insta-Q1

JANUARY

{1.8.25}

If the snow won’t come to us, we will go to the snow! The kids were troopers and hiked almost 4 miles. We didn’t make it to the frozen waterfall (the goal), but we did see a LOT of magical winter vistas.

{1.28.25}

My first time Adventure Sledding must be documented . We hiked up the mountain about 2 miles in order to sled all the way back down. Feeling so grateful for a husband who encouraged me to go for no other reason than “it will be fun!”

I was talking to a friend about memories after reading “The Art of Making Memories” and it made me think about how impactful reading the “Power of Fun” was. I have had so many new experiences to add into my bucket of memories and I feel like I am just truly enjoying this life that I get to live.

FEBRUARY

{2.4.25}

Hike to a Frozen Waterfall, check!

One of Austin’s goals for the year and we did it, but it was SO cold and there were tears. We got back in the car and I asked “Was that amazing or was that a disaster?” The responses were split. But now that we are warm and cozy, and we have these awesome pictures, I’d say worth it.

{2.11.25}

Feeding the cows on a beautiful, and COLD, Monday morning. Life lessons included: how to drive a tractor, how to calculate degrees below freezing if it is only 1^F, and why you should always pack your cowboy boots EVEN if you packed your snow boots, because you might end up chopping ice from a frozen water trough in your new sneakers and get cow poop all over them. (The last lesson was mine.)

These are my favorite days.

{2.14.25}

It looks like Valentine’s Day here at our house and I’m so proud of my kind, creative, brave children. We made boxes for a Valentine Party yesterday and today; participated in a service project making Valentines, and then put on a program and played Bingo at a local retirement home memory care unit. I am feeling so grateful to spend my days with these sweet valentines.

{2.21.25}

A dilemma as shown in pictures. 1-Lucy was brushing my hair when she accidentally tangled a comb in my hair. 2-I couldn’t get it out and neither could @_amyperkins so I clipped it up and waited for David to come home. 3- @davidpeaden saved the day by carefully cutting the comb out with a pair of scissors. 4- feeling so glad my hair isn’t cut into a bob, which seemed like it might be the inevitable solution. I came out relatively unscathed.

Please laugh with me.

{2.25.25}

We went to our first theater performance at The Ruth this weekend. We caught “Ragtime” on the very last day of the performance run and it was absolutely fantastic. I’m always so impressed with the quality of storytelling and depth of emotion. The venue was beautiful and we are hopeful that it will be able to maintain the personal/intimate environment. The show itself was profoundly moving. In a day when there is so much divisiveness and questions about what America is, was, and could be - I felt inspired to be better and make my country better. The role of one woman, making a difference where she can. “What kind of woman would I be?”

MARCH

{3.28.25}

A long-overdue trip to Logan with our fellow Aggie friends. 🍦 Fun fact: the first time we met- I accosted her in the hall of our Lehi church building because someone told me that they went to Utah State. The conversation went something like “You’re Aggies? Let’s be best friends.” Who knew that years later they would have moved across the street, became my kids besties, and been such good friends to us. ❤️ Now just to convince them to start homeschooling. 🙃

Q3 Dates (David and Shantel)

I love going on dates with this wonderful guy. Honestly, I feel grateful for how many opportunities that we have to spend one-on-one time together. 

1. We do a 3 hour date swap with our next door neighbors, the Wards, once a month (we get a date, they get a date). 

2. We swap for "Cousin Weekend" where all the cousins go to one house once a month and the other two couples get a date weekend. This means that we host cousin weekend 4 times a year and we get 7 date weekends in a year. 

3. We have Hale Center Theater season tickets, so if we can't arrange the date night/date weekends around our play dates, we ask Amy or my mom to come watch the kids for our play. 

4. A handful of other events that give us time together. Sometimes this is as small as sneaking away for a game night across the street, or a movie at Thanksgiving point while Lydia babysits or sometimes it's a larger event like David's work Christmas party that we have to get a specific babysitter for. 

We have a lot of opportunities to be together and I recognize that it's a huge blessing in our lives, one that not everyone has readily available to them. I'm grateful because I think that going on dates, big and small, is so good for our relationship and the opportunity to do things together is an important part of our lives! Honestly, sometimes we go to the grocery store and pick up Panda and Arby's to eat after we put the kids to bed and while we watch a Hallmark movie. Sometimes we take 8 hours to hike to the top of a mountain together. I love all of the things because I genuinely just love to be with David. 

