Family Photos

We finally got around to getting our family photos taken by my wonderful photographer sister, Jenn. We went to a couple of different places to take the photos, much to the dismay of my family. James was baffled at why we couldn't just stay in one place and take them! Austin was up all night throwing up and didn't really want to go, but it is just too hard to get our families schedule and Jenn's schedule to coincide. So I told him to "act" like he felt well, I think he did a pretty good job. Here are the final results! What do you think?

My 5k's

So I started training this summer for a 5k, I have never liked to run and really wanted to try this. I found a program called couch-2-5k and checked it out. I really like the idea of training in intervals, running and walking and gradually working your way up to running a long period of time, or a 5k distance. It was a 9 week program, not too long, but long enough to get used to running. The first time that I was able to do the first long run, 20 minutes, without any walking, I cried. Never in my life have I been able to run that long, much less I kinda liked it.

So without much ado, I signed up for my first 5k, it was the moon walk/run here in town. The night of the race I showed up with my sister, who was going to walk it while I ran it and my kids, husband and mom there all for support. The excitement in the air was great! I was nervous but excited at the same time. The race went well, except I got a side stitch the first mile and had to breathe through it. I walked only twice and ran the rest! I came in with a time of 39:31, my goal was to finish under 40 minutes and run as much as I could. Well I came in under my time, I was so excited! Unfortunately after the race I kinda fell off the running wagon.


That was until my friend Pauline got me out speed walking and interval running again. She really wanted to do a 5k and asked me to train with her. This got us walking differnet distances everyday, some were 2.25 miles in 30 minutes other days it was 4 miles in 60 minutes and so forth. It was a really fun experience to train with someone this time. We decided to sign up for the Save-A-Sister 5k in St. George. The morning of the race it was raining all the way to St. George and we were hoping that it would stop so we wouldn't have to run in the rain, thankfully it quite when we got there. It was a really fun race, lots of people running in support of breast cancer awareness. Again the excitement I felt in the air was great at getting me going. We ran and walked it (although when I say walk, it really means a speed walk). The route was kinda hilly, we didn't train with any hills, but just walked up them and ran down them. I finished with a time of 37:38, a whopping 2 minutes faster than my first one. I couldn't be happier with that! I ran a 12 minutes mile, came in 98th in the women's 5k out of 194 and took 21st out of 39 in my age division.

It has been really fun training and I kinda like running, so I am going to keep plugging away with it and hopefully next year run a few more 5k's, maybe even a 10k!!

Day four: California Adventure

Who couldn't resist a photo with Lightin' and Mater!?

Since we were going to be at Disneyland, we decided that we might as well buy tickets to head over to California Adventure, since it right across from Disney. Thankfully this park doesn't open quite as early as Disneyland and closers a little earlier, we didn't have to get up as early this day. There are some really fun rides here, not as many as Disneyland, but fun none the less. We headed right to Soarin' Over California, it is so GREAT!! You sit in these chairs and then it lifts you off the ground in a big theater. with a huge screen in front of you. You then get to "soar" over California, the seats move, the screen moves and then there is the smell. You actually smell things, like when you go over the orange groves, you smell orange, or when you soar over the ocean, you smell the ocean. WAY COOL! Another great ride is the Tower of Terror, my kids LOVED it, even if Paige during the ride was saying, "why did we have to go on this ride", she will still tell you it was her favorite! Unfortunately those with bad sunburns were really sore, but they were good sports and hung in there longer than though possible. Playing in the water to cool off.

Paige was the only one who wanted to have her photo taken with Jesse.


Leaving the park, after a long, sore day!
Although some of them were still good as gold.


We had a wonderful getaway. We played, relaxed and spent time with our family. We are already trying to plan on what to do next summer. We are thinking a little closer to home, maybe a water park and museum!

*Keep scrolling down for all the other posts from our trip and some other posts that are new!

Day 3: Newport Beach

We took a break between Disneyland and California Adventure theme park and headed to the beach. Now I thought that since it was the middle of the week that we could easily find a spot and park it for a few hours, boy was I wrong. We couldn't find any parking close to the pier, but ended up parking on the street and was actually close to the beach, but far from the pier, so no pier this trip. The kids didn't care though, they were too busy playing in the ocean, finding shells and playing in the sand! We were there for a few hours, but those couple of hours were just enough for some people in our group to get FRIED!!! Yes, I had sunscreen and lathered all the kids up (although I should have put in on them more than once), but unfortunatly I am not responsible for the adults in our party. That being said I feel really bad that James and both of his parents got REALLY burned. We had a great time at the beach and I kinda wish that I lived closer to go more often, it was a lot of fun!

Our Disney Vacation: Day 1

I think that I am about all caught up with my blogging and this will finish it. Since we did a bunch of stuff on our vacation I am going to post each day separately.

