These are some pictures of the sweet hotel that Andy and I stayed in while on a weekend getaway to Vegas the first weekend in December. We stayed at "The Hotel" at Mandalay Bay. It had 3 TV's, a huge jetted tub and a great bedroom. Not to mention they brought us a huge fruit platter the first night. We had such a great time! We ordered room service and soaked in the tub. We had a great time shopping and we also saw The Lion King and the Bodies Exhibit. It was a short trip but so rejuvenating!

Kate loves her Grandmas and Grandpas. This is a cute picture of Kate hugging "Mommo"

We hosted Thanksgiving for Andy's parents, his sister and kids and my parents. It turned out to be a really nice dinner. Thank heavens for helpers who have done Thanksgiving dinner before. I could have never pulled it all together by myself.

My little cuties on Thanksgiving.

A cute picture of the kids watching me prepare the turkey that wasn't done by the time we ate. This was my first time cooking a turkey. Usually Andy does it and he had to work so...luckily we ate a turkey that my sister-in-law made and it was done. :)

Some cute snow pictures!

My kids love homemade salsa! It's a tradition to make it nearly every Sunday night. Read could drink it he likes it so much. They love watching us make it!

This is just one of the gazillion time that Kate changed clothes. She changes her clothes more than any kid I have ever known. On a good day she will only change 3 times. It's cute that she cares about her clothes. It bothers her to be dirty. Plus she just loves clothes. I'm in for it!

Halloween

My friend Dena and I ran the Halloween Half in Provo, one of the greatest runs that I have done. It's beautiful and scenic and great weather down the Provo River trail. We finished in 1:43, my best half but I hope to improve on that. It was a great start to Halloween, enabling me to eat whatever I wanted. And I did!


My little cuties...Kate the witch, Read the Police Officer and Gage the skeleton


Family photo at the Trunk or Treat


Daddy and his cute little witch Kate. She loved her costume. My friend Dena loaned it to me. She looked adorable in it and was so proud of it! This picture was taken at our Trunk or Treat.


Read and his cute teacher Mrs. Wells. I am the room mother for his class so I had the opportunity to be in charge of his party. Those kids are adorable!


This is a cute picture of police officer Read in his school Halloween parade. Cute kids!


We had a fun costume party at my house for my kids and a bunch of their friends. My friend, Dena and I threw it and it turned out really cute. We made sugar cookies and let the kids decorate them. Dena told a story and had a bunch of creepy things for the kids to feel. They had a great time!


Just a cute picture of the kids on the front porch.

Read and Mrs. Wells

This is Read with his kindergarten teacher Mrs. Wells on yellow day. He loves her and we feel so grateful that he got a sweet and gentle teacher. He is really enjoying school and loving that I can come volunteer often. I can't believe my kids are growing up so fast. They MUST stop or at least slow down! I want to cherish every moment while they are young. I know that I will miss these days when they are over.

Read and Maddie

Read and his cute friend Maddie on the first real day of school. They are lined up waiting for their teacher. Too cute!!

Read's first day of school

This was my handsome guy Read on his first day of school at Foxboro Elementary. He is loving his teacher and is making great friends!

We've been on a few great hikes this spring and summer. I throw Kate in the back pack carrier and the boys do great at hiking. We've been up with my friend Jasmine, Dena and with my sister Celest and her family. We are loving the outdoors and wish that summer would never come to an end.

T-ball

This is Read's T-ball team that he played on this past spring. His team was pretty big so we didn't really get to know any of the kids or their parents. He had a good time though. He looked so tiny out there compared to the other 5-year-olds.

Read playing T-ball

Read was the rookie at T-ball this year. I think he enjoyed it more than he enjoyed soccer because he got to be in the spotlight when he was up to bat. Hopefully he will show more interest in sports next time. He starts soccer this fall!

Ogden Marathon

I did the Ogden marathon on Saturday and qualified for the Boston!! All of my pictures got deleted. I'll see if I can come up with some pictures from the web site. My finish time was 3:36! That's an improvement of 45 minutes over my last marathon finish time.

We had a fun New Years Eve with some of Andy's family. Aunt Judy and Uncle Rick live just minutes from us. Two of Andy's cousins and their families came too. We had fun playing games and visiting. Our boys made it until about 11:58pm. We woke them up to bang pots and pans but they were too tired.

Movie night

We had a fun movie night with the boys. We made a big bed on the family room floor and watched a Christmas movie. The boys were pretty excited to have a night with Mom and Dad which included popcorn and candy. We need to do more fun things like this more often. The boys thought that was pretty great!

Christmas morning 2009

We had a great Christmas with our family. We moved into our house just one week before Christmas. That gave us just enough time to unpack and set up the Christmas tree. We are grateful we were able to be together this holiday season

MOVING AGAIN!

