Summer's End: The Best of 2013

Tomorrow marks the official start of fall. Bring on Utah's mosaic of autumn leaves!

Looking back, this has been the best summer of our Beck treks so far. I'd plotted out 13 staycations for this summer, but our time together turned out better than I could have hoped. Rather than write an individual post about each event, I'm rounding them up list-style to remember good times with people we love. We're so blessed to have wonderful health to enjoy these adventures:

My favorite passenger and me!

Crystalee's final flight with wings
Memorial Day weekend was my final time in the jump seat. The rest of this summer couldn't have been so wonderful without the decision to turn in my wings. I'd gotten to a sticky point where I had two full-time jobs (they took away the part-time flying option) AND grad school. Talk about overloaded! It was 100% the best choice for us at this time. Ry had encouraged me for a long time to let it go, and I've honestly never looked back since. I love finally getting to enjoy weekends! Little did I know, I was already a few weeks pregnant in this picture...

June
New position at work
Within three weeks of leaving the airline, I was promoted to Social Community Manager at MarketStar. Amazing how, like Helen Keller said, "When one door closes, another opens." It's challenging and also a lot of fun. I love my job!

Millie's Princess Run
My favorite fun run of the year is in honor of a little lady named Millie Flamm. I wrote about this year's race here. Hope you can join me next year!

July

Sarah Jane + Gil = ❤
On a beautiful summer day, Ryan's cousin Sarah Jane became Mrs. Marchant. He was able to attend the festivities the whole day, and I joined the reception that night. They're a really fun, happy pair.

Primary party at the park
Ry and I hosted a party at a nearby park for our five- and six-year old Primary class. We played kickball, hide and seek, blew up balloons (of course, making funny noises with them), and played "monster" on the playground. Ryan's such a big kid himself. Now we have different church callings, but we loved our two years with these little monkeys!









Snowbird weekend for Ryan's birthday
Ryan turned 29 and we celebrated with a quick getaway at Snowbird. Wrote about it here.

Sandlot Bees game

Remember Squints? Ham? Yeah Yeah? We saw their adult counterparts at the Salt Lake Bees game for the 20th Anniversary since the classic movie "The Sandlot" was filmed in Utah. ALSO: This was the day (July 19) we found out we're expecting our first baby! We'd soon find out we were already at 11 weeks at this point - I've been so fortunate to feel well.

Ryan's Spudman Triathlon
Ryan had been training for months for the Spudman, which is held each summer in Burley, Idaho. His sister, brother-in-law, and brother Randy competed too - yeah team! While they were pushing it, I was filming for a class assignment:

August
Riley Returns!
Ryan's brother Riley returned from his LDS mission in Mexico City the first week of August. He did such a great job serving the people there and speaks Spanish so well. We were all so excited to see him. While we had the whole group together for a picture shot, we announced our baby news...and that night, Rob and Jen shared their Kensi will be a big sister! What a happy day for the Beck bunch!

Lava Hot Springs
A few days later, the Beck Bunch made the yearly trek to Idaho to the beloved tradition of Lava. Ryan did his annual backflips off the ultra-high dive (which always makes my heart stop), and we enjoyed being with family. Ryan and company went the next day to Jackson Hole where they river rafted.

Keala and Mike's wedding
A few days after our three-year wedding anniversary, my beautiful cousin Keala married her man Mike in the Salt Lake temple. It was one of the happiest days I've had in a long time. We got to "relive" the memories of our own wedding day and see my cousin so radiantly happy. I've written before about my auntie Melanie who passed away, and Keala is her first daughter. It was such a special experience to feel her mama's spirit throughout the day - Melanie was watching from heaven and we could feel her love.

I'd waited to tell my mom and sisters our good news until I saw them at this wedding - it was wonderful to share there will be TWO new grandbabies in 2014! (My sister is also expecting and had already announced.)

Mama, Erika (who's expecting too), me, and Emily just after we shared the news.

I loved that they included Melanie's cookies at the reception. She was there in spirit!

Color Run
On August 24, we did the Salt Lake City Color Run with way fun Tami and Mavin. LOVED IT. I ran the entire 5K in about 30 minutes - not too shabby for a pregnant lady!

September
Backpacking trip
Ryan's been wanting to take me camping since got married. We figured we'd better get out there before my baby belly grows too big and it gets cold. Over Labor Day, we had my very first "practice" backpacking trip in the Uintas. Being 17 weeks pregnant, we only hiked about 40 minutes (and I was proud of myself to carry my own pack!) We camped for two nights, and explored little lily-padded lakes and I felt our little baby's butterfly-wing kicks for the first time.

