Weekend Re-cap, Not for the squeamish

I can't believe this weekend is over, it's been a while since life threw me such a loop.
My husband's brother/family came into town and we loved staying up late playing games, chatting and just hanging out with them. We hit some fun restaurants on Friday and hung out in some of the tourist areas.

 

Saturday morning, while making breakfast, my husband went out for a quick run. I received a phone call that one of the ladies I was performing with for a wedding was extremely ill and there was no way she would be able to make it to the performance. I was completely thrown into panic mode since another of my ladies had just moved away and was no longer unavailable. I called a friend and she gave me some names and numbers but the people I was calling lived pretty far away and it was a long shot. As I was on the phone with her, my husband came in from his run and informed me that he needed some help.
While running, he'd tripped and fallen downhill and sliced his hand open. We ended up spending the morning at the doctor's office (3 hrs) as after the stitches they wanted to take some X-rays. Once we finally got home, we had to wait for the Orthopedic surgeon's assistant to look at the X-rays because after telling us that it was nothing, my husband's pain seemed extreme and they were concerned that it may have been something more. We were so grateful that my husband's brother & family were here and so willing to help us out with the girls!
He'll see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow and we hope to figure out what's going on.
Here's his hand - the morning after

 

Moving on (or back to my dilemna), I finally found someone who was available and willing to drive two hours to play with us. It was a beautiful location and I loved the gentle breeze and the fall colors. It couldn't have been a more beautiful day. While I had been super stressed about performing with someone who had never seen the music, he did a great job and I was SO relieved that it turned out as well as it did. Here is some of the colorful backdrop we got to enjoy while performing.

 

After performing, I joined back up with everyone at the river and while I soaked my feet in the cool water, I found a few much needed moments of tranquility as the adrenaline finally began to recede ~ After church, a nap, and an easy day, I'm feeling back to myself again.

Ever seen one of these guys?

I'm seeing one or two every morning!

This fluffy little guy is known as a Shrew.

I know - I never thought I'd be blogging about the cat again, but man - she's amazing this year. Every morning we wake to find either a mouse, a shrew, or a bird on our porch - or all three. We have a neighbor who complains about her catching birds and sets traps to catch her. Maybe I should start putting the dead rodents on his porch so he can begin to appreciate her skills. Better dead on my porch than in my house!

Funky Carrot - Ode to grandpa J.

When I was young, I took a carrot for show and tell (and my sister's belly button, but that's a different story). Now this was not an ordinary carrot mind you, but one from my grandfather's garden. It had 8 legs - we called it the octopus carrot. Important show and tells remain in your memory forever, you know.

It seems like every year we just happen to get a funky octopus type carrot in our garden. Hmmm, I wonder if it is hereditary? Here's this year's addition to the carrot hall of fame

 

Marathon Pics

I just uploaded some pictures and realized that I hadn't posted any of these.
Here we are just before the race as we are dropping him off. I think he was hyperventilating...

 

Here are the girls in the back seat. We left our hotel around 5:20 am to drop him off.

 

So, we waited, and hung around, and waited, and played at the park and waited for the buses to bring them back, and waited and waited...

 

More park pictures


Finally! Here he is just off the bus - it was rather anti-climatic since he'd been done for an hour and a half by this point. The triumphal entry was a mere stepping down from the yellow school bus...

Happy to be alive today

It's just a good day. Yesterday I headed to the temple and REALLY enjoyed it. As I drove I could see the leaves all changing - what a gorgeous sight. The skies are blue, the weather is perfect, and I'm putzing around the house getting things back into order. Just thought I'd say - today is a great day - I'm happy to be alive.

The race

Well, I noticed that I haven't posted anything for such a long time. We've been getting all of those last days of summer taken care of, and getting back into the swing with school starting again. I've had a range of emotions as I re-adjust to my quiet house and being able to shop and do things I want (when I want) a little more often now while the kids are away. I headed to the temple last week - that was great since I haven't been able to do just a me trip since last spring. So - school is underway and I've been trying to really evaluate and make sure that I keep my perspective. My kids and family are really the most important - it is so easy to get caught up in everything else, but that's my focus, and I've been surprised at how much happier everyone is when I remember this and when I find joy in serving my family and kids.

Due to the 42 tardies our kids had last year, we've re-evaluated some things and made some changes. While the girls are still taking gymnastics, they were invited to move to the next level. The next level however, involves 4 hours of gymnastics a week. Add piano lessons and homework and our girls are keeping very busy. As such, they've been getting lunches and clothes ready the night before, and then getting up in between 6 & 6:30. We are able to have breakfast together and move our scripture reading to breakfast time which is nice because they get to spend some time with their dad in the morning. After breakfast, they do their morning chores and do their practicing. While I don't really love to get up in the mornings, I'm amazed at how much happier everyone is when we stick to this schedule.

Okay - so my husband ran a race today near Price Utah. I have to say - we did a LOT of driving in 24 hours for such a short race. I was really bummed. He was SO nervous since he's never run a full marathon. Halfs - no biggee, but this was new.
Unfortunately, the marathon he chose had a great intriguing name, but it wasn't so great.

I did get ill (literally) for 3 days prior to as I tried to find a decent hotel. The only available ones got such awful reviews, I really got sick to my stomach when I thought about staying in them. Finally, I found the only decent place in the area and was SO relieved.
My husband didn't sleep well last night (before the race) (not that I could blame him) but while we agreed to get everyone up at 5:20, he was up and ready at 5:12 and so anxious for us to all be ready to drop him off. Too bad the drop off was 30 minutes away. So, we dropped him off and then found out that there's no finish line to that particular race. Apparently they bussed them up a canyon and dropped them off. There was really no place to go up and park and watch them cross the finish line. BUMMER

So - 3.5 hours after the race started, we went to see him get bussed back down into town. Except that his bus had to wait for over 40 minutes for race results to be brought back down and so he didn't get down until after 12:30.

To kill time, we played at the park for a while and hit the local case lot sale at the grocery store in the meantime. Then we drove home. That's it. We dropped him off in the dark and saw him 6 hours later. He says he ran the race, but we never saw anything (he did smell like it though).

He said it was the worst race he'd ever run. And scenery wise - he said it was downright ugly. So - at least he can check it off his list of goals, and he learned quite a bit about himself in the process.

I'm proud that he was able to do it. One anecdote he shared with me was that his race was 40 minutes longer than he'd anticipated it would take him. Well, behind him a runner came in and she was quite a bit older than he. He said that it was very obvious that she was very sick. She was bald and looked like she'd been going through chemo. When she crossed the finish line after him, her nose was bleeding and she looked pretty rough. Regardless of this, she was ecstatic that she'd finished. Perspectivewise - my husband ran double her distance and still beat her, but she was so thrilled and happy that she'd made it. Kind of puts things into perspective.
Carpe diem I think