A quick trip to South Bend, Indiana

Kim, Camille and I made a quick weekend trip to South Bend, Indiana to watch BYU play Notre Dame.  I have always wanted to go to South Bend to watch a football game since I saw the movie Rudy when I was a teenager.  We definitely picked a great year to go.  Notre Dame was undefeated and returning to their old glory days.  BYU was not really in their glory days, but thankfully they put up a really good fight!

Unfortunately work was CRAZY busy (stupid Windows 8 launch called "Microtropolis") at the same time and I pretty much worked the entire trip except for during the game and our visit to campus.  I flew out at 5pm on Friday night and joined Kim and Camille who had been in Chicago since Wednesday.  I literally worked the entire flight and was crazy IMing all my developers coordinating what they needed to do.  I've never had a flight go by so fast in my entire life.  Thank goodness for in-flight WIFI now.  By the time I made it to the hotel it was 11pm so I pretty much chatted for a bit and then we went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went to get our rental car.  We were there with a couple other BYU fans with the same idea apparently.  We got the car and made the 2 hour drive down to South Bend.  It was actually a really pretty drive since the fall leaves were changing. I was working on my phone most of the time but I did take in some of the sights along the way.

Once we got to South Bend I put my phone away and enjoyed my experience there. First stop was "Touchdown Jesus."

Then we just walked through campus and took in all the sights.  The people there were very nice, just like they have been rumored to be.  Not at all like going to Rice Eccles :)

The fall leaves were just amazing.  This is one of my favorite pictures that Kim took of course with her awesome camera.  I love that Kim is our "friend historian."

We watched the players leave Mass.  I sadly overheard one of their event staff  folks explain to another Notre Dame fan that they "probably wouldn't be in there long.  If they were playing USC it might be over an hour though"  LOL!  Sad that they didn't think they needed much inspired help to beat BYU.

We watched all the Notre Dame players make "the walk" from the library to the stadium. It was cool to see all their fans line up and cheer very nicely for their team. 

It's nice that they hang the flag of whoever they are playing outside the stadium. BYU's flag is on the left.  I guess someone should tell them of our updated colors :)

The seats in the stadium were the same 100 years ago.  They are wooden benches throughout almost the entire stadium except for about 10 rows of yellow chair seats.  Notre Dame stadium seats about 80,000 but it still felt smaller than Cougar Stadium.  Probably because Cougar Stadium goes up instead of back. It was a really loud stadium though.

In the end BYU lost 17 to 14.  They had many shots to win the game, but unfortunately what had happened all season happened again.  They (or I should say Riley Nelson) found a way to lose.  It was sad because going into the game I just wanted it to be close, but as the game went on I of course kept thinking they were going to win so I was sad at the end of the game (for a second).

Labor Day Weekend Hike

After our Saturday of Zumba fun we recovered on Sunday.  Then on Monday we had wanted to hike Timp, but we weren't sure if we would time it perfectly for Nicole's flight home later that night.  So we chose to do a hike that none of us had done up Slate Canyon (right by our house) that came out back by the Y and then we did the full circle back to our car.

It was about a 6 hour hike and was definitely a butt buster!  It was quite steep but we all enjoy hiking especially for a good workout so it was great.  We were surprised in some places at how steep it really was but we made it (and I'd do it again).

Here are some photos from the excursion

This is what it looks like in the mountains behind the Y.  Just beautiful!

Labor Day Weekend - Zumbathon!

Anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty much obsessed with Zumba.  For those of you who don't know what Zumba is it is a choreographed aerobics class with lots of latin and hip-hop music.  No I do not claim to be a dancer, but I seriously LOVE this class.  This probably is because I learned from the best teacher in the whole world (who I may or may not have girl crush on), Kass Martin.  I'm not even embarrassed to say that I would totally be her groupie if money and time allowed me.  Sadly her popularity means she can teach when she wants which means 10:30am so I miss her class most of the time since I have to be responsible and go to work.

So when I found out she was doing the big Zumba Master class at UVU on Labor Day weekend for "You should be dancing Utah" I gathered all my other friends and fellow Zumba girls and we made a Zumba day of it!  Nicole even flew in from Omaha for this grand event!

We started at 7am with sunrise Yoga.  I haven't done yoga in a long time so this reminded me that I needed to do more yoga.  Also I should remind you that all these pictures are us working out......so keep that in mind as you review our beauty!

