Living History Farm Run

I ran my first cross country race today. 7 miles through forest and creeks. It was in Iowa, and it was freezing. A perfect opportunity to wear my awesome orange hunting/running cap my husband got me last Christmas. My outfit was horrendous, and I was almost embarrassed, but I was too warm to care. But I looked fab. We stayed in a fun hotel overnight with the fam. and my mom. Just wanted to blog real quick about the race...well my thoughts cause' those are the best part I think.

"I'm not even really cold."-This was before the race. It was freezing, but I had dressed so warm it didn't really even bother me.

"You know that guys cold."-He was dressed as an Indian with only a loin cloth on.

"He's going to be wishing he wasn't carrying that shield and javelin at mile 3." then after the race "How did he get up those ravines with that shield and javelin. If I were him I would have thrown it into the forest."-He was dressed as Spartacus and before the race screamed out that line from the movie. It was funny.

"I really wish someone were running this race with me."-It really does suck having to be by yourself at one of these events. I'm not doing it alone again.

"I better go pee." "Great. There's no toilet paper. If I wanted pee in my pants I would have gone in a bush."

"9 creek crossings?? I thought it was only 3?"-Info being given over the loud speaker before the race.

"Here we go." Jammin out to the Twilight soundtrack.

"Ok...mile 1 at 8:47. Maybe I can keep this pace."

"the hat and gloves have to go because I'm over heating."

"That is a lot of rolling hills. I really need to get this jacket off."

"Great. Horse poop."

"First crossing. I think I'll go over to where those rocks are. Crap. The rocks are iced over. Just don't break your ankle. K. Got over that one with only my right foot getting submerged."

"I can't feel my right foot."

"More rolling hills. I'll be lucky if I finish this race in 1hr20min. My lungs feel like they are caving in there so cold." "Crap that wind is cold, but at least I'm cooling off."

"Great. Cow poop."

"People are yelling and cheering. Another creek crossing. There's no way to keep my feet dry this time. Crap that's cold. When I blog about this I'm going to have to edit my thoughts. And my lips are going numb so I'm not responsible for the words they are mouthing. My feet are numb"



"Have I passed mile 5 yet? I hope I'm landing on my feet right because I can't feel them and I don't want to break my ankle"



"Another creek crossing. I was just beginning to feel my feet again. Ok. There's rocks for this one. Got a clear path...don't fall. Great. Use the roots to get up the side. Holy crap I gotta run up that??? I can barely see sky! Keep going. Grab onto the rope and pull yourself up. Come on girl in front of me...use some muscles. Wow that was steep, and now I get to run up some more rolling hills."

"There are no flat parts of this race so stop wishing for some. It's up and down. Up and down. Just run"

"I really didn't want to see those guys butts. Why are they wearing g-strings??"

"These downward slopes of these ravines are insane. Should I sit down and slide for this one? They are just running down, but I still can't feel my feet"

"Another creek crossing. Knee deep. Just jump in and get to the other side and up the side. Now my knees are frozen, and there is another steep climb out of this ravine. No ropes. Use the roots and the trees to pull yourself out."

"I haven't seen the sign for mile 6 yet. I'm defiantly not keeping a 9min mile pace."

"I have to turn up this steep hill without slipping?"

"Another creek crossing (x5 more times)"

"There are a whole lot of people stuck in that ditch of mud. Where am I going to climb out? That was easy...What is their problems?"

"Mile 6 one more mile...Great. More rolling hills. My times not that bad. I can keep this respectable"

"This is like having a baby. You wonder why you decided to do this, but know you're going to do it again because it's so amazing! But boy does it suck in the moment."

"Thank goodness I have been doing hills on the treadmill"

"I see the end. Wow that last mile went fast. That was a 9 minute mile and I can't feel my feet."

"7 cross country miles in 1 hour and 6 min. Not too bad considering I can't feel my legs"

"Now I have to take that stupid timing chip off my shoe. Why did I lace it through my laces. My freakin shoe laces are frozen over with ice (they seriously were)."

"Better put my jacket and gloves and hat back on."

"No I don't want a doughnut! But I'll take some water."

"Crap that was intense, but I'm impressed with my time."

"I just want a warm shower."

