The Big Run

I’ve opted to call the 1/2 marathon this year a “run”, and not a “race”, because “race” I certainly did not.  However, RUN, I sho’ did! I got the privilege of running with 5 of the greatest ladies eva & we had such a great time! We decided we were going to be a slow & just for fun group, as we all had our own issues to deal with.  I have to say, relaxing and enjoying the run at a leisurely pace is WAY more fun than running fast!  (a little disappointing when you cross the finish line, but otherwise, a total joy!)

 

Our group: Amberlee, Tricia, Liz, me, my sister Janna & my s.i.l. Michelle

I loved these two pictures so much I bought them off zazoosh for my friends.  Tricia & Amberlee are hilarious in the first one, & the second one is for Liz because she just rocked her first 1/2 marathon & I was so proud of her!

Oh, and this one, too.  Isn’t it funny!  We kept waving to all the photographers & laughing :)

Here’s me & Liz about 4 blocks from the finish line.  I am crying because I just passed my mom & dad & my little brothers.  I always cry when I see them, even though I know they are going to be there & they are always in the same spot.  Its silly I know, but I can’t help it!

These are all of my family members that ran.  Why didn’t I run with all of them, you ask?  Because they are faster than the wind, that’s why.  Well, except for Janna :) And Michelle only ran with us out of pity (and because she was secretly pregnant & didn’t want to jeopardize her little dumpling!!!!) 

Marty, me, Andy, Janna, Michelle, Heather (my mexican brotha Jace in the background!) and Lisa in the front.

 

Final words: Ogden puts on the absolute BEST 1/2 marathon!  It was such a blast & my favorite running experience to date.  Apparently I am signed up for the St. George marathon this fall & I am terrified!  I’m not sure if a full marathon is included in my skill-set, but I am going to TRY. Wish me luck.  Until next year’s 1/2.

Memorial Day Trip- a slot canyon travelog

As I mentioned in my last post, we went on a great camping trip last weekend. We did loads of fun things including bike rides, early morning trail runs, campfire smores, exploring around Kodachrome State Park, hikes, and late afternoon trips to the ice cream parlor in town :)

But probably the most noteworthy were the slot canyons.  We visited four really awesome ones. And, since that’s also the only time we had our camera, this post will be a re-cap of our slot-canyoneering adventures! So, here we go!

1st slot canyon- Bull Valley

First you hike along the edge of a cliff for about 1/2 mile. Yikes!

Then you take your turn “dropping in” via the human waterslide.

Next, enjoy wandering through the meandering canyon, complete with obstacles, scenery, and lots and lots of mud.

You know you’re almost to the end when you look up and see a CAR wedged between the rocks.  crazy!

Apparently its been there since the 1950’s, and its made such a nice plug there in the slot that they decided to go ahead & build a ROAD over the top of it.  Wow, that was cool!

From here we hiked a little ways further, then billy-goated up a huge boulder field to get out of the slot.  (btw- this is NOT a good idea with more than 8 people in your party.  Since we had around 50, lets just say there were some scary moments with some rocks flying down the face and nearly hitting other people in their face)

 

Slot #2- Peek-a-b00

Peek-a-boo was the opposite of Bull Valley in that in order to get in, you needed to scramble UP a wall, instead of down.  When we arrived we found an older man who was traveling alone & had fallen & injured himself trying to get in.  Luckily there was a doctor in our group who was able to set his shoulder (he had dislocated it, which I am told is incredibly painful!)

Baby J getting a lift into the canyon.  So spoiled!

 

Once inside, you could choose to crawl UNDER…….

or OVER…..

Or just make your way through!

We made it!

Slot Canyon #3- Spooky

No technical entry on this one.  You just walked right in. 

It didn’t take long to find out why they call it spooky, though.  It is by far the narrowest slot I have ever been in. 

We had to take J off of Seth’s back & hold her out in front because they couldn’t fit through together!

I screwed up this next photo by turning my camera on an angle, so you cant tell that the kids really were holding themselves UP on this rock!

Here come the Whitemyers! Nellie was the best child canyoneer I have ever seen.  She couldn’t get enough!

