I Am Not Stressed!!!

I I tried to find a different picture- oh well- Mom and Sage

I actually wrote this last year, but for some reason it got saved as a draft instead of being posted.  So here it is.  Just as applicable this year as last.

This is one of my family's favorite sayings.  We love it.  I am not stressed!!  Where did this come from?  Its not from a movie, or a book, its from my mom.  This is the story as I remember it (my siblings may remember differently).  It was Christmas time and Mom was busy with Christmas stuff just like we all are at this time of year.  I believe it was the year Mom decided to make a loaf of her famous homemade wheat bread for basically everyone in the ward.  Only Mom would have thought about conquering that all by herself.  If I remember right Greg walked in and saw her surrounded by loaves of bread.  Things were a mess and Mom was obviously frazzled.  Greg stated the obvious, "Mom, you look stressed."  Mom immediately said, "I am not stressed!!"  This was hilarious because it was so obviously not true.  Thus the phrase, "I am not stressed" that we now say at moments that have the most stress possible.  It always brings a little smile amidst whatever craziness is happening in the moment.

I love Christmas.  I try really hard not to make it a super stressful season.  But I've decided that the season in and of itself creates stress.  The pressure of trying to make Christmas memories, help your kids feel the Christmas spirit, remind them what Christmas is really about, get the perfect Christmas tree, and a million other things.  Somehow we're supposed do all of this with a smile on our face, Christmas music playing in the background, sweet smiling kids, and a fire in the fireplace.  Its no wonder why I feel stressed.  My desire to make the Christmas season memorable and enjoyable automatically creates stress.  So what's the solution?  Throw your hands in the air and forget trying to make Christmas so perfectly enjoyable?  I don't think so.  I think I need to remember that part of the fun memories that come from the holidays are the imperfect moments.  Let's face it, most of the stories my family loves telling involve imperfect moments.  That's what makes us smile and laugh in the years to come.

The past few years we've had the tradition of cutting down a Christmas tree.  This has been a great tradition, but it definitely hasn't been perfect.  This year Jake wondered why we should cut down a Christmas tree when it always involves stress and never turns out the way we want it to.  I informed him that the funny stories are what make the tradition great.  Where's the fun in having everything perfectly perfect?

So this year when you're running around shouting, "I am not stressed!!" remember that this is what its all about.  The memories of the crazy things we did to make our kids happy.  The memories of the Charlie Brown Christmas trees.  The memories of trying to make 100 loaves of bread.  Its all about the memories.

So yell "I am not stressed" as loud as you can, then make a fist and let it go.  Because this is what traditions are made of...

Non-Thanksgiving

the only picture I took - guess I was having too much fun...

We had our first annual (I hope) sibling non-Thanksgiving party.  It was so great.  All of the family in Utah (Dad, April, and Greg) brought their troops to our house last night for some partying.  Good times were had by all (I think).  We treated everyone to a true redneck party.  We showed them the barn, our trailer, sat around the fire pit, and took the kids for rides on the tractor.  This is what you do for fun in a small town.  Comments were made about how quiet it is here.  And that is why we're here and will never leave (well, that and lots of other great reasons).

Then we ate.  A lot.  Because that's what Spjutes do.  We decided to make all of our Mom favorites.  We had (be ready to drool) chicken rolls, stinky ham, mashed potatoes, crunchy salad, corn, meatloaf, and jello on lettuce leaves.  It was so great.  Just like old times.  My mom was the queen of comfort food.  My kids say I should cook like that all the time.  It was so fun to just hang out, laugh about crazy things we did in the past, and make new memories.  Hopefully we can do this more often:)

Better Late Than Never

Yes, its almost Thanksgiving and I'm finally putting up Hallween pics.  A little late I realize.  Oh well.  I thought about putting nothing, but decided I'd better document the event.  So here's one picture.  Zack was an angry bird, Kate was Tinker Bell, and Sage was spider girl.  Good times were had by all and the candy has been gone for a while...

Oreo!

