Austin 1/2 Marathon

I did it! I completed my first 1/2 marathon! I have to say, I wanted to die by about mile 11, but I pushed on through, and finished with a time of 2:05:12. My best friend Alyssa and I ran it together, and she achieved her personal record (5 months pregnant, no less!). I was shooting for a time of 2:10:00, and beat that by almost 5 minutes, so I was very happy with my time too!

The trip to Austin was SO much fun! I can't wait to go back again! I took Kallie with me and we just had a "girls trip." She loved flying on the airplane, opening presents that Grandma Hammons had packed for her. She didn't want to wait in between presents; she just wanted to open them all, then play with them after she had seen everything. Kallie had a fun time playing with Carson, Carli, and Amy. She said she wants to live in Texas.

I had a great time just spending time with Alyssa. It seems like we are lucky to spend a couple of hours together when she comes to Las Vegas. There are just so many people in line to see her. Getting to spend 4 whole days was great fun. We got a swim workout in on Friday, and she taught me how to flip-turn (yea!). Then we ran our race on Saturday. We had to get up at 4:00am in order to get out to the race parking, then catch a shuttle to the site. The race started at 7:30am. Afterwards, there was food, music, and some much-needed relaxing. Alyssa's friend Stephanie ran with us as well, and I think she is the one who kept us moving by the end! She usually finishes a 1/2 marathon in the 1:40s, so she was definitely just taking her time with us!

Chet and Alyssa toured me around Austin, eating at all the hot spots including an Italian Bistro, a Mexican place called Chuy's, the steakhouse Alyssa was working at called Saltgrass, and my personal favorite: Yogurt Planet. We also watched good shows including General Conference, and just had a generally wonderful time!

Rosco

Well, I caved. I knew it would happen sooner or later, given how much my boys love dogs. We got a puppy last night. His name is Rosco, and he is 3/4 Border Collie, and 1/4 Springer Spaniel.

He is 6 weeks old, and the kids just adore him. We got him for free, and he's already spoiled rotten. We are crate training him, but he likes his regular bed better than his crate. Last night I was up (and outside in a storm) at 11:30, 12:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00. Not fun, but at least I'm not used to sleeping all the way through the night yet anyway. Tonight, I moved his crate into my room so I can reassure him better, and I'm going to try putting his bed inside his crate to make him more cozy. He misses his brothers and sisters, and remembers at night.

He will grow up to be a medium to large sized dog, and John hopes he might be able to learn a couple of hunting tricks. I just hope he learns the trick of going potty outside.

The Kidz Tandem Train

I think it's worthy of a post to say that I can now officially take all four of my kids on a bike ride by myself! We just recently picked up an awesome invention called a "Kidz Tandem" mountain bike. This bike lets the kid sit in the front seat and pedal, while the adult sits behind and steers. To that we hooked up the Tug-a-Bug, and to that we hooked up the bike trailer. Officially, everyone has a seat, and we can go for a ride!

The Colorado Trip

We just got back last week from a trip to Canon City, CO, where my grandparents, Uncle Bob and Aunt Linda, cousin, Bryan, wife and two kids all live. Canon City is about 45 minutes south of Colorada Springs, where Steven and Jen Hammons live, so we dropped our circus in on them too! We had SO much fun, I hardly know where to start, so I'll just start at the beginning. We left on Wednesday night after John got back from working in Las Vegas. We drove until 3:00 am, and made it to Grand Junction. That left us about 5 hours left to drive on Thursday, which was great since the kids just slept that first night. We arrived at Uncle Bob's house about 5:00 and it turned out to be the highlight of the trip for the kids. He was adequately prepared for us with a special basement centered around his almost 3 year old granddaughter. He had a special hideout they could climb up to, then swing on a rope to get out of. He also had a jumphouse set up in the downstairs living room! Legos, rubber mulch with lots of silk plants, and a play kitchen topped off the fun! Everywhere else we visited paled in comparison to Uncle Bob's house in the kids' minds.

