J-Hole & Y-stone

Jackson Hole

Mel, Jules and I headed up to Jackson Hole & Yellowstone a few weeks ago for the Teton Gravity Research Ski Premier and had a blast! We met up with on of my Sales Reps for Rossignol, Scott Harmon and his sweet wife who treated us to Sunday brunch and showed us around Jackson a bit. The premier and after party were fun, but to be quite honest, the highlight of the trip was Yellowstone! The pictures don't even do justice.. I'll have to expound later...














YELLOWSTONE

Uintas Bday Trip

People use the word great to difine many things... sometimes it is overused and sometimes it's over emphasized. In this case, I genuinely mean to say that I have great friends and a great family. This weekend trip was so relaxing and so perfect, I haven't been this happy in a long time. Something about being in the cool, fresh mountain air surrounded by good company and indulging in some incredible dutch oven food put me in a place I wish I could always be, so content and so at ease with life. I could almost say I wouldn't change a thing about my life... well maybe one or two things, but those can come later. We rock climbed Saturday up at one of our favorite places to climb, Ruth's Lake, and I soon found out that I really do have a fear of heights...something I've never admited because impulse and pride always seem to override it. Jules and I cleaned two climbs that couldn't be more than a 5.8 and I let fear take over and I almost didn't follow through. 25 mins later, I cleaned it and felt quite accomplished if I don't say (completely silly I know) but hey, I'm 25...no time to woose out now! My family joined us Sat. night and we played some hilarious games around the campfire following dirty boy chicken.. mmmm! I love the Uintas, I love summer and I love my friends and family. Thanks again everyone!!

Music is my escape

I've had a mix of several different emotions today and I found myself changing my playlist to fit my mood. While doing this, I realized that music is my escape... (Nice picture eh? None of this music makes me hate anyone.. I just thought it was creative.) Last week was Fleetwood Mac and this week I'm on a big kick with the Killers (particularily their album Day & Age.) The song 'This is your life' has some interesting lyrics and I found myself relating to them as I drove the canyon this morning to work. "The sky is full of dreams...but you don't know how to fly." Lately I've been feeling short on chasing my dreams and can feel something about to give, but I don't know when where or how. I wish I had the creative mind of song writers, sometimes I find they can say it better than I can put into words. However, sometimes I'm disappointed by lyrics. Take for example "Arizona" by Kings of Leon... one of my favorites, the rhythm, the guitar solo and the drums just do something to me., but the lyrics are about a whore house in Arizona... Gotta love those kinds of lyrics. Anyway, enjoy the selection I've created...maybe you too can find your escape ;)

Havasupai

An Oasis in the middle of the Grand Canyon

Ahhh yeah!! Talk about one heck of a hike!

Nate, Me, Mowgli and Nicco in front of Havasu Falls

What a sight for sore eyes! After a 10 hour drive, 3 1/2 hours of sleep in the parking lot beneath an array of endless stars and an 11 mile hike in with packs on our backs, this was our destination!Havasu Falls up close and personal...

The Crew in front of Mooney Falls

Thanks to Mowgli for putting this all together, it ended up being such a fun weekend! We camped down river from Havasu falls between two small rivers. There were tons of people down there and we found out after 9 miles in, that you can helicopter into the village just 2 miles from the campground for $85.. talk about a cop-out! Good thing we took it HC (hard core for those of you not on the trip) and packed in like mules! There was plenty of fun to be had away from people and we wore ourselves out the entire time. I don't have room to post all my pictures here, but I will create a slideshow of the rest. Our journey to Beaver falls on Saturday was probably the most fun I've ha d all year. We hiked down river about 3 miles wading in and out of the river and pretty much the whole day was spent cliff jumping, rope swinging, sliding down waterfalls, crazy stallions and cheating death with my lousy back flip attempt. I'd say that day topped my charts!
Anyone interested in doing this trip, I give it two thumbs up!! Word of warning: get in shape, it's not an easy one! I figured throughout the whole 4 days, we hiked about 32 miles if not more and I thought I was in pretty good shape... Not so! You can bet we crashed the second we got out of that canyon. We drove straight to Kingman for In and Out burgers. Ahh, food never tasted so good...yeah I pounded two, not one, but two fully loaded burgers...mmm. I miss the trip already!

MOAB ROUND 4

This is our 4th annual girls moab trip and there was no better way

to hit it off than a night at the brewery getting wing' faced!

