Nike Women's Marathon 2010

Oh man. This was awesome! Did you know my bones are like chalk? I mean really, everytime I try to prepare for a marathon I get hurt. So this time was no different. This time my right foot. So do you know what I did? I took the last 2.5 weeks off from running! And I babied my foot. I even wore my boot! And it totally helped!
So cool things about this run. It's in San Francisco, it's all (well mostly) girls, and you get a Tiffany's necklace for a finishers medal!!
Here I am again with my name on the wall of Nike Town in down town SanFran. It's real, I'm gonna do it. Oh haha. I just said DO IT, and that's Nike's motto, and it was while I was talking about my name on Nike's wall for the Nike marathon, okay I'll stop now. And is my face really this big in real life?

And here I am shaking because I'm so cold standing on some parking garage in down town San Francisco at 6:00 am. Can You Still Feel the Butterflies. (throwin' in a little Eat World tribute)
But here's what's even crazier. My Ry-man and Buster Brown are up with me in the coldness to cheer me on! What a lucky girl I am to have these boys supporting me!!

And as soon as we got there, I got in the humungo line for the porta potties. And low and behold, here I am STILL when the gun goes off for the race to start! That's me in the middle of the picture with the pink socks. In line for the bathroom. Race started.
But I snuck over to the front and was able to start only seven minutes later! Probably before the rest of the people in my coral even.
Cute cheerleader son in his See Mommy Run shirt.
Golden Gate bridge in the background, around mile 6. And yep, it really is that big. My face, not the bridge.
Here I am giving my little man a smooch at mile 16. Ten to go!
Oh ya, did I mention how cold this was? Not too bad for me since I was running (although my feet were soaked and numbed out which actually was good because after ten miles my foot didn't hurt anymore!), but my sweet boys sat in the freezing cold rain to cheer me on!! I mean look how ominous the sky is! And when the wind would blow over the ocean?! Fa-reez-ing!
But they had fun still. Just goofin' off.


And Drakey always finding a dog to pet. He wants a doggy so bad!
but the long wait is finally over! Here I am coming in for the finish! And Tara, Andrew, Gwen, Drake, Aubrey and even baby Leo made it out for it! Don't I have the best family?!
And the only post race photo since again, it was sooo cold, and the kids were anxious to get warm.
And here's my Tiffany's necklace handed to me by a fireman in a tuxedo. Seriously.
So I finished. Which I'm happy about. I let go of any time goals since my training was minimal at best, but I was still able to beat my SLC Marathon time! It helped not having torn ligaments in my ankle this time. ;)

And then after the marathon, we showered, ate, packed up, hugged the Taylors good bye and drove home!!! Made it home at 5:00 this morning. Just enough time to get 2.5 hours of sleep and make it to my morning class. But walking isn't such a successful story. My knees don't like me right now. I can't blame them. San Fran hills are brutal.

Baby Leo!!

After we spent a few days in Sacramento, we headed out to Concord to spend some times with the Taylors, and meet the newest one, Leo. The kids loved him! (And notice Gwen's black eye that we have no idea how she got)

And I loved him too! Remember you have three years of school Kristin. There will be no time for a baby. Even a sweet scrumptious little boy like Leo. :(
These boys had a great time together too. They got along so well and loved all the wrestling they got to do. Ryan flew out Wednesday morning so although he's not pictured (yet) he was there too, and he loved him some Aubrey! This little girl was so dang sweet to him. Oh yah, I don't know what got into Drake, but he was busting out some sweet dance moves all week! Here he is showing off in the middle of the street. I like to call this move the Chris Angel.
We went to Half Moon Bay for their Pumpkin Festival. Holy smokes! We sat in traffic FOR-EVER to get there and get out! Honestly, at one point it took us 45 minutes to move maybe 100 yards!! Pure torture. But while we were there, we got to see Farmer Dave carve Megamind in a giant pumpkin. We had a hunky dory time eating over priced food and going through an over priced "Haunted House".

Apple Hill

Okay, here's the dealio. Alotta updating to do, and alotta Contracts reading to do. The blog wins, my grades will suffer.

Last Monday, the kids and I made the llllloooonnnngggg drive up to Sacramento. We had fun though. I love road trips! I mean come on, who doesn't love eating junk food all day while jamming out to Bon Jovi and Let's Play Music songs, and seeing how long you can go with the gas light on?


Then Tuesday we went with Grammy up to Apple Hill. It's this darling area in the hills where there are a whole bunch of apple orchards. And of course my little monkey had to climb a few apple trees.

Could you just die? Look at my sweet little boy with his puffy hair all a glow.

How about this one, look at Drake's face. He was surprised when he realized that he was actually holding the horse and the horse was trying to walk away.

two little monkeys hanging from a tree

This morning at 7:00, I was getting dressed and thought the house was awfully quiet. I went to go see what the kids were up to and couldn't find them anywhere in the house. I checked outside, and sure enough, they were out there...in a tree! They have recently discovered climbing trees, and now they spend most of there time in them. The orange tree is too scratchy, so they climb whatever this one is in the front yard.

It's pretty cool how it's toughened them up. My kids cry and need a band aid over any little poke, but now they're covered in scratches! And, no band aids, no whining.
Drake tells me he's going to bring his pillow up and live in the tree. He's my little Mowgli. But it's Gwen who's the super star climber. She got all the way to the top, where the branches don't even look like they could support her weight, and her little head was poking out of the top of the tree. I'm crossing my fingers we won't be in the ER anytime soon.

who loves Sparky?

Last weekend we got to go to the ASU football game and watch them get spanked by Oregon. We brought the kids, and it was funny! And hot!! It was still over 100º when the game started at 7:30. This heat wave is killing me. It reminds me of the last 400 meters of a race, your exhausted and just pushing as hard as you can because you can see the end. Well we're exhausted from the summer and the cooler weather is supposed to be here and we're just holding on for the end of temps over 100.
It's just odd being at an ASU game, and having your 6 year old stand up and yell to everyone, "if you love Sparky raise your hand!"... several times. BYU I can picture it. But SKANK.S.U? Also, she'd start cheering "A-S-U" and then it'd morph into "U-S-A!" I just love that girl.
The kids loved the game, which is good but also worrisome. We're still working on brainwashing them to love BYU the most.
Once when I was doing my brainwashing routine and asked Gwen where she was going to go to college, she said ASU. I was shocked, the kids have always said BYU in the past. I said, "you mean BYU right?" And she said, "but you and daddy go to ASU". Touche. So I explained to her that undergrad is BYU or an ivy league school, and then she could go anywhere (like ASU) for grad work. I know. We're bad.

The kids took their turn with the camera:











And this was just before Drake got a high five from Sparky. He loved it. And again worry. Need to get them to love Cosmo more than Sparky. ;)