New Year's

After Christmas, I decided to get away to the home country. We spent a delightful amount of time cooking.



The weather was fabulous. It wasn't too cold, but there was beautiful snow all around. I would like to take this picture with me to show to people when I tell them I am from Arizona. Yes, Arizona does have snow.



New Years in the big city with my parents.



They started a new tradition that just might out do New York and Times Square. Yes, the dropping of the playing card that was so instrumental in the naming of our fair city. Check it out!!!


3!!!!!!!!!

2!!!!!!!!!!

1!!!!!Crash!!!!! Ha, ha, that would have defineitely made a more memorable night, however, this huge, roaring fire was really just sparkly, fun fireworks.


New Year's pictures by the Deuce of Clubs!!!!


I'm pretty sure that in New York they don't have kind people walking around asking you to flip over a card which they have conventiently made sure is the Deuce of Clubs so you win a $2 bill. Yep, I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen.


Nothing says Home Sweet Home like a picture with our dear old card playing namesakes. :)

Christmas

This Christmas season started with my school's annual Christmas party competition for the Golden Nutcracker. Seriously, so much fun. Each team was suppose to come up with a skit for a Christmas song. My team knew that they wouldn't be leaving our meeting until we had come up with something much more. So,we decided to pull pranks on the staff for the week before the party. We switched all the teachers' name tags in the hallways, toliet papered the office, filled the resource room with dodge balls, moved teachers' desks into opposite rooms, had the principal's car moved and the list of fun goes on. We made sure to photograph each act of mischief, reworked the lyrics to I'm gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas and then made it into a movie. It was hilarious, well. . .that is what almost everyone thought. :)





Since my grandma's funeral was two days before Christmas, we decided to spend Christmas in Utah. Which made this the first Christmas I've spent away from home. However, since the best thing about Christmas is being together, we made sure we spent a lot of time doing just that. Here are our other family favorites

Food: Yum!!!. We love baking our special holiday foods. Frosting sugar cookies is a holiday favorite.







Music: This year my little brother entertained us all with the new songs he had composed. He gained two new fans, who fought over who could be his #1 fan. (Which still hasn't been established.) However, both memorized one of his tunes and played it all holiday long.


We also love our musical Christmas programs.


Silliness: We like to laugh and we like to be silly. Enough said.




The true reason for Christmas: We always try to focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas. This year we performed in a Christmas pageant that was like no other. :)






Adventure: The day after Christmas we planned on going to the prison cafe for breakfast, because that is how we roll. However, it was closed, so we went to the next most adventuresome place Olive Garden, because it was close by. We made up for the adventure by trying new menu items,wild and crazy we know.




Shopping: The day after Christmas we found ourselves out and about on an urgent errand when we came face to face with these spunky watches. How could we not get them?


Yep, Christmas is my favorite!!!!

Legacy

This Christmas season I spent a lot of time thinking about the real meaning of Christmas, as we spent time with my beautiful grandma before she passed away. I thought a lot about the birth of the Savior and felt joy in the knowledge that because of our Savior death is not the end. We shed many tears for my grandma's passing, but we shed many more tears of joy for the knowledge that she is with her beloved husband and family again.

My grandma was a teacher and her life was the greatest lesson she could ever give. She didn't teach by lecturing, but by doing. She looked for the good in everyone, and then praised them every chance she got. She worked tirelessly serving where ever she went. She not only made places more beautiful, but people as well. My grandma left me a legacy of love, service, and kindness. I realize that each day I am building the kind of legacy I will leave to those around me. As I do, I find myself striving to love more, to serve more, and to be a little bit more the person my grandma believed me to be. That I know is a legacy worth leaving.

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

I had to share this story, it is one of my favorite crazy ones of the year. It started like this. . . In September, I had tickets to the General Relief Society Conference, so I invited a couple of friends, and we took the new train downtown. It was a wonderful conference, and afterward we set out to meet some friends for Lebanese food at a restaurant we had heard about.

We began walking and talking, but the closer we got to the restaurant the more I began rubbing my eyes and squinting. Finally, we all stopped, stared, and turned around looking for a candid camera. Seriously, any downtown brings out all different kinds of people, bless them all. You see people dressed in crazy clothes, or not a lot of clothes, but this was definitely something I was not prepared to see. All around us masses of people only clothed in their underwear emerged. I'm not kidding about the masses, I'm not talking about one or two people, I'm talking about people everywhere. They started pointing and laughing at us. Seriously, "the underwear people" as I like to call them started pointing and laughing at us. They affectionately called us the "clothes people." The closer we got to the restaurant, the closer we got to Gallivan Center and the home of the "underwear people" and their event. You see, the had an undie run. Yep, people of all shapes and sizes (I mean all) came downtown and ran to the capitol. They donated their clothes to the homeless and were running for all different causes, and to tell the leaders of Salt Lake, not to get their undies in a bunch. At least that is what I heard echoing from across the street. Now I think it is great idea to run for a cause, give clothes to the homeless, and they sure got attention, however, I personally have a hard time taking people who are only wearing underwear seriously, umm . . . . . .that and I'm a pretty big fan of modesty. One guy stopped us and asked me if I didn't feel awkward for having so many clothes on. He was wearing undies and the head of a wolf draped on his head and shoulders, It's true, I know because that is all I felt comfortable looking at. Seriously, the head of a wolf.

