Eden's Birthday

We celebrated Eden's birthday Sunday night since we knew Halloween would be a full day.

She got lots of girly presents that "all" the girls were excited about.

She asked for "pumpkin pie" for her cake this year.

Five things I love about Eden:

1.  She is really good at gymnastics.  I love watching her do pullovers on the bar.  It's exciting every time.

2.  She has a crazy laugh that's contagious.

3.  She's a really good friend.  She told me about a girl who moved into her class a few weeks after school started.  Eden was one of the first ones to welcome her and be her friend.  The girl had been through some rough things and I appreciated knowing that Eden became her friend right away.

4.  She's very helpful.

5.  She loves to be loved.  She loves giving hugs and kisses and wrapping her arms around each of her brothers and sisters.  She's such a beautiful girl inside and out.

Halloween Half Marathon

For the past few months I've been training for my first half marathon.  I chose the Halloween half on October 29th because it sounded fun and I liked the idea of doing a downhill run (what did I know).  I trained by adding a mile a week starting at 6 miles.  It was challenging but mostly because it was hard to always find the time for the longer runs.  Running at 5 am wasn't my favorite thing.

My friend Kelly decided to run the half with me and started training (with only 6 weeks until the race!) with her neighbor Kim and her sister in law Tricia.  I joined them for some of their longer runs on Saturday mornings.  

Friday night we got together to drive the course, have dinner, and pick up our packets.  The line was crazy long and that was my first glimpse at how many people would be running the race.  I started feeling really nervous.

The morning of the race we were supposed to meet at the University Mall and catch a bus up to Aspen Grove where the race would start.  I decided the night before to go up a little earlier with my neighbor Kristen who was also running the race.  We got up to Aspen Grove at 6 am. They were supposed to have a heated tent where we could all hang out until the race started but when we got off the bus it was dark and there was no one to show us where to go. It was below freezing. The crowd eventually made it's way along a dark path that did indeed lead to a tent but it was not very warm. My friend and I huddled in her blanket until a few more thousand people showed up and the tent got warm.

 

Kelly, Kim and Tricia showed up about 30 min. later along with my brother Adam.  I started feeling more excited and even more nervous.  Kelly had bought wings for us to wear and brought face paint.  I was a little hesitant about wearing face paint myself since I could just picture it smearing all over the place half way through the run but I didn't mind helping them out with theirs.  I did get a little eye shadow.  Next year I'll try to get more into the spirit of the race.  I was too nervous to think about being silly this time.  My longest run so far was only 11 miles and I had been feeling a little under the weather all week.  I honestly didn't know what to expect.

I did batwings for Tricia that I think turned out pretty well.

There were about 4,000 people total that ran in the race. They had two groups, one started at 9:00 am and the slower group started at 9:20 am. We were in the 9:20 group. The first 4.5 miles flew by. I could tell it was hard on my legs but we were going so fast downhill and I felt pretty good so I didn't worry about it. My calves were tight but I thought I could run through it. The next 8 some miles after the steep hill were brutal but I managed to run the whole thing without stopping. I had some Gu and some Hammer water while I kept running. I stopped to walk once but a lady behind me asked me to keep going because she was following me. That was just the motivation I needed to keep chugging along. I was very tired by mile 11 but tried to mentally overcome it.  Around mile 12 Ryan called and asked if I was about 5 min. away. I almost lost it and tried not to cry while I managed to squeak out that I was maybe 15 min. away. As I was coming around the last turn and saw Ryan and the kids I felt like all the tears I was holding back would come bursting forth. I was exhausted, hungry, and my legs felt like jello. That was the longest part of the whole race. There were so many people crowding the finish line and I just wanted it to be over.

When I finally made it across the finish line I was afraid to even walk because I thought I would collapse. And I was starving! I grabbed a handful of oranges and then I saw the kids and my sister in law Joy (who also ran the race) and I lost it. She hugged me while I cried and cried.  I felt so overwhelmed physically and emotionally.  After a few minutes the adrenaline kicked back in and I started to feel better.  

My friends came in about 5 min. after I did. They have a tendency to stop for water breaks and I was afraid if I stopped I would never get going again. I kept thinking they would catch up to me because they're pretty fast but they didn't.  

The strangest part was that I kept looking for Adam at the finish line. He and I ran together for the first mile and then he took off. He looked like he was feeling great and I thought for sure he was going to finish way before me. When he came limping up after the race I was really worried but it turned out he just had sore muscles like I did. I guess he got stuck at the bathroom. It was fun having him there, though, and even better to have someone to commiserate with on Sunday when I felt like my legs were two big bruises with feet attached.

