Tales of a Sparkle Addict: The Most Adventurous Weekend of My Life!!!

Last weekend was so interesting. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to jump off cliffs and climb ridiculously high mountains during the 2 days I had off. I don't know what came over me when I was planning my life that weekend, but it was definitely a weekend to remember.

Saturday was cliff jumping day. We all headed out to the place where we could hike to the cliffs and begin jumping to what seemed like our death at the time. After a 2 hour car ride and a 15 minute hike, we arrived at our destination. Much to my surprise, the water we were supposed to jump into wasn't a large area at all. As if jumping off cliffs wasn't bad enough, I now had to worry about landing in the exact spot where the water would be deep enough to not injure me! So much fun. After about 20 minutes of watching almost everyone else jump, I decided to join them. Honestly, the thing I was most upset about wasn't the fact that I was going to be jumping over 35 feet into a small area of water, it was that I was going to have to get my hair wet! Seriously, that's exactly what I was thinking about right before I jumped.

When I landed in the water, I was shocked by how cold it was and found it surprisingly hard to breath. I quickly swam to the edge and was congratulated by my friends who were watching nearby. It was a fun experience, but I'm not sure that I'd do it again...not anytime soon at least. Below are some pictures of my experience.

Alyssa and Annie...notice one's in a hoodie and one's in a bathing suit.

Becky...she's so precious!

After this experience was over...some of us headed out to our intern coordinator's house. Ela and her husband, Josh, live on the side of a mountain, an hour and a half away from Colorado Springs. We stayed the night there because the mountain we would be climbing the next day (Mt. Shavano) was closer to them. Mt. Shavano is one of the 14ers in Colorado. A 14er is a mountain above 14,000 feet elevation. They're some of the most challenging mountains to climb, not only because there is more to hike, but also because there isn't much oxygen towards the top of the mountain.

The whole night, I was thinking, "Why am I even here?" The reality of what I had signed up for finally hit me...I was going to be climbing up this crazy tall mountain all day. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well that night. We woke up the next morning at 3AM to head to out and arrived at 5:30 to begin our trek up. My hiking partner (Sage) and I had made a decision to take our time hiking and try our best to enjoy the day. This was a little challenging for me, mainly because I was wearing hideous man pants and I still hadn't fixed my hair from the day before when the snow water ruined it! We were on this terrible mountain for almost 10 hours! I wasn't motivated enough to make it to the top of the mountain, but we did make it above the tree line. The view from the mountain was absolutely beautiful! I've never seen something like it before. Although hiking up the mountain was one of the longest and hardest experiences of my life, it felt like such an accomplishment once I was done. I'm glad I joined everyone on this hike, but I can honestly say I will probably never attempt to climb up a 14er again!

At the beginning of our hike...yes, it's still dark outside!