Screaming Asians

My New Toy!

2009-04-05T14:13:00.005-06:00

Last year I bought my first motorcyle, my little "Minja". I decided that this year it was time to upgrade to a bigger bike. Two weeks ago I found my new toy! It a 2006 Honda Shadow Aero. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Today was the first long ride I have been able to go on because the weather has been so cold and snowy. I rode out to my parents house. It was a little chilly, but soooo fantastic!

Happy Monday!

2009-03-30T09:51:00.001-06:00

My boss just used the term "Man Crush" in a meeting. It totally made my day! Happy snowy Monday!

Zion Century Ride

2009-03-08T18:41:00.012-06:00

One of the items on the my list of things to do before I die is to do a Century ride. Last weekend I got to check it off. For those of you who don't know what a Century ride is, it's a 100 mile bike ride. I picked the Zion Century ride because I thought the beautiful scenery would distract me from thinking about how tired I was and how much I didn't want to see people in spandex anymore. Plus it was a good excuse to head to St. George to see Joy, Joel, and Baby Mason!

My friend Yvette was nice enough to do the ride with me. She was only planning on doing the 60 miles, but ended up doing the whole thing because she's so hardcore.

Everytime I do some sort of a race, I put on a fake tattoo.

The morning of the race was only about 35 degrees and so we tried to bundle up to stay warm.

Joy was nice enough to come see us off.

Waiting for the gunshot.

The ride starting in Bloomington and wound around the backroads of St. George, Hurricane, LaVerkin, and took us to the mouth of Zion National Park. We stopped at mile 55 for lunch. The first 55 miles had a lot of uphill and a lot of wind. In some parts the wind was so strong that I had to pedal even when I was going downhill. It took me 4.5 hours to get here.

I've never had a Subway sandwich taste sooooo good!

Here we are at the finish line, so happy not to be sitting on tiny little bike seats! For some reason the course took us on some random loops so we ended up doing 107 miles. Since the wind was in our favor on the way back, it only took us 2.5 hours.

Overall the ride was amazing and I would definitely do it again, hopefully next time I'll train better and be able to cruise up the hills like Yvette.

Why I Love Winter

2009-02-22T18:11:00.031-07:00

Here is a list of reasons to love winter:

1. Thanksgiving = family, friends, food

This year Joy and Joel got a new surprise, little Mason!!

2. Christmas = family, friends, food, and flying monkeys!

Mom - making us eat breakfast before we open presents, as usual.

Dad in his Christmas vest.

Grandpa

Brian - enjoying some snowflake fun

Andrea and cute little Abby

Flying, screaming monkey!!

3. Snowshoeing

4. Snowboarding

4. Ice Climbing

5. New Year's Eve Parties

6. Yurting

Long Time No Write

2009-02-01T18:58:00.021-07:00

It's been a really long time since I posted anything to this blog, but as I was sitting here watching SuperBowl commercials (not the actual game), I thought it was about time I added something.

It's now February of 2009, I'm not really sure where the rest of 2008 went or where 2009 is already going. Here's a brief recap of the end of '08.

In April I applied for a permit to hike The Subway in September and actually got one. So in September a group of us headed down and finally hiked the Subway. Beautiful scenery, great friends, and hiking around in the dirt and water, what more could you ask for?

Everybody needs a temporary tattoo when hiking.

Denae is pretty excited about her dinosaur sandwich compliments of Becca and Blake.

We had a few Sasquatch sitings.

Jodie, you're cute!

This is Levi's GQ pose.

Denae's gangsta' look

My little lizzard friend.

At the end of September, Prue and I headed to NYC to visit Brian and Heidi and to run a 1/2 Marathon in the Hamptons. It was such a great trip filled with fun, friends, and food. We ended up running a 1/2 marathon and having a marathon eating trip. We discovered an amazing cupcake shop called "Sugar Sweet Sunshine" and I think our lives have been changed forever.

Brian and Heidi's family increased by 1 at the end of June, so I finally got to meet the newest addition, Parker SangSoo, the cutest little Buddha look-alike around.

The race was absolutely beautiful! It may have been my favorite 1/2 ever! The course was in The Hamptons and wound through neighborhoods, wooded groves, and the beach. It was so fun to run at sea level.

Hiking the Pfeiferhorn

2008-10-12T19:56:00.017-06:00

I have a tradition of going on a really cool hike for my birthday. The past few years it was hiking the backside of Timpanogas, but this year I decided that it was time for something new. The winner for this year was the Pfeiferhorn.

