-dang jeana*

Sunday, July 14, 2013

He's the Gardner Here

So looks like its been exactly one year today since I posted on this blog. I've been trying really hard to keep our family blog and Adoption blog up to date, with three little ones, thats about all the motivation I could muster. Today I just watched a mormon message that has meant a lot to me in these past months since bringing Jaymi home. I wanted to write my feelings here so that I can come back and read them when I need to hear them again.

I can sure relate to that current bush these days. In the midst of our adoption I felt like I was making such progress spiritually as we followed promptings and trusted in the Lord and saw many miracles unfold in bringing Jaymi home. It was a very special time in our life, one that I'm grateful for the many lessons I learned. I'm grateful that I wrote many of the experiences down on our blogs so I can return to read them and remember them.

After the initial fanfare of us getting home and we tried to establish our new life as a family of five, things started to really get hard. I, like the current bush, felt like I was being cut down. I felt alone and sad. I just couldn't find the love for life that I used to have. Raising an older child was something I was not at all experienced at and the fact that she spoke and understood zero English made it all the harder. I have seen so many more faults in myself than I ever knew existed. At times I wondered why the Lord had led us to do this, I did not feel capable of the task at hand. Since those early days home, things have gotten much better. I still have difficult moments of stress, anxiety and fear, but they are fewer and further between. This message from Hugh B. Brown helps give me the perspective that my Heavenly Father would want me to have. These experiences are teaching me. Helping me to see the area's in my life I need to work on to become the person he would like me to be. I know I will one day look back and have a better understanding of this time in my life and hopefully use these experiences to help others through difficult situations. "Thank you, Mr. Gardner, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me". "Let us pray for his love inspired correction"

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Marathon Recap

Whoa, so I had every intention and doing a follow-up post to my "Mom's and Marathons" post, but with all the fun, busy, lazy summer days we have had, I didn't get to it as soon as I would have liked. But here we are, so I finished my marathon in record time thanks to my friend Shannon. It was her first marathon and she did amazing. She made me work hard and pick up my pace and I'm so thankful for that. We were able to do all but one of our longs runs together and I really don't know how I did so many of them alone in my previous trainings. So yea, having a friend to train with should be #1 on your list. Good luck finding that perfect person that lives close enough that you can run together.

We did the Bear Lake Marathon and it was wonderful! It is so beautiful up there and we met some neat people during the run. Our favorite was a guy named Kane. He ran with us for a good portion of the race and man did time fly when we were with him. He was so friendly, encouraging and INSPIRING! He is in the process of running 50 full marathons, in 50 states, in 2012! The Bear Lake, UT marathon was his 26th race this year. He ran the marathon on the Idaho side of the lake the day before. You should check out his website here and he even mentioned running with Shannon and I here. We were definitely wishing we still had him around for those last 6 miles, but he was long gone by then :) So now I have another tip that I hope to do better at. Meet and talk to new people during the race. It was so interesting to hear his stories and fun that he was so interested in ours. It made the race go by so much faster and made being part of an event like that even more memorable. So I'm going to try to break out of my shell more and talk to new people while I'm racing.

This marathon was a lot smaller than the other marathons I've done. So much so that we took 3rd place in women's and we both won our age divisions! We finished in 4:05. That beat my previous record by 15 minutes! Like I said, that was thanks to Shannon. I was always just a step or two behind her, but she kept me going.

Another tip I have has to do with the longest training run. We worked it out so that we ran the first 17 miles of our race to a location where there was a 5K being held. So we timed it just right so we could jump into the 5K for our last 3 miles. It definitely helped get us through those last few miles and was so nice to have all the after race snacks and drinks to look forward to.

If you want to keep your running up and not let all your training go to waste, I recommend signing up for another race soon after your marathon. Even if its a smaller race, it will keep you running. Its pretty depressing if you quit running cold turkey and lose all that training you have built up. Trust me I've done it and don't ever want to do it again. On July 4th I raced in the Neola half marathon and even beat my half marathon PR by 2 minutes, finishing in 1:47. That was thanks to another friend Staci that let me run by her for almost 2 miles. I couldn't keep up so had to let her go, but she got me started running like a 7:30 min/mile without even realizing it. So I thought I had slowed down to my usual 9:20 minute mile, when I was really going somewhere closer to 8:15.