On the way out the kids found a lizard.  They wanted to keep him, but us adult hippies told them “take only pictures, leave only footprints” :)

Ahhh, that was fun!  Well, I just realized that we forgot to take our camera into slot canyon #4, so I’ll explain.  We drove down past Escalante to go to calf creek falls, but when we got out of the car the wind nearly blew us over, so we all hopped back in the car & kept driving.  We ended up driving over the spine (the dreadfully scary section of road just before Boulder) and then a little ways down the burr trail (apparently this will take you straight to Lake Powell), where we stopped to admire a tiny, easy as pie slot canyon that we discovered last year.  It was just what we needed after all those hard hikes! The only picture I have is of Seth & Rich snuggling on the bluff after we stopped the car to clean up throw-up.  awesome.

OH we had so much fun!!  It was a great trip!  To end with, I’ll leave you with a group photo (our group was HUGE!) from a camp potluck dinner that we hosted for all the non-campers.  Thanks, ya’ll!  It was real!

The Joy of Camping

Just got back from a really fun-filled, action-packed, five-day camping trip in So. Utah for Memorial Day.  If you don’t see me for a few days, this is why.

Good gracious.  Why do we do this to ourselves????

More about the trip after I finish the laundry.

A visit to P.R.O.P.

Big news my friends- it seems we may be heading down to the People’s Republic of PRICE sooner rather than later.  That’s right, we have finally found a home to rent, although it may be somewhat temporary, its at least something for now.  Also, we have found renters for our home here in M.G., so things finally seem to be falling into place!  We took the kids down on Friday to show them their new digs and made a fun (and incredibly LONG) day of it.

First we had to let the kids get out their wiggles after a 2 1/2 hour car ride, so we grabbed a bucket o’ KFC & went to the DINO-MINE park.  This was Noodle’s highlight of the day.  I was not bright enough to take pictures at this point, so here is a stock photo of said park.

After winning the parents of the year award by letting our children get remarkably sunburned, we headed over to show the kids the house. 

Once again, I have stolen this photo off the internet, from the house’s MLS listing.  Its for sale, so hopefully it doesn’t sell too quick, or we’ll be out on the street again.  It will be a great house for us.  We are so excited to have finally found something that wasn’t…… well, scary.

Our kids, however, are a little bratty, and need to work on their manners.  The first words out of Kenni’s mouth were, “Where is all the grass?” (There’s not any).  Boy, does she have a lot to learn about P-rice.

At this point, I was wishing I did just go ahead & rent a trailer down by the river because my kids could use the wake-up call.

Anywho- next Seth took us for a drive through his mountains to show the kids what their daddy does for work.  We stopped at a “Manti-Lasal National Forest sign” and I made him pose by it so it could go in his life history book.  You should all go and take a picture of your hubby at his job.  It sounds funny, but years from now, he’ll appreciate it!

The section of forest we drove through was so, so beautiful and there were tons of great areas for camping this summer.  It actually got me a little excited to live there for awhile.

When we got to the summit, the kids were so excited to discover that there was still a TON of snow in the mountains.  We stopped up on this high plateau that didn’t have any trees or anything.  It just looked like marshmellow cream for as far as the eye could ski, oops, i mean, see.

So, after our extremely long & scenic drive the kids were starting to get restless, and hungry again, so our last stop on the way home was In-N-Out burger in American Fork (or wherever the heck we were).  YUM.

We rolled back into M.G. around 9:00 p.m. feeling like we’d been on the road for about a week, instead of one meager day.  I was so pooped.  When we got home, Sparky showed me his art project he had made at school and I dissolved into tears. 

What a sweetie.  This broke my heart.  No matter how temporary it is, I will miss this place more than anything.  There is TRULY no place like home.  (And no, Price will never be my home, just a rest stop along the highway of life).  MOUNTAIN GREEN FOREVER!  We should write some kind of anthem, eh?