Arizona visit
We spent a weekend with the Webb/Marson family in Arizona. Dad and Sue were kind to take us out on Lake Pleasant. Ryan and Emily's boyfriend showed off their wakeboarding prowess, and my dad even gave it a go. Ryan displayed mad skills hanging on to the tube - I've never seen anyone whipped so fast across the water. Sue was so sweet to take Erika and me maternity clothes shopping, and we celebrated Crysti's birthday together at dinner.

Ryan, realizing he survived the wicked ride, gives a victory grin.

Emily's boyfriend Quincy teaching dad how to wakeboard. Love it.

Cute couple!

My sisters.

While all of this has been wonderful, the BEST part of this summer has definitely been BABY BECK. We're finding out the gender next week. We're excited that next summer we'll have a little one with us! If you haven't seen it already, here's my favorite project from the past few months:

What has been the best part of YOUR summer?

2013 Spudman Triathlon (Video!)

We spent this past weekend in Idaho for the 2013 Spudman Olympic-length triathlon. While Ryan and family swam, biked, and ran...I filmed!

I had an assignment to create a VNR (Video News Release) for my graduate New Media class. This is what resulted. I couldn't help but include my stud in the Spud at the end! Ryan did a great job on his race, improving his time overall from last year. It was a family affair, with three Beck siblings and Tami's husband Mavin  racing. They're all amazing.

Here's what I was up to on the sidelines...

You're Killing Me, Smalls!

Last Friday Ryan and I took a summer stroll down memory lane, right into the essence of childhood. Remember the first time you watched "The Sandlot"? I don't, but since it was countless views ago, I can tell you the Utah-filmed flick played a big role in my life. My dad says my sisters and I wore out our video copy (remember videos?) and he had to get us a second one. I've mentioned the "Wendy Peffercorn" pool is only blocks away from us here in Ogden, a fact I can't help but feel quite proud about! 

That being said, Ryan and I went to the Utah Bees game last Friday, where they were playing "The Sandlot" after the game for the 20th Anniversary of the film. Even better, they wrangled in the gang of guys from the movie to make a live appearance! We saw Ham, Squints, and Yeah-Yeah in the flesh, and now that those guys are in their mid-thirties, it was hilarious to see that some of them look strikingly similar to their boyhood silver screen versions.

Although the Bees got absolutely spanked by the Sacramento Rivercats (we're talking 17-8...ouch!), we had such a blast going out on the field with hundreds of families to see the show on the screen. Afterwards, we hit up Denny's for our free Grand Slams, on account of the Bees hitting a grand slam during the game. 

Can I just say we heart summer?  How long? FOR-EVVVVVVV-ER!

Loving us some general admission seats on the grass. So nice to stretch out and see the free entertainment around us.

The view of the game.

We both pretended to watch the game, but let's be honest...we were there for the movie!

Yeah! Everyone's storming the field. There wasn't a bad seat in the house.

So "Yeah-Yeah" morphed from a puny kid into a HUGE muscle man. Ham and Squints looked totally the same!

Recognize these guys?

Hard to tell...but the movie is playing on the screen. Fun!

Gotta love the spontaneous, free breakfast at midnight!

Ry's Birthday Weekend at Snowbird

We kicked off the last year of Ryan being in his twenties with a Snowbird staycation this weekend. Twenty-four hours of cool, clean mountain air sent us both away feeling refreshed.

Are you in Utah? Looking for a creative, free date night? - check out Snowbird's Family Flicks. We happened across "Cool Runnings" and couldn't help but watch the Jamaican bobsled team.

Saturday we made good use of our all-day activity passes, feeling like little kids trying out the Alpine Slide, Mountain Flyer, Ropes Course...I'm pretty sure Ryan set a new record for height on the Bungy Trampoline - he got lots of air as he did double backflips. We brought a picnic lunch on the Aerial Tram, eating it up at the top of the 11,000-foot summit of Hidden Peak. On top of the world! 

Happy birthday, Ryan!

Happy birthday, Ry guy! 29 looks good on you.

Check out all these fun movies - free date night!

We love how Snowbird is nestled right into the mountains - so beautiful.

Ryan got pretty excited when he was strapped in.

This was only about 60 seconds later - he launched himself high!

Crystalee on the ropes course.

Something pretty romantic about riding on a summer lift.

I just got done running, and we're both loving the mountain scene.

13 Staycations for Summer 2013

Memorial Day's this next weekend - helloooo summer!

