Father/ Daughter Dance, Kids Rock Marathon, and Warrior Dash

Lillie and Tim went to a Father/ Daughter dance for Lillie's girl scout unit. Tim made a really big deal out of it for her and they had a wonderful time. She was completely entranced by the idea of a corsage and she even wore it to church on Sunday.

The word in the Girl Scout world is that Tim was the best dad there. He was first on the dance floor and last off. He had Lillie flying all around the room and she was on cloud 9 the entire night. She is lucky to have such a great dad. I think they both had a really great night!

Samuel and Lillie both participated in the ING Kids Rock Marathon from September to November. It's a marathon designed for kids. You complete it in 8 weeks where you run in increasing amounts each day. On the final day they ran one final mile downtown by the zoo to complete the full 26.2 miles. They had a lot of fun training with their coach and I was so proud of them on race day!

Here they are with their coach Lisa Waughtal

Lillie - about to cross the finish line

One amazing girl!

Samuel about to cross the finish line - he wanted Tim to run with him

The coolest dude I know!

Here they are with their race sponsors (teachers and staff from their school) There were 11 kids in all from their elementary who ran in it but a lot of them had already left.

And I ran the Warrior Dash on 11/19. This was my first 5k plus the course had 15 different obstacles, some of them very muddy. I ran the race with my good friends Kelli and Andrea. The entire thing was Andrea's crazy idea but I'm glad we went along with it.

Here we are in our crazy lightning pants. Oh yeah, and our viking hats. You got those in your swag bag... along with a token for a free beer. Dang it! I totally forgot to turn that thing in!

Me towards the end of my race on top of one of the obstacles.

This was the last part of the course. After you get out it is ridiculously muddy so upon Tim's suggestion I slid into the finish instead of running. It was totally great!

There were over 6000 people who raced. I think I came in 117th in my age group of 30-35 y/o women and 495th overall. My total time 41:00:90. I was pretty proud of those #'s.

The entire thing was a blast. Thanks to Tim and Kelli's husband Robby for taking the pics and being our support! Now I just have to do one of these races with Tim!

MN Trip for Dallin's blessing and Halloween 2011

MN Trip -

Tim and I were able to go to Minnesota November 5-8 to visit Jason Becca, lots of other family, and most importantly meet little Dallin. He is adorable and we had such a wonderful visit. Thanks Jason and Becca for being such wonderful hosts! And it was great to see Harry, Dianne, Jennifer, and Aunt Mary as well. Hopefully we'll be able to get ou to UT for an extended visit this summer.

Okay, back to MN:

The weather was lovely just for me! With lows in the 30's and highs in the low 50's it will probably be the most winter Tim and I will see this season. I enjoyed it while I could. Tim and I were also able to make the visit sans children. We missed them but it was great to get a vacation to ourselves. Thanks to my mom and dad for doing a great job holding down the fort while we were away.

Here's Grandma with little Dallin right when everyone just got in to town. I love his Dallin face!

The first night we got in was Dallin's blessings and I know that we were both very grateful to be a part of it.

The next day we did some sight seeing. If I'm remembering correctly this is Mennehaha Falls. (Forgive my spelling as it is most likely wrong but I very much do not want to look it up right now.) Jason said the falls are much more spectacular in the summer but I thought this was quite picturesque as well.

Next we went down to the locks on the Mississippi. We didn't see any ships going through but it was still cool. And I totally loved this old/new building.

Aunt Mary and Dallin

Sorry if this is "too soon", but it just had to be captured! Four adults later we decided that it was probably easier to transport Dallin in the front pack. Why oh why do they make baby devices so complicated when the actual babies are already complicated enough?!?

This lego store was awesome! Lillie and Samuel totally loved these pics.

I apologize to anyone who doesn't want to look at Tim's butt, but I wanted to immortalize this shot! We had a lot of fun riding the bull at the Cadillac Bar and Grill on my b-day.