Here are some of the highlights from our dates during July, August, and September. 

Hale Center Theater Orem - Seussical & Arsenic and Old Lace

We are soaking in the last few performances in the historic Orem Theater space. We love it here so much, and are disappointed that the theater is moving to a new space. But, we understand that things change and we are grateful to be along for the ride. 

Seussical - We went to Seussical in July -  The music was fun and upbeat. The musical numbers were energetic and exciting. It is amazing how the Hale Orem can create such outstanding, high-impact performances in such a small space. 

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Arsenic and Old Lace - We went to this in September, as part of my birthday weekend celebration. Arsenic and Old Lace is one of my favorite plays, and I loved seeing it one last time at my favorite theater. Kevin and Amy came with us (we gave them tickets for their birthdays last year).

BONUS: Amy and Derek Perkins invited us to go to the Hale Center Theatre Sandy performance of The Nutty Professor. It was fun to go with them and their family (and generous of their parents to allow us to use their extra tickets as we tagged along). The performance was fun and funny and so well done (although even with all the high show-stopping production, you have to miss a little bit of the smallness of the other theater). This was the first performance that Lydia babysat for us through the whole thing and we were so grateful to her! 

Hiking Mt. Raymond

We knew we wanted to go on a hike for our date weekend in September and looked into several 5ish mile hikes. We ended up hiking the Mt. Raymond Summit, because I've not stopped talking about it since I hiked it with some friends last year. We LOVED it! 

-7.5 miles
-3,028 elevation gain

We saw a giant Bull Moose on the trail about 30 minutes into the hike and almost turned around to go home. I mean, we did turn around and run the other way as fast as we could. But then we saw him cross the path to join up with his family a little ways off and decided to be brave and keep going. I was sincerely terrified that we might be in physical danger, but the adrenaline from seeing the moose helped propel us up one of the steepest parts of the hike. 

These pictures with the peak behind us were taken halfway through the hike and I am pointing to the summit that we ended the hike at. It really was incredible!

The start of this hike is so steep (and so is the end) and I was so tired. But we made it and I’m so proud of us. We are confident that hiking a difficult hike together must be a psychology-approved relationship builder because it’s awesome to accomplish something so hard together. 

Curling

Back in January when we were talking about making goals I decided that in addition to the many things that I am putting my heart and soul into on a daily basis (motherhood, homeschool, homemaking, being a wife, friend, daughter, my stake primary calling, taking care of myself) - I wanted to make ONE goal, but I wanted it to be a fun goal. It took until August, but we finally made that one goal that I made happen: curling! It was kind of a ridiculous goal, but maybe that's why I loved it so much. 

Learning to curl at the Olympic Oval was everything that I wanted it to be! We convinced Jason and Sarah Newbold to come with us, and even though they might have thought we were a little crazy - we all had fun together.  I officially love curling and am already looking forward to coming back again sometime. 

Timp Cave Goal

This summer I really wanted to hike the Timpanogos Cave Trail every week. Looking back, I can't remember exactly why it felt so important to me - but it was. I knew that it would be a sacrifice on both my part and David's part but it was a goal that I really wanted to accomplish. 

I did it and I feel so happy and accomplished. A little about the Timpanogos Cave: 

Timpanogos Cave National Monument is located in American Fork Canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Range. It’s home to an extensive cave system that’s made up of three linked and spectacularly decorated caverns. Helictites, stalactites, stalagmites, calcite crusts, draperies, and frostwork are just a few of the many dazzling formations found in the chambers of one of the most popular caves in Utah.

The only access to the cave system is by walking a strenuous 1 1/2-mile-paved trail, which rises 1,092 ft to an elevation of 6,730 feet above sea level. 

The cave trail is steep but beautiful. I made this goal with my friend Dani Martin whom I met through Spark Coop and we would meet up together at 6:30 a.m. to hike to the top. We tried to go every Thursday, for consistency, but made it at least once a week. There is a whole community of trail hikers who hike this every week (many every day!) and it was really neat to be a part of that this summer. 

It turned into a highlight of my summer and I wanted to document the success of accomplishing my goal.

