Memorial Day Weekend: Slot Canyon Fail

One thing we love about living in Utah is that people actually get out and enjoy the outdoors.  So when my friend Adrienne invited us to go backpacking in the slot canyons in Escalante National Monument, we eagerly jumped on board.  We’ve been wanting to go down there since we moved here, but have been hesitant since we were inexperienced and don’t really know the best places to go, where to camp and how to get there.  Luckily Adrienne’s family goes there all the time, so our trip should be perfect.

Right.

The weather report went from bad to worse, and whenever I’d mention the increasing probability of precipitation (”uh, it’s now at 75%… should we be concerned?”), I was told that I had a negative attitude.  So instead, we packed extra fleeces, rain jackets, umbrella and sent a positive, sunshine-filled message out to the universe and hopped in the car for the long drive down south.

It rained the entire drive.  We stayed the night in Torrey, UT and continued through the windy canyon and then finally sloshed through about 15 miles of mud until we met our fate: a dry wash road crossing that had developed into a torrential river.  We contemplated trying to cross it after it had shrunk to about mid calf deep, but the banks of the river were so silty that we sunk half way up the tires.  The 4 wheel drive Expedition probably could have made it with a running start, but the second car in our caravan was only 2 wheel drive and nearly got stuck and spun out several times on the “dirt” road and most definitely would have taken a long bath in that river had we attempted to cross it. Adri waded across the river to talk to the people who were stuck on the other side, and they said they had been in the Neon & Fence Canyon area (where we were headed) for the last 3 days and weren’t able to go in any of the slot canyons because of the constant flash flooding.  They had been planning on staying the entire week but were getting so sick of the non stop rain that they were heading back.  They had been waiting on the other side of the river for about 3 hours already, when the river was waist deep.  I hope they were able to get across it before the next wave of torrential rain started later that day.

The “dry” wash crossing, aka the moment we declared trip failure.

Me and Adri.

So after 8 hours of driving and our tails tucked between our legs, we dayhiked to the waterfall at Calf Creek, hit up some great burgers in Beaver, and headed back to Salt Lake, without even setting up a single tent or eating a single hot dog.

The umbrella actually worked quite well.

The group.

Despite the fact that we never even made it to our destination, it was actually a really fun trip.  Adrienne and Max’s families are really nice and fun and we hope they’ll think of us when (if?) they go back.  And maybe I’ll have to find a better method of weather manipulation than sending messages out to the universe.

Moab: Slick Rock? More like Flip (over the handle bars) Rock.

About 30 of the friends in the area hit up Moab, UT for Mother’s Day weekend.  We camped (or more accurately “kamped”) at the KOA, mountain biked, dirt biked, swam, hiked, and picnicked.

This was my first time mountain biking and I was pretty confident since I had been going to spin class at the gym for several months.   Apparently my skills on the bike are best when the bike is attached to the floor, hip hop music is blaring, and an insanely fit instructor tells me when to gear up and down.  While the rest of the group dirt biked and hiked, a bunch of us found an “easy” mountain biking trail, Gemini Bridges.  This 16 mile loop had a 1500 foot climb and patches of deep sand.  And this deep sand eventually got the best of me.  As if in slow motion (I was trying to get back on my bike at the time), I lost control, grabbed the front break accidentally, and gracefully flipped over the handle bars, tangling my legs in the wheels and handle bars, while I face planted and slid down the hill.  Shane said he was surprised that I fell.  Apparently normal people have bailing instincts.  I do not.  I just go down with the ship.  Thankfully I didn’t get too banged up, but I do have a set of matching handle bar bruises on the front of my quads.  Classy.

Devry, Tracey and Jolene at the beginning of the trail.

The site of my crash on the way back down. It was very steep.

The group (minus photographer Shane): Shara, Jayna, Jolene, Tracey, Amy, Rita and Devry

Looking down the canyon from the Gemini Bridges.

After we got back from the bike ride and rested up a bit at the campground, Shane and Neil decide it is a great time to go bike Slick Rock trail.  And so they did. I’m not entirely sure how Shane survived.  He must have some sort of secret source of energy, because I was pretty close to dead after the first ride.

Neil heading out on the Slick Rock trail.

The Colorado River

We spent the rest of the weekend swimming and hanging out.  We had a great Sunday morning meeting in the park, followed by an impromptu picnic, complete with pizza, soccer and slacklining.  Shane was quite popular with the littles.