Gratefully, we rushed into the restaurant happy to find our friends and other people fully clothed. We were momentarily distracted from all of the craziness by the delicious smell of food, only to be brought back to reality by the clanging of music and the jingling of a belly dancer. Seriously, what are the odds? The food was delightful, I'm not going to lie about that, but it took about 3 hours to eat, not an exaggeration. (I know I tend to exaggerate, but this really is the truth.) And perhaps it seemed even longer because of the jingling of the belly dancer, and the fact that one of my friends couldn't stop sneezing, coughing, and wiping her eyes, or that my other friend couldn't eat and just sat and watched us, or it might have been the "delightful view" of the street and people prancing around in their undies.

As soon as our bill was paid, we ran hoping to catch the last train home. This caused us to run straight through the plaza/home base of the "underwear people" who giggled at our clothes, and called us the "conference people." It was definitely a new experience to be made fun of for wearing clothes. Luckily, we squeezed our way onto the full train, only to have two of the "underwear people" squeeze in next to us. If I were making a list, this would be reason number 17 why you should wear clothes. So awkward, so uncomfortable. Then this guy spoke to his girlfriend, "Man, we had to hop on this train, that guy out there was crazy." His girlfriend adamantly agreed, and at this moment my roommate and I both looked at each other and burst out laughing at this comment from two people wearing only tiny, sparkly underwear. I guess crazy is in the eye of the beholder. However, I quickly turned away and thought of something sad because with only underwear on I could see his muscles and didn't want to get pounded. We then focused on the screen and realized the last train to our stop had already left and this would only drop us off halfway. I honestly, couldn't stop laughing at this point. Gratefully, we had our cellphones and called a friend to pick us up. As the train bounced along, my friend continued to sneeze and cough, and I just kept on giggling. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up, nope it doesn't get any better than this.

Revolution

It is time to play catch up. . . . . so here goes.
In August we set up a family blog dedicated to being more healthy. We focused on eating better, exercising, getting enough sleep, managing stress, all kinds of things to make us more healthy. We each wrote a year long goal, and then put down goals for each month. We report how we have done at the end of the month. We’ve included healthy recipies, inspiration, and our latest racing news. We held our first family 5k the first of October and raced around the lake at Daybreak. It was soooo much fun. The kids loved it, and all of the adults did too. We can’t wait till spring to have another one. While it is all a work in progress, we are following this quote that we included on the back of our t-shirts "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

Here are all of the participants posed before the big race. We were missing two of our fiercest competitors and can't wait for them to run with us in the spring.







Everyone lined up ready for the race to begin.


Ready, set, go. . . ..


And they're off.










Some of our first place finishers.


Victory!!!!!!


There is nothing we can't conquer!!!!

Rock, Paper, Scissors

We made sure we stuck together during the Halloween parade at school, because apart was awkward. Awkward, as in "Cool costume, um. . .yeah are you paper? Oh, cool. . . . .um. . . . . . .yeah."

Vegas Ragnar

I sometimes wonder what in the world I get myself into, and that is exactly what I was thinking two weekends ago when it was 85 degrees in Vegas and I was running straight up hills. I also had this thought at 2 in the morning while I was running on a desolate road, and again on my third run in the middle of the day after getting 2 hours of sleep. I swore to myself that I would never again in my life run a Ragnar, and then somehow driving home I heard myself telling one of my teammates that yeah, I just might run the Northwest Ragnar with them? ? ? And, although running 188 miles day and night is crazy, I don't know it was kind of a fun crazy.


Ragnar-You take 12 crazy people and they decorate two vans and dress up like zombies or wear tutus and Elvis costumes. Then they ring cowbells, and cheer through bullhorns. They jump up and down alongside the road, and dance to their own beat day and night, and it is crazy, but it is seriously fun.






(Somehow in the middle of the night we found ourselves going into a gas station for water, and the next thing you know we are doing the can-can with the clerk. Only at Ragnar when I have not slept.)




Van teammates-Crazy, fun ladies. Oh the stories I could tell.


The Scenery-Vegas was billed as having a "beautiful red rock" landscape. Hmmm. . . . .it seemed more like barren desert, but I guess that is beautiful in its own way?


Roadkills-You get one roadkill for every person you pass. How could I not take on the challenge?


Becoming tough- This headband says, "I eat hills for breakfast." which is about as far away from the truth as you can get. I hate hills, but they couldn't be avoided, and so I ate them as best I could and toughened up.


Running in the middle of the night-seriously the middle of the night. Craziest thing ever running at 2 in the morning with your headlamp on, a little tail light on the back and a reflective vest. However, I'm not going to lie it was my best run for two reasons. One, it was cool and serene, and I actually liked it. I just looked for the flashing red tail lights of the runners and waved at the vans stopped alongside the road cheering us on. However, the second reason it was my best run was because it was desolate and dark and I didn't want to get kidnapped. Fastest run in weeks. :)




Three runs in 24 hours- There is nothing that feels so good, as checking off each box as you finish a run in this marathon of runs.


The finish line!!!! As your last runner finishes, the whole team waits for them and then you all cross the finish line together. It really is a team effort. Loved it!!!!