kitchen adventures: cherry lime cupcakes.

I didn't exactly have a recipe for these, just an idea.  They're a lime cupcake with cherry frosting. Not much to change on them, maybe flip the flavors or add some garnish.  Pretty satisfied with the way they came out and that's saying something. 

Here they are close to getting out of the oven. One of these days I'll remember to take pics from start to finish. They even smelled delicious.

Taken right before frosting on the cooling rack. 

Here they are all frosted with some garnished with lime zest. 

adventures in the gym.

While it may not seem like a lot to some of you, this is huge for me. My summer goal for squatting was 200lbs... here it is close to the end of June and I knocked it out of the park. I hit 325lbs. today.  It's an awesome feeling. 

"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us."

Jean-Paul Sartre

red reef.

This Sunday's adventure took us to the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. They had campgrounds, places to cookout and hang for the day and also hiking. The trail that was taken was the Red Reef trail. I had seen on a few blogs that it led to a couple swimming holes and would be a nice hike. The hike, the scenery... everything about it was gorgeous. Nice and quiet, saw one group on the way in and luckily, got out of there before we saw two groups on the way out.
This was on the road into the area. Seeing this definitely got me excited for the day and didn't let me down at all.

This was the start of the hike. 

This was taken right before you get to the first swimming hole. 

I don't have a good picture of the first swimming hole and waterfall we got to but this was the second one. I'd seen pictures of people climbing the rope and jumping off this waterfall. You can't really see the bottom but the water was pretty deep. The parts I waded through I was up to the tops of my thighs.  

This was the view at the top of the second waterfall. It was beautiful and quiet. 

This is a picture was taken while I was basically standing in the middle of the creek water close to reaching my waist. 

Had to climb over a couple hills to see what was next since the water was pretty deep and didn't have the right clothes on to be swimming through the creek. I really do need to get better prepared for this stuff.

The views in this place were unbelievably awesome. You would never have guess this place existed. The only reminder you had that you were close to a city was the noise of airplanes overhead.  

And this was taken on the way out.

Wasn't fully prepared for this trip, who knew that you could have possibly been swimming in the creek... Oh well, all the more reason to head back here one of these weekends and maybe even bring friends. Definitely going to be better prepared for it. 

kitchen adventures: mountain dew cupcakes.

I've always been a fan of taking a recipe and making it my own. Strawberry peanut butter cookies, spicy peanut brittle... you name it. This time I went looking for this recipe for mountain dew cupcakes, I've tasted them before and they were delicious so I had to see if I could make them for myself. It was fairly easy just a bit messy to make. I'm definitely going to work on perfecting these.

supermoon.

A "supermoon" looks bigger and brighter than a normal full moon. An excerpt from the Huffington Post about it. They can define it a million times better than I can.
"Also known as a perigee moon, the event occurs when a full moon lines up with the Earth and the sun at a specific point in its orbit, called the lunar perigee. That's the point at which the moon is nearest to Earth as it traces its elliptical path around our planet.

Since it's closer to us, the moon appears up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than usual. Coined by astrologer Richard Nolle, the term "supermoon"essentially means a bigger and brighter full moon."

The first pic was taken with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3).

And this picture was taken with my camera (Fuji) 

And yet another shot taken with my camera. Just about an hour later. 

moving cows.

Cows in this area is pretty much as common as seeing a stray cat on your street. They move them from pasture to pasture. Sometimes, using trailers and other times... well, by horse and herding dogs. It's pretty cool to watch them. If they're moving them with people on horses and dogs they'll usually put the oldest ones in front and the rest will generally follow.

Taken with my S3. While waiting for them to get the cows inside the fence. 

south fork of taylor creek.

This Sunday's hike was in the Kolob Canyon part of Zion National Park. It was about 2ish miles long and not maintained by the park. Was told that this trail is for the people who go mountain climbing. The trail wasn't all that wide and basically, if you ever wanted to take a machete and just thrash through you would have a blast here. The plants and trees were overgrown. It's in between two fingers of the Kolobs and it was a nice morning.

This was taken right at the starting point, sun wasn't even fully up and thankfully... neither were the bugs.

There were a lot or trees and just walls and walls of mountain. Some pretty cool formations here and there.

I'm pretty sure there was even a face or two in one of the walls... Can you see it? 

Trees provided some nice shade, the sand was pink and tired you out a lot faster than you would expect. Getting up some of the hills with just how deep some of the sand was, I was kicking myself I did "legs day" the day before...

It was a nice hike to get out and go but I'm pretty sure I got spoiled by all the creeks and whatnot. Oh well, another hike down and I believe there's about 3 more to go inside the Kolob portion of Zion.