We've moved AGAIN!! I can't believe that I haven't updated this blog since October. We've had a lot going on. Andy was offered a position within his company, Spring Mobile, in Utah at the beginning of November. They wanted us out there immediately. We took about 2-3 weeks to wrap thing up in Pocatello and headed out. We lived with my parents for 3 weeks until we were able to close on our house. We are now (after the whirlwind) living in our own home in North Salt Lake and are finally settling in. We got in just in time to enjoy Christmas. It's fun being even closer to my family. Andy is doing great so far with his new region. We are so grateful that he has worked so hard to provide for our family. I was very sad to say good-bye to my friends in Pocatello, especially my two amazing running friends, Jen and Vanessa. Aside from that, we are happy to start this new chapter in our lives!

Me, Amy Freeman, Vanessa Sutton, Carrie Davis. This is the morning of the St. George Marathon. After several months of training, it finally came down to race day! We woke up at 4:30 and caught the bus up Snow Canyon. It was an amazing and emotional experience! When we got to the top, there was music blaring to pump us up. There were about 200 porta-potties, all with at least 10 people in line and there were 50 bonfires to keep everyone warm before the start of the race. We had our timing chips on our shoes, our bib numbers pinned onto our shirts and we were ready to rock! When they announced the start of the marathon, people were rushing to the start, shedding their warm clothes and everyone seemed so pumped! WOW! One mile down, only 25.2 to go!!

WOW! That was a long run! I feel like I did great despite a couple of obstacles that I had to overcome...a bad knee and some intestinal difficulties. I can't believe how much of this was psychological. It was all mind over matter. I had to psyche myself out and repeat over and over to myself "You are strong. You can do this." And as my sister, Celest would say, "You are on a moving sidewalk. Your body is a machine." I got emotional toward the end. When I saw Andy at mile 26, it was so rewarding. He finished the last .2 miles with me across the finish line. It was really an amazing experience!


Vanessa and I finished at 4:18, just a little bit later than our goal of 4:10. I felt like I did great considering my circumstances though. The next marathon will hopefully be a little big faster.

Carrie, Jen, Vanessa, me, Amy. Our other friend finished just 15-20 minutes after us. We were all dead! When they put that medal around my neck, I was near tears. I feel like I have accomplished something amazing and that I did well at it. Those last 8 miles were rough, but I did it! I made it to the end! I thought I would never do another marathon but now that I've had 3 days to recover, I'm ready to rock and roll. We are going to start running again next week. I am going to keep a 1/2 marathon fitness level so that I'm not too far off when the next marathon rolls around.

I am so glad that my main squeeze was there at the end. Just to have him wrap his arms around my sweaty body and support me and tell me how proud he is of me, meant the world! It would have been devastating to be without at least one fan after such an accomplishment. Thanks Andy!!

Read and Gage with Aunt Jamie and Uncle Brian at Mom and Dad's house. They were helping to shuck the corn. Last weekend we dropped off the kids for two nights to stay with Mom and Dad while Andy and I went down to St. George, UT. Thanks for watching the kids Mom and Dad (and Jamie)!

Yet another marathon training picture. This is me and my good friend, Vanessa. I believe this picture was taken around 4:30 in the morning, before our 20 mile training run. It was pitch black and the stars were beautiful. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you wake up before the sun comes up!

September 8, 2009

This was Read's first day of preschool. He was super excited. His cute little friend, Ella is going to the same preschool as well. So far he has had a great time and has been very excited about learning. Read has done a great job so far learning his letters and making cute art projects. His teacher is great!

Running buddies

Vanessa, Me and Jen. These are my two good friends who I have been training with for a marathon for the last 5 months. This picture was taken right before a half marathon that we did here in Pocatello. We had already done several more miles than the half but this fit right into our schedule. We finished in 1:54 and felt amazing after!

August 21, 2009

Near the end of August, we took the last opportunity for the summer and took the family camping. We had been wanting to go all summer but our weekends just filled up so fast. This is a great picture of Andy telling the boys a story. Andy is a great story-teller. He can tell the most hilarious stories, making them up as he goes. Andy is such a fun, loving Dad. He's always cracking jokes and making the kids laugh.

My Mom and Dad came up to Pocatello and visited for one quick night. Can you tell that baby Kate gets no love? They just adore her. It's been so nice living closer to family. It's fun to see them and have them stay at our house every once in a while. Rather than the 8-hour drive from Denver, it's a quick 2 hours to my parents and 2 hours to Andy's parents. We feel so blessed! I should mention that we closed on our home in Denver at the end of July. What a blessing that was to finally get it sold. Spring (Andy's company) has taken really good care of us and they certainly made it possible to get rid of that house. Thank-you Spring!