The Big one!

We saw it, 

if only for a split second during our cloudy weather!  

ECLIPSE!

Happy Birthday, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July Mom and Dad

We had a family reunion!  I know, right?  We have only had one of those that I can remember, other than this one.  It's hard when you drop your kids off all over the country and when 2 of them marry military men themselves and some just need an attitude adjustment!  But hey, we did it and plenty of people came!

Finishing the binding on the quilt on the trip up to Mom and Dad's!

Mom came up with the theme of celebrating all the holiday's that they miss celebrating with all their kids and grandkids because everyone is so spread out.

We had 4th of July with sparklers and pool and slip and slide time,

We had Christmas presents- white elephant gifts,

We had birthday celebration complete with mini cakes to frost and decorate,

The book has pictures of all the kids and grandkids.  The quilt was a representation of each family.  They chose the main color.  I chose the square that would represent the family.  We have green and a hunters star since Rob is Army and we move a lot and we own a lot of guns.  Karl's is red- I assume for Arizona State and his is Wheel of fortune, because he is in the finance game.  Mike's is maroon, I assume for Texas A&M and his is Sister's choice, since they have a lot of girls in their family.  Cindy's is robins egg blue (not sure why.  Probably because she likes that color) and is a windmill- they live in Washington state and were Air Force, so it seemed to fit.  Dan's is.... I can't remember!  It was birds in flight though.  Was it blue???  Anyway, him and his wife both work for the airlines, so that's why the pattern.  Lise's was purple, because that fits her and the pattern was bento box, because she loves anime.  Tim's was a pattern that just looked digital to me, because he is into everything digital and it was grey, because he likes things plain.

We had Easter with the only two littles left that would participate in an egg hunt. 

We went on a treasure hunt of places that Mom knew growing up.

I can't tell you now what any of these places are, but we went there and checked them off our list!

We went to the temple and did baptisms for our dead ancestors.  

We visited with Great Grandma Keck

We played games and we chatted

What a great fun family reunion Mom and Dad planned!  It was so good to see everyone that came.  I haven't seen my sister in years and I had never met the two littles.  Gretchen and Dan were a blast.  I love people who aren't afraid to get into the fun even if it means getting soaking wet! 

 Until next time family!  Love you all!

Muddy Buddies

I signed up with a bunch of ladies to do a mud run in August.

For every wave start time they chose a group to be the captains and they took you through some stretches.  This was the Captain America group.  Ours were the All Business group and they were wearing cut off khakis and shirts and ties.  Everyone had to do toe touches, because everybody loves a good toe touch- or reverse toe touch!!

None of them showed up, so my husband signed up, because in his words, "I don't want some random guy helping you over the obstacles."

You had to go through the mud pit around mile 1.5 and then again at the very end.

Well, I am proud to say, no one helped me over any obstacles although a random guy did help me not slide down a very muddy hill too fast!  We had a blast and I have decided that these are the kinds of races I want to train for now.

Definitely an after shot!

They are so much fun and short!

They had a little muddy gully to wash up in afterwards- it did help despite how muddy it was itself!

No more 26.2 mile runs- at least not for awhile!!

I had a sore on one of my feet, so I just wrapped both of them afterwards, because you donate your muddy shoes at the end of the race.  Some company fixes them up and gives them to 3rd world countries.  I had forgotten another set of shoes, so I just wore my wrap.  Don't you love my pretty sparkly pink toes, though!

I had forgotten to take off my rings and I really didn't want one of them to catch on a cargo net and rip all the meat off my bony finger, so at the starting line I hooked my rings onto my watch.  They stayed on!

I so love that this is something I can do with my husband.  I really think that you need to find something that you like to do together.  It really bring you closer to each other.  We have spent hours together that we might not have, if it hadn't been for a race that we were training to do.  I can't wait for the next fun race, but until then, I am training for a triathlon that I am doing with a friend other than my husband.

Galactic Acidification

Last marathon I did a home movie, took lots of pictures, wrote about in glowing prose.  This marathon- not so much.  We ran the Air Force Marathon September 17th.  

One of the many flyovers by various aircraft during the race

We did the training in half the time as the last one.  Life kept getting in the way, and we let it.  We didn't really have a team until the last 3 or 4 weeks and we didn't do team dinners/breakfasts or shop for matching uniforms or anything.  As soon as we started running with a team, though, things seemed to get a lot better.  Rob started not being so exhausted on runs.  In fact he ran us into the ground on the 20 miler.  Runs seemed a lot more fun and not as hard.  But then the last week I started feeling really exhausted.  I came up with all kinds of excuses from "I'm still recovering from the  20 miler, to I haven't eaten and it's already 10 am and I'm trying to run, to I'm just nervous about the race."

