Happy Birthday, Ethan!

Okay, so I'm a week late, but he's still 6! Ethan really is a light to our family. He's smart and funny and goofy and handsome and full of love. I quizzed him last week about his 6-year-old favorites and this is where he stands:

Color - Brown
Food - Sandwiches
Song - Theme song from Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
Movie - How to Train Your Dragon
Activity at School - Recess
Friends - Luke and Mandy
Thing to do with Dad - Play with Boone

When I asked him what he loves most, he said, "Um . . . mommy and daddy . . . but PUH-leez don't add that on the blog!" Too late, buddy.

Another year older, smarter and, of course, sassier. We love you, Ethan!

Words To Live By

"Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you

but on what happens inside of you;

it is measured by the spirit with which you meet the problems of life."

~Harold B. Lee

Halloween 1/2 Marathon

Things 1 and 2

13.1 miles. I survived. But only by the skin of my teeth. Shelle and I got up just after 4 in the morning, dressed up as Dr. Seuss' "Things" and were on the first bus out of the parking lot at 5:30, shuttling us up to Aspen Grove where we proceeded to wait over 3 hours for the race to begin.

Obviously, we weren't the only "Things" on the mountain. I think there ended up being 5-6 pairs, but we definitely had the best hair!

The first 5 miles were straight. down. hill. And they flew by. At least until mile 5. I believe someone then proceeded to drop a brick wall right in front of me. It really was a beautiful run, full of panoramic views of Mt. Timpanogos and trails winding through canopies of aspens shedding golden leaves. Admittedly, though, my eyes were usually on the cement right in front of my feet. Second only to natural childbirth, this was definitely the hardest physical accomplishment on my bucket list. But totally worth it!

Awful picture, but squinting without my glasses, I'm pretty sure I was screaming silently, "WHERE IS THE STINKIN' FINISH LINE!?!?"

When we finished, we guzzled water, gobbled oranges and tried our hardest not to fall over and die. I ran on Saturday. 3 days ago. I am JUST beginning to feel less crippled and am finally regaining my ability to walk almost normally. When the race ended, I thought to myself that I would never put myself through it again. But now, 3 days later, I'm already planning to participate in next year's Halloween 1/2. Anyone want to join up? I'm already brainstorming costume ideas . . .

I hoped to finish in 1:55 minutes, thinking that was totally optimistic, best-case scenario. I ended up running 13.1 miles in 1:49:48, taking 58th place in my age group (24-29), 265th female runner and 588th overall. Considering there were close to 3000 runners, I'm feeling pretty accomplished! And Michelle beat her time from last year by 9 minutes!

Oh, and just because it deserves mentioning, the 1st place runner crossed the finish line at 1:05. Seriously? I'm pretty sure he's superhuman or something.

Moose addendum

I walked into my kitchen to work get the boys a snack, alerted to a movement outside the window above the sink. I looked and found myself no more than 3 feet away from the baby moose, standing on our deck, munching on our trees. 20 minutes later, the boys are still running from room to room to follow baby moose as she moseys around the perimeter of the house, munching on leaves wherever she goes...

Mama moose is in the neighbor's yard again. Boone spent a long time barking at them. But when baby moose could not clear the fence to get to mama and decided to stare down Boone instead, he quieted and is currently sulking in his dog house. So, when is it safe to go outside and feed the dog?

Don't Feed the Animals

I had to bring the Link and PJ in from playing in the back yard yesterday. I hate doing that, taking them out of the sunshine and fresh air and all, BUT . . .



The chain link in the foreground is the end of our yard, standing about 4 feet high. Now, if I know nothing else of wild animals, I know not to mess with a moose. Despite their gangly, placid appearance, they can be very aggressive, and at that size, I choose to avoid confrontation. This mama and baby spent the better part of 6 hours in our neighbor's yard, lounging and munching on his aspen tree, finally clearing out around dark. I love living in the wild, wild west.

Stitch-free for over 6 months? How unnatural

I'm a little behind on this post, but it is definitely blog-worthy, even if its documentation is a bit late. Last month, the week after my parents left, we went to dinner and a birthday party for some friends who lives about 20 miles south of Pinedale. Amy and Cheyenne have 2 little boys who my children adore and as soon as we arrived, all the little people disappeared to play together. They have a lab, too, so I drove Greg's truck and took Boone along for a play date of his own.

Right as we were wrapping up inside and people were beginning to filter out and head home, I heard some screaming coming from out front. As I was heading to the front door, one of the other adults carried Lincoln inside . . . his face and shirt covered in blood. Hmmm.

Turns out that when we arrived, I let the tailgate down to let Boone out and then didn't put it back up, figuring I'd have to load him back up later. The little boys were all playing outside when Lincoln came running around the truck and proceeded to partially scalp himself on the tailgate. My bad.

This is the only picture I have of the injury, all cleaned and stitched. Unlike Porter's injury, which was smack in the middle of his face, you'll never notice Lincoln's because it was right in his hairline. He's fine. No permanent damage. I suppose it was his turn for stitches since he was the only one able to avoid them so far, but I'm really hoping we've had our fill for a while. Oh . . . and I'm being more conscious of closing the tailgate these days.

Rusty Bucket Photography

So there's this girl I know. She married my husband's brother and her name is Michelle. She is one of my best friends in the world; truly my sister, if you will. And if you haven't heard about her photography skills by now, you have obviously not been paying attention. She has a little business called Rusty Bucket Photography and is absolutely fabulous.

Shelle came up to run the 10k with me last weekend (she's the rockin' gal with me in my last post) and we did a whirlwind family photo session while she was in town. She took our pictures almost 2 years ago to the day when she hadn't really started as a photographer yet, used a semi-functioning point-and-click camera and took the best family pictures we'd ever had . . . until now. This is the only picture from that photo session that I've seen - a teaser. But my whistle is wet and I'm dying to see more!