Saturday, September 1, 2007

Mom's First Race....Post Jared

Since most of the posts are about the kids, I thought I would let you know what I have been doing. In order to motivate myself to get out and start running again, I decided to train for and sign up for a half marathon. I didn't exactly train according to the training plan, but I got a couple of longer runs in over the past month, so I figured I would just go for it and try to see how I did.

The race I signed up for was the Salt Lake Half Marathon, a beautiful run that follows approximatley 9 or 10 miles of the 24th of July Marathon. As Steve and the kids dropped me off and I sat in the car feeding Jared, we watched the clouds on the east horizon turn a rosy pink, just before the sun popped its head over the mountains. The first 4 miles were the hardest since it was a 4 mile uphill climb up the backside of Emigration Canyon. The final 9 miles were down hill but not too steep, just a tolerable slope. Near the end I started to get quite hot. We dropped out of the shade of the narrow canyon walls and into the wider exit into the valley. The canyon was especially quiet with little traffic, other than the groups of bikers. It was such a peaceful run and rather interesting with the historical markers showing the path the pioneers took into the valley. It was a wonderful way to start the Labor Day Weekend.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Children's Museum

Now don't go trying to find Elizabeth in these pictures. Unlike all the really fabulous blogging mothers, I don't carry my camera around with me every where I go. I got to the museum and thought, gee this would be a great time to have the camera. Maybe next time.

But, even sans camera, we had a wonderful time. The museum is really fun for the kids. If you haven't been, you should go. They have so much stuff to keep them entertained. I loved seeing how Elizabeth has changed since the first tome we went to the museum last fall. At that time she mainly just wanted to play babies and cook in the little house. This time around she loved playing with everything, even the building blocks upstairs that hadn't caught her attention last time. We got to sign up for a short art class. They were suppose to be painting Jackson Pollack style. This consisted of dancing to music while flinging paint. A fun activity, but hopefully one that won't be duplicated next time we pull the watercolors out at home. This is her rendition. She had a difficult time just flinging the paint on the paper. She wanted a much more substantial amount of paint to show up on the painting. Thanks to Lillian and Alex for spending the morning with us at the museum. We had a ball!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Bath Time

Jared just loves the bath. He finds it so relaxing. He always melts right into the warm water. Even when he was little, he never got scared at bath time. (Now Elizabeth on the other hand, she screamed her head off during her first bath at home.) As you can see, he is getting a little big for the sink. Too bad I don't have one of those large sinks! I have always loved bath time with the kids and hope you will enjoy this fun video of our little smiling man enjoying his bath!

Agoo

Steve's mom has always tried to get the kids to say agoo, since that is one of the first sounds they make. We made this video of Jared talking as a tribute to her efforts!


Friday, August 17, 2007

Seven Years

Yesterday Steve and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. It is amazing to realize that it has been 7 years. Sometimes we feel like it was just yesterday, and other times we feel like it has been forever (in a good way)! We took the opportunity to visit a really nice restaurant. We enjoyed an evening together at Log Haven. It was very good and Steve highly recommends the potato crusted halibut if you ever have a chance to go. The restaurant is a converted 1920's cabin that a doctor had built for his wife. Nestled in between the canyon walls it has a great atmosphere. We had a canyon view table that looked towards a small waterfall that was cascading out of the canyon wall. The waitress suggested coming up in the winter when they have the fire roaring and the mountain walls are blanketed in white....tempting!

We just wanted to say thanks to all those that have made our past seven years all that we could have hoped for. We look forward to sharing our lives with each of you over the coming years.

Then...

And Now.

Our Singing Princess

Elizabeth loves to sing. Over the weekend Steve took some videos of her singing her favorite songs. I love listening to her sing. One of my favorite things is when she makes up songs. She creates them by singing random words to melodies she already knows. I think she must have inherited this tendency from my dad. Whenever she is playing in her bedroom you can listen in and here her singing a song she is making up on the spot. It is priceless.

Along with singing, Elizabeth also loves to dance. She loves to make up dances as she listens to music, or when she is singing. During the second and third songs Steve recorded she delights us with both her singing and dancing. We hope you enjoy our singing princess as much as we do!


Monday, August 13, 2007

Timpanogos

On Saturday Steve along with his sister Heidi, her husband Eric and a friend Justin, participated in the 2nd Annual Kettle Family Timpanogos hike. We did this hike for the first time last year and absolutely loved it. You start hiking before dawn so that you can get to the top before the sun becomes too punishing. Thus, the first few pictures are taken in the early dawn light. The commentary on the slide show was lovingly narrated by Steve! We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as he enjoyed being able to take them.

The kids and I spent a very lazy day at home resting up and watching a movie. All that resting up wore us out so much that I didn't even do any cooking this weekend. Shocking I know!


Instructions on enlarging slideshow found here.