Catch Up

When I try to play catch up, its never very pretty! Here are some special moments I wanted to still have documented:

First Annual Ugly Sweater Neighborhood Christmas Party!

Family Christmas time. We had a fun/funny night re-enacting the Baby Jesus' birth and later opening pajamas.

Aunt Cara had a little fun teasing Sidney!

December. We went sledding with friends when we stayed overnight in their cabin!

Halloween. This year, we went trick or treating at Ben's sister's house with cousins. I didn't get pictures of the older kids there, because they were literally running from house to house (there was even a house that gave out 1 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to each kid).

Jane is the orange and black witch, Sidney is a ladybug, Alex is Harry Potter (ever since he got his glasses he has been talking about his costume), and Ashlyn is Hermione.
My camera was having problems at the school, so the pictures are pretty strange looking.

October Las Vegas Ragnar Relay.

Ben and I ran on the same team, but were in different vans (boys van/ girls van). We were the White Tigers of Siegfried and Roy (rar)!
The boys got shirts. They have a great story about how they went to Walmart wishing they'd get lucky enought to find some "sweet" tiger shirts. They were only a few minutes late to start running! No big thing for the White Tigers, we still made it in at 28 hours! That is a bit of a joke for competitive runners, but we were proud we finished. Three of us girls each took an extra leg since we had a last-minute drop out. So instead of stopping at the exchange point, we just kept running. Again, we are glad we finished!

Big deal

I am officially done with my hiatus from blogging!!!
Now, the smart thing to do after not blogging for SEVEN MONTHS would be to start where I am and move forward.
Unfortunately, I feel that after pouring my whole heart and soul into my last post, it would be a major let down to myself to move on in January and ignore this monumental (for me) entry. I am ready to update my life now, but I cannot ignore this post and had to put it in order (one of the many reasons I waited so long to blog)

So, after training and running my first 10k, feeling like a champ, I ran The Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay in June, 2009. We had a team made up of friends in our area, we each picked the "leg" we wanted back in January, just as I had started running on the treadmill and killing myself to run faster than 11 minute miles. I chose then to be runner 12, which had a 3.1 mile "very hard" 1st run, then a 5.2 mile "hard" 2nd run, and ended with a 5.1mile "easy". * When Ben ran this race the year before I did comment on the genius categorizing. Honestly,"easy" was a loosely used term.

The night before I ended up trading with another team member, so I was runner 11, running 3.8 "very hard", 7.3 "hard" and 7.3 "very hard." This is me with Jenn, Michelle, and Ceri (team members) right before I was to run my first leg. I started the run up to Snow Basin, the mountain looked daunting, but whether I was running 11 or 12, that run was going to be beastly! Embarrassing how white and weak I look, but I was running up a canyon, and I still feel like a champion for it! This is why I posted my last post about how I'd like to look when I run...
This is most of our team after our first run (at the top of Snow Basin) Ben and I at the top of Snow Basin. Ben ran as part of the team, "2 fats, 10 furious."

I am running my last leg. The snow was pelting down on my face, but at this point I felt fantastic, because the 30ish hour relay was almost done! About 2.0 miles from my finishing point, my left knee started to really hurt. More than my IT band injuries...later found it to be due to my patela tracking wrong and causing harm to the joint. All for the run. The finish line! The race was actually cancelled due to the awful storm. It was so rainy and windy, all the festivities were closed down. We were one of the last teams they let finish. It was a great, cold, wet, moment! I just want to give a shout out for the Mom Jeans ladies! We pushed, endured, and triumphed!

One treat: our team got an award (there are only about 6 awards given, out of 650ish teams). We got props for Best Costume! We all wore above-belly-button-waisted jeans and shirts that said, No More Mom Jeans.

If you are not familiar with "mom jeans" check out this SNL clip that gave us our idea! Just wish we would have worn applique vests as well!