Our First Egg

Glade went out to feed the chickens after church and he found this! He was feeding them and they were being really noisy. A friend had mentioned that they "talk" a lot when they lay eggs, like they are proud of themselves or something, so he decided to check around. There it was! Very exciting...for us anyway. If only I knew which chicken, I might just go kiss it right on the beak!

My first Half Marathon

Today was a day I officially called myself "unbalanced". What other type of person pays money to run way too many miles all at the same time?? I wasn't really anxious about it at all though. I had trained and actually felt pretty good about it. We had our first Ragnar meeting last night and got home a little late, but I fell right to sleep and slept most of the night. No laying awake worrying about it. I was a little nervous as we were getting ready, but not too much. It was chilly at the start, but by mile 2 I had worked up a sweat and ditched the jacket. I ran the whole first 5 miles without stopping. I have never done that before! I did a little over four last week, but that was it. I felt really good other than my knee was starting to really hurt. When I hit mile 5 I decided to walk for just long enough to blow my nose and eat a Gu chew. (energy) Then I ran to mile 7 took a short break( maybe 30 sec) and ran to mile 9. I was really starting to be tired at this point. My knee continued to hurt, but wasn't killer yet. My breathing was great, but my legs were just tired!! I just passed mile 11 when my knee did some weird thing that made me actually yell "ow!" out loud. I stopped running and stretched my knee and tried to figure out what was going on. After a few seconds, I just decided to keep running and see what happened. What happened next was the high point of my run.

This last week or so I have been searching for new music to run to. I found this great song that I just fell in love with. Right after I started running again, it came on. At first, I kept my pace, but was doing a little "hands in the air" while I was running. Then this crazy burst of energy came upon me and I seriously picked up my pace. That mile I passed 7 people! I'm sure they were wondering "where the heck did she come from?" At this point, I was feeling out of breath, but my knee wasn't bothering me, so I started running faster, but shorter periods of time between walks. I passed a few more people on the final stretch (about 6), and when I turned the corner to the finish line, I was actually able to sprint to the end. I felt so good! Dalin was waiting for me and came out to finish it with me. I thought that was so sweet till he says "what took you so long?" I wanted to elbow him right on the side of his head. Anyway I crossed the finish line at apprx. 2:26 (official times not yet listed). I had wanted to beat 2:30. I had been running with my Nike chip and it seemed to be off by over .3 miles. I was really disappointed with that, but figured oh well. Then when I mentioned it to Glade, he informed me that the course was actually almost half a mile shorter than it was supposed to be. Crap! No wonder I finished better. So dumb. After I finished, I couldn't find anyone. My mom was there, Glade, Stephen, Rhett, Julia, Jake, Kristine...where was everyone. No one there to cheer me in. I walked around for just a few minutes with Dalin and then found Glade standing by the finish line. When I said his name, he turned around in shock. "What are you doing here?" he asked me. They had come to watch me finish, but were too late! I guess that's good for me, meaning I finished earlier than planned. He apologized many times for that. He beat his time from last year by 11 minutes, woohoo! The others did well at the 10k. It was my mom's first time, she power walked it because of her hip and still got a better time than some people I know. Way to go Mom! I was really ready to go home, so we did. When we got there, I showered and then canned 12lbs of chicken with my mom. Funny ending, I know. My knee is still killing me, but everything else feels pretty good! We'll see what tomorrow brings. Still no desire to run a full.

Snow Trip 2010

A long time coming, but here it is. AZ was having the worst rain/snow storm most could ever remember having. There were warnings about traveling to the high country only in emergencies. Does having a reservation in a cabin constitute an emergency? We had admitted defeat and decided to stay put when Glade found a road that wasn't closed allowing access to Pine. We threw everything together in an hour or two and headed out. The drive there was completely normal, roads were good, no traffic or storms. Beautiful. Then we hit Payson about 6 pm.