The group after Sunday meeting in the park.

Shane and his slack line fan club

As soon as Shane brought the slack line out, all the kids swarmed around and patiently waited in line for their turn to “walk” across.  There were a couple kids and adults that are really close to getting it on their own.  Most of the kids had a death grip on Shane’s arm, though.

What a great way to spend the weekend, only 4 hours away from home!

Saturdate 3: The cupcakery and animal wifery

This Saturday’s activities included a visit to one of the local cupcakeries for some mini tasty treats, washed down with a giant cup of concrete ice cream at Neilsen’s. I asked the guy at the counter what the difference between concrete and regular ice cream, and apparently concrete has significantly more butter fat.  Upon gaining this knowledge, Shane ordered the extra large. I ordered an extra spoon.

We put the top down on the little car and took our mini cupcakes (Shane had the blueberry, I had the key lime, which tragically looked better than it tasted) and concrete to Liberty Park for a walk in the lovely sunshine.  Although we drive past the park frequently (I now drive past it every day on my way to work), we had never actually been in it.  What do you know?  It’s fantastic!  There are indoor/outdoor tennis courts, multiple huge playgrounds, meandering water features for kids to play in, horseshoe pits, bocce ball courts (are they really courts?), museums, running/walking paths, lots of trees and grass, and to our surprise, the Tracy Aviary. We had the workers for the weekend and were planning on taking them to the Aviary until they decided that it was too cold and they had other errands to run.  Not knowing where it was, it was quite auspicious of us to stumble upon it (in real life, not virtually) while on our Saturday stroll.

Lucky for us, the Aviary was also free when we walked by (or at least it was unguarded… we walked right in without paying anyway), so we jumped on the opportunity and checked out our fellow feathered friends.

This is when I discovered that I have a knack to attract caged mini animals.  Call it a kindred spirit.  Call it animal wifery.  Call it monkey and bird whispering.  Whatever it is, I think I have a gift.

Aside from the caged and uncaged birds (like the bald eagles who were neither tethered nor caged, just injured and unable to fly), we most enjoyed the birds that just wandered around the park like the peacocks and other spotted birds.  They just cruised around and checked out the other birds.  We were excited when we found these and documented them thoroughly.

We were most excited when we found a peacock that wanted a better view of the park from up on the roof.

And then we saw the most glorious sight: the first snowconeria of the season!  These pop up all over town at the beginning of the summer and we indulge at least once a week.  We mourn a small bit of mourn at the end of the summer when they disappear, unfortunately much earlier than the hot weather.

It’s not very hard to please us, as you can probably tell by the fact that we’ve been having so much fun doing the things local people do on third grade fieldtrips.

Shane calls in “Powder hungry” to work

Claiming he worked too hard the week before, Shane said he was going to be in late to work on Tuesday and hit Solitude instead.  They reported 26″ of powder and he “needed” to test out his new ski boots. At least that was his excuse.

They finally took out the camera when they were tired of skiing and had tracked out their favorite areas. Here’s Shane doing his thing:

This whole “skiing before work” thing is not a new concept.  Click on the photo below for more pictures of his most recently documented dawn patrol trip.

3,000 vertical feet of untracked, knee-deep, blower powder.  It puts a smile on his face to this day.

Saturdate 2: Zoo zoo zoo and yurt yurt yurt

Since we had so much fun last weekend on our Saturdate, we decided to try another hand at it.  It was another lovely sunny day (albeit a bit chillier), so what would any 20-something childless couple do?  Go to the zoo, of course!

I befriended many a monkey in between jaunts to visit the swimming penguins, the birds sitting on the rhinos’ backs (they really do this, even in Utah), problem solving orangutans, pacing cougars, sleeping kangaroos, swallowing (and unswallowing) giraffes and chilly zebras.

We were definitely a minority (lacking a few kids to say the least), but we didn’t let that stop us.  We are zoo enthusiasts!

