summer fun-kelly clarkson concert

growing up in north carolina we had an outdoor concert venue. concert tickets were really cheap to see really good people. i went pretty often and loved it. 
i've been to a handful of concerts at our outdoor venue here and love it every time. my taste in music often varies from my friends so i definitely don't see as many concerts as I did back in the day. kelly clarkson played last weekend, and i was so happy sage and tiffany wanted to go. 
pre concert flash tats-our fave

we met early for dinner at texas roadhouse and headed over to the concert. we got our spots on the grass and waited for the concert to start. we sat through a few random openers, the pentatonix, and then kelly came on. 

i love her music! i actually saw her years ago at a freedom fest. the sound was all kinds of a mess before so i was excited to see her in a better venue. she was amazing! her voice i so good, and she is just as good live. it was a little bit of a brisk night which made it perfect to sit outside and listen to music with friends. i love loved it, and i'm so happy we went.

2014 year in review

back in october i got an email from nicole about her year in review link up. she's smart and gave us all a big head start on the post. i am not as smart and didn't take advantage of the time she gave us. it's been fun looking back on 2014. i can't believe today is the last day. it's a link up so head on over to nicole's blog and link up.

What did you do in 2014 that you’d never done before? ran a rock n roll marathon

Did you keep your new years’ resolutions? Will you make more in 2015? yes and no and yes

Did anyone close to you give birth? one of my fave friends had a baby girl

Did anyone close to you die? i didn't blog about it, but my college roommate lost one of her twin toddlers at the beginning of december

What countries did you visit? i traveled to st george, las vegas, missouri, nashville, california, california again, st george again and again, hawaii, st george again and california but never left the US this year

What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? come back tomorrow for my 2015 word reveal

What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory? december 22-i turned 35 and instead of freaking out like i thought i would, i felt so loved

What was your biggest achievement of the year? finishing my 10th marathon

What was your biggest failure? not finding the balance i hoped for

Did you suffer illness or injury? thank the heavens no, but i probably will always have hip issues

What was the best thing you bought? plane tickets

Whose behavior merited celebration? brassy apple launching the brave and beautiful movement

Where did most of your money go? travel

What did you get really excited about? visiting family and traveling to hawaii with friends

What song will always remind you of 2014? all about that bass

Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder? definitely happy

Thinner or fatter? probably about the same

Richer or poorer? about the same 

What do you wish you’d done more of? sleep

What do you wish you’d done less of? stress

How will you be spending Christmas? in california with my sister and her family (recap coming next week)

Did you fall in love in 2014? i wish

How many one-night stands? totally not my style

Who were your best friends? i'm lucky to have blog friends, church friends, running friends, work friends, college friends, old roommate friends, friends of friends, travel friends, neighbors, etc. i'm blessed to have many friends

What thing did you do that was meaningful to others? 35 days of something for others

What were your favorite TV shows? the bachelor, bachelorette, bachelor in paradise

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? i honestly don't hate anyone

What was the best book you read in 2014? the power of full engagement

What was your greatest musical discovery? i basically follow the crowd with music

What did you want and get? a new camera lens, blendtec, silhouette

What did you want but did not get? a husband:)

What were your favorite films this year? i only saw one movie in the theater this year-meet the mormons, and it was very well done

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i turned 35 (yikes) and flew to california that morning

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? my year was already very satisfying. the one main thing missing from my life is a husband/family

What kept you sane? exercise+spending time with friends and family

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? i usually keep up on celeb gossip, but there isn't one that i care more about than others

What political issue stirred you the most? issues regarding the family and religion

Who do you miss? my family

Who are the best new persons you met this year? i met a lot of great people, but the best story is meeting jacque in the bathroom at bright night. we stood in the front of the bathroom and chatted for 20 minutes. i'm still not sure why we didn't walk out of the bathroom and keep talking

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014. i can do hard things

Quote that sums up the year: my all time favorite quote is perfect for the year. "we must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us" --joseph campbell 

i loved looking back on the year. the link up is open until january 6 so there's plenty of time to link up.

2014 in months

i really can't believe we are already at the end of 2014. this year went by faster than i can even believe. this week i'll be looking back on the year and looking ahead to 2015. the year was fast but also very full. in january, i went down to st.george to run a 1/2 marathon (to get into the full in the fall) and spend the weekend with friends. i also blogged about running and the bachelor. kimberly and i continued our monthly link-up in february, and i started taking more outfit pictures. in march i went to arizona to visit friends. i went to the new gilbert temple, spring training baseball game, a blogger meet up, and caught up with friends. in april i went to nashville to run the nashville rock n roll marathon with robyn and alli. i flew into missouri and spent time with family and met up with blogger friend carrie before going to nashville. laurann and i went on an impromptu tanning trip to vegas for the weekend. i also wore blue every day for autism awareness month. chelsea and jeff decided to take the kids to disneyland one more time before moving to northern california so i decided to join them in may. in june we had a family reunion with my mom's family for the first time in 10 years. we all had a great time together. in july i went back to california to help jeff and chelsea move. we celebrated the 4th there. in august i stayed in town and trained for more marathons and planned for the fall. in september, i ran the big cottonwood marathon to prep for st. george. i also hosted a blogger sleepover/mini-conference. in october i ran the st-george marathon. i had a pretty rough time and decided it's time to take a break from full marathons until i can get a little faster. i spent a week in hawaii in november and ended the trip with a few days in california. i also spent thanksgiving in st.george. december has been busy as usual but also very enjoyable. i got things done a little earlier this year so the holiday were nice. i spent the holidays in northern california. i also turned 35 and celebrated many times. this year has been busy for sure but also very fulfilling. i can't wait to see what 2015 has in store. how was your year? i'm linking up with silver lining and a cute angle

