Merry Christmas from Montana!

Some entertainment from Dark Kitty and White Kitty…they seem to enjoy their present!

And Merry Christmas from the foxes on the roof!

I recently hit 10,000 page views!

Thems a lot of views!

Happy Halloween

One of my bear friends would like to wish you all a very happy Halloween!

Have you ever wondered how to make a tutu?

Well, then I have an amazingly wonderful surprise for you!

I’ll be sporting one of these bad boys for an upcoming mud run!

Rainier

I’ve been super non-posty lately because of overwhelming busyness over the past several months. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m involved with SheJumps and have been in the midst of getting events set up across the Southeast!

I’ve also been training to climb a mountain!

For months I’ve been hiking every weekend with a pack FULL of water bottles to get ready to attempt to summit Rainier.

Unfortunately, weather stood in the way of us reaching the summit. The guides said it was a no-go when the conditions turned to ~80 mph winds, rain, sleet, and no visibility. It was awesome being back in WA and a great experience being on Rainier though! I’ll be back at it with my brothers next year for round 2!!!

King of the Butterflies

On one of my recent hikes, I made a new friend. A butterfly friend. It landed on me 20+ times, so I had to kindly let it know that it would be smashed by my backpack (inadvertently) if it didn’t flutter away. That along with the erratic flailing that followed sent my butterfly friend on its way.

(The little white thing on my shoulder is the butterfly!)

SheJumps Regional Coordinator

I’ve been named the Southeast SheJumps Regional Coordinator! I’ve written about this organization before, but now have a larger part in it and am so thrilled and honored to be involved!

Check out my introduction on the Southeast page here. And get involved! You can reach out to me or your region’s coordinator for more info.

Here’s me doing my best at modeling our shirt featuring the amazingly awesome Girafficorn! I’m real good at modeling.

Injury Sminjury

I have a way of convincing myself that all injuries I have should be ignored. Maybe that’s why I’ve had several surgeries in the last few years that have required surgery.

In case you were wondering, I haven’t always listened to doctors either. Especially when I was wrestling! After my compartment syndrome surgery I have learned to actually listen to my body and back off when I need to back off – recovering from surgery isn’t fun and I don’t want any repeats.

March – April: Skiing & the flu!

I spent a few weeks of this spring in Montana on a ski trip, and when I came back I immediately caught the flu. I guess leaving Montana literally makes me sick!

I put together an edit of my spring ski trip, but unfortunately for you all do not have a flu edit. It would have been a riveting tale of a girl sleeping on her couch with Kleenex up her nose.

4 easy rules for not being a jackass at a coffee shop

My good friend Ccoofe and I share similar views when it comes to appropriate coffee shop behavior. If you follow these simple rules, you won’t be hated by everyone in the room!

#1 is simple, don’t assume the the world stops for you:

#2 is even more simple – listen with your ears, not your thirsty mouth:

#3 should apply to all situations always, everywhere – back up:

#4 is just good sense – the Irish know how it’s done:

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

To be honest, #4 won’t win you any friends at a coffee shop and will likely get you arrested. Irish coffee is a delicious drink though (and is served at restaurants!).

Winter 2012/2013 Skiing…& “Skiing Like A Girl”

Lately I haven’t been in the right mindset to make funny posts, but hopefully that will change soon. In the meantime, I want to share my edits from this year’s winter ski trip. First I created this:

Then, I decided I had to make a video to “This Is What Makes Us Girls.” This song seems to jab at girls through a negative view of where their passion lies. This girl’s passion lies in being active in the outdoors, specifically skiing…so this is what makes me a girl!

To so many people skiing, surfing, running, <fill in the blank> “like a girl” is an insult. And compliments on athletic ability to women are usually followed by “for a girl,” as in you’re a good swimmer…for a girl. That insulting qualifier ultimately has caused many female athletes to want to distance themselves from the thought of being “like a girl” in the world of sports. But, to me “being a girl” is a compliment. Girls have the ability to go hard and be tough athletes while still maintaining a level of grace and elegance that’s unique to the fairer sex. So I am proud to ski like a girl!

This is what I consider a good time!

This winter I spent about 2.5 weeks in Big Sky on a ski trip! The wind, as usual, was blowing like crazy. There wasn’t a lot of fresh snow during the trip, so the wind was actually a major plus. We found a few amazing stashes of powder deposited from the wind. One of which was on the first day out – the wind built up some great snow on Challenger!

Here’s a clip of what the chair lift ride looked like:

It was not a pleasant ride up, but the ride was more than worth it for the conditions on the slopes.