I also recommend running as soon as you feel you are able to after the race. Definitely listen to your body, but even if you can run a mile or two soon after, that will help loosen up your muscles and get you running again. I set out to run 3 miles on the treadmill on the Monday after the race and ended up feeling good enough to do 6 miles. I was almost as proud of that as I was finishing the marathon!

So now what? Well about a week and a half after the marathon, while sitting on a 10 hour flight to Eastern Europe (We are in the process of adopting a little girl there) I had the idea to do another marathon in 4 weeks. Yes, you do crazy things when you spend an entire day traveling. It did seem a little less crazy after meeting someone who ran 2 marathons in 2 days :) Thankfully my partner in crime Shannon is almost as crazy and agreed to do it with me. So a week from Tuesday we are running in the Deseret News 24th of July Marathon. From what I hear it is a beast. We will drop 3200 ft in Elevation and climb 1000 ft by the time we are finished. So to prepare we did and 18.5 mile run down a canyon over here by us. It was definitely not easy and I'm having a hard time mentally grasping doing another 8 miles of a similar course, but hopefully this training run will help us and then race day excitement will get us through. It was be neat running through the canyon that my pioneer ancestors came into this valley through in handcarts and wagons 165 years ago.

Well thats about all I have for now. I need to buckle down and plan my meals for next week, I want to eat really well to help me be as prepared as possible for the marathon. I also want to show you these cool training schedules on Hal Higdon's site for running back to back marathons. They helped us put together a training plan for the last few weeks.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

Taking a pre-race swim. This was Bryn's first time in the pool and she loved it!

Enjoying our pre-race pizza!

We are the little blue specs up ahead. It was a beautiful day for the race.

We didn't plan it but we both wore blue shirts to match the scenery

View of the beautiful lake we ran around

Coming in to the finish

I knew good things were in store when I was assigned my favorite number 13!

Monday, March 26, 2012

31 Fundraiser

A very kind friend from our neighborhood has offered to do an online fundraiser for you. It is so humbling to have some many people reach out and help to get you home. Below are the details to the fundraiser, she is giving us her WHOLE commission!

RESCUING VICTORIA FUNDRAISER

Let’s kick off Spring with some great new Thirty-One products and help bring sweet little Victoria home to her forever family at the same time!

Dates: April 1st thru April 14th

Time:Anytime Where: Online at www.31bagchick.com

**25% of all sales will be donated to the Bonner family to aid in the costs associated with adopting this precious little girl. Let’s help bring Victoria home soon!

For every $31 you spend your name will be entered into a drawing for a half price item.

To place an order go to www.31bagchick.com, click on My Events and chose the Rescuing Victoria Fundraiser. And don’t worry, you’ll still get tickets into the drawing for online orders as well.

Go ahead and make your wish list now by viewing the online catalog but please refrain from placing any orders until April 1st or they will not count towards the fundraiser.

And don’t forget to take advantage of this month’s customer special! For every $31 you spend you can get any purse ½ price! This includes the ever popular Retro Metro bag, Fifth Avenue Purse and the brand new Casual Cargo Purse plus many others.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Mom & Marathons

So I've been reading some cool blogs thanks to Pinterest tonight just about everyday sort of stuff. Thats one thing that I love about blogging, it gives me a sneak peak into REAL peoples everyday life. A glimpse at what people are up to and how they manage/enjoy life. So I thought, what do I have to offer the eighty something people that secretly read my blog and seldom leave comments..hint hint. Ha ha. I thought I would illustrate how a mother of two small children can train for and run a marathon.

Way back when, in 2007 I believe, I set a personal goal to run a marathon. Along with that initial goal I also set a goal to run a full-marathon after each baby I had. Mainly as a way to get back into shape, but running is also an amazing stress reliever for me. So the year after Kaelyn was born I trained for and ran the Odgen Marathon in May 2010 with my bestie Jamie and other super friend Nicole. Then I figured I was already in shape and training mode so why not keep it up and run another marathon at the end of the summer. So that I did and ran the Park City marathon in August of the same year.

Well I'm at it again, training with my friend Shannon for the Bear Lake marathon in June. We just completed week 4 of 18 today with an 11 mile run. Shannon lives about 1/2 mile from me so we just run to our little spot in the middle of our houses and set out from there for our long runs. So far we have just been doing our weekly runs on our own via the treadmill, but when it warms up we can do more of those together in the morning before our husbands leave for work.

