Nothing in Particular

 

Made this banner to celebrate my parents' full vaccination, but taped the second word on backwards.  We're been trotting out the Noitaniccav banner for our own vaccination milestones too.

It will soon be the best month of the year.  The month in which I basically get two parties for myself, approximately only one week apart.  And I get to plant stuff.  This year I think we're getting 9-13 different kinds of tomatoes.  Just for fun.  

Yesterday (for me) and today (for Paul), we are now, as best a family can be, officially vaccinated against COVID-19.  The first thing I did was restart my Orange Theory membership.  It was weird to be back in that little gym - but I was so glad that I wasn't so scared anymore.  Some things were different, but most was the same.  I liked seeing the old couple I remembered and feeling how the treadmills are still awesome (they have some kind of...bouncy give? to them that is really satisfying).  I absolutely lost basically...all...the tiny gains in upper body strength I had made last-last winter though.  I did one bicep curl on the weight I remembered using before and literally laughed out loud.  Oh well.  That's all to be expected.  Point is, I burned 550 calories in an hour and today I can't lift my arms over my head and I'm so happy about it.

Paul is so excited to go back to the UVU gym too.  Apparently their treadmills have screens that make it look like you're running through various places in Germany/England/Spain/France/Switzerland.  He's excited to "travel" again.

On the information sheet I had to fill out to get my membership going again, it asked me, "When were you in your best physical condition?"  For me it had to be senior year in college when I was on the Ballroom Team (not the fancy one. The "locally-touring" one).  I was dancing 1-2 hours every day and just walking to-from classes and my apartment.  I wasn't "working out" at all.  I've never been very interested in "working out" actually.  Much better if it's built into my day - living in Boston without a car, working and going to school on a sprawling campus, only having bikes in Europe.  I miss living in places designed to make simple built-in healthy things the norm.  It's one of the main reasons we looked in this very particular neighborhood actually.  On the face of it, it's not any different than any other place.  But it's a mile away on connected sidewalks to quite a lot of things.  Parks, library, two very nice mall/commercial/entertainment complexes, schools, a ton of restaurants, Trader Joes...  I hope we can figure out how to take advantage of that more.

What else....mmm.  We think we finally have enough saved to repipe our house.  We're getting quotes this week on that.  It will be a huge pain but also a huge relief to just get it over with.

We're finally going to Oregon again - after the pandemic shut down our UVU Field Trip in 2020.  In a way, this may be better because we won't have to worry about a bunch of students too.  On this first return, I think it's good to just be us.  We've rented a little one bedroom house by Bastendorff Beach and we'll road trip there and back.  I'm looking forward to it so much.

Oh and we also did our first mini family trip over a long weekend a couple weeks ago when we were in-between vaccinations.  We went to say goodbye to my grandmother (who is fully vaccinated thanks to me and my sisters, and who is moving to AZ) in St. George.  Man.  St. George.  It's like a whole thing now.  I never thought much of St. George but this last trip we kept looking at each other and saying....maybe we should....do this more often?  Snow Canyon was particularly great with the two boys.

Then we drove the loooooong way home through Zion, on the 12, past Bryce, through Grand Staircase, through Boulder Mountain (BOULDER MOUNTAIN!  Who knew??).  Spent the night in Torrey and did the Hickman Bridge hike with the boys the next morning in Capitol Reef. (And, of course, had some pie in Fruita.) It was kind of ridiculously idyllic.

Also?  ALSO. Grand Staircase Escalante???  Route 12??????  It's SO amazing and weird and beautiful.  That was maybe in my top 5 best drives I've ever done.