Get in the car and on the way back to the hotel my mom tells me everyone has had their showers and baths. What would be the thought that would come into your head? Here's what came into mine, "There's not going to be any hot water." And there wasn't. But I did get to go to a health spa and soak in the hot tub. That felt nice. I still can't believe how intense that run was. It was so awesome and so much fun!! Check out their web-site to get some pictures

http://www.fitnesssports.com/November_races/LivHistFarms/lhf_index.html

Here's a video of a past race so you can get SOME idea of how it was. Anytime we weren't in the woods it was either uphill or downhill to another hill.
http://www.fitnesssports.com/LHF%20MovieMPEG-1.mpg

I'll be there next year so if this sounds fun to you let me know! I haven't had that much dirty, intense fun since basic training. It was great!!

Now it's time to watch Utah beat BYU, and then after go see Twilight! What a fun day!!!

Visiting Teaching

Oh yea! Changing up my blog background and everything. Maybe that will inspire me to blog a bit more this week...Maybe. Well some of you reading this won't know what visiting teaching is, but that's OK because you might be able to get something out of this anyways. On Monday at our Pres. meeting for RS we made plans for our Visiting Teaching conference we are having in Jan. It was very spiritual and inspired, and I wanted to remember some of the principles we discussed, so I thought I'd write them down here and share. Might be pretty random, but...so.

About 4 weeks ago Sister Beck came to our stake and spoke to the RS presidencies. I love that woman, and her strength. She devoted some time to getting us used to the idea of speaking with her-it was a question/answer type thing. Sis. Beck shared a quote by Pres. Packer from one of her recent leadership meetings: "Revelation is scattered among us." I think that's so true whether it's a leadership meeting, Sacrament meeting, a Sunday school class, in our homes...We all come together to make a whole, drawing on each other's experiences and testimonies to create an environment in which the Spirit of the Lord can touch our hearts and minds, thus inspiring Christ-like thinking, attitudes, love, etc;... That principle was made evident in our meeting. Sister Beck also asked, "How do we really feel about the Lord's work?" By asking the sisters to be visiting teachers we are "inviting them to be part of a sacred work." What makes visiting teaching such a sacred work? We discussed how the Lord loves each of His children, and knows them personally, by name. Being a counselor in the Pres., I have come to have a strong testimony of visiting teaching because it is how the Lord makes sure each of His daughters is taken care. As a Bishopric, and a RS presidency we have a deep love and concern for the sisters in the ward, but there is no way we can make sure all the sisters feel this love without visiting teaching. As visiting teachers we truly are tools in the hands of the Lord in making sure His daughters know of His love for them. Sis. Beck mentioned that we are all some one's daughters who have left home; daughters of a Heavenly Father who have left His presence. Imagine, for those of you who may have daughters, who will be the ones to care for your daughters when they leave home? Hopefully, it will be the Relief Society. Sis. Beck said the purpose of Relief Society is to "Prepare His daughters for the blessings of eternal life." As visiting teachers, who have accepted the call, we truly are engaged in a sacred work. A work, I'm sure, the Lord is counting on us to do. She also said, [speaking of RS teachers, but I think it can apply to VT as well] "These sisters [sisters being taught] are fighting evil day by day. That time they have with you is precious." Share the VT message, pray about your sisters and their needs; you don't have to limit contact to once a month. I, personally, came away from the meeting with Sis. Beck with a strong desire to figure out some way to help the sisters in my ward love each other as much as the Lord, our Bishop, and RS president does. This is the theme we have chosen for our VT conference this year and those were some of the things we discussed during our Pres. meeting. on Monday.

Continued...

From the top: Cora


October is always one of Cora's favorite months because of Halloween, and her daddy's sweet tooth that she inherited. She had to do a report on Eskimos at school, and because of that decided to be an Indian for Halloween. I usually make her buy her own Halloween costume with fundraiser money from some sort of project we do. One year we made jam and sold it to people at Mark's work, and this year we tried to do pot holders, but my fingers began to get blisters and I canned that idea real fast. We ended up buying her costume for her, but got it all for around $10. I wasn't going to buy her anything since she hadn't done anything to raise the money-including chores. So she decided to be a baby and wear her footie pajamas, and was excited about that until some girl at school said that was weird. I asked her what that girl was going to be and she said Hannah Montana. I'm thinking, "Sure. Her and every other little girl in America." Yes, I did refrain from saying what I wanted to about that, and decided we could do Indian for cheap. She looked good, and loved her costume. Her favorite part was the dream catchers and headband with feathers. Her favorite Halloween candy this year was the little M&M packages. Cora had her first swim meet yesterday, and did great. She did 50m freestyle and backstroke and took 2ND in both (one of the first place girls got disqualified so Cora really got 1st place in backstroke). She looked like she had been swimming competitively for years with flip turns and everything. I was helping with the timing so I couldn't get any video, but after the 50 free she looked like she was going to die! She burped like she was going to throw up and everything, and said, "My chest felt like I was going to die!" I was proud because she gave it her all, AND on top of that, did great. She also dreams of being a basketball star some day. School is going well for her, but I know she misses Utah and her friends there. We are all really looking forward to Christmas in Utah this year! Just about every day I get 2 new videos on my camera from Cora playing around. She knows I'm not a big fan of her doing this.