And then later on that weekend was… YURTASTIC ADVENTURE TAKE II

Our first attempt at our Valentine’s date yurt dinner was a tremendous FAIL.  We got off work early, dressed in appropriate warm clothes, drove up to Solitude and waited at the meeting point for over a 1/2 hour, only to discover that we had been stood up.  Apparently they cancel the trip if there aren’t enough people and they failed to contact us.  You can understand why we were disappointed when you read the description of the yurt on their website:

One of the most unique dining experiences in Utah, the Yurt offers an enchanting adventure and a delicious dinner. Guest’s cross-country ski or snowshoe (approximately 3/4 mile) through the moon or lantern lit forest to a Mongolian yurt, where a chef prepares an incredible five-course meal guests won’t soon forget. In its 19th season, this intimate dining experience seats twenty and is rated #7 on Sunset Magazine’s best mountaintop dining experiences list. Overwhelming popularity for this experience make reservations a must – the earlier you plan the better.

Disappointment of epic proportions.  The chef of St. Bernard’s, who also cooks for the yurt, felt so terrible that he invited us to have dinner there on the house.  And although it was not very yurt-like (I’m obsessed with yurts and am trying to figure out how to have an art studio yurt in the back yard), it was probably one of the top 10 meals of our lives.  It was that good.

Fast forward to this weekend, when we were finally able to reschedule our trip.  We repacked and bundled up and we were off, excitement still pretty high, despite the first fail.  It hadn’t snowed for a few days so the trail was pretty packed and snowshoes weren’t necessary, so we were able to take a lovely stroll through the woods on a crisp evening, keeping our eyes out for wild animals or lost skiers. You can’t see me in this picture because I’m way up in front, just charging ahead, anxious to see the yurt!

And then, just around the bend (there were many, I think to make it seem more magical.  I bet the yurt was really only about 100 feet from the meeting point, but it took a good 15 minutes to walk there on the charming trail):

The inside of the yurt was decorated in mongolian style, with great rustic photos, Tibetan prayer flags and a great professional stove and oven in the middle.  We ate on two long tables, getting to know our fellow yurt-goers throughout the night.   What characters.  The meal was spectacular and so huge that we could barely touch the dessert when it strolled around two hours later.

Here is a rough menu:

Course 1: Roasted pepper and tomato soup with artisan cheese and chive oil.

Course 2: Fresh large scallop ceviche with sweet pepper relish on a bed of baby arugula.  Served with a cucumber cup filled with salmon mousse.  The scallop had the most incredible flavor and texture.  I must try to recreate it.

Course 3: Baby spinach salad with spicy candied walnuts, slivered green apple and local Beehive “Barely Buzzed” cheese, with a scrumptious espresso lavendar crust.

Course 4: Thick, juicy pork tenderloin cooked with a wild mushroom sauce, served with buttered napa cabbage and roasted fingerling potatoes.

Course 5: Pumpkin spice cake and sliced strawberries marinated in a balsamic reduction.

By the end of the night we were so full and were having to waddle the whole 3/4 of a mile back to the car.  I was seriously contemplating hiring a snowmobile to take me, as Shane refused to carry me (chivalry is dead).  It started to lightly snow on our walk back.  What a perfect way to end a perfect evening.

More on that “starting to snow” bit later.  Shane’s still recovering from his “called in powder hungry” to work day.

Saturdate: Capitol Building and Ensign Peak

We had a rare sunny weekend with nothing to do.  So instead of doing much needed chores around the house, we decided to go on a budget tour of our city (everything we did was free!).  First stop: The Utah State Capitol Building.

There was an amusingly strange / alternative festival out front, and I was pleased to see that there is at least a small bit of diversity in Salt Lake, even if was only from the hours of 2-4 pm.  Most of the rooms were closed for the weekend, so we definitely need to go back when we can see it all.  So if you come and visit, you very well might get to go on a tour of the Capitol with us.

Although there were no bizarre governor’s portraits like there are in Sacramento, we did find an incredibly awful Photoshop Cloning FAIL.

Really?  It would have taken about 2 minutes longer to clone it properly.   But that’s besides the point… Why on earth did they need to even add extra head to her?

Poor Chief Justice Christine Durham.

Afterwards we mosied around the Capitol area until we saw a monument on the top of the hill.  We weaved our way through neighborhoods until we found a trailhead, and soon we were on a mini hike up to Ensign Peak.

The weather was warm (for a snow-less weekend in February in Utah, that is.  I think it got up into the low 60s), the views were spectacular, and the company was lovely.  We’ll add this to our list of places to take people when they visit.  The list is getting quite long.  Someone had better come and visit us soon.