This hike starts at the White Pine Lake Trailhead in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Here we are, bright and early getting ready to start the hike.

The hike was absolutely incredible!

We followed some misleading directions and ended up at this lake. It was beautiful, but it ended up being an hour and a half detour.

Once we got back on the right path, we ended up at this next lake.

After we passed the lake we had to hike straight up a hill and ended up here. It was totally worth it!

Because of our previous detour we didn't have time to hike all the way to the top, so we decided to go for a swim. In case you can't tell, the white stuff in the back is snow...so yes, this lake is just melted, freezing cold snow.

Mauricio was really excited!

WASATCH BACK RELAY

2008-09-07T08:39:00.002-06:00

EAT SLEEP DRIVE? REPEAT
This is the slogan of the Wasatch Back Relay. My lovely roommate Mikelle let me participate on her company-sponsored team. The race was held on June 20th and 21st. For those of you who don't know what this is, let me explain. This is a relay race from Logan to Park City (178 miles) that takes place over two days. Your team consists of 12 people. Each person on the team runs three legs of the race. The mileage varies per leg and ranges from 3 to 8 miles. The team is broken up into two vans of six people. All the people in one van complete their legs and then meet up with the second van at designated transition spots. Once the second van takes over, the first van of people can go rest, eat, clean up, etc.

Running the Wasatch Back was an awesome and challenging experience. It was really difficult, but I would definitely do it again. Hopefully I'll actually train more and learn how to breathe at high altitudes.

Mikelle on the phone (I've never seen that before) while we wait for van 1 to arrive at the first transistion point.

Mike Remington, Mikelle's twin brother, stretching out. He was the fastest person in our van and had to make up for how slow I was.

Showing off my hot pink shorts, I know they're pretty dang sweet!

The passing of the wristband to our first runner from Van 2, Mikelle (It looks pretty intense, doesn't it).

Runner 2, Kasey Child, off to a good start.

Mark, a co-worker of Mikelle and Kasey

Mark's wife Paula

My support team - My mom and Josiah came up to cheer me on for my first leg of the race.

The guy in the blue is Troy from my work. He is wearing a Hannah Montana wig.

My leg started near Pineview Resevoir and headed up the road to Snowbasin. The scenery was incredible, but the road was incredibly steep which meant I walked a lot. This pictures was taken on the last mile of my leg, which was downhill.

My mom running along with me again. The first 5k I ran when I was 12 years old, I had really bad shin splints and had to walk. My mom was waiting for me and ran along side me wearing little red high heels. She is amazing!

One of the best parts about the Wasatch Back is seeing how creative teams are at decorating their vans.

Mike cruising up the hill and making up some of my lost time. Mike was the last runner from our van. After he finished we had some dinner and headed to a cabin to try and get an quick nap in. I don't think anyone slept much before we had to head to the next transition spot to meet Van 1.

The next group of runs took place at night. During the day the temperature was in the high 90's but it dropped a lot at night.

Kasey loved her run in the dark.
After we all finished running we headed to a high school and tried to sleep on some wrestling mats in the gym for a few hours. I think we all got about 40 winks.

Even after a night of no sleep, we still have smiles on our faces as we get ready for our last legs of the race.

If you don't know what Swoobs are, talk to Jenni Prue.

Mikelle is pretty happy to pass of the wristband and finish her last leg of the race.
The hardest two legs of the race are called the Ragnar. They are very steep and at high elevation. Lucky for us, Paula and Mark are insane and volunteered to run these two legs. We're waiting for Mark to come by so we can spray him with some water.

Mark passing off to Paula

My last leg was about a mile to the top of Guardsman pass and then down the road to Deer Valley. This was the hardest leg for me, I had an asthma attack and had to walk a large portion of my run even though it was downhill. My team was awesome and stopped a lot to give me water and encouragement.

31 hours after we started we finally crossed the finish line!

All of Team L-3 Communications.

Mt. Olympus

2008-09-06T17:35:00.018-06:00

Every morning I walk out my front door and see Mt. Olympus towering in the distance. In June I decided that it was finally time for me to get to quit living in it's shadow and make the journey to the top. My lil' hiking buddy Jenni Prue agreed to come along for the adventure.

The hike was more intense than we expected. Almost the entire hike was straight up hill. It was quite a "booty" workout. The view from the top was incredible and made the hike completely worth it.

