Mick's First Day of 3rd Grade

Don't you love how little kids look on the first day of school? They all have on shiny new shoes clothes and a big grin. It almost makes me want to be a teacher.

Ah such sweet sleeping children........

When we went in to check one last time on the kids before bed, we found this:

So tiny and cute so precious and peaceful

so what?????????Is that underwear on his head and over his pajamas?

Why, yes it is! Cause that's how our Mick rolls!!! Never a dull moment with him around.

Hobble Creek Half 2010

Adam ran the race last Saturday. He came in at 1:34 at Hobble Creek in 2009 and wanted to get the same or better this year and he came in at 1:34 again. Average minute per mile: 7:13!!! He got a medal for being in the top 100 men. He placed 22nd in his age group. Runners must be getting faster though. Last year with that same time, he placed 12th.
Mind you that he did this all without hardly training at all the last couple months. He is in awesome condition and I am proud of him.

Adam:

Since Julie left out the gory details I felt like I needed to add my 2 bits worth. (at least 2 bits, I personally feel like it is worth much more than that).

The day started out about 4 am with me getting up cuz I didn't feel like sleeping much. I drank me a big glass of chocolate milk and got out the Rokit Fuel. Rokit Fuel wasn't too bad but it should not be eaten before distance running, call me if you want the results of the research I have done. So, I drove myself over to the start of the race in my trusty old pickup. (It has a couple of awesome new "character points" : trailer came unhooked and buggered the tailgate and then some guy edging his lawn hit a rock about the size of a golf ball with the edger and threw it into the driver's door. He was about 150 ft away, so, if you use one of those machines, look out. Once again, my ADD raises its handsome head, back to the race)

Got on the bus and rode up next to a girl from Boise who came down to sell baby stuff at the county fair. Once we got to the top I got off the bus and started to mozy up the road to the start line. There were tons of people who were in a hurry to get to the start but I wasn't one of them. I then saw my friend from growing up: Riley Brinkerhoff. I have known Riley since we were in Elementry School, he was in 3rd grade and I was in 5th. (Another ADD moment: when we were in high school we were on the wrestling team. Riley's mom was from a small town outside of Vernal. Her maiden name was McKee. One of Riley's McKee cousins on the team was teasing Riley about only being a half breed McKee since only his mom was a McKee, AS IF THAT IS A BAD THING!!!) We talked and chatted until the race started. We got to visit for almost 2 hours since the race was about an hour late getting started. We saw each other at the race last year. It was so fun to talk with him.

In the Hobble Creek race only the first 100 men and 100 women to cross the finish line get medals. Riley and I were quite a ways back from the start line when the gun finally went off. I wasn't too worried about it because the chip on my shoe would keep track of what my time was for the race. We crossed the start mat, Riley told me good by and I was off like an orange balloon that had just got a hole popped in it. I was bouncing all over the place and not getting anywhere. I was pinched in by the crowd of people. They were everywhere and moving much slower than I thought they should have been. I was trying to slip my way around and through the crowd for about half a mile when it hit me that some fella whose time would be a few minutes slower than mine might cross the finish line before me and get my medal. I determined at that point there had to be a better way to get past this huge mass that was doing its best to keep me from my medal. I looked over and noticed "hey, that hillside has absolutely nobody running on it. There really aren't that many bushes or big rocks or trees on it." I worked my way over to the side of the road and then off the road and up the hillside. One guy yelled at me that I would turn an ankle but if it was risk a turned ankle or not get my medal I figured I would heal. Sure enough, I was able to start passing and making good time. I am assuming trail running is easier on a trail but I wasn't in it for easy. I would have trained for the dang race if I wanted it to be easy.

After about the first mile things had opened up enough I was able to get back on the road, exactly 6 minutes and 58 seconds after crossing the starting line. I worked my way down the road for the next mile in 6 min and 50 seconds. I was determined to catch every guy I could see in front of me so he wasn't the one that ended up with my medal. I didn't notice how fast miles 3 or 4 went but at mile 4 I had been running for 26 minutes, my average was about 6:30 for the 4 miles.