She is such a drama queen! Sometimes she does get some fun video...like on Halloween.



That's what happens when Indians attack Mummies. Garret As you can see he wanted to be a mummy for Halloween because I could "wrap him up in toilet paper and it wouldn't cost any money." He didn't want to do any fundraisers either or spend the money he has on a costume. I was fine with the toilet paper thing until my sister sent me a picture of a little kid wrapped in toilet paper that just looked ridiculous. So I cut strips of white sheet, sewed the ends together, and died them in coffee to turn them antique brownish. After running them through the dryer they frayed and his costume was done. He looked pretty cool. We had a church trunk or treat before Halloween, and Garret spent the whole night picking up his wrappings because I didn't have them pinned on him. It was so funny to watch him waddle around all night with his long underwear showing as his costume was falling off, and I didn't get any pictures because I was by myself with all the kids just trying to survive. He's such a passive kid and it didn't even bother him. I did win an award at the chili cook off that night. That was amazing to ME, but Cora knew I was going to win. There was not a doubt in her mind my chili was going to win an award, and that made me feel special. We had left over chili the next night and I was surprised the kids still wanted to eat it. Cora said, "Of course we want to eat it! It's award winning chili!" I'm such a cool mom. Back to Garret the mummy. So on Halloween I had about 100 tiny safety pins holding Garret's costume on his body, and it worked. Garret's favorite part of his costume was that "it was hot so he didn't get cold, and the face painting." His favorite part of Halloween was "getting to see Jorie in her costume because she looked so cute!" Favorite Halloween candy: Lollipops.


Garret is doing well. He has pre-school 3 times a week with Mrs. Scott, and he just loves it. I am homeschooling him for his K-year because kindergarten here is a full day, and I just wasn't ready for him to be gone all day. We'll just put him into 1st grade next year probably. He really enjoys math, and is doing well with his reading. He is also doing gymnastics, but after watching Cora swim yesterday, he said he "wants to do a real sport." I tried to explain to him that gymnastics was a real sport by telling him they have gymnastics in the Olympics. Of course, he had no idea what I was talking about. How do you convince a 5-year-old gymnastics is a sport when all they do is donkey kicks and walk on the balance beam?? Garret would like the world to know he's "very funny, likes babes, and Pokemon." Cora helped him with that.
Ammon We watched a Book of Mormon stories DVD and now he likes to be called Ammon...Well Ammon and AJ, but sometimes he'll make me call him Ammon. He loves hearing his name in the BOM stories. When I asked AJ what he wanted to be for Halloween, he said Spiderman. Great! Already have the costume. So for the trunk-or-treat he wore the same costume he wears almost every day. I could tell he wasn't too thrilled after seeing his sisters and brother dressing up. So for Halloween I decided he was going to be Clark Kent, and he loved the idea.

He was a stud, and played the part great! He would cover up the S and then pull it apart. It was awesome. Later in the night he decided to be superman so he took off the white shirt. I think he felt better that we did something different like sprayed his hair black, and got him dressed in something he doesn't wear every day. He liked it because it was, "Crazy." His favorite Halloween candy was, "Sugars, and tastebugs, and lollipops" because "the tastebugs eat the sugerbugs." I guess he thinks it's tastebugs instead of taste buds and that they eat the sugerbugs (plaque) off his teeth. wow. His favorite part of Halloween was "everyone getting our candy to us." His favorite thing to say recently is, "Why should I?" He'll say it after we ask him to do things. "Come here please." "Why should I?" "Clean up please." "Why should I?" I'm not sure where he got that from, but it's fun. We just give him explanations and he usually says, "OK." Like he really wants to know why we want him to do things.

