Just call me Mario Andretti

So, I just got the pics to prove it, so now I have to rub it in a little:

So, I work for the greatest company ever... one evidence of this is that every quarter, the Marketing Department has a team building activity. Our Q3 team building activity was Go-Cart Racing on the Larry H. Miller Speedway. These carts are AWESOME! They go 50-60 MPH and it is outdoor, so the track is large enough you can actually get a little speed. I totally recommend it.

Here is the best I can do at a play-by-play on a blog: (I know you all care...)

Picture 1: At the starting line... (notice, I did not start in first place) (Also, recognize me by my sweet green helmet.)



Picture 2: Amy takes the lead...



Picture 3: Amy starts lapping people



Picture 4: Amy crosses the finish line with no one else in sight.



Picture 5: Co-workers check out Amy's ride, thinking it must be the go-cart that caused such an explosive victory. Thus, Amy is challenged to a rematch. (Which, of course, I was fine with, since it meant I got to race again.)



Picture 6: Amy is given the "slow go-cart" for the re-match. (Actually, it was just the go-cart that had taken last place.)



Picture 7: Amy wins again.



That is right, I am the undisputed Champion of Go-Cart racing. Of course, I keep hearing excuses like, "Yeah, but it is only because she is a girl and weighs less"... blah, blah. Whatever. Men just can't take losing to a girl.

And, just in case any talent agents read this, I am open to sponsorship opportunities.

Rock of Love - 2008!!!

OK, so I probably shouldn't name this post "Rock of Love" for fear that people might think I actually watch that show. Which I don't. Except for once. OK, maybe twice. But it was totally on accident. At least, one time was totally on accident. The other time, I was just really, really bored. Really. I don't watch it. I swear.

Anyway, so the Sunday before New Years, I was talking to one of my neighbors when she came to pick up her daughter from our Sunbeam class and we decided it would be awesome if we had a Rock Star party for New Years. (OK, it wasn't totally original. Corbyn's brother Collyn had been invited to one and Corbyn thought it sounded awesome.) So, anyway, the format: dress like an 80's Rocker and play Guitar Hero all night.

So, Corbyn and I went to DI on Monday and picked ourselves out some awesome 80's Rocker clothes. I went as Madonna (well, as Madonna as you can be while still remaining fully clothed) and Corbyn went as... you guessed it, Bret Michaels (Poisen lead singer and the star of Rock of Love (hence the title of this post)). It was awesome. I will post some pics as soon as I get them from my neighbor, but Corbyn had a long, blonde wig (compliments of my niece Madelyn's Hannah Montana Halloween costume), a bandana, my straw cowboy hat, a totally 80's denim jacket, and a tight black t-shirt. AND he put on eyeliner. It was perfect. He was the hit of the party. All the other guys were pretty jealous of his sweet wig and hat... it got passed around a little. (Don't tell Madelyn.) It was pretty hilarious actually - it is surprising how men lose a lot of their inhibitions when wearing a long wig. I guess it is the closet rock star in them...

Also, for anyone who has not yet jumped on the Guitar Hero bandwagon, I highly recommend it. It was a blast.

Corbyn's huge trophy

So, I thought you guys might want to see Corbyns enormous trophy. (And how hot he looks in his suit.) :)

1-20-08 comment: OK, so someone asked me what his huge trophy was for... they thought maybe he participated in a body-building competition. (But no, the only flex dances Corbyn will do are in the privacy of our own home. Which he has actually never done, but I am still hoping.) So, to clarify, this trophy was for taking 2nd in the Rocky Mountain Raceway Motocross Series.

Washington DC and the MXdN

So, our trip to the Motocross of Nations was AWESOME. It included:

1. MXdN - So cool - US dominated every race and we were able to see Ricky Carmichael's last ride. It was PACKED. We had Europeans invading our personal space and blowing cigarette smoke EVERYWHERE. Reportedly, 70,000 people attended. It was awesome.
   
2. Spotsylvania (Bloodiest battle of the Civil War - this is the battle where the 21 inch tree was shot down by small arms fire. We saw the stump of the tree, trenches where both the Union and Confederacy were dug in, a few cannon, etc. Pretty awesome.)
3. Fredericksburg (Another Civil War battle site)
4. The house where Stonewall Jackson died. (Confederate General)
5. National Air and Space Museum - Tel, you would have been in heaven. Corbyn was. We spent about 6 hours here - I was done in about 4... I can only look at space shuttles for so long. Corbyn would have liked more time... I guess it is a guy thing. Space holds limited interest for me.
   
6. Holocaust Museum - I don't really know what to say about this... it was very moving... and interesting... and disturbing.
   