Here are my tips for Mom's Training for a Marathon without it taking over your life :)

1. Get a training schedule. This time around I decided to tryout a Hal Higdon schedule. I went with the Novice 2, since it looks a little harder than the ones I've done before. I want to improve my time so we will see if this helps with that.

2. Get a training buddy. Having someone counting on you to run the long runs with makes all the difference in the world. For one it gets you out the door on Saturday when you would rather sit on the couch and eat ice cream. Second, it gets you to run your weekly runs because you know they are doing theirs and you have to keep up with them come Saturday. Last and most importantly, it makes running 20 miles seem like a social event rather than pure torture. Its amazing how quicker long runs go when you have someone to shoot the breeze with. Before you know it your are a mile from home and wondering where the time went and how your legs are still going. It also builds friendships like no other. Once you've run a marathon together you are tight, no way around it :)

Jamie and I warming by the fire before Odgen.

3. Purchase a treadmill. Or at least have one you can get to easily. I didn't buy the most expensive one out there and I have totally been pleased with it. Buying a treadmill was the best thing I've done for my marathon training. Before kids I wasn't too fond of running on the treadmill, but it is so convenient. I can put the girls down for their naps and then go run 6 miles in the next room. Kaelyn loves to watch me run on the treadmill. Its something that we can do together. I set her up a with a plethora of toys to play with and she is set.

4. Find a fun show/series to watch while your are running on the treadmill and ONLY watch it when you run. It makes it exciting to go do your runs because you want to see what happens next. My thing these days is watching the Voice. It takes about 2 1/2 runs to get through the whole show. When I start running more miles during the week I'll have to find another show to watch. The iPad has come in extra handy for this. There is always something on Netflix to watch.

5. If your kids are small enough buy a jogging stroller and go out once or twice a week and run with them. I can't wait for it to warm up and tryout my "new" (used) Bob double jogging stroller. Kaelyn and I put in a lot of miles back in 2010 and she loved it. I started her as soon as I could so she would be used to it. It was just fun to be out enjoying nature and watching her enjoy it too. Can't wait for Bryn to join us on our runs around the lake near our home.

6. Sign up for your marathon right away. Once you have paid your hard earned cash for that thing, you have got to do it. At least that is how I look at it. More motivation to do all your training runs so you are ready for the big day. Marathons aren't cheap, but if it gets you moving its worth it!

7. Buy nice socks (I'm talking $10 a pair socks). Yes I know it sounds crazy, but it is sooo worth it. They last a really long time though. I have a couple pairs from 2007 that I'm just now retiring, probably after running over 800 miles in them. Trust me, one big nasty blister and you will be on the way to the running store for new socks. By the way, thanks to my husband I learned that if you do have a blister you can tape it with duct tape and run your little heart out. Four of my toes are covered in nasty blisters from playing 3 basketball games in 24 hours, so I taped them up for my run today and I didn't even know they were there.

Balega is my favorite brand. Wayne just gave me a couple pairs for Christmas and I use them for my long runs. I use my older ones for the shorter ones.

8. Go to a running specialty store to buy your shoes. They will watch you run and help you pick out the best style of shoes for your gait. Once again good shoes are very expensive, but if you don't take care of your feet, you won't be running long. I still remember when I first starting running in high school. Back when I though a mile was a LONG run. I used to lace up my old worn out basketball shoes and head out. I'd come back with blisters, aches and pains. No wonder I thought running was torture. Just something coaches used to punish us. Once you figure out the style and brand of shoes you like stick with them. I keep an eye out online and once they come out with a new model I can find the older model for about $30-$40 cheaper. So I stock up, even if my current shoes have more miles left to run. I have a nice squeaky clean pair in my closet that are waiting for their turn to hit the pavement. Shoes last anywhere from 300-500 miles. I can usually tell when mine are ready to be retired because my ankles and hips are sure to tell me.

I'm a Saucony Omni girl. They are a stability shoe that I need because I over-pronate when I run. They are also a wider shoe that works well with my wide feet. You won't catch me wearing stilettos, for many reasons, but my wide foot is one of them. (Nothing against stilettos, I just don't wear heels, they don't go well with my accident prone gene) Can't wait till they come out with a new model so I can add these sweet puppies to my regimen. If you can't tell by my blog, I kinda like that blue on the sole. Just kinda...

