Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Christmas getting to know you...

I generally don't buy off on these things, but this one is cute and I thought it might be fun to get to know me better...don't you all want to get to know me better? Who wouldn't right? ;)


1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Depends...when I have little time, bag, when I have planned ahead and given myself time...paper and cute bows for sure.

2. Real tree or Artificial? No tree right now...really, it's a waste of money for us at this point, especially when we are at our families houses for Christmas. I have two 1ft. tall fake trees we decorate. :) Someday we'll chop one down.


3. When do you put up the tree? Refer to above answer

4. When do you take the tree down? Refer to question # 2

5. Do you like eggnog? YES!!


6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm, ponies, saddles, horse stuff.

7. Hardest person to buy for? I would agree with Cassie on this one, Mom

8. Easiest person to buy for? Distant friends and relative you send cards to.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? A miniature one, compliments of mom Sorensen

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Email? Good idea.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmmm, I may offend someone.


12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Not soon enough


14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Everything, I'm kinda a little piggy during the holidays

16. Lights on the tree? Little white ones

17. Favorite Christmas song? I have to answer that with favorite Christmas artists: Harry Connick Jr, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and there is this one song by Faith Hill that I love, I don't know what it's called though, maybe 'Where Are You Christmas?'


18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Hmmmm, both sound great. If we travel though, it will be somewhere fun and warm. :)

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star of course, what angel wants that prickly tree top up their butt?


21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? On on the Eve and all the rest in the morning. You can't open too many on the Eve because Santa hasn't come yet. duh!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Stress!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? My mom has purchased an ornament for us each Christmas, usually something that resembles what we did that year, I like those ornaments.


24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Funeral potatoes

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Vacation time. Oh and bike stuff, always bike stuff. :)

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Christmas ramblings - read at your own risk (you may want that 5 min of your life back)

Oh the joy of the holiday. I have two favorite parts of Christmas, the first part is the best and most obvious, hanging out with the fam, but the second part is a little more misunderstood...Anticipation! The anticipation begins about a week before Thanksgiving when the first bold radio station plays a Christmas song (They only play one or two though, because everyone knows that Christmas music belongs after Thanksgiving) Then the Thanksgiving holiday gets you warmed up for some time off. You enjoy that day or two of not going to work and doing what YOU want to do. When you are back to work with a full lunchbox of turkey leftovers you have that taste of freedom on your tongue and realize that another brake is fast approaching. Now, back into the swing of real life you have Christmas surrounding you. Everywhere you go you hear bells, jingles and manger songs and everywhere you look is red, green and gold. Every store is on sale for gifts, buy this, buy that. You have a list in your head at all times, get this, get that. And although you have months to prepare, those last three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are when you get all your shopping done anyway. If you are like me, you work and play very hard and leave little time for practical things, like shopping. This stress or adrenaline only adds to the anticipation. After Thaksgiving you also set up your tree, decorate your house and join the church choir for the Christmas program, because everybody knows that Christmas songs are the greatest songs anyway. That brings up church, what a great time to go to church. I love Christmas lessons. The entire month of December you get to hear about Christ, sacrifice, birth, love, Christ and Christ. I wish we could have these lessons off and on all year round, the true meaning of Christmas.

Anyway, my mind starts on one thing and ends on another, that's the way this grey matter enclosed within my scull works, it's odd sometimes.

I would like to say something quickly about my beef with the Christmas season. Why do we give gifts to people? Really. Why do we walk up and down aisles of clothes, gloves, candy, candles, toys, why do we subject ourselves to hours of indecisiveness for a gift for that one person you know with get you something so you have to find something for them, but unfortunately you don't even know them well enough to have an idea of what they may really want. We've all been there, admit it.

here's an idea, next Christmas lets not give any gifts. Let's plan ahead and give our Christmas gift to those we love and care about before Christmas, at a time when they seem to need it most. I would like to give gifts when its not expected, when there isn't a million gifts under every tree in every house. I want to give a gift that will suprise someone and really be special. So maybe next year, instead of raising my blood pressure one more notch to find something for someone who will be getting a million other gifts, so mine won't be as special anyway, I will give a gift in July and attach a note that says..."Merry Christmas, I thought this gift was perfect for you and I hope it brings you the spirit of Christmas when it's least expected"

