The {sad} Election

While Oliver was at Grandma Holly night. Luke and I took advantage of being alone and went to Arellas for some dinner while we watched the electoral count on the TV. It was sad...very sad.

 

 

*sitting on the same side peaking our heads over the tall tops of the booth to watch the TV

 



At the end of the night, I was disapointed. I felt like we were cheated out of having a great/better president. I was disapointed in America and the outcome of this race. Oh well, life goes on. I just hope it goes on better than the last 4 years with Obama in office and that things get done instead of accusations being tossed around. 

 

Here's to better days.

St. George Couples Trip

This past weekend we headed down to St. George...KID LESS. I know it's not much coming from us since we only have 1 kid, but it's a pretty big deal for both couples to find sitters and head down together.

 

We headed down for a race. Amy and I opted out of the 1/2 Marathon and ran the 5K...first one I've ever paid for. And Trent and his dad ran the 1/2 marathon.

 

It was nice to get to St. George and not worry about what I was going to eat for dinner before a big race or stress about getting enough sleep. Amy and I were pretty excited about our easy run that morning.  

 

 The race itself was pretty awesome. It was a hilly course and a harder race than I thought, but Amy and I did pretty good. She even placed first in her age division. She's good like that. I ran at a 9.23 pace.

 

We also had the best fans there. I know how much Luke hates to go to these things so it means a lot when he goes and doesn't even complain. Teri was also fun to have there. She has always been a great cheerleader. I'm just lucky to tag along with her people and have her cheer for me too. 

Here is the group of runners. Like I said, I'm a tag-along



Trent and Amy are amazing runners. They both won a bunch of stuff like extra medals for placing 1st and 2nd in their age divisions and also won gift certificates. That's just how they do.



 

The rest of the weekend we lounged around, ate really good food, watched movies at the house and went out to see a movie. We took naps turning the day and sat around talking at night. We played games on our phones, read books and trashy magazines and watched Friends. It was a pretty amazing weekend.

 

*All pictures stolen from Amy's blog being that I didn't take a single photo the entire weekend.

Halloween 2012

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween.

We had a great time passing out candy and hanging out with Friends.

 

"Cause this is THRILLER!"

 

Luke and I have been wanting to go to see Thriller for a while. We have had friends invite us in years past, but for some reason, we have never been able to go. This year, I told Luke that we needed to take advantage of his UofU student ID and get some discounted tickets. So he bought tickets that day, I found a sitter at the last minute, and we made a date out of it.

 

First stop. Dinner. We were planning on going to The Cheesecake Factory, but didn't because Luke forgot to do his Friends of Scouting route that was due that night. He drove back before we got on the freeway and finished it up. We ended up eating a 10 pound greasy bag of 5 Guys food instead.

 

We got up to the U where we were surrounded by Zombies. They looked pretty awesome and moved just like real Zombies do ;)

 

The show itself was pretty good. Our favorites were Frankenstein and his Bride, The dancing skeletons, the dance recital, and the children of the corn. My all time favorite though, were the Steppenwolves. They seriously were awesome! 

 

We will for sure have to go to this again.

Halloween Half

This past weekend I got to run in the Halloween Half. If you remember, I ran it last year and thought the race itself was awesome. This year I wanted to run it, but didn't want to wait 2 hours to pick up my packet and drive out to Prove on a Friday afternoon in traffic. So I checked the website to see if any improvements had been made. Luckily, there had been improvements. This year they had packet pickup for 2 days and in Lehi instead of Provo. They also had 3 different wave groups for the start which helped a lot with the congestion we experienced last year.

 

 

Last year, if you don't remember, I dressed up as Mr. Good body. The body suit worked out so well that I decided to do something along the same lines.

 

This year I was a robot.

 

 And I ran with these lovely ladies.

 

 The Avengers even showed up...except for the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.



That morning I woke up at 4:30 to get going. I put my face on, got my costume ready, threw back some oatmeal, brushed my teeth and waited for my ride. We arrived in Provo at 6:30 and waited in line to load the buses. Once we got up to the start, we only had to wait for an hour. We took pictures, used the Honey Buckets a few times and stripped off all our warm clothes. This is how the race went.