This is a picture from Suzette Baird's blog.

I LOVE MOAB!!

For sake of keeping up with my sisters on the blogging, I had to steal these two photos off Suzette Baird's blog since I never blog when I get home (hope you don't mind Sue!) This years adventure brought 7 of us down to Moab this time; Mel, Jules, Jen, Mady, Suzette, Terrin and I (and Jude...I guess that's 8). We rafted the river which was an adventure - rain, getting stuck in eddies, floating up stream, bailing half way down the river.. oh what fun! The food was good, the company was great and we even stopped at Goblin Valley on the way home, something I've always wanted to see! Mel, Jules, Jen, Jude and I hiked Little Wild Horse canyon. We didn't hike the whole 8 mile loop because of the dog and thing for fear of flash flooding. Anyone in for another weekend adventure let me know!!

Winter Fun!

Which of the following statements are not true:
A: Nichole loves to ski
B: Nichole loves birght colors
C: Nichole loves mustaches

If you answered C you are correct! Although it may appear in the picture above that I love mustaches... I really don't ;) But I have such a love for skiing and this season I've been fortunate enough, after using the same skis for the past 6 seasons, to finally updated my ski garb - Thanks to my great job working for the Rossignol Group. My choice of colors...very bright like the rainbow.

This winter has been fun-filled and very social. I just moved into a new house in Sugar House with three of my good friends and you can imagine, I don't get much sleep! Every Saturday has been mandatory Canyons ski/ride day due to the fact that I work M-F 8:30-5...yeah, I'm growing up big time! Skiing has definitely been just for me this winter and I don't cringe at the thought of being obligated to teach for the first time in 3 years. I have much to catch up on so stick around, there's more to come.

2009 DO IT RIGHT!

Hostess with the mostest!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I don't know why we felt the need to throw another party but this one about did me in! Jules, Mel, Jen and I threw another party at Rice Eccles Stadium (who are more than difficult to work with.) It was a lot of fun but very stressful and time consuming. I would not recommend using that venue to anyone! Now our DJ Matt Bell...whoa hold the phone! He did such a great job and I would recommend him to anyone. It was a fun way to ring in the new year. But nothing would top the first few days of the new year (most of which was spent in the car...but totally worth it!)

N*O*L*A

UTAH vs. ALABAMA 31-17

Destination: New Orleans
Travel time: 56 hrs
Total driving distance: 3600 miles
States traveled: 7
Days off work: 4
Trip total cost:$150

I found out a year ago from my good friend Chelsea Clouate from Louisiana, that New Orleans was also referred to by the acronym N.O.L.A. which is my first name. Little did I expect to visit the crazy city one year later. About 4 hours after our new years party, Jen and Mel dragged me out of bed and into the car headed for Louisiana. I was anything but bright eyed and bushy tailed at the thought of spending my four-day weekend in a car. But I have, what Mel refers to as FOMO (fear of missing out) and couldn't pass this up. We drove 28 hours on merely 3 hours of sleep, ran out of gas in Texas, (nice one mel!) and entertained each other with random gas station purchases... candy cigarettes and whoopie cushions to illustrate some. We detoured through Durango and Ouray which made for quite the scenic trip and made it to our ghetto hotel on Canal St. only a few hours before game time in time for some good ol' southern ribs and jambalaya.

GO UTES!!!

The game was incredible!

We scored tickets for $30 outside from a scalper. Of course we didn't sit where the seats were, we stole into the lower bowl near Jules and Covey who had flown down the day before and enjoyed the victorious win from the 20th row. We were only about 9,000 strong in the arena but out cheered Alabama. The sound of our fans cheering "UNDEFEATED" was enough to make me cry! Oh I love my Utes! After the game, we the fans flooded to Burbon street, where we met up with more friends, ate pizza and stayed out till 3 in the morning. Oh what a trip! Less than 10 hours later we would head back 28 more hours of driving to Utah. Oh what fun it is to be 24 in 2009!

Happy Holiday Cheer!

Christmas time! I know it's been a while, I thought I'd throw a few pics of the holiday cheer before I started into 2009. The whole family was here and we celebrated christmas in Park City at mom and dad's. The most exciting part was finding out the Darrick and Kellie are going to have a girl! Oh yeah...they're pregnant.. I forgot it's been a while. I'm going to be an aunty!!!