Moab Trail Marathon

November 4th we headed down to Moab to the National trail marathon championships. We had seen the course online and thought it looked like fun, so we decided to give it a try. However, the full marathon seemed too intimidating so Liz and I went with the half.

Funny story. We were getting dressed in our hotel before the race and Liz realized that she had forgotten to bring her running pants! We searched and searched, but nothing that even resembled running pants was found in any of our bags. After reviewing her options at the last minute…. (run in jeans, sweats, or….Seth’s underwear), that’s right, she went with Seth’s underwear!

Bwaaa-haaa ha!  You have to admit, she looks pretty cute, though.

It was such a beautiful course, and we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, so we stopped along the way for LOTS of pictures.

Liz, Kevin, Michelle and me.  My brother Kevin and his wife Michelle are awesome.  They ran the full!  Lucky for us, the course was identical for the first 11 miles, so we got to run it together. (and again, none of us was in a hurry, so we all just hung out together!)

Yup, that is the trail.  What???

This is Kevin & Michelle way down below us while Liz and I were still trying to repel down the canyon face. It was so much fun. Not like any race I have ever done!

We finished!  Can’t wait to do it again next year.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be brave enough to try the full!  But I have to admit, it was pretty nice going back to our hotel, showering, sitting in the hot tub, and taking a nap, all while Kevin and Michelle were STILL running in the hot sun.

The Evolution of Seth’s face, and the worst pain I have EVER felt….

While I was searching for pictures of Halloween to post on the blog, I came across these serious gems of Seth. I will need to explain…..

Seth had been growing a massive and quite unruly beard for a few months. It was a tad gross, but he loved it. Anywho- I told him he would need to shave it for our gangnam-style Halloween costumes, cause you don’t see a lot of Koreans with a red beard. He willingly complied since I think the thing was starting to bug him anyway.  However, it appears he had some fun in the process….

He took these photos of himself with his phone, and texted them to me to scare me…  I’m so sad I accidentally deleted the one that came before this. He had lamb chops and a handle-bar mustache.

Yikes!

Nothing says Chester quite like this photo….

Thank goodness that mustache came off!  It made for some funny pictures, though.

 

Meanwhile……back in my world, a horrific throbbing had begun to take shape in my mouth.  I am quite prone to toothaches, so I groaned, and made an appt. to see my dentist.  After visiting my favorite Dr. Joe, an abcess in a former root canal was discovered.  Joy.  However, there were only 2 oral surgeons in my dental plan that could do the proceedure required to fix it since it was so horrifically messed up. One was on vacation, the other couldn’t see me for 5 days.  I thought that would probably be just fine.

I thought wrong.

The next 5 days were honestly the worst of my entire life.

My face swelled up to the point where it looked like I had a black eye. The pain travelled into my sinuses and ear canal. I honestly wanted to throw myself off a bridge. It got so bad I had to call my dentist at 10:00 at night one night and he met me at his office and gave me some shots to numb my mouth, just so I could sleep. I will be loyal to that guy forever for that kind of service though!  He really is the best.

After a few days on an antibiotic and my first (and hopefully last!) love affair with lortab, it finally started to get a little better.  The irony however, was that by the time I finally got in to see the Oral Surgeon, he announced that the tooth was too far gone, and a repair was too risky.  So, I marched myself back to Dr. Joe and screamed, “Just get this damned thing out of my mouth!”  Yes, I honestly did.

So, I now proudly smile with one less tooth. And you know what? I don’t even miss it.  My only regret was not pulling it in the first place, and sparing myself those 5 awful days. Who needs teeth anyway?!, right?

So there you have it.  Some of the most attractive pictures of myself and my sweetie you will ever see.  You’re welcome.

Halloween

 

Seth & Mandy tried out some homemade “Gangnam-style” costumes….(A one-hit wonder that will probably already be forgotten by next year)

Kenni was a witch

Sparky was a skeleton

Noodle & Smurfy were Mario & Luigi

And this little treasure….

I’m sorry, I really hate to play favorites, but this was by far my favorite costume this year!  I copied the idea from my bff Jami, who dressed her daughter in it the year before. It was really easy and I was shocked that J was actually willing to trompse around the neighborhood in those ridiculous shoes, but she was!  All in the name of candy, of course.

Big Poppy and G-ma Peggy came up to MG to trick-or-treat with us

Happy Halloween!

The Earliest Snow Day Ever!

We had a freak snowstorm in October that dumped an unusually large amount of snow on the Morgan Valley. The fact that it snowed in October wasn’t really all that strange, but the fact that we woke up to the announcement that school had been cancelled for snow……in October……now that was a first! Apparently the rain had turned to snow so quickly during the night that all the roads were frozen and the bus’s couldn’t make their usually routes, so you know what that means?  Every kids dream….. NO SCHOOL!

They had a blast playing outside all day. It was a pjs & hot cocoa, cancel all our plans, enjoy this one day off kinda day………ahhhhh, heaven!

Happy Birthday to Seth

It was a good day.

Home made Utes duct tape wallet and bookmark from Kenni-girl

RSL jersey from the nicest wife!

Such a good daddy- cleaning up the yard on his birthday!  (Then he went for a Mtn Bike ride)

Finished off by a nap with his baby girl.

Ahhhhh yes, it was a good day

My lame excuse of a photo-shoot

With all the fall colors out and about, I realized that I really really need a new family picture for the ol’ christmas card.  I also realized that it was too late to employ the services of a real photographer (not to mention I was feeling too cheap….), so I went rogue and decided I could handle the job on my own.

I was wrong.

But, we got some fun shots anyway.  Nothing mantle-worthy, mind you, but decent enough to pass off on a christmas card and docu-ment on the blog.

Mom task #3,061.  Get family photos done.  CHECK!

Thanks Amberlee for your help.  Sorry my kids were such pills and are seriously SOOOOOOO NOT photogenic

This next pose didn’t work out well for us…..we couldn’t really figure out where to put our heads.

Same with the next one.  My kids look more like they are being tortured than like they love each other….

hmmmmm…. maybe poor lighting is to blame here. Whatever you want to call it, they just didn’t work out the best.

This guy wasn’t really helping my cause…….

Well, now, doesn’t he look happy to be alive?  (I have about thirty more where those came from….)

And yet another oh-so-willing participant:

I expected this kind of behavior from the kids, but I assumed their Dad would be willing to smile for the camera. You know what they say about ass-umptions….

And last my little sweetie…  She screwed up quite a few pictures herself, but I can’t blame her cause she’s so adorable….

Oh that’s just funny!  Well, I’m so glad we have them now cause that’s what being a family is really about, silly faces and all. Who knows, maybe by next year I’ll have worked up the courage to sell my left arm and hire a real photographer.  In the mean time, I think my ghetto photo session will do just fine….