Dear door to door salesman. When I'm in the middle of my Insanity workout and obviously very busy living life please don't ask me if you can come back a little later. Thank you. (6/22)

Insanity. Ah yeah. (6/21)

First bike ride of the season this morning. Oh how I love my bike. (6/21)

At Chuck E Cheese for Glen's birthday. (6/20)

Shower. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. (6/19)

It is so great to be done. (6/18)

I am DONE!!!! (6/18 @7:55 am)

2 legs down. Yippee!!! (6/17)

1st leg done. (6/17)

First day of dance. She LOVED it!! (6/15)

Todd is teaching the boys how to use power tools for our family night activity. He is making me planter boxes for my flowerbed (6/13)

Runners are supposed to have ugly feet. Right? (6/11)

On the road again. I'm excited to sleep in my bed tonight and even more excited for my kids to sleep in their beds :) (6/11)

On our way home. It was a great week. Pictures will be posted soon. (6/10)

Tayson just said "I've had 13 nightmares". Really? You've counted your entire life? (6/8)

Just saw Debra Messing at Disneyland (6/8)

I'm sorry but grown men in mouse ears is just hilarious. (6/8)

Loved the new Star Tours ride. (6/8)

This is now gone out of our driveway. Hooray!! The trash is gone and soon very soon I will have my garage back. I am tired of having all our cars in front of the house. With a little clean up work this weekend we should be able to get 2 cars back in the garage. All we have left to do is caulk the baseboard and paint. We are soooooo close!

This year for Ragnar - Wasatch Back - I was runner #3 (last year I was 10). I loved being so close to the start. I got all of my runs finished so early and could enjoy the rest of the race much better than last year. I train harder for this race than any other event I've done. We have long runs, short runs, multiple runs in a day. My hardest training week I put in over 40 miles (normally I'm mid 20's). I managed to get to the race with no injuries and feeling stronger than I've ever felt.

Our start time this year was 8:15 am. We decided to sleep in our own beds and leave at 5:00 am to get up to Logan for the start. It was perfect. I took an ambien and slept like a baby the night before the race and felt great at the start.

My first leg was 5.6 (moderate) miles. It was a pretty flat run and I felt great on it. The van stopped about half way through I took a gel and drank some water. I passed 17 people on this leg and averaged an 8:02 pace. The run was absolutely gorgeous. Bright green hills and beautiful farmland. I made sure to look around a few times and admire the beauty of the earth and where I live.


That night was pretty darn cold. We bundled up and some slept outside in sleeping bags during van 2's second legs. I slept in the van on the back seat and actually got a few good hours of sleep. Then around 4:30 am our van was back up again for our last legs.

I was really worked up about my last leg. It was 7.7 miles of down and uphill. I had 3.5 miles straight uphill right in the middle. I was driving everyone crazy with my nerves so Suzette broke the ice by flashing me - not too much - just enough to really make me laugh right before my run. I got out there and told myself just run this like any other training run. It was 6:00 am and perfect temperature. The sun was rising at my back and a few miles in I took off my sleeves and felt perfect in my tank top. Our driver Lisa got out and brought me water, walked up a bit of the hill with me and took my sleeves so I wouldn't have to run with them. I love van support. It's the best!!! I felt great on this run. It was my favorite of the 3 runs I did. I felt strong and was having fun. I kept thinking to myself "this is why I run". It was beautiful outside on this run. I stopped at one more water stop for a quick drink then finished my run with my tunes turned up loud and a smile on my face. I finished it in 1 hour and 6 minutes 8:40 pace and passed 23 people on this leg.



We finished the race in 30hours and 11 minutes. Were 15th out of all the women's teams and 3rd in the sub-masters category. We never go in with any pressure on each other to run a certain pace or anything but we still kicked butt. I love the feeling of accomplishment the most but it's definitely icing on the cake to do so well! Because it sells out fast we are already signed up for next year. I wasn't planning on running Ragnar 2012 but there is no way I missing out running with these girls next year.

Both of my girls are officially dancers. I am one happy mama. Sophie has been dying to be in dance since Claire's concert. When I told her she was going to start dance this week she said "I wear makeup?" I let her wear lip gloss. She loved her class and her teacher and was so dang cute when she was dancing. At the end they did a "free dance" part where the teacher turned on music and just told them to dance around. Sophie jumped out with her legs put both hands on her crotch, stuck her tongue out and was dancing like a crazy girl. I was a bit embarrassed that she pulled out her best Brittany Spears moves but sadly not surprised by it. She does funny stuff when we have dance parties at home and because the boys laugh so hard she keeps doing it. She is such a crack up.

We had our last team meeting last night in preparation for the big race this weekend. I have the best team ever!! Talk about some awesome runners and friends. I love love love these girls and can't wait to spend 30 hours of my life in a van with them.

Tayson made me get him the large cone at the mall. He swore he could eat the whole thing. He made it about 1/2 way through by the time we got home and then threw the rest away. Ha ha! I told him he couldn't do it. :)

One thing Todd really wanted to do before coming home was have a beach cookout. It is one of our very favorite things to do in California. We love the food and we love the beach. The pictures really say it all in this one. We set up camp. We cooked food over the fire (hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, and s'mores). We ate until we couldn't eat anymore than we went home happy and very dirty.









Sophie and the s'more. Sophie had already put in a long week by this point and did her best to keep up with the big kids. She was holding strong eating her s'more then we looked over and she was sound asleep on the sand. She is too dang cute. She slept like that for a good 20 minutes while we finished eating and cleaned up. Sweet girl.

On Friday we decided to go the beach - it was the coldest day of the week but we didn't care because at least it wasn't snow!

Amy had a great idea to get Jan a bike for her retirement present. The kids were all playing outside as we got ready to go to the beach and when Jan came out Todd rode it around the corner. I love the expression on her face when she saw what it was. I personally love biking so I am extra excited about it! I think one of my dreams when I'm retired will be to just cruise along the bike path on the beach and enjoy life. We took the bike to the beach with us to give it a spin.

One of the main factors for choosing the hotel we stayed at was the pool for the kids. On Thursday we had the retirement party at night so the kids got up and headed down to the pool. I missed most of the action because I finally had the time and energy to get a run in. It wasn't a particularly sunny or warm day but the kids didn't care a bit. They loved every minute of it. There was a big bucket that would fill up then dump out on them. It hit Owen a couple of times - and he didn't like it as much as the other kids :)