25 Things You Didn’t Want to Know About Me

If you have been on Facebook in the last week, there is no possible way you could have not seen the “random facts about me” thing that’s been going around.  According to Time.com, an estimated 5 million of these notes have appeared on the website within the past week.  At first I resisted, but I finally caved.

So for those of you not a part of “the #1 productivity killer” (facebook), now I bring you 25 random facts about Jayna:

1. I can write upside down and backwards.

2. I am fairly convinced that bacon will only enhance any food except maybe pie.

3. I have never broken a bone. In fact, I believe my worst self-sustained injury was when I sprained my ankle in Ultimate Frisbee. And we weren’t even playing yet.

4. Despite the fact that I am ½ Chinese, I do not speak the language. My dad doesn’t either and I’m not even convinced my grandma does.

5. I despise comic sans. And papyrus. They make me cringe.

6. I started dating Shane when I was 19. I think he was kind of embarrassed to be dating a teenager.

7. I have a hard time watching professional sports because I feel so bad for the losing team.

8. For the first time in my life, I now weigh enough to legally give blood.

9. I’m trying really hard not to hold it against people who do not know the difference between there, their or they’re.

10. I can’t have anything with caffeine after about 2 pm or I will be too wiggly to go to sleep and will get kicked out and have to sleep in the guest room.

11. I secretly like shoveling snow. Just a little bit, though. I’m not sure when the novelty will wear off.

12. I would rather eat beef jerky than chocolate.

13. I just got a texting plan last month. Don’t text me, though. It takes me about 20 minutes just to send one.

14. Shane and I retired two summers ago. We quit our jobs, put our stuff in a 10’x10’ storage unit and traveled in Europe for the summer before moving to Utah and finding new jobs. It was one of the best experiences of our lives.

15. I was voted best legs in shorts in the 7th grade. It was obviously a joke. If you can imagine a 4’8” big bird in a skirt, that was pretty much me.

16. I never went to a school dance. There’s a reason I’m an awful dancer: severe lack of practice opportunities.

17. My friends think I am an endless fount of knowledge, but really I am just a really good googler.

18. My Indian Princess name is “Spotted Fawn.” Indian Princesses were kind of like girl scouts except it was for fathers and daughters and it was a lot less involved. I remember playing rack-o while our dads made our pine wood derby cars in someone’s shop. Mine always won the “most creative” award.

19. I am in a constant state of hunger. I need to have snacks (fruit leather, etc.) with me at all times. Shane can attest. Snacks are imperative for his and my survival.

20. I cannot leave the house without: 1. Chapstick. 2. Lotion. 3. Hair tie. I will turn back no matter how far away I am if I forgot one of these items.

21. I looked like E.T. when I was a baby, and it was apparently difficult to find something to compliment me about. One of the compliments I received as a baby was that “I have a nice shaped head.” Really.

22. I coached youth tennis, despite my complete lack of athletic ability.

23. I often try to calculate how much more time I spend writing the last name S-W-E-N-S-O-N as opposed to L-E-E. The number was pretty high. Something to think about before you get married.

24. The first CD I ever bought was Mariah Carey’s Music Box, and I listened to it on loop on my discman for days.

25. I am a sucker for great packaging. And I think it’s completely acceptable to judge a book by its cover. If the book is good but has an awful cover, they should fire their designer. And hire me!

Gung hay fat choy!

In honor of the new year of the Ox, the Swensons threw a Chinese New Year party this weekend as our cultural contribution to Utah.  Brynne and Sam, Adrienne and Max, Melissa, Clinton and later Grant came over and feasted on, well, a legitimate feast.  It was an official party, as you can tell, because I broke out the table cloth and cloth napkins.  High class.

The menu (this is mostly for dad):

Egg drop soup with fresh spinach, napa cabbage, green onions, enochi and shiitake mushrooms
Drunken chicken with stir-fried baby bok choy, ginger and shiitake mushrooms
Steamed Gai Lan (Chinese broccoli) with oyster sauce and hot peanut oil
Fried Rice
Pork and Shrimp pot stickers with five sauces (sweet chili, soy/worchester sauce, ginger and red vinegar, hot chili garlic, etc.)
Mango coconut sticky rice (not technically Chinese, but oh so good.  Thanks to Adri, who made this delicious treat)

After dinner, we retired to the living room for a fun game of Balderdash.  Shane was victorious, despite his glabrescent associations with  L.T.A.B. and Plennie Wingo.