A nice photo op.

We found a caterpillar hotel...it was nasty!

Taking a little break before starting the hard part.

Prue thinks she's Egyptian

Where we've been

As usual, we packed more than enough Scooby Snacks

This is where the hard part began

What are you looking at?

We made it!

Why is there a mailbox?

Who knew there would be a party at the top?

"The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful"

Hawaii with the Fam

2008-08-24T18:28:00.033-06:00

Once again, it's been a long time since I have added to my blog, but I'll pick up where I left off.

At the end of May my family headed to the Big Island, Hawaii. It was my first time going to Hawaii and I was not let down. Rather than give a travelogue, I'll just post some of the best pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Hanging out at the beach.

Waipio Valley Overlook

Akaka Falls

A waterfall at the Botanical Gardens

A really cool flower at the gardens, this photo has not been touched by Photoshop.

A lava tube at Volcano National Park.

Getting ready for some snorkeling.

This guy is the chef at the breakfast diner in 50 First Dates. He runs an entertainment company and his family does Hula. Josiah, Andrea, and Brian volunteered to participate in an activity and learned how to act.

Digging up the roasted pig.

A luau at the Marriott.

Visiting the Kona Temple.

We signed up to do a sunset dinner cruise, but there was a huge storm so we had to dress up in garbage sacks and hang out at the pier instead.

The last day of our trip was my favorite. We hiked down into the Waipio Valley. There was a beautiful black sand beach and a ginormous waterfall. We met some people who were kayaking out into the ocean to spend a week in the next valley over. Their friend gave us a ride back up to the top in the back of his truck. I want to go back and exerience Hawaii by kayak.

There is a crab in here, can you see it?

The Crazy Month of May

2008-07-15T22:18:00.005-06:00

I'm going to misquote Julius Caesar and say "Beware the Ides of May". What a crazy month! It definitely had some highs and some lows.

At the beginning of May, my dad finally went to a doctor and had some tests done. He found out that he had cancer and needed to start chemotherapy right away. The type of chemotherapy that he needed to undergo required him to remain in the hospital for a week at a time, with a two week break between sessions. On the morning of his first chemo session, as he was just finishing getting hooked up to all the monitors and tubes, he got a call from my grandpa saying that my grandmother had passed away unexpectedly. It was a pretty rough morning for my dad and family needless to say. We were able to postpone the funeral long enough for my dad to finish his first round. He got out of the hospital the morning of the viewing. When we arrived at the viewing, we found out that my uncle's stepson had been in an accident and was being rushed to the hospital. The next morning at the funeral, we found out that he had passed away. Aunt Holly, Aunt Cindy, Uncle Jared, and my dad all spoke at the funeral and gave wonderful tributes to my grandmother. I learned so much about her that I had never known. It made me sad that I had not spent more time learning about the person she was. I regret not having spent more time with her. It is sad that you learn more about a person at their funeral than you did while they were alive.

Although there was a lot of sadness surrounding the deaths of my grandmother and my Uncle's stepson, my family had a lot of things to be grateful for. The hospital where my dad receives his treatments is only a few blocks from my house and so I can visit him often when he is there. He is always on the 9th floor and it has an amazing view. This is a sunset taken from his room.

So many neighbors and friends have expressed their concern for me and my family. I am so thankful to be surrounded by so many wonderful and amazing people. My dad will start his 4th and last session of chemo this coming Monday. So far it has been a pretty long and painful process for him, but it has been working. The tumor he had in his abdomen is completely gone.

During May, I was also able to take my motorcycle safety class. I finally got my motorcycle!! It's great to ride around on and so far I have managed not to hit anything and to not be hit.

May ended on a high note with our family trip to Hawaii. Luckily my dad's doctor felt that life is meant to be enjoyed and gave him permission to go. It's getting late now so the Hawaii trip is going to have to be it's own new post.

Moab Relay Marathon

2008-06-12T21:33:00.027-06:00

I am on such a roll! Three new posts in about a week, I might actually get caught up, and anyone who actually bothers to read this will know what has been going on in the life of Shanno.

