The Hills Are Alive!

No, these aren't leaves.  Just my cute girls:)

Sage taking a break on Jake (poet and didn't even know it!)

Its that time of year...fall.  Love it!  The air just has a crisp, clean feel to it.  The days are a perfect temperature and the nights cool off nicely.  I don't love that it means that winter is coming.  Oh well.  You take the good with the bad, right?  The leaves have been red above our house for over a month now.  Kind of crazy, but I'm not complaining.  I think Guardsman Pass is one of the prettiest drives you can take in the fall because there are so many red maples.  You get to drive right through them.  Breathtaking, for reals.  If you haven't seen it before you should definitely give it a try.  So of course, here are some pics up in our beautiful Midway mountains.  I know I post some of these every year, but I can't help it.  They're just so darn pretty:)

Days of Plenty

A couple of weeks ago me, Mel, April, and my dad went to see Little Women at the theater in Centerville.  Such a great show.  I'd never seen it before and it had been a while since I heard the music.  Little Women has always kind of been my family's theme book.  We love it and quote from it often.  One of the last songs in the show is called 'Days of Plenty'.  I've included the lyrics below.  They're amazing, and I've been thinking about them a lot lately.


In the show its the mom that sings this song.  Obviously my mom can't sing this, but I think everyone in my family can.  This song totally makes me think of my mom and Linz.  I know they want us to have days of plenty.  I know they're cheering us on and hoping for the best in everything we do.  I want to have days of plenty.  I want there to be meaning to losing two people I love so much.




On Saturday when I ran my marathon I was of course thinking of Mom and Linz.  I think of them often, but especially when I do things that are kind of big and scary.  For almost my whole marathon I felt them with me.  I felt like they were right there cheering me on.  I started to get emotional a few different times just because it felt to good to know they were there.  I know that a big reason I did so well in my race is that they were with me.  I'm sure that they're with me, and everyone in my family, far more than we'll ever know.  Every once in a while we're allowed to really feel them close.  Its interesting that after I feel them close like that my heart hurts a little more than normal.  Its like I'm reminded of how it felt to have them near and when they're gone again my heart hurts a little more than normal.


So yes, we've experienced some hard things.  We miss Mom and Linz, a lot.  But we can do hard things, especially with them by our side. 

I know there are still lots of hard things to come.  Let's face it, every day has hard things.  But I like to think that there are a lot of good times out there too.  So here's to the days of plenty ahead...

I never dreamed of this sorrow,
I never thought I'd have reason to lament,
I hoped I'd never know heartbreak,
How I wish I could change the way things went!
I wanted nothing but goodness,
I wanted reason to prevail,
Not this bare emptyness.
I wanted Days of Plenty.

But I refused to feel tragic,
I am aching for more than pain and grief.
There has got to be meaning,
Most of all when a life has been so brief.
I have got to learn something,
How can I give her any less?
I want life to go on.
I want Days of Plenty
You have to Believe,
There is reason for Hope.
You have to Believe
That the answers will come.
You can't let this defeat you.
I won't less this defeat you.
You must fight to keep her there,
Within you!

So Believe that she matters!
And Believe that she always will!
She will always be with you!
She'll be part of the days you've yet to feel!
She will live in your bounty!
She will live as you carry on your life!

So carry on,
Full of Hope,
She'll be there,

For all your Days of Plenty

I Did It!

My jacket!

The end of the race - finish line in sight!

Super cool plaque:)

I finished all of the races in the Triple Trail Challenge!  Got my jacket!  It's a nice jacket too I might add.  A black Marmott that's actually fitted for a girl instead of being all big and bulky.  Now I'm anxiously awaiting cold weather so that I can actually wear it:)

So the last race of the series was on Saturday.  It was the Mid-Mountain Marathon.  There's an awesome single track trail that goes all through Park City, and the race was on that.  You start at Deer Valley and finish at the Canyons.  The race actually went really well.  I started out nice and easy, which I think helped me in the long run.  The whole race has lots of ups and downs in elevation, but miles 15-20 were pretty brutal as they were pretty much all uphill.  That's a hard part of a marathon to have be uphill because you're pretty tired at that point.  I was tired, but I didn't let myself walk.  I knew that if I walked it would be hard to get going again.  So I just put it in low gear and kept trotting along.  I only walked up one pretty steep hill that was right at mile 20.  Who puts a steep hill at mile 20 anyway?

