A Birthday And A Butt Kicking (Repost)

In just 10 days from now I will fulfill my lifelong dream of running a marathon. I am having serious doubts that I will be able to do this. Because of my ongoing battle with shin splints which led to a stress fracture I have not been able to train the way I wanted to. I need some positive motivation for this last week and a half, so I have decided to repost my entry from when I ran my half marathon. It has reminded me that I can in fact do hard things. And I can't give up now. Had I given up on my half marathon I would not have had the amazing experience of crossing that finish line...

May 25, 2009...

For my birthday this year I got to do something I have been wanting to do for over 15 years. It is something I often wondered if I was even capable of doing. I had to get past many hurdles, both physically and mentally, to get to this point.

Yesterday, I became one step closer to fulfilling my life long dream of running a marathon by running my first ever 1/2 marathon.

By looking at the following pictures you will notice that I do not have the most perfect body for being a runner. In fact the first lesson I learned during my training is that you don't necessarily lose weight if you run a lot. I have not lost one pound since I have been running regularly. But that is a post for a later time. So it is by sheer will and determination that I have gotten to this point. This is why I am so proud of running this race.

It seemed as if the stars had all aligned for me to do it. My bum hip was suddenly feeling great, I found this race on my birthday of all days, and my dad who is my hero committed to running it with me. How could I not run it? This is what kept me going.

I had many emotional "moments" throughout the day yesterday.

Moment #1 was seeing this sign in front of our house as we left for the race in the morning...

A and K, I love you. You both totally rock!

They were thinking of me and took the time to make sure I had a good send off. That really meant a lot!

Moment #2 was waiting with my dad for the race to begin. Was I actually going to do this? It was a very surreal moment for me thinking how far I had come to get to this point...

And we were off...

I really wanted my dad to just go for it and not go slow just for me. And that is just what he did. He quickly disappeared into the crowd in front of me and I didn't see him again for a long time.

I had the best support group out of all the runners. I am calling all the times I saw them along the way my moment #3. They made sure I saw them cheering me on I think at just about every mile. I don't know that I could have done it without my husband and kids and also my mom rooting for me every step of the way...

Moment #4 hit me at about mile 6. This wasn't just another long run. This was THE long run I had been working my toosh off (literally) for. I was still feeling great...

Moment #5 - Not feeling so great anymore, I think it was about mile 10ish, and then I saw my sweet Emma running to me and joined me for a little while. How did she know that this is exactly what I needed to keep me going...



I will call all the times when I actually passed some people my moment #6. Who knew that would happen?
This little man, who was so in need of the sunshine that was so abundant that morning, became my little friend...

...I would pass him. Then he would pass me. And so on and so on. It wasn't until about the 12th mile when the little devil on my shoulder convinced me to walk for a second that this little man got a second wind and bolted to the finish and I was left breathing in his pale dust. He is no longer my friend.

This is my 71 year old dad finishing more than 20 minutes before me...

...which led to my moment #7 when, even though he was so exhausted, he ran back to meet me with about a quarter mile left to go so he could be there when I finished...

Moment #8 - Crossing the finish line.

I did it, I REALLY did it!

Moment # 9 came that night as I was laying down to go to bed. I was replaying the day - the amazing night-before-carb-load-dinner my mom made for us, all the emotions of the race, the fun time we had at my brothers and fabulous birthday meal and plethora of desserts my sister-in-law and nieces made for everyone after the race. I have to say this was the best dang birthday I have had in quite a while.

For those of you wondering what my time was for the Half Marathon...

My goal was to not be last (I wasn't) and to be able to just finish the race. I even remember saying I would be lucky if I could do it in under 2:30.

I came in at 2:29.

I am already thinking about which race to run next. I want so badly to improve that time. Do I enjoy a few more half marathons before I really go nuts and fulfill my lifelong dream of a full marathon? Or do I just go for the gusto? Whichever one I decide to do, I will be running and that is all that matters.

You may have noticed that in the video of me crossing the finish line Ben asks Lee if I won. To answer my cute sons question, yes I won.

I won big time!
Sure, my time was not great. My time will not be great 10 days from now, but I will do this. This time I have included my Heavenly Father in my training. I have never felt closer to Him than I have these past few months. He knows how bad I want this. He knows I have done all I can do. That is all He asks of us, right? I have complete faith that when I am running that marathon and I don't feel like I can go on, He will carry me to that finish line. Ten days can not come soon enough!