I tried to get into the race spirit a little the day before the race.  I made a tutu to wear and put butterflies on clips that I put in my hair.  I thought about buying wings, too, but decided against it because of the whole wind drag thing.

One of my butterfly clips had fallen out at mile 3!

The day of the race, we went in early- to the wrong gate and told them we were going into the office- which we were- so they moved barricades for us to pass through.  We went into Dwyne's office and hung out for a while, trying to eat the last of our bananas and oatmeal muffins.  It was all very surreal to me.  We finally headed down to the start point and just barely got there in time for the wheelchairs to start.  Two of the guys had to drop bags off at a collection spot, so we missed them.  We looked everywhere, but it didn't take long before the gun went off for us to start.  We eventually caught up with them.  They had lined up with the 4 hour group and we had lined up with the 4:15 group. 

Right before you got to the 1mile poster you got to a huge hill that went on for another mile and a half.  Really not fun, when you have trained on mostly flat ground.  The rest of the course was up and down except two spots- one at miles 9-10 which went off base, so that families could cheer.  

That is where the party was.  

One of the kids favorites

One of our friends' -who smoked us all- wife watched and carted around our children for us, so we could see them and they could see us.  She is such a sweetie!

By this time, I was already done running!  I couldn't seem to put one foot in front of the other without a huge effort.  

Everyone kept asking if I was Ok.  I wasn't.  At mile 18 I was really done.  I didn't think I could go another step, but we made it to mile 20 where true to form, Rob got a cramp in his hamstrings.  It happens every time at mile 20!  Before mile 21, though he caught up with us and passed us.  He said, it actually felt better if he ran faster.  He ended up finishing at 4 hours 14 minutes. 

He told one of the guys, Dave (who is in our bishopric) to stay with me and he did, the entire way.  Even though I took extra breaks, he stayed with me.  The last 1.2 miles is where you can see the finish line, but you have to go in a huge loop and back to it.  I couldn't even keep running there.   I had to take one quick walk before I could finish the point 2.  

As soon as I crossed the finish line a nurse was in my face asking if I was Ok.  I wasn't.  It was all fuzzy on the sides of my vision and I could feel myself starting to faint.  Rob stuck out his hand and I grabbed it and then I knew I would be Ok.   I did have to walk a couple yards and then sit down before I did faint, but I knew it would be alright with Rob.  I downed an entire bottle of gatorade and inhaled a banana and then I was able to stand.  I still didn't have to go to the bathroom until 7 o'clock that night, though!

Dywne still hadn't come in.  He was fighting hard with cramps.  We weren't sure when he would be there, so we took pictures.

Notice the bumble bee shirts the boys wore to match Rob's black and yellow combo (they are stinging like bees!)  Emma is in purple to match my floating like a butterfly outfit!  Nobody really got it.  They kept calling me tutu girl or I  also got fairy and ballerina! 

I was really disappointed with my time of 4 hours and 20 minutes.  It was almost an entire minute more than last race and I had trained to run it faster.  I kept trying to figure out what my problem was.  Why I was so exhausted the entire race.  The whole last 18 miles was a gut check.  It took me until the next day when I finally realized.  Only one thing changed from the time I ran the 20 miler (where we all ran strong and where on time for our goal) until I ran the marathon.  I had started taking Allegra for allergies!  And a couple weeks before the 20 miler, Rob had stopped taking allergy medicine because of nose bleeds!  I don't know why I didn't even think about it before I started taking it, but although it is non-drowsy, it still is, obviously exhausting!   Rob had been struggling with the runs ever since allergy season had kicked in and I started having trouble when I finally started taking allergy medicine (I usually don't get allergies, so I had just been trying eye drops and stuff before that.)  Needless to say, I have not taken allergy medicine since the race!  I am biased against them.

One day, I will realize that just completing a marathon on those terms and in not a terrible time, is a good thing, but for now I'm just disappointed.  I would like to prove myself, but I am also ready to do some other things.  We talked to several people about doing a triathlon and Rob really wants us all to run the Army 10 miler, (which we have already started training for) and I really would like to do a Ragnar race.   There are lots of fun things out there to do!  Anyone want to come with us to do any of them?  We do love a team!!

