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...