Mile 1-5: It was freezing. Even after running a few miles I still felt cold. My face was so cold and my nose started to run a little. My fingers were numb and I moved them as much as I could. My toes were also cold but they seemed to warm up faster than the rest of me. We were running in a little bit of ice and there was no sunshine. I felt pretty good and 5 miles flew by fast. It's always so entertaining to watch other people run. I'm sure they said the same thing about watching me run and in that ridiculous costume. ;)

Mile 6-8: I was finally warm and actually felt really comfortable in this temperature even without the sun. Since the race had to start a little lower down the canyon this year, we had to run uphill for about 1.5 miles and then run back down. I don't think many people planned for this as many people had to walk. It was tough, but I wasn't going to walk and I was proud that I didn't.

Mile 8-9: I forgot to take my GU at mile 7 and I knew that I was going to need it soon. Fortunately I remembered as I was passing a water station and I was able to down that thing fast. I was feeling pretty good up to this point, but 4 miles seemed like a long ways away. Anything could happen.

Mile10-13.1: Still running and I hadn't walked once nor was I going to. I was really starting to feel some pain in my right knee. I had this pain prior to this race so I was worried about it, but it went away in the last couple of miles as I kept going. A lady and I were running right next to each other for a while and we began to talk. It's amazing how fast time goes by when you have someone to talk to. I never thought I'd like to talk while running, but it actually helped. The last stretch was so fun as the shoot was lined with tons of people that always gives you that extra push to finish strong. My finishing time was 2:14:58. Not my best, but I will happily take it.

 

I loved seeing my family at the finish. It always makes me feel loved and supported to have people that I love there watching me achieve something difficult.

 

Anyone want in next year?



Pumpkin Carving Party

This past Sunday we had our annual pumpkin carving party. We always look forward to this and I think it gets better and better each year.

When we were younger, we were always so excited to get pizza for a weekend dinner or for a special occasion. That was, until my mom would pull out a huge pot of potato soup. We knew the rule was that we had to eat 1 bowl of soup before we got any pizza and we hated it. I remember all of us kids complaining about it. In the end, my parents only had to buy one pizza for the 6 of us because we were so full of soup.

This year as we were planning the party the potato soup story came up. We all had a good laugh about it and I even admitted that sometimes I want potato soup when we get pizza. So that is what we decided to do for dinner. We ate potato soup, bread sticks, BBQ wings, pizza, Carmel dip with apples and skeleton cupcakes. This time around, no complaints.

Wendy made the coolest little cupcakes. They were a hit!

 

 And then the pumpkins. The kids all chose their pumpkin and started the de-gutting process.

 

 

 

And then the carving. Some of us were better than others at this part and some were just down right scary with a knife. 

 

 All of us posing with our finished pumpkins.

 

Jonny: The Quasimodo pumpkin

Spencer: Narrow face pumpkin

Oliver: Both have the same mouth pumpkin

Wendy: The I'm-going-to-eat-your-boob pumpkin

Lilia: Didn't make a pumpkin but had a pumpkin made after her

Jack: "The Pumpkin King" for having the biggest pumpkins

Luke: Another Look-a-like pumpkin

Kim: The My-pumpkin-didn't-turn-out-so-I-had-to-carve-a-little-one pumpkin

Kat: The coolest/biggest pumpkin award

Kenzie: The What-is-that? pumpkin

Ethan: The it-started-out-as-the-cutest-pumpkin-but-quickly-turned-into-mess award

Tayten: The strictly scraped pumpkin

Taleesha: Best over all pumpkin for being so dead on with it looking like Lila

Kade: The puking pumpkin-only because that's what he did most of the night...luckily not IN his pumpkin.

Phia and Ashlyn: No pumpkin pumpkins

 

Already can't wait to put this together for next year. Growing, carving and displaying the pumpkins are one of our favorite parts of Halloween.



Trunk-or-Treat

Our ward has never done a Trunk-or-Treat so when Wendy invited us to go to hers, we were excited. Oliver had never been to one either so he didn't know what to expect. When he saw that he was going to get from all the cars there, he was SO excited. The kids just kept going around and around to all the cars until everyone ran out of candy. These people were giving out not only candy. They were giving out root beer, apples, hostess cupcakes and bags of chips. It was awesome.  

 Luke did such a great job manning his trunk. This was exactly what he wanted to do and listening to him joke around with the kids was so funny. Let's just say a lot of people don't quite pick up on his humor.

Thanks for the good time.