Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Math
Today we went to Nate's parent teacher conference, and his teacher said that he had told her that Math was his favorite subject. So we were talking about it, and he confirmed that Math was his favorite. He then said, "do you want to know why Math is my favorite? It's because you can learn new things, like 10+0=10" So I said, "do you want to know the other reason why Math is your favorite? It's because it's in your blood. Your Grandpa White was a Mathematician." And then I explained what that meant, about how he did math for his job, like Jesse does computers for his job. After this explanation, Graham immediately chimed in with "Mommy, what's in Nate's blood? Math is in his blood?" Ahh, to be 3 and take everything at face value!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Check 26.2 off the Bucket List
Or at least that's what my medal says! I've never had a bucket list really, and I can honestly say that if I did have a bucket list I would not have put "run a marathon" on it, 'cause that's what crazy people do. But as I've mentioned before, last spring my running partner said, let's run a marathon, and after a bit of a misunderstanding (I thought I heard "half marathon") I signed up to run a marathon. It all happened very quickly, with me only thinking about if I wanted to do it for about 15 minutes before I signed up to run.
Well, 7 or 8 months passed, and there I was, at the starting line of the Baltimore marathon.
We actually started our experience the night before. Cindy and I got our families together to have a carb dinner (and let me tell you, I loved the carb loading 3 days before the race, hmmmm.... what shall I eat, how about bread? muffins? potatoes? yes, all of it!) We left dinner to go and spend the night in Baltimore. The race started at 8 am, and we thought it would be nice to not have the stress of driving there that morning, so we spent the night at the Marriott just a block from the starting line. After a good night sleep, that is when we found ourselves with all of the other crazies at the starting line.
For those of you who don't know about the Baltimore Marathon, it is described as "challenging but fair" I'd say that the "fair" part is negotiable. To put it into perspective, the world record is somewhere around a 2:03, and this year the marathon was won in a 2:15. (By a Kenyan, no surprise there!) And it's a decent sized race- there are about 25,000 runners in all of the events, and about 6,000 in the full marathon. Anyway, there are a ton of hills. The first 5 or so miles are mostly up hill. Then a little down hill, and flat area for a good amount of time. We actually hit the half way point, and it was a PR for a half marathon. That's when I knew that we had been going too fast and there was no way we were going to be able to stay with the pace group that we had joined. I'll say that the closest I ever came to hitting "the wall" was at about mile 9. I just kept on thinking how tired I was, and how much my feet hurt, and how much I wished we were only running 13 miles, and how much further we had to go. At about mile 14 we hit the major up hill area, and that's when we broke off from the pace group. I think that helped me to move past the wall. At mile 16 we were joined by a friend. Rebecca is a girl in the ward who runs lots of marathons, and had just done the St George Marathon 3 weeks previous. Her son had been training for the half marathon, but at the last minute, he had a soccer game rescheduled, and he had to miss the race, so she ran in his place. She waited at her 3 mile point, our 16 mile point for us to show up, and she ran the rest of the course with us. It is up hill from about mile 15-20, and then you get a mile and a half rest while you run around this lake, and then it is up hill again from mile 21 to about mile 23. Then there is a mostly down hill area after that to the finish line, but there are still a few hills thrown in, and you can't truly say that you have finished the hills until you hit mile 25. YUK! But Rebecca kept us going. She made us pick points to start back up running whenever we stopped to walk. She rubbed this stuff on our knees to reduce the pain. She carried anything we wanted her to. It was great. It probably would have taken us another half an hour at least if she had not been with us. But we finished the race in about 5:18. Since our goal was to finish, I figure we did it!
Our families came to cheer us on. They missed us at mile 9, it took them a while to get into the city and park. But they hung out and waited to see us when we ran back by the Harbor at mile 13. I actually missed seeing Graham and Jesse because I guess Graham had just fallen down. These are some pictures of them playing while waiting for us to run by. The first one is with Grandad I think at the steps to the Science Center.
Jesse said that Olivia just walked up and down the streets the whole time. Which is what she does at home. Or at the bus stop. Or at church. Or anywhere she is allowed to be set free. That little girl likes to be moving!
This is the boys cheering at the almost 26 mile point. They had a while to cheer at this point.
They gave out high fives!
How cute is this picture? They are with Cindy's little boy, Andrew.
And here we come. There is one black arrow pointing to me. I am waving at Olivia and Grandad. (the other black arrow) She looked thoroughly confused every time I ran by and yelled her name.
Getting closer. Cindy and I are in the light blue shirts. Rebecca is wearing a pink shirt.
Ready to give high fives!
And I finished. If that medal weren't so heavy and in general in the way, I think I'd wear it all day every day. As I was approaching the finish line I thought I was going to cry. It was just all of the sudden there. The moment that I have been headed to for so long. Soooo many hours and miles have gone towards this one goal. I have been running for a year now after having Olivia, and look at how far I have come! I did it. How many people can say that they have run a marathon? It really is an accomplishment.
