Halloween

Halloween started off with our annual Haunted Half.... 

after 6 years in a row, I think it is a family tradition!!!!

Having Halloween on a Saturday really is so nice.  We had a pretty relaxing day and then got on trick or treating early.  Dakota wore a MORPH suit again and Bridger was a super scary zombie.  He actually had a crazy mask that I was not a fan of, so I hid it last minute and convinced him to let me do makeup.. which I think turned out pretty good!!!!  The boys of course had so much fun and got way too much candy!

Reese on the other hand was sick with a cold and diarrhea.  She did do a little trick or treating which she had a love hate relationship with.  She loved getting the candy, but just could not keep up with her brothers.  She also got super upset if she would go to a door and people were not home.  She would also randomly walk into people's houses :-)  I think next year will be her year, but she was an amazingly cute butterfly!

The St. George Marathon

This year I decided to put biking on the back burner and focus on running a marathon!

It didn't seem like it would be that big of deal....  the training would take a lot less time than training for LOTOJA and I have run a million half marathons.... how hard could it be????

the answer is, very HARD!!!

Thanks goodness I had so many other friends in the ward doing it or I would have dropped out!

I mostly trained with my friend Hillary and we followed a 12 or 16 week training program.  At first it was super simple, a couple of 13 milers, a 14, a 15.... no big deal!  But once we got above 19 it was brutal!!! 

The runs were hot and aweful, but even worse were all of the injuries I started getting!  

First I hurt my achilles on my right foot, once I nursed that back to health, I majorly started having pain in the arch of my left foot.  One morning we started a 20 mile run bright and early and my foot started throbbing from the first step.  There were defiantly times I did not know if the marathon was really going to be possible.  I finally went and saw a foot Dr who set me up with some insoles and shoes with better support.  Slowly that change started to help and by the end of our training I didn't feel ready, but I had ran all of the training runs.

My goal was to get under 4 hours.  When I first thought of doing a marathon that seemed like a no brainer.  Once we started getting into long runs, I seriously didn't think 4 hours was realistic at all!!!  Before I knew it the day of the race had come.  It had been so hot in St. George, but we were lucky and it looked like the high was going to be mid 80's.  Hillary, Alicia (who refused to do any training with me ;-) and I rode the long bus ride up together.  In my mind I had decided that I would stay with Hillary until mile 13 and then I would put in my music and let her run ahead.  The first 13 miles went fine.  Miles 7-11 were all up hill which sucked, but I got through them and by mile 13 I was ready to put in my music!!!  Scott and the kids were planning to be at Snow Canyon which was about mile 16 so I was looking forward to that!  When I got there I didn't see them, but Hillary's husband had a little drink for me that I could carry so I felt okay.  The next 6 miles were okay, not bad, but not great.  A friend from work was going to be at mile 23 with a coke and I knew the sugar and caffeine would give me the boost that I would need to finish.  When I finally got to mile 23 she was no where to be found!!!  A few minutes later I saw Scott and he had a drink and a cold, wet towel for me.  By this point I wasn't feeling great, but I knew that I could make it in under 4 hours without a problem.  At mile 24 I saw McCall from work, standing there with my coke.  She told me that she was off on what mile she would be at.  I was thinking that was a big deal.... but I was so happy to see her and know that I only had 2 miles left.  The last 2 were slow and felt like a dream, but when I saw the finish I seriously got emotional.  I had done it!!!! 

My final time ended up being 3 hours and 53 minutes. I was so grateful that I had met my time goal, because there was no way I was doing that crap again!  Overall, the race went really good.  It was never awful and I realized that all of the hundreds of miles put in had prepared me!!! Everyone from my ward did so good!  Hillary qualified for Boston by a long shot and Alicia met her time goal by almost 40 minutes!!!  I was seriously so happy for them, especially Alicia because now we could move on and get back to biking!!!  Hillary on the other hand has to now train for the Boston Marathon!!!  Will I ever run another Marathon????, probably....  Will it be anytime even remotely soon???, NOPE!

My poor feet will most likely never be the same!!!!! 

The boys made cute signs for me, I loved that Bridger's had a Knight on it and that Dakota's said Go SUMMER all over it :-)

LOTOJA 2015

This year I took a break from biking and played the support role at LOTOJA!

I was actually really excited to to have a nice relaxing vacation but I found out that supporting is somewhat stressful too!  There is all of the worries of making sure that I was at all of the stops before Scott would get to each one, and I was always anxious to see how Scott was feeling.

His group left at about 6:15 am.  Scott had been doing rally well with his training but got hung up with pneumonia 3 weeks before LOTOJA so he was a little worried how he would be feeling.  THe first stop is about 70 miles into the race.  He seemed okay, but he didn't seem great so I was a little worried.  The next 50 miles has a huge amount of climbing which Scott really excels at, but by the next stop he was in so much pain and could not stop coughing.  I seriously gave give him a hand full of tylenol and ibuprofen and hoped for the best!!!  Luckily, by the last stop in Alpine, he seemed to be feeling better and was just anxious to get the last 50 miles over with.  His group came into the finish at Teton Village in a time of 10:20, which is awesome, especially since they had a head wind the entire way!  Scott seemed so happy that it was over and by later that day he was talking about doing it again next year! 

I of course had fun hanging out with Alicia and all of the other awesome wives and spending a weekend in beautiful Jackson Hole!  The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Matt and Autumn could have come, but they promised to be back in on the action next year!

 

 

On Sunday we went to breakfast and then headed into Grand Teaton National Park. 

We rented a kyack and spent most of the day out on a beautiful lake!!!The mountains and pine trees came right down to the lake shore and the teaton mountains are unreal!  It was such a relaxing day.  After kyacking we ate dinner at a resteraunt just outside  of the park and then headed back in hope of seeing soem animals.  We lucked out and saw a Grizzly Bear and two cubs!!!

Such an awesome trip!

 





Reese~ 18 months

Labor Day Weekend

Our Labor Day weekend was packed full of fun!!!

Scott was already in Colorado deer hunting so the boys headed to Lake Powell with my dad on Friday afternoon.  Saturday morning I got up at the butt crack of dawn... literally and ran the Nebo Half Marathon.  It was almost all down hill and I loved the weather and the course.  After I got home and had a quick shower, Reese and I headed to meet Scott and meet everyone at Lake Powell for a quick overnighter before I had to get back for work.

This was Reese's first Lake Powell adventure and she did great for the most part.  She loved everything about the boat and lake and was awesome about wearing a life jacket the whole time.  The one down side was that she would not sleep and after my early half marathon, I was exhausted! She was still the highlight of the trip for everyone and was so cute.  Another highlight was that we were able to get Dakota up on a wakeboard!!!  He only took a few tries to get up and then had it down.  His last time, he had a body slamming crash and decided that he was done for the trip!

Reese loved this stuffed dog that was on the boat!!!

Sunday night Bridger, Reese and I headed home while Dakota and Scott headed to Colorado to go deer hunting.  Monday morning they saw a deer and while Scott set up his bow, he let Dakota drive the 4-Wheeler over so Scott could take the shot.  It was a definite team effort and a fun memory for Dakota and Scott.