Earlier this year our family participated in Disney's Give a day, Get a day promo. So we volunteered our time and made 5 blankets and received 5 FREE vouchers to use and Disneyland. We invited James' parents to come with us also. We rented a suburban, which I now want, so we could take one vehicle and hit the road Sunday afternoon. We decided that we were going to drive to Primm, NV and stay the night, but since we couldn't check in until 3 we decided to hit Bass Pro Shop, just outside of Vegas, to kill some time. While we were there, we saw the fish and the mermaid in the casino tank. Boy was that cool for you know who! She loved it, but not at first. At one point the mermaid came right up to the glass and was waving to Paige and she ran back to me, being very shy. We hung around for a few more minutes and were able to have the mermaid come right to the glass were Paige was again. This time she was more sociable and interacted with the mermaid and LOVED it!

We really hit traffic leaving Bass Pro, in fact in should have only taken us 20 minutes to hit our hotel, but because of the traffic it took us more than 1 hour! All the California's heading back home after spending there money in Vegas, I guess. The next day we drove rest of the way to Anaheim and started our Disney vacation.

Check out Day 2!

Day 2

We spent the whole day Tuesday in Disneyland, we were there at 7:30 am, when they opened and stayed until 8 that night. Although I could have stayed longer, we had tired, cranky kids and the park was crazy busy and we had enough of standing in lines. Some of our favorite rides were Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Matterhorn, Buzz Lightyear and Thunder Mountain Railroad. Thankfully this trip the kids were all tall enough to ride all the rides. Paige wasn't tall enough for Indiana Jones, so I stayed out with her, since last time I went on it and James stayed out with her and Logan. While they rode that, she and I climbed Tarzan's tree house a couple of times. One of the coolest rides was the Innoventions in Tomorrowland. I don't think that I have ever been on it, or should I say in it. It is the BIG building just to the south of Autopia, the one that the walls rotates. Well once inside they have a house of the future with all kinds of fun and cool stuff that you can interact with. You can spend as long as you want in there playing video games, touch screen puzzles and other cool stuff. That was one of the last things that we did and I am glad that we decided to see what it was.

The walk way between both parks. Our hotel was right across the street from here, so like a 5 minute walk to the gates of Disney! SWEET!!!

Splash Mountain

Waiting at the gates to get in .

Of course now that Paige was older she knew all about the princess's there. So Grandma, her and I waited in a VERY LONG, VERY SLOW moving line to see what three princess's we would get to meet and see. She wasn't disappointed, she got to meet Jasmine, Tiana and Belle. Unfortunately the boys all had to wait and not very comfortably as they were sitting in the stroller, the ground on grandpa's lap, where ever they could park it.

Family

At the end of July my dad, Virginia, my grandma and her sister, my great-aunt all came to town and visited for a while. My dad and Virginia were here for two weeks and my grandma and Aunt were here for 4 days. We had a great time, we painted my dads back porch, attended 24th of July festivities, which included a 1 mile run in the morning (which my dad, sister and I ran, Virginia walked it), parade in the afternoon and celebrations in the evening.

While everyone was here my dad wanted to get some photos of us and him and then some generational photos with my grandma. Well these are the photos that I got with my camera, my sister had a bunch more on hers, so I don't have all the photos. These though are fun to have and hope to enjoy for a long time to come.My dad and four of his five kids.

My dad and four of his five kids.

My grandma and my clan.

The kids and a cousin.

Two of my sisters and my brother.

Bryce Canyon

On another day trip that we took we went to Bryce Canyon. We had never been there and decided that since it was so close to home that we needed to. One the way over we went to the Wildlife Museum on the highway before you even get to the park. It was really neat. They had all kinds of wildlife there. The kids enjoyed checking them all out. They had some deer in the back that you could buy some feed and then go out back and feed them. The kids really thought that was cool, they can now say that they have feed deer!We really only were able to do one hike, but it was challenging enough for the kids. It was 2 miles, but the last mile was ALL up hill. Needless to say we took our time coming back up and made plenty of rest stops. We then drove through the rest of the park and took in the scenery and enjoyed the overlooks of the valley. I can't believe that we have lived so close to this wonderful national park and have never been there.
Before we headed home we stopped at one of the diners as you leave the park and ate and yummy meal. We had a great day and hope to go back sometime.

*Keep scrolling down, there is another new post!

Kanara Falls

So here I am FINALLY updating my blog, yep its been awhile. We have been busy this summer, James had most of it off for his back surgery so we took advantage of it and did some fun stuff. Although this first outing he and Austin were away at scout camp, so it was just the younger kids and I.
We went on a fun and water filled hike, called Kanara Falls with some friends of ours and had a BLAST! You get to hike in the water up this slot canyon and up some waterfalls. The kids had a ton of fun getting wet whenever they wanted too. We will definitely do it again with Austin and James!!

Raingutter Regatta

Instead of doing the Pinewood derby this year, our cubs did the rain gutter regatta. The boy scouts were also able to participate, only they couldn't use a regatta kit and had to carve their boat out of a two-by-four. So both Austin and Tanner were able to compete against each other.

Austin built a submarine. It didn't do so well, it was too heavy, he should have carved out the middle some to lighten it up. Oh well he had fun building it and racing it. And he was able to pass of his Wood Craving Merit badge by building his boat! SWEET!

Tanner built a catamaran and he did pretty well. His sail was a little funny and we had to alter it some after his first race, as it was hitting the sides of the rain gutter.

It was a fun night! What more could we ask for!

*Keep scrolling there is another new post after this one!