Shout Out to Deb

Celebrating our 30th birthday together in Idaho, followed by 30 hours of birthday fun

My good friend Debbie turned the big 3-4 about a month ago. I don't even know where I was on the big day--somewhere in Montana I think. At any rate, I want to give Miss Borland her due credit and celebrate her remarkable life with a few fun pictures (and anyone who knows Debbie knows that she's all about pictures). Unfortunately, most of my really really good pictures of Debbie are safe at my mom's house in Utah or committed to never ever see the light of day (don't worry, Deb, no pictures of that horrible Halloween).

Debbie and I were best friends in the fifth grade. The Borlands had moved to Provo from Midway and we were in Mrs. Cottam's class together. I loved playing at their house on Bannock Drive, where we could watch almost anything on TV (unlike the strict rules at my house) and her brothers made me laugh. That spring they moved to Mesa, but strangely enough, they moved back to Provo when we were in high school, right around the corner from our house. Deb is my running partner. She has seen me through countless races and training. Here I just ran the Moab marathon. Deb did the half, then waited for me and saw me through that last mile straight uphill. Then she thought it would be a good idea to go hike in Arches so our legs didn't get stiff before we drove home. It was a good idea, for about 20 minutes, when my legs started hurting like crazy. I wish I had pictures of our latest crazy run: the Hatfield-McCoy Family Feud marathon in West Virginia and Kentucky right before Debbie got married... this time she ran the whole darn thing with me so I wouldn't have to face the wilds of red-neck land by myself, even though she had only trained for the half.
Deb is all about the mountains and the outdoors. Here we are hiking Timpanogos one sunny Saturday. I have loved hiking and camping and snowshoeing and cross-country skiing with her. So many good hiking stories (and I'm not saying anything about Y Mountain and a dirty sock). And yes, I'm wearing her mom's girls' camp visor and it says Denny on it. So many fun roadtrips with Deb. Here we were kidnapped by our friends for our 30th birthday. They told us we were going to either Wendover or the Lagoon campground, but we somehow ended up in Sun Valley. Deb and I also made our way across Europe, to visit our friend Clint in northern California, and we've partied it up in New York, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky & West Virginia, and of course all over Utah. So many good times.

One thing I love about Debbie is our church connection. She was my Relief Society counselor in the PV-7th ward years and years ago--when we had to seriously limit our presidency meetings to one hour and the agenda. Anytime anything funny or personal came up we had to write it down to talk about later so we could get the business done. And how many temples have we been to? Here we are at Manti, but we've also been to Madrid, Preston (how many train problems did we have going to both of those?), and countless others.

Here's to you, Deb, and the best year of your life yet!