Wasatch Back Here We Come

In 1 month I am going to be spending 2 days running, sleeping, driving, running again, driving again, and running again with these girls.

Gretchen, Melissa, Jen, Suzette, Alyson, Laurie, Traci, Me
Jill, Melody, Stephanie, Leigh Anne

We are each doing 3 legs in a 12 man (or WOMAN in our case) relay race - the Wasatch Back. This is a first for me and I am very excited for the new challenge. I will be running leg 10. My first leg is an easy 3.6 miles - all city running. Second leg is a very slight uphill run of 7.7 miles (most likely in the middle of the night). And my last leg is a "severe uphill climb through Wasatch Mountain on a gravel road" for 4.0 miles - it's a 1631 feet elevation change. Fun. Yeah right. As much as I am dreading my last leg of the race I'm so excited to have such a fun team cheering me on (even if I end up walking most of it).

On Saturday all 12 of us met before our run and then we did different distances. We got dropped off at the top of the canyon and ran 12 miles down to where we had parked. It was a tough run and we ran it way faster than I have ever ran that distance (8:27 avg pace). I am having so much fun training for this event. For me the training is half the fun. Most days there are 5 or 6 of us running together and next weekend we are heading down to St. George for more "training".

And just so I have it documented I wanted to write up a few weeks of our current training:

Monday - 8 miles (hills), Wednesday - 5 miles (recovery), Thursday - 5 miles/5 miles (double), Saturday - 12 miles

Monday - 8 miles (hills), Wednesday - 5 miles (recovery), Thursday - 9 miles, Saturday 6/4/4 (three runs in 24 hours)

Bring on the race!!!

Sophie's Foot

Our first trampoline injury was Sophie (of course). She dislocated her ankle. Thank goodness grandma lives close and can fix anything. She wouldn't even walk on it when we got to my mom's house then when she was figuring out what was wrong it popped. Sophie didn't even cry a bit. My mom wrapped it and said to keep her off it. That didn't work out so well. Sophie kept taking off her ace bandage so my mom had to start taping it on and by day 3 she could even get it off with the tape on it. She wouldn't stay off it and even jumped on the trampoline with it on. Silly girl.

Happy Birthday Todd

Today is Todd's birthday. He's working in DC right now so we don't get to celebrate with him. Sad. We had a big family party on Saturday to celebrate and do presents with the kids but now it's his actual birthday and I miss him. The kids and I decided to have a spaghetti dinner in his honor and I let them each blow out a candle for him too. They had fun celebrating his birthday even though he wasn't here but it just made me miss him more.

We made a video for him too.

Happy Mother's Day To Me

This year Mother's Day was awesome. Todd made me go back to bed so he and kids could make me breakfast. They made German pancakes and they were delicious (Claire even had seconds which NEVER happens). The boys were so proud of themselves for doing the dishes too. Now I know they can do it and I'll make sure they help out more often. Todd bought me a really cute outfit (he's got great taste). Todd had to fly out after church. Sad. But that night for dinner the boys did everything and it was a great day!

Luke brought home a flower from school and the following conversation took place:

Luke: Here mom this is for you.
Me: Thank you. Why did you bring that home? (yes I was fishing for a compliment)
Luke: Because my teacher told me too.

Tayson made this for me:



Translation:
M: movies, memories, mom
O: olives
T: TV (and he can't remember the what the other one was)
H: happy, hug, hearts
E: eggs, eat, emeralds
R: rubies, rings, run

I love that in this one he says "to Kathy". I think it's hilarious that he said "I like it when you make money" I guess I don't need to feel guilty for leaving him everyday because he likes it.

Claire's 4th Birthday Party

When I asked Claire what she wanted to do for her 4th birthday she said have a makeover party. After getting advice from my very creative and smart friends (thanks Traci & Steph) I was ready to go. We did manicures (with rhinestones), pedicures (with a foot bath and foot massage), makeup (they got to choose their own colors), & hair.

Claire

Bella

Lucy (showing off her kissy face)

Mille

Sisters showing me kisses

Emilee

As we were finishing hair Lucy said she was going to go change and went back into Claire's room and came out all decked out and ready for the fashion show.

All the girls showing me their best kissy faces.

Thank goodness I had Campbell come help me do all of these nails with rhinestones

Lots of freshly painted toes too!

We turned on music and had them all come out modeling for the fashion show

Then the girls had a dance party (and Shadow joined in of course)

Lucy wanted the boys to come see how beautiful they were so I let the boys come home. They were banished to Steve & Christine's house during the party since it was a "girls only" party. They sat on the couch and told each girl how beautiful they were as they came out. Then Lucy wanted to have a dance and the boys could ask the girls to dance...but the boys wanted nothing to do with slow dancing with girls - that's "yucky".

We did birthday cake and presents

Then a few of the girls dressed up
(Lucy even went home to get another princess outfit)

And we ended Claire's birthday going out to dinner to the Spaghetti Factory (or Letter Factory as Claire called it) with Heidi and her girls and Timmy and Mark. I even let Claire go fully decked out as a princess. And the best part of the day was that daddy was home to tuck her in and give her a birthday kiss. And he brought her a fancy puppy in a purse (she was so excited). She loved every minute of her birthday!!

Happy Birthday my sweet Claire. You truly are a beautiful princess and I hope you never forget that!!! I love you so much and had so much fun doing makeovers and having a dance party with you. Let's stay best friends forever and ever.

Go Lakers!

I am married to a true Lakers fan and I work with all Jazz fans. So just to create a bit of fun and contention at work I wore Todd's Laker jersey to work on game day. The Lakers won game 2 that night. Go Team!!!

Harry

Todd took some pictures of the boys turtle Harry (full name: Harry Potter). It's funny because he really just sits in his tank buried most of the time but as soon as Todd decided we should take pictures to sell him the kids have wanted to get him out and hold him everyday.