7. Museum of Natural History - unfortunately, this is NOT the one in Night at the Museum. We did get to see a lot of interesting stuff here, including the Hope Diamond. (WOW!)
8. Museum of American History - we didn't actually go here, because it is closed for renovation, but they took the 500 most popular artifacts and put them in a special display in the Air and Space Museum... it had the Sun Stone from the Navoo temple, C3PO and R2D2 from Star Wars (the originals), Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt, etc.
9. Arlington Cemetery - my favorite (besides the MXdN, of course) - we were able to see an actual funeral procession. They had a guard of soldiers, the horse drawn casket draped in a flag, the drummer, the bugler and they were leading a riderless horse. Wow. I almost cried. (And you know how rarely that happens...) Also, they laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, another very rare occurrence. We were in the right place at the right time.
10. Arlington House - I never actually knew this before visiting here, but this was the home of Robert E. Lee - Arlington Cemetery began as a slap in his face for accepting command of the Confederate Army, rather than the Union. They just starting piling the bodies of Union Soldiers on his estate.
    
11. ALL the monuments and memorials. So, this doesn't sound like much, but this is A LOT of walking. I heard about 4 miles round trip - it felt more like 10. My favorite was probably the WWII monument - it was pretty cool.
    
12. Of course we walked past the White House and Capitol.
13. Lastly, I have to mention Captain Billy's. A little restaurant right on the Potomac in Maryland. We decided we wanted to try crab - the whole thing, not just the legs. Yuck. You have to break them open and something yellow (I am not sure if it is poop or brains) splats everywhere. With this very pleasant sticky substance all over your hands, you then proceed to move all the guts out of the way to get at the teeny tiny ounce of meat in the crab shell. Once you extract it (using your poopy/brainy hands) it actually tastes pretty good, if you dare eat it. Regardless of the taste, however, I am a crab LEGS kind of girl. Ugh. The rest just isn't worth it.
    

Conquering the Mountain

So, for anyone who has been to our house, you know that we live between Utah Lake and a mountain. On the top of this mountain are a bunch of radio towers. Corbyn has been obsessed with going up the the radio towers since the day we moved in.

We tried it once - 2 wrecks and a lost contact lens later, we had to head home. Yes, both wrecks were mine. I could see Corbyn sitting at the top of this rocky hill just waiting for me (possibly laughing... with the helmet, you can't tell) It was too steep to wreck and start from where you were stopped - wrecking meant you had to ride back down and start over. It was killing me... I kept making it about 3/4 of the way only to hit an enormous rock (probably not really that huge) and fall over. I wrecked and started over twice... the second time, my contact lens came out and we had to call it a day.

We tried again - this time I succeeded. Look closely at the picture - you can see me swelling with pride. (You may be wondering if I made it up this time incident free? Don't ask... I am not even sure how many times I wrecked. The important thing is that I made it to the top.)





1-20-08 comment: So, I have had a couple people email and ask me why Corbyn and I are on the same bike in the picture. They asked if we rode up on the same bike, which actually made me laugh so hard, I almost cried. (I can't imagine trying to ride up that with two people on one bike.) No, in reality, it is because I was too chicken to get my bike so close to the edge. After picking my bike up innumerable times on the way up, I didn't trust my strength in getting the bike stopped in time. I probably would have gone over the edge.

Mesa Verde - Labor Day

So, I am going to be doing a little catching up the next couple weeks, so I can share my photos with ya'll.

As some of you know, I convinced Corbyn to go with me to Mesa Verde over the Labor Day holiday. A couple of lessons learned:

1. Monticello/Blanding is a long and boring freaking drive. Tom/Nancy - I don't know how you do it.

2. Bring your own firewood to National Parks. We planned to "rough it"... we brought a tarp and our sleeping bags, along with a cooler full of breakfast food to cook on the campfire, thinking we would gather our own wood. Not allowed. (Probably so they can make a steal getting niave campers like us to pay $7/bundle.

3. Deer in National Parks are not afraid of humans. Yes, one almost ran us over in our sleeping bags. I missed it... I was asleep, but when I woke up, Corbyn and Zach were both kind of freaking out. NOTE: this is not the first time Corbyn has been awakened by the wildlife while camping. About 4 years ago, we were camping near Bear Lake and I woke up to see Corbyn standing in the middle of our camp in nothing but his undies. He thought he heard a bear.

4. The old indians were obsessed with bathtubs. Ok, yeah, so "archeologists" call them Kivas and say they were ceremonial, but to me... they are just bathtubs. Everywhere. Half the space in the house was occupied by the bathtub.