So Cal

Another Ragnar, come and gone. 

I flew into  Orange County on Thursday afternoon and drove home with the team on Sunday.  I left Bryan and the boys in charge of the snack shack and all went well.

Me and Whitters ready to run run run.

Feeling good before the 5 miles, 108 degree, heat exhaustion run.  I always pride myself on never walking during a race, HA!  This was more stumbling than walking.  Never have I felt anything like it.  Glad I didn’t pass out and get pulled from the course.  Glad I lost control of my body functions, a true athlete.

Had a good nights sleep from 8:30-12:00 on a grassy hill next to a stream.

Up and ready for my favorite run every Ragnar.  Middle of the night.  4 miles at 2:00 a.m.  With clear cool air running through my lungs.

Another little good night sleep from 5:30-8:00 a.m. on this beautiful patch of grass on a foggy cliff down to the ocean.  I am not kidding when I say I LOVE sleeping somewhere like this.  I was out like there was no tomorrow!  I got almost 7 hours of sleep this Ragnar, the most I have ever had, made the recovery much easier!

Enjoying the warm sidewalk as I geared up for my 11.1 which was really 11.2.

Seriously took this pic while running.  It was BEAUTIFUL.

Ran next to a Ferrari and Lamborghini car show.  Very cool.

The whole 11 miles was beautiful.  A very intense one mile straight up hill and the rest along Mission bay and San Diego bay.  Along the sidewalks with tourists, next to people on Segway’s, chatting with people in a bicycle pulled cart….kind of wanting to hop in with them.  Wondering the whole time where my team was, after mile 3 I never saw them again.  Luckily I was cheered, high fived, yelled at from a megaphone and bummed water from other teams.

Got to the exchange and stood for 20 minutes waiting for my van.  They had missed me at mile 6 and sat and waited.  Did they not realize I was a FAST runner????????  No big deal, just ran 11.2 miles and no one at the end to congratulate me.  I forgave the team quickly.

Pure joy!

More joy and happiness and pizza.

Love my team, Love Ragnar.

Love sharing California King beds with Whitty Woo.

Home Away from Home

 

Don’t look for me at my dirty house, I won’t be there.

I am here

Or here

But most likely this is where you will find me.

Spring Breaking

We didn’t go anywhere for spring break, just stayed home and enjoyed the relaxing life.  I LOVE going on vacation any chance I can, but I also LOVE staying home with no schedule.  My week was a bit busy due to poor planning on my part, but we still stayed up late, slept in and did lots of fun things.

We had a barbeque with extended cousins we rarely see from California and Pleasant Grove.  We went to the trampoline park, Brandon went twice.  We ran dumb errands.  Played for hours on end with friends.  Played and had a sleepover with cousins.  Went to the Jazz game where the boys got autographs from several star players and I got a thumbs up from one of my very favorite players, Ronnie Price. I even “worked” for my brother and drove elderly clients of his to their homes.  Of course there was also lots of baseball, allergy shots, hair cuts, running(me) and getting ready to run the snack shack at the ball park.

Showing off their Steve Nash autographs (obviously this was before Brandon’s hair cut)

Jonah came a long way from carefully sliding into the foam pit.

Brandon and Sam having a great time.

Jacob was a little too crazy for me to watch very much!

Good times had by all!

No more

This little snuggle bug decided to start saying his “L” sound over the weekend.  I have tried to make him go back to saying “Y”, but it isnt’ working.  Makes me cry.

Champions

Brandon loves to play sports.  He is a good sport because not very often is he on a team that wins.  Remember his football team who has won 1 game over the last two seasons?  His prior Jr. Jazz and baseball teams have won games here and there, but never done well.  Enter in this years Jr Jazz team!  Brandon and several of his good friends all playing on the same team, and winning.  Last Friday night was the first game of the tournament and they won.  Then on to Tuesday night for the next game, it was intense, but they won again.  An hour later they were playing again for the championship.  It was super intense.  Lots of fouling, yelling at refs, coaches getting told to sit down, parents who couldn’t sit still (me) and the end result…….Brandon’s team by 5!  It was very exciting for him, even though he thought the rec center would have done something for them to celebrate, I told him this is Jr Jazz not the NBA finals.  I am proud of him for playing hard and with a  good attitude.  Lots of fun to know what a winning team feels like.

#14

Davis, Jonah, Zeke, Sam, Brandon, Ryan, Thomas, Marcus.  A cute bunch of boys!

Fun Friends Again

I told Tiffany to go on vacation so we could have her kids come stay.  She put up a fight, but finally agreed .  She left last Friday morning to California and I got to be in charge of 5 extra children.  It may seem like a big deal to have 5 extra children around, but really they are so good and so easy to have.  It helps that they are all best friends with my children.  The only time it was a big deal was at meal time, I am not used to feeding that many people!  Everyone had such a great time, at least I think her kids did.  Mine were so sad yesterday when they got home from school and realized they were not coming back.  Her two youngest only got to stay with us until Saturday evening when her in-laws wanted a turn.  I am not going to lie, it was much easier getting everyone to church without them, but other than that I would have loved for them to stay.

It was a minor ordeal when her two year old put all of this, including the garbage can, in Jacob’s fish tank.  I quickly got the fish out and the whole can of fish food out and everyone survived!

Megan sat through Brandon’s basketball game and then he sat and watched her sew.  They are a great team.

The boys had lots of fun outside.

I wish I had gotten a better picture of everyone racing down the hill in wagons, everyone of course except for Jonah who would gingerly run along side them.

Drew makes me wish I had a two year old again. 

An almighty pen war which left scrapes and scabs.

I loved the sounds of the older 4 kids laughing and joking until 12:30 a.m.  It reminded me of the fun times I had with my cousins.  The kids all tell other people they are cousins, which worked until people at church asked them who their mom was.  Like we always say, it is just easier to say cousins than to explain!

Four….ish days of fun and memories.

Not the night of all nights

Quite possibly the funniest moment of my life happened tonight, well at least for this moment the funniest.  Relief Society birthday dinner party (nothing like the night of all nights).  My life saver Jolene Cash and I made 3 different salads for the event.  We did all the prep work at home and then mixed them at the church.  I had made 2 different salad dressings, one was a basil dressing and the other a lime tarragon…..both so delicious I considered eating them for lunch as soup.  (Oh and P.S. both of them from My Foster’s blog here)

OK so if I was a clever writer this would come out so much better.  I was giving instructions to someone as to which dressing went with which salad.  Jolene walked over and said, “are you sure this is the tarragon one, it looks like the basil?”  I said, “yes I am sure, they look the same”.   We discussed it for a few minutes.  She then tasted them both and said to me, “I really think this is the basil one”.  I gave her a disgusted look and said, “I know which one is which, I MADE them.  I then tried the one she was insisting was basil and started laughing hysterically.  I had forgotten that I had switched the containers I had made them in.  Oh boy did we laugh and laugh and laugh.  I told her, “Like I always say, never believe anything I say.”

May not be funny to anyone else, but we thought it was the best moment.  Good thing she was there or else two huge salads would have been ruined!  I would never make it through these activities without her, and actually I wouldn’t want to be at them without her.  We are two peas in a pod.

Our own version of Plates and Palates, it was so so good.  I would never have noticed that we had 3 green salads on green plates, but you know, people who know that kind of stuff did!

I didn’t get a picture until the clean up was almost done.  One hour set up, that was the best part!