Well its getting late so I'll stop there for tonight. I'll keep you all posted on how the training is coming and any new "tips" I have to share. Seriously, if I can run a marathon, anyone can. Before my first marathon the farthest I'd run at one time was about 5 miles.

Questions anyone??

Monday, February 6, 2012

Beautiful Baby Contest

I entered both the girls into a Beautiful Baby Contest to help a couple families raise money for their Reece's Rainbow adoptions. Go here to vote for them. http://www.facebook.com/questions/235687086515807/

**Be sure to pick Kaelyn with "Y" or Bonner for Bryn. The winner gets a Target gift card. We could use it to buy some matching clothes for the girls and Victoria :)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Miracles in the Making

Wow, January has been quite the month for our little family. Something is in the works here at the Bonner home, something BIG. I don't really know where to begin, I guess I'll just start where it all began, 2 1/2 years ago.

Kaelyn's birth/life has changed hearts, two of the biggest changes happened in the hearts of her mommy and daddy. When we first found out about Kaelyn's situation we were scared, we didn't feel like we were equipped to raise a child with special needs. Neither Wayne nor I had very much experience at all with anyone with any kind of special need. After 2 1/2 years with our little miracle, we feel very different about our abilities as parents. She has shown us the way all along, and taught us that we can do anything with faith in and the help of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Not long after bringing Kaelyn home from the NICU we learned about Reeces Rainbow, a non-profit organization that advocates and helps raise funds for children with Down syndrome and other special needs in parts of the world that are living in orphanages and eventually sent to mental institutions where they sit in cribs/beds all day, with very little interaction with other people. A blog friend of ours was working to adopt a little girl from Russia. From the very beginning I knew in my heart that we would bring one of those dear children home to be a part of our family. I just had faith that I would know when the time was right.

Just after Christmas I saw this special on the ABC World News tonight with Diane Sawyer. I highly recommend you watch the beautiful videos. The minute I watched these videos, my heart started to tell me something, something I didn't think I was ready to hear. Over the next week I would wake up each day wondering if I would feel the same way, if it was really time to find our other little girl. Each day it was re-affirmed through promptings of the Spirit, that yes it is time. Every question I could come up with, every reason that "logically" it doesn't quite make sense was answered with a way it would work out, or why it was right.

I was afraid to talk to Wayne about it, what if said no, what if he didn't agree? Yes, at first he was a little shocked that when I mentioned it to him a few days earlier, that I meant right now, not sometime in the distant future. But he listened, and he opened his heart, and not long after he was on board.

So yes there is a lot more to this story, and there is time to tell, but the short of it is, we are adopting a little girl from Eastern Europe with Down syndrome. We need to be really careful about how much information we put on the blog about her, so until we figure all that out we will be as discrete as possible.

Meet VICTORIA

(That is the name she was listed as on Reece's Rainbow, we don't know her real name)

We would like to invite you to follow along on this exciting journey at her blog, rescuingvictoria.blogspot.com

We will undoubtably need the prayers and encouragement of you, our friends, to help this all happen. It is not an easy task, but we feel we are up to it. We truly believe she is our little girl, meant to be a part of our family forever, and we are going to do everything in our power to get her here.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

All by myself

So a few weeks ago I was telling Wayne about a movie that I wanted to see, "The Mighty Macs". Its about a women's college basketball team, and I thought it looked like it could be pretty good, and I gotta support a women's sport film. So he told me I should go. I have never gone to a movie by myself, and wasn't too excited about the idea, but with 2 kids its a little harder to get to a movie and I didn't think it would be Wayne's style of movie so I thought, what the heck. Needless to say I didn't have to be too embarrassed to be by myself, because I was LITERALLY the only one in the theater. I had to document it to send to Wayne and yes I texted all I wanted during the movie and even called him. Good times.

I'm slowing getting back into running, 4 miles is my max right now. The other night I went out for a quick run around the lake after Wayne got home from work and this is what greeted me about halfway through my run. Thank goodness for my new phone so I could get a few decent pictures of it. Can't remember the last time I saw a sunset...ha ha, don't get out much.