We have another new member of the family.  This time its not a machine, but an animal.  A cat to be exact.  I'm not an animal person, yet this is the third animal we've had since we've been married.  Don't be too shocked though.  This is an outside only cat.  It has a bed and food in the garage and can come and go as it pleases.  We had mice last year.  In our house.  Not ok.  So I'm hoping to establish an outer perimeter that the mice can't get through.  Hopefully Oreo will be a great mouser.  If some mice do get past him, we'll just throw him in the crawl space and let them go at it.  Oreo is a super cute kitten right now.  Let's face it, even as a non-animal person, I think most animals are really cute as babies.  The problem is that they get big.  Then they're not so cute.  We shall see how this works.  Let's just say that I'd rather take care of a cat than empty mouse traps.  Yuck and double yuck.

Disneyland Surprise!!

Zack went back with me at night and got to meet Lightning and Mater

Huntington Beach

Disneyland is awesome during October

Sage loved seeing all the princesses

We love Monsters!

Cars Land was awesome

Our kids finally made it to Disneyland.  They're no longer poor, deprived children.  The best thing about our trip is that it wasn't planned.  Our fall break was last week, so we loaded up the kids and headed to St George for the weekend.  Or so we thought.  On Thursday morning Jake said,"lets go to Disneyland".  I immediately came up with a million reasons why we couldn't do that without planning. But then I came to my senses and realized we were past due for an adventure.  We were able to get a hotel room, so off we went.

We got to California Thursday afternoon and immediately headed to the beach.  It was too cold to swim, but we had lots of fun running around.  I was also able to eat the best mexican food ever.  So good.  Huntington Beach, called Fred's.  I highly recommend it.

Friday and Saturday were spent having great fun at Disneyland and California Adventure.  So great.  Zack loved all of the roller coasters.  Well, really he loved all the rides.  He's my ride buddy since Jake gets super sick on everything.  Zack even went on the Tower of Terror with me.  Although he refused to go on it twice due to possible "bad dreams".  Kate loved the tea cups - Grandma Lu would be proud.  Sage loved everything.  She was tall enough to go on most every ride but the big roller coasters.  That made her mad.  So we made a special trip to Toon Town just so she could go on a roller coaster.  Kate and Sage freaked out in the Bug's Life movie.  They were scared to death.  Pretty funny.  We all loved the cars race ride.  So great.  When we got out Sage said, "I had butterflies and snakes in my tummy.  The snakes are gone but I still have butterflies".  Awesome.  The Haunted Mansion was amazing with all of the Nightmare Before Christmas decorations.  We managed to go on Splash Mountain twice.  The first time Sage was crying after the big hill because she slid way down in her seat.  Poor girl.

Anyway, good times were had by everyone.  We were back home by Sunday evening.  We Jorgensons pack a lot of fun in a short amount of time.  In hind sight, the lack of anxiety and stress due to the last second trip was kind of awesome.  I highly recommend it.

Family Pictures!!

I finally got family pictures done.  Finally.  We've never done for reals family pictures.  How embarrassing I know.  I've always been super nervous about what we would wear and how we would look.  I'm so not good at that kind of thing.  But I decided it was time to go for it.  Now that they're over, I'm glad we did it.  Jake's cousin took the pictures.  I think he did a great job and he has really great prices, so let me know if you want his contact info.  Anyway, here are some of them for your enjoyment...

One Last Marathon

loving the downhill in the canyon

beautiful course right?

the finish line - I look like I want to die because I did

mile 18 - look how happy I am - feeling great - little did I know...

Ok, its probably not the last marathon ever.  But I, Laura, solemnly swear that I will not do a marathon in 2014.  So there.  One year off of marathons.  It will be good for me because I am officially burnt out.