(But we all know I will still give Christmas gifts in December)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Look at me, I'm jumping a bike...oh wait, I guess this isn't really jumping. It's dropping without getting mud up my nose. Anyway, this is what I did on my last day off. Thanks for the video Adam and Christine.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Real Life

Ben and I seem to be getting an extra helping of real life lately. Things seemed to be looking up, Ben's classes got reinstated, all of them and he is doing well. So the money issue is yet to be worked out completely, we have to go through an appeals process to get stafford student loans due to some past problems in school. Ben has some great help with his academics and this student loan issue, the Dean of the UVU Wasatch Campus has taken Ben under his wing and his showing him the ropes. So that should go through and hopefully we can get the loan.

In the mean time, we bought a car. My mom and her X-boyfriend offered us a great deal on a Nissan Xterra. We took it because it was a killer deal and to get in and out of the cabin in the winter we need a higher clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle. So I have been trying to sell my Subaru for the last couple month, had some bites, but last weekend I found a guy who wanted to buy the car for sure. We made a deal and on the way to meet him and get the check, the car broke down. No joke, it stopped running. It's at the mechanic now, the buyer is still interested if we can get it working again. Thank heavens for that. Hopefully its just the fuel pump like we think.

So the moral of the story is, patience. This has all been a lesson in perseverance for Ben and patience for me. I think we are coming out of these experiences better then before, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Some old fun reborn

Found some old pics, thought I would give the vast numbers of readers a few new things to feast their eyes upon. Hope you enjoy...

Road trip photos in Oregon.

















































Ben doing what he does best.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

A dream come true

So, I can't believe I haven't posted this yet...for anyone who knows me even a little bit, you know I have been needing and pining after a new bike for sometime now. And if you know me really good, you know I have been wanting a Santa Cruz. Well, the heavens opened about a month ago and devine providence brought me to little website called KSL.com and I randomly decided to check out the bikes. I found what is now known as the best find of the century. I found a 2002 Santa Cruz Bullit frame, medium size (my size), black and hot for sale for $325. That alone is a steal but after visiting this awesome seller with my buddy Adam, he offered up his titanium bottom bracket, XT front derailleur, carbon fiber cranks, Chris King head set, seat post clamp, rear fox float lockout shock and the frame for $350. HELLO!! I snatched that up as fast as I could manage. My dream come true right?


Well, to make the story even sweeter my said buddy Adam and his lovely girlfriend of seven years, Christine had the rest of the parts for this dream bike just hanging around their humble home. I took the frame there and next thing I know I have a full bike, huge fork, disc brakes, complete drivetrain, wheels, handlebars, pedals, everything! How do I ever repay these two for letting me "barrow" all their stuff? These two are amazing and we worked on this bike together many late nights to get it rolling.


So slowly I will buy up parts, I have recently purchased a wider handlebar and tomorrow will order a longer seatpost. I have to be searching for a good deal on a fork and get a drivetrain soon enough. What a killer deal and THANK YOU THANK YOU to Christine adn Adam, they are amazing.
This looks a lot like my bike, without the coil shock in the back, mine is air, sweet and plush! The fork isn't this big either and this bike has new really nice parts, mine are good, but working on the new part. Trying to set it up to be as cross country as possible, one bike to do it all. Gotta get in better shape though to lug it uphill. :) Love it!

Monday, September 1, 2008

Little Syndey after swimming in the water hole at the ranch. She is soooooo cute! Will hopefully get photos of Turk up here too.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Update



Hi all, Ben and I have been living in a cabin that is south east of Kamas, Utah. We are loving it, but there is no internet or phone service up there. We do have running water and heat and stuff though. So we have been a little out of touch. A few good things we have been doing include a rafting trip in Jackson, a pioneer trek reinactment in Wyoming, Rae getting West Nile Virus (or a similar virus) and being sick for forever then getting better and doing a 40 mile mountian bike ride. (A first for me) We had our third anniversary, we ate at Ruth's Chris (Thank you Steve and Wendy) and we watched the Dark Night (WOW! What a movie). I have been working a lot and summer is almost over. :( Good because work will slow down, but bad because I need to play more before the weather gets cold.




