FHE Stake Halloween Dance at Wheeler Farm!

Yabba-Dabba-Doo! I love my costume! I think I was the only Pebbles Flintstone! I usually pick a costume atleast a few other people have thought of too! I first saw it a few weeks ago and was afraid they were all sold out, but when I saw it yesterday at the store, I invested in it! It is one I can wear for halloween races, so easy to run in! Plus, I can't get enough of the hot pink wig. I think I look pretty good with hot pink hair!

Friends from my new ward, which I love! I haven't gotten to know the girls quite yet, but Adam was a rodeo clown and Jed was Jack Sparrow! Great costumes!

Adam the rodeo clown, Justin a tourist taking pictures, and I! My wig started to fall off, note to self, pin it on next time!

When Zach showed up, I asked if he came as his good looking self, which he laughed and replied, no, "Mel Gibson."

The Bishop, dressed as the big bad wolf in Grandmother's nightgown! It was great and his wife who can't be seen was Red Riding Hood!

"Uh, I wasn't ready for that picture Justin!" Adam and I talking at the dance, but I'm not sure what he was gesturing about with his hands!

And I don't know this girl, but we all loved her costume! She is the girl from "How to train your dragon", quite creative we thought!

A tribute to Miss Emily!

Miss Emily passed away October 20, 2010 from complications of Pearson's syndrome, a rare illness involving mitochondrial function. She spent a lot of time at Primary Children's Medical Center, where she was loved by all who worked with her and she loved them. We will all miss "Emsies". Her smile, her laugh, her singing, and her play time. She loved to play with toys in the water. She loved her family so much! She loved to listen to her brothers and sisters read stories to her or make her laugh. She also had her hospital routines: holding a wipie or two, "one sip!" of water, music therapy, her nursery lessons on Sunday, taking walks, play time with Megan, popping bubbles, and phone calls on Skype to her family. In her short life, she changed the lives of those around her and the memories we cherish will continue to bless our lives forever. A special thanks to her "second family" at Primary Children's Medical Center - the amazing nurses, doctors, therapists, and other staff who served our family.

Oh Em...thank you... for sharing your life with me!

Sego, UT...camping out in a Ghost Town!

Sego, UT - a Ghost Town!

THEN... 1920 - Sego, UT

NOW... October 16, 2010 - Sego, UT

A picture from the internet of this abandoned house in Sego while standing!

Yet, this is what the house looks like now! We explored the basement, which you can't see cause its buried underneath the wood. Crazy and creepy huh!

We set up our tents in this old abandoned house! Creepy, just a little bit!

So here's the story! My friend Justin sent out a text last weekend inviting anyone who wanted to go down to Moab to hike, explore Arches National Park, and then campout in an old ghost town surrounded by abandoned houses and stuff. Sounded great, right! I replied saying "I was in"! Arches was beautiful and fun as always! About 6pm, we took off from Arches and drove about 20 minutes outside of Moab to the ghost town of Sego! As we drove off the freeway we already spotted some deserted houses. Sego is located about 5 miles off the freeway, so we still had a ways to go! As we neared the town, old railway bridges were noticable as well as old mine shafts that have long since been buried or shut down. The old Sego cemetery is also still there! We first explored the old house that is now collapsed and then we began setting up our tents in the abandoned brick house before it got dark. Beef stew and french bread was our amazing dinner, as well as a variety of nuts one of the guys brought from Winco! Thank you Zach! We played the "I have never" game and then told crazy, stupid stories to Jared, who then retold them to everyone and we had to guess who had done them. We had a great time! As the fire burned down, we all got ready for bed and split up between the two tents. There was 10 in our group, so given the creepy surroundings, we split up 4 in one and 6 in another. Justin was next to me in our tent of 6 and at about 5am he asked if I was awake. "Yes," I replied! Honestly I don't know if I ever fell asleep! "Can you hear that?" he asked. Now I really thought he was trying to scare me since we were in a ghost town! But oh no, I had to admit, I heard it! "What is it?" I asked him. "Not sure, maybe footsteps!"

