Happy Birthday Dad!

This is the only picture I could quickly find of my dad (I stole it from my sister's blog). Today is my Dad's birthday, he is 51. As he put it this morning when I called to wish him Happy Birthday he is now closer to 100 than to 0. I thought I would just take a quick second and say how wonderful my dad is. I am sure that I often take for granted what a wonderful family that I come from. My dad is not a man of many words, but when he speaks he means it, and you should listen. He has always been such a great listener, and a peacemaker. I remember when I was a teenager, he would sit down with me after I would get in arguments with my mom (which were always my fault...I wasn't the nicest teenager) and somehow talk some sense into me. He always had a way of listening to what I was feeling, and helping me through it without criticizing my thoughts or feelings. He also taught me what hard work is. He would wake us up early on weekends singing a song that he made up called Lazy Dogs Get No Breakfast, and he would take us out into the yard to do yard work. I hated it at the time, but I am so thankful now for the time that he spent teaching us how to work because it has come in handy! I am so thankful for his example every single day. I love you Dad, and Happy Birthday!

Happy 25 Bryan!

Today is Bryan's 25th birthday, so I thought I would list 25 reasons why I love him:

1. He is really attractive
2. He has awesome hair
3. He makes me laugh every day
4. He is confident enough to wear the shorts in the picture above
5. He lets me drive the nice car
6. He watches chick flicks with me and actually enjoys them
7. He takes me on drives in his mini cooper
8. He always lets me control the radio in the car
9. He let me get a dog
10. He is really good at taking tests
11. He is adventurous
12. He wants to live in California just like me
13. He hates the cold/snow as much as I do
14. He wants to move to another country some day
15. He doesn't have to work out or watch what he eats to stay thin
16. He puts up with my lame cooking skills
17. He cleans our house a lot
18. He can fix almost anything
19. He doesn't mind going shopping with me
20. He is a good communicator
21. He hates reading as much as I do
22. He has a really good singing voice
23. He has an awesome family
24. He can BBQ anything and it will taste amazing
25. He loves me back!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!

Marathon Weekend

This weekend has been so much fun!

Saturday morning I ran the St. George Marathon for the second time and it was SO fun! It rained the entire 26.2 miles which was interesting, and cold, but still fun. I beat my time from last year by 40 minutes. My official time was 4 hours and 5 minutes. I was so proud of myself because I only trained for a month. At the half way point I was on pace to run it in 3 hours and 50 minutes, but the cold got to me at about mile 16. I have had problems with my IT band since high school. (It connects from your hip to the outside of your knee). At mile 16 you have just ran downhill for over a mile straight so your joints are already hurting, and then it was really cold on top of that, so my IT band started to freeze up and I could barely bend my knee. So I had to stretch my hip and knee about every 10 minutes for the rest of the marathon just to be able to run normal! But, despite the problems I still am very happy about how I did, and I can't wait to run another marathon someday! But, right now I will just try to get over how sore my hips and knees are! Here are some pics--keep in mind I was completely soaked from head to toe!


After the marathon we (Eric and I) drove straight home. We stopped at In-n-out in St. George for me to change into some warm dry clothes and then just drove. Bryan wasn't able to come watch me because his mom and sister were here and they were working for like 3 days straight on his mom's apartment in Salt Lake to get it ready for someone to move into.

All day today we have been hanging out with Brenda (Bryan's mom) his sister Marshelle and her husband Rhett and their adorable baby Grant, and also our sister in law Marie. It has been so much fun! Here are some pictures...

This one looks like I cut my hair, but I didn't it is just tucked behind my shoulders.



I had to add this picture also...I put a shirt on Zeus tonight and he sat by the door and was so mad at me! It was hilarious!

Run for Malaria

My friend Heidi found advertised in the Mapleton Utah newspaper a couple of weeks ago a 5k run for Malaria. She immediately called me when she saw it because my brother Eric got Malaria on his mission. So, we decided to run it together and with our friend Biz. We also decided that we would make shirts for Eric (you can see them in the pictures below). It was really fun to run a 5k because I haven't run 3 mile races since High School when I ran cross country. Apparently our shirts were a big hit because we had the newspaper and the local TV station interview us. It was so fun!