You might remember that I trained super hard for the Ogden Marathon in May.  And it didn't go so well.  Not well at all.  I was super bummed after that race, so of course I decided to sign up for another marathon.  Yes, I was high on drugs.  Why did no one stop me?  Ok, probably because I'm kind of stubborn.  Anyway, because of the two marathons I feel like I've been training for a marathon for 9 months.  Oh wait, I have.  Needless to say, I was more than ready to be done with this marathon.  But I still trained hard because I wanted to have a good race.  I was hoping for a PR, but my main goal was just to keep going and not stop when I hit the wall.  I say when because the wall always comes.  Always.  I am, however, starting to realize that sometimes the wall is thin drywall and sometimes its a four foot thick concrete wall.  Those concrete walls kick my trash every time.

Anyway, I did the Big Cottonwood Marathon last week.  Loved the race.  We started at Guardsman Pass right above my house (that's right, no buses to the start line = awesomeness).  We ran down Big Cottonwood Canyon, wound through Holladay, and finished at Cottonwood High.  It was a beautiful course.  19 miles of pure downhill.  That's a lot of downhill.  So I trained on lots of downhill.  Or so I thought.  My quads started hurting at mile 14.  Just in case you're wondering, its not a good sign when your legs start hurting during a race.  This means lots and lots of pain later.  So I was cruising along on the downhill.  Faster than I would normally go, but believe me, tons of people took off way faster than me.  I wanted to take advantage of the downhill, but I also knew it might hurt me later in the race.  And it did.  We came out of the canyon and I hit mile 18 and 19 and felt great.  I mean great.  I thought I was for sure going to qualify for Boston, get a PR, everything.  And then at mile 20 I took a step, and ran right into a four foot thick concrete wall.  It hurt.  It hurt bad.  And I died the last 6 miles.  And now I am so mad at myself for dying the last 6 miles.  I thought I had prepared mentally (Jake would disagree with this).  I had music, quotes, everything I could think of to keep me going when I hit the wall.  And then I hit the wall and it all went out the window.  It makes me so mad.  MAD!!  WHY!!!  Why didn't I push through it?  It was only 6 miles.  45-50 minutes of running.  I should have been able to push through, and I didn't.  I don't know how to describe it if you haven't done a marathon or something like it.  When you hit the wall, even one mile seems like an eternity.  Its so painful.  But its also a mental game.  And I know that.  Your body can keep going if your mind can just override all of the pain signals its sending.  I thought I was prepared to do that, but apparently I wasn't.

I finished in 3:59.  I know that's not an awful time.  But I could have, and should have, finished faster.  The agony.  This time though, I'm at least smart enough to not turn around and sign up for another marathon.  I need a break and I know it.  But I really wish I was taking a break after a great race.  Oh well.  Its a learning experience right?  I learn something from every race I do.  This time I learned that I need to train my mental strength as much as I train physically.  The end.

PS - there are lots of pics because they gave us free race pics so I might as well use them right?

You Know You're A Redneck When...

This is our new family portrait

We are aspiring rednecks.  Every day we get a little bit closer.  It all started when we moved to Heber Valley.  Jake started listening to country, got a truck, and got a dog.  He's even been known to have his shotgun in the truck with him.  This is going too far if you ask me.  Then we got Tiny.  Because we don't live in Tiny, or keep Tiny in our front yard, I feel we're still not fully redneck.  Just aspiring.  Now we've added another to our family.  His name is Jack.  He is orange.  He is a tractor.  If you know tractors, like I unfortunately do, just by hearing the color you'll know its a Kubota.  Yes, apparently tractor brands pick a color and stick with it.  We choose orange.  Due to our status as 'aspiring rednecks', we include Jack in our family fun.  That's right, when we need something to do we all head out to take a ride on Jack.  The whole family is out there now, whooping up a storm on Jack.  Before you mock us, realize that this entertainment costs nothing.  Wait, just kidding.  This entertainment cost a pretty penny.  Feel free to mock us.  At least we're happy with the simple things.  I'm sure we'll continue aspiring to be rednecks.  Next we're building a barn.  This, I'm sure, will be followed by getting a dog, chickens, and probably a cow if Jake has his way.  In case you were wondering, yes, this is exactly how I pictured my life.  Exactly...

School Days!