Uh, what!?! For the next hour we were perky eared, eyes peeled, and trembling with adrenaline running through our systems! A zipper being pulled down in the next tent alerted us. We waited for someone to come out and go to the bathroom and we were going to warn them to not go out since something or someone may be out there, yet no one every came out. Then the zipper was zipped back up! Ahhh! A few more twigs broke, scuffled sounds of shoes on the ground were made, and finally the sounds of rain fell on the tents. I think it was the rain that woke up the next tent. Curtis, who has his concealed weapons permit, had his gun under his pillow and as we came to find out had been the only one awake in his tent of 4 with his gun pointed at the tent door. After a few minutes of sprinkled rain, it let up and Curtis turned his flashlight on. Justin immediately asked who was there and the two of them, followed closely by Zach, searched the perimeter of the house for any signs of intruders. Now it was about 6:15am and our alarm was set for 6:45am. We all had church at 1pm so we had planned to pack up early and get on the road. The guys came back and said they heard a few male voices behind a bush up the road. Justin yelled out "we don't want any trouble", yet they never saw the guys, we are sure it had to be the source of the sounds we heard through the night. We packed up quick and hightailed it out of there! Makes a great story to retell, but honestly I've never been more scared while camping in my life. I felt a lot safer knowing Curtis had his gun and that I was in the same tent with some guys.

Petroglyphs located just outside of Sego! Some of these date back to 2000 BC and as recently as 1600 AD by the historic Ute era! It was really cool to see!

It's no petroglyph, but still cool to see how long ago people have been around!

Now these petroglyphs are just creepy! They remind me of what aliens might look like! The sign at Barrier Canyon stated, "the identifying characteristic of these figures is hallowed or missing eyes, the frequent absence of arms or legs, and the presence of vertical body markings. The "ghost-like" images, may represent shamanistic art associated with ritual activities of the Archaic people."

A view of Sego as we said "Farewell"!

Welcome to Operation Smile!

Today, I received an email from Operation Smile congratulating me on my approval to be a pre-post operative nurse volunteer! I am now approved to sign up for medical missions! I am so excited, the opportunities and experiences will be amazing!

26.2 miles!

St. George Marathon 2010! 26.2 miles! Yes, a long...long...way! After 4 years, I came back to do it again! Crazy, eh probably so, but when your whole family runs, it doesn't make you feel that way. It's actually the opposite, if you don't run, then you feel left out! This year I was going to be running with two of my best friends, actually 5 of my best friends! My family (consisting of my dad, brother Neal, and sister Emily) and my best friends Chantel Wilkinson and Amanda McCollough! Amanda and I did most of our training together but as the months wore on, it began to be harder to run our long distances together. Chantel trained mainly on her own around her home in Hillsboro, Oregon. Way to go girl! Chantel and I came to the park the day before the race to get a "visual" of what to expect while running into the finish!

I placed first! I took advantage of standing on the platform since I doubt I'll ever get the chance! I feel lucky enough to be one of the finishers! This year out of 7400 runners who started the race, only 5702 finished! Wow!

Blue Bunny ice cream is the best supporter of the marathon! We loaded up on their ice cream treats after the race!

Chantel and I found this shirt at the expo! It holds true for everyone! The alarm clock went off at 4am, I didn't sleep that well! It took me for what felt like an hour to even fall asleep! Amanda, Emily, and I quickly got changed, put on our sweats, and hurried down to breakfast to get some quick carbs in before boarding the hotel shuttle to the buses. It was nice this year to enjoy what I was doing, because my first year, I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. I enjoyed watching people hurry to board the buses, chow down a banana or a granola bar! Once we boarded the buses, the thought process of "is this bus ever going to stop" kept our minds busy! The bus finally stopped 26.2 miles up the canyon! Dad found the generator to layout his sleeping pads by and we all laid down to rest. The stretch of porta potties went on forever. It's honestly a site to behold! Amanda and I stood in line early, since you wait for 20-30 minutes and some people were getting so desperate to go before the race started, they took off for the trees!

