July 4th Plus Some

Our 4th of July was much the same as it has been in the past, as we have stuck to tradition for as long as we’ve been married.  Devin and I threaten each year that we aren’t going to participate in the Kaysville parade due the abundance of people and the lack of actual parade floats (a fancy car with a sign on it does NOT count as a worthy parade entry), but we cling on to it for tradition sake and to be with our family.  And then there’s the community water fight after the parade, which is awesome fun and makes it almost worth the crowd fighting but the water fight section of the parade is getting shorter and the parade of cars with advertisements is getting longer…but, back to the parade:
Here’s some pre-parade candy-eating
And Nate waving to the people as they go by
And a good ol’ fashion community water fight

Even my boys get in to it
This year they had a pirate boat

Then back home for some fireworks


And then I would normally have some pictures of a few other festivities that we participated in, like the blow up slides or the firework show at the high school but as luck would have it I started getting sick around dinner time and by the time the fireworks started, I was in full blown out sick mode, huddled in a blanket on the grass hoping that I could keep the contents in my stomach in my stomach so as to avoid an embarrassing display in front of all those people.  But, I do know that my boys actually watched the firework show this year because they wore some noise cancelling headphones, and they loved it!

Other happenings in July:
Devin ran a 10k and did an awesome job beating his goal time!
 

We played in the fountains at City Creek in Salt Lake:




And I think we spent the entire month in the pool:

I Ran

I ran a half marathon June 8th.  I was forced to do it.  My older brother is an awesome runner and after one of the 5k races that I did with him about a year ago (okay, HE ran the half marathon while I just did the 5k), I half jokingly said how great I felt and that I should run a half marathon one day.  Well, he held me to it and was very encouraging in my quest. So he made me do it.  I guess deep down I’m that little kid sister that wants to do cool things just to impress her older brother.  Every Saturday when my runs would last about two hours, I wanted to quit.  I got so tired of going to the gym  at night as soon as the boys went down to sleep and spending my free time there instead of sitting in front of the tv.  I hated seeing how slow I was and discouraged when I didn’t see results happen as fast as I wanted.  But every time I talked to my brother about it and asked him questions about fueling for long runs or how to get my speed up, or told him about my discouraging runs, he kept me going.  Thanks big bro!

The race was down in Provo.   Because Provo is about an hour from our house, I decided to get a hotel so I didn’t have to wake up any earlier than I was already going to have to. Devin had a doctor dinner up in Midway on Friday evening and spouses were invited so we went to that on Friday and then spent the night in Provo.  I did not sleep. at. all.  Okay, maybe 20 min here and there, but I was so nervous because of the starting time for my race….not my actual race!  Lame.  When my alarm went off at 3:45 (yes. 3:45 am) I was a complete wreck of nerves.  I had to drive to the mall and catch a shuttle bus that took all the runners up Provo Canyon to the starting line.  By the time I got up to the starting line, it was 4:40am.  What the?! Who planned this?  The race didn’t start until 6:00!  So there we all sat, in the cold and dark, huddled next to fire pits that were set up in the middle of the highway.  They only had one large light post set up by the starting line and the fires were started with lighter fluid which made them extremely smokey.  But there I sat for an 1 hour and 20 min waiting for the race to begin.  It was a gorgeous place to run through and for the first 9 miles I felt awesome and was running faster than I ever had before.  Every once in a while I heard rustling in the leaves and thought it was a wild animal in the forest out to get me, but then it’d turn out to be a runner that had to “go” in the bushes because they had ZERO bathrooms along the 13.1 mile route!  That was pretty bad.  Luckily, I was fine the whole time and was having a great run. But then BAM! It hit me and I struggled for the last 4 miles.  BUT, I did end up finishing faster than I had ever run before and beat my goal time by 4 minutes so I was extremely happy with that!  The only thing that kept me going was knowing that Dev was waiting for me somewhere near the finish line so I was running in anticipation of that.  About 1/4 of a mile to the finish line, there he was!
Maybe it’s just the picture but I thought I was running.  Or maybe I was so delusional at this point that I thought I was running but I was really just speed walking…. 


And here’s me and my medal…that was hanging in the kitchen for all to see until a few weeks ago.  And now it’s dangling on our bedroom window, just to remind Devin how I’m so cool…. :)

And just to remember how cute my boys are:

Moab and More Dirt

I’m on top of things, which is why I am just now blogging about some vacations we took back in May.  Sorry, but catching up on past episodes of Property Brothers and House Hunters takes precedence over journaling the important events and people in my life. Ha!  But here goes our two desert vacations we took in May:

Moab:
I was looking forward to this trip more than anything this summer.  We were meeting up in Moab with our most favorite families in the world that we hadn’t seen since Devin had graduated from school a year ago.  The Johansen’s drove up from New Mexico and the Bolicks came all the way from Oregon.  These people kept us sane while Dev was going to school and while we were so far from home and are truly some of the best friends we could have gained on our adventures in Oregon. It was an awesome time but waaaaaayyy too short. 
We spent the day hiking in Arches:

These boys are only two months apart.  Fun friends! After the trip was over, Nate and Cam kept asking to go back to Austin’s house (which was actually the condo that we stayed at.  They thought it was Austin’s house)

Eating lunch

Hiking to Sand Dune Arch

Nate and Cam lovin the big sand box.


Some crazy guy (**cough**Randy)up on top of the arch:


There are so many great things about the picture below that Cameron took, but what I’d like to focus on are those two stinking cute babies…I’ll let you decide which babies I’m talking about. HA!
The group of us:

Handsome Boys:

My amazing friends that I miss oh so very much!

The guys had a “Mustache Moab” competition where they grew out their mustaches for two weeks before our meeting in Moab. And yes, Devin does have a mustache. I promise.

It was sad to see them go, and we never did get to go lizard looping, so I’m thinking we need this trip to happen again.

The weekend after we got back from Moab we went to Goblin Valley with my family.  I’d just like to point out that this was our third trip in three weekends (San Diego, then Moab, and now Goblin Valley). We will never do this to ourselves or our children again.  Although, I do have to say that Nate and Cam have become remarkably awesome travelers.  We were lucky enough to get to stay in my parents trailer with them. 
On our drive in, this is the amazing (not quite captured in this picture) moon that was shining over the desert:

We got there pretty late at night, so of course the first thing Devin the kids had to do was climb the cliffs near our camp site:


Nate was so ticked at me in this next picture.  He wanted to climb all by himself and I was not about to let my first born discover for himself the dangers of climbing on a cliff.
My children are somewhere down in that hole:

While this area was a playground of discovery for the kids, I was terrified, worried, and on high alert every time we went out hiking.
My mom brought up the swimming pool for the kids so they could get cooled off from the heat:

Me and the Mr

Marshmallow faces:

Nate with a shiner he picked up after planting his face on a rock…and he’s in the middle of saying “cheeeeeese”:

I’m an awesome marshmallow roaster:

The next day we went hiking to the Valley of the Goblins:



This may be one of the most flattering pictures I have of myself in the wilderness:

Cameron doing some canyon swinging:

Exploring a cave:

I guess I can see why he would be wearing sunglasses in a cave….er…

my brother and niece

Resting for a much needed snack and hydration break:


And I found a random picture on my camera from around this same time.  We had gone to Walmart to pick up some “big boy” underwear for the boys and they wanted to hold the packages on the way home.  When we got home, I turned around to find that Cam had opened his package and figured how to correctly use his newly purchased item:

This is why I carry a camera with me.