see mom run

Our journey began Thursday when I packed up the car with luggage and kids and drove to Utah. Ryan had a closing argument Thursday night so he got to skip the ten hour drive and just fly up Friday morning. Here is Gwen in the Salt Lake airport rock climbing to pass the time as we waited for daddy.

One of the best things about being in Utah was getting to see cousins and take the kids to BYU! They LOVE BYU. They were not instructed to wear their BYU shirts, but picked them out this day because they knew we were going there.

And a trip to BYU would not be complete with out the kids rolling down the hill into the library basement windows. Finals were going on at the time, but the students inside were sure distracted from their studies by our rambunctious kids

Gwen wants to be an artist and have her paintings in a real art museum so bad! So we took her to see the Museum of Art at BYU to encourage her to go to BYU. Nothing wrong with that right? But I do believe I was not supposed to take a picture inside there. So don't tell.

Then we had to show the kids where mom and dad lived when we first got married. No, it was not inside this house. It was inside the basement apartment under this house. 400 square feet. Oh the joys of poor students. And yes...we're still poor students.

Then Saturday morning before the crack of dawn, Catherine and I geared up to run the Salt Lake marathon!!!!!!!

At mile two. Stripping off jackets and feeling GREAT!!

Mile nine. This was after our third uphill climb. Still feeling good mentally, but my left ankle is beginning to hurt. I pop two more Advils and count myself good for 17 more miles.

Mile 15. We run by our admiring fans high on running because we're more than half way there! Ankle hurts a little more, but I push through the pain because I'm running a MARATHON!!

Mile 19. Drake jumps out and starts to run too. I think it's cute and let him run a bit.

After almost a quarter mile, he's still trying to keep up and I tell him he needs to go back to daddy. He starts crying and says he wants to stay with me and grabs my hand.

Awww. Love my Buster Brown.

At 20 miles I was hurting pretty bad! We were at 3:12 so I figured even if we slowed to ten minute miles I should be able to finish right around 4:15 and I'd be happy with that. But at 22 miles the pain was excruciating! I sent Catherine on because I could hardly even jog anymore. It took me an hour and a half to do my last 6 miles! And honestly, mile 25 was just cruel. Pure uphill ugliness!!! So I barely hobbled across the finish with a time of 4:38:39. At least it should be pretty easy to improve on that time.

Gwen with Catherine's daughter Isabell. Couldn't they be sisters?!

My cheerleaders.

Check out the sweet shirts my fanclub were wearing. Ryan's says Team KRISTIN, and of course on the pocket, it labels him as the Captain.

And here I am. DUNZO!!!!!

McPhies and Griffiths.

Why am I holding so much junk in all these pictures? Oh, that other lady that Ryan's got his arm around is Colette. She's Kolby's mom and was so sweet to let us stay with her while we were there. Thank you Colette!!

Riding the train to the car. I'm starving and never want to stand up again!!

Marathon entry fee: $95

Gas to Salt Lake and back: $200

Clothes and shoes: $225

Peeing your pants while running a marathon: PRICELESS

My ankle immediately after is already beginning to swell.

Obligatory Beaver rocking chair picture.

And here's my ankle a day after. Still can't put any weight on it. Went to the Dr. today and am just waiting for him to get back to me about the x-rays. Crosssssssing my fingers it's just a sprain and I can start training for the SheRox triathlon next month!

It looks like an edema ankle. Just call me Cankle.

Taylor time

As I mentioned earlier, Tara came down with the chitlins for Easter and Aubrey's birthday. Andy was going to come too, but after their trip to Colorado, he figured he better not miss any more work. So sorry Andy, you missed out on a lot of fun!

Like the train park:



And Easter:

We made the girls little Easter skirts and the boys yellow bow ties.

Also, we had a big egg hunt at the park behind our house. When we hid the eggs the park was deserted. While we were waiting for mom et al. to arrive some punk kids came and collected all the filled eggs (and just smashed up the real eggs) so I ran after them and demanded them back and then we re-hid what was left. (which was about half) Stinky. :( But we still had a good hunt!

Then we went up to Aunt Kay's cabin:

Nature walks. The babies were tired.

The boys hugged it out.

And the kids were so excited to see snow!

Easter shirt tradition.

And sidenote- if you ever use fabric crayons to make a shirt,

if you wash the shirt, the crayon comes off.

6 more days!

Do you ever do a stupid thing even though you know it's stupid? I do all the time, but this time it's really stupid and super premeditated.

The SLC marathon is Saturday. This will be my first full since for the Nike Women's last year I was derailed with a stress fracture on my left tibia. So instead of the full I down stepped it to the half. Afterwards I was really upset I just didn't do the full anyway. So I signed up to do the Salt Lake marathon. Two weeks ago my toe started bothering me. I figured it was just a sprained toe since I did that before, went to the podiatrist and got a cortisone shot and was fine days later. So I made an appointment and went in for it again. Turns out it's not a sprain but my second metatarsal has a stress fracture and I have to wear this!
I've been running on it just fine though, so I'm still planning on doing the marathon this weekend. I've come this far, it's just a week away and I want to just get it done already! Afterwards I'll rest up really good (at least until the SheRox tri) and go back to the Dr. to get my bone density tested. Because seriously, what's up with the stress fractures!?!?

Also, Tara's been in town for the last week so expect a big picture post soon!

April's fool

Our morning started with Ryan getting the kids out of bed by telling them to come look because it was snowing outside! They were so excited and ran out to the front room to see. When they saw it wasn't, Gwen stormed back to her room and climbed back into bed.

But she cheered right up when I asked her if she wanted to play an April fools joke on her teachers.
We got an empty container and frosted it.
Then sprinkled it so it'd look like a cake. She was so cute giving it to Miss Nicki, and all the teachers thought it was a real cake! Joke's on them!
This is how Drake entertained himself today while I painted his room.
And we ended the day with eating a "snake" for desert. Here's the kids cutting up our peanut butter candy snake. They loved today. I can't tell you how many times I heard things like "Mommy!! There's a huge scorpion on your back!!", or "Mommy!! There's a mouse in your hair!!", or "Mommy, there's a cockroach on your back!!" It never got old. And of course the kids were busting up the whole time they were telling me. I'd play along and it'd just make them laugh harder. They love April Fools day.