Kj'sTravels: Too much fun, so little time

So catching up on 10 months is going to be impossible even for a super human like me, so let me just start writing with current day KJ and share some spring time photos….

Allison and I drove over a hour down to Providence, RI just to get

the most amazing shakes "Awful Awful"

I had a cough/cold/virus that turned out to be bronchitis

but got to wear this awesome mask in the clinic

#quarantined

Sadly in April my Uncle Kyle lost his battle to prostate cancer,

I had the opportunity to fly out to California for the funeral

and got to fly on the sweetest airline I have ever experienced!

All the kids (minus Em) at Grams and Gramps after the funeral

2 weeks later I got to go home where we spend the weekend

up in Park City with the family for Easter, it was

such a great time and here is Gavin showing his goof face.

Me~Maddie~Abby

being awesome

Morning of the SLC marathon where Dave ran with Shay

#teamshave

Starting line

In our #teamshave gear

More #teamshave

Pops and Lincoln

Easter morning in Park City

Then the girls came to see me :) :) :)

We went to a Red Sox game

And then for Daves Birthday (May 11th) I played complete hooky

from work and laid at the pool at a way too nice resort

Happy Birthday David Taylor!!

Me walking around Boston in my Pega-corn pants

and look what I found, a Unicorn ;)

Jake and I out training for our ride.

Yes thats a unicycle and yes he's amazing.

Memorial weekend I got to try Max Brenner, a chocolatier

restaurant, there are only 5 US locations and we are

lucky to have one right her in Boston! The guys were here

for a dental conference.

On Memorial day I did a bike ride out to Walden pond

and passed this very sweet cemetery on my way.

Hit Revere beach with a friend from church, Sarah Lay

this is only 20 min from my house :)

Nothing says summertime like outdoor movies in the park,

here in Boston they do it at the Hatch Shell right

on Charles river. This is our new roommate Anamta and her

friends.

Julia's last night as our roommate, went for frozen yogurt

Now catching up to speed for some photos from this past weekend….

Dave and Nate flew out to join us!

Heading out Sunday morning across Bourne bridge

My pony from the weekend

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to do a charity bike for the Multiple Sclerosis foundation, it was called Bike MS. The ride went from UMass Boston to Provincetown Cape Cod which was just over 150 miles (in 2 days). I had the chance to ride for someone with MS which the society set me up with but I also included a personal friend as a motivation and focus to keep me going on those long treacherous stretches. Rita was diagnosed in her early 30's and has survived for over 30 years supported and loved by her spouse and dgtrs. I had the chance to know her, first as her nurse and second as a friend as the years have gone by. She is beautiful, she is kind, she is sassy, and she is positive. MS shows its ugly face in many different ways making it one of the most difficult diseases to diagnose since there is no set test that says "this is MS," making people go years being incorrectly diagnosed. Technology and medicine is improving, keeping hope alive! I did the ride with Jake, my roommate Katie, my brother Dave and bro in law Nate flew in for the weekend to do it as well. The weather was great. The organization was awesome. The roads were hilly. The people were determined. A weekend that I will not soon forget, one that made me dig deeper than I have before and kept me pushing forward for a purpose way beyond myself. Four days later my body still aches ha

Nate stayed a few more days for touring which sent us on a Haunted tours through Boston and a Red Sox game with amazing seats that I will never have again! The weather here in is amazing, I am quickly seeing why everyone says the summers make the winters okay.

I am on board a flight (which I realize is when I usually have the time to catch up on my blog) headed to Utah for the 4th of July, excited to spend the next week with friends and family! The craziest part is that I am randomly going to be in town for my 10 yr high school reunion, something I have not thought I would want to go to, but am now excited to attend and meet up with old friends. It's scary how fast ten years have passed, it makes me want to make sure I don't waste time my time and keep on living since we never know when living will end.

There is no update on the dating world for me. Single for now but ready to be in a relationship when it comes my way, not avoiding it, just being cautious from here on out. All everyone says is that it will happen when I least expect it, so let me stop expecting ha

My trip to Utah was absolutely great! The 4th was great we went to Johns house and enjoyed the Cul de Sac of fire with the blow up slides, candy gun, and BBQ… oh and of course amazing fireworks! I went down to St George and hung out with Vina/Stanley/Jocky/Clarence, all of the fools down there :) Back home I had a pool party and BBQ with my high school and college friends, good to feel loved and missed!! Like always my trip went by way too fast and before I knew I was back to Boston.

The fourth of July was a ball, nothing like family fun and food!

Cul de Sac of fire at John's house: BBQ, candy canon

and fireworks to celebrate the nations birthday

A few days down to STG with Amanda, Nate, and Dave

we hit Sand Hollow with jet skis :) Vina, Jacque,

and Clarence joined us too!

Back up to SLC, Jen the great planned a BBQ for

all my friends to come and see me… it was a dream!