I would hit the downhill sections and have flash backs to my Boy Scout days when we would find a big ole hill and down it screaming "bonzaiiiii." I didn't scream, but I used the same form: arms flailing and barely keeping myself from falling on my face. It is amazing how much faster it is to get to the bottom of a hill that way. All these poor people I was passing were trying to maintain good form or keep themselves under control. They are lucky they were pretty spread out because I wouldn't have been able to navigate around them with my super cool downhill technique.

So, we finally got to the end of the downhill and started up the only major hill of the race. It is about a mile long. I wasn't able to pass as many people on this section but there was one lady who I passed about halfway up. I turned to her and said "this hill's a killer" she said "thanks, you are too." ????

After that, the runners had really thinned out and I was on a roll. Last year about mile 10 my foot was in terrible shape because around mile 4 my shoe came untied. I didn't bother to tie it, that 12 seconds to tie my shoe would have taken too much time. About mile 10 this year I was still feeling good and looking for guys to catch and pass so they wouldn't get my medal. I was passing all of them I could see then one guy slipped past me and I just didn't have the gas to catch him. There was a girl who had been passing me and then I would pass her the whole race. We got inside of mile 12 and I was done with that balony (Julie thinks there is an "e" in balony and I know there is a "g" that should be there too, but ya'll know what I am getting at) I passed her and kept running hard to catch one more guy I could see in front of me. I caught him with about half a mile left. He was out of gas and I was sure I could coast the rest of the way into the finish line.

Then out of nowhere, like a grey and red bullet, some old guy, probably close to 70 blew by me like I had just stepped out of the porta potty. All I could see was his red clothes and grey hair in a blur. He was amazing, it was so neat to see. He was like a machine, he passed me and I couldn't even come close to keeping up with him. I wanna be him (or Mick) when I grow up. Passing him was out of the question. I said to myself "if he gets my medal then I really won't feel too bad about it" It was awesome to see him run. He finished and had enough time to walk several hundred feet back up the course before I ran past him.

I crossed the finish line and the girl with the medals for the first 100 men was standing there. She had one in each hand. She gave me one and I asked her how many she had left. She held up the one in her other hand and said it was the last one. I was so glad to get my medal.

Then the pain started to kick in. It is now almost 5 days later and I am still hurting. I haven't hurt this bad for a long time. But I have my dang medal by george.

And that is the rest of the story.

PS After watching me limp and gimp around the house for a couple of days Mick said "I know why they call it the HOBBLEcreek race"

ADD PS - On our way to Torrey, Mick was reading a book about sea creatures from the deep ocean. Julie looked at some pictures of the strange things then said "Everything God messed up on he threw in the ocean." Mick then asked her "Why isn't Wyoming in the ocean"

New Posts and New Things On Their Way

Check out www.helpmenotbeahoarder.blogspot.com to see a post of our treasures we kept. Adam is bringing home some new stuff that will be up for sale within the next few days so check back often.

Cabining in Torrey, Utah (with descriptions because I know everyone has been impatiently waiting)

Last weekend we went and stayed in a cabin in Torrey, Utah. It's about 6 minutes away from Capitol Reef National Park. The kids thought we were camping, but I got a toilet and shower in our cabin so everyone was happy. I have to say: Why hasn't anyone told us about how wonderful this area is? It was gorgeous. A lot like Zion Nat'l Park, but so much less crowded. We hardly saw anyone else on our hikes and it was Free National Park Pass weekend even.

This was the best hike we did. It was almost dark when Adam took this picture and the words were reflective so it looked like they are glowing in this picture.

We had a little deer friend follow us on this bridge. She is right behind Tori here in the picture.

There are petroglyphs behind me on this rock wall. They don't show up very well in this picture because it's so small but they were pretty cool.

My happy girl!

Me trying to see the petroglyphs up on the high walls. How in the world did they even get up there to write them in the first place? Adam told me that his dad is convinced that petroglyphs were just the ancient teenagers writing graffiti on the walls and that the Elders and Chiefs were probably mad about it. Lol.

Here we are during our Echo Canyon hike.

Kade was on this hike a good couple hours and he was so happy the whole time. He didn't fuss at all. He is an outdoors boy.


