Goodbye 20s

As I am the last of my friends to turn 30, I've really enjoyed reading their posts all year long about things they accomplished in their 20s. So to celebrate the big 3-0 today, I'll continue the tradition.

* Great American road trips. Road trips in college saw some fabulous hiking in places like Arches National Park, Canyonlands, Moab, Zion National Park, Capitol Reef and Escalante areas, Havasupai in Arizona; a couple of road trips to various parts of California (like waking up in college and just deciding to drive until we hit the ocean), and who knows where else. Too bad people didn't really have digital cameras much back then or I'd post some awesome pictures. Just imagine me skinny and buff doing lots of crazy stuff. :) Oh yeah, also a few friends' weddings in Seattle and St. George, and a super-lame trip with a then ex-boyfriend (the trip was already planned!) and some other friends to Nauvoo and the mid-west.

Then when we were married, Ryan and I took lots of good road trips from New York. We went up to parts of Massachussets (anyone else ever get into those get free stuff for going to time share presentations? Ryan loves those. I hate having to sit there knowing I'm just going to keep saying no to everything, so I refuse to do anymore, but we did get some free trips from them). We also went to Boston, Plymouth, and Cape Cod.
That was a crazy trip. Anyone know that Provincetown is a gay community? That made for some great people watching, and one of my favorite pictures of all times. I came out of one shop one time to find Ryan waiting for me Forrest Gump style like this:

I love the slight shifty eye, I'm-a-little-uncomfortable look Ryan has in this picture. I still really have no idea if that was a man or a woman sitting next to him.

But really interesting people watching and crazy stuff to see everywhere you looked. (And um, yes, these are men.)



We were also too cheap to get a hotel up there, so these were our accomodations:


We also visited the Jersey shore, and went to Atlantic City (super lame and ghetto compared to Vegas), but we did manage to sleep in the car at the Trump Hotel parking lot (once again, too cheap), went to Niagara falls and Palmyra, Ocean City Maryland, Philadelphia, Chicago a few times (when we lived in Milwaukee) and of course, just lived up our time in the Big Apple:

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:
Went to the Republican National Convention while we lived there:

Biked along the Hudson:



Danced with the crazy pink sports bra lady in Central Park (oh how she loved to just shake it for our babies):Walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (from the pier on the other side):


* Traveled for work all over the U.S. training doctors on medical software. Went to lots of small towns mostly, but also got to work in Beverly Hills at a very posh clinic (one doctor's roommate had just broken up with Matthew McConaughey), a cool and slightly creepy little town in Maine (but was there during an amazing time of year):


And Wasilla, Alaska (proud home of Sarah Palin).
View from the airplane flying in:

Got to take a flightseeing tour of Denali. Seriously crazy, you don't just fly and look at it - you weave in and out of these small canyons, and land on glaciers and stuff in a sketchy little prop plane.


And I also got to go to the Talkeetna Wilderness Woman Competition, where rather burly women race to chop wood, load it up on snowmobiles (snowmachines), shoot guns, and make some food and get a beer for their man - all to claim the title to be the next Wilderness Woman and get her pick from the "male order" catalog for a date to the evenings events. Crazy, but when else do you get to stand outside in below zero weather to witness something so wacky? The local moose was really trying to get me to participate. Luckily I kept pulling the pregnancy card.
* International trips: Japan, South Africa, Botswana, Italy, London, Paris, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

Cambodia:



* Graduated from college. Majored in Human Biology. Kissed lots of boys.

* Also became a hairdresser. Learned the art of reading trash magazines while at the salon.

* Was at my skinniest (yes, I was actually as skinny when I left on a mission, and at my wedding as I was in high school, probably only maintained that weight for like a week though).

* AND was at my fattest. Multiple times. And currently. I'm hoping that means it can only get better from here when I enter my 30s?

* Was even a red-head for about 2 seconds.


* Got a husband through medical school.
(He was the graduation speaker at his medical school graduation in Carnegie Hall). Then graduation dinner at the Waldorf:



* Had three babies (and that took less than 1/5 of my 20s).

*Lived in Provo, Utah

*Lived in South Africa and Botswana

* Lived in New York

* Lived in D.C. for a summer

* Lived in Wisconsin

* Lived in Miami



**** Made some amazing friends along the way****


Yeah, I guess it was a pretty good decade.