As tough as he is, he is actually quite a sensitive kid at times, and doesn't like being confused. While Grandma and Grandpa were here AJ was not so receptive to Grandpa's efforts to get close to him, but when they left AJ wanted to call them every other day and talk to Grandpa. He just didn't understand why mom and dad were gone and got angry with grandpa. We've been working on controlling anger in our house. When the kids get frustrated we have them count to ten and breath. It always makes Garret laugh, but it just ticks AJ off. "I don't want to breath!" I can't blame him. I think he's really missing a good friend like Winnie, Eli, or Simeon (the three he prays for and talks about). I think on a whole, we all miss Utah, and family and friends, but we know this is where we need to be, and we find peace in that. We love serving in the ward here and are making good friends. I'm planning a couples night out next week because I need some fun adult time out. Jorie She is finally fitting into her 12m clothes. She is tiny, but acts like one of the big kids. Very independent, and often times very stubborn, she is beginning to use her words when she wants things. I can't call for AJ without her echoing "AJ" right after me. Right now she is really into singing her ABC's and animal sounds with actions; her horse is the best. I have to get a video soon. Jorie has to be in the middle of everything so we call her Godzilla and try to turn her destruction into a game for the other kids. She loves the dog, and watching our fish swim. There is a certain blankie and pink dog she has to have in bed with her at night, and always gets so happy when both those things are given to her. All-in-all a very happy, fun loving baby. We are so blessed and grateful for such awesome kids, and hope so bad we don't mess them up! We're doing a good job most of the time. Anyways. Jorie was a ladybug for Halloween.

I was really surprised she kept that hood on her head all night because she hates hats. She sat in the wagon for trick-or-treating and I kept feeding her lollipops to keep her there. We walked around the neighborhood with some neighbors, and had a great time.

Here are a few more pictures of the kids from this month.

My How Time Flies

Is it Nov. already? I honestly have no idea where October went. Was there even an Oct. this year? Hum...YES! because I spend most of the day now telling my children they can't have a piece of candy. Actually, they don't anymore because they got into a little fight and so I told them all to bring me their candy, "It's mine now." Cruel I know, but I'm not fighting the candy battle anymore, and we are set with movie theatre candy for the year. So that's how I know October 2008 did, in fact, happen. It was quite a busy month for us. Mark and I both had trips out of state which was exciting. He went to D.C. while I went North Carolina. I was secretly excited about me going away while he stayed home with the kids...for once. But fortunately for him there was some thing he had to go to in D.C. during the time I would be gone. Luckily his parents were already planning on being here to help so at least I didn't have to worry that my kids were going to be taken care of. My in-laws did an amazing job of holding down the fort. Thank you Gary and Marilyn!!! As selfish as it is, I'm still a tiny bit disappointed my husband didn't get to experience being a solo parent. There's always New York 2010 right ladies!!! Would that be ok Marilyn?...2010? Here are a few pictures of my North Carolina trip:

I went with-from the left-my brother Scott, Aunt Teri, Uncle Frank, Dad, and Step Mom. I could dedicate an entire post jut to my NC trip, and that is what I'm planning on doing sometime soon! You'll see... The leaves were beautiful, the mountains amazing, and the only thing we had planned in the 5 days we were there was a trip to Wal-Mart. It was great. "The voice of the mountain speaks to the soul." That was a quote on a T-shirt, and it was/is always so true for me. While we were there (this is really for Trent and Julie) we spent a lot of time driving in the truck. When you are sitting in the front seat of the truck, 25mph doesn't look so fast. So I said, "How much you wanna bet I can run 25mph?" My brother was like, "Yeah right." But I honestly thought I could because it looked really slow. I got a text from my brother the day after I got home informing me the highest speed by a human was 26mph. So I text ed him back: "I didn't say I could run 26mph!" Perhaps I could run 25mph if I had a 1,000 Grand candy bar. Anybody know where I can get one of those? Anyways. That was my big excitement for the month, so I'll move on to the rest of the family where you're sure to hear more about me too!

Mark: Like I mentioned before, he had the opportunity to go to D.C. twice this month. The first time was for a special project thing, and the second was some convention for geeks. Since my husband isn't a geek, he didn't understand 80% of what they were talking about, but feels it will be good for him eventually. My favorite part of him going away this last time was that he brought me home some new perfume from Victoria's Secret; So Sexy Wild Dare or something like that. Nice name. Makes me wonder if naming par fume "So Sexy Wild Dare" actually boosts sales. Who knows, but I LOVE the way it smells, and I smell myself all day. It must work if I'm becoming more attracted to myself right? (It's late) Mark is loving work, trying to get to the gym after work because he says he's gained weight, and he loves me. That's all he wants me to say for him this month. "Let's go to bed," he says. Again-it's late, and it is a few hours past my bedtime now. I am trying to get in bed by 10 so I can get up at 5:15. Tomorrow is Sunday so I should be able to find some time to blog about my kids. Time to go pass out.