Ben's Baptism

Ben's baptism wasn't just any baptism. He was able to be baptized with two of his cousins. How often does that happen? Not only was Ben super excited about sharing his day with Livia and Shea, but it was also special for me to be able to see my husband and my two brothers worthily exercise their priesthood authority and perform the sacred ordinances of baptism and confirmation. The three of us kids can say with certainty that we were raised by goodly parents. Because of their righteous examples and strong testimonies of the Gospel our family was able to have this amazing day to celebrate.

It doesn't get any sweeter than this! I am so proud of these three for following Jesus' example to be baptized.

Two things every child in my family receives on their baptism day is a gift from Grammie and a gift from Lee. I don't know which gift Ben was more eager to receive, his quilt or his song. Soon Lee will be hard at work recording a CD of all the baptism songs he has written over the years. I can't wait!

I adore this picture. Lee taught Ben how to tuck his tie into his shirt and roll up his sleeves when he eats. He is such a mini Lee and I LOVE it!

I ♥ My Family

I think the only thing that could have made this day more perfect was if Lee's family could have been there. We missed them.

This day was truly a magical day and Ben, as well as I will forever remember it.

What A Hunk

Ben was baptized last Saturday. It was such a special day. I will post all about it soon. First I wanted to share these great pictures of Ben. I happened to be talking to my friend Amy about how I had never had formal 8 yr old/baptism pictures taken of my kids and I wish I had. That is all I had to say and she made sure to fix that. At hardly any notice at all Amy took some pretty amazing pictures of Ben. Thank you so much Amy! You are the best! Here are my faves...

I LOVE this kid!!

Ben's 8!!

I just can't believe my boy is 8. He is going to be baptized in just a few weeks. He will be starting scouts next week. The next thing I know he will be out of the house and on his own. Time goes by so fast, yet after looking at these pictures, it seems like a lifetime ago that he was so little. What you see is what you get with this kid. He wears his heart on his sleeve. His sensitivity is something that may be a challenging characteristic for him now, but I have no doubt it will pay off with big rewards in the future. Ben loves to be silly and have a good time. The most endearing thing I have noticed this past year is how much his relationship with his dad has grown. His dad is his best bud. He would rather spend time with his dad than anyone else. It warms my heart and I cherish the moments when I walk by Ben's room and hear the two of them laughing and playing together. It's funny, it's Ben's birthday yet I am the one that has received the best gift...an amazing son!

Happy Birthday Ben! I love you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My Little Leprechauns wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Juab County

Early in the school year, Eva found out that she was going to be doing a project on Juab County in her class, due in May. We knew at some point we would need to visit. Yesterday, we woke up and felt like it was a good day for a road trip, so off we went.

"Juab" is of Ute Indian origin and means flat, or level. Boy, those Utes weren't kidding. There wasn't much there but flat and level terrain.

We went to the Tintic Mining Museum but it was closed. The nerve. We discovered that at one point toward the end of the 1800's Juab County was the richest mining district in the whole nation. Pretty cool.

The Eureka City Hall was built in 1899 and they still use it as their City Hall to this day. My kids were afraid of this building. They were convinced it was haunted.

Porter Rockwell's log cabin was pretty neat. The kids got a big kick out of peering through the windows to see all the furnishings and knick knacks and stuff.

By far the biggest hit of the whole trip was visiting the Little Sahara Sand Dunes. The kids had SO much fun! We could have stayed all day. I should have taken a picture of our car when we got home though. I think we took half the sand dunes home with us.

Towards the end of the day Lee was growing a little tired of Emma. Let's just say he took care of her...

It was getting late but we decided to try to drive to Topaz Mountain before it got dark. There you can dig for real topaz and keep whatever you find. The only thing was we didn't realize you had to like actually hike into the mountain and use actual tools to find the topaz. It was getting dark and we had a LONG journey home so we abandoned that idea. Speaking of abandoned, the trip out to Topaz Mountain was so remote and in the middle of nowhere I almost had a panic attack. I kept picturing our car breaking down, starving to death after weeks of being stuck out there and vultures eating our carcasses.

Despite the grim thoughts near the end of our trip, I thought the day was a fun little adventure, except that we didn't have enough time to do all that we wanted to do. I will even go so far as to say that we could go back one day, maybe next time with 4 wheelers.

Happenings

Wow, I cannot believe it. I am actually blogging. I just don't know where the time goes these days. Just when I think things cannot get any busier, somehow they do. I am REALLY looking forward to the lazy days of Summer when we'll have more time and less activities to get to. Here are just a few things that have been going on lately...

Ben's 2nd grade class celebrated Chinese New Year by making giant dragons and parading around the school. They all got to take turns being different parts of the dragon. This is a super fun activity that the kids always look forward to.