Zack loves to be in pictures

Cutie Kate

I love Zack's face

The kids are back to school.  Pure craziness.  Zack and Kate are now at school all day and poor Sage is stuck with her mama.  We are planning some major play dates to keep her from going crazy.  I never realized that its kind of hard to be the youngest and the last one left at home.  Anyway, Zack and Kate...They had great days at school.  They both have great teachers with friends in their classes.  They wore pants the first day and today they both had shorts on because they remembered how hot it is.  Poor kids and poor teachers.  Zack is in fourth grade and Kate's in second.  It appears that fourth grade is a whole new world as far as homework is concerned.  Way more homework.  Way more.  Good thing Zack's smart or I might be hyperventilating.  Even though he's smart, I'm still a little worried.  Kate's a social butterfly and just happy to play with her friends again.  They're happy, so I'm happy.  Bring on another year!

One Last Birthday

This is what Sage looks like hiking - love it!

Our little fairy princess

We celebrated Sage's birthday last week.  The last of the summer birthdays.  Now I can die of exhaustion.  Ok, not really.  Let's face it, I'm not a crazy birthday person.  At all.  I mean, we do fun things, but certainly a lot less than most people.  My poor kids don't have birthday parties.  Because I'm a bad mom.  I'm so not good at parties, and the parties my kids go to seem to get more extravagant every time.  So I try to take them someplace cool instead.  They seem fine with it.  I'm sure when they have kids they'll throw huge birthday parties for them to make up for their party deprivation.  Just add it to the list of things I've done wrong as a mom.  Speaking of things I've done wrong...  Usually my kids ask me to decorate a cake for their birthday (castle, pirate ship, race car, etc).  This year the heavens smiled down on me because none of them wanted that kind of cake.  I don't mind making them cakes like that, but because their birthdays are so close together by the last cake I kind of want to poke my eyes out.  This year Zack wanted cupcakes with fruit, Kate wanted strawberry shortcake, and Sage wanted cupcakes with Oreos on them.  So I made her cupcakes and placed Oreos on them, just like she asked.  Well, she didn't like them.  Apparently I chose to make frosting that she didn't like, so she was unable to enjoy her birthday cupcakes.  Yes, I'm awesome.  So I bought her a fancy cupcake at the store to make up for it.  My poor, poor kids.  My talents are more towards the biking and running side of things.  I missed out on the important mom skills (cooking, sewing, crafting, etc, etc, etc).  Someday my kids will be so excited to run and bike with me, right?  And maybe someday I'll figure out some of those mom skills (probably not, but there's always hope right?).

Anyway, I digress, a lot.  Sage had a fun birthday.  We went camping, again.  We had a campfire, and Sage made up songs for us to sing.  Future songwriter here.  She's awesome.  She got dress-ups for her birthday, along with a stroller for her doll.  She walks around outside dressed like a princess pushing her stroller.  Yesterday she rode her bike dressed like a fairy.  Awesome.

PS - This weekend we are staying home.  We have hit vacation overload and decided all we wanted to do this weekend is stay home.  Home Sweet Home

Crazy July Happenings

I haven't posted for a while.  A long while.  Why?  Because I haven't had two seconds to breathe.  We have been soooo busy this summer.  Fun busy, but busy.  We've literally been running from one thing to the next.  And when I have a couple of days in between events I have to run myself to death trying to keep up on things around the house.  Its been pure craziness.  And pure fun.  Jake said we've never been this busy before.  And its true.  My sister Melanie has been here from Rhode Island, so we've been trying to cram a year's worth of fun into one month.  I think we've been quite successful actually.

