One Year Older

This year Steve had to work on my birthday so we decided we would celebrate a day early since he had that day off. We had a good time! Probably the most fun done on my birthday (or non birthday this year) in years. Mom and Dad were back from Idaho and wanted to see what the kids had got for Christmas so they came over bright and early. The girls had too show them their princess dresses of course and the boys couldn't wait to show them their good as well. Then I opened a present from Seth. Earlier that morning he had found a piece of fabric, from and old skirt, and decided to make me something out of it. It turns out he made me a scarf. He really did do a great job and still continues to insist that I wear it. Which I DO!

Mom and Dad gave me a nice pan that will definitely get some good usage.
After they left we headed down to BYU. We have been buying our milk from down at the Creamery. One it tastes a lot better, and yes I can notice a difference, we all can even the boys. Two it's constantly 3/$5. I have been paying $2.50 in the stores so I figure if it keeps me from going to the store it's a good thing cause then I don't end up leaving the store with 20 other things. And Three after you buy 24 jugs of milk you get a free 1/2 gallon of ice cream. So we buy 12 at a time and throw most of it in the freezer. We've been trying to convince Seth to switch over to be a BYU fan and one of the ways we are working on him is through the milk and ice cream. When he said the milk was so good I commented on the fact that the milk came from righteous cows and that's what made all the difference and told him he needed to reconsider his loyalty towards the UTES (he is). After all that we stopped at McDonalds (Steve had a gift certificate otherwise we never step foot into that place). On the happy meals were these little mustache's that you could punch out so we did and took a few pictures.

Then Steve tried to be all Steve on me and decided to go and inconspicuously pose with Ronald. The pictures turned out so dark so I did my best to lighten them up on my computer but that only made them grainy. Sorry. They are still funny though!

We went home and made it in time for Steve to go coach Damen's team in their first basketball practice. I was expecting them home by 5 so dinner was all ready and waiting. By 6 they still weren't home so the girls and I went ahead and ate my birthday dinner and they showed up 45 minutes later (they had gone to buy shoes for the boys)

Here's a few pictures of Kenna. She was helping me decorate my birthday cake (note: don't make yourself a birthday cake if you don't even like cake, make something you like. But if the kids make it then smile and eat a big helping)

She is so darn cute!

Here I am blowing out the candles. We dished up the cake and ice cream and everyone was about to start eating when Steve said "no, Wait everyone have a bite of ice cream at the same time." (it was BYU Graham Canyon ice cream) So everyone got a fork of ice cream ready and on the count of three we put it in our mouths all three BOYS said "mmmmm. Righteous!" It was hilarious Steve and I seriously could not stop laughing. The boys did it but we had to explain it to them after. Yea it's from righteous cows too!!!! Very Good! It really was s fun day thanks family!

The next day on my real birthday I was going to go shopping and get a new shirt and get Steve some much needed pants, but his truck wouldn't start. After messing around with it for over an hour we finally got it going. I ran the boys down to Orem to play with Clark and Carson and Railey ended up staying as well and Kenna and I finally went shopping. We were on our way back to their house when on the middle of 8th north in Orem the truck died I quickly pulled over into the dollar store parking and it started up again. I kept thinking, great what's wrong now, but since it started up again I took off again only going on back streets and going past all the in-laws homes just in case something happened again. Well I was on 8th east crossing 8th north when it died again in the middle of the intersection. I coasted to the side of the road and again it started up again only to let me go about 100 ft before it was dead for good. That's when I realized that the truck must be out of gas (the gas gauge is off and I didn't know that since I never drive the truck). Caralee had lent me a cell phone so I quickly called them and Chris came to my rescue. I would have gone the 2 blocks back to get gas at Harmons but Kenna was now asleep in the back and I didn't think I could lug a gas can and a sleeping baby. But everything worked out fine in the end. In fact Steve ended up coming home early and beat us home by and hour plus, because of our car issues and had dinner waiting when we arrived. I was so glad he was able to get off work it was a welcome surprise to a cruddy afternoon!

Grand Teton Relay Part 2

here's another picture looking out towards the Tetons after we had finished running. The thing was after I got done (I was runner 11) our team split up runner 12 length which was the rest of the way up Targhee and down into the ski resort. Steve, Kyle and Kevin each took turns up the 4.5 miles. When we got there the other car wasn't there yet so Kyle just took off and started heading back down the road (only one way out). He'd gone a ways when the other car finally caught up to him and dropped off their guy but at least it didn't slow us down, we were still ahead of our projected schedule.