Inspirations, Birds & Easters

Kenni & Sparky both entered the Inspirations contest at their school this year.  Kenni put a ton of thought into her piece.  It was really creative & well-executed.  It was a photography entry which displayed random objects around the neighborhood that she had photographed & arranged on a board based on their color.  Her piece was called “a world of color” or something like that.  Sparky, bless his little heart, decided the night before that he wanted to make something, and threw together a go-cart made out of legos.  I wasn’t sure if legos was a proper medium for a 3-d art entry, but who was I to tell the kid no? 

So, the day of the competition I got a phone call from the lady in charge.  She said “Mrs. Wallace, I’m calling to tell you that your daughter didn’t win a prize.”  I said “um..that’s just fine”. (& wondered, why is she telling me this?????)  Next she said, “It doesn’t make any sense because her entry is clearly the best one here, I’m just trying to figure out why they wouldn’t have awarded her a prize.” She said she felt bad for having to ask me, but did your child take all of the pictures herself?  I answered of course, yes. 

Anyway- her thought was that maybe the judges didn’t believe that she had actually taken the photos because they were so good! I decided that was probably a compliment, I just wasn’t sure.  She told me that she was going to make sure that Kenni got a prize for her work.  I assumed they would add her an honorable mention or something, but the night of the awards they passed out all the prizes, 3rd place, 2nd place, 1st place- no prize for Kenni.  Finally, the last award was for “Grand Prize”- which was awarded to… (drum roll please….) Miss Kenni.  She was absolutely over the moon.  I so appreciate the mom who took the time to notice that she had been overlooked because she really did put so much work into that dang project.

OH, and as for Sparky and his hastily made lego-cart……. he took 3rd place, which shocked us all.  He was grinning EAR to EAR and told me that next year his lego-sculpture was going to be even more amazing! (that cute little turd)

Next up- birds.  This has been an unusual spring here in Mtn. Green.  Cold, really really WET, and full of large, migrating flying creatures.  They are everywhere.  Geese, heron, cranes,- I even saw some pelicans up on silver lake the other day.  PELICANS!  Weird! Last Sunday a few of these huge things flew into our backyard and landed on the hillside.  The kids all sat around watching them for hours.  BTW- what are they???  We call them whooping cranes because they are so dang loud, but I’m not actually certain what their title is.  Anyway- there is ONE fun thing about this cold, miserable spring.  The fowl.

Those things must be at least three feet tall.  They are huge!

 

Ok, next up—Easter! We kept it low-key this year.  Didn’t even go anywhere fun for the kids spring break (which was over Easter weekend).  We did take them to the movies (a rare treat at our house) & out for pizza afterwards.  We also helped Seth’s brother & sister-in-law move into their new house (FINALLY!)  They were so excited to finally be in!

The only pictures I have from the weekend are a few that I forced the kids to pose for so that I have PROOF that I actually did it.  I sewed their Easters outfits like a dang betty crocker or something! (p.s.- it was all Michelle’s fault……. don’t let her talk me into crap like that in the future!)

But, they turned out cute despite my best efforts to ruin them!  Who knows, maybe someday I will actually become the seamstress my mother has always hoped I would.  But its going to take lots, lots, lots more practice. :)

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  There are a few more pictures from the Easter egg hunt at my mom’s house.  Always a classic photo op.

All the cousins!

 

 

By the Way (and this is the last thing I have to say about Easter…..)

You are evil, evil little birds!!!!!!

Dear Melissa……

My sweet friend “M” has a fantastic blog (check it out here) that is always providing a bit of inspiration, a bit of fun, and a bit of self-loathing. :)

You see, she is always fabulous.  And her stuff is always fabulous.

So, the other day when she posted a picture of her kitchen counter at 6:45 a.m. with all the adorable decorations, and everything “just so”….. I had to sigh, because THIS folks is what my counter looked like that day when I arose (which by the way was not at 6:45 a.m.).

You see what I mean??????

One more time, just for the record.  Her counter:

And you remember what mine looked like, right????

Sometimes other people’s fabulousness makes me wanna barf. (And be more fabulous, of course).

But for today, I’m hoping just to get in a shower. :)

(I LOVE YOU “M”, but I just HAD to do that!)