The walking joke: Jaimie~Kj~Kamany 10 yrs later…

Amy~Kj~Jen 5 yrs later….

Time passes too quickly, I sound like a old person ha

For the rest of SLC trip I headed up camping with the

fam at Granite Flats in American Fork canyon top pic is of

Jaron~Ben~Bailey~Gavin~Pops~Kj

a top of the white rock

Just at the lake fishing fishing fishing

and fishing

This moment, Gavin sleeping in my arms around the fire

was a moment that made my trip complete!

When I was home I tried out a thing called Tinder. Explanation of Tinder. It is a application on your phone that sends you pics of guys that are close by and if you like their profile then you swipe one way and if you don't then you swipe another, if both of you swipe yes then its called a match and a conversation pops up to connect you to talk. It's a hook up app. Some people find someone they like and connect well with but initially its made so you can easily talk to people close to you and have the option to meet up. I met a few people over the month of July on there but only 2 really stuck, one guy from Cedar city in Utah and one in Somerville in Massachusetts. Its a slow step towards starting to date, I am not against online dating but I just haven't taken the leap to open up a profile yet.

At the end of July Karina and Mitchael came out with the kiddos Cosette and Simon! We only had a few days so we saw sights and did things :) This is my second set of married friends come to visit me, I swear I am so freaking lucky!! Her kids are the sweetest kids, it took them a while to warm up to me because they were not sure what to do with me but with a few hours they couldn't resist me ha

Road trip down to DC to get the rest of our belongings, Katie

and I made the most of our 10-11hr drive, we ended

up spending a whole 36 hrs in DC.. such a while wind

Great trip to Nandos mmmmmmmm

Nats game with my folk

August was a blur, I went to Oklahoma to hang with David Taylor and Maddie for the weekend. Angie had a pool party for us and the office at her house and then that night we drove up to Northern Oklahoma to Grand Lake. The lake was gorgeous!! We jet skied but it was way different then in Utah, the lake there was so windy and choppy which actually made it a lot more fun!

Dinner with friends~pool party~post spray tan pic~Oklahoma thunderstorm

Grand Lake

Maddie and I nail painting while Dave makes all the money at work :)

Out at Grand Lake

That night the craziest "small world" thing happened. We were out to eat at a place with live music and I saw this tall handsome guy and he saw me and then I went over to talk to him. After talking a few min I realized he went to Utah state and played basketball at the same time I was there!! I thought he looked like someone I knew but didn't have any reason to recognize someone in the middle of Oklahoma but it turned out he was visiting from Kansas that weekend too!! I couldn't believe it, here Mr Prince Charming from the team was standing at a bar flirting and chatting it up with me, it was so surreal ha Later that night after their bachelor party was winding down, I went and picked him up and took him back to their place. We talked, he rubbed my feet, and we made out ha ha I know such a exciting story but really the whole time I felt like I was in another world… it was such a strange lapse in reality and made me want to pinch myself. I told the girls all about it because we all knew who he was… in the end I saw his Facebook and it turned out he has a girlfriend, what a loser and such a waste of a handsome face.

Summer games came and went and so did Corie

Back in Boston I got to go to the beach, Tuesday nights we would go listen to live music, weekends we took trips to Walden/Martha's Vinyard/Berkshires. Labor day weekend I went up to northern New Hampshire and camped out at Francis lake.

Katie and I took a day trip to

Marthas Vinyard, such a Northeast dream…

Katie and Harbor

Gina got older

Walden Pond

Out camping in the Berkshires

Best Chicken Wangs west of the Mississippi

Norman Rockwell museum and MOCA

I went to DC taking the bus down, it was so lovely to

just see the girls and relax :) :) :)

Amanda~Melissa~Kj

Weekend trip up to Hampton Beach with coworkers

Joanna and Elise, so much lobster and laughter!!

Last weekend we had a ward campout retreat that I went up to for the night then drove down and went to a aerial adventure park where you climb through trees and on logs and ropes and wires and swing and ziplined down… in all, it was absolutely amazing!! I was challenged and exhausted but have been raging about it all week to everyone I talked to haha

Now its October 2nd, I have now taken you all the way through my summer with a very brief narrative. I can't believe that it all went so quickly, life is what happens while you're busy making plans. As I try to keep living and enjoying, I am also putting together plans to start graduate school next fall, I will do a Masters in nursing with a specialty in women's health and midwifery…. or at least that's the plan if I get accepted. First I need to take the GRE and do a lot of applications.

Naturally I am on a flight home to Utah! I am just going for 4 days to hang with my mama, throw a baby shower for miss Tiffany Frizell, and go to Madisons 1st birthday party :)

Mama Jo and these Rugrats picked me up from the airport,

Lincoln~Tavian~Gavin

Clearly they were psyched to see me