Dywne, Dave, Shawn, Rob and Deborah

PS the lactic acid from a marathon is always galactic!

Nesting

I am not a crazy obsessive compulsive clean freak.  I am usually one of those "good enough" people and I can turn my back on clutter for a while.  But at certain intervals- and there have been no definitive studies of when or why this happens- my alter-obsessive-clean-freak-ego comes out.  Rob calls it my nesting stage and he loves it when I am in a "nesting stage."  His obsessive-clean-freak-ego is always either surfaced or just barely submerged!  Usually my nesting stage last until the house is cleaned up, the clutter is put away or one closet has been dissected, completely scoured, and rearranged.  This time however, it has lasted more than a day.  I have done the linen closet, our closet, our drawers, (all the socks are now rolled and in color sections, the clothes are in rainbow order with long sleeves first and then short sleeves next, etc.- compulsion rears it's ugly head!) scoured the fridge, completely redone the study, and started on the laundry room.  I bought a sofa table and found a place that will redye my sofa.  Unfortunately, I think my mild mannered-turn-my-eyes-the-other-way ego is resurfacing and I really wanted to redo my downstairs and finish that quilt for Sam!

Here's to Me

Megan had this to say on her blog:


I have been really thinking about something for the past few weeks. Being a girl is definately the way to go, but it comes with serious drawbacks. One of these is the way that we are WAY too hard on ourselves! Give me 20 seconds and I could give you a page of the ways that I fall short, but I think that there are only a handful of compliments that I have sincerely taken to heart and accepted.

She goes on to state that she doesn't want her girls to grow up like that and wants them to be positive about themselves, so she gives and takes her own challenge to write down a handful of compliments about herself. I can't say that I am very hard on myself usually and it annoys me when people refuse to be in pictures or say that they can't think of one good thing about themselves- mostly because I find it to be false humility! But with everything we are seriously annoyed with, there is usually an element of truth for us in there. I grew up thinking I was ugly, which was perpetuated by some very mean boys. I have mostly gotten over that, but with most things in childhood they persist even if just in the back of your mind. Every once in awhile it rears it's ugly- no pun intended- head! So I am taking the challenge!
1. I am very curious, love learning, and am very good at taking tests. I got out of 5 years of college with a 3.93. The only B's I got were when the men in my life needed a little extra attention.

2. My mother told me one time that she wanted me to be a well rounded person. I have taken that to heart and have gotten pretty ok at lots of stuff. And because of my curious, love to learn nature I am getting better and better at all those things. The only thing my husband gets a little upset about is that I keep picking up new ones to try!

3. I am a good runner- maybe not compared to you, but we are not comparing!

4. You can count on me when I say I am going to do something. (as long as I don't forget:0) I knew a lady that kept inviting me to do things with her and I would tell the kids and they would get all excited and then she would cancel- every time. I stopped telling the kids, but she never stopped canceling. And it was always last minute. I never did anything with that lady. I have had other friends like that, but never that bad. It annoys me so I won't do it to you unless it is an emergency. Of the 7 years I have worked I have never called in sick!

5. I have beautiful legs!

6. I love the color of my hair- it's brown with gold and red highlights.

7. I am fairly relaxed and accepting. I don't get offended easily. I had a friend tell me she was suprised I didn't loose weight while training for my marathon and then told me that I must eat really good. It just made me laugh. I also will listen if you want to teach me a better, faster or prettier way to do something. I am not offended that you think you have a better way than the way I am doing it. If I think it is better, faster or prettier I will use it. So come teach me. I like to learn!

Well, that was more than a handful and since 7 is my favorite number, I will end with that, but because I don't want my daughter to be left out, I am going to give you 5 compliments of her.

1. She is cute. She may be beautiful when she grows up, but right now she is really cute. This worries her father and myself a little.

2. She is really good at sports. She is a natural athlete and makes any team she wants even without trying.

3. She is really generous and giving to her friends.

4. She has great respect for authority and rules. She really loves the people that work to help make her a better person- her teachers, primary leaders, her principal, her coaches.

5. She loves her family, especially her Dad and Mom and is concerned that they are happy. She listens to our conversations and gets mad at people that make us mad and loves the people we love. She tries hard to please us.
6. Her enthusiasm for life is amazing and her energy is unmatchable.
7. She is a little planner and loves to make lists. She is so good at it, I think it may be her calling. She will be the best event planner ever!

Now it's your turn. Consider yourself challenged to write down a handful of things you like about yourself. If not for you, for your daughter's sake!