 

May 18 (TCH-1)

Trail was closed at 1/4 gate because of snow. So we hiked the first stretch twice, clocking 1.75 miles. (+1) Beautiful spring morning with a slight chill in the air. (Dani not pictured)

May 25 (TCH-2)

Trail still closed at 1/4 gate because of snow, but we passed some rangers with tractor-type equipment on our last lap and I wonder if it will be clear next week. We hiked the first 1:4 stretch three times, clocking 2.5 miles. There were more people on the trail and lots of cheerful “good mornings”. We talked about budgets and at the end we took a minute to pause and breathe in the crisp air and listen to the rushing river nearby.

June 1 (TCH-3)

Rangers said the gate won’t be open past 1/4 until the end of June so we pushed ourselves to get four laps in for a total of 3.5 miles. Strengthening bodies and friendship and feeling so good about it.

June 9 (TCH-4)

Four laps to the 1/4 gate- for a total of 3.5 miles. Jenna joined us today and the three of us made a great little train up the mountain. Our picture taking spot is filling in with leaves and made the focus of our pictures blurry- but that’s okay, documentation accomplished.

June 15 (TCH-5)

Three 1/4 laps for a “rest day”. The trail is getting more and more busy- but we are recognizing a lot of people who hike regularly (either every day, or every Thursday like us). It’s neat to be part of a community of hikers. 🏔️

June 20 (TCH- 6)

This was the first week that the trail was open. Our prep on the 1/4 trail must have really worked because we made it all the way to the top in our 45up/30down time frame. It was a little rainy but that made for a crisp, fresh hike and was only a little slippery. Such a beautiful morning!

Time- 1:19
Dist- 3.01 miles

June 29 (TCH-7)

Dani and I crushed it today with our time: 40 up, 31 down, 2.95 miles. I have loved spending a morning each week in the mountains. 🏔️ Today we met a trail legend: Dwayne. He’s at least 70 and hikes the trail regularly. He makes a different set of bracelets each year and hands them out to people on the trail. He gave us each a bracelet and another person on the trail showed us her set of 6-8 that she’s collected over the years. It’s fun to be a part of the TCH community.

July 8 (TCH-8)

Dani and I weren't able to coordinate our schedules this week, so I convinced David to hike the trail with me on our date night. It was MUCH hotter because we were hiking in the late afternoon instead of the early morning, but we brought a lot of water and worried more about enjoying the hike together than rushing to the top. I'm grateful for David's support of my goal this summer and love him very much. 

July 11 (TCH-9)

We saw mountain goats for the first time! There is something that is really empowering about waking up early in the morning and being so immersed in nature. Having this cave trail so close to my house really is such an amazing thing.

July 20 (TCH-10)

David is out of town this week so we had a little tag-a-long join us this morning. I carried Lucy up the mountain on my back (and asked Lydia to help the boys when they woke up). I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was funny how many comments I got about Lucy! The demographics of the early morning hikers are much older than my typical hikes and they were delighted to have Lucy joining us on the trail. 

July 25 (TCH-11)

Grateful to be strengthening my body and my friendship with Dani. 

August 6 (TCH-12) 

We couldn't connect our schedules again, so we scheduled in a little family hike for the trail this week. It was fun to share this goal of mine with my family. We all walked together until about the 1/4 mark on the trail, then Austin decided that he really really wanted to reach the top. So David stayed back with the others and Austin and I powered our way to the top! I kept saying things like "If you want to turn around, we can" but he was determined and I enjoyed hiking with him. I love this family of mine. 

August 10 (TCH-13)

I hike this morning with a different friend, Dani Steadman. She organized a bunch of hikes for a homeschool group that I am a part of but I wasn't able to make any of them so I invited her to come with me this morning. Another beautiful morning. 

August 17 (TCH-14)

We did it!! Our LAST week of the summer. I am so proud of us for making and accomplishing this goal. I loved spending one morning each week rising with the sun and spending two hours in the mountains. I love the friendship that has been build with Dani and love the way I have strengthened my body. Bodies are amazing and as Dani and I watched the others hiking this trail, many of them in their 60s and 70s (some much older than that!), it made me want to take care of my body so that I can continue hiking throughout the rest of my life.  


This was such an important goal to me this summer - and... WE DID IT!