Emma is now En Pointe in ballet. She has been working very hard these past few weeks. She has received much praise by her teacher. Every week her teacher awards a "bonus five" to students that look like they have been going above and beyond her expectations for them. Emma has been awarded a "Bonus Five" these past two weeks in a row! It is normal for the girls to get awarded a few times a year, but two weeks in a row has never happened to Emma. I am very proud of her and for all of her hard work.



Lee sprained his ankle playing indoor soccer a few weeks back. This picture is what it looked like immediately after the injury. It is nothing compared to what it looked like in the days following. He ended up having ruptured and torn ligaments and a badly bruised bone. It will take months to heal, but we are glad that he is now able to walk around with help from his cute little boot. What I was most thankful for during this time was that Lee could literally lay in bed and still work from home. He would not have been able to go to an office for a few weeks which would have been very hard financially for us.

Ben has been very busy with Karate lately. He was promoted to orange belt a while back and he was even invited to try out for "Black Belt Club" This is an extra class that focuses on leadership training and using weapons. He made the class, got his blue gi, and has loved using the staff, which has been their weapon of choice lately. Recently, he was promoted to purple belt which means he has been able to start sparring. He loves every minute of Karate and I love to see how much he has grown. I have seen such a difference in this kid!


Now if time could just slow down a little...

I Am Lovin The New Looks

We've got some new looks in our home! Take a peek...

Ben's toothless grin. I cannot get enough of it. I want him to talk to me constantly so that I can hear his lisp. Love it!

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Ella has been begging me to cut her hair short for some time. It was hard for me but I finally caved. And she is super excited to be able to donate her hair as well. She's a cutie!!

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One of my goals this year is to really enjoy each stage of my kids' lives. Life is so busy and overwhelming I feel like I am constantly in a glazed over kind of haze. I want to be able to focus on my kids the way they deserve to be focused on. I think I haven't been necessarily bad at this but we can always do better, right? Taking time to stop, and celebrate moments like cute smiles and haircuts is one way I intend to accomplish my goal.

Back To Cali - Winter 2010

On Christmas morning, right after we opened presents, we took off to California. We were looking forward to an amazing Christmas dinner Gary promised to have waiting for us. And boy was it amazing. It was actually beyond amazing. I had no idea he was such a good cook! We relaxed at Nani's with Gary and Christian and the next day we got to see Dave and his cute family as well. We opened more gifts and enjoyed spending time with Scott, Cashton and Mason.

The next day we headed to LA to visit Uncle Leon, and Dave and Kristin. While up there we stopped at the LA Temple. This temple has special meaning to us because Lee and I were sealed here. We have a great story about our sealing. If you'd like to hear it you can ask Lee. He sure loves to tell it and I guarantee you'll be slapping your knee. Anyway, back to the post. We had the kids all touch the temple walls and we talked about how one day they will get to go inside and how fabulous that day will be for them.

It was really nice to be able to spend some time with Lee's family. We miss them and since they never come up to visit us we don't see them very often. Ouch!

For the last half of the trip we went down to see Eric and Julie and the kids. I love love love how the kids play so well with each other...like time stands still when they're apart and picks right back up again when we visit. One of the fun things we did was go down to San Diego to the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center. While driving down I got to text back and forth with my other brother Ryan as him and Cheryl were having their baby. I felt sad that we missed it but it totally felt like we were there with all the texts and pictures going back and forth.

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For those of you who have not experienced the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center, I highly recommend it. It was a super fun experience. I almost felt like we were really there. The interactive tour was very impressive. We even got to pan for gold.

Emma loved holding Troy. What a cutie he is!

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We stopped at the Old Spaghetti Factory for a yummy dinner and took a little detour on the way home to be able to see the San Diego Temple. This one also has special meaning to me because I received my endowment here. It also is by far the most beautiful of all temples, if you ask me.

There is a story behind this picture. In the morning, before any other kids were awake Gavin and Ella woke up and came down to watch TV. There was a huge sectional in a large family room but they chose to sit next to each other in the same chair. How cute is that?

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We also went to a park and fed ducks.

Ben keeps telling me how much he wants a baby brother. I want to cry every time he tells me this but that's a whole nother post. It was so good for him to be around Troy. I think he got his fix.

We also had some pretty wild entertainment thanks to the girls.

There was a really cute little duck with an awesome hairdo. The kids called it Albert Duckstein.


Eric and Julie have a really cute old fashioned candy store by their house. Of course we had to stop there and stock up.



We rang in the new year at their house by playing games and even making up our own...





And if you can believe it we all stayed up till midnight. Everyone but.....






Happy New Year!!!!!


Another successful trip to Cali was accomplished. We sure love our Cali trips, but there is nothing like comin home. Until next time...