I know you're dying to know what we've been up to.  So here goes...We went to Greg's cabin in Wyoming the first week of July.  There was some major four-wheeling done.  My kids now want a four-wheeler, among other things.  Apparently we're made of money.  The next week we were at my dad's for Farmington Festival Days.  Love this tradition.  We ran races, ate lots of food, and went to the parade.  Zack wore a sign that said "it's my birthday, throw me candy", and boy did they throw him candy.  He was in heaven.  Then we headed to a friend's cabin in Idaho for a few days. Best cabin ever.  Best weekend ever.  All of my siblings were actually there (too bad we didn't get a picture to document it).  There were pirate adventures, slip 'n slides, obstacle courses, and of course lots of food.  It was really hot so there was also more sitting around than normal (really I think we're just getting old).  From that party we went on a family camping trip with Tiny to the Uintas.  So great.  So beautiful.  When I die, bury me there.  This weekend we hit the Olympic Park in Park City, did the alpine slide, had a BBQ, celebrated birthdays, and went to the Heber rodeo.  This might sound like a lot, but there are a lot of things I didn't even include.  Thought I'd spare you endless details.  You can thank me later.

I feel bad that I didn't keep up with my posts because now there aren't any details on here.  Oh well.  I'm just happy I survived the last month.  Here are some pics of what we've been up to...

At the parade (the only pic of Zack on his b-day because I'm awesome)

sandcastles at the cabin

Pirate Sage

Camping fun

hiking Bald Mountain (no we didn't get to the top)

pirate adventures with Grandpa

All of the cousins

How many kids can you fit in a bobsled?

Happy Birthday Kate!

rodeo fun!

All Hail, Oh Mighty Fire Pit!!

ripping out the grass

The Fire Pit!

It is here.  Finally.  The fire pit we've been talking about for years.  Its done.  Easy peezy.  Ok, not easy at all really.  More like blood, sweat, and tears.  The first step involved Jake renting a mini excavator and ripping the grass out.  Where did the grass go?  Well, I'll tell you.  Jake would dump it in a wheelbarrow and I would run it to the dump trailer and throw it in.  After a couple of hours I thought I was maybe going to die.  I told Jake I was his mexican laborer (I apologize if that offends anyone) while he sat up in the tractor.  Good thing my dad had me move buckets of dirt as a kid.  Also a good thing I go to Cross Fit.  I told Jake he's lucky he married me because I don't know many women who could have done that.  Lest you think I'm exaggerating...when he took his dump trailer to dump it the grass weighed 2000 pounds.  That's right, 2000 pounds.  I'm amazing.  And don't think that Jake helped with most of it.  It was all me.

After this first step I will admit that Jake did most of the work.  We had to spread out gravel and then sand.  Jake had pity on me and moved those wheelbarrows, bless his heart.  Then the pavers went down, and now we have a fire pit.  Hooray!  This really was a family project.  Zack especially helped.  It makes me secretly giddy that Zack is big enough to actually, really help.  This child labor thing is amazing.

Now when it cools off at night, like it does in this paradise we live in, I just turn on the fire.  Did I mention it's a gas fire pit?  It is because we're too lazy to light fires frequently.  I figured to get our money's worth I better make it as easy as possible.

So, consider yourself invited to our amazing fire pit.  Wander over any night.  We will be chilling (or should I say warming) by the fire, most likely eating ice cream:)

Daredevil Girl

Sage waterskiing - so cool!

Last week I was gone at girls' camp for a few days (in case you were wondering, I love love love girls camp - I would go every year if possible).  While I was gone Sage decided to make giant strides forward in her activities of choice.

Sage has been slowly working on riding her pedal bike for a while now.  On Monday she finally got serious about it and figured it out.  On Wednesday night there was a kids mountain bike race at Soldier Hollow.  The same one Zack and Kate have done before.  Well, apparently Sage spent the day at my friend's practicing her uphill bike skills so she could do the race.  Yes, she practiced.  For the race.  My three-year-old.  She was apparently quite serious about it.  So she got to the race and took off up the hill with all the other kids.  Didn't even look back.  She had a small wreck, but in her words, "I was ok because I had my helmet on."  First mountain bike race?  Check.  Took me thirty-four years to do my first race...

