Getting Political

I'm not one to really voice my opinions on controversial topics.  I don't like confrontation, and if I can avoid I will.  So in a nut shell, I tend to not talk about politics, religion, major issues, etc.  I've noticed it causes major tension, and I would prefer to just not deal with that.  But...with that being said I am going to address the gun issues.

I grew up in an extremely Republican house.  Did I mention extremely?  My Dad had an NRA sticker on his car, had a gun case, all I knew about when I was little that all Republicans were the way to go, and that I was Republican.  Oh how the apple did fall far from the tree.  I don't know if it's from being married to Evan, who is very in the middle (more Democrat somedays though) but we are gradually moving further and further away from the Republican views.  What happened on Friday broke my heart.  I found myself crying while reading the article, just imagining what those poor parents were going through.  And how easily it could've been prevented.  Europe uses ratios for instance.  They allow x amount of guns per 100 people.  I think this is an OUTSTANDING idea.  Did I mention I love this idea??  Why in heavens name does someone need 10 guns at their home?  That is how all these massacres keep happening.  My Dad uses guns in his everyday life, I was raised to know these weren't a toy and they were kept locked in a gun case where I had no clue where the keys were.  Does anyone remember the stabbing that happened in 1999 or 2000?  Two boys got in a fight over a video game and the other boy stabbed his friend, I believe like 20 times too.  That boy that killed...lived 3 doors down from me.  My parents took weapons extremely seriously, and didn't joke about it.  And when something like that stabbing happened they sat me down and talked to me about how this should never happen if I ever got mad, etc. etc.  I regress...the point of this entire blog is I think America has gotten so Republican and is crying from the roof tops about their right to bear arms, that it has literally spun out of control.  I'm a firm believer of when it's your time to go, it literally is.  So if someone breaks into my house and has a gun and I don't, maybe it was my time?  I know that's very morbid, but I don't believe every single person needs a Colt 45 in their night stand.  That is how these shootings are happening.  Little kids see their parents with guns around the home.  Not locked up, not taught how it should be handled, nothing. They play these violent games on Playstation or Xbox, and think "hey, the video game can do it, I should be able to".  If we followed Europes laws, I honestly think death from guns would lower.  I think it is ridiculous how out of hand this has gotten and how Republicans are leading this crazy band wagon of guns, guns, guns.  And if the government has any hand in it then are going into an anarchy and a socialized communist government.  First I want to say to those people, do your research.  Seriously.

At the end of the day what happened in Connecticut is devastating.  I'm proud to call Obama our President from the speech he gave.  Extremely proud actually.  I think America needs to come together and reach an agreement because things like this can't keep happening.  I guarantee there are parents who are petrified to drop their kids off for school now, because the idea is what's next?  Morgan Freeman had a good comment on the whole ordeal, in a summary he basically said that we need to stop giving these killers the spotlight.  That's why they are doing these things.  Let's focus on the victims, and how full their lives were, and how we can help to prevent these things.  Overall gun laws need to become stricter, I don't think anyone off the street should receive one.  Actually I think a select few should have one.  (And now I am stepping off my soap box).

Work

Lately, all we do is work.  Literally.  7 days a week, close to 12 hour days or more.  I can't say how proud I am of Evan for basically spear heading all of production.  He got a promotion, which he is now factory manager.  What I don't think people understand is how BIG of a deal this is.  He is in charge of the entire back end.  So production, tuning, quantities, sizing, the make of the skis, basically everything.  And he has had no experience with this, only 6 months under our engineer soaking up as much as he could.  In a nut shell he is a amazing.  I can't say enough how amazing he is.  He is getting up at 6am to be here to get everything ready for people to start coming in at 8:30, and then is staying easily until 8 or 9 at night.  He is kicking butt at his job and I admire everything about how he is handling it and managing it.  He had me help him count quantities, such as elements (bases, tops, cores, fiberglass rolls, etc.) and I was completely overwhelmed.  I don't feel like he gets enough praise for how much he is doing, and he is only one person.  Seriously, I don't think I can explain how hard he works.  He does it all without complaining too, just puts his head down and gets the work done.  He is honestly saving all our orders we need to get out for Christmas.  Basically in a nut shell, I married the best guy in the world and I can't express how much he does or works so hard for our family.  RAMP is lucky to have such a hard worker running their production.

And just for fun....here is an awkward picture of us from Mexico.   

These are the best margaritas ever made.  Holy yes.

Christmas...on time!