It was snowing really hard. Very beautiful actually. When we started on the road to Pine, the police officer suggested we use snow chains and when we told him we weren't from here, he rolled his eyes in disgust at our not adhering the warnings. I don't blame him. The road to Pine was really snowy and icy. We drove about 30 mph the whole way, slipping every now and then. Our kids were a little freaked by the whole thing and honestly, so was I. Once we turned off the main road to the neighborhood where the cabin was is where we hit the most trouble. These aren't actual roads and no one is coming to plow them. It was still snowing pretty good and all the power was out so everything was black. We couldn't even begin to find the cabin. We tried getting up a little hill we thought led to it about 11 times. We would go as far as we could, then back down and try again until finally we made it to the top! That's where we got stuck and go figure, we needed to be at the bottom. Glade had set out on foot with a flashlight since we knew we were in the right vicinity while the rest of us waited in the van. He came back with nothing. That's when our luck changed.

A huge 4x4 pulled up with two guys in it and asked if we were ok. I heard Glade telling them we were fine, just needed to find the cabin, but we would be fine. At that point, I jumped out into the snow yelling "we are not fine!" I have much less pride than Glade. He took off again and the guys asked me if I wanted them to drive me up the road we thought it was on. I agreed quickly. Oh, BTW....this could only happen to Glade... one of the men in the truck grew up in the house right behind Glade's. He had been friends with Glade's older brother. *sigh*..only Glade. Anyway, they drove me around and we found Glade and the cabin. There was no way to get to the cabin other than walk a little ways. It was late and cold and dark. They told us to wait in the van and they would be back to get us. While driving me back to the van, they mentioned how lucky it was that they drove by when they did. I told them it was because we prayed a lot. The one guy (they both smelled of smoke and this one was missing a few teeth) says "me a guardian angel, who'd a thunk it?" I told him God works in mysterious ways. The driver stops the truck and says "are you LDS?" I told him I was and he said "me too. I smoke." I got a kick out of him rationalizing to me why he had to do it. Anyway, they came back to get us with another truck, two more men and a quad. We loaded all our stuff into the back of his truck and he took my kids 2 by 2 on the quad up to the cabin. Truly the hand of the Lord in all this.

As soon as we got to the cabin, the power came on. We didn't have any water, but it was nice to have light to get unloaded, give everyone a quick sandwich and get everyone tucked in. I wasn't in bed for 10 min when the power went out again. Thank you, God.

This was the view outside my window when we woke up. Everything was white, including the sky. Gorgeous!

It was not only gorgeous, but freezing! Everyone huddled under blankets around the fireplace. Even with that, it was still cold. Since we had no power, we had to get creative for breakfast. Luckily there was a grill, so we fixed up some Cherizo (don't know how to spell) and potatoes and melted some snow to make hot chocolate.

Nick kept the fire going for us.

Dalin didn't even bring a jacket or extra socks. I asked if he had one! He never complained though.

Even being so cold, Chelsey had to make sure her hair looked decent.

Dad decided to just stay in bed to keep warm.

Katy and Bo didn't take well to the cold. I made them cereal so they wouldn't have to wait for breakfast, but they were too cold to eat. I tried to be patient with them, but they just sat there blubbering.

This was the coveted chair. A huge oversized bean bag. Luckily it was big enough for two or sometimes even three.

After spending the day melting snow and playing games, I laid down with Bo and Katy for a nap. As they laid down next to me with their icy little fingers and toes, I started to feel really bad. The rest of us could deal with the cold and know that it was temporary and knew how to keep warm. They didn't. I muttered something about if the electricity would just come on when Bo says "we just need to pray." So we did. At that point, I decided that if it wasn't on by late afternoon, we were going home. I didn't want to do another cold, dark night with no water or heat. When we woke up, there was still no power. We had decided to go tell the kids to start packing up when ...voila...power! Thank you, God. Once we had power and heat, I decided to let the kids go play in the snow. I hadn't wanted to let them since there was no way to warm them up when they were done. They went out and played the rest of the day. Glade and I ran into town to get some jugs of water and a few more little things. By that night, we had a warm dinner, roasted marshmallows, and watched some TV. All was well.

When Sunday morning came around, we had intended to go to church up there, but since none of us had showered in two days (still no water), we figured we shouldn't probably go. The kids spent most of the day out in the snow or inside playing video games and watching TV. We had some fun family game time and basically just a chill day with everyone doing whatever made them happy.

Since it was nice out and there was power for the girls to do their hair, they wanted to go do a photo shoot in the snow. There were some really cute ones of them , but too many to post.

Since they don't plow the street that leads to the cabin, the kids were able to sled down it. So great for me and Katy to stay inside while the rest played outside. Best snow trip ever!

