HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAYGEN!

We've been partying again! Jaygen had his 5th birthday on Monday and he had only one thing on his mind...football! He had been telling us for months that he wanted a Wii football game, so we got him one and thought it would be fun to have a helmet and jersey to go along with it. Grandma and grandpa gave him some football pads and that made the outfit complete. He had been especially excited for this birthday because I told him he could have a friends party...of course it was all football too! He invited 7 little friends over and we had a football training camp in the backyard.

Then we came inside and had some BBQ hotdogs and of course birthday cake. I told Jaygen I was going to make a football field cake and he said he wanted it to be Steelers against the Broncos. It turned out pretty cute and Jaygen loved it!

I can't believe that Jaygen is already 5 years old!!! Jaygen is such a good helper around the house and an awesome big brother. Jaygen has changed a lot in the last little while and seems so grown up to me. He loves anything to do with sports, reading books, playing the Wii, being outdoors, and especially hanging out with his dad! Happy Birthday Jaygen...I love you!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PACE!

Pace turned the big number 3 last week! It seems like we have celebrated his birthday for a whole week because last weekend Todd's parents came down with presents, then his birthday was wednesday and we did presents, then my family came this weekend with more presents and we had a little baseball party!

We gave Pace a big garbage truck for his birthday. Holy cow...he was so excited! Now I get to play garbage guy with him, only I get to be a garbage girl...thanks Pace!

We had a baseball pinata at his little party and had tons of fun with it. I think grandpa and grandma Marshall had the most fun swinging at it. Now I know where I get my athletic ability from!!! :)

Pace loved his baseball cake. I totally intended to frost the cake blue not green, but I made a buttercream frosting that was yellow and then added blue food coloring. Note to self: yellow and blue really do make green!

Pace has the best personality and I hope that he never changes. He is such a laid back kid and always content to be doing his own thing. He always follows his big brother around and mimics what he does, but it seems that Pace is always the one with the big ideas when they get in trouble. Pace has such a sweet, innocent face that it makes it hard to ever really get mad at him. Pace is a really caring kid with a soft heart. He has the best hugs and kisses that he likes to give. Pace makes us laugh everyday! He says and does the funniest things. I have no idea where he comes up with some of the things he does! I love you Pace...you are one of my special boys!

The Garbage Guy!

The last little while Pace has totally been into the garbage guy (that is what he calls him) and I mean totally! Every tuesday (garbage day) Pace waits out front for the garbage truck to come. He is so excited when he hears it coming. Pace stands there and studies how the garbage truck works. He waves at the garbage guy and the garbage guy always waves back and honks at Pace. Then Pace comes running in the house as happy as could be. It cracks me up every time!! It doesn't stop there though, Pace then spends the rest of the day playing garbage guy. He empties out his hamper and then fills it back up with "garbage" and dumps piles around the house. He can honestly play it forever and he makes the best sounds while he is dumping the garbage. I guess it is just one of those things with little boys and big trucks! :)

Another thing to notice in this picture is Pace's cowboy clothes. He wears them EVERYDAY!!!!! He usually has his hat, boots, belt, and chaps on too. When are the cowboy days going to end????

RED ROCK RELAY

The Red Rock Relay is physically probably one of the hardest things I have ever done...and I made it through to tell about it! :) The Relay was a 187 mile run that started in Brian Head, went through Cedar Breaks, over Cedar Mountain, past Kolob Reservoir, through Hurricane, around Sand Hollow Reservoir, through St. George, past Gunlock Reservoir, up through Veyo, down through Snow Canyon and FINALLY ended! Our team started friday morning and ran straight through until saturday afternoon. I think one thing that made it so difficult is that we were basically running on NO sleep. Then when you add the heat, rain and mountains on top of that is was a challenge. Despite all this, it was awesome and Team Justice League totally rocked the Red Rock!!!!

Here is my story in a nutshell that I lived to tell:

Most of our team went up the night before and stayed at the Topham's cabin by Brian Head. This is a picture of us before we left the cabin friday morning all dressed in our running attire. We decided we might as well have as much fun with this as we could so we totally dressed up as the Justice League characters. I was dressed like Flash and yes, I felt a little silly running dressed up, but when you are running your heart out you really don't care! We all looked awesome!
We headed to the starting line to meet the rest of our team and send our first team member off. It was pretty exciting and got my nerves going. We really had no idea what was ahead of us!