The big kids rock climbing. Our hikes took FOREVER, mostly because we had to stop at every big rock (and there was a lot of them) so they could climb them.



More hiking pics.....

Kade slept like a rock every night just like at home.


The kids are telling ghost stories to each other. They scared themselves into sleeping together on the bottom bunk. Which is funny, because earlier they were fighting about who got to sleep on the top.


Roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and then afterward we watched the meteor shower.

This is what the cabins looked like from the outside. So quaint.


This is shots of the tent area and the playground and grass area.


The campground also had a nice pool that we took advantage of in the afternoons. It was coooold though. Kade wasn't a huge fan of that.
All in All, I have to give this trip 5 stars and reccommend it to anyone. It was so beautiful and quiet. The town is super small without even a grocery store, so go prepared because you can't buy it once you get there (I learned this the hard way and Tori had to wear shoes that were too small for her the whole trip)but the people were friendly and the restaurants AMAZING.
One time our Stake Presidency taught one lesson in our Marriage/Parenting class at church. They opened up the floor for questions and one question that was asked was, "If you could go back and raise your children again, what would you do differently?" President Christensen answered, "I would have taken my family on more vacations. They are important for building memories and close ties."
That has stuck in my head for a couple years now. Money is always an issue of course, but this trip did not cost us much and the memories are priceless. It proved to me that President Christensen was right and we need to do it more often.

Sweet Little Piggies

I just love it when babies play with their feet and toes. Soooo cute! Kade is also big into sucking on his lower lip right now. I love to kiss that face.

Help Me Not Be A Hoarder

I started a new blog to try to dispose of some of the treasures my husband keeps bringing home. It is http://www.helpmenotbeahoarder.blogspot.com/. Come check it out to see what we got going on. New things will always be being added of that I am sure. I have a link titled Our Junk Is Your Treasure on the sidebar.

Provo River Half Marathon 2010

I ran the Provo River Half Marathon this weekend. I decided to do it pretty much last minute and called my long time BFF, Robyn, to see if she wanted to give it a go with me. She's only been running since May and never that far, but she is either insane or very daring and said, "Why not?"



Getting Ready To Go

Lily ran it also. She rode in the same car with us up and back. We had some good laughs. She rocked it coming in at 5th place. She ran it so fast and still ran back to run with us through the finish.


Robyn and I back at the house after it was over. We were a little silly from lack of sleep, I think.

So here is a picture of us when we had showered and looked decent again.

About the race:

First off, it was so beautiful. Secondly, it was the most disorganized mess at the start. Our bus driver was just out for a morning drive in the toolies and had no idea where he was going. He managed to get us lost a couple times and had to do 20 point turn arounds to get out of some spots. No one could find the starting line. They started about 40 minutes late. Another bus ran over traffic signs without even caring. Good thing they weren't some poor racers standing there. Lily, Rob, and I almost got our feet ran over by a big white bus. He backed us up against a fence with nowhere to go. It was exciting there for a minute or two.
Finally, after 2 hours of standing around, the race started and Lily was OFFFFF like a gazelle. It was quite a steep downhill for the first 3 miles and we were getting passed right and left like crazy, but we held the pace that we wanted. At mile 6, there was a ginormous (sp?) hill that was a mile long. It was our strong point. It hurt and was hard, but we passed a lot of the people who had passed us and no one passed us on that hill, we never slowed down. It was awesome. I won't drag it all out play by play, but also at mile 12ish, Robyn was done. She was miserable and I asked her what was hurting her the most and she snapped, "Your voice!" Haha, I thought I had been talking to keep her mind off the pain and was being such a good encouraging friend. I had been asking her about her dogs and saying how pretty the birds sounded and basically, anything I could think of. Evidently, it was not helping. With about a quarter mile left to go, I saw Lily waiting on the sides to run through the finish with us. It helped boost us up to finish strong.
Our overall time: 1:55
Average pace per mile: 8:46
I was so happy to be under the 2 hour mark and Robyn thought she would be doing 10:00 minute miles so she really came in faster than she expected. We were pretty happy with it.
I can't wait to try it again. Harder and faster!!!