And then comes the recovery. I'm looking forward to the next week of not running. And not having to get up every Saturday morning and run anymore. I'm also looking forward to one day being able to get up and down and not be in pain. Last night as I was lying on the couch I would move sometimes and cry out in pain. Jesse thought that there was something wrong- nope, I just ran a marathon. I can honestly say that the only other time I was in this much pain was after giving birth. As I listed off for the boys all of the places that my body hurt today, I really listed every part of me. The next race that I would really like to run is the National Half next March. There are others that I'd like to run as well, but races cost money, and right now we're looking to buy a house, so perhaps I need to be more judicious on the number of races I run. But just for the record- I have not caught the bug. I do not plan on running another marathon, well, ever again.
Well, 7 or 8 months passed, and there I was, at the starting line of the Baltimore marathon.
We actually started our experience the night before. Cindy and I got our families together to have a carb dinner (and let me tell you, I loved the carb loading 3 days before the race, hmmmm.... what shall I eat, how about bread? muffins? potatoes? yes, all of it!) We left dinner to go and spend the night in Baltimore. The race started at 8 am, and we thought it would be nice to not have the stress of driving there that morning, so we spent the night at the Marriott just a block from the starting line. After a good night sleep, that is when we found ourselves with all of the other crazies at the starting line.
For those of you who don't know about the Baltimore Marathon, it is described as "challenging but fair" I'd say that the "fair" part is negotiable. To put it into perspective, the world record is somewhere around a 2:03, and this year the marathon was won in a 2:15. (By a Kenyan, no surprise there!) And it's a decent sized race- there are about 25,000 runners in all of the events, and about 6,000 in the full marathon. Anyway, there are a ton of hills. The first 5 or so miles are mostly up hill. Then a little down hill, and flat area for a good amount of time. We actually hit the half way point, and it was a PR for a half marathon. That's when I knew that we had been going too fast and there was no way we were going to be able to stay with the pace group that we had joined. I'll say that the closest I ever came to hitting "the wall" was at about mile 9. I just kept on thinking how tired I was, and how much my feet hurt, and how much I wished we were only running 13 miles, and how much further we had to go. At about mile 14 we hit the major up hill area, and that's when we broke off from the pace group. I think that helped me to move past the wall. At mile 16 we were joined by a friend. Rebecca is a girl in the ward who runs lots of marathons, and had just done the St George Marathon 3 weeks previous. Her son had been training for the half marathon, but at the last minute, he had a soccer game rescheduled, and he had to miss the race, so she ran in his place. She waited at her 3 mile point, our 16 mile point for us to show up, and she ran the rest of the course with us. It is up hill from about mile 15-20, and then you get a mile and a half rest while you run around this lake, and then it is up hill again from mile 21 to about mile 23. Then there is a mostly down hill area after that to the finish line, but there are still a few hills thrown in, and you can't truly say that you have finished the hills until you hit mile 25. YUK! But Rebecca kept us going. She made us pick points to start back up running whenever we stopped to walk. She rubbed this stuff on our knees to reduce the pain. She carried anything we wanted her to. It was great. It probably would have taken us another half an hour at least if she had not been with us. But we finished the race in about 5:18. Since our goal was to finish, I figure we did it!
Our families came to cheer us on. They missed us at mile 9, it took them a while to get into the city and park. But they hung out and waited to see us when we ran back by the Harbor at mile 13. I actually missed seeing Graham and Jesse because I guess Graham had just fallen down. These are some pictures of them playing while waiting for us to run by. The first one is with Grandad I think at the steps to the Science Center.
Jesse said that Olivia just walked up and down the streets the whole time. Which is what she does at home. Or at the bus stop. Or at church. Or anywhere she is allowed to be set free. That little girl likes to be moving!
This is the boys cheering at the almost 26 mile point. They had a while to cheer at this point.
They gave out high fives!
How cute is this picture? They are with Cindy's little boy, Andrew.
And here we come. There is one black arrow pointing to me. I am waving at Olivia and Grandad. (the other black arrow) She looked thoroughly confused every time I ran by and yelled her name.
Getting closer. Cindy and I are in the light blue shirts. Rebecca is wearing a pink shirt.
Ready to give high fives!
And I finished. If that medal weren't so heavy and in general in the way, I think I'd wear it all day every day. As I was approaching the finish line I thought I was going to cry. It was just all of the sudden there. The moment that I have been headed to for so long. Soooo many hours and miles have gone towards this one goal. I have been running for a year now after having Olivia, and look at how far I have come! I did it. How many people can say that they have run a marathon? It really is an accomplishment.