The next day my awesome friends took my kids out on their boat.  We used to have a boat, but Sage was a baby when we sold it, so its not like she has lots of experience boating.  She loved it.  All of my kids did (now they want to get rid of Tiny and get a boat - whatever).  My friends have an EZ-ski kids waterski thing and some of the kids were doing it.  Sage told them she wanted to go, so off she went.  Big grin on her face.  No fear.  Waterskiing?  Check.

Yes, Sage is definitely more adventurous than Zack and Kate.  She seems to have suddenly become more confident and willing to try new things.  This is new territory for me.  It scares me to death and I think its awesome all at the same time.  Stay tuned for more stories as I'm sure this is just the beginning...

We Love Moab!!!

The Fam on main street

4-Wheeling Cuties

Cutie-Kate

I think we've gone to Moab more than any other vacation spot.  You'd think we'd run out of things to do, but no.  I think we could go a bajillion times and not run out of new things.  The kids love it.  Jake and I love it.  What more can we ask for?

Greg and Tracy managed to get every single kid to Moab.  An amazing feat if I do say so myself.  They made it even better by paying for all of us to stay in a hotel.  Awesome, right?  Jake and I had a hard time wrapping our brains around the words 'Moab' and 'hotel' being used in the same sentence.  This is a foreign concept to us, so we were a bit hesitant.  Not to worry though.  Moab is even fun in a hotel!  Yes, it's true.  It was good fun at that.  We even managed to walk on Main Street and check out some of the fun stores.  Jake's been to Moab like a million times and hasn't ever managed to do that.  He even bought a Moab hat, which I think is well deserved when you've been to Moab as many times as he has.

We did all kinds of fun things.  Tracy even managed to bring skotcheroos (I have no idea how to spell that) to Moab.  These treats are at every gathering we have.  Good thing too because they're delicious.  Anyway, we did do things besides eat good food.  We went on a fun new hike that was short enough that even Sage made it.  At the end of the hike?  A pool of water to play in.  How can life get better than that?  The cold water felt so good.  The best part of the hike was when all of the moms who were there flung ourselves off the tower of death.  Notice I said the moms, not the dads.  That's right.  The "men" were too scared.  We showed them.  It was like 100 feet high, and we jumped off like it was nothing.  Okay, I might be exaggerating.  Just a little.  It really wasn't super high, but I've never done anything like that before so it scared me plenty.  I was still amazing though, don't worry.

Tracy decided to continue to be amazing and watched our kids so we could go mountain biking with Brandon and Laura.  We do stuff with them like twice a year.  Its lame.  Anyway, yes we went mountain biking in the middle of the afternoon.  In the blazing sun.  Why wouldn't we?  Brandon and Laura had to rent bikes.  The first place we went to the lady wouldn't give them to us.  She said it was a bad time of day to go and people die every year of dehydration in Moab.  Not to be deterred we just continued down the road to the next bike rental place.  They were more than happy to take our money (or should I say Brandon and Laura's money).  This was Laura's first experience mountain biking.  She did awesome.  We all had good fun and didn't even die.  We're amazing.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough.  Other high-lights of the trip were 4-wheeling, Jake and Zack mountain biking, swimming at the hotel, 4-wheeling in the Pilot, and all kinds of other fun things.  Kate was so tired she was actually asking to go home.  A sign that we played hard.

PS - I don't have many pics because the rest are on Jake's phone and it could be years before I take the time to get them...

Mom of the Year and Other Stuff

Pics from our last camping trip

cute kids

Sagie Lou

Summer is officially here.  The kids are out of school thus I am now expected to entertain them with super fun activities all day long.  Good times.  No really, I do love summer.  For example, summer mornings are the best.  The best.  No more rushing, dragging the kids out of bed, throwing lunches together, etc., etc.  This morning I let the kids wake up when they wanted to wake up.  Fabulous for all parties.  They still had to do chores, but I didn't care when they got them done.  Again, fabulous.  I am being the mean mom this summer.  They WILL be doing some kind of school something every day.  I'm also getting them going with more chores around the house.  Don't get me wrong, they always have chores.  But during the school year I do back off a bit because they're so busy with everything else.  This summer?  Be prepared to work kids.  Zack's been doing the laundry today, Kate dusted, and there will be more, much more.  Vacuuming, sweeping, loading the dishwasher, weeding, weeding, and more weeding.  Just trying to keep up the Spjute tradition of weeding our brains out.  Spjutes excel at weeding.  It is vitally important that I pass this gift on to my kids.

