While the cats away ...

... the mice will play.

While we were off running in Las Vegas the kids stayed over with my parents for the weekend.  I have to say that we are so so blessed.  Both my parents and Jeramie's are always more than willing to help with the kids whenever we need it.  And it's not just a case of tolerating them.  They take them to do fun things and will crawl on the floor and play games with them.  Not a day goes by that I don't appreciate them all.  Our children are so very very lucky.

When we were in Vegas we got our first major snow storm here in Utah (this was back at the beginning of November).  And from what I understand it was a really big one. 

So not only did they get to spend the morning playing in the snow but they also got to go to the zoo with their cousins.

Love this girl!

This is a great picture.

We need to go back because I really want to see this baby giraffe.



Oliver's 2nd Birthday

It's hard to believe that my baby is now 2.  And I'm now over a week short of documenting the occasion.   I commit right here and right now to do a better job of not letting his birthday run into Christmas crazy next year.  I'm just not used to winter babies with all my summer babies.

Oliver has had an eventful year.  Just a few words that describe this baby:

Naughty

 

Curly

 

Mischievous

 

Adventuresome

 

Climber

 

Fast

 

Cute

 

Good Sleeper

 

Great Eater

 

Busy



I actually think by far he was the cutest of all my kids as an infant.

Because let's face it, many babies are not cute as infants.

Christmas - 2 years ago.

On his first birthday.

So crazy this one is.

Happy 2nd Birthday my baby.

I have a distinct feeling this one will keep us on our toes.

Turkey Trot .. and trot we did.

Last year Evan, Rachel, Jeramie and I actually raced a turkey trot. This year they were in Oregon and we were going to forgo the whole experience.  Then the night before my mum talked me into registering us all with the plan to walk.  We weren't really "celebrating" Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day with the Howard's this year.  So it was a fun way to spend some time together and start the day off right with some exercise.

Now, the problem with doing a 5k where they are also hosting a half marathon means that you have serious runners and not so much turkey trotters.  The cool thing was that we all got medals (well the kids did, and the rest of us will get them when they get more in).

We were literally dead last.

But that's okay, because Baylee walked the entire thing and didn't complain at all.

Yet again though I was caught not prepared for the weather.  It had been such a nice week weather wise and I wasn't prepared for how cold it was.  Wyland had been up that morning throwing up.  So he was just not feeling good in general.  Add on top of that the wind cutting through their clothes and they were freezing.  Had I been prepared I would have brought my rain cover for the stroller which would have cut the wind out of the equation.  Fail again.

We were awarded with hot chocolate and marshmallows at the end.  Well my kids just ate the marshmallows of course.  There was also pumpkin pie .. barf.

Wyland perked up a little bit and jumped in the bounce house for a little while and then it was time for the boys to run their kids fun run.

Jackson was excited about it .. I swear.

I basically had to drag poor Wyland.  Although Jackson took off like a bat out of hell.

You can see Jackson there with his hands up.  He thought he was cool.

But he was happy to get his "half marathon" medal.

Grandma went back and stole Baylee a medal.

It's not really fair.  She walked the whole 5k which is a million times harder for the majority

of the people who ran it.  But then they ran out of medals.  But not for the kids.

While it was cold and I think the kids whined the majority of the time it was still a good way to start the day.  After we finished we headed up to Black Bear Diner for some breakfast.  They have the best Eggs Benedict of anywhere I've decided. 

Ragnar Virgins

So when we couldn't get into the Wasatch Back Ragnar at the beginning of last year we decided to put together a team to go down and run Las Vegas Ragnar with a bunch of friends.  It was interesting.

As it turned out Evan, Rachel and I (Jeramie turned down the opportunity) were able to get on a Wasatch Back team and ran that Ragnar back in June.  It was sooo much fun.  I guess I had really high expectations for the next one.  It wasn't that it wasn't fun, it was just different.  For starters Evan ended up having to drop out of the event because he had to work.  And Rachel was in a different van so it was like we weren't there together.  Instead we were in a van with my friend Rebecca, we run together every Sunday.  Then a guy I work with named Tyler, his wife Danielle and then his friend Derik.  When I ran the Utah race the whole van was incredibly supportive.  At every single exchange we would ALL get out of the van, cheer on our runner coming in as well as the runner heading out.  Whereas this time people just sat in the van.  It was kind of a bummer because for both Jeramie and Rebecca it was their first time. I feel like they didn't get the experience that I got.  So for them I feel like it was a let down.  And that bums me out.