Announcement: This weekend will be my very last flying as a flight attendant. I've been with the airline since 2009, and Ryan knows best how addicted I've been to those flight benefits. When it comes down to it, though, I've been working two jobs for two years WHILE attending graduate school. (Crazy, I know.) It's time to move on and take back our weekends together.

Thanks to my flying, Ryan and I have seen many of the world's greatest cities together - Paris, Rome, Sydney, New York City, Venice. I'll admit that being part of an airline for almost four years ingrained a mentality that the real adventure must be a state or a continent away.

Ryan, on the other hand, is perfectly content with a patch of grass, family, and a frisbee to throw around. That simplicity has bothered me at times, but I see how much more healthy it is to be content and happy where you are - with those who mean the most to you in the world.

He's right - there's much fun to be had right here in our own Utah backyard. National Geographic even named our own Ogden, Utah, as a "Best Adventure Town" in the United States.

This summer, we're here to stay. And with all of these fun events planned,  that sounds pretty nice to me.

Here's our 2013 Summer Staycations list:

1. Park City weekend
2. Go indoor skydiving (it's only two blocks from our place and we have yet to go!)
3. Attend a Sunday program of "Music and the Spoken Word" at the LDS Conference Center
4. Get color-dusted in the Salt Lake City COLOR RUN (Aug. 24 - you coming?)
5. Check out the Eccles Dinosaur Park 
6. Climb Ben Lomond mountain
7. Celebrate cousin Sarah Jane's wedding in SLC (July)
8. Stay at Snowbird ski resort for Ryan's birthday
9. Go camping
10. Attend the Brigham City temple together
11. Enjoy cousin Keala's wedding in SLC (August)
12. Day trip to famous Spiral Getty in the Great Salt Lake
13. Sleepover with cousins in Traverse Mountain

Tractor Time, Baby

As a farmer's granddaughter, I've grown up appreciating farming, tractors, and the hard-earned crops that result from months of disciplined work. (Shout out to Grandma and Grandpa Webb. We love you!) Grandpa is a loyal John Deere guy, and our family's quite a yellow tractor bunch, but recently I got to drive me a big ol' red tractor.

After Ryan's triathlon in Burley, Idaho, a happy twist of fate brought us across the street from the Agri-Service dealer. At my job, one of our clients is AGCO, and I write marketing material for Massey Ferguson, one of the tractor brands sold at the dealership. I couldn't pass up the chance to get up close and personal with the big red tractors. Larry and Curtis were happy to give us a look around, quite the hospitable guys.

Curtis gave Ryan and I a ride around the block in the biggest, nicest tractor on the market - and then let me drive it into the garage. Yeah, baby!

Ryan's Olympic Gold Medal

Yesterday as the world watched Ryan Lochte dominate the swim medley and win Olympic gold, my Ryan Beck scored a gold medal for swimming, biking, and running his first Olympic-length triathlon.(OK, OK, so Lochte's medal is really gold, while Beck's finisher's medal looks gold. Still, I'm impressed.)

Apparently, if you're a 27- or 28-year old Ryan, you're bound to be a) jaw-droppingly attractive and b) destined for studly greatness.  After months of training, Ry rocked the Spudman Triathlon's 1.5k swim, 25 mile bike, and 10k run, crossing the finish line with a 2:32 time and ninth in his division. That's my man! I am so proud of my stud in the Spud. Tami and Randy were fabulous as well - way to go, Becks!

We began our drive to Burley, Idaho, at 3:50 a.m. and met up with Ryan's sister, brother, and mom. The three siblings competed, while Trisha and I covered cheering and photography. Here's the victorious day in pictures, starting from when we arrived with thousands of other race-goers in the wee morning hours:

Thousands of bikes lined up at sunrise - ready for action!

Each racer got a bag of goodies, including an Idaho spud. Here, Ryan's getting his race number on his shirt.

Ryan barely made it in the water on time for his heat. With a current-aided swim, he said the water felt nice.

And they're off! Ryan, Tami, and Randy are pictured here - can you pick them out?

The masses of people watching, or waiting for their heat. Nothing like the tangible energy in the air on race day.

After the swim and bike, Ryan rushes to transition for the 10k run.

Tie those laces tight!

On the last quarter mile, he came in strong. Go, Ryan, Go!

"Here comes Ryan Beck, 28, of Ogden, Utah" says the announcer. Finish line in sight!

HE DID IT!!! Looking great, stud. Notice my rad London Olympics shirt; thanks Dad and Sue for getting it in England!

Ryan, Randy, Tami, and Julia - Olympic triathlon gold medalists! Nice work, you guys!