Wild Peacock in... Centerville?

So Colton and I were driving around Centerville, and we were trying to find a hiking trail that led to a small waterfall. After driving for a while and not seeing any sort of a trail head, we came across a very odd site: a peacock off the side of the road! We watched it for a while, then proceeded to call the Hogle zoo, Lagoon, and the Wild Animal refuge center to see if anyone had lost a peacock. No one had, but we learned that it was legal to own peacocks as pets. So we drove up the long driveway behind some trees to a house and knocked on their door. After a young man answered, we asked if he had a pet peacock, and he proceeded to tell us that it wasn't theirs; it just showed up one day about a year ago and stayed put. The neighbors feed it. So there you have it. A sight I never even imagined I would see in Davis County. I felt bad for the peacock though, maybe it was lonely. It needs a peahen. Maybe someday I'll find one and bring it by.

Gardening

So I decided that I could totally becoming a hippie and live off of the "fruits of the land" and be perfectly content. With Bree and Ben off on their adventures in Europe for the summer, Colton and I have taken over the care of their garden. Colton got the garden all ready and planted (for whatever reason I wasn't there that day) and we've got carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, sunflowers, onions, red peppers, strawberries, garlic, basil, and cilantro. I love weeding and watering the plants, and taking care of the garden. Apparently we planted super early, like weeks before the farmers all did. But hey, now all our stuff will be bigger and better than everyone else's! it has been lots of work, going during the rain or snow-forecasts to cover the entire garden with towels, buckets, and bed sheets. The cantaloup we planted never grew, and the strawberry plants that survived are from Bree and Ben's previous plantings. Other than that everything else survived pretty well, and we're already getting delicious strawberries!

Our tomato and pepper plant who both died but then resurrected inside

Sunflower, carrots, peppers, potatoes, from back to front

Our onion plant with a flower

Something is eating the strawberries

These freaking annoying weeds that are invading our garden

The very beginning of the garden

Putting bags over them every night to keep them from dying

My rock path because I didn't know where Colton had planted

Night Night plants!

Salt Lake Marathon

We woke up at like 4:45 am to get ready for the Salt Lake Marathon. The course started at the University of Utah and ended up at the Gateway after winding around Salt Lake.

Colton and I were riding Bree and Ben's tandem bike. The first time we'd ridden it was the day before. And the longest bike ride I've ever taken was 12 miles a year and half ago. So I was basically doing this ride cold. 

 

All our stuff for sleeping over at Bree and Ben's and biking.

My organized items

Colton's mess

The ride was a lot of fun. It rained a little bit during the race. And most of it was down hill. I never thought I would really enjoy riding, but I think I could really get into biking. 26 miles was tough though. I pooped out like mile 17. None of us had much to eat that morning. It was way too early, but Bree made us some toast right before we left. So I tried as hard as I could, but Colton probably did the majority of the work the last few miles, which was hard on him, too, because the last stretch was slightly uphill. We slowed down quite a bit.

After the race we walked around and got a lot of free stuff.

The whole group! We look amazing after biking.

Then we decided to ride back up to the University of Utah in a more direct route. I did as much as I could, but I ended up having to walk once we hit a really steep uphill. Colton rode the bike up, and I'm sure he felt ridiculous riding a two-person bike by himself haha.

It was a neat experience! I think I want to make it a tradition. And someday run the marathon. Two of my friends did it this year, and if they can do it, I can too, right? :)

iEverything

Colton:

A while back Miara and I saw a Groupon that looked like a killer deal. It allowed for an iFly session, all day entrance to iRock, and an hour long Flowrider session. It was only like 50 bucks a person! So we decided to snap it up and have some killer weekends. So one weekend we decided to go rock climbing at iRock. As we were about to leave, I read the fine print on the Groupon a little closer. "All three locations must be visited in one visit." So I quickly called Bree and Ben to let them know that our plan wasn't going to work. We ended up deciding to plan one intense weekend of iFun a little bit down the road. While we had a calm evening of oil painting that night, we ended up with an exhausting day later on.

