I just had to put in a short clip about the posts that follow the Top of Utah--there are 3 others so please read on, I did lots of updating today.

Today I completed the Top of Utah half Marathon, and it was great! I started off with two of my friends, Amber and Mindy but was long lost after a little while. This was both Amber and Mindy's first half marathon and let me tell you they flew through it. Amber flew from the starting line and ended up completing the race in 1:52--way to go. Mindy and I ran together and had really good times the first 7 miles and then around mile 8 I hit a wall, no other way to say it. I was so disappointed in myself, I have never ran a race where I had to walk, but I met my match today. It was still a great race and I am so lucky to have been able to do it. It was a great course and it was the perfect day, which I was grateful for. Mindy stuck by me for a long time, was even thoughtful enough to give me a pep talk but I sent her on her way. She deserved to be able to do her very best--my thumbs go up to her, she just got through a scare with cancer and after her treatments decided to train for this and she was awesome, so I would say she is the winner of the race in my book--way to go Mindy.
In the last picture there are some medics behind me--a guy went down right at the end and they were doing chest compressions on him. I don't know what fate will bring that guy but we were thinking about him the rest of the time we were there and hope for the best.
Fun times--and I look forward to doing it next year and making it a better race for me.

After 2 months of being a scout, Nathan finally made it to his first pack meeting and was able to participate in the flag ceremony.

He has been a little over zealous with scouts (or was) and earned his bobcat last month but we weren't there so he got that here.


After the rain gutter regatta, Rylie had to give it her best shot too, she thought that was quite fun.

Here are the boys with their boats, Derrek did a pirate ship and Nathan did a Utes ship, he won most of the races.


The boys had their rain gutter regatta this last Thursday and had so much fun doing it. This is the first time we have ever seen this even, we are so use to the pine wood derby that it was a nice change.

My kids have been bugging me about them cooking their "own" meal. They don't care about instructions or anything they had something in their heads and flew with it. Here is Nathan, who actually started asking for directions after he couldn't get the dough quite right, though he still did not want a recipe.

Last week was the "Gillespie" family reunion held in Driggs, Idaho. We stayed in a cabin, all 22 of us and had such a blast. The cabin sits at the base of Targee ski resort just outside of Jackson Hole. It has a hot tub, a volleyball court, horse shoes and what not so you are pretty much set to hang out at the cabin. I am highly disappointed in the lack of pictures I took, we had almost all my family there (minus one family) and it would have been so great to actually document more than what I am able to do. My grandma even came for the first time and it was great to have her there. My brother and his wife, who live in Switzerland, came up with their new baby and all the rest of my family and their kids were there too.
We went to Jenny lake one day and did the hike all around the lake to the water falls and back. Then the next day we went back to Jackson hole and did the Alpine slides and the bungee jump. We had so much fun.

Here is Derrek doing the bungee tramp. My mom was generous enough to purchase tickets for all the grand kids to do this activity and for the most part they all had fun doing it. I think there were a few adults wishing they could have done it too. My sister's little Zoe, who is 4 went first and she did so awesome that I think by the end of her turn all the other kids (who are much older) started talking big and wanted to do it too. Zoe set the bar high and very few were able to max it. Thanks mom for doing this for all the kids.

Nathan was one of the braver ones, and once he got over being up sooo high he started so flips and I think he really enjoyed it.

Rylie went after Zoe and she wanted to do it soo bad, but I thought there was no way she would actually last since she can't stand to be on the tramp with her brothers if they are jumping too high. But she did really good, you could see the fear shine right through her smile, but she kept at it. I was really proud of her.

She learned to float on her tummy all by herself.


And float on your back

And dive off the side of the pool.


Rylie was so excited for swimming lessons and was quite sad to have not done the first session the boys did, but she had to be 3 first. She did so well in these lessons and went from being pretty hesitant and wouldn't stick her face in the water to jumping in the water all by herself and diving in the water and having so much more fun at the pool. She is difinately my little fish in the water and I hope it stays that way. Though her kicking skills need some work and got a good laugh from all onlookers, but she sure tried her heart out.



Nathan on the other hand is really good at swimming but even better at playing around. It was a little frustrating this round because of all the playing he did, but I have to put some of the blame on the teacher, I think he would have much rather been dancing then teaching swim lessons. I caught him numerous times stretching on the bar in the pool and acting really "weird". Anyway, needless to say Nate had a lot of time sitting so he made great use of that time and had lots of fun. He really improved too, (or he needed to be moved up in the first place), he went up 3 levels.

Here he is actually swimming!

Here too, just caught him at the right moment.