In April I headed down to Moab to run a marathon relay with Rebecca, the Crazy Alaskan, and Prucilla. For those of you who don't know Rebecca, there are many reasons why she is called "crazy". Not only is she from Alaska, which automatically makes her crazy, she also thinks that running uphill is fun. She considers a marathon a "walk in the park" and she regularly eats caribou (just not on Sundays). It was her idea to do this relay marathon. As usual I neglected to train, but still had a great time. The course was beautiful! Rebecca ran the first leg, which happened to be the longest with the most uphill sections. I ran the second and Prue ran the third leg. This was the longest distance Prue has ever run and she cruised through her leg of the race no sweat! The group who put on the race do not rank very high on their ability to communicate and organize, so unfortunately we were unsure of exactly when the race was going to start. The problem with this is that Prue and I didn't show up at the transition point until after Rebecca had already been waiting for 20 minutes in the freezing cold. But even with this delay our team took 12th place!
Anyone who has run long distances knows how important it is to load up on carbs the day before the race. We have perfected this skill. This is a sample of our "carbs".

Prue had to drive down separately, so while we waited in the hotel for her, we got a little creative with the towels.
Another necessity for a race is a fake tattoo. We were able to obtain some high quality ones at the local gas station.

After the race we cruised down the river road to the "Indian Ladder" where we indulged in our "crack" habit.

Going Up

This is the view from the top

Chillin' at the top

On the way down

One more crack

After our "experimentation" with crack, we headed to Arches and saw, believe it or not... some arches.

Thanks for an amazing time gals! Next year let's go to Alaska - I'll practice being crazy :)

DC 1/2 Marathon

2008-06-08T19:37:00.000-06:00

The National Marathon and 1/2 Marathon were being held the last weekend of March and it was a great excuse to finally go out and visit Emily and Brett. Brian and Heidi also flew in from St. Louis and Brian's MTC Companion, Doug, flew in from Alabama. It was the opening weekend of the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the Kite-Flying Festival.

DC is such an incredible city. There is soooo much to see and I think I only saw about 1% of it. The first day there Emily had to teach her 4th graders and Brett had school so the rest of us were tourists and went site-seeing around the Mall.

This is the National Archives Building where the Declarartion of Independence is held. There was an enormous line to get in, so we just looked at it from outside.

This is Brian "sticking is to the man", sort of.

WTF? This is art?

This is 3-D, but does it bend in or out?

The Smithsonian Castle

This is inside the Aerospace Museum. You could spend all day in here and still not see everything.

This is Doug riding the longest escalator I have ever seen. It is at the Metro stop near the National Zoo.

Heidi is such a cute pregnant lady!

Getting ready to embark on the "Asian Trail". Is this what it takes to become Asian?

These next pics are for you Prue, I thought you would appreciate them.

This is where all the tree-saving poop comes from.

Brett at George Washington Law School.

This is us after the race. So far, this was my favorite race. There were about 6000 runners. We ran past the capitol and along the mall and then through the some of the neighborhood areas of DC. It was really cold, but my legs just went numb. This was Brian's first 1/2 and he killed it. Brett was under 2 hours and I beat my last time by about 15 minutes, so we were all pretty happy.

After the race we walked down to the Washington Memorial to fly a kite, which didn't go so well. It was really neat to see so many kites though.

Mesa Verde

2008-06-04T19:35:00.000-06:00

So it's been a really long time since I posted anything to my blog. I'm in Hawaii right now waiting to go to a Luau and thought now would be a good time to post some updates to my life. I'll start with my trip to Mesa Verde. Prue, Spencer, Roger, and I cruised down to meet Ry-Ry who was cruising up from good ol' Lubbock, TX. This was my first experience in Colorado outside of the Denver airport and I'll have to admit that it was pretty sweet, cold, but sweet! We didn't make it to the KOA outside of Lubbock until about 2:00 am and it was freezing! Prucilla and I slept in the car hoping it would be warmer in there, but it wasn't. Our first stop was Mesa Verde National park. The place is full of some pretty amazing Indian ruins. Here are some pics.

Prucilla the musician, who knew? Eating the food of the land...Navajo tacos.

After the excursion to Mesa Verde, we had our own episode of Miami Ink. Here are our sweet tats.

Ry Ry, Kelly, and T-Rav took off to check out Telluride and we cruised down to check out Four Corners. Thanks for another awesome spring trip Ry!

When we got to Four Corners, it was closed, but we somehow managed to make it in anyways.

By the time we were done using our fence jumping skills, we decided that it was time to get back to Utah. We drove into Moab and decided that we needed to hike to Delicate Arch, in the dark. Spencer took some amazing pictures with his SLR camera, but I don't have them yet. So here are some from my dinky little one.