I hope everyone out there is doing well and enjoying the good weather. Get out and play!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Moving Sale

So we are having out Moving Sale this Saturday, the 31st. Just wanted everyone to know that they are welcome to come sell stuff or buy stuff. Desi will be brining over some stuff to get rid of, but we have a big yard. Let us know if you want to come.

Oh, and we have two new little additions to our family. A red heeler girl pup and a blue heeler boy pup. Both 8 months old, brother and sister. We have been looking for a heeler pup for a month or so now and we went to look at these, not thinking anything of it until Ben saw them. :) It was love at first sight. They were the last two pups of the litter and we had to take them both. There was no choosing between them. They are both already comfortable in our home, they toured the family homes and were excited to be in new places. The little girl, although she is the runt, is a smarty and very brave, she has stood up to all the big dogs she has seen. The chunky boy is big and loves to explore, but he's no dummy, he sees the big dogs and runs for mommy or daddy. They are both very different and very cute.

We have yet to get really good names for them, so come see them and help us decide on perfect names. Stay tuned for photos. I will try and get some in the next couple days.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

I finally did it...

I cut my hair. I drove to Lunatic Fringe, by recommendation of my good friend Cindy Maudsley, and chopped off 13" of hair, two pony tails...ah! Nichole did a great job and when all was said and done I really like the cut. It's funkier then I have ever been used to with me and my plane jane looks. But it's fun and light and easy and great!

I would love to post a photo, but as many of you know, we dropped our camera in a sand dune at Cannon Beach in Oregon thus I no longer have the photo posting capability. All photos come from gracious friends who have cameras. If anyone out there feels bad for me, you can donate to the "buy the Sorensen's a new digital camera" fund.

Anyway, Ben and I have decided to move to the Ranch in Woodland. It's huge for us because we can live rent free and pay off some of our debt before Ben hits school in the Fall. It's huge for the fam because Ben and I will do some repairs on the cabin and be around to keep it safe. :) Big changes for us, we may even get a dog!! Yeay!

That's it for now, both of us are still working hard...as always and will need all the help we can get to move our stuff. But we are excited for the new local.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Another St. George trip


This report is a little slow, we went to St. George about 3 weeks ago. :) But, it was so fun that I still had to share. Ben and I traveled to St. George Friday morning to climb at Moe's Valley, a bouldering field south of Green Valley Gap. Then Josalyn, Danny, Mike, Mieken, Jeremy and Sarah met us at our Green Valley camp sight late Friday night. Saturday we woke up, ate bagels and climbed at Chuckwalla. Our plan was to climb at Black Rocks, but the climbing area was closed due to turtle mating...interesting, I know. Then we went to a park and hung out, did some slacklining and playing frisbee square. Sunday morning Josalyn and I rode THE coolest trail, the Zen trail. The Zen trail starts just south of the Green Valley gap and follows the mesa up to overlook the valley west of the gap. The trail is fairly new and so there were many trail spurs that almost got us lost. The trail is very technical, at one point we rode through a cave, way cool. We had a blast, the trail's one shortfall is that it's only 6 miles long, a little short eh?

Anyway, moving on, then Josalyn and I caught up with the group at Turtle Wall. This was the best climbing we found in St. George. It was way fun and Ben had the chance to challenge himself in the cave. He climbing the famous 5.12 Banana Dance with no problem.

This weekend was awesome, can't wait to do it again.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Running Group

Hey, anyone out there want to hook up and run in the mornings? I am needing some extra motivation to get up and run. I want to run 2-4 miles 2-3 times per week for now to train for a tri. I live near the capitol, so it would be more convenient if in that area, but not necessary.

Let me know...I need the help to get going!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Nothing thrilling to report...

Doesn't that title just scream excitement? Well, yesterday I got a little sun in the shape of a goggle tan. My cute little red nose reminds me everytime I touch it that I got to be outside on the snow for a couple hours. I actually taught a couple lessons for the NAC at PCMR yesterday. It was a great time and I got to teach on my teli's. I have bragged yet at how cool my skis are. I will try and post a picture of them on here. Anyway, it was nice and I also went to an NAC BBQ the attended a short get-to-gether for a friend flying back to London. Here's to Johnathan, be safe, have fun with Sarah while you have her and don't forget to give her back. :) Can't wait to see you again next season if not sooner.