Now, to the good mom part.  My kids brought lots of papers home from school last week.  Lots of papers.  Like why in the world did they have so many papers at school?  One of the many papers was some paper that said "unplugged" at the top.  I admit, there were so many papers that I glanced at it and then went on my merry way.  Then I started hearing whisperings of a cool community unplugged program.  So I looked it up online and what do you know?  It was super cool.  So I asked Zack and Kate if they had heard about it.  Oh yes, they knew all about it.  Kate even came home with a lanyard (I had no idea this is what they were called - I called them necklace things) for her brag tags.  (click on the above link if you want to see what brag tags are)  So I asked Zack why he didn't have a lanyard.  He said, "I could have gotten one but we don't usually do things like that so I didn't take it.  I figured we wouldn't do it."  Yes, I am the mother of the year.  Apparently we never participate in things like this.  I can't think of anything that we haven't participated in, but in Zack's mind we don't do cool things like this.  Just a quick reality check in case I was actually starting to feel like I'm a good mom.

Anyhow, this summer we will be earning brag tags, spending more time than I would like at Seven Peaks, and lets not forget Tiny.  Tiny will be a big part of our family this summer.  Let's hear it for summer!!!

ps - I think I see a salesman coming down the street.  The bad part of summer.  Got to run so it looks like I'm not home...

She Remembers

One of the things I hate most about Linz and Mom being gone is that my kids don't really remember them.  They were so little when everything happened that their memories of them are limited.  So it makes me really happy when they say or do things that show that they really do remember.

Yesterday Kate brought home her writing journal she's been using all year.  I was flipping through it and came to this page:

I know you can't really read this, so let me translate.  The top of the page says, "Think of someone who has made an impact on your life.  What makes them so special?"  Then it says, "Who is your inspiration or who has made an impact on your life?"  Kate wrote, "Grandma".  I asked her which grandma and she said Grandma Lou (that's what we call my mom).

In the three stars below she listed reasons why she thinks this person is special.  She wrote, "she taught me how to read, she believed that I could read, and because she likes to play with me."  The back of the page says, "Give one example of a memory with this person."  She drew a picture of my mom reading to her.

This just makes me happy.  Kate and my mom did have a sweet relationship.  I just love that when Kate had to choose someone who's made an impact on her life she chose my mom, even though Kate was only three when she passed away.  I love, love, love that my mom is still impacting my kids lives.  Love it.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

The Medal.  I wore it all day yesterday (just kidding)

This has become my motto of late.  I really do believe it, even though I don't like it sometimes.  I kept this running through my head yesterday while I ran the Ogden Marathon.  I trained harder for it than I have for any of my other marathons because I wanted to qualify for Boston.  I've been feeling super strong and thought I was ready for the race of my life.  Well, it didn't happen.  The Ogden Marathon chewed me up and spit me out...again.  I've only taken over four hours on one other marathon, and it was the Ogden.  Apparently it is not the marathon for me.  Ogden Marathon two, Laura zero.  Point taken.  I admit defeat and officially declare that I won't be running the Ogden Marathon again.  So there.

What happened?  Well, I can only speculate but I do have my theories.  I know you're dying to hear.  First, the weather.  Oh the weather.  The week before the marathon they sent out an email saying it looked like it was going to be really hot for the race, so practice running in the heat.  Well, they were wrong.  Oh so wrong.  It wasn't hot, which if you have Spjute genes that's a good thing.  But it rained.  A lot.  The whole time.  I've never been so wet and cold in my entire life.  Ever.  In my whole thirty-five years.  For reals.  Have I made myself clear?  IT WAS COLD!!!  I could barely open my gels because my hands were so cold.  Props to the volunteers for helping even though it was dumping rain.  I was impressed.  My clothes were so wet I was probably carrying an extra five pounds of water.  I think every runner was probably in the early stages of hypothermia.  I started shivering on the way home and didn't stop until I climbed in the tub.  So cold.

