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26.2 Miles

Have you ever wanted a little alone time? Just a brief moment in which there are no children whining at you and no husband asking you to help him find something that is only lost because he invariably forgot to put it away in the first place. A time when you don't have to think about to-do lists or dirty laundry or church callings? Well, I have discovered a way to get about four and a half hours of just that, the only catch is that you have to be running the whole time. It's totally worth it though!!!

Last Saturday I completed my first ever marathon. I got to run along and enjoy a beautiful view while listening to my book on tape (I would have gotten sick of music after a couple of hours) and have people offer me water and gatorade every few minutes. Does it get any better than that? I have to say that I really enjoyed myself and I am so glad that I did it. I almost backed out after injuring both knees back in August and not really running much for the month and a half leading up to the marathon but decided at the last minute that I just had to do it. The best part was that I got to run it with a good friend, Anna, who totally smoked me (of course she got to train for the five weeks before the marathon while I got to sit on my couch with an ice pack on each knee) and my little sister Whitney who had never run before starting to train for the marathon and did awesome!!


This is me at mile 26! I think I am smiling because I see the finish line : )
Getting a high five from my cheer squad.




My whole family went down to St. George to support my sister and I (don't ya just love family?) Caci arranged for all of us to relax and hang out after the marathon at her uncles house. The kids loved the pool. Oliver has been pretending to be duck for several days and was happy to have a real "pond" to play in. (I guess he realized that the blue blanked I had spread out on his bedroom floor wasn't quite as fun to splash in.) During the duck phase I even had to break up bread and throw it on the ground for him - it was the only thing he would eat. We have passed the duck phase now and just oscillate between being Oliver and being Dash from Incredibles.

Wasatch State Park

Oliver begged all summer to go camping with Addie and in September we finally made it! Yay! We went to Wasatch State Park near Midway. The town has kind of grown right up next to the campground, but the trees are so thick you feel like you really could be secluded on the top of the mountain and the view of Deer Creek from our campsite was beautiful. Our trip included lots of snacking, rain, laughs and campfires. We also got to take Sam's dad's tent trailer so for us it was like a five star hotel!! Wish we could go again!

The kids entertained themselves playing in the dirt around the site, they couldn't have been happier!


The park had a fishing pond and Oliver has been dying to go fishing, he didn't catch anything but he definitely enjoyed himself. And Ruby liked chasing the ducks.

Happy campfire faces. I guess they didn't want their pictures taken, but I had to capture Ruby's mismatched outfit for future remembrance. We just kept layering on the pink to keep her warm.

The kids played so hard that everytime we got into the car this is what happened.





We spent one morning wandering around Cascade Springs and the kids showed us that you could have just as much fun pretending to fish with a stick as you could with a real pole.
The park also had a very old apple orchard and we were allowed to fill a bag with apples, Ollie thought it was great.

Me too!

No matter what is going on, Ruby always wants in on the action. These pictures are several weeks old but I came across them again today and they made me laugh.
I made Oliver pose with these glasses on for his birthday invitation, of course Ruby had to do the same (she put the glasses on herself).

I had my back turned while working on a cake and Ruby managed to get into the green food coloring. A long bath got the green off of her face but she had a green streak in her hair that lasted about a week. She is tireless.

First day of school

Last year.
This year.
Ollie started school last week. We are doing a co-op preschool with some friends in our neighborhood this year. Oliver is having a great time, mom is having a difficult time entertaining Ruby while he is gone but we are hanging in there! According to Oliver he already knows everything, that may hold true when it comes to his letters and most of his numbers, but I think he may learn something new yet.

Ruby June turns two

Zero.

One.
Two.

Our little princess is growing up way to fast. I can't believe it has been two whole years since the day I drove myself to the hospital and had her before Sam had a chance to get there. She hasn't stopped surprising us since. She is soooo full of personality. She loves to dance and make funny faces, she idolizes her brother and has to do everything he does. She loves purses, jewelry and painting her finger and toenails (always with markers when mom isn't looking). She is starting to talk quite a bit too. Her favorite words are "stop", "don't", and "no". But she says a lot of other things too, my favorite is that she calls my phone a "hello" and Ollie "Brobo" (her version of "brother"). Ruby's favorite thing to do is to color - as evidenced by my walls and most of the furniture in the house. In an effort to tame her coloring tendencies we got her an art easel for her birthday (can't say it's helped much). She seems to have been spurred on to even greater wall coloring disasters after we threw her a themed Coloring Page birthday party, oh well, at least she is happy, right?!

On her birthday we let Ruby (and Ollie) color everything from the tablecloths to the cake. And they had a great time.




Since Ruby loves to color so much I left her cake white and bought food coloring markers for her to color it in herself.

They thought it was great. (I kinda liked the white version better! But I am a bit of a perfectionist, so what can I say. It made them happy and that is all that matters.)
Everyone that came to the party, grandparents, aunts and uncles got to color and sign the cake as well.

Then our little two-year-old got to blow out her candles. She is such a big girl now. Sigh.

Silver Lake

Sam had the whole week off of work, we didn't plan any exciting vacations but have had a great time just hanging out and getting a lot done around the house. Hallelujah for a clean garage (among other things)! One morning we decided to take the kids on a little hike. Because Ruby can now say the word "walk" and prefers toddling behind her brother to being toted by mom and dad we knew we had to pick a short one, so we drove up to Brighton and walked around Silver Lake. "Walked" is probably a generous term for what we did, it was more like take three steps throw a rock into the lake, take another three steps examine a stick, etc., etc.


At some point during our trek Oliver acquired a stick and piece of fishing line so a lot of time was devoted to fishing in the lake. Ollie thought it was the greatest thing ever.

No, Oliver did not catch that fish with his unbaited line, a couple of older men who enjoyed watching Ollie's fishing antics donated their catch to him. It wasn't really anything worth having, the men only kept the fish because they couldn't get them to swim away when they tried to release them. But Ollie was thrilled and so he got his first lesson in gutting and cleaning a fish.

Sam thought it was hilarious to chase after the innocent camera woman.
I even touched the fish myself, only enough to stuff it with butter and lemons and wrap it in tinfoil. Oliver was excited to eat it so I figured I had better do my part.