Bryce Canyon Half Marathon

I finally ran a Half Marathon! I have been wanting to run a half marathon for a quite a while now, and have never been able to find one close enough to where I live, or one that isn't on Sundays. After moving to Toquerville, UT for the summer(Southern Utah for peeps that don't know where it is) I found an awesome running parter to run with. She didn't run the half with me, but she did run a 5K and a 10K with me this summer.
The half marathon has the distinction of going through Bryce Canyon National Park, a beautiful park full of amazing rock formations and colors in Southern Utah.




I wanted to beat this girl and one other girl so bad because they kept stopping to walk at all the water stops, and I never stopped. Then they would pass me up each time. At the end of the race, I sprinted past both girls and creamed them. That was pretty sweet!


Here I am after the race, feeling like I might die. It was a tough race, but I was so glad I did it. I was pretty happy with my time. For my first half, I placed 63rd out of 625 girls. My time was just under 1:45. So I pretty much ran 8 minute miles the whole race, or I ran 7 minute miles at the beginning and slowed down to 9 minute miles near the end. The only bad part of the race was that around mile 10, I got a really bad sideache that lasted almost the whole rest of the race.


Caleb ran the 5k race that took place during my half marathon. He was pretty happy to place 2nd in his age division. He called his race the "The Weenie Race." I concurred.


After the race was over, Caleb and I drove through and saw Bryce Canyon.


I love this picture, it just looks so cool!




When we first got to Bryce Canyon we went to packet pick-up where we received folders with our race number, and an outline of info. Then we got our t-shirts.
There was a spaghetti dinner that runners could pay $10 for the night before the race, so Caleb and I decided that it sounded pretty good and we ate up. Then we drove back to where we were going to stay for the night. We had to camp the night before the race, which I didn't mind so much until we set our tent up in the dark an I had to sleep on rocks. I feel like I didn't get any sleep at all, but when my alarm went off at 4:50 A.M., I got up to get ready for the race that started at 6:00. Then I ran a Half Marathon. I loved it!

4th of July Doings

We had a super fun and busy filled forth of July. It started out with me waking up at 5:45 A.M. A friend of mine and me headed in our car to go run a 5k race. That was fun and I ended up placing 2nd in my age group and was lucky enough to get some winning money....5 bucks. Sweet!


Then we all headed over to the parade where Aiden got a load of candy, and Cruiz was just happy to be outside.


After the parade, we drove up into the mountains for a picnic with some friends. We had great company and ate lots of yummy food.


Then we hiked up a trail to a little pond where the kids could fish.


And Aiden caught some seaweed.





The kids were so exhausted half way through the day, they konked out in the car.


This has got to be one of my favorite pics. This is Cruiz's first sparkler. He wasn't quite sure what to think of it.


Once he got the hang of it, he loved sparklers and wanted to keep waving them around (sometimes in his mom's face.)





This year's 4th was so great to be able to spend time with friends and family. We are so blessed to have the freedoms we enjoy!

The Narrows

Southern Utah has some really cool and fun places to go and hike. This place was awesome, and I use to go here a lot when I was younger with my family. We thought it was the coolest place ever. This is the beginning of "The Cut."

Right before.



Here is Aiden at the beginning of the Narrows. It looks pretty wide and easy to fit through now......


Do you think you can fit through this? If you're claustrophobic, probably not.


Sucking it in.


We're almost there. Caleb ripped a few little holes in his shorts going through. Poor guy needs to lose some weight.


Some of the cousins after going through "The Cut"


Me and some of my sisters lookin' good!

Mommy's fault

Cruiz had the worst day ever. First, he fell off the chair backwards and landed on a hard floor which resulted in a giant bruiz on his back. He kept turning to me and saying "back." Then a little bit later when I was getting ready Cruiz came into the bathroom. I told him the curling iron was hot, but I did turn my back for a couple of seconds. That was a mistake because poor little Cruiz put his entire hand on the curling iron burning every finger but his pinky. He cried for about 2 hours, then finally I got him to lay down and take a nap. The rest of the next 2 days, he had his hand in a fist and would not even use that hand at all. And since Cruiz is still a bit wobbly when running, when he would fall down, he couldn't get up because he couldn't use his hand. The blisters have all popped now, but I still see Cruiz with his hand in a fist sometimes. And he still points to his hand and says "HOT."

cAliForNiA

We are in Toquerville, Ut for the summer. And I have good reasons for not updating my blog in a while. After Caleb finished his last finals at school, we worked hard and quickly on fixing some things up with our house, then we packed, then headed to California for a visit before Caleb started his externship.
We couldn't go to California without visiting the happiest place on earth, especially since Caleb got in for free for his Birthday.




Cruiz and Dad riding along in the honey pots on Winnie the Pooh ride.



Playing the piano.


Cruiz got to ride the Matterhorn for the first time. At first he was kind of scared, then as the ride got faster and more fun, he continued to sit there acting scared.




It was Aiden's first time to ride the Indiana Jones ride, and he was super excited. He said it is his new favorite ride.

It was so fun to stay with friends and visit more friends while we there in California. I got my hair cut by my favorite hair stylist, had my teeth cleaned by my awesome dentist, visited our condo, and got to go to our old ward. It was so fun, and a much needed vacation after Caleb's first year of law school.

10K

I have been wanting to run a half marathon for a long time. But around here they are all on Sundays, so I decided to sign up for a 10K. I ran the 10K last Saturday with a couple of friends and had a lot of fun.

Here is the group of us that ran the 10K. They were also my running partners when we were training too.


Here I am running my guts out. There was about 800 meters left of the race.


After the 10K was over, they have a pancake breakfast for everyone, then a 1 mile fun run for the kids. Aiden was so excited that he got to have his own race. He ended up riding his bike, but came in 2nd. He got a ribbon for it too. Caleb ran with Aiden, while I pushed Cruiz along in the stroller.



The 10K race was smaller than usual, but I was still surprised to come in 2nd place out of all the girls. My next goal is a half marathon.

Touch-a-Truck

Here in Topeka, the city has this cool thing called Touch-a-Truck every year. This is where the kids come to see and climb in all sorts of big trucks and rigs. Aiden had so much fun going around to all the different trucks and getting inside them. He continually asked the person at each truck what kind of truck it was, and what it did. He was able to climb in the trucks, sit in the driver's seat, and push buttons, along with honking the horns. We had to make sure that we saw and climbed in every single truck that was there.
They gave away a lot of fun free stuff too. We got chips from the frito lay truck, gatorade from the pepsi truck, ice cream from the old ice cream truck, candy, stickers, pencils, and tons of other junk (I mean stuff).

This guy was making dog balloons for the kids. They loved it!




The book mobile was kind of fun. The kids got to take home a little craft to work on later.