Katy only made one trip down, got snow sprayed in her face and decided she was done.

Bo jumped up after running into the tree and yells "that was awesome!"

Since there was no water, we couldn't flush the toilets. I'm sure you can imagine how not good that would be with 11 people using them. We started out melting snow to use to flush them, but it took a really long time. So, Glade started hiking down to the crik every so often to fill the water container. He was a real trooper.

We could have let all the "bumps" ruin our trip but instead we made into a memorable adventure we will all remember forever. It's all about the attitude!

Mama

I don't know when or who or what or how this started, but for awhile now, my kids have called me "mama". I think I really like it. Something about it sounds soft and endearing. When I tuck Katy in and tell her I love her, I hear a soft and sleepy "I love you too, Mama". I can't explain it, but it's grown on me. I'm happy to be "mama".

Dalin's Pinewood Derby

Last night was Pinewood Derby. I only have one this year, Dalin. Glade and he worked on the car most of Monday night and Tuesday morning. He just wanted a shiny orange one, but it was so blah. I convinced him to put some stickers on it so we went to Michaels to look for some fire or something. We couldn't find any, so we chose pizza stickers. I'm pretty sure he was the first "pizza delivery" car in the derby's history. The night went really well aside from the tears. Yes there was crying and some "almost crying" by a few. It's hard to not be the winner. I'm a bad sport and I admit that, but Dalin is the worst. He came in 7th out of 22 boys and he didn't handle it well. He felt the track jipped him. It's always the track! Anyway, Notice in some of the pictures that his tongue was out a lot. I'm sure concentration is the key to a fast car!

During a break, we did "Cubscout joke" time. This little gal said she had one, but when she got up to the microphone, she just smiled and said to me "ok, tell me one". So I had to help her with a joke. I got nothin! So we went with the old knock knock joke Boo Hoo. She's cute.

Oh the crying.

This was a sad moment and it gave me the opportunity to make him not look like such a baby. I had told him earlier that I thought we were one ribbon short, so he probably wouldn't get one that night but I would buy him one the next day. I had given out all the ribbons and still had 2, not sure how that happened, but I noticed him over in the corner crying so I called him up to let him have his ribbon. (I hadn't even noticed till then that he didn't get one, good mom) So now every one thought that's why he was crying. Poor Dalin. I wouldn't let him have it till he smiled. Then he went back and sat and cried again.

He's a rockstar! (or just weird)

I've been looking for more music to run to, so I asked a friend who is very wise in the ways of music to suggest some things. He sent this song, but it had some inappropriate parts to it. I found this program that lets me take out parts of the song, so I was able to edit it to be good. I really liked it and apparently so did Rhett. He used my iPod to record this while listening on my computer. Crazy.

Week in Review

So much going on right now! Within the last week and withing the next three, there's a lot on my plate. For starters, 3 birthdays. Dalin just had his and Katy's is in 10 days and Rhett's is two weeks after that. Along with that, I'm responsible for putting together a Pinewood Derby and a Blue and Gold banquet two weeks apart. I have enrichment and Bunko the next two Thursdays. Add to that the training for the half marathon I'm supposed to run next weekend and the Ragnar 4 weeks after that and I'm thinking...ahhhhhh! Oh yes, did I mention we are supposed to go to the cabin this weekend but we are getting one of the worst winter storms of the season? One more thing, I have no hot water on one side of my house and a husband who just had 3 teeth pulled and can barely function. Guessing I'm not getting hot water in the very near future. I'm not complaining about any of this BTW, just explaining why I haven't blogged for awhile and why it may be crazy and sporadic for the next little bit. But...these are some of the highlights from the last week:


* I ran 9 miles up and down hills and didn't die
*Spent a great afternoon watching football with some family
*Had almost the entire Smith family here for Sunday dinner and we laughed till we cried ($5 footlong)
*Made treats and took them to a few friends in the ward and donated shoes for Haiti
*Thoroughly enjoyed watching Jake send home crazy lady
*Had crazy scout day
*Katy has had dry pants for 3 straight days!
*Gotten lots of rain
*Watched Rhett finish 9th overall in the final conference meet and 2nd for 6th graders

*Took Dalin birthday shopping and out for ice cream

*Laundry laundry and more laundry

Not too exciting, but it's all mine!