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Real Salt Lake Cameo

When Kristie headed off to her baby shower, Jeremy and I headed up to a Real Salt Lake game with these:

How’d we get the all-access passes? Well, we got it in exchange for participating in a little halftime skit with Real’s mascot, Leo the Lion.

Here’s how it went down. At 10 minutes to halftime we left our complementary seats and headed down to the locker room of the stadium. There we met up with Leo, who gave us our props. To me, an old Leo suit, a dress, a bow and a purse. To Jeremy, a jersey of the opposing team (Philadelphia). In honor of Mother’s Day, I was to dress up as Leona (Leo’s mom), and get introduced at half field. So yeah, this is me:

There Leo would present me with flowers–which was Jeremy’s cue to jump out of the stands, run on the field and start acting like an obnoxious fan from the rival team (while the police chased him around). At that point I’d see Jeremy, run full-tilt at him, and deliver a crushing tackle (as any die-hard fan — and mascot-mom — would do) .

Then I was instructed to beat him with my purse till Leo caught up and dragged me off him.

The skit went according to plan and had some great play-by-play narration from the stadium announcer. I was told that the fans in attendance thought it was a riot.

Cross-dressing as a lioness was a bit weird for me (hold your jokes), but getting to lay a solid hit on Jer in front of the whole stadium was awesome.

Many thanks to Tyler at RealSoccerNation.com for the awesome photos, and Leo, who got us the best seats in the house.

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Canyon runs

The past few weekends Kristie and I have gotten in the habit of heading up Provo canyon for Saturday runs. Today was no exception, and the weather was beautiful.

The trail I took this morning was a 6 mile loop that starts in the parking lot of Timpanogos Park and threads up and around the foothills. The elevation always kills me. Here’s a couple pictures I snapped with my phone at my favorite lookout spot (trust me, they don’t do it justice):

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15k Race

This weekend Kristie ran the last installment of the Salt Lake City Track Club’s winter series, a 15k (9.3 mile) race out by the Saltair Pavilion in Magna. Her doctor figured that since she’s been running 5 miles a day since she was a fetus, she’s probably just fine doing it now. Kristie told me she had no interest in running fast, she just wanted to run. Well, she certainly surprised me.

Not bad for a girl that’s almost 6 months pregnant!

The race atmosphere was pretty exciting, and it was so funny to walk behind Kristie and watch people steal sideways glances at her belly.

According to Kristie, the toughest part of running 9 miles in her condition has been not peeing her pants. (I apologize, probably TMI.) I think it’s those little things that get lost on us guys.

And a special thanks to Grandma Hiller for putting us up in SLC the night before the race. She’s an angel, and the world’s biggest Jazz fan.

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Weekend at Solitude

The Wagstaffs (family friends of the Tanners) invited us up to their beautiful cabin at Solitude ski resort this weekend. Being the ski bum that I am, I was beyond excited for another opportunity to get out this season. So Friday night we picked up Houston and made our way up a snowy Big Cottonwood Canyon, arriving at our destination just after dark. It wasn’t long before we settled into deep couches to watch the Vancouver Olympic opening ceremonies with a big group of family and friends.

The next morning a bunch of us struck out early to the lifts, hoping to get in as many runs as possible. It had snowed a bunch the evening before, and it snowed the entire day…so conditions were perhaps the best I’ve ever skied. Since Denny had been coming to Solitude his entire life, he and his son Drew were able to take us directly to the best stashes of thigh-to-waist deep powder. I decided to forgo lunch and ended up skiing for seven straight hours. Pure bliss.

Kristie “I Don’t Want to Squish the Baby” McConnon wasn’t feeling quite up to skiing, so she decided to run 9 miles at their home gym and play with Therese’s adorable nieces back at the cabin instead. That night we watched moguls, short-track, luge, biathlon and a bunch of other awesome Olympic competitions, taking a few breaks to play Scatagories and some other fun games. Watching Apollo and Kearney take silver and gold respectively were certainly highlights.

[check out that gnarly curling iron burn on Kristie's neck. That has to be some kind of record, poor girl]

On Sunday we went to church at the Brighton Branch, which was literally at the base of a ski hill. It was one of the prettiest churches I’d ever attended. Later on we had a big family dinner and dessert, complete with a Valentines Day party put on by the little kids.

