Salt Lake City Marathon

As many of you know Alex ran the Salt Lake City Marathon last Saturday.  It was so much fun watching him along the way.  We woke up at 4:00am so we could be to the start line by six.  I felt so cool tagging along with him all morning, helping him stretch and get ready for the race!  When we first arrived to University of Utah, it was raining pretty hard and Alex said to me, "can we just go home and go back to bed?"  I think that was just nerves talking.



   

And he's off!


I have to thank my dad for getting up early and being there at the start line and driving me around every couple of miles to see Alex.  It broke my dad's heart that he wasn't running this race. 

Mile 6.  If you look close enough he is still happy and smiling.  He told me at this point, "I feel great!"....I thought, we'll see if he still feels that way in 9 miles!

Mile 11.5.  Still feeling good...

Mile 14.  My mom and sisters met us at mile 14.  McCall made these hilarious posters that seemed to cheer up the runners.  Alex was laughing pretty hard when he saw them!   

Mile 18.  This is when I started to worry because he kept saying that he was uncomfortable. 

Mile 20.  This spectator decided to wear his belly shirt and play his cow bell!  More cow bell!

I think this is about mile 22.  So many participants looked like they were going to die here.  Alex' parents were at Liberty Park and he was so excited to see them.

THE FINISH!  He finish in 5 hours 10 minutes.  I'm so proud!  I asked him if he would ever do another marathon and he said yes!  He would like to do another one once life calms down a little bit and he has more time to train.  It was so much fun to have our family and friends there to support him.  Thanks everybody for all of your support!

So Close!

Last Saturday Alex ran 20.11 miles!  This is a picture of our Garmin once he was done with his run.  It says that he ran 20.11 miles in 3 hours, 17 minutes, and 46 seconds!  This was the last long run until the big race day which is April 16 for all of you who want to come support him!  Alex woke up at about 5:00am Saturday morning so he could eat a hardy breakfast and start his run.  I kept asking him, "why do you have to leave so early?"  He replied by saying, "I want to be asleep and numb for the first 10 miles!" 

I won't lie, I was so worried that I would get a phone call from Alex at 6:00am asking me to come pick him up!  Instead, I got picture messages all morning of places that he was running past.  Here are a few.. 

I know Alex well enough to know that his mouth was watering at the sight of a sausage egg mcmuffin.

I'm so proud of Alex and I can't wait to see him cross that finish line! 

Home Sweet Home..

Alex and I just got back from arguably the best trip ever!  We went with six other couples to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta.  Alex and I left work a little early on Friday to go watch my family run a half marathon in Cedar City.  We had a slumber party at Eric and April's beautiful home Saturday night and then woke up early Sunday to drive to Long Beach.  I have never enjoyed a six hour drive so much in my whole life!  April's suitcase, aka "The Coug", sat with Alex and I in the back seat because Alex and I packed a little heavy!  This could possibly be the most hideous piece of luggage I have seen! 

Once we arrived in Long Beach, Carnival Cruise announced that we wouldn't be stopping in Mazatlan and that we would just spend two days in Cabo and one day in Puerta Vallarta. 

This is everybody prior to getting aboard the cruise ship!

I was so excited when I first laid eyes on the Splendor!  I couldn't even fathom how huge it really was!

I have so much to say about this cruise but words can't quite explain it.  I will post some pictures for now with brief descriptions to give you an idea of how wonderful it was!

We took a boat ride around Cabo and spent the day on Lover's Beach.

I'm a little sad because we did a zip line in Puerta Viarda and my camera died so I will post some pictures of the zip line a little bit later.

I would say that dinner time with all 14 of us together was the highlight of my trip.  It was fun to get together and discuss what had happened that day.  Dinner time was always when we laughed the hardest...great memories were made!

April, Bree, and Kels.

Dustin, Todd, and Alex.

The captain's dinner.

There's nothing like a little pizza and soft served ice cream at midnight! 

Many of our hidden talents came out on this trip...here are a few..

This is poor Dustin's only talent.

As the cruise came to an end we headed to LAX to catch a flight home.  Kaley's dad is a flight attendant and was kind enough to let us use his buddy passes.  We arrived at the airport at 11:00 am and thought that we would for sure get on the first flight home but we didn't.  We didn't even get onto the next four flights!  If you have ever flown stand by you know what I'm talking about.  We ended up sleeping in the airport and got up at 3:30am to shuttle to John Wayne airport.  I'm pretty sure that LAX doesn't heat the building or vacuum their carpet.  It was the longest night of my whole life.  I thought that we would never make it home! 

This trip was an experience of a lifetime and an absolute blast!  I'm so happy that all of our best friends could make arrangements to go because everybody is getting so busy! 

We had to sleep with Alex' t-shirts over us...so cold.

MJ

No words can express how adorable MJ is!  His birthday is tomorrow and yes we will be having a birthday party for him!  He is the best dog ever....I'm going to go through withdrawals while we are gone!

Happy Birthday!

Last weekend my sister and her family came to Salt Lake to celebrate Dad, Riley, Ryan, and MJ's birthday!  February is a pretty crazy month for birthdays in our family.  We had a wonderful birthday lunch sunday afternoon followed by this amazing cake that Natalie and McCall made!

Grammy gave Riley and Ryan these dolls that they absolutly love to death!

My dad got some new running shoes for all of his races that he will be doing this year.  We also got him a gift basket full of running beans, gels, a tie, and other goodies.

Dax is such a stud!  As you can see he is no longer a little boy...he is cool kid now!

Death

The past two weeks or so I have struggled with an addiction that is slowly destroying my life!  These little guys have tasted soooo good lately.  I'm pretty sure all of the workers at Arctic Circle know my face now.  I get sick if I eat a whole milk shake so one time I asked if they could make a milk shake in a little sundae cup and they did.  Since then I'm the girl who likes a almond fudge shake is a small sundae cup.  I'm embarrassed to say that I'm going through this milk shake addiction phase but I just can't stop.  I think this is why I'm having an extremely hard time getting motivated to work out and sign up for another race.  I feel even worse when Alex declines my invitation because then I don't have anybody to go down with me!  This is going to be catch up to FAST if I don't stop sometime in the near future!

Changes...

2011 is about setting goals and making changes that will make life easier and more enjoyable.  To start off the year we sold our Chevy Cobalt and bought a 2011 Honda Civic.  I could drive this car for the rest of my life and be the happiest person ever!  I also cut ALL of my hair off....all of it.  I've never had short hair so this has been a huge adjustment but it's amazing!  Why didn't I cut it sooner?  My friend, Ashlyn took a picture of all of my dead, unhealthy hair and said that they are going to donate it to an oil spill.  I think my hair could clog any oil spill and save millions of animals.