I would love to blame my awful performance solely on the weather, which is out of my control.  But if I'm really being honest I have to admit that I hold some blame.  Let's put it out there that sometimes you just have a bad race.  No matter what you do, how ready you are, sometimes it just happens.  But in analyzing and trying to learn from the race so that something good might possibly come, this is what I've decided.  I went out too fast.  I know, millions of runners say this.  I know this can be a problem, so I was watching my pace.  But in hindsight (20/20 I know) I think I should have held back even more.  Miles 8-15 have quite a few hills.  I should have gone a lot slower and tried to make up the difference on the downhill in the canyon.  And that's all I have to say about that.  What's done is done, whether I like it or not (and I don't).

So there you go, my awesome race in a nutshell.  When did I finish?  A spectacular 4:08.  I know, I know.  Just running a marathon is an accomplishment.  And I'm happy I finished.  But I've finished marathons before.  This time I wanted to finish fast (well, fast for me).  It just wasn't to be.  Wasn't in the stars.  A bad race.  An off day.  Crappy weather.  Any excuse that takes the blame off of me is acceptable really.  In the midst of my pain yesterday (because it was painful) I vowed to never run again.  Really.  I've never thought that before, that's how much pain I was in.  Now, in the light of a new day, I think, "Am I a quitter?"  "No!"  "Am I going to give up on Boston?"  "No!"  So that's why I'm already planning my next marathon in September.  The Big Cottonwood Marathon.  Its pretty much all downhill, so I've at least learned my lesson there.  I'm sure you're wondering why in the world I would put myself through this pain again.  I can't explain it, but if you've done marathons or anything like it you understand.  There's just something about crossing the finish line of a marathon.  Agonizing and wonderful all at the same time.  And I just can't stand to stop marathoning on such a bad note.  Unacceptable really.  So I guess I'll give it a shot again.  Boston or bust right?

PS - I have not a single picture of myself running yesterday.  And I am totally happy with that.  Thrilled really.  I'm sure I looked even worse than a wet dog.  Ugh.  On a side note...Jake said there were some girls who crossed the finish line with mascara all over their faces.  Really?  You wake up at o-dark-hundred to put makeup on?  Before a marathon?  Well, (and I say this with all the love in my heart) you deserve to finish with mascara all over your face.  Seriously.  If any of you are offended by this, just remember that Jake seeing these mascara-covered girls means they finished before me.  Maybe that was my problem...no makeup.

Zack is the Man

Getting ready to start - ok, so there wasn't a lot of competition - we take what we can get

Getting ready to launch

I have amazing camera skills

Proud Zack with his rocket

Zack isn't into team sports, and I'm down with that.  Jake and I are both more solo sport kind of people...antisocial to the core I guess.  Anyhow, during the winter Zack loved skiing, and now that summer's here he's really digging mountain biking.  I love it.  Last night was a kids mountain bike race (yes, these are the kinds of things we do in Midway...we're cool, I know).  Zack was so excited to ride his bike.  You could do one, two, or three laps.  Zack did three.

Quick side note:  Kate also raced - on her Walmart bike with no gears.  She was supposed to do two laps, but was happy to stop after one.  She doesn't have a competitive bone in her body, but she is one determined girl.

Back to Zack...He won the race, by a lot.  I was proud, but he was even more proud.  He's been telling everyone that he won.  He insists that he wasn't trying to win, but there was a definite competitive look in his eye while he was racing.  I've never seen that on him before, so it made me happy.  Good times mountain biking.  Yet another thing that my kids will be better at than I am.

Today at school Zack got to launch his rocket.  He's worked hard all year to be able to do this and was super excited.  These little rockets shoot up really high.  Zack painted his rocket orange, his favorite color.  Good times for Zack.  He is, most definitely, The Man.