Top 10 reasons why we love where we live today

10. World class skiing only 20 minutes away from our house.

The whole Lee family trekked out here for Christmas (including Jeff, all the way from Beijing!).  David and Shane braved the weather on Christmas Day in search of powder.  They found some at Solitude, a mere 20 minutes away from our house.  Apparently it was “epic.”

9. Beautiful views out our kitchen window after a storm.

8. Sledding and playing in the snow, just beyond the fence.

Shane declared his love for me (or maybe just the snow) in giant letters (you can kind of see the I heart Y…).  We made snow angels, threw snowballs, practiced our snownastics, and found a sledding hill and a broken sled that we utilized for the rest of the afternoon.  All in our own backyard!

7. Groceries are so cheap!
Maybe I’m the only one who finds this to be exciting, but check out the price of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and milk!  I have to remind myself that I don’t have a deep freezer and I must restrain myself.

6. Shane has his own personal flying field.

Shane built a remote control plane in our basement and can walk it out the back door and fly it out in the field to his heart’s content.  A few other people have remote control planes that fly here, too.

5. Friends!

Last weekend, over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, was the third annual “SLC MLK SKI GTG,” hosted by the Zimmerli family.  About 90 people from around the world converged here for a weekend of non stop fun, skiing and eating.  I believe there were kids from over 17 states, from as far as Hawaii and Florida and from Canada, Australia and South Africa.  It was a great time seeing old and new faces, and we were sure glad that we had our own (quiet) house to sleep at, only 5 minutes away.

4. Two words: backcountry skiing.

Not wanting to “waste time” on the groomers at Brighton last Saturday, Shane and Ashley Williams found some untracked powder about an hour’s hike from the resort.  As for me, I stuck to the blue squares.  The lifts were invented for a reason.

3. Another two words: rock climbing.

Again, not wanting to “waste time” while in Salt Lake, when Ashley heard that we climb and that she and I are the same size, she easily convinced Shane to take her and Stefan Lindsay climbing up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  They came home with huge smiles, despite having to brave the chilly temps once the sun went down.  I think we might have sold a few more people on the joys of living in SLC.  Skiing AND climbing in the same weekend, only 10-20 minutes away?  Right on.

2.  Good jobs.  We both love our jobs, and that makes the gap between weekends a lot easier to deal with.

1.  Vacation destination.  It’s super fun to have our families and friends come to visit.  Maybe it’s the international airport 20 minutes away, maybe it’s all the super fun things to do, but occasionally we convince ourselves that it’s just because we are here.

Are you sold yet?  We love it when people come to visit, so come on over!

Jayna and Shane: America’s favorite breakfast

For Halloween this year, I decided to go with friendly instead of my previous streak of scary costumes.

Bacon is my favorite food and I once declared that it would enhance any dish.  Only after long discussions and debates did my friends and I come to the conclusion that the only things bacon wouldn’t improve are ice cream and pie.  My life goal is to prove that statement wrong.  You might not want to come over for dessert for a while until this phase passes.

We had a fun time on Halloween with our snuggly bacon and eggs costumes (I made them out of fleece… dual purpose! It’s both a scarf AND a bacon costume!).  Brandon Klenk and Melissa Canaday threw a Halloween party, complete with pumpkin carving, bobbing for apples, caramel apples and mafia.  I’m not sure how mafia was halloween themed, but I guess there’s a lot of “dying” in that game, so it fit.

Since I work in the creative field, there is a lot of pressure when it comes to halloween costumes.  In the past, I had some pretty terrifying costumes.  And I defined the word “terrifying” as something/someone that has killed or harmed a lot of people.  I stood out a little from some of the other costumes I saw, like “sexy kitty!” and “sexy sailor!” and “sexy nerd!” and “sexy darth vader!”  To each his(her?) own.

I now present you the award winning homemade costumes of years past:

2005: Hurricane Katrina
1,836 confirmed dead, 705 missing.  Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty terrifying.
I sprayed people with my misting fan, gave out FEMA checks and won “most creative” costume.

2006: Ecoli-tainted Spinach
1 death and 98 hospitalizations.
I gave out ecoli stickers and took home the “people’s choice” award and $50.

2007: Traffic
OK, I gave up on the whole “natural disasters” thing and just went with a highway.  Although if you’ve ever been to Utah and seen how they drive out here (we call them “Utards”), you’d understand why my costume was actually quite scary.