Today was general conference for all those out there who are not part of the LDS throng. I have to say it was a great day of insightful and enlightening talks, but for some reason, whether I was listening better or the truth is such that the second session was amazing. I had many "have to write this down" moments and filled a couple pages in the leather bound journal with inspiration. One such inspiration was the necesity to couple prayer and action hand in hand. Prayer is great, but prayer followed by action shows true faith and we all know that blessings come after the trial of your faith. What a great time we live in to recieve this direct revelation from prophets of God.

That's all for tonight, it's past my bedtime. Gotta wake up early tomorrow. :)

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

First trip of the season


The day was Friday Feb. 29th. Ben and I hopped in the car after loading it full and drove south. It was my birthday weekend and all i wanted was a trip away from everyday life. We decided to head to St. George, best bet for weather and awesome climbing of course. We invited some friends who would be meeting us later that night. So we started our climing at Chuckwalla Wall. I climbed a 9 adn a 10 and Ben climbed his 12, first he lead it with a couple takes then he top roped it with no takes at all, he's my hero!

So we met up with friends and ate at Iceberg with the Highland Rugby team, they are definitely not a quiet bunch. After that, the Riley's, the Katelers, the Bates and us drove to our flat camp spot at Green Valley Gap and got ready for bed. It was a perfect night for camping, not a cloud in the sky. We woke up, made pancakes and eggs then hiked up the gap to climb. Everyone got to climb and hopefully had a ton of fun. Ben climbed another 12 and me, Josalyn and Danny tried it and made it up with a little belayer help.

We had a big fire that night and cooked tin foil dinners. It was a great evening until the wind decided to do it's own thing and try to blow us away. So we all dove for our tents and tried to sleep through the gail. It blew all night long, I woke up a couple times, but most everyone else didn't sleep much. The next day we tried to play and do some fun things, but the wind was so cold and really caused issues with fun. Josalyn bought me a cake from the Mexican mercado. We ate is as fast as possible so we could get back in the car to drive home. It was too cold to hang. So poor Katelers had to squish in the back of our little subaru because we decided to bring a boulder pad we didn't really use for it's intended use. Oh, well, sorry kastelers, sorry we squished you. We had a great time and I can't wait to go down there soon again to bike. I can't wait to bike period.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

vocation or avocation

i don't write too much about my job, but I really have a cool one. I worked on Saturday and have some really fun lessons. For those who don't know, i teach horseback riding lessons to people with disabilities, I also manage the program. So back to Saturday, it is such a great feeling to work and work to teach someone something and finally, at last, they understant. Something you said or did, finally made it click. I have had a couple lessons like that lately and they really keep you going when the work is frustrating or hard. Moments like those really make me grateful for a job that is stimulating, exciting and makes a difference in some people's lives.

I am sick today, my brain doesn't seem to be working very well either. So forgive the things I say that don't make sense.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

How bout that snow? It's cold and makes for interesting dirving, i'll tell you that much. It's been sad though that I haven't been skiing much, those poor skis are sitting in the corner of our front room oh so lonely. At least they have eachother, at least i'm not a boarder cause then it would really be lonely. I love my new skis by the way. I have figured out this season how to utilize their talents. For those who don't know, I ski on the LINE prophet 90 ski with the BD tele bindings. They are so much fun...

I am wondering who you all are going to vote for and why? I am not so sure.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The holidays

We had a great time, how about you? Ben did a fabulous job shopping for his wife for Christmas. He's always so worried he's not going to get less for me then I get for him. He was right on the dot this year and one of the bigger presents I bought for him got lost in the mail somewhere. Still working on finding it. Thanks to all our families and friends who were so generous in thinking of us. Thanks to Ben's parents for letting us sleep on their buffalo rug...that's a quality night sleep right there. Thanks to my Dad and Colleen for making Christmas mean a little more this year with our homemade gift Christmas.

New Years was a hoot, we hung out at "The Ranch" with Ben's fam, my sis and boyfriend and some of Libbi's friends. We stayed up late, ate a lot of food and played in the snow. Life is good.

We made goals for 2008. I don't like to call them New Year's resolutions, I don't believe in those...you should be making resolutions all year, but all that said, we did make new goals. Guess they are kinda the same thing. I do believe we have a steady resolve in these goals. We have been successful so far...6 days straight. :)

What type of resolutions or goals were made out there? Here's to a great new year!