The Woomba

2008-03-11T14:03:00.000-06:00

I thought SNL was no longer funny. I was wrong. Check out this video and you'll never look at a Roomba the same.
SNL Woomba on DHADM

Jamaica Mi Crazy!!

2008-02-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a cruise to the Western Caribbean. Words can't do the trip justice...it was amazing! I tried to get stuck in Jamaica so I didn't have to come back to 3 feet of snow in UT.

Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

Ft. Lauderdale:

We arrived at 5:30 am and couldn't board the ship until noon. We managed to keep ourselves (and probably a few others) entertained with a quick game of "Wack-a-mole".

Key West:

Our first port was Key West, Fl - it does not feel like part of the U.S. I loved the atmosphere, everyone was so laid back and easy going. I think I could live there. We rented an electric car and cruised around town. Here are a few of the sites.

Our Sweet Ride!

Way down south

It's warm!!
My future home.

Cozumel:
This is right after we went scuba diving for the first time. I love Mexico because where else can you go scuba diving after a 20 minute lesson.

Prucilla made some new friends

Paradise!

Grand Cayman:

Sting Ray City was incredible! They say if you kiss a sting ray, it's seven years good luck, I passed.

Jamaica:

Jamaica was a little sketchy, it was the only place I ever felt nervous. We were very lucky and found an awesome driver to take us around and be our "Baby-Sitter". Here's "Tony, No Problem"

This lady is selling us some Jamaican apples while smoking a joint.

The nude beach in Negril, I don't understand the appeal, it just looks like a bunch of nasty old men!

The Everglades:

This was one of my favorite places. We took and airboat ride into the everglades and had a close encounter with an alligator.

Em's Big Jump

2008-01-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

It took a litte coaxing, but Emz took the big leap!

Luv ya Em!

Snow! Snow! Snow!

2007-12-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

I was informed today that it has been awhile since I added a new post to the good ol' blog. It is currently snowing like crazy outside, so I thought that snow would be a good topic. The last big storm we had was on the day of the ward Christmas party. Because I was in charge of it, and had left most of the preparations to the last minute, I couldn't go snowboarding. I was in dire need of some "outdoor time" so I decided to go snowshoeing for a few hours. I headed to Millcreek canyon and started hiking on the Pipeline trail. It was soooo beautiful!

I did eventually make it snowboarding. I took a day off of work and headed to Snowbird. It was freezing cold, but a lot of fun. After a day of snowboarding, I met up with some friends and we headed to Driggs Idaho. We didn't get there until 2:00 in the morning. After a few hours of sleep we rolled out of bed and headed to Grand Targhee. It was pretty sweet! It snowed all day long and so we had fresh powder for most of the day.

In conclusion, I love snow!

An Amazing Combo!

2007-11-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you combine a man dressed as a woman and Riverdance?

My Favorite Gas Station

2007-11-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

During one of my recent trips down south, I discovered a "favorite gas station". It's a Chevron in Fillmore that has a bathroom with tile covered walls and hand dryers that practically blow your skin off. In addition to the amazing bathrooms, there are these freaky porcelain dolls in the entry way. They range from 3 footers to little minatures. On the most recent trip down I discovered one more reason for nominating this as my favorite gas station.
These should really be sold right along with the following:

Let the Good Times Roll

2007-11-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm headed to St. George this weekend to run a race and see Joel in Sweeney Todd. Needless to say, I am pretty excited to head south to a warmer climate. The last time I was down, it was snowing in Salt Lake. We got to go hike around Zion instead. This is a pic near the Emerald Pools. All our pics our here (Some Wasatch Crest pics are there too):
http://seiichi.dsl.xmission.com/gallery/v/shannonstuff/SEPTOBER/

Sweeney Todd looks like a slightly demented kind of play. Here is the trailer for the movie.

According to Joel, it makes him feel like he put pop rocks down
his pants : o

I Hate Sprint!!

2007-10-23T14:33:00.000-06:00

Back in the spring of this year, I made a big mistake at work...I signed the company up for some aircards with Sprint. Little did I know that they have the worst customer service out there. After sitting on hold with them for the past hour and after being transferred to 8 different people, I decided to start a blog, while I still sit on hold. So for future reference to anyone who happens to read this - stay far, far away from Sprint!!!

I've never had a blog before, so this is a whole new realm for me. I feel like I have taken a small step for mankind, but a giant leap for me.

As I have been writing this, I was transferred one more time. This really is ridiculous.