Brace yourself. This is long. But good.

Oh where to being...

With the normal things, or the not so normal things?

Nothing I do is normal so that helps.

What an amazing summer this has been!

Fabulous mix of crazy adventures and relaxing beach days.

I really do live a great life.

bliss.

Um, I didn't blog once in June. Guess I am failing at my blogging goal.

June...

What even happened in June?

Anything?

My parents came up for a few days while my little brother Davis (I say little, when I should say younger because he is bigger than I will ever be) was at basketball camp.

It was so much fun to have my parents come up and play! My mom laid out at the King Henry pool with my sister and I... how great is that?! I loved it.

My parents along with Shelley and myself had to opportunity to spend the day together up in Park City. It was such a glorious day trip. We walked the streets, ate lunch outside and truly enjoyed the beautiful weather. We met Brady and Brittany for dinner at the Homestead where we continued eating. Every good experience in life is centered around food. We sat on the deck overlooking the water and golf course, they had the biggest, craziest looking ducks I have ever seen. There was also a cute little cat trying to catch fish with his paw. I loved it :)

Side note: I am sitting in the PHX airport right now and I can't help but stare at this scandalous girl. Who really travels in a lycra V-neck (you all know it isn't just some gap v-neck, though I will spare you the details) white denim skinny jeans, 6 inch stiletto heels and all the jewelry the Pirates ride at Disney show cases?! I don't even feel the need to describe her barbie-blonde hair and lady gaga make-up.

Back to my life...

Actually, one last thing about this girl: Someone needs to inform her that multi colored LV bags went out of style when I was in 8th grade...

Ok, me, me, me.

I recently went on a non-date, you know the dates where the guy is totally like "Oh no this isn't a date, this is just 2 boys and 2 girls doing something together and I just happened to call you and ask you to do this but really it isn't a date, just a hangout"... yeah, call it what you want, that is a date.

On this non-date we went rock climbing. Better known as mountain scaling. McCall and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It was dusk when the boys picked us up. I had on jelly sandals and Cally had on Toms. Yes, we knew we were going rock climbing. I think McCall might have even had a dress on? The boys assured us we were fine though because they had rock climbing shoes for us. It was then we realized we were rock climbing, outside, on a mountain. Rick, bless his heart, even just walking up the trail he had to grab my arms and literally hoist me up to the next rock. Once we were stopped at a dead end, drop off on one side, mountain on the other, mountain in front and no way back down the boulders the boys said "climb"... here is the story of "climb"

McCall-- uh he just started walking up that like a mountain goat.

Em-- I'm not moving

As the boys climb unattached to anything, rock and debris are sliding down on adding to mine and Cally's fear. Once the first boy was up he yells "dude this doesn't look to safe, it is a little sketch, not sure the girls will be ok"... um we can hear you.

We didn't have any choice though.

McCall was harnessed first. Oh I wish this was filmed.

McCall--now what

Boys--climb

McCall--where

Boys--up

Em--Put your left foot here

McCall--um nope.

It took Cally a good while to get up the mountain. The boys were not very nice to her. They said things like "I bet your parents hate you," "hurry up, you are so slow" and all sorts of other really pleasant things one wants to hear while scaling a mountain for the first time, oh and she never got her rock climbing shoes, still in Toms she was! I don't blame her at all though, she had never done this before, didn't know these boys and was just supposed to "trust" the rope. Not an easy task. Did I mention it was windy and starting to sprinkle? As Cally finishes up her climb I change into real rock climbing shoes, they should rename them "foot numbing shoes". They were so small and squishing my feet so horribly I swear blood was going to come out of my eyeballs. As I began to climb (I had done this before so I wasn't quite as slow as Cally) night time creeps closer and closer, the boys kept giving me words of encouragement, "em you are doing so great, we are so proud of you".

Once all four of us arrived at the top of the mountain it was pretty much a race to get back down before the wind blew us away, by this time it was only twinkly stars and Provo temple giving us light (I was in a continual state of prayer and cussing, talk about awkward). See the screen of your computer? That is about the width of the ledge McCall and I had to walk on. Add some shrubbery and jagged rocks and you can imagine our excitement. We had to walk only a few feet, maybe 15 to get to our rappel. I might have refused to move for a moment. I think these boys wanted to push us over the ledge. Cally did an amazing job rappelling down! It took me a little longer to go down because I refused to move for another moment. If you thought that was the end of it and we had made it back to flat land your thoughts have mislead you. Our rope wasn't exactly long enough so we were only half way down the mountain we had climbed. We then had to hike back down the mountain. Joy. My feet were bleeding. I had 4 toenails fall off from this adventure. That is all I have to prove. I don't have any pictures. You should embrace us and be grateful our lives were spared that night.

Can't promise to post again soon!

xox

em

I can promise a plethora of pictures in the next post.