Every year we are frantically throwing up Christmas decorations on the 23rd.  Literally.  It's gotten pretty pathetic, and it doesn't feel like Christmas all month.  So this year, since Evan is home all month (hooray) I decided to start early.  We have this ghetto tradition of getting our Christmas trees at Rite Aid.  Keep in mind we are shopping for the tree on the 23rd, so this is literally the only place that still has any left.  This year, to keep with the "Gravenstein" tradition, Evan made me get our tree at Rite Aid.  So after finishing my Christmas shopping, and getting all our decorations out (I am still missing a wreath...but that's besides the point) I feel like our house is in full Christmas yumminess.  I love love love the smell of Christmas.  The real tree smell mixed with those pine cones you can get?  Holy yum.  So basically I'm in heaven at my house right now smelling like Christmas everyday, I think it's inspired me to actually make dinner every night this week.  I'm on a roll.  May not be on a running roll (Kerry...I suck this last week..haven't been once)  But I'm relishing in the small victories.  Also Evan has been letting me listen to Christmas music everyday without complaints, and watch all the cheesy Christmas movies on TV.  We are in full Christmas mode at our house, and it's positively wonderful.  I love Christmas.

Our cute little Rite Aid tree

Alta is even in the Christmas spirit!!!  She loves her little outfit (I kid i kid...we only made her wear it for like 2 minutes...she hates this thing)

Foote Family Pictures

Yes...this never happens with my family.  But I feel like we are getting better...I think I'm forcing them to get better.  I think the Howards are rubbing off on me with doing things annually (it's a wonderful trait to have!)  So yes, I forced my family to take a picture since all of us got together in Oregon for Thanksgiving.  And I arranged outfits, and no I didn't follow it because I got too busy and couldn't find anything maroon.  Basically I failed, but I did organize my family which is hard to do.  Here are the results of the pictures.  We just used a timer on our camera, and a tripod.  Nothing fancy...but hey they turned out great I think!

The full family picture, with my grandparents (on my Mom's side)

What happens when we are testing the timer on the camera and Evan gets involved.

 

 It only took about 10 different shots, and we got in some "good light" according to Courtney.  If you can't tell she got a bit snap happy on the pictures.  And kept rearranging us, and clearly not telling us that she was taking pictures at the same time.  Gotta love sisters!  I'm glad she took all of these, because you can totally tell we are trying to arrange ourselves, and it's not going well.  And my Mom left us to our own devices on how we wanted the pictures done, so I was left at the mercy of my sister.  Which sometimes is not a good thing.

I love this picture of the two of them

We did pictures with siblings/spouses too.  We try to keep on this because I know we will love these pictures once we all have kids and what not.  I feel bad for Evan marrying someone with a sister so close in age, we get super weird together.

And here are my cute parents who made the whole weekend possible.  It was a great weekend with the family and seeing my Grandad for one final time.  He is the sweetest, nicest man and I will always remember how wonderful he was.

As of late

We head to Oregon tomorrow...well technically not we.  Since I'm in charge of shipping, customer service...and the list goes on..I honestly can't miss hardly any work.  So Evan is driving, breaking it into two days so I don't have a freak out thinking he is going to fall asleep, and then I have a one way ticket to leave tomorrow.  If you want to break into our house...yes we won't be there.  After this trip, Evan is officially home for the rest of the winter.  I was so so so excited when I found out he was going to be handling production at our factory, rather then be gone for 3 weeks at a time.

This may sound cheesy, but everything is better when Evan is home.  If the dogs poop in the house, it's funny when he's home.  When he's gone, I'm pissed that I have to clean up dog poop just because Torre hates me and is doing it to piss me off.  (As a side note, Torre is insanely smart, and she honestly does things on purpose when Evan is gone.  I'm not just saying that)  So basically this will be the best winter ever.  We actually got season passes because we will be able to ski together...what a weird thought!!  Overall, needless to say I'm stoked.

In other news, nothing is going on.  I did Ragnar two weeks ago, it was an interesting experience to say the least.  But here are some pictures from my phone, since that's the only way we take pictures these days.  I'll have Evan do a post with all the awesome pictures he took over the last two weeks being on the road.

My best friend is pregnant, and is hands down the cutest little prego girl.  We've been friends since we were 16, and whenever we get together it's like time hasn't changed.

See this?  I ate the WHOLE thing.  It's chocolate covered fake fruit.  And it was delicious...don't judge me.  Evan was gone.

Yes, you are seeing this correctly..Torre is literally hugging Evan.  He had a two day break in between all his trips.  And Torre literally wouldn't let him out of her site.





Don't ask...I don't know what he is doing, but he was home.  I get to see his face tomorrow afternoon!!!

I saw this today:

"life is about to be lived without regrets and in full."

I couldn't agree more with this quote.  This past weekend I was pushed mentally and physically and came out on the other side grateful for my loved ones that are always there for me.  The saying family is thicker then blood has never rang so true in my head.  With this being the month of being thankful, I have never felt more support or love from my family.  The people I'm referring to know exactly who they are and how thankful I am for them, and the situations.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything.