The last five miles were actually pretty fun.  Usually this is the part of the marathon where you think you might die, but for some reason I was loving life.  These miles were all downhill, but last time I did this race I was so tired at this point that I didn't go very fast.  This time I cruised down the trail.  It was awesome!  I was passing people all over the place.  I had a negative split, which means that I ran the second half of the marathon faster than the first half.  Let me tell you, that's the way to run a race.  Its way more fun to pass people at the end than to be passed for sure.  It ended up being a pretty hot day, so I spent a fair amount of time at all the aid stations.  In true Spjute fashion, I overheat quickly.  So at every aid station I drank like 3-4 cups of water and then dumped one over my head.  I'm sure everyone thought I was crazy, but you do what you gotta do, right?

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that I fell.  That's right, tripped and slammed the left side of my body into the mountain.  Super cool.  Don't worry though, people were falling all over the place.  When you trail run there's tons of rocks and stuff to step over.  When you get tired it gets a lot harder to pick up your feet and you end up taking a dive.  I saw like four people fall and one lady told me she herself had fallen four times.  So my whole left side is bruised and my right leg feels like it was sprained or something.  Good times.

The results of this race?  I cut 10 minutes off my time from two years ago and finished in 4:25.  Nothing super fast, but I'm happy with it.  I got seventh in my age group for the marathon.  But here's the big news.  I somehow placed second overall for the girls who did the Triple Trail Challenge!  That's right, they announced my name and everything.  I have a plaque sitting on the table in the entry way.  I might leave it there forever.  Feel free to come by and see it:)  No, actually, none of my times were crazy fast.  Apparently though there aren't a whole lot of girls who sign up for the whole race series, so the competition wasn't too tough.  However, I passed two of the girls who were in the running to place in the last two miles.  Suckers!:)

Okay, I'll stop telling you all (the two of you who read this blog) how fast I ran.  It was a good race series and I'm proud of myself for doing it.  Before this year I wasn't one for trails.  Going uphill for long amounts of time was hard for me.  I worked hard though, and now I have my jacket:)  Will I do it again?  Probably, but not for a while.  Too many races that made it so we couldn't do a lot of camping or anything else as a family.

Anyway, I'm off to try on my jacket again....

Swiss Days!

Chaos in the kitchen

The kids chowing down

The goat kept everyone entertained

Jake's family enjoying some good bbq

I love Swiss Days!  Some people hate it and leave town, I just think its fun.  It cracks me up how many people come just to shop at boutiques.  Craziness.  Every year, early Friday morning, I run the 'tour of Midway'.  This allows me to see all the crazies getting here at 6am.  I also get to see all the crazies already fighting over stuff.  I love it:)  I must admit that I do love walking around the booths to see the goods, and I usually end up buying something.  I would like to think that I would not be one of the 'crazies' if I didn't live here.  I also love working at Swiss Days.  There's just something cool about working together with fellow Midway residents, knowing that none of us are getting paid for our time.  This year I helped the youth with their assignment of cleaning off tables.  I ended up being on my own during the lunch hour.  It was pretty crazy, but time definitely passed quickly.  I even got to wipe off President Uchtdorf's table.  It took me a second to recognize him dressed all casual.  Good times.

A side note about Swiss Days.  It is put on by the church.  Thus the reason its not held on Sunday and there's no alcohol served.  Half of everything made by the food booths goes to the church.  And let me tell you, this is not a small amount.  So next time you spend lots of money on a swiss taco, you can feel a little better about where your money goes:)

To finish it all off we had our annual Swiss Days BBQ.  This year it was bigger than ever.  Both of our families came, and it was fun to have everyone here.  My neighbor made his super yummy smoked pork for us so I didn't even have to worry about too much food.  We all ate tons and then the women headed to swiss days while the men pulled kid duty.  In case you were wondering, Saturday evening is the best time to go to Swiss Days.  Way less crowds, and sometimes the vendors will even lower their prices.

So, another Swiss Days gone.  The end of summer.  And an end to our annual Swiss Days BBQ I think.  Its too busy of a weekend to ask people to come up here who wouldn't do so otherwise.  I think in the future we'll just open our house up to anyone who decides to come shop.  Hopefully everyone will stop by to say 'hello'.  Those of you who wouldn't come to Swiss Days without the BBQ can now truly enjoy your labor day weekend:)  Now, I'm off to enjoy a dinner made up mostly of things from our garden.  You gotta love fall:)