Here's me, Caralee and Robbi the three girls on the team.
We headed down to Victor and got a yummy breakfast at a cafe and went and laid down in the park waiting for the other van to get done with their runs before we headed out again.

This is a picture of Steve and Jon right after Jon got done with his second run. They were waiting to cross a pretty busy road.

Here's Steve prepping for his last run. This was what he had been preparing for for the last 3 months. He was running the pass that goes from Driggs in to Jackson Hole. It is way steep and one of the hardest runs, the only thing harder was running the whole thing down hill. But Steve would rather go up hill than down.

And there he is off. He really was excited to finally be running this run. How many people can say they ran this hard stretch of road!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Steve. It shows that the road was 10% grade and look at him he's still trucking away. There weren't a lot of places to park once he took off so they held us back for 20 minutes. When we finally got to go we kept thinking we would see Steve around the next corner and then he wouldn't be there. By the time we caught up to him we were shocked at how far he had gone he only had 1 mile to go of his 3 mile run.

He's running down the home stretch of his run, even this part though it was down hill cause he had just crested the top was hard, he said it really hurt his feet even though it was only about 1/4 of a mile

He's almost done and there's me in pink waiting to give him a big hug. I was so proud of him and what he had just accomplished. I couldn't cheer loud enough for him. I really hope I am like that in our marriage everyday because he deserves it.

See that grin on his face! He was just handing off to Kevin who had to run 5 miles all down 10% grade hill into Jackson.

Here's the 3 that climbed the pass, with Steves' being the steepest of it all. There's Kyle, Steve and Jon. See that sign in the back. I thought it was so funny "Be Bear Aware, Food Storage Required." I was explaining it to Damen when we got back to Mom and Dads saying that even bears have to eat so they can store up enough for their long winter nap so people needed to be aware of the bears so they wouldn't get eaten. Steve and Dad started laughing and told me that's not what it meant. It meant to store away your own food so that bears wouldn't get into it. I have to say I like my explanation a lot better.

The two of us after Steves great run.

Then when Kevin was done it was my turn. I had another 4.7 left to run and I was feeling it. My body was aching my thighs were burning but I pulled out that "stick" and worked them over pretty good and just told myself to "do my best and forget the rest". I was doing good until they told me I had taken a wrong turn and had run maybe a 1/4-1/2 mile more than I had too (I wondered why I couldn't see any other runners) But I made it to my end spot only to think of what else we were going to have to run in 20 minutes. See the other car was going to take the 12th run but they decided to go home so once again we had to split up almost 5 miles. We decided we all better take our turn and run a little bit. So about ever mile we would pull over and switch runners. I was the last and ended up running into Teton Village where I met up with everyone else and we finished the race together. What an accomplishment. All that training all summer long had brought us to this point and it felt GREAT! Yeah I wish I could improve on my time and there's always next year but for never having even run a 5 K we were pretty proud of ourselves!

Kyle, Kevin, Steve, Erika, Jon

See you again next year guys. We will be back!

Grand Teton Relay part 1

Last spring Jon called and asked if Steve and I wanted to be in the Grand Teton Relay. We were very hesitant, not having ever ran any race before. But we knew that this would definitely force us to get into shape so after a lot of prodding Steve agreed to run it with me. Chris, Caralee, Jon and then Steve and Me as well as two other cousins were going to run it. We thought it would be a fun family bonding thing. In the end both cousins couldn't do it and Chris and Caralee ended up in another car but it was still fun to work towards this goal all summer long and push each other with running even when we were on vacation.

This race consisted of running 184 miles between 12 people. Each person would run 3 different legs of the race and we would run then rest while the other car ran and then we would be up again and do that 3 times. Yeah like Steve said the morning of. Hey I have an idea why don't we get 12 crazy people to see if we can run from here to Jackson Hole without sleep and eating like crap, Doesn't that sound like fun! Well that's basically what we did. I still don't think Steve was convinced he was having fun until the end.