And then comes the recovery. I'm looking forward to the next week of not running. And not having to get up every Saturday morning and run anymore. I'm also looking forward to one day being able to get up and down and not be in pain. Last night as I was lying on the couch I would move sometimes and cry out in pain. Jesse thought that there was something wrong- nope, I just ran a marathon. I can honestly say that the only other time I was in this much pain was after giving birth. As I listed off for the boys all of the places that my body hurt today, I really listed every part of me. The next race that I would really like to run is the National Half next March. There are others that I'd like to run as well, but races cost money, and right now we're looking to buy a house, so perhaps I need to be more judicious on the number of races I run. But just for the record- I have not caught the bug. I do not plan on running another marathon, well, ever again.16 Months
Look who is 16 months old! Do you know what that means? It means that in 2 months she can go to nursery. In just 1 month she can go to nursery with a parent chaperon! :) AND it means that we are finally going to let her get out of her infant car seat. Yup, as recently as last week we were out running errands and she had fallen asleep, and we were still able to take the seat out of the base and throw it into the cart, sleeping baby and all. She looks thrilled to have a bigger seat. If Nate weren't such a shrimp, I'd say that maybe our car seat buying days were over, but I have a feeling that we'll need to buy one more cheap booster before it's all said and done.
To celebrate her 16 months birthday (or to celebrate running a marathon really) we had milkshakes and brownies. She was in heaven!
With how much she enjoys milkshakes and brownies, I don't know why she is such a lightweight still. (OK, her meal eating has gone down quite a bit lately, and I'll be honest, our milkshake and brownie eating has really gotten less and less frequent lately.) But just about every day I look at her and think that she is just getting cuter and cuter. She makes my life a whole lot funner! (And prettier- I have not gotten tired of dressing her up in cute dresses and outfits.)
To celebrate her 16 months birthday (or to celebrate running a marathon really) we had milkshakes and brownies. She was in heaven!
With how much she enjoys milkshakes and brownies, I don't know why she is such a lightweight still. (OK, her meal eating has gone down quite a bit lately, and I'll be honest, our milkshake and brownie eating has really gotten less and less frequent lately.) But just about every day I look at her and think that she is just getting cuter and cuter. She makes my life a whole lot funner! (And prettier- I have not gotten tired of dressing her up in cute dresses and outfits.) Sunday, October 9, 2011
Summer's Farm
We made our first trip out to the pumpkin patch yesterday. We love visiting pumpkin patches in this family. Nate got a free ticket from school, and we finally got rid of the insane amount of rain from this past month, and we headed out.
They had some super cute goats that were only a few weeks old.
Everyone loved the slide.
Even Olivia.
There was a little maze that you can go through. It was very easy, and I think that the whole thing only had one dead end. It's a good thing that the kids enjoyed this, because we didn't go into the corn maze. It was hot, we didn't have a ton of time, and the corn maze was very muddy.
We also had a great time on the pumpkin train.
We ended our trip with the pig races. Always a good time. It was SO HOT while we were there. Not really what we anticipated. The kids were all in their matching black skeleton shirts, so I can't imagine how hot they were. This picture was taken after a long session of playing on the jumping pillow. We were very glad to have some lemonade!
So trip number one was a success! Hopefully September was a rainy month, and October will be dry. Monday is a holiday, and Aunt Cammi is taking the boys to a different pumpkin patch. Next Saturday is my race, but hopefully the next two Saturdays we can squeeze some more pumpkin patch fun in as well! We love Fall!
They had some super cute goats that were only a few weeks old.
Everyone loved the slide.
Even Olivia.
There was a little maze that you can go through. It was very easy, and I think that the whole thing only had one dead end. It's a good thing that the kids enjoyed this, because we didn't go into the corn maze. It was hot, we didn't have a ton of time, and the corn maze was very muddy.
We also had a great time on the pumpkin train.
We ended our trip with the pig races. Always a good time. It was SO HOT while we were there. Not really what we anticipated. The kids were all in their matching black skeleton shirts, so I can't imagine how hot they were. This picture was taken after a long session of playing on the jumping pillow. We were very glad to have some lemonade!
So trip number one was a success! Hopefully September was a rainy month, and October will be dry. Monday is a holiday, and Aunt Cammi is taking the boys to a different pumpkin patch. Next Saturday is my race, but hopefully the next two Saturdays we can squeeze some more pumpkin patch fun in as well! We love Fall!
FHE
Last week my nephew had a benign tumor removed from his brain. Surgery went well, and he is on the mend, but we decided to send him a little care package. For Family Home Evening we made cards and signs to send to him.
These are my favorite kinds of FHE. The kind with meaning, and have the potential to brighten someone's day. Get well soon Dane, we sure love you!
These are my favorite kinds of FHE. The kind with meaning, and have the potential to brighten someone's day. Get well soon Dane, we sure love you!Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Thank you huggies
I collect Huggies reward points. These little gems were free from collecting points (as in, I didn't use points to get them, or pay shipping.) We first thought that it may fit Graham, since they were so big, and then once seeing that it fit Graham, we figured it would fit Nate. They call them their "baby suits" and they love to wear them. I finally said that they couldn't wear them again until I washed them..... I just keep on forgetting to laundry is the problem. ;)
Oh, and usually they don't wear them over pants. Usually they wear them by themselves. It's super cute. (said very sarcastically)
Oh, and usually they don't wear them over pants. Usually they wear them by themselves. It's super cute. (said very sarcastically)
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