BYU Rugby & HOT Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

For date night on Saturday, March 5th, Trevor and I went to the BYU vs. UofU Rugby game up at Rio Tinto stadium (where the Real Salt Lake soccer team usually plays). We got in for free courtesy of my company (thanks Property 23!!). All we had to do was wear our free "Warrior Rugby" t-shirts to support and advertise for my boss' new rugby team here in Utah. They are new, but they are awesome and they're going to be big!
So, even though we're in a red stadium wearing red, white, and black t-shirts, we were NOT rooting for Utah. We rooted for BYU! And it's a good thing, too, because they won! Woot woot!

Rugby is seriously such a cool sport. I don't know too much about it (at all, actually), but I'm starting to learn. The night before we went to this game, we watched Forever Strong on Netflix, which is about the Highland rugby team here in Utah a few years back, I think. It's a pretty good movie, and it gave me a very basic understanding of how it works. Sort of :) All I know is that they often do the weird "huddle" thing above when they are putting the ball back into play whenever it didn't go out of bounds. It's kind of fun to watch because it's like a mosh pit until the ball suddenly pops out and they begin running and/or slamming into each other in order to get it in their possession.
I couldn't get any great shots of the crazy tackling and man-on-man impacts that happened, but you can kind of see above where they just got hit. And seriously, they SMACK into each other - no reservations - and they don't even wear protective pads! It's seriously exhilarating. I would go again and again just for the tackles... it's like waiting for the big "wreck" watching a Nascar race, but better! :)

Afterward, Trevor had a craving for hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. When we got close, we hoped that we would see the nice, red glow from the "hot now" sign. Well, we got lucky! So we pulled in and I begged Trevor to let us actually go inside instead of drive through so we could see them making the doughnuts. I felt like such a little kid again, but it was just as exciting now as it was then! I love it.

They had just started making a fresh batch when we got there, so I got to document the first couple rows of doughnuts "plopping" out of the rising compartment. You can see below that a couple of the doughnuts had a little issue and one landed on top of the other. Those went into the "reject" pile :)
After they float and cook in the oil on one side, the "flipper" flips them over and they get to cook on the other side. Perfect and goldenly delicious!
And then, the BEST part... the "icing on the cake" so-to-speak. Or, at least, glazed icing on the doughnut! They are so beautiful and shiny when they come out the other side! I could watch the waterfall of sugary deliciousness for hours, probably!
Even though Trevor didn't want to get out of the car and walk in at first, by the time we left he was really glad he did and admitted it was way fun to go inside and watch the doughnuts cook. Yay for simple, spontaneous fun at Krispy Kreme. And yes, they were DELICIOUS. And yes, we had to buy a bottle of milk or else we wouldn't have survived :)

I hope you're drooling....

California in Feburary

Argh. I really am a binge blogger. Here I go missing another month, practically! Shame on me! I'll try to catch you up on some of my recent happenings! On February 23 and 24th, for work, I got to go on my second trip to California. It was definitely nice to escape the cold and snow for a break of moderate temperatures and sunshine!

We flew into Long Beach airport on Wednesday the 23rd. This is the smallest airport I have EVER been in. Seriously. What you see in the picture below is... the whole airport. You get on and off the planes by walking out to the tarmac and going up the steps! It was awesome! But it's a good thing it was sunny that day!
After we met with our client, we had a few hours to kill before our flight and we were able to travel down to Long Beach to see the ocean. Oh man. It's been way too long since I last saw an ocean (okay, maybe only last July, but it seems like FOREVER!).

Here's us driving through downtown on Ocean Drive:
And me out by the Pacific Ocean. They had two or three of those facilities you see behind me... I'm still not sure what they are. The water was cold, but I was just happy to feel the sand between my toes and the wind in my hair and sun on my face!
And yes, please excuse my nice business pants rolled up for the occasion ;)
Ahh.... water, sand, and sunshine.
Walking back to the car along the sidewalk high above the shore level. You had to walk down a ton of stairs to get to the actual beach. Almost sunset time. This is heaven on earth:
That night, we said goodbye to SoCal and got on a plane up to Oakland, CA and went straight to sleep. The next day, we had a mid-morning appointment with a client in Tracy, CA (about 45 minutes east of Oakland), so we drove out there. On the way, we saw some of the most beautiful, unique scenery. There were green rolling hills dotted with windmills and grazing cattle. I just couldn't believe it was so green in February! See?:
About mid-afternoon, I returned to Oakland and waited (aka napped in the hotel) until our third appointment later Thursday night. By this point, it started raining, and the slow, persistent storm continued until we left northern Cali on Friday morning. Right at dusk on Thursday night, we got to drive over the 6 mile long San Mateo Bridge into San Mateo (imagine that!) on the other side of the bay. In this picture (sorry so blurry!) you can kind of see where the bridge takes a left turn and raises up for ships to pass under:
I had so much fun in California. I hadn't been to Northern California in a really long time, but I have decided I think it is just GORGEOUS. It's got a different vibe than any other place I've been in the U.S. and I seriously think I could live there if it weren't for the outstanding taxes, house prices, gas prices, and oh yes, taxes!

For now I'll just enjoy the memory from the pictures. And I hope you enjoyed them too! :)