Cuties and Nasties.

Let’s start with the Cuties. Mia had her 1st birthday and she was the happiest girl ever with her birthday cake! She went nuts and loved it. She is so precious and I love these pics!                             Dan and I went to the last Jazz game of the season. We were able to go to 3 regular season games and 2 playoff games and we loved it! I actually hated my life the last game when we got swept by the Lakers.                           We’re big Jazz fans and I was NOT happy when we got killed! Hopefully we’ll do better next year, but we still had a blast from our nosebleed seats! We joke about how we’ll be sitting on the 1st row when we’re rich and we’ll remember the old days when we sat in the nosebleeds! Hopefully that will happen some day!           And now for the Nasties. We had a big storm on Monday night (we’ve actually had a lot of big storms). Anyway, I opened the front door to see the wind and I saw this swarm of bugs on our porch!

Eeeek! I freaked out, it was so disgusting! Luckily we have a glass door so none got in when I opened the front door, but I was so grossed out, I couldn’t believe it!               We weren’t sure if they were mosquitoes, but they didn’t really look like mosquitoes. We decided that they camped out there because of the storm because we hadn’t seen them before and haven’t seen them again yet. I’m praying we don’t ever see them again! YUCKA.                 We have been working hard on our yard lately and I’m LOVING it! Dan is such a beast and he works so hard when he has a day off. He takes a lot of pride in making the yard look nice and I’m amazed at the progress. I’m going to post some pics of our flowers later this week after I get some good pictures.

ragnar.

We’re getting closer to running the Wasatch Back Ragnar Race on June 18-19 and Dan and I have both been training a lot. For those of you who don’t know what the Wasatch Back is, it’s a team relay race that goes 188 miles from Logan to Park City over the course of 2 days.

There are no breaks, and each team has 12 runners (except the freaky people who only have 6), and each runner has 3 legs of the race. Each leg ranges from about 3-9 miles long and there are a lot of elevation changes and it goes all night! I am running with most of Dan’s family and I’m only 1 of 3 girls so I got pretty easy legs.

I think the hardest thing will be running 3 legs in so short of a period and trying to do that without a lot of sleep or rest. It will be an adventure that’s for sure!

When I agreed to do this back in December, I was VERY wary to say the least. I was terrified and I knew I wasn’t in great shape and even when I was in great shape at other times, I was never a good runner. I didn’t like it and I haven’t run much at all. So I started really slow and I have taken the training really slowly over the past few months. I think that was a wise decision because (knock on wood) I have had no major injuries so far.                    I have slowly built up and increased my time and distance over the past few months and I make sure to stretch really well before and after I run. I started taking joint supplements a few weeks ago because my knees are really bad and they hurt quite a bit when I run more than 2 miles or so. Good shoes make a huge difference while running and I got me a pair of these bad boys:

Now that it’s almost time for the race, I’m actually really surprised and so proud of myself. I can’t believe that in January I could barely run for a few minutes and now I can run 5 miles pretty easily! I know for some people that is a piece of cake and they build up to that a lot faster, but the great thing about running is that you can just compete with yourself and push yourself to reach your goals.

I definitely don’t like running. I have come to decide that over the past few months. It’s a lot more fun when you’re in better shape, but I just get bored (even outside with music) and I would rather do other things to get exercise personally. But Dan loves it because as he says, he has time to “daydream”. Haha funny boy.

So I think I want to run a few more races this summer and maybe fall and then I may stop the running for awhile. I’ll still run once or twice a week, but I just don’t love it enough to keep it up forever.

Anyway, this was really boring, but I felt like posting about it. Dan’s training is going great and he has a lot harder runs than I do, but he’s a lot tougher than me luckily :). He gets up and runs in the mornings and does great!

We’re really excited to run in the relay next month with some of our family and friends. It won’t be easy, but I think it will be a great experience and I’m really proud of the progress we have made!

