Anticipation is greater than realization

(this blog post is more of a journal entry for me, so skip it if you want. I consider it a rule to add pictures to all blog posts, however . . . I also refuse to post pictures for this blog. This is just a boring pictureless post).

So here's the deal, I gained a lot (and I mean a lot) of weight with Ashley. I do not like feeling this way so in January I came up with the great idea to train and run for a half marathon. I knew that if I set a goal with an end date (and paid for it) that I would be more likely to stick to it than just wanting to lose weight. So, overcome with fantasies of me gloriously bounding across the finish line, I registered for the Legacy Midnight Run. It runs along the Legacy trail from North Salt Lake to Farmington. I was thrilled because it was close to home and would be perfect!

I started heavily training in March and things were going well. I even stopped drinking carbonation and ate relatively healthy. (except that every time I ran I felt like I was lugging sacks of flour with me because of the extra me that I was carrying.) Well, March turned into April, May, June and July and before I knew it, it was time for the half! I was not the super-babe-a-licious that I wanted to be, and in fact, I hardly lost any weight at all. Needless to say, I learned after the fact that training for a half is not a good way to lose weight at all. Cutting carbs or something stupid like that is much more effective. Nevertheless, I ran my fat tushie faithfully. (slowly, but faithfully). The week before the half I ran 10 miles (my longest run). I got up at 5am and drove to my mom's house and then ran to my house. It went really well and I had plenty of energy to have a full day afterwards. I was pumped for the half.

Well, the great day came! I woke up with adrenaline and excitement. The hours passed slowly as I waited for evening. My best friend Jen Gonzalez was running the race with me. She came and we donned our glow-sticks for the big event. We loaded the buses at 8pm and were taken to the starting line. There, we waited for TWO hours for 10pm, the starting time. By the time the race started, I was sleepy and had lost all my umph. I started to run with Jen. I ran and ran. The first water station was a happy sight. Unfortunately, they didn't have water ready. Bummer. Luckily I had brought some of my own. I kept running. The second water station had hot water only. (they had left the water out all day and it was tea-hot.) Not really refreshing. I kept running. Slowly, but surely my hips started to ache. Ugh, I will walk a little. Then, as sure as night, my hips started hurting, really hurting, bad. I was about to pass 5th south in Bountiful. I texted Ben to tell him where I was. He said my mom was waiting at 5th south. I longed to see my mom. This wasn't near as much fun as I thought it would be. As I came close to 5th I shouted out for my mom. I felt like a little girl calling, "mom! mom!" There were some people there cheering runners on, but my mom wasn't there. I was bummed and my hips killed. I thought I might cry, but decided to be a big girl and keep on going. I started to run/walk a little  more. My hips started hurting so bad that I couldn't take it any more. EVERY water station had warm water and it made me sick. I decided then and there, that if I go to hell, all the Devil needs to do is make me run this half for eternity and I will be statistically miserable. The moon was bright but I was done with this and I couldn't even enjoy the scenery and night time sky. My mood and morale plummeted. I told Jen to leave me and keep on running. She said NO WAY. She was in it for me. I could have hugged her, but my sweaty disgustingness kept me away. We walked, and then I hobbled. I really, badly wanted to give up. We passed Parish Lane and I burst into tears. (still no mom). Jen held my hand and we crept along. She kept telling me to keep on going. My mood turned really dark. I started yelling and telling her how much my music was crap. She gave me her ipod and I listened to her music. She was running to FREAKING violin music!!! Much to my surprise, I loved it. We kept on trucking. Jen was my angel. She stayed with me and kept me going. (Later I told Ben and two people have seen me in that bad of a mood, Ben and Jen). Around one in the morning, I limped across the finish line and collapsed into Ben's arms and sobbed. (not even pretty cry, but horrible monster sounding sobs).

When I thought this was going to be a glorious triumph I had told Ben to bring my two oldest daughters. They had seen me training all these months and I wanted them to see me finish. Now, limping across the finish. I wished they were home in bed. "What took you sooooo long?" They asked. Yeah. Ben helped me home. He had to basically carry me into the house. Jen told me to take an ice bath. I did. Ben gave me a Lortab and Advil and put me to bed. I really thought that in the morning I would need x-rays, I thought something must be fractured or something. I said a heartfelt prayer and fell asleep. Much to my surprise, in the morning I was fine, pretty much. The whole thing seemed like a really bad nightmare.