At 6:45am the gun went off, yet it felt like we didn't start going until close to 7am, it did take about 6 minutes for us to cross the start line. We all started out by the 4 hour 15 minute pacer and so I think I started out a little too fast for myself. Emily and Neal left us around mile 3. Amanda kept with us til mile 5 and then took off, I told her if she felt good to just go! It was then Chantel, Dad, and I! I felt great until after walking/running up Veyo Hill (mile 7). Around mile 10 or so, my left knee began to give me trouble, which never did while training. It is the knee I wear my brace on but only cause I know I should. I was so annoyed, so dad had me stop and walk a bit and then run again. By mile 13 I felt much better, yet I then could feel blisters under both soles fo my feet. I could feel it squish. Chantel also had left knee problems and blisters, so we joked about how "they were our squishies, and we would call them our squishy"! If you haven't seen Finding Nemo... just watch it! So from then on I endured the pain of my blisters and kept ticking off miles! Pretty soon we were at 20, wow, only 6 more to go! It was about this time, the nice breeze in the canyon was replaced with scorching heat! I was determined to beat the 5 hour time, which I didn't, but it's a goal for another year! Well we'll see, after this year I'm thinking half marathons are really nice! I caught up to the 5 hour pace lady about 1.5 miles left, and passed her, yet she then passed me again and was gone. Ahh, I was bummed but quickly got over it! I was glad to be able to finish! Dad caught up to me after stopping at an aid station and as we turned the last corner and saw the balloons, there was nothing stopping me! I was off!

 

I sprinted in! Even with my blisters on both soles killing me, I passed the girl in the pink and then felt determined to pass the next guy. At the finish, I even pushed myself to pass the guy at the far right of the picture.

I got this in the bag! I was so focused that I didn't even see or hear my mom who was taking these pictures of me and obviously cheering for me! I finished at 5:04:33! Overall I placed 4514 out of a finishing 5702 runners. I placed 1822 out of 2461 females and 198 of 280 females in the 25-29 age division.

Dad and I are so excited to be done! He was so great, he stuck with me when my knee started giving me problems. I think overall we stuck with each other. I appreciate you dad and love you so much for being there for me! When my mom took this picture, I had just seen a woman holding a carton of chocolate milk! If you don't know my family, well, we're addicted to chocolate milk! Admit us! Yet, when we found the station, it was all gone! Depressed...yes! After the men's priesthood session, Dad even went out to buy some and at 2 grocery stores, they were all sold out! Lame! Yet I did buy some Monday morning for Chantel and I and boy did it taste heavenly!

Norah saying "Wow mom, you did it!"

Me, Amanda, Chantel and Norah! My girls! Way to go...we did it!

Our second greatest accomplishment together, next to graduating from BYU's Nursing program!

Neal and I celebrating being done. But what you can't see is that I'm leaning on him to help hold myself up! After finishing, my left knee really swelled up and my muscles all cramped up! I was miserable Saturday! I was burnt so I felt like I had a fever. I laid in my hotel bed with ice/hot patches on both knees, my left knee propped up on pillows, and ice bags prepared to ice my knees! Dad invited me to go to his 10 year dinner with him, but I wasn't feeling up to it! Neal went instead and Mom drove to buy Cafe Rio for the rest of us for dinner. I slowly hobbled over to the table, ate, hobbled back to the bed, got under the covers and feel asleep! I watched Gladiator at times and just rested! It felt so good to not be on my feet! Sunday morning was better, I still was walking very slow and getting up and down was painful. Monday morning was better. Sitting on a toilet was beginning to get easier. Ya, you'd never think something as easy as that could be so painful, but the squat position is the worst for the legs. And Tuesday morning, well I felt close to myself. I will take a week off and then see how my knee is doing. I've been taking Ibuprofen around the clock, which has seemed to help the inflammation around my knees. And you wonder why we do this to ourselves. We even paid money to do this, and yet we do it! No pain...no gain!

We all finished! Dad loved how we all color coordinated! I know Dad wore his Boston Celtics shirt just for Bryce (aka Elder Anderson)!

All the finishers of the 2010 St. George Marathon!