: A Week with my Sis and Nathan's B-Day!

Super behind on the blogging business... So much has been happening this summer! I think things are finally starting to simmer down and I'll get some posts up of all the fun we've been having.

The last day of school my sister, Karissa, and Mom came up to help me move my stuff into the new school.  That's right! I have a beautiful new classroom inside the school! Goodbye portable classroom! With all of their help we were able to get everything over to my new room, except for the heavy stuff like desks and such. Then we enjoyed the rest of the night eating pizza and watching a movie.

The next morning was the big moving day to the new school so Nathan and I went over to help get everything else over. I woke up bright and early to get a 10 mile run in and had Nathan meet me at the school. It was pretty crazy of me to run and then move over desks and tables, but hey, I got a great work out that day!

That afternoon my mom headed back down to Utah and left Karissa with us for the week. Here are the highlights from our week long party!

Hiking with friends by Kelly Canyon.

Photo Shoot showing off Karissa's cute new overalls. My sister is so pretty!

Baptisms at the Idaho Falls Temple! Our brother, Karl, found a family name for us to do, which was pretty cool! 

My sister was also up for Nathan's birthday. We went to Driggs because we love that area and it has lots of awesome hikes! We stopped at a cute cafe for lunch and hiked a bit at the Targhee ski resort. I was also hoping we'd see lots of wild flowers on our hike... Not as many as I had hoped, but it was still pretty. On our way back from hiking we stopped in Rexburg at a place called Karie Anne's. Oh my it was the best italian ice and custard we've ever had!  

Poor birthday boy had a bug fly into his eye... It took forever to get out... 

And of course no birthday celebration would be complete without pizza and the Leavitts! Haha my poor sister thinks all we do is eat pizza... Maybe because we had it about 3 or 4 times that week with her... 

When we left dinner there was a fantastic lightning storm over the windmills. We decided to try and chase after the storm and get pictures... The storm was moving way to fast though and we weren't able to get anything good. It was still fun chilling in the car together and opening the awesome present from my sis to Nathan.

Good times! Good times!

That weekend we took Karissa back down to Utah. Nathan took me for a 5 mile run around his neighborhood and shared stories from growing up. I loved running with him while enjoying a blast from the past. We also visited Bryan and Lauren for a bit and got to canoe around their neighborhood.

On Sunday we celebrated Nathan's sister, Carly, Homecoming from her Mission in Minnesota. She gave an excellent talk. So proud of her! Sadly, I totally spaced getting a picture with the cute return missionary...