The actual purpose of the trip was to visit my grandparents. Grandpa just turned 87, and Grandma is 86. They are just not well enough to travel anymore, so when we want to see them, we go there. They had never met Kaden or Kole, so we thought we better make the trip. We are so glad we did. It was so fun to see the kids make memories with their great-grandparents. It was also so nice for me to get to visit with them and also my Aunt and Uncle, who were so kind (and brave!) to let us stay with them.

The Friday after we got there, we went to visit the Royal Gorge, which is home of the World's Highest Bridge. It is 1053 ft. above the river it spans. It is absolutely amazing to see. I was so excited about seeing it, I left the camera in the car. We got there at the end of the day, so we didn't even have time to go back out and get it. Sorry!

Saturday turned out to be one of the most exciting days too! We drove up to Colorado Springs, where we got to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with Jen Hammons. We also met up with my closest cousin, Daisha, and her 3 boys (Rainier, 4 and twins age 2 Ky and Jonas). My two favorite parts of the zoo were the girrafes, to which you could get close enough to feed crackers, and the "Budgie Buddies" where you could go into an aviary and feed birds seeds off of little popsicle sticks. Jen was nice enough to remember her camera, take pictures, put them on a disk, and send them to me because I left our camera in the car for this one too!

We got to eat dinner at Outback with Steven and Jen before heading back to Canon City for our last night there. So fun to see you guys!

Saying goodbye on Sunday was hard. We had had so much fun! Kaden cried and cried when he realized we were packing up. He kept yelling, "I don't want to leave! I want to stay here till we die!" Just to let you know how much he liked Uncle Bob's house! We decided at the last minute to try to make one more stop in Moab, so we called our old friends Jonny and Jenny Hymas. We used to work with Jonny in Las Vegas, and he has been out in Moab running a bike shop/tour business for the last 7 years or so. The last time we saw them, Jenny was pregnant with her now 6-year-old, and we hadn't even started having kids! Being the kind of people they are, they let us drop in with 6 hours notice and stay the night on a school/work night. We had so much fun catching up with them, we can't wait to go back for a "just Moab" trip. While we were there, we found the coolest little "Kidz Tandem" mountain bike. We had to buy it. See my next post for more pics!

Tuacahn Duathlon

Well, I completed my first competitive race since before children! I raced on Saturday in the Tuacahn Duathlon with my friend Sadie Best. I did the Sprint distance race because when I registered I had just started running in the gym, and wasn't sure how far I could go. The race was 1.5 mile run, then 12 mile bike, then another 1.5 mile run. I finished in 1 hour, 12 mins, 35 secs. That was good enough for 2nd place in my division, 7th overall women, and 25th overall including the men. (74 finishing racers).

I have to say that I did not expect to be competitive in this race. I was just there to have fun (which I did!) and finish the race (which I did!). The fact that I actually placed in my division just gave me the bug to do more races! So, on that note, I am now planning several more. I have a half-marathon in April in Austin, TX with Alyssa. I am going to do the St. George Trifecta, which is 3 triathlons here at Sand Hollow in May, June and September. John says he will do those with me, and I roped my brother Matt into doing the June one with me. I will do the Sprint distance for those. I also plan to do a half-marathon in July in San Fransisco with Sadie, and then I would like to complete one olympic distance triathlon by the end of the year. Yea! It is so fun to me to have something to work toward in the gym. It makes it all worthwhile when I can say I participated in something cool.

Anyone who wants to join me for anything or has a suggestion for the full length triathlon, let me know!

Kaden Breaks His Arm

We officially have the first broken bone in the family! Kaden broke his arm the day before yesterday when he fell off his brand-new Spiderman bike in the driveway. I saw him fall, and it didn't look like a bad fall. When I asked him where it hurt, he pointed to his arm, and asked, "Is it bleeding? Is it bleeding??" I pulled up his sleeve, no blood, no scratches, so I told him to brush it off, and get back on the bike. He did, just to ride it into the garage, but then he spent the rest of the day moping around, and wanting me to hold him. At bedtime we had a hard time getting him into his pajama shirt, but I just thought he was overtired and fussy.