The Big 27

We have a running joke in our group of friends that 27 is when your dreams end and you have to accept that your life is the way it is and move forward.  Once again, this is a running joke.  I'm not trying to say this is actually true.

I'm not sure if Evan was exactly pumped to be turning 27, because he is now in the official late 20s group.  As a side note though, this was the 4th birthday we have spent together.  Over the years I feel like you learn something new about a person every year you are with them.  New things you appreciate, or realize you take for granted.  This year was a huge milestone for us because Evan got an amazing new job which he loves, but he traveled all winter.  I'm not talking one or two weekends a month, try more along the lines for 2-3 weeks at a time.  It did test our relationship, and at the end of the season I feel like we were 500% stronger then we were before.  It taught me to appreciate Evan so much more, and don't take time we have together for granted.  Also I missed all the little things he did, yes even the farts.  I think when you don't have that person around, you miss all the things you might classify as "annoying"  I know personally for myself, I was thankful everyday Evan was home and would try to go out of my way to make him feel special when he was home.  Because being on the road for 2-3 weeks driving....it just doesn't sound fun.  But true to Evan form, everything was always great.  That's what I love about him, every single situation he can always turn into something either positive or funny.  There is never a situation he will enter that he will just constantly bash something, there is always something positive about it.  I'm so thankful I'm married to someone with that outlook because I need someone to make me laugh when it's a pretty dismal situation.

Over this last year, Evan has accomplished so much.  He has gotten a new job, basically revamped the whole demo program for the West (since there wasn't one, he basically invented it), is constantly making himself indispensable and a valuable employee, completely re-did our kitchen and dining room, got stitches from a broken toilet, has run 3 half marathons, ran a crazy hard leg at Ragnar, made me realize that nothing is too hard (example, Ragnar, broken foot, Evan saved the day), does everything with a smile on his face, the dogs literally worship the ground he walks on, is so sweet to people (even neighbors we hardly know), adores his family, has completely changed our financial situation because he is awesome with money, is constantly pushing me to become a better person because he is such a great example of what I want to be.  I adore Evan, not just love, I adore him.  He is literally the perfect piece to my puzzle and I couldn't be more thankful for him and that he was born.  October 11th is a pretty special day to me.  Spoiling the one I love because of everything he does for me and our little family.  Hope you had a wonderful birthday Evan.


Here are some pictures of him opening his presents yesterday!

 

He got a lot of cool ski stuff, beanies, long johns, socks, a wallet, Iphone cover, shirts, some shoes.  He has very specific things he asks for.  I love the list he comes up with every year because I would never in a million years guess that is what he wanted.

Big Cottonwood Half

We ran the Big Cottonwood half on Saturday, and it honestly was a fun and extremely pretty course.  Needless to say I didn't feel as prepared as I could have, but we finished regardless.  We signed up for this half primarily so I could prove to myself that I could do it.  I had just gotten my boot off my broken foot around August 6th, and literally had to retrain my body, on top of gradually building my foot back up.  If anyone has had to run on a recently broken foot, it is positively the most painful thing.  It was weeks of me coming home and Evan asked how it felt and I was almost in tears because it felt like it was never going to get better.  I was constantly icing my foot on top of having to take such a slow pace because my body literally couldn't run how I used to pre broken foot.  Needless to say it was frustrating.  But like everything, the constant encouragement and the determination I had to not fail at this, I eventually got back to where I was.  It literally felt like an uphill battle 90% of the time.  I think if I didn't have Kerry sending me texts saying to take it easy, and Evan telling me it will get easier I honestly don't know if I would've run for awhile.  After all these hurdles, being at the starting line on Saturday I felt proud of myself.  Not only for that, but knowing that I have such a great support system that doesn't give up on me either.  The morning was rough, I won't lie.  Evan and I had gotten back from vacation on Wednesday, we both had colds also.  So...we really weren't expecting any outstanding time results.  Kerry kicked butt at this race, literally.  She got 1:52, the new Howard record.  Jeramie was close behind her at 1:58.  Evan and I managed to get 2:04, which needless to say I was shocked.  With the all the things working against us, I had PR'd by 6 minutes.  It really was a sense of accomplishment, and realizing how far I had come in a month and a half.

We were attempting to get an action shot in the air, didn't turn out that way.  Jeramie cracks me up in this picture.

I just love these people!!

I will post some pictures from Mexico, we didn't take very many.  Surprise surprise.  But it was a nice week of relaxing by the pool, going to the beach, and drinking some fattening mixed drinks.  Overall a good vacation of doing nothing.  

This is us on the plane, 5am flight no big deal.

Overall it's been a good month!  Have no complaints whatsoever.