I swore to NEVER do that again. Jen insists that I need to try another half that is a good mostly down hill route and one that is in the morning. (clearly, I'm not a night time gal). I'm not sure what I'll do. I'd love to show my daughters perseverance and to get back up when you fall type of thing. But, I also don't want to be stupid. It is quite possible that full-figured women aren't meant to run. I mean really, how many double D's do you see out running?. . . real double D's, not silicone ones. Time will tell. For now, I'm on a low carb diet! ;)

Every heart beats true, for the red, white and blue

Happy 4th of July!!! This is one of my favorite holidays all year! This year was particularly interesting. We have a neighbor Eric Frauendorfer that is a pyro-maniac. (no really, a REAL pyro-maniac, I'm not kidding.) He invited the neighborhood to a "firework party" at the end of the street. Stephanie happened to call me that evening so I invited her family too. When we arrived at the Frauendorfer's their ENTIRE property was roped off and set with HUGE fireworks. At dusk, the show began . . . I cannot use words to describe the spectacle. I've never seen so many fireworks in my life, and I've never been so close to them before either. To tell you the truth, it scared the crap out of me! The show lasted almost two hours of sky filling fireworks with fountain after fountain on the ground. I have been to Stadium of Fire and all that stuff, this blew them out of the water. It was incredible. Our street was packed with cars with strangers coming to see what was going on. I just wish I could describe it!!!     

Then, later we went to the Farmington Parade. (I know, I know, it is not actually on the 4th, it is always on some random day, like the 9th this year, but I'm lumping it all together and calling it the 4th. ) The Farmington Parade is so great because the whole route is in shade. It was a great parade. 

My sweeties at the parade! (this is the only picture I've ever gotten all three of them to look at the camera at once!)

Every year we always swim in Grandma Place's pool on the 4th and do fireworks and glow-sticks at night on her driveway. This is one of my favorite things ever!!

Loren loves to jump into the pool head-first, but he always complains that it gives him a headache. He came up with the brilliant idea to wear this old motorcycling helmet. (No really, he thought it was a good idea) He wore it all day. That's so Loren.

Ashley my little 4th of July firework in her patriotic swimsuit! 

Loren (Stephanie's husband) and Ashley have a great relationship. Ever since she was a baby he had held and cuddled her every time we are together. I loved snapping this photo because it catches their relationship. He is really cute with kids and is especially cute with girls now that he has one of his own (Kali). 

This is Hailey and Ben, and Bron and Jett having a "chicken fight" in the pool.  (Bron is Stephanie's son that is Hailey's age and Jett is Kim, my sister's, oldest that just got home from his mission).

I love the summer and all the fun things we get to do with family!

Sum-Sum-Summer Time

As I've mentioned before, we are having one very fun summer! I adhere to the saying "families that play together, stay together." Here are some more of the fun things we have done this summer:

My sister, Stephanie, lives in Bountiful and has a group of about six really good girlfriends that she does everything with. Once in a while I join them for some fun. This day, we went to Pine View to play on the beach and in the lake. Here are the kids playing in the sand.  

 

 Ashley is such a "wash and wear" baby. She is almost always happy and LOVED being in the sand. I drag her everywhere on all my outings and she just happily goes along. Below, she is with Kali (Stephanie's daughter) and my Aubery.

 Ashley loved having the waves come up to her!

We also went to Liberty Park with some cousins on the Powell side. Ben's cousin, Monique lives in St. Louis and sent her daughter, Mckayla, to Salt Lake to be with some cousins. The kids had a great time playing together in the park and on the splash pad.

 Above: Mckayla, Rachel and Whitney (Ben's cousin Troy's kids) and Aubrey

Even Ben's Grandma Powell came! She is an amazing woman!!!! She is the grandma I never had. I can only hope to someday be as elegant, loving and spiritual as she is in my "older years." I am thrilled that the girls get to spend time with their great-grandmother. I think it instills a sense of self. I'm so happy that they can see the wonderful line of strong women that they come from.

Dirty Girl

Call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but if I hear of a race entitled "Dirty Girl," I'm in! My neighbor and good friend, Lisa Barkdull found this "race" that is four miles of mud with obstacle courses weaving around Wheeler Farm. The proceeds benefit the Huntsman Gynelogoical Cancer Institute. It is for women only and it was a BLAST!

Now, grant it, I just had a baby and I was on bedrest most of the pregnancy, so let's just say the past year hasn't been too good for my bathroom scale. I've seen better days. However, I am TRYING and that is what counts! Part of my "get fit" goal was to start running and racing again. So what a better way to start than with some neighborhood pals at the Dirty Girl?

We needed a team name and costume so after some shopping and some really bad ideas, we came up with a "good" idea. Team Sponge Boob. Really, this was inspired by the Sponge Bob tanks we found at Khols. Next year we are going to be Team Sponge Boob Mom Pants. But for this year, Sponge Boob works. Here is a picture of our team and decorated team car. I'll post more "dirty" pictures when I get them.

Lisa being a real pal and shoving me into mud after my army crawl.
Crossing the finish line. It was cover in bubbles (like dish soap bubbles, that's what is on our legs).

Team Sponge Boob:
Amber Caughlin, Lisa Barkdull, Andrea Holbrook, Camille Sipe, Kristy Powell, Carrie Ainsworth, Shantel Fulton

Field Trip!

I know I should be cleaning my house, weeding my garden (heck, planting a garden) doing geneolgoy or something amazing but the poem keeps entering my mind: 

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,for children grow up, 

as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

So instead of doing my household duties, I want to savor my time with my sweet girls. Every week we go on at least one field trip. Sometimes we go with cousins or friends, but mostly we just go together. I would much rather be spending time with my girls than scrubbing toilets (or even blogging, which is why I rarely do).  I want to savor these years while they still think mom is cool and hanging out with family is fun! Here are some of our adventures.

Feeding ducks at a fun park in Kaysville with Stephanie's kids.

 At Liberty Park with Alisa Cox Van Langeveld. Alisa and I have been friends since we were in 6th grade. We went to elementary, Jr. High, highschool and College together. She has known me for a long, long time. We have been together through thick and thin. Here is her daughter Vera and my Ashley together.

We also spend a lot of time at my mom's pool in Bountiful. Here is Ashley getting ready to swim!

 We also went to the Farmington Pond. It is a little walk up the Lagoon Trail to Farmington Canyon and Pond. I run this route every week. It is my favorite thing to do.

This year for Christmas, the Powell's gave us Lagoon Season Passes! We spend at least one or two days at Lagoon a week. I even got adventerous and took all three girls to Lagoon a Beach! I love Lagoon we have tons of fun there and live so close!

We are half way through the summer and still have many fun things planned. Parades, Bear Lake again, Lake Powell again, Cherry Hill and whatever else we can fit in!!!

Bear Lake June 2011

In June we went up to my parent's condo in Bear Lake. I have gone there pretty much every my entire life and I still love it! We went up with Heather and her kids and Stephanie and her kids. It was too cold to get in the water so we just hung out on the playground and played games. The boys went motorcycling in the mountain and Stephanie's oldest son, Matt, broke his arm. You can check out that story on Stephanie's blog.

Here are some pictures from our trip. 

I can't believe how big my girls are getting!!!

 This year they had this cool climb-the-coconut-tree thing. Both my girls did it and Bron too!

 Here are my three angels at the beach! Words can't express how much I love my girls!!!

Lake Powell June 2011

The end of May/first of June we went an our annual spring Lake Powell trip with the Powell's. Hilary and Quin we expecting a baby soon, so they couldn't come. With the free space we were able to invite our neighbor and friends, the Mattinson family. Craig Mattinson is a good friend of Ben's and his dirt biking buddy. It was great because they brought their three kids, Wes (10), Aaron (14) and Abby (15). The kids got along really well together and I loved it because I had extra hands to help me with Ashley. It was VERY windy and so we didn't get much time on the water. I didn't take many pictures this trip but here are a few.

 Aubrey and Wes.

We hiked up to Rainbow Bridge and I packed along Ashley. We had a good time!

Discipline and Giraffes!!!

In an effort to have behaved children, Ben and I started a discipline chart for the girls. Each day they could earn up to 5 points. They needed to clean their rooms, make their beds, do chores and homework and be obedient. Then they got 5 points. Depending on these things points went down. When they earned 150 points they got a reward. Hailey chose a new bike for her reward because her Cinderella one was
"too baby-ish" Aubrey chose to go to the zoo and have a "VIP" experience feeding the giraffes. She was the only one that day on the VIP tour and got to feed them all, all by herself! It was really amazing. They are HUGE! She fed three giraffes and fed each one for about 15 minuets. It was a great experience!!

Petting a giraffe.

 Look at this guys tongue!

End of the school year wrap up

Here is an end of the school year recap. Sometimes May seems as busy as December with recitals, programs and stuff to do. 

Aubrey finished up Kindergarten. It was hard to have kindergartner's two years in a row. I'm not a huge fan of kindergarten but we were lucky to have a great kindergarten teacher for Aubrey. She had Mrs. Yardley. Mrs. Yardley has some grant with the Utah Opera Company and each year her class puts on an Opera. The children do the WHOLE thing, from writing it, to costumes to back drop. Of course with kindergartners writing it, it really doesn't make any sense to anyone but them. Their class Opera was called "Caught in the Net" it was about butterflies that get caught in a net by mean cheetahs and then mermaids, a royal family, peacocks and zebras help to get them free. Then they all have a sleepover together. Aubrey loved it and was a wonderful mermaid.

 Aubrey also performed in her Kindergarten program.

 I have been SO PROUD of Hailey! She had a tough time when she got her casts off and she had to re-learn how to walk. It was a major challenge for her, but she really overcame. She kept playing spring soccer and it was amazing to watch her improve. Her first game she could barely walk and by the end of the season she was doing great! Her surgery was a fantastic success and her doctor said she had no chance of recurrence. She has done great!

 First grade was a growing experience for Hailey and she really shined. It was a tough year with her casts and challenges but she did fantastic and is pulling wonderful grades. She is a big reader and excels in academics. This is her on her last day of school with her teacher, Mrs. Wennergren.

 Aubrey took dance, cheer and tumbling from our neighbor Ashley Graves. She was not able to go to the real recital because we were in Lake Powell, but she did a wonderful job at the dress rehearsal.

 For Spring Break I took Jonas (Hilary's son) and the girls to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. We had a great time!