Brave: hiking

S E P T E M B E R

I've mentioned it about fifty times before, but I love summer, and at the end of August I was NOT ready to let it go! It didn't help that the second week of September we had a few days where it was in the low 50s, raining and windy.. I honestly was feeling pretty depressed about it, just bummed that the sunshine and warm weather and all the things I love about summer were ending.

So instead of thinking of it as the beginning of Fall, the month of September was my final farewell to summer. It (thankfully!) warmed back up and I was able to say my last goodbyes to summer hikes, the farmers market, and I even fit in a trip to California!

First up, family weekend up at Snowbird!

And after way too much online researching, I finally settled on this pair of light weight running shoes and have loved them so far.

Then cali cali cali with my twin! 2.5 weeks apart felt like forever. what are we going to do for the next 2.5 months?? We mostly just hung out on Pomona's campus (which is amazing!) and I followed him around pretending to be a student there too. But on Saturday we also went to Newport Beach and it was perfect weather for jumping in the ocean and bodysurfing in the giant waves.

^^ so happy to be at the airport at 6am..

See you in two short months twinny!

Then back to SLC and more Zoe and more local fruits & veggies (aka my summer)

A few months ago I heard that the author Michael Lewis was coming to speak in Salt Lake City and I made sure to buy tickets the second they went up, so we scored 5th row seats in Abravanel Hall for a nearly sold out evening! I brought my friend Nate, our german kind-of-exchange-student Lotti, and of course mom. Michael Lewis was hilarious, so witty, so smart, and it made me want to read all of his books!!

Earlier this summer I read The Big Short, his book about the 2008 financial crisis, and even though finance is a foreign language to me, I loved it! The characters were so interesting and when you understand what actually caused the whole mess.. it's just insane! I'm so excited to see it on the big screen this Christmas with Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Brad Pitt (!!!!!) It was so fun to meet Michael Lewis afterwards and have him sign my book.

And then this year was the first memorial for Uta that I've been home for, and the first one where things have actually seemed settled.

By September 27th as we walked down the mountain towards our car I had finally made my peace and was ready to embrace the autumn season!

Here's to October!

xx Jess

A U G U S T

I wrote this whole post and then it got lost somehow? Or maybe I dreamed that I wrote it, but really didn't.. Really not sure. And I fully realize how weird that sounds! haha

Either way, I don't really feel like typing it all up again so this post is going to be light on the text.

Quick recap:

We went to a Bee's baseball game (my first!)

We drove down to Moab, went to Arches national park and river rafted on the Green River

We enjoyed the summer sunshine in SLC with some hiking, some climbing, and even some camping!

Then we said goodbye to Pelle and Simon (who went back to school), said hello to Lotti (our german friend who came to visit for a month), and we all started our new school years!

whew!

With our big trip to Guatemala at the beginning of the month and school starting on the 24th of August, the month went by in the blink of an eye and hardly felt like "summer" at all.