Riverdale Hot Springs

The day after Allyson and her family came to visit, I flew to Georgia to visit my sister, Mary Anne.  Since I left the camera at home, I'll have to link to Mary Anne's blog when she blogs about my trip...hint, hint! ;o)

While I was gone, Rob took the kids to Riverdale Hot Springs with his sister, Cheryl, and her kids and his mom.  Judging from the pictures, it looks like they had lots of fun.

Fall Harvest Days at AWHC

During Fall Break my sister, Allyson, and her family came up to Utah from Arizona.  They came up to Logan one day and we went to the American West Heritage Center for their Fall Harvest Days.  The place was absolutely empty except for a preschool group that got there about the same time as us.

The kids played on the pirate ship made out of hay bales...

Practiced roping...

Found a pumpkin patch...

Got locked up in the stocks for stealing a pumpkin ;o)...

Got lost in a corn maze (not really since we had Allyson as our map reader)...

Launched gourds and small pumpkins...

 Who needs a launcher when you have an arm?

And now for the "no picture" events...there was also a hay slide, a blackout maze, and a hay jump.  The kids had fun playing and then we had a picnic lunch and went to the farm section to pet and feed the goats and see the cows, horses, pigs, chickens and a little barn kitten (really tiny, probaby only a month or so old) that refused to let Ashlee get close even though Ashlee stayed in the barn for about an hour with her arm outstretched.  She was practically in tears as we finally had to force her to leave.

Labor Day Weekend 2010

I know...it's October and Labor Day was in September.  I was looking through photos on the computer and realized I never blogged about our hiking adventures during Labor Day weekend.

On Saturday, we decided to hike to Old Ephraim's grave. I guess after all my half marathon training, I had forgotten exactly long it takes to go 5.4 miles one way. After all, that would only take me less than an hour one way to complete, right? Oh yeah, we had 4 children from ages 2 to 9...and we were hiking, not running.

We got to the trailhead up Right Hand Fork road a little after 10:00. We started out with the boys in the double jogging stroller but after .7 miles (yes, there is a dot in front of the 7), the trail became very narrow and rocky. We had to ditch the stroller in the trees and continued our little hike. After going about another half mile or so, we had to make a quick decision. Trevor walked occasionally but 2 year old legs don't walk very fast on a rocky trail.  Having him on my shoulders was not the easiest for me, either.  The kids were hot and tired and it finally dawned on me that this would not be a 2 hour roundtrip hike. Seriously, I don't know what I was thinking. We were quickly running out of water so we ate a snack and headed back to the car.

On the way back to the car, we came across a snake on the trail.  When I first saw it, I thought it was a REALLY big earthworm.  It was moving so sloooooow!  It wasn't until I saw the tongue sticking out that I realized it was a snake.  It must have just eaten something because it was very fat.

We had heard that you could get to the grave via car so we decided to take that route. Evidently, that requires a four wheel drive vehicle...something we discovered as people on four wheelers were staring at us wondering what the heck a minivan was doing on that dirt road with HUGE ruts and we kept bottoming out. After another hour added to our adventure, the kids were very disappointed we would not be seeing Old Ephraim's grave. We made it up to them by stopping at 7 Eleven for slurpees.

On Monday our friends, the Horsburghs, invited us to hike to the Wind Caves up Logan Canyon with them.  In the 11 years that we have lived in Logan, we have never made it up there.  We attempted the hike when Ashlee was a baby.  We only made it about 2/3 of the way with Ashlee in a jogging stroller before the sun started to set and we decided it was best to head back down.  Anyone who has hiked that trail is probably wondering how we even made it that far with the jogging stroller...so did we! 

We wondered if our kids would be up to it after our adventure a couple days before but they wanted to go. It probably helped that we told them it would be 20 degrees cooler (there was a HUGE drop in the temperature that weekend). The kids were the best hikers! The 5 kids from ages 5 to 9 were at the head of the group the entire time, leaving the parents (and 2 kids in backpacks) in the dust.

Landon, Morgan, Brynlee and Ashlee



We were smart this time and borrowed a backpack to haul Trevor



Kaitlyn and Landon



2010 TOU Half Marathon

On August 28th I ran my 2nd half marathon, the Top of Utah Half. My main goal this time around was to beat my time from my first half marathon, which was 2:17:49. I got to run with my favorite running buddies, Mindy and Colleen. I lost them just after the start of the race...you tend to do that in a crowd of 2000+ runners, but they caught up to me around mile 3. Good thing since Mindy had my gum in her pocket and heaven knows I must change out my gum every 3-4 miles!

Around mile 7...Thanks to Jamie Klaassen for this shot!

My hopes of reaching my goal were within reach as we hit mile 6 under one hour.  I knew we could meet our goal and even possibly finish under 2:10, which is what Mindy really wanted to do.  I was feeling REALLY good at that point...almost like I hadn't even been running for more than a couple miles.  The downhill canyon and wind at my back were a blessing that pushed me along my merry way :o)

Rob and the kids were waiting for us between miles 9 and 10.  I love this video with T saying "That's my mommy!"  I'm sure had I actually heard it while running, I would have lost it and the tears would have started flowing!

Around mile 11 I wasn't feeling so great anymore.  I just wanted to be done!  Of course, the slight uphill didn't help after enjoying a downhill/flat course.  Just after mile 12 I was able to push a little harder and crossed the finish line at 2:07:19 (chip time)...10 and 1/2 minutes faster than my time and UNDER 2:10.  It was an awesome day!  This picture after crossing the finish line says it all...

I call this my "Anna" pose (thumbs up!)...she is my running hero and inspiration after all!  Maybe someday I'll finish under 2 hours like her!

Happy to be finished.  Yes, that is a Fat Boy in my hand.  And yes, it was yummy!

August Randomness

Here are a few random events from August.

Rob and Landon went on the Father and Sons campout.  Still not sure why Trevor wasn't invited...

The girls participated in the Mini Hi-Lo's dance camp and performed at the Logan High football game...

A bunny decided to make a stop in our yard for a morning snack.  Trevor was the only one home since the kids had already gone to school.  He was pretty excited to see the bunny...

This boy can sleep anywhere...


A trip to the cabin and Mirror Lake after Rob's triathlon...