We're still here!!!

So perhaps it's time to update my blog and join the land of the living! What a summer we've had...a truly wonderful one, yet largely undocumented due to our broken camera. Finally we have a new camera that is functioning well. Between our new camera and the pictures I've begged off extended family members who have actually been snapping photos, we have this random sampling of our summer. It makes me sad to look at these pictures and realize that summertime is just memories now.











And finally, the crown jewel of the summer, the Grand Canyon. It was an AMAZING, fabulous, death-defying (slight exaggeration) experience. Ben went for the entire 16 days, while I hiked in and met up with them on day 6. It was just a wonderful trip...life-changing for Ben. I sat on his raft through most of the rapids...a raft that most told him was way too small and he was crazy for rowing in the Grand Canyon...but he was flawless on EVERY SINGLE rapid. By the book. I was so proud of him...though still scared spitless. I actually CRIED before one of the biggest rapids out of pure fear. CRIED! I was humiliated as a commercial rafting crew was trying to comfort me before embarking down the rapid themselves. And then, on the very last and biggest rapid of them all, I cried when we finished out of delayed fear. We barely made it out right side up of a monstrous angry hole...but we survived. I'm not kidding when I tell you it took me a lot to face my fears of this water. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip. There are also three youtube videos of some extremely terrifying flips. These videos are NOT of our trip, they are videos of other boats and other trips...and videos of what I was terrified of happening to us. Two of the boats in these videos are 18 foot boats with thousands of pounds of weight strapped in....all to disappear downriver. Watch it if you'd like to see my worst nightmare unfolding. And where are the people who were on these flipped rafts, you might ask? Sucked under and swimming through the rapid. So scary.

Notice their 18 foot raft afterwords...no rowing frame, no gear, one of the tubes lost its air...




This one is a video of a 30' raft with a motor going through a rapid just to give you an idea at how big those waves are...Our was 14'








Presently, we are fully enjoying this time of year and the FABULOUS weather that comes with it. Ben's running the St. George marathon this weekend so we're off to sunny St. George. I've tried training twice for the St. George marathon and my bad knee just can't hack it, so I have to live vicariously through him. Maybe I need to buy a bike or something...