(Kathy, Nicole, Elisa, Me, Kim, Mary)

I'm glad that I'm not in this picture as I don't have the form Elisa and Nicole do :)

We had to endure some HORRIBLE Zumba teachers in anticipation for Kass.  It made doing her class even better!  As you can see Suzanne joined us for this photo.  Stacy and Jenna also came with us.  I've been longing to Zumba with Kass, Stacy & Jenna for a while now.  Took me back to the days of King Henry and the dance class that I had with Twinners.  Although I'm positive my moves were not better I at least knew the routines better than Jenna......finally she couldn't upstage me with all her superior dance moves!  She was there although not in a photo apparently!

You can see all of us in this picture.  I won't point us out!

Look near the back corner and you may see me, Elisa, Suzanne, Mary and half of Kathy.

After the morning of Zumba we all went to eat everything we just burned off at Malawai's Pizza in the Riverwoods.  It was so good.  We then came home and showered and took a nap/watched TV.  Then it was back to UVU for the "Zumba Fitness Concert."  We didn't last all 4 hours but we had a great time!

Kathy, Me, Stacy

Pretty sweet moves if I do say so myself!

NYC Trip #2 this year

I had talked so much to my friends about how much I loved Newsies back in April that we decided to take another trip to NYC in August.  We wanted to make sure we saw the original Broadway cast for Newsies since Jeremy Jordan was so awesome as Jack.

Sadly for me I didn't have any vacation time yet that I could spare an extra day so I flew out on Friday night and back on Sunday night.  We still seemed to fit a lot in for just 2 days.  I was also extra proud of myself for getting to the hotel all by myself on the Subway at 10pm at night.  I even had 4 people ask me for directions (I couldn't help), but I must have looked like I knew what I was doing.

I got there pretty late so we went to get a treat and then to sleep.  First things first the next morning we got ourselves a delicious toasted marshmallow milkshake.

And then headed to Times Square to check out the Wonka store (Kim was dying to go there since she had seen my pictures from my earlier trip this year).

While in Times Square we saw this advertisement for Newsies (we were seeing later that night).

We also ran into the Naked Cowboy.  He was a little snugly for this photo than I wanted

  He didn't get a tip.

We then headed to see our matinee of this years Tony winner for best musical (called Once).  Connie, Kristan and Nicole had seen it the night before and were raving about it so we got tickets (barely) for the matinee.  We had been warned there was some language in it, but seriously it was SO good. The music was fantastic and it was not at all like a Broadway musical normally is.  All of the music was acoustic and the actors/actresses played while they acted.  It was mesmerizing!

After the show we walked out the door and the cast was coming out to sign playbills and take pictures.  We patiently waited our turn for the main star, Guy (aka Steve Kazee) to come out.  He is this years Tony Winner for Best Lead Actor in a Musical and we all had significant crushes on him by the end of the show.  As you can see we make a perfect couple in this picture (that maybe Kim was cut out of) but he was so nice to everyone.  I later found out that we share the exact same birthday (year and everything) so there is obviously a special bond since we left heaven on the same day....LOL!  We were near the very end of the waiting period so it was funny to see him walk behind the waiting crowd, put his sunglasses on and disappear into the crowd without anyone really noticing.  

After some more celebrity stalking of John Stamos (he was playing in a musical next door to Once) Kim, Camille and I met up with Nicole, Kristan, and Connie (finally!) to grab dinner. We went to this place called Vynl.  A friend of mine had recommended it for the fun atmosphere.  It had good food, but we also happened to be there at happy hour for those individuals "batting for the other team" if you know what I mean.  Made it entertaining.  The bathrooms were also very interested. They were dedicated to musicians and Elvis or Cher (or others) would sing to you while you did your business depending on which bathroom you chose.  Interesting.

After dinner we headed to see Newsies.  I was super excited since I loved it the first time (especially the dancing).  I loved it again the second time.  Such a fabulous show.

Since we had so much success with our autograph sessions and photos at Once we stuck around for the Newsies cast.  It was definitely a more crowded experience but we got to take pictures of the cast that we wanted.

I took this picture with me and Jeremy Jordan (aka Jack) with my phone.  Wish I had the flash on.

Thankfully Camille to this picture of us as it happened.  Yep I'm basically 15 years old :)

On Sunday we headed to church and then ate brunch at a yummy cafe near church (I forgot what it was called).  Then we headed to the Ground Zero Memorial.  Here are all of us at the survivor tree.  This is one of the trees that survived the September 11th attacks.

Me and Camille looking at one of the reflecting pools. They were really neat and had the water flowing through them so you couldn't see the bottom.  All of the names of those killed were placed on the sides and they were carefully grouped by friends, family acquaintances. 

After Ground Zero we needed some cookies :)

And then we walked around Wall Street (even though it was much less normal than a weekday).

Then we all caught our various flights home.  It was a fabulous trip and I have to say I have had the best luck with NYC weather.  It was August and we had 72 degrees with a slight breeze.  No sweating, no freezing, just perfect weather.