anniversary #5 and birthday #29

phew! we've had two very busy weekends in a row--last weekend we celebrated our 5th anniversary by going to moab, utah. david drove down friday morning so he could get a mountain bike ride in, and i drove down friday night after i got off work. friday was a beautiful, sunny, hot moab day, but saturday was overcast and sort of chilly. david got a really great photo of the canyon on friday, but all the photos from saturday are grey because of the clouds. when i got to the campgrounds, david had an anniversary dinner cooked over a fire waiting for me--very thoughtful.  we laughed a lot thinking about the five years we've been married--years 3-5 seemed to have passed so quickly we don't remember where they went.  one thing is certain, however: we are the best match for each other, and have helped each other grow and learn so much.  we love being together. 
the weather may have been disappointing, but we actually picked a great weekend to hike around arches national park--it was the one weekend a year for free admission!  

this is on the climb up to the delicate arch.  david likes this photo because he thinks it's "humanistically dramatic, with me looking into the distance at the dangerous path ahead, contemplating my mortality"...i was really just excited to get a water break once we got to the top.   

these are random hikers getting their family christmas photo under the arch.  i'm putting this one on our blog so you can see the ratio of the arch to a human.  it's huge--and amazing to sit at its bottom and realize it was caused by water and wind erosion over tens/hundreds of thousands of years.  we were hiking across what was once a river bed!

this is a view of the arch from the backside, a view that i think shows the erosion a little better than the typical front view.

i love the red rock desert landscape.  the park was a very unique localization of this type of terrain.

for my birthday, i decided to take myself on a 75-mile bike ride, although it didn't start out that way.  david had registered through the ups team to join the ms ride in logan, ut.  this was a charitable event in which all proceeds would go to multiple sclerosis research.  the plan was to drive to logan, stay the night with my friend cindy friday night, and david would do the 100-mile ride saturday morning while i went to the mall with cindy for pedicures and some shopping.  i'd take pictures of david at the start and finish line, and then we'd go home.  friday evening as david was leaving work, he called me to ask if i'd like to participate on the team; someone had dropped out.  i said sure, and planned on doing the 40-mile ride (there was a 40-mile, 75-mile, and 100-mile ride option)... 


friday night we drove through a huge thunderstorm on the way up to logan, and we were hoping we wouldn't be riding in that kind of weather on saturday...
cindy made me a beautiful fruit bowl for my birthday and she and her husband and two adorable boys sang happy birthday.

saturday morning before heading out on the ride.  david is excited for the 100-mile ride, and i'm feeling somewhat anxious about the 40-mile ride i'd planned on--david does huge rides all the time, but the most david and i have ever ridden together is 30 miles, with a 4-5 mile climb, and that took about 2 1/2 hours.

here's the whole ups team, minus one guy who showed up late.  

there were thousands of people participating in this ride--the logan fairgrounds were covered with tents, radio djs, advertising, etc.  it was pretty fun to be a part of that energy.  they started the riders in waves of about 50; david started in the 3rd wave, and i was in the 6th wave.  when we left for the lineup, we kissed and told each other good luck and to be safe.  david thought he would do his 100 mile ride in 4 1/2-5 hours, and as i would ride 40 miles in about 2-2 1/2 hours, i carried the keys in my bike pouch and didn't carry my phone.  

riding the bike was awesome.  i made it to the 40-mile split point in 1 hour 30 mins and felt great, so i decided to keep going for the 75 mile ride.  i knew if i ate consistently and maintained a good cadence and heart rate, i'd be able to finish strong.  sure, i got passed a lot, but i stuck with every goal i made for myself along the way, and i passed some riders, too!  and i finished, which was an awesome feeling.  david finished in his estimated time, and saw that i wasn't there, and didn't have keys to get into the car, so he was pretty nervous that something had happened to me, or that i'd seriously bonked and was walking somewhere in the fields of utah/idaho.  it never even crossed his mind that i'd kept riding to do the 75-mile ride.  so when i crossed the finish line all smiles, and shouting, "david i did it!", he thought i was referring to the 40 mile ride.  when i told him i did the 75-mile ride, his jaw dropped!  that was the highlight of my day.  

overall stats:  
david rode 100 miles in 4 hours 20 mins

burned 7060 calories

i rode 75 miles in 5 hours

burned 4300 calories

don't worry--we replaced all those calories by eating dinner at tucanos!!  and the only thing sore today is my sunburn.

the poll answer

of the six voters we got, 50% were right!  i don't know if you were guessing, or if you'd seen the article, but good job!  here's the link to the article saying that cats really are dumb...

quote of the day

"If we know their limits we won't expect too much of them, which in turn is important for their welfare. I am not trying to say [they] are stupid, just they are different. We are so anthropomorphic we can't see the world through their eyes."

in a recent article, an expert made the above statement.  i substituted [they] for who/what the expert was referring to.  cast your vote...answer will be posted in a week.

ches certified

i am a certified health education specialist--i found out today i passed the ches exam i took in april.  this is the national certification that accredits community health education majors.  this is an exam i paid to take, prayed to pass, and now that i have passed, i get to accrue 75 continuing education credits over the next 5 years and pay to renew my certification.  this makes me laugh for two reasons:

1. when i tell people i graduated in community health education, i get a confused look and they ask, "what does that mean?", or, "so, that focuses in...?", or, "so, is that like a nurse?"  in the most general of definitions, a community health major focuses on preventing disease and promoting health within a community.  typical occupational settings include a public health department, workplace wellness programs, hospital health education outreach programs, etc.  in a health department, for example, the health educator would visit middle schools or elementary schools teaching about tobacco prevention, std education, or promoting gold medal school dietary lunch programs.  within a hospital, the health educator would educate patients, families, or community members about cancers, diabetes, or healthy lifestyle choices.  
2. now that i am ches certified, and tell people i am a certified health education specialist, i am sure i will get confused looks again.  in the most general of definitions, a ches is a professional who designs, conducts, and evaluates activities and or programs that help improve the health of a community. 

in case anything i wrote above sounded like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, just remember this:

HEALTH + NERD = CHES