It was a pretty cool race and especially fun to see all the funny costumes people ran in. Maybe I can get better at these long runs and do this again next year without feeling like I'm going to die.  I finished with a time of 2:21.  I figured with my typical pace I would finish around 2:30 but hoped the downhill would make me faster.  I guess it did.  But it also blew out all my muscles.  I couldn't walk for three days.

Trick or Treat at Novell

Every year Novell invites children to come trick or treat.  I got the kids all dressed up and dropped them off with Dad so I could pick up my packet with the ladies for my big race the next day.  It looks like they had a lot of fun.

Austin was Darth Vader.

Eden was a half angel, half devil.  Cameron was an inmate with a mullet and scary face.  Evelyn was a butterfly in a tootoo (I don't know, it was something she could wear in a pinch).  Dallin wore his Ranger's Apprentice cape because I refused to buy him a new costume this year.  He's twelve, shouldn't he be done trick or treating?

San Francisco

As you already know I got to go with Ryan on his business trip to San Francisco from October 23-27. Here's the room we got upgraded to because we mentioned we wanted a fridge I could put milk in for my breakfast in the morning.  It came with an entire kitchen, washer/dryer, dining area, living area, small office and bedroom.  

And it had an amazing view...

We stayed in the heart of downtown SF and had a blast finding hole in the wall places to eat that were rated 4 stars or higher with our Yelp app.  But mostly I stayed in the room and got caught up on my blog.  I did 27 posts in 2 days!  It was thrilling (but it also gave me a headache).

Tuesday night Ryan was done with meetings by 4 so we decided to walk to Chinatown for dinner.  We picked up souvenirs for the kids along the way mostly in the form of warm hats for winter.  After dinner we were still looking for something cute for Evelyn when we noticed these...

We got Evelyn the one on the bottom right and talked to the lady that worked there for half an hour.  When I told her I had five kids she said, "You Crazy!  Me, I had three kids, and they made me Crazy, just crazy.  You have too many, you go crazy!" I'm still laughing about that.  She was so cute.  Usually those store owners try to talk to you so they can convince you to buy more but as we left she said, "Wait, you forgot your free gift."  And she gave us a sweet little paper fan.  I told her I would put her hats on my blog in case anyone was interested in them (I have her business card with her number).  They are all hand made by her sister in law and mother in law.  According to her she says, "They don't speak English, they have nothing better to do."  She was seriously hilarious.  She also said, "I tell them to make Angry Birds, they say, what's Angry Birds?"

Wednesday morning Ryan and I decided to rent a car so we could go across the Golden Gate Bridge and see what was on the other side.  The rental places were sold out or wanted to charge $100 until I mentioned to one that Ryan had a gold card.  We got a car for $50, walked a block to the rental place, and listened in line for a minute while they turned people away because they were sold out.

We drove across the bridge and had lunch at a great little Greek Deli in Sausilito (thanks again Yelp).  Then we headed up the highway to find some lighthouse Ryan wanted to see that was only 30 miles away.  When I plugged it in to my navigator it said to get off the freeway at the next exit (crazy lucky) and drive for an hour and a half!  It was a cool drive, though, so we didn't mind.

The Point-Reyes lighthouse.  It was way out in the middle of nowhere.

We drove down Hwy 1 back towards the bridge and decided to take a detour at Mount Tamalpais State Park hoping we would find some Redwood trees.

And there they were...

We just don't have trees like this in Utah.

On our way back to the bridge we stopped by Muir Park to see more cool trees.  By this point I was feeling really carsick, though and ready to get back to the hotel.

It was a really great trip and a wonderful break.  And what did my kids do while we were gone?  They played with my sister Breanne, her husband Michael, and their little girl Jane.

I got texts like these from Breanne...

Just so I wouldn't forget to miss my cute kids.

Little Mozart

Cameron thought this was pretty annoying but we thought it was pretty cute.

Pictures taken Sunday October 23.

6th Grade Egyptian Projects

These projects are pretty much my 6th grade nightmare.  Because Dallin did this last year I was all too aware of how much work it was going to take.  The students are given a list of crafts to do or papers to write that they can complete for anywhere from 10 to 25 points.  They need a total of 75 points worth of projects.  Cameron was given her assignment while we were in Moab and had two weeks to complete it.  Unfortunately it was a very busy two weeks so she squeezed it in whenever we happened to be home.

She ended up making a Sphinx out of two packages of air dry clay, a Pyramid out of rice crispy treats, and two posters, one depicting five types of Egyptian jewelry and another showing an egyptian picture with hieroglyphs.  It was hours worth of work.

We had to take one more picture before she threw these away.  It's hard to do all that work and then toss it in the trash.

Pictures taken on October 19

The Pumpkin Patch

On Tuesday October 18th we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.