weekend recap

the weekends go by way too fast. i'm totally jealous of people who are off on either friday or monday, but they probably feel like the weekends go really fast too. the weekend started a couple of hours early with an after work work party. my boss is moving to another program so we had a farewell party for her.

the cake was supposed to honor her legacy of always fighting for us to have the funding we need, etc. but there was a little perfectly hilarious mix up at the bakery

i met camille at the az blogger meetup, and i was excited when she told me she was coming town. we met up friday evening for dinner. dinner turned into dessert which turned into hours and hours of blog talk and chit chat. i loved every minute of it.

amberly, camille, me
i woke up saturday morning with every intention of running, but after coughing my head off all night long i decided it probably wasn't a great idea. missing a saturday run is pretty detrimental to my once a week training mentality. i went up to park city to help the martin fam (my adopted utah family) take family pictures. they wanted me to come help get all 19 kids to look at the camera which actually happened. i love that family so much, and i was happy to help them and spend the evening with their family.

i am the worst sick person. i know everyone hates being sick, but i am so bad at it. even though i slept in a little on sunday, i woke up feeling like i got run over by a truck. i'm not very good at slowing down and trying to get better. luckily my church is a little later so i had some time to rest. laurann invited a few people over to watch the usa vs portugal soccer game, eat some waffles from her new waffle business (flippin waffles), and paint our nails. the game obviously had some exciting moments, but overall it was a low key, fun day.

how was your weekend? anything exciting happen? PS...in keeping with my i'm all over the place theme, i have a few giveaways going on beat the heat ends today. enter now! ($50 amazon) birthday giveaway ($200 amazon + the creative habit) why i need a husband (essie nail polish x2)

2103: Year in Review

i'm kind of dying that today is the last day of 2013. this has been such a great year. i'll be back tomorrow with a very short recap of my goals for 2013 and new goals for next year, but for now, here's how i spent 2013(with clickable links)... january...started the year staying up until 4:00am watching movies, hot tubbing, goal setting, eating, etc with friends at laurann's house

 went to lava hot springs for the first time. i got sick and mostly failed to document the weekend.

 february...#monthofhair...different hair style everyday

 trip to missouri to visit the fam

 march...celebrated easter at brynn's orphan dinner

also attended my first blogger roundtable hosted by bonnie and elizabeth where i met blogger friend april IRL and decided to get a little more serious about blogging

 april...stayed in town for spring break

got together with current and former co-workers

we laughed and talked and played with babies

and then i did a bouffant bun tutorial for them

 in support of autism awareness month, i wore blue everyday

 may...girls night with girls from work

 another blogger roundtable where i met more great girls including deidre (lovetheskinnys)

 i did my first 30x30 fashion challenge mostly to see if i could really do it. turns out i could, and i also made some really great blog friends.

 i spent the second half of the month in st kitts, st thomas, and california. the trip(s) was exactly what i needed. i have never relaxed so much in my life.

 june...30x30 was over, but kimberly and i still wanted to collaborate so we started blogging the bach(coming back starting next week) together. we finally met IRL at another roundtable.

andrew and michelle found out they were having a baby girl when i made a gender reveal cake for them

 i made a goal to run 100 miles in the summer (training for a marathon made that pretty easy but it made me run more during the week)

july...celebrated the 4th in california

 i also spent a lot of time at the pool (my summer fave)

august...another night with the girls from work. we didn't mean to match. it just happened.

 i did 30x30 again. i love the challenge of mixing things up in my closet.

 megan came to town, and i was introduced to the slurp and a lot of great bloggers

in a bit of a whirlwind, i moved.

went to my first favorite things party. it was so fun spending the evening with old and new blog friends.

i soaked up the last little bits of summer

september...ran my first post surgery full marathon

went to california to visit family

 october...got together with some girls from instagram for a craft night

 loved fall more than i ever have before. i especially loved running this fall.

the bach ended, and kimberly and i missed our collabs so we started WHAT WOULD YOU DO...?

attempted to see the witches at gardiner village, but there were so many people there

dressed up as the 3 little pigs for playgroup at work

 november...ran the snow canyon half marathon

 did another 30x30 challenge with quite a few other bloggers

 spent thanksgiving in sunny st george

 december...made a lot of things with peppermint for WHAT WOULD YOU DO...?

went to festival of trees and gardiner village to see the elves

tried xtendbarre and had a fun hot cocoa party with blog friends.

 spent the holidays in california

 2013 was a great year full of fun, family, and friends.