Que pasa calabasa?

 It's that time of year again where we pull all of our pumkins out of the garden and share them with all the nieces and nephews.  One of our favorite Halloween traditions is to get together at my parents house to carve these pumkins. We start with a dinner and end with a mess, but it's pretty dang fun.

In the end everyone went home with a pretty wicked pumpkin. The top three pumpkins had to go to Lanece for her sideways pumpkin. Kat for using his power tools to complete a very cool grim reaper. And Ethan for his cleft palate pumkin.



PHHM

October 28th, 2011

Provo Halloween Half Marathon

The start to this race was terrible and by start I mean the packet pick up and having to drive to and from Provo on a Friday night...in construction...and traffic. In total, it took me 4 hours. Yuck! 

Other than that, the race was perfect. I sat in a heated tent for 3 hours. Used those delicious Honey Buckets many many times. Started running when it was 38 degrees out. And thoroughly enjoyed the course and seeing everyone in their costumes.

Here was mine...

Mr. Mrs. Slim Good Body.

Remember him?

The best part about this race was seeing Oliver and Luke at the finish line. There's nothing like having your favorite people there to support you.

The bonus...beating my previous half marathon time.

Post as long as this race

We did it again! We ran another Ragnar and it was just as fun as my first Ragnar and everything I had hoped it would be. This time is was with the Jensen family and a few of us "mugbloods".

Team name: BONK!

Van 1

Our van was pretty awesome. I was so happy with the balance of personalities in this van and for the patient guys that had to put up with a few hyper girls. They rock!

Van 2

Jensens + 1. Their van I'm sure wasn't as loud and obnoxious as ours. In fact we know they weren't. They were a lot more sophisticated in conversation than we could ever be. Let's just say it's a good thing the Dad's were in a seperate van...and Trent.

Our team:

Runner 1

Blake AKA Captain Big Daddy. Blake stepped up as our captain and driver, made us laugh many many times and ran amazingly...especially on that last leg.

Runner 2

Chris AKA Puss N' Foot. 2 words...Pepperoni water.

Runner 3

Amy AKA The Face. Also the best violin player out there.

Runner 4

Cameron AKA 4 C's (almost 5). And the post run pacer.

Runner 5

Kristin AKA Goldie Locks. But really, there were about 15 names for Kristin. Ahem. 

Runner 6

Kim AKA The nasty...And I really don't know why...

I'm not sure that the second half of the team were goofy enough for Ragnar nicknames so without further ado, I give you van 2...

Runner 7

Trent. The Machine. The hero.

Runner 8

Brooke

Runner 9

Heidi

Runner 10

Jake

Runner 11

Brad. The Jensen dad.

Runner 12

Larry. One legged Larry. And I must say that I am proud to call him my Father in Law.

Sadly, I don't have a group picture at the finish line, but it was amazing to see the support of everyone on this team. Trent on a few occasions ran along side a couple of team mates when they were struggling. Brad and Trent picked up additional legs when one of our people was out with an injury. I heard numerous times and witnessed how kind everyone was to eachother. Jake and Candice for opening up their entire house to us. Our team volunteer, Jenny. We had the whole Jensen family show up to suuport all the runners with the loudest cheering and words of encouragement ever. We had a hard core team captain that stepped up and made sure we were all ready and taken care of. And I would be ungrateful if I didn't mention the help with all the kids back in STG from Holly and Luke.

This {again} was one of the best running experiences I've had. I am so lucky to associate with such wonderful hard working people that also know how to have a good time. It's interesting that such hard work can be so rewarding. There were many physically hard and emotionally wonderful times had on this course and I love that I was a able to run on such an amazing team.

See what I mean about the awesome support? Our team had the best fans out there.

Thanks for the great run team BONK! See you in April for So Cal Ragnar! Woo Woo!

"Boo-ed"

I think this is what brought Oliver out of his sickness. He loved it. 

The Filthy Flu

This is how Oliver has been spending the last 24 hours.

I got him home yesterday after picking him up from Grandma Lily's house and running some errands. He wasn't acting like his usual self and when I got home, he asked right away for his throw up bowl. The rest of the night was spent taking multiple temperature reading, snuggling on the couch, refilling juice cups, watching movies, throwing up and just trying to feel better. This morning Oliver was a little better, but he still had the shivers, diarrhea, and was achy. Poor guy. Let's hope he feels better by tomorrow when we're suppose to go out of town.

Dreadlock Rasta No More

Well, it's true. I no longer have the dreads. I really struggled with the decision to take them out because I loved them so much. I didn't have an epiphany or feel guilt or unrighteous about having them, No, not at all. I just couldn't keep them up like I wanted to. Long dreads and tough. My dreads started to get grossly matted together in the back and it was just not cute anymore and required a lot of TLC. Seriously, who knew? So I started the long dread lock removal process.  

With a little bit of this...

A LOT of this...

 And ever MORE of this...

I was able to look normal again.