I didn't run my first leg until around 2:30 friday afternoon and it was HOT! I started half way up Right Hand Canyon and ran to the "C" on Cedar Mountain. I only had to run about 2 miles but climbed over 1000 feet. Holy cow, my legs were burning. My mom and dad came to watch me make the big climb and I loved having them there to support me.

My next leg of the race came around 2:00 a.m. I had never run in the middle of night before! I ran about 4.5 miles up and around part of Sand Hollow Reservoir in the dark and the rain. Luckily I only got sprinkled on, but it totally poured on some of my team members. This is a picture of me passing off to Tiffany. I know you really can't see it but that is how I felt when I was running. I was having the hardest time seeing the road while I was running and didn't figure out until I was done that I had my head light on upside down...seriously, I know!! I am just glad that I wasn't eaten alive by some huge, wild animal because I heard a lot of noises off in the bushes while I was running! :)

My van headed to our next exchange spot which was in Gunlock to hopefully catch a couple of hours of sleep before we had to run again. We rolled our sleeping bags out on the sidewalk of the church, yea pretty comfy! I luckily dozed off for a minute, but if I would have know what my last leg of the race was going to be like I think I would have probably laid there and stressed about it instead! This is a picture of us all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to run our last legs of the race!! Yes, we still have on our sweaty, stinking clothes that we started in friday morning!

I ran my last leg of the race around 1:00 saturday afternoon and it was miserably hot, mid 90's to be exact. I only had about 3 miles to run and I thought is was just kinda around Veyo, but oh no! It was up yet another hill, aka mountain! When I saw it I wondered how I was ever going to make it! It was tough and looking back I wish that I would have pushed harder, but at the time I thought I was going to die!

We finished the race in 30:02:58. It was the best feeling to cross that finish line! I loved the chance I had to have an experience like this and the challenge it gave me, but mostly I loved the great team members I was with and how positive everyone was. My team suffered from blisters, road rash, heat, rain and lots of aches and pains but no one complained. We were all there to cheer each other on!!!! Thanks to our shuttle drivers Jill and Dana too for being there to drive us all 30 hours of the way! And thanks to my mom for coming to the finish line to see our big finish! What a great experience this relay was!

Team members: Shannon, Lance, Melanie, Jen, Stacia, Shaylee, Carly, Erin, Tiffany, Deb, Me, Amber

Is it finally time to cut Briggs' hair?!

I know that Briggs' hair is getting pretty long, but it is so curly I can't get myself to cut it. I love all his curls!

Well the other day, I heard some squealing from Briggs so I went to see what was up. Jaygen was chasing Briggs down the hall trying to comb his hair. He had out the flat iron, blow dryer, combs and rubber bands. I asked Jaygen what he was doing and he said that Briggs' hair was messy. I totally started laughing!!!! Briggs was kinda crying and kinda laughing wondering what Jaygen was doing to him. Jaygen said, "But mom, they said he looks like a girl." I said "Who did?" and Jaygen said "Some people do!"

What a good big brother Jaygen is trying to help Briggs so people won't call him a girl, and yes, Briggs might have cute girl curls, but he is my baby and I am not ready to cut the curls off!

TOP OF UTAH HALF MARATHON...WOW!!!!

Holy cow...I thought it would never get here! After about six months of training (a lot of mornings at 5 a.m.), a broken leg, and more aches and pains than I want to remember, the big event was finally here. It was an awesome feeling to accomplish a goal that I had worked so hard to achieve! I can honestly say that I have never wanted to be a runner and never thought that I could be, but there is something about it that has me hooked...probably the feeling of accomplishment.

I went up to Logan and ran my first half marathon with my sister-in-law Candace and her friend Katie. It was so awesome to share this with Candace. We had each other to get us across the finish line and cheer each other on. I won't lie, there was a time I wanted to sit down and cry, but we totally rocked and couldn't have felt better when we finished!! :) Nice job girls!

Candace and Me

Candace, Katie, Me (I look so short because we are standing on a hill)

My cheering section couldn't make it with me this time because Todd was buisy at work, but I know they were cheering extra loud from home. Thanks Todd for always supporting me and rearranging your schedule so that I would have time to run...your are the best!

So, do I want to run a marathon now...No! Do I want to run another half marathon...Yes! I think it will be fun to run a couple races here and there, and it was so hard to build up to where I am, I don't want to lose it! So, when is the next race...next weekend! Go Team Justice League!!!