Jason looking like he came straight out of "8 seconds"

Audrey about to eat the floor. It was amazing how difficult it was to hang on even with the bull rotating so slowly!

Yum! My birthday cake at....ok Becca or Jason, please remind me what the name of this yummy place was... this cake was mah-velous!

Bye Dallin! We'll miss you! It was so fun meeting and getting to know this little guy.

Halloween:

The kiddos painting pumpkins

Lillie carved her very own for the first time and did a great job! Samuel painted his pumpkin like Iron Man. It was his own idea and I think he painted as close of a likeness as you can on a pumpkin...nice work dude!

We took the kids to a pumpkin patch/ working farm this fall which they thought was great. It had hay rides and mazes, and all sorts of old timey games. Here they are playing horse shoes. All the boys in our family really dug this game.

Catch and Release Fishing

Monster Trike Drag Races

Waiting for the Hay Ride

Samuel was a Ninja Turtle this year

Grant was a mouse. He picked this costume all on his own and told every stranger he saw all about it. He's also been talking a lot more and this year started saying "Happy Ween!", "I be mouse, ween" (I'm a mouse for Halloween), and "t or teet". Yay, speech progress!

Lillie doesn't have her mask in this pic but she was dressed like she was going to a masquerade ball.

NYC Trip

So a week later I thought I should finally get around to blogging about NY. I took a trip to NYC with some girl friends of mine and we had a ton of fun and ate a ton of food! Tim took great care of the kids of course and I think they barely even missed me. Tim was probably pretty happy that I came back though. After 5 days of non-stop walking, seeing, eating, and subway navigating I was pooped. Here are some re-caps:

After landing and checking in we promptly made our way to times square which ended up being about 10 short blocks away from our hotel in midtown. This was not my favorite place, too touristy. But I liked it much better on a Wednesday night than when we went back again on Saturday. That was utter ridiculousness! However, it's Times Square...ya gotta go!

Michelle, Audrey, Gena, and Becky

The first night we were there we took a night bus tour so we could get an idea of the entire city. This was a lot of fun and gave us some good ideas of things to do that we hadn't thought of.

Magnolia Bakery. Red Velvet Cheesecake. Yum.

Also, I want that apron that the mannequin is wearing.

Me, Gena, Christi, Becky, and Michelle on Ellis Island.

This place was amazing! I could have stayed here all day.

The new buildings progress at the WTC monument sight:

The Broadway show that we went to. I was not initially excited about it but it turned out to be great and very funny. Besides we were 8 rows away from Brooke Shields who was starring in it and as corny as it is, you gotta admit it's always cool to see someone famous perform so closeup.

At 30 Rock filming the TODAY show on Friday morning.

My best friend Ann Curry who told me I was cute and that my hat looked great on me. We're very close now that she's shaken my hand.

Funny story. This picture is part of a series of pictures that we were taking while being retarded on an otherwise empty subway car. (We had to get our subway pics in while we could so that no other real New Yorkers would laugh at us.) We got so carried away we missed our stop, ended up traveling 20 minutes to the next stop across the river into the Bronx where we had to wait 30 minutes for a return train to pick us up. We paid closer attention after that.

Best pizza of my life at Joe's Pizza in Greenwich Village. I would consider moving here just so I could eat this pizza everyday.

I was very girlishly happy to be in Central Park

At Serendipity 3. This is definitely the largest menu I've ever had to navigate.

I took this picture just for Tim and Harry. Although I'm pretty sure you can't buy ride on lawn mowers or lumber or anything larger than a faucet here.

Chinatown! Not as cheap as I thought it would be!

Ferrara's. Best gelato, followed by the best cannoli, followed by a trip to Scali in Greenwhich where we enjoyed the best italian cheesecake. When I ordered the cheesecake I was still eating the cannoli. I know, I'm gross. I really can't believe that Tim married me with the food habits that I have.

This was such a fun trip and I'm glad that I got to go! Now Tim is reminding me that it's his turn to go somewhere awesome with the boys.