Luckily my hair wasn't too damaged and I didn't have to shave my head like I had initially thought I would. It took me a total of 3 weeks to get them all out. Each dread lock took an average of an hour to comb out and that hair ball up there was what I took out PER dread. SO gross. The best part was washing my hair and actually being able to brush it. It was heaven!

Many people have asked me if I would ever do it again.

My response, ABSOLUTELY! 

Psychos!

What would the Halloween season be without going to a murder mystery party???

Well, it wouldn't feel like Halloween that's for sure. 

My good friend Brittany has been pulling this off for 3 years in a row now, with some ladies in our ward. It really is something to look forward to around here.

Can you see why?

This year the theme was The Psycho Circus and I loved that everyone got into it. 

 Some memorable things that I would not want to forget...

Julie's 5 different amazing accents

Chris and her never ending sneezing

"You, I mean I..."

Debra's gloves...and other props

The bearded woman disguised as a man impersonating a woman...Jenny, you rock!

All the amazing food

Barbra Bishop acting like a wolf

"Brittany is that you?"

Audrey being possessed by Reginald

Ginger's outburst at Ima

and Laughing to tears

The cast...

(in no particular order)

Julie- Yvonne A. Target- Knife Thrower

Kelly- Ima Target- Knife Thrower's Assistant

Suzann- Mack M. Laffe - Clown

Jenny- Barbara - Bearded Lady

Ginger- Harriette - Horse Trainer and Rider

Chris- Leo - The Lion Tamer

Emily- Serpentine - The Snake Charmer

Kim- Bab 'the barker' - Draws in the crowds with her yelling

Barbara- Tammy Twist - Contortionist

Celia- Tuppence Twist - Trapeze Artist

Springer- Samson- The Strongwoman

Audrey- Claire Voyante - Fortune teller

Jodi- Ariel Sky - Acrobat

Janet- Tossa M. High - Juggler

Jeannine- Lena Line - Tight Rope Walker

Debra- Dr. Doolittle - Circus Vet

Catherine- Cat Chemall - Juggler

Joslin- Ellie - The Elephant Tamer

Such a fun time.

A big thank you to Jenny and Brittany for putting this all together.

Until next year!

We LOVE our bodies!!!!!

 Just like last year, Wendy and I ran in the Wasatch Women 10K also known as the Love Your Body race...but I think that's kind of funny to tell people that we are running in a race called Love Your Body, right?

Anyway, This year Lindsay and her SIL, Megan joined us. So fun!

I have to admit that I was a little worried about the sudden cold weather, but it ended up being just perfect AND the fact that there weren't crowds of people was pretty nice too.

  I thought that our group did an awesome job. All I wanted to do was beat my time from last year, and I did by a whole 2 minutes. It still wasn't my best run, but you won't hear any complaints from me. Fun part about this race was that my sister and I were neck and neck the whole time and we only finished 30 seconds apart.

 We must had been on a runners high because we were taking pictures and making the oddest poses...Ahem Lindsay and Megan ;)

This was a photo that I found online. I don't usually smile like this when I run, in fact I know I look terrible when I run, but I had just ran past Oliver and Luke cheering me on in the crowd. Love Love Love them for supporting me!

Next up...Ragnar Vegas!

BIG NEWS!!!!

OLIVER IS POTTY TRAINED!

We headed down to STG for conference weekend and Luke had the idea at the very last minute, in fact it was right as we were walking out the door, to grab Oliver's underwear and try to potty train him while we were away. Well, since we were both going to be with him all weekend, it turned out to be the best idea ever. Oliver actually was the one to tell us that he needed to go potty.  For weeks, Luke had promised him that he would take him to the store to buy him a toy if he goes poops. So it was a huge surprise when Oliver and I walked out of Don Pedro's public bathroom to tell Luke that Oliver went poops. After dinner that night, we took him to the store to buy him some super hero's {Thor and Hulk}. Oliver loved this and loved all the hip hip hoorays, high fives and words of encouragement from everyone down in St. George. It was pretty awesome. We are officially diaper free!!!!

*Picture taken in Grandma Holly's tub the night after he went poops for the first time. Gotta love taking your kids to those public restrooms.

The Massacre

I killed bees....A lot of bees. In fact I counted 7.

It was all because of Costco. You see we were trying to buy some flats of soda for the school and Costco for some reason has a problem with carrying flats of soda that don't explode. Well explode they did. Twice. And twice in my friends Lexus white interior. No Bueno. So after a huge mess, we just threw them in my driveway and I left them there to be cleaned up later. 

Well later was a couple days later and when I went to hose the driveway down, there were so many honey bees collecting the syrup. It was so sad to have to drown out these bees. Really, I was near tears I felt so bad.  

 All dead because of this sweet poison.

But...

One did make it.

about an hour after I went outside to see the massacre and to my surprise, there was one shaking off her wings and brushing off her legs of all wetness and I saw her fly away.

It lightened my heart just a little, but still. I am officially a bee killer.