five years

Today, Friday, October 3, 2014, marks the fifth anniversary of our arrival in Salt Lake City.  We left Maine on September 30, 2009, and never looked back; our transplantation from east to west has been such a good thing for us (despite our families wishing we were just a little closer).  We have loved the skiing (obviously), the access to the outdoors, the weather, the dearth of mosquitoes and blackflies, watching the Tour of Utah grow, having folks come visit us so we can share our Utah with them.  In celebration of our fifth move-iversary, here are some specific highlights from the past five years.

Year 1: October 2009-September 2010.  In our first year, everything was new!  We learned that Alta was our favorite ski mountain; A was zookeeper for a day; our friends P and C visited, plus T, plus H's folks, plus A's folks, plus we got the first installment of annual ski guests just a month after moving into our new house; we climbed Timpanogos and Timpanogos Cave; we saw the races on the bizarrely beautiful Bonneville Salt Flats; we got up close to mountain goats at Ben Lomond.

Year 2: October 2010-September 2011.  We had lots of visitors in our second year: H's folks; my best girls; P; R; and the ski guests.  We got an incredible 723.5 inches of snow to ski on!  And after skiing ended, we got MTBs.  We watched some impressive speed skating. We went to St. George, the Ashley National Forest and began our Moab tradition.

Year 3: October 2011-September 2012.  By our third year, we were beginning to settle in.  The ski guests came back; H's parents came back; and H's brother and his family came out to see what all the fuss was about.  We had a great hike up Timpanogos with all those mountain goats, plus some other good hikes, including along the Mormon Pioneer Trail.  We went camping in the Uintas in June and then again in September with B, and went back to Moab.

Year 4: October 2012-September 2013.  The return of the ski guests.  The return of P.  A went to MTB camp (Trek Dirt Series).  H's folks went to Moab with us.  We went to Lake Powell with A's family.  We camped at Capitol Reef National Park (well, just outside), went to Jackson, Wyoming, for our anniversary, and went back to Moab.  We had a great hike up Honeycomb Canyon (at Solitude) and down Silver Fork Canyon.

Year 5: October 2013-September 2014.  This last year, well, it was another good one.  H got first chair of Alta's season.  We had two rounds of ski guests: my brother and C.  We finally got into East Castle!  Once the skiing ended, we did some fantastic hiking: some particular favorites were Bowman Fork, Storm Mountain/Ferguson Canyon and the Brighton Ridge Loop.  We went to Sun Valley, Idaho.  And our Moab trip was, as usual, fantastic.

And now we start our sixth year in Utah (where does the time go?) and there's still so much we want to do.  Thank you for following along with us thus far and stay tuned right here for the continuing adventures.