Random Updates

I had some random pictures on my camera of things we’ve done the past few weeks. We went to a Jazz playoff game with my sister and some of her friends and even though we were up high, it was a fun game. We’re going to watch the Jazz play the Lakers next week too and we’re excited!                    I went with my parents and my sister (Dan had to work bummer) to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Pointe and it was GORGEOUS! I absolutely love tulips and it was the perfect day to go.            They also had “Dutch Days” that day and even though it was kinda lame, they had a tent with Dutch treats and I loved it! I bought some yummy stroopwaffles and I daydreamed about going back to Holland.     

Disneyland Part Dos

Here are the rest of the pictures from our Disneyland trip last week.         Danny and Emily on the monorail.              We drove over to Newport Beach one morning and it was pretty chilly! The crazy boys got in the water but I just sat on the beach covered with cheap hotel towels (we didn’t bring any beach towels). It was gorgeous and probably warmer later in the day, but we were pretty cold!                                                  This is kind of a crappy pic Dan took of our picture on the roller coaster at California Adventure. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but it was fun!        Sarah and I rode “Mr. Toad’s Excellent Adventure” together and she loved driving.

                                          Ryan saw the fireworks show from Dan’s shoulders and he absolutely loved it even though it was really late. He latched onto Dan’s hair and ears and didn’t let go.                                                                        Amanda and I took the kids to Tarzan’s Tree House and they had a ton of fun. Sarah was obsessed with the dirt on the ground and every time I looked at her, she was rubbing it and collecting it in her hands.

There was a hollow tree with holes and the girls stuck their heads in the holes and talked to each other. It was really cute.                                                 Sarah was pretty tired after a long day and took a nap on Dave’s shoulder. I wish I could still do that.

Disneyland Part Uno

I have a lot of different things to post about so I’ll start with Disneyland part 1. We had a blast in Disneyland and it was a great get away.

Dan’s family is kinda crazy and we left Tuesday night and drove through the night then went to Disneyland on Wednesday! But luckily I slept a lot in the car and we took it easy with a nap and stuff on Wednesday.            Here we are on the Jungle Cruise. Dan and I went with his parents, his brothers Joe and Mike, and his brother David’s family (Katelyn, Emily, Sarah and Ryan). I’m absolutely in love with my nieces and nephews and so I had tons of fun playing with them and going on the rides with them. I kind of abandoned Dan for the most part, but he is like a child himself so he didn’t care as long as he got to ride the rides!          99% of the pictures I took of Sarah (on the bottom left) were exactly like this. This is the face she made when we said, “Smile!”. So cute.      Riding the teacups! Mike’s cup was the spinning cup so Amanda and I took the little ones on a different teacup so we didn’t get sick!                  I look like a sickie in this picture, but I still posted it because the girls are so freakin’ cute.                                                   I was really happy to be going on the Tower of Terror!

                                 This is not someone in our family but it was so flippin’ funny. This is the big water ball thing at Disneyland. Kids are obsessed with playing with it and we were waiting for our family to get off a ride and this kid just stood there with his tongue on the ball forever! It was so hilarious and so gross!    Enjoying the delicious frozen bananas! We also enjoyed numerous churros and caramel popcorn!           Grandma and Grandpa with the kids and Goofy!                On the Merry-Go-Round with Sarah and Ryan. They loved it so much they went about 5 times in a row while the adults switched off going on the roller coaster.                                             We had the greatest time at Disneyland with the family and the kids make everything more interesting! We took a million potty breaks and we were always chasing one kid or something. It was so entertaining and the girls are so funny! Sarah was tall enough for the Matterhorn (sp?) and she was obsessed with it. For some reason she called it the “Tuba Ride” and when we asked her, she said a tuba is the monster inside the ride.

Emily marches to her own drum and is always saying or doing something funny. She was being quiet and I asked her what was wrong and she said, “My mouth just doesn’t feel like talking.” She made up millions of knock-knock jokes that made no sense at all and she loved it. Sarah came up with a joke she told millions of times over and over and over… “knock knock”, “who’s there"?”, “monster”, “monster who?” “Rrraahhhrrrr!!!”. That was her joke and she laughed hysterically every. single. time she told it (hundreds). It was about the monster in the Matterhorn.

We went on a lot of rides and had a good time. We also soaked up the sun and the weather was perfect. I got a nice tan but it wasn’t hot at all. We’re so glad we got to go!