We were planning on heading back that evening, but one of Kristie’s client’s rescheduled and I didn’t have work, so we didn’t have to take off till this morning. All in all it was a wonderful weekend escape with great skiing, great activities and really great company.

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Moving On

Friday was the last day of work at my previous job. It had been a terrific 3 years, and I’m really proud of the things I learned and accomplished. My decision to move on came about when I received a job offer from another company–but then within days of that first offer, I was given a second, even better one that I couldn’t pass up. As a result, I’ve accepted the position as Director of Marketing at Qualtrics Labs,  a really awesome survey software company based in Provo. The people I’m working with are terrific, and I can’t say enough about the unique company culture.

As a result of this shift, I had a week of unemployment that I spent most judiciously. Skiing became priority #1, since I received a few complimentary lift passes as a gift from my new employer. If any of you have skied Deer Valley, you’ll know why it’s been rated the best ski resort in the nation 3 years running. I was lucky enough to have the company of Jer and Nathan for two of the trips. The picture below is of some of the amazing terrain we got to ski.

I can’t wait to get rockin’ and rollin’ at Qualtrics this next week…

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BYU vs. CSU at the Marriott

Our new friends Jared and Kayleen gave us some extra tickets to the men’s hoops game on Wednesday and it was a blast. BYU’s team has had a killer season so far [watch me jinx it], and they’re playing lights out. Maybe we’ll finally make it past round one of the big dance this year..

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BYU 26, Utah 23

Andrew George, breaking a Ute “tackle” to win in overtime. Glorious bragging rights for a full year. Loving it.

tackling

(P.S. – Hey Max, you sound like me last year)

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Cheer Party and Homecoming

The Weidman’s hosted an excellent get together for BYU cheer alumni that Kristie and I were invited to attend. I’ve learned over the years that anytime you get a group of cheerleaders together in one place, they end up stunting. It’s practically inevitable. But this time, everybody took a crack at it…even the non-cheerleaders. For example…

Jeriann was peer-pressured into trying a stunt with KC. Everyone who knew anything agreed she handled it like a pro:

Then everyone got on my case and coaxed me into putting Kristie in the air. Surprisingly it worked okay. Luckily Kristie’s good enough that anyone could put her up:

But easily the most entertaining was when Cami managed to hold up her brawny husband Chandler, completely unassisted. Cami’s face is priceless:

The next evening was homecoming versus TCU. ESPN college gameday was there…in fact everything was perfect, except for the final score. During halftime they had cheer alum come out on the field for the fight song. Here’s some friends down on the grass:

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Lavell Edwards Stadium, We Missed You

Our awesome/kind/generous/etc. friends Leah and Jonny gave us their tickets to the BYU vs. CSU game because they were going away to Mexico for the long weekend. So we spent the afternoon basking in the glory of another sellout crowd and another Cougar win. At one point, after Harvey Unga ran into the endzone for a touchdown, the cameramen got shot of the crowd reaction. Apparently I was front and center for a few seconds. I found out initially because my phone suddenly flooded with texts and Facebook messages from friends telling me they saw me on TV. But even better, when we got home that night we got an email from Jonny and Leah in Mexico who made their family rewind the game so they could take a picture and email it to us. Pretty awesome. Unfortunately Kristie was blocked by the score icon in the bottom right:

She got her own moment in the spotlight after the game, however, when she was invited down onto the field to stunt with some friends, just like the old days. The first picture is of a “cupie” contest (which couple can hold the stunt the longest)…

…and the second is of a gnarly stunt that I can never remember the name of. It might be called “watch-me-make-a-pretzel-out-of-myself-and-point-at-you-while-standing-on-an-ox-of-a-human-being” — but don’t quote me on that.

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Flag Football

Kristie and some friends are on an awesome flag football team. I’m not sure if they’ll win a game this season, but they sure do have a good time. Kristie’s got an awesome throw and quick feet, so she switches between QB and running back. I didn’t get very good pictures, but here’s a shot of Kristie (in black) cruising for some yards: