FAMILY NIGHT FUN

We had family night last night with the Youngs and the Winters. We had a lesson and then carved pumpkins! Between the 3 families there were 16 kids! I brought a drill because I wanted to make a polka dot pumpkin. Some of the kids got pretty creative with it. We had a great time!

COUSINS

The kids love their cousins so much! They look forward to any time they get to spend together. I hope they will always stay as close to them in the future as they are now. I think I may have posted some of these pictures before but they are so cute I decided to re-post them. I have a ton more but my computer is being weird and won't let me do the rest right now.

Back Up and Running

I went to the physical therapist yesterday to get the low-down on my knee and find out if I can ever run another marathon. And the answer is yes!! It was just as I had thought-IT band, an EXTREMELY tight IT band. I have heard that ITs can be a recurring problem especially with women runners. But the physical therapist was confident that, with a couple weeks of work, I can be back on track. I also found out that my left leg is slightly longer than my right-which is not unusual. That only aggravated my problems once I started running longer distances.

Time to go running!

Happy Birthday MOM!

Today is my mom's birthday! Usually she is out of town for her birthday but not this year. Tonight we are going to have dinner at the Food Bank and then do some service hours there. I think the whole family will be there. It should be a great night. I will try and post some pictures later tonight. Mom wanted a Wii and Wii fit so that's what we got her! It will be just perfect for the new St. George house.

UEA WEEKEND

This past week has been so busy that it's hard to remember everything we have done. And we still have one more day left in the vacation!

Wednesday night Montana, Emerson and I left to go to St. George for a few days. Indy had a soccer game Thursday and Finn was sleeping over with the England boys so they didn't come. Kurt decided to stay home and keep track of the boys.

We stayed at the Laguna house in St. George for the last time. Mom and Dad bought a new house. Thursday morning we went over to the new house with mom to take some measurements and look over things. They should be able to close this week and take possession by the end of the week! It's pretty exciting. Of course there is no furniture so we have got a lot of shopping to do before it's ready to stay in.

After looking at the new house we went over to Sand Hollow Reservoir with the Youngs. They had rented some 4-wheelers with the Killpacks. A couple other families from Orem were there with boats. It was such a perfect day! The kids would go tubing for a while then run back up the beach to ride the 4-wheelers. It was very fun. The boys would have been in heaven if they would have been there.

Friday we went biking in Snow Canyon. Again it was a great day. We had lunch in the park and let the kids play on the rocks. The Youngs had invited Emerson to stay for the rest of the weekend with them. Montana and I left to come home late in the afternoon. It was a quick trip but I think it was worth it. We didn't have any plans at home anyway.

I almost did it!

Well, the St. George Marathon has now come and gone. After 6 months of training and hard work I had to drop out at mile 17. What a disappointment! I was very pumped up and feeling confident and ready!

The morning of the race I woke up to see it was sprinkling. As we got on the bus in St. George it was pretty mild but the further we got up the canyon, the more the rain started to fall. At the starting line there was a pretty good wind. They were handing out garbage sacks but ran out just as we got to the table to ask for one. Luckily I had on my knit cap to keep the rain off my head. Raquel Westover, Suzette Greer and I all started out at a good pace. We were staying close to the 4:30 pacer. At Veyo hill I kept running and lost Suzette and Raquel. I was feeling good and didn't want to lose my momentum even though it was slow on the hill. I kept looking back to find them but couldn't. My left knee started hurting from about mile 5 but it just felt like normal aches and pains that come and go during a run. But about 13 it wasn't going away. By 15, I was only running a few hundred yards at a time. About 16, there was a long downhill stretch and, by that point, it was hurting to WALK down the hill. I knew I was done. I had to walk to 17 to catch a shuttle down to the finish line. I was so cold and so drenched that I couldn't stop the shivering. At the finish line I couldn't find anybody. We hadn't arranged for a specific meeting place. So I ended up walking around for about 30 minutes trying to find Kurt and the kids. I finally found them in the bleachers. They thought they had missed my finish. It took everything in me not to break down in tears when I told them I had to drop out. I was so cold and miserable! We stayed just long enough to see Suzette and Raquel finish and then went home.

The bummer about the knees is that I had this same problem about mid-way through my training. But I thought I had taken care of it. I hadn't had one knee problem since about July. I can't figure out if it was the cold that contributed to the problem or what! All I know is that this is not my last marathon. St. George 2009---I will be there!