Sundance

Of course we have all heard of the infamous Sundance Film Festival, but until we moved to Utah, I had know idea the festival took place in Park City. I quickly learned this fact, however, when I learned our Sign Shop makes most all of the signage for the festival!

The town is completely transformed. Main Street goes from being clothing shops, jewelry stores, and galleries to being storefronts for Acura, Chase, HP, Bentley, etc. There are like 15 different theaters where the thousands of Sundance files actually play for about two weeks. The traffic is insane. I don't even wanna talk about that. But overall, it's a pretty cool, pretty crazy and hectic scene. Tons and tons of celebrities show up. They go to all the premiers and the VIP parties and some people spot them... but no, we did not. We didn't see anyone lol. Although we had cameras ready!

Anyways, on the first Saturday night of the premieres, Brad and I went walking around Main Street to check out the scenes. We went snowboarding during the day, and then stopped by the St. Regis to relax for a while before nightfall :)

The beautiful St Regis hotel

 Yep, that's a Bentley inside as an ad.

So pretty

We could get used to this lifestyle :)

So after our relax time, we stopped by my work to leave the car before heading to Sundance. We ran into my boss, who was going to a party and invited us along!! 

My boss, Susan.

 Location of the party

Naturally, my husband gravitated towards the food tables :)

 They had models... walking around posing... in their $1400 ski jackets....

Such a party!

 After we left the party with FREE PISTATIO GELATO... we headed up to Main St and just walked around the crazy crowded streets!

Sidenote! Almost the best part of Sundance is our companys connection to the sister Festival- SLAMDANCE. Slamdance is another festival going on, ON Main St also at the same time. But since we make their signage as well, we have a trade set up with them. Brad and I got some Slamdance T Shirts and hats and we got to go to some free movies with my coworkers! We left work early and went to see fun movies together!

Riding to Main St with my main girl Dana :)

:)

Some coworkers: Janice, Dana, Brook and myself

(Note the Slamdance Hat) hehe

Little Cottonwood Trail

Geocaching on Little Cottonwood Trail

So far our ratio isn't that hot. When we went out geocaching up Little Cottonwood Trail, we wanted to find the three geocaches we had mapped, and we only found one. We blame the snow though. Most geocaches don't seem to be easily found in 3.5 feet of snow...

The first step...

When we stayed ON the trail, it was packed enough that we could still hike it relatively well. If we went off-trail at all, we really should have been equipped with snowshoes. But we don't have any. So we just sink down past our boots up to our knees and keep going!! It's very, very hard and tiring but a lot of fun and just feels silly.

Beautiful scenery! PS Thats where the mountain goats hang out... we didn't see them this time, but we saw three last time we were in this area...

Trailside Creek

Yup... this happened.

Are you surprised?

Beautiful house hidden up in the mountain

First geocache attempt: 

Name-- "Holes"

Clue-- "Bottom right. Wire Loop."

This is what we saw when we got there. Our GPS told us to turn around and look on the other side of the trail... but I thought we should check the obvious place first... Considering the name was "Holes"

The holes in the rocks are made from dynamite, when they are trying to move large boulders from the mountains

Success!!

TINY logbook inside!

I am really enjoying geocaching. Again, our record isn't stellar so far, but it's fun to try! We have found our GPS is only accurate up to like 10-15 feet. Doesn't seem like a lot, but when you are in dense forest and it could be 10-15 feet anywhere, up, down, burried, and deep in snow... it makes an insane difference. This is where the clues of the person who hid them really come in handy. Clues like "rock" really are just annoying, but some other clues don't give it away, but help you have an idea of where to look.

Second Geocache Attempt:

Name-- "A little bit creepy"

Clue-- "Wood, near old pavillion"

 Well, we found the pavillion

Brad getting eaten...

 It wasn't in there...

 This is where that "10-15ft" made a huge difference. It kept taking us in tight circles around an area, but with so much snow, seeing hidden spots in trees, etc was nearly impossible. We spent a good amount of time here but failed to find it :/

The hike back

 So cool :)

 Love it :)

 Underside of the icicles :)

We had a great hike and a fun time! It was a beautiful hike in an area I love to be in because the cliff-faces are so close and prominent.

I went a little crazy on the images today, it was just a long fun snow hike. Hope you enjoy them!

New Year's Eve

Brad and I found some awesome ways to ring in 2013! We found a package in downtown Salt Lake where we got a nice room in the Marriott and passes to SLC"s "EVE" celebration. It was a really great night!

View from our room :) 

So nice to get away for the night!

Anyways, "EVE" is a celebration in downtown Salt lake where lots of big local attractions and buildings take place in activities for the whole evening before the midnight bash! We checked into the hotel and headed to our first stop! We began in Temple Square where we participated in a Scavenger Hunt! It was silly and meant for families, but we had a great time with it and took it very seriously!

The scavenger hunt begins in the Joesph Smith Building.

 First time in this building, very pretty.

The next question asked us to count the number of heads outside a certain restaurant. We decided we were going to make it a race, and finish as fast as we could! We don't know anything about Temple Square, Mormon History, or the location of the buildings, but we considered it our practice run for the Amazing Race!! 

 Running past the Temple.

 We had to locate this random log cabin and find the square footage.

So Tiny!

 Assembly Hall I think? Looks pretty in the snow

 After we BEASTED the scavenger hunt and collected our prizes of smarties, crayon-people, and flashlights, we warmed up in the Mormon Tabernacle and watched the organist and a family of string players.

 We got a quick pizza dinner at a local pizzeria, and then headed to our next venue: Off-Broadway Theatre. We went to a comedy show of an Imrpov Group. Not as good as "Who's Line is it Anyway" but they are getting there. It was a lot of fun!

After the comedy show, our next stop was the Clark Planetarium. We spent a few hours learning about the planets :)

Brad on the moon!! 

At the Planetarium, they had this huge... thing... where a ball dropped and hit something and rang something and twirled somewhere and woah woah it was crazy and Bradley was mesmerized   

Our final stop for the night was a concert at the Gallivan Center. We watched the band play and danced and warmed up by fire pits and waited for the New Year!

So pretty :)

Getting so close to midnight!!

 HAPPY 2013

Although we were FREEZING and it's pretty obvious haha, we had an amazing time!!

Happy New Year to everyone from Brad and I! We SO needed a little vacation from working two jobs each and we had an amazing two days off from work, slept in the next day and took our time getting home. Hope everyone has a nice 2013!!!