Holi Festival of Colors

On Saturday Brett and I went to Holi Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork. Holi is a spring festival that is celebrated by the Hindus and Sikhs. During the festival there are bonfires, music, traditional dancing, and then the throwing of colors. This is definitely the most fun I've ever had celebrating the arrival of spring. Even Brett (who isn't a huge fan of getting messy) had an absolute blast. It was amazing to see the juxtaposition between the Indian architecture of the Krishna Temple and the snow capped rocky mountains.

Here's a video of the fun we had this year! You wouldn't believe how many people were there and how colorful everyone gets.

Summing up summer: Las Vegas

Brett and I made a pit-stop in Vegas while on our way to AZ with my Mom. We were heading to AZ for my niece Alena's birthday party and to help my Mom move back up to SLC.

On our a quick overnight in Vegas Brett and I planned an amazing date night. We dressed up fancy and went and saw Phantom of the Opera. We followed that up with a delicious buffet. It was so worth it. The Vegas production of Phantom of the Opera was incredible. If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend taking a trip and seeing it. Even Brett loved the music, scenery, and special effects.








The next day we hit up Serendipity with my Mom. We couldn't get enough of that frozzzen hot chocolate!

Summing up summer: Norway and Sweden

I have been pretty bad about staying up to date on this blog but I am trying my best to catch up again. Bear with me :)

Sweden and Norway

Brett and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Sweden and Norway with Brett's parents June 18th -July 6th. It was my first time out of the country. I loved meeting all the new people, seeing the new sights, hearing a strange language, and learning about a completely different culture.

In Norway we visited the small town of Mo. Brett has relatives from there. It was a pretty scary drive (literally only 1 car fit on a road at at time and it was just winding around blind turns and into dark tunnel after tunnel), but this sight was worth the trip!


We went on a boat ride around Stockholm for almost 2 hours seeing beautiful architecture like this and learning all about he history of the city.


This was my favorite part of Stockholm, Gamla Stan, the older part of the city. It was such an amazing atmosphere.


This was a big field we passed on our way to catch our ferry to Norway. The colors are gorgeous.



Brett and me in Gamla Stan again. Aren't these little streets and buildings incredible?

We also competed in three track meets while we were there. They were so fun! The atmosphere was so intense and it was so strange listening to all officials speak in Swedish.


Brett and me at the Stockholm Olympic Stadium where they held the 1912 Olympics.






I matched my Seasons Best in the 100 at a meet that was completely JAM PACKED with fans. I couldn't believe how big track was over there!


We spent a lot of time visiting Brett's relatives and family friends. Everyone was so friendly and sweet. We loved our experience going there and hope we can go back again someday.


Fun little note:

The picture that we use with our Blog title was also from our Norway trip. It was taken at 11:45 pm! We were there in the summer so it was light from 3 am till Midnight everyday!

Camping at Island Lake

Brett and I went camping this past weekend with one of our best good friends Chelsey Kaplar. We went up to the Uintahs and hiked in to Island Lake elevation 11,000 feet. We hiked in about 4 miles armed with tents, beef jerky, "Pit" cards, and freeze dried beef stew. Chelsey provided well needed snack packs and her dog Keeva for bear protection. If Keeva didn't do the trick she also had a can of bear mace tucked in her pocket.

We spent the majority of our time eating (as with most camping excursions) and another large part throwing rocks into the lake from a giant cliff that looked quite a bit like Pride Rock from the Lion King.

Needless to say it proved to be an amazing journey. We enjoyed going back to the basics and keeping ourselves entertained with simple things like: finding the perfect sling shot rock, sabotaging a game of "pit", watching boy scouts jump off a 50 foot cliff into frigid water, breaking firewood with large rocks (or trying to cut through it with a pocket knife... cough... Chelsey) and listening for the code word from Chelsey's tent to tell us she was still alive.

Brett Birkeland! ALL CONFERENCE IN DECATHLON!

Brett did it! He took THIRD PLACE! He made all conference as a Freshman, following two years of no training on his mission, and as a newlywed who's been commuting to BYU every day to make practices. I'd say it's quite the feat!

It was a pretty dramatic finish. He was going in to finals in fourth place and was lagging the Air Force guy in third by around 70 points... and second place Wyoming by 175 points. It also just so happened that Air Force's favorite event was the 1500. Gripes.... But Brett ran his heart out and managed to beat the guy in second by over 30 seconds!!!! He bumped Wyoming to fourth place and beat him by 3 points! You can't write this stuff!!! It was incredible.

He had a great overall two days in all of his events with All-time/ seasonal PRs in:
Long Jump
100 m Dash
110 Hurdles
Discus

He also had consistent solid performances in Pole Vault and High Jump.

We are SOOO Proud! Pictures to follow!

Conference Championships

Brett and I will both be competing at the Mountain West Conference Championships this week in Laramie Wyoming.


Brett is going in ranked 2nd in the Decathlon! Decathletes are pretty hard core, they compete in 10 events: 100, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400, 100 hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and the 1,500. It's a two day competition that will take place Wednesday and Thursday. It's a big deal that he is competing because his team only took 28 of their athletes. over 35 of their athletes qualified for Regionals!

On Friday Brett and I will be long jumping at the same time with 40 mph winds. Could be very interesting. :) Then I will be running the starting leg of the 4x100 relay on Saturday. I'm also the alternate for the 4x400.

I am so excited that we get to both go and share this experience together.

Also, I am sooo excited to see how Utah does! We have worked so hard to make this program what it is today. I am so proud of all of our Regional Qualifiers and the girls who work hard everyday to get better. It's sad for me that this may be my last meet as an NCAA athlete. I'm going to miss it, but I am also looking foward to the next phase of my life.

I'll post again after the meet to let everyone know how both of our teams do. :)