I went down to Richfield early Thursday morning to drop the kids off, Mom and Dad were kind enough to watch them for 3 nights (not sure they will do that again for a while). Then I came back picked up Steve and headed up to Jons house near Rexberg. Yea for those keeping track that's 8 hours in a car but can I tell you it's doable when you don't have kids! We pulled in late and had ice cream and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up in time for the other half of our team to show up and take a picture before they headed out to run. We were the second car so we didn't have to start running for another 6 hours.

Here's a team picture minus Kyle (he was in our car and came later and yes you will count that there are only 10 there so you add Kyle and we only had 11, we were down a man.)

So once we headed out and got going things started to get funner. We had time for a few shots to take away a few butterflies.

Me and Steve before the sweat and stink started to coat our bodies. So Jon took off first and ran 8.5 then it was Kyles turn and man was he fast. We were a little embarrassed of what our times would be after watching him go but then Steve was up to run. He had a good incline on his first run but knew if he did his scout pace if he had to (run 100 walk 100) he would be fine.

Here's Steve about to start his run. He was anxious to just get out and go!

Using the "stick" to roll out his muscles. That thing was such a blessing. I either have to get one or make one it was amazing.

Here's our car all decked out. Our team name was 4 sores and 7 blisters ago. Next year I think we decided that we would go with The Grand Teton Colon Cleanse!

Kyle came in and handed off to Steve and he was off. The funny thing is, see the half naked guy there, he watched Steve for a minute and turned to one of his teammates and says "man that old guy is flyin" Steve heard him but didn't even realize that he was talking about him. We knew he was and thought he was some arrogant jerk so we tried to push Steve to stay ahead and beat the guy the whole time. But he ended up passing Steve and came in right before. Steve and him ended up being friends and pushing each other the whole time, we called him "pace car" He was a little relieved to find out that he was only having to keep up with a 37 year old instead of some 50 year old. He was only 28 and almost pucked when he was done.

There he is finally off and running!

here he is climbing his hill

There he is handing off to Kevin, who was another great runner. He did a 10 mile run all down hill and made it in great time.

Here Kevin is handing off to me. I started running about 8 o'clock at night and had a 6.5 run in front of me, but it was mainly down hill. It felt great to be running and I felt like I was flying. I was probably going faster than I should have been but it felt good. That was until about mile 3 when my feet were killing me and I felt like I was getting some serious blister on my feet but we kept going and pushed until we were done which was about 8:54. I had just ran faster than ever before. Normally I run a 10 minute mile but I crushed that and I actually felt it later.

Yeah the only picture they got of me was blurry! We got right in the car and headed off to get some dinner. I had needed to use the bathroom and then had to wait an hour. I also hadn't eaten or drank anything and really I thought I was going to loose it all out both ends to be frank. The feeling was the one I get when I have seizures and I got pretty scared there for a while. Once I found a bathroom and got food in me I felt a little better and by the time I had to run again the next morning I was feeling fine but there were many prayers said in the mean time. We handed off to the other car so they could run the 12th runner spot (remember we were down a runner, they took that one and we took the other 2 times), but it mean we got more sleep time.

We were able to sleep from about 11 til 1:00 and then we were off to let Jon start the process all over again. This is a picture at the top of Targhee. Steve had his easy run at about 2:30 in the morning and actually struggled. It was all flat and he ran the whole thing but he had slower times then he had for his hard hill runs. I think he just hadn't prepared for this run like he had for the others and it just got the best of him. That or it was 2:30 in the morning, that alone can do wonders to a run.

Another shot looking down from Targhee, the road I had just ran up.

When it was my turn to run I had another 6 miles in front of me I knew it was up hill and would climb about 700 ft. But I have no concept of how steep that is and spreading it out over 6 miles didn't help that. But it was dark and I just ran. I think it helped me to not know how steep it was. Mentally I think I would have broken down. I still had to do the run walk thing towards the end. I wasn't going to but when Steve told me that I was only going 4 mph I figured why not power walk and then run, it helped a lot and at the end of my run I felt so much better than I had after my first run. I still beat my projected time which I was quite happy about!

I know you are all jealous of what we did especially when you see these amazing pictures of where we were running. Ok maybe jealous isn't the right word but it definitely was beautiful. Now if we could run again in the places that we ran at night just so we can see how beautiful those places were.

To be continued in the next post because I don't want to individually add photos and it wouldn't bring them all up at once in this one.