she's goin' the distance, she's goin' for speed...

Last year Karen impressed me by finishing the London's Run half marathon, a charity race to benefit children fighting cancer. So this year she tried dragging me into it. Which, actually, wasn't too hard of a sale, I've been wanting to run a marathon for years now, but my knees haven't had the same goal. But I started training at Christmas time and was really enjoying it. The weather on Saturday morning long runs was ideal and I think it's the longest I've ever been alone post twins.

Unfortunately, Friday I came down with the flu and I was bitter...really bitter. Dad and Troy gave me a blessing and the next morning I drug myself out of bed and out to Queen Creek.

The race started and I ran and ran and ran. I felt pretty good and made a goal to not let anyone pass me after mile one. I think I'm a little more competitive than I thought and kept trying to get ahead of whoever was next in front of me. (The same way I drive.) I felt bad if it was a guy next in line for me to pass, (for their male ego) so I would give them about 30 seconds to pick up the pace... and if they didn't they had to deal being passed by a girl. (When you're running 13 plus miles you have to think of something to pass the time.)

It was also touching and motivating to see the posters of the children fighting their cancer battles encouraging us to "keep going". I think I choked up a few times just feeling how lucky I was to actually be running and in good health.

The last mile I was ready for the race to be over and then I saw Troy. I thought he was staying home with the sick kids, but there he was cheering me on the last leg. It felt so good to round the corner and have the energy to sprint home and see Karen & the kids.

I looked at my finish time and was instantly bummed. 1:50. I had wanted to finish right over 2 hours... (120 minutes). So when I saw the clock I was thinking 150 minutes. Then Troy informed me the clock said 1 hour & 50 minutes... ten minutes faster than my goal. Ooops! I was now thrilled. Instead of a 9 minute mile that I was used to, I had been running an 8.3 minute mile. I think because I was sick I couldn't gage my pace very well... wich turned out to be quite advantageous. I'm glad it's over, but so glad I did it. Now I'm looking for a Saturday marathon and time and energy to train for it.

We had so much fun celebrating Chinese New Year.

We all dressed up in authentic Chinese costumes and made delicious Chinese food.

Dallin was the pro at eating with chopsticks!

Rub Allison's Buddha for good luck!

four seasons?

Not having seasons excludes us from a lot of those great “childhood memory” things… snow angels, jumping in piles of leaves, tasting icicles etc.

So Troy tried to fake it for the kids by raking as many leaves as he could to make a measly pile. The kids thought it was a blast to jump in, even though they were hitting hard ground each time because the pile was so meager!

sassy

Ella inherited bad hair genes (no offense to my lovely inlaws). It is thin and her hairline starts half way up her head. So we tried cutting it to see if we could make it appear fuller. The jury is still out on whether it helped or not... but she thinks she is so sassy now!

bitty

Having Whitney here for the holidays had to be one of my favorite things. All she wanted to do while she was here was "nothing" (sounds like her birthday wish mentioned here). Quite honestly I didn't know what to do with such low expectations. I tried my hardest to do nothing while she was around, but I was rarely successful. We put her to work. Whitney just went between Karen, Mom and I and took an aspect of our life and decided to fix it.

* Apparently Karen needed some make-up tips.. which is always so successful with 7 kids running around.

*She completely rearranged Mom & Dad's living room, somehow moving a grand piano by herself!

* My wardrobe was rampaged and purged of all 90s clothing. (except for the denim overalls... I want my kids to have something totally authentic to wear for 90s day at school someday). Of course we had to try them all on and mock me first.

*And the biggest project of all... Whit decided to fix my kids. (They are slow as molasses and so I end up doing everything for all four of them... gets very wearing.) Whitney knocked on the front door one morning before school and introduced herself as "Miss Independence". She was all dressed up with the craziest get up and make up. My kids' eyes were like saucers... they'd never seen anything like it. She explained what "independence" means and showed how she got herself dressed that morning. She had made up a little incentive program (magic beans... which they still think will "grow a surprise") for them to get dressed every morning by themselves before the timer rings. Dallin and Ella ate it up and took right to the idea. Way to go Miss Independence!