The next morning, as I was putting his shirt on, he was complaining about it being "Owie on my arm." I checked it, decided it might be a little bit swollen, noticed he didn't really want me to touch it or bend his arm at all. I kept an eye on him for the next little while, and he wasn't using that hand or arm at all. So I made an appointment and went in. The Dr. tried turning his hand palm up, and when Kaden resisted, he referred us for an X-ray. Kaden was Super-brave at the X-ray because they had to twist his arm all the way palm-up to get the picture they wanted. He never cried or even whined. I could just feel him all tensed up on my lap. The radiologist came out to make sure I was planning to go right back up to the Dr. office because "he couldn't let us go home." Sure enough - Kaden's arm was broken!

The casting went really well - Kaden wanted green. The Dr. said that 2 year olds are little Houdinis when it comes to keeping a cast on, but that he would just do the half-arm cast unless Kaden wiggled out of it. I felt so bad for my little trooper! I felt like I should have known something was wrong the day it happened, and he wouldn't have had to be in so much pain. Poor little guy.

To add to the fun of getting X-rays and a cast for Kaden yesterday, Kole got pink-eye. Luckily, I found some left-over medicine that my PA friend told me I could go ahead and use to get rid of it. Unluckily, that ran out after the second dose.

I also have to say that I could not have made it through the day at all without my friend Heather. She was nice enough to watch my 3 other kids while I dealt with Kaden, then she let us stay over at her house for dinner too! Thank you, thank you Heather!

SO, as I was writing this blog, the Dr. called and said that he was up all night thinking about Kaden and really thought that we should have done a full arm cast. He said I could come right in to have it done, so now Kaden has a full arm cast that is half green/half black. The Doc said this would prevent him re-injuring it if he were to fall on it a few weeks down the road. He was also nice enough to write me a new prescription for Kole's eyes since I was there anyway. Whew!

Tired Kids

Well, I had some seriously tired kids tonight. I'm not sure what made them so tired, because everything was pretty normal today, but bedtime could not have come sooner. Kaden was doing his usual funny business, asking for a piece of bread. I started letting him have a piece of bread at bedtime when he didn't eat his dinner well, because I knew it would help him get to sleep easier. Well, now it's become Kaden's version of the classic, "I need a drink of water." I finally decided to put my foot down tonight because we had a late dinner that he gobbled up, so I know he's not really hungry. After putting him back to bed for the third time, he's crying, "But I really, really want one!!!" I said no, closed the door, and waited. The next thing he starts wailing is, "I'm really tired Mommy! I'm really, really tired!!"
In the meantime, Koda is sobbing in my bed downstairs because "I've had a really hard day." I finally went in to check on him again, and he wanted to say a prayer that "Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost would stay by me." So we did, and he's asleep.

Speaking of being tired and going to sleep, we had Haley and her kids over last week since Matt was out of town in the Dominican Republic. They spent the night Monday night, and as we were planning bedtime, we decided to separate everyone. We were pulling out the hide-a-bed in the playroom when Treyson and Koda caught on that we were not planning to let them sleep in the same bed. After much protest (But MOM, it's a SLEEPOVER!!), we caved. We made them promise to stay in the bed and go to sleep with no funny business. Then Kaden and Cru insisted on sleeping in the same room too, so we tried it. The little ones had to be separated because they just could NOT settle down together, but those big boys made it! It was so cute listening to them talk and giggle together. They stayed right in that bed laying down despite being in the playroom, and finally fell asleep around 9:00. At one point, I checked on them and Treyson asked me, "Did Koda really eat a whole cow?" Let's just say there were two proud Mommies downstairs doing Sudoku puzzles!