Phone pics

I'm getting pretty terrible with blogging.  I always forget to take pictures, or bring a camera.  So what results are I-phone pictures that are just so-so.  Here is a brief summary of our last week.

This is the usual at our house, or drive home.  Alta is in the front seat while Torre nervously paces in the back, and then she'll decide she wants to join the rest of the family in the front.  The result...Alta gets sat on.

We brought the girls to work last week.  Alta hid under my desk for the entire day.  She isn't exactly the bravest dog around.

We hit up Oktoberfest on Sunday.  Extremely fun like usual.  This was the only picture we took.

Alta normally has to sleep with a minimum of 3 pillows, she has upgraded to 6 as of last night.  

Overall, we've had a great week.  I still need to steal pictures from my wonderful sister in law for Lake Powell pictures.  That was extremely fun with the family.  Even though Evan says I'm terrible in the car..I can't help I have to stop every two hours to go to the bathroom...I get bored.  But we leave tomorrow morning bright and early for Mexico!  Hope everyone has a great week!

Mt. Timpanogos

Evan every summer wants to do a fairly challenging hike.  Last summer it was Mt. Olympus, which was pretty brutal, and this year he had his eye on Timp.  And no not the cave where it's paved and you have chain smokers walking up in their cut off jeans and wife beaters.  With the slight detour of breaking my foot, I have been really trying hard to get myself in condition to even attempt this hike.  It's fairly long and pretty steep and I didn't want to be the reason we didn't make it to the top.  Sunday morning rolled around, and we met my Dad at 6am to get to the trail head by 7.  It was very very early needless to say.  Once we got there, I saw our first wildlife spotting, my Dad almost literally ran smack into it too.

This was right by the trailhead, but still in the forest area.

My Dad literally didn't see the moose, and walked right past it

This was the moose standing in the middle of the parking lot.  And yes Torre wouldn't stop barking at it.

Got as close as we felt safe!

 This started the excitement of the day, and we hadn't even started hiking.  We were making incredible time considering how freaking steep it was.  And the trail really was so pretty.  Plus since we got up so early, it wasn't hot at all very comfortable for the elevation gain we were doing over the rocks and gravel.  (As a side note, this trail wasn't dirt about 75% of it was creek bed rock almost, so those little and big rocks that are extremely sharp.)

A really pretty waterfall we found near the start.

This is the gravel/rocks we were walking over.

We made it about a mile away from the top and Torre was really starting to struggle going over some pretty big rocks, so we decided to call it a day and head back down.  While we were stopped before we headed down, there were mountain goats literally about 100 yards away.  They are so amazing looking, it definitely made the hike that much more worth it.

Meanwhile Torre was having a hay day in the snow we found, she really was pretty good the whole way up.  She would play in all the water we found and snow.  Had no complaints the way up with her.

On the way down however, we started having some real problems.  We got to the parts where Torre had to walk over more gravel and she would just lay down and refuse to walk over it.  Evan would have to carry her over the fairly sharp rocks and then we were literally pushing/dragging her down because we weren't understanding why she wouldn't walk.  At every water area we found we were dumping water on her so we thought it was impossible she was that hot.  Finally it came to a point when Evan had put her down that she shouldn't even move.  That's when panic hit both of us, and Evan told me I had to go find water.  I ran literally as fast as I could down the mountain to find anything, because we had ran out of water dumping it on her.  Once I found some I sprinted back up the mountain to get it to them and he met me in the middle carrying her again.  Hands down the scariest thing ever.  After we had dumped literally 6 water bottles on her and she drank about two bowls of water she started responding again and did make it down.  I've never felt like the worst dog owner ever, I honestly didn't feel like it was that hot.  And please whoever is reading this, don't call animal control on us.  We do love our dogs.  Torre was pretty done the rest of the day.  We bathed her and put her on the couch when we got home and that is where she has stayed.  She really was having a blast before that all happened, so it's sad our day ended on that note.

Overall it was a great hike and so pretty.  And yes we are going to do it again since we were about a mile away from the top.  And this next time no Torre.  And Evan was the super hero of the day for walking 14 miles, and still finding the energy to carry our dog for 2 miles at least.  I have no clue how he did it, I tried carrying her and I literally made it 20 feet.  Thanks for being the best like always.


Also this weekend we did a demo at Jordanelle.  Alta apparently loves paddle boarding and would swim out to Evan so he could pull her on with him.  Also the Howards joined at the end of the day to try them out, it was a great end to a great day.  Minus the area around Jordanelle being on fire, that part wasn't the greatest.  And my in-laws had to evacuate since they were camping there for the night.  So they had a rather hectic end to their day.  I'm just glad everyone made it out safely, minus Oliver had a rather eventful night when they got home, poor little boy.

The huge flames from the fire!

This picture cracks me up, she was loving the water.