I'm struggling to find any pictures from this fabulous holiday. We were so excited to have Brett & Lori and kids come up from Albuquerque to celebrate with us. We had more then enough food and the kids were so content playing together wherever they were. It's always hard to be away from family during the holidays so we loved having them here with us. Thank you for celebrating this time with us.





I guess the other memorable event this month is that I got a job working for this place. Lifetime Fitness - the healthy way of life company. It's one pretty fancy-pants gym and I get to play with the kids all day. Plus, I get health insurance while only working part-time hours and I can bring my kids anytime I'm working. Pretty exciting!

And who doesn't like to play baseball in the middle of November shirtless. These two!

We ventured into Denver to scout out some places for photo opportunities and we found some real winners for our our family shots. Love this crazy bunch of hooligans!

During fall break for the boys we snuck away to the mountains, to beautiful Steamboat Springs. It was quite the adventure to get there. We picked up Matthew from school so we got kind of a late start, and wouldn't you know it started to snow. The plows were out on the freeway, but once we turned off the main roads we encountered some exciting conditions. What was suppose to take 2 hours took about 4, but when we woke up the next day it was well worth the drive. We weren't exactly prepared for the snow, but we still managed a short hike to Fish Creek Falls. But mostly, we just snuggled up in our super warm room playing games, eating snacks and watching movies. It was exactly what we needed to recharge our batteries.

After I ran my half-marathon I was 100% satisfied with it and had no desire to run another step further. But then as time went by and with some convincing from my sis-in-law Maggs I decided to make the commitment to run a marathon. The only one that I would consider was the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. So we entered the lottery and unfortunately did not make the cut. I didn't want to lose all the training I had done so we decided to run in the Rock N' Roll in Denver which was going to be a challenge since neither of us would be acclimated. Then the most wonderful news showed up in my inbox. Because we were Nike+ users we were invited to join the Nike Women's Marathon. Oh Happy Day!  


 I continued to train which was difficult with the move and then continuing my training way up here in this thin air, but I'm not one to get deterred so easily. A big shout out to Matthew and the boys for putting up with my hours of running and to my family that helped me continue to train through out the move.  October 15 marked a momentous occasion, I was flying on an airplane by myself to a city that I love and miss dearly. Maggs picked me up from the airport and we stayed at Amy & Keith's house we spent Saturday morning in SF enjoying the pre-race expo and then I did a quick photo-shoot of Amy and we met all the local Nielsen's at Plern's (the best Thai food restaurant anywhere).


Sunday morning it was up bright and early and our lovely chauffeur Amy dropped us off. The excitement and energy was palpable. I could hardly believe the time had come, I was going to run a marathon. As we bounced around with about 20000 other runners Meghan asked if I was going to cry when we crossed the finish line. I kind of chuckled because #1-I don't consider myself a crier and #2-Why would I cry crossing the finish line. I am a little embarrassed to say that when we finally made our way up to the starting line and I crossed that mark I bawled. Taking that step meant so much to me, more then I knew. Training for the marathon seemed like the only thing I could control in the last little while. Here I was, just a year after dealing with my cancer and 2 months after finding out that the birth parents wanted to keep the baby that we were hoping to bring into our family, and I was doing it. I was running a marathon.  


I'll go a step further and admit I was emotional the entire run for those reasons and for what the NWM is, a fundraiser for Leukimia and Lymphoma. There's not much we can control in this life, like when and how things happen, but at that moment I was in control. I had a plan, I worked hard and there I was seeing it to the very end. My goal was to finish and never stop running and that is pretty much what happened. I had been having some ITB issues which many runners have, those darn knees.