We started out a little bit rough. I picked Miara up and we drove to the Martin's house, but right as we pulled in I realized that we had forgotten the Groupon. So I dropped Miara off there and drove back to her house to grab it. So I picked up and drove back to the Martin's house (rather quickly). Everyone picked up there stuff and we piled into the car. As we drove up I-15 I asked Miara if she still had the Groupon. "I thought you had it!" CRAP! We left it at Bree's house. There was no going back now though, so I spent the rest of the drive pulling the Groupon up on my phone. Everything worked out alright though, all they needed was the number!

First up was iFly. We threw all of our belongings in the lockers (since they advised that anything lost in the wind tunnel would be destroyed and end up as shrapnel) and went into a classroom for training. Along with the basics of flying, we learned plenty of ridiculous hand signals that our instructor would use to help us fly. Then we suited up, and once we looked nice and ridiculous, it was time to fly! Ben went first, then Bree, then me, then Miara. I won't give you details of how it went. You can just watch the videos here (It takes too long to load them here). We all looked ridiculous in our own way!

Miara:
After receiving our First Flight certificates, we proceeded downstairs quickly (because we had an appointment for Flowrider right as the iFly was ending) and changed into our swim suits. Without any sort of instruction really, I was told to get on a board and try and keep my balance. I fell about five second later. Ben and Colton were better at it than Bree and I were. When a new instructor came in, and I actually got instructed, I was then able to hold myself up longer. Surfing was fun! Of course, this is not like actual surfing according to everyone else. Bree and I got pretty bad whiplash from it when we fell. After surfing, we were all hungry, so we went next door and ate at Costa Vida.


After eating, we went rock climbing! By now I think all of us were getting pretty tired, but we didn't want to waste our coupons! So we climbed and climbed until none of our grips could take it anymore.

After iRock we were thoroughly beat. We went back to Bree and Ben's house and showered and had dinner. That was quite the date! And in my opinion worth it! :)

Oil Painting

Today Colton and I tried our talents at oil painting, supplies offered by Bree and Ben. It was lots of fun! We spent over an hour on the paintings, and we had to leave them to be finished for a later time. It's fascinating to me how people can paint huge paintings. Ours were only about 7X9 inches, and we were straining our creativity as it was. Here are the half-finished products.

From top to bottom: Ben, Colton, Bree, Miara

President's Day

Sore throat, fever, cough, headaches... Perfect health for snowshoeing! Just kidding. But that was what I was suffering from when I went snowshoeing with Colton, my sister Amria, dad, brother Aarim, and a bunch of Aarim's friends on President's Day. 

You see, we had already rented the snowshoes from the University of Utah, and I wasn't about to let my family have all the fun without me, so I sucked it up and went snowshoeing. It was perfect conditions for it. Up North Canyon was about four feet of snow.

Colton trying to climb up a snowbank.
The snow was so deep!

Colton dived into the snow, literally, to see how deep it was.
The weather was cool and sunny. We hiked up a few miles, then stopped for lunch on a log. The said log my family had visited a previous summer, and it was a log we had climbed on which stood above our heads. 

Now we used the log as a seat a few inches above the snow. Two of Aarim's friends broke their homemade snowshoes, and it was super funny watching them trying to hike in the drifts of snow. On our way down the trail, we did a lot more 'off-roading' with the snowshoes, which was much more exciting and difficult than walking on the packed down trail. 

Aarim and Colton also decided to climb up the entire face of the mountain, which took forever. 

A tired Colton coming back down the hill.

This is the same log we were sitting on in the summer. It's a good four to five feet high.

After snowshoeing, Colton and I headed over to Bree and Ben's house for an evening of conversation and dinner at the Pizza Factory. We also stopped at the Farmington Bay Bird refuge again and watched a beautiful sunset. It was a fun and memorable President's Day.

A solitary eagle sits on the water.

Pizza Factory in Bountiful. We stuffed ourselves
on salads and couldn't even finish our pizza.
And the breadsticks were delicious