But let's back up some.  The weather was supposed to be between 40 - 60 degrees.  At face value that is PERFECT running weather.  Well I didn't realize that there was going to be wind gusts running at 40-60 MPH.  I was not prepared.  It was cold.  I had 1 long sleeve zip up and 1 pair of running tights that weren't my warm running tights.  And I was cold .. did I mention that?

The race began at Mt. Charleston.  We had a 6am start time.  When we arrived at the start and got out of the van it was freezing.  It was actually snowing just a little bit as well.  There wasn't much time after our safety meeting and before we knew it Derik was off as runner 1 and we were headed down the mountain.  I was runner 2 and then I would hand off to Jeramie.  Jeramie then would hand off to Danielle, who would hand off to Tyler. Then Rebecca pulled up the rear and would hand off to Rachel starting van 2.

Dark and cold at the start.

Thank goodness I'd packed my puffy vest and a beanie.

I literally lived in that exact outfit for two days.

It was the warmest clothes I had.

My first leg was a 5 something miler downhill.  I had a tailwind, which normally would be good. But this time it was blowing so hard I could barely keep myself from going head over feet.



Jeramie did such a good job on all his legs.  I'm so darn proud of him.  He never complained, well really nobody in our van ever complained.  We all ran our legs better than we expected most of the time and just did our thing.  I found myself craving places to stop for coffee and we did find a Starbucks a couple of times.

Rebecca cruised through her legs like a champ.  And very stylish might I add.  I had brought with me some cute run outfits.  They never came out of my bag because I was just so cold all the time.

My second leg started as the sun went down. It quickly became dark and I began my hill climb. It was four miles up hill into a headwind. It sucked. Bad. It was my shortest leg and by far my hardest. I have no idea why but I had this miserable pain in the front of my right shin. Not a pain I have experience before or since. I was doing this terrible hobble run thing. At one point I just wanted to cry. But then I realized it would do me no good whatsoever.  So I just get trudging along.  Jeramie headed out behind me and he flew through his leg.  In fact we missed him run by completely and he ended up waiting for us at the exchange for 10 minutes or so.  Wouldn't be the only time that happened either.  After all our night legs we made our way to a designated grassy area.  We all laid our sleeping bags out and tried to stay warm while we slept for several hours outside.  Jeramie had my nice warm sleeping bag. I had Baylee's camp sleeping bag.  It had been fine when I ran Wasatch Back and I would have thought that was colder.  I found that if I stayed in the same spot the ground under me became warm.  All in all it wasn't too bad. I slept pretty good and before we knew it Rachel was calling to say they were headed into the major exchange.  So off we went again.

My third and final leg was just short of awesome.  I could tell my legs were tired but other than that I felt amazing. It was my longest leg at 7 miles long.  But I just flew through it.  I was relieved that the weird shin pain was gone.  It was morning and the air was crisp, but not freezing and the dreadful wind was GONE!  It was my best leg by far.  A lot of it was through city streets with street lights.  I felt like a frog on the Frogger video game.  As I would approach a light I would check every which way and speed through the intersection against red lights.  It was awesome.  I never had to stop once and I passed several people which always feels great.

I wish I could say that Rachel had an equally good experience.  But hers was pretty miserable.  There was a lot of drama in her van and she didn't have the emotional support of Evan (or us).  I felt terrible for her.  But she ran TRULY AMAZING.  And I know she's a stronger runner because of it.  She ran the hardest leg in her van.  Lots of mileage and lots of uphill.  With very little van support.  I feel terrible that she didn't have a good time but there just wasn't much I could have done about it.

Van 1 - We all finished smiling for sure!

I love that Jeramie and I got to do this together.

He's first alternate to jump into my Wasatch Back team should we have someone drop out.

I'm so glad that my friend Rebecca ran with us too.

I still feel bad that she didn't have the amazing first experience that I did.

My Family!

 

 

After the race Rachel drove straight home. She's a bit crazy. We stayed over one night at a really nice hotel near the finish line. It felt great to be able to go sit in the hot tub with out sore muscles and then take a nice shower and sit down and eat together.  Then we headed home the next day.

 

I'm so grateful that both of our parents helped out with the kids while we were gone.  Jeramie and I don't get to go places without the kids very often and it was really a nice little break.  I'm not sure if we'll run this one again.  I enjoyed it well enough and I think had I packed a little better I would have enjoyed it more just purely by being warmer!  Plus the double medal was really awesome!  And this runner likes her bling.