Teenage boys

So we had spaghetti for dinner last night

And Alex and Kobe really love spaghetti

I just had to show you what Kobe considers a "serving" of spaghetti (Alex wasn't home last night, but he would have had an equal, if not bigger, "serving" to go with Kobe's)

Keep in mind that this is my bigger 11-inch dinner plate.....and that is not a thin layer of noodles...

This year I put in my first try at designing my own Christmas card. It was a little scary, but I think I pulled it off alright. Bree was kind enough to donate an afternoon and help us take a family picture. She did a fabulous job! So wonderful, in fact, that I cannot choose which one to blow up for my wall. Which do you like best?.....

I'm Back

I know, I know. It has been an embarrassing amount of time since my last post. So I'm here to let you know that we are alive and well. To be totally honest, life has been moving entirely too quickly!

I've been putting off writing because I have been overwhelmed with how much I need to catch up on. So I'm going to take the advice of my much wiser sister and just starting with now (and maybe a few past recollections).

We had a great summer. And then I took on the fall carnival at Lincoln Academy (where Brooklyn and Kobe go to school) Yep, I was in charge of the whole thing. Which is mainly why you didn't hear from me in August, September, or October. I will happily report that it was a huge success. We had higher attendance than ever before and made twice as much money as we needed to! I have to admit I was a little proud of myself.....

And then Brooklyn decided to try dance--which meant she had to quit gymnastics. (I just can't afford both, nor is there time) Yes, I was shocked too. I mean, this girl just got 4th place in the all-around at the state competition (and 3rd and 4th places on all the individual events)! But, she is my daughter, so obviously she is talented in more than one area.....(JUST KIDDING!) so I had to let her follow her heart. We found a dance studio we felt good about and jumped in. By the way, she is performing and the Festival of Trees on December 1. If you like to go to that event, this might be a good day to do it! I'll get some dance pictures to show off then.

I love the look on her face in this picture! I mean, here she is winning 4th in the all-around--which is very cool-- and she's mad that she didn't get to stand on the podium (as she did a few minutes before when she won 3rd on the beam).

Alex and Tia had a great cross country season. Alex would like everyone to know that he ran a 19:20 at the Cedar City meet. (He set a goal to go under 20 minutes this season) He might just beat grandpa pretty soon.

Tia is having a great time being a senior. She loves being on the ballroom dance team. And she is busy touring college campuses to see which one she wants to attend next year, and filling out scholarship stuff.

Kobe lives for soccer, as usual. He's playing indoor right now. Sorry-no pictures yet. But he scored 4 goals and got 3 assists in the last game. WOO HOO!

One more thing. Steve's grandma was going to turn 100 this December, but she died last week. She was a wonderful lady and we will miss her. The family was going to make a book of all her decendents as a birthday gift. Since I can't give the pages I made of my family to her I will post them here for everyone to enjoy. I'm rather proud of them, and the people in them.

Triathlon Triumph

How's that for a title!

Anyway, hopefully you've already read Bree's account because she is so much better at describing things.

I couldn't believe the perfect weather when I woke up. The sun was my good omen. This was going to be a great race.

Kobe came along to be my cheerleader and photographer. He did a great job with the pictures...and cheering.

The swim. I love this picture---it makes my shoulders look awesome! My goal was to keep up with Bree. I had 2 sluggish swimming sessions earlier in the week and I just wasn't sure how it would go. I came out 6 minutes and 20 seconds later. I did not get my goggles kicked off and thus didn't have a black eye coming out of the water. Yes, things were going quite well.

I felt great going into the bike and had an awesome first loop (even though Bree passed me right at the end). Then......the bike chain fell off. I have trained on this course several times a week for the past 2 months and I have NEVER had a chain come off. Even better, it was stuck between the rings. I lost at least 4 minutes getting it unstuck and back on. Then adrenaline took over. I was determined to catch back up to Bree and make up the lost time. I ended up doing the bike in 44 minutes. I saw Bree leaving transition just as I was going in.

I quickly changed my shoes and headed out on the run. I was worried that I might have pushed too hard on the bike and my Asthma would cause me problems on the run. BUT I felt GREAT. I showed that nasty hill how it is done! (thanks to my Dad's perfectly timed encouragement. He knows just where to stand along the steepest part) And I ran a personal best for a 5K. I've never broken through 26 minutes, and I did it in 25:22. Woo Hoo!

The funny part was that as I was about 1/4 mile into the run I looked down and noticed blood running down my left hand. Apparently I cut it up pretty good when fixing my chain. I did the second loop on the bike and changed my shoes in transition without even noticing. Here's a picture taken after the first aide people helped me out after the race. The bandaids are covering the heavy bleeders.

I beat my time from 2 years ago by only one minute, but the bike was longer and I lost a chain. So overall I feel pretty good about that. I think I will probably be talking Bree into joining me again sometime.....

I'll end with a little mommy bragging. Later that afternoon I watched Brooklyn's gymnastics meet. She won the all-around with a score of 37.4, and got gold on the beam, vault and floor! She got silver on the bars. She is so proud. She hung that gold medal on her bedroom door.

prom and other recent happenings

So, I was able to give myself a few days to recover from the half marathon......and then I had to jump into finishing up the school 5K. I was a co-race organizer again this year. I think we did our best job yet. I was happy to have my kids running, my dad, and Bree and Abby. As Bree told you in her blog, Abby was awesome and won the overall girls in the 1 mile division. Dad won his division, and Alex, Kobe, and Brooklyn all won their divisions. Brooklyn was thrilled to get to run with Bree! Kobe has now met his lifelong goal of beating Grandpa Griffiths in a race. (You can refer to Bree's blog for a great shot of them at the finish). Here are a few more pictures from the race that Tia took for me. Tia didn't run this year, but she was a wonderful help to me. We were out there at 5:00am setting up the courses, and she helped out on the course during the race and took pictures for me. I hope everyone had fun. Of course, it is the best race around!

THEN....Tia turned 17. Wow!! Her junior year is nearly over. AP tests have been accomplished, and the last of the many big end of the year papers and projects and posters, etc are getting turned in this week. She got her certification to teach swimming lessons this summer and she is looking forward to that. She wants everyone to know that she grew 1 1/2 inches this year. She is now 4 feet 10 inches tall. Woo Hoo!

We also had prom happening the day after her birthday. I say WE because I was the dress creater for this event. I'm pretty proud of myself on this one! We just couldn't find very many stores that carried her size, and even fewer stores that had modest selections in her size. I even had a hard time finding a pattern with sleaves. I ended up combining 3 different patterns. Tia was the fashion designer. I only had two weeks to pull this off. Lots of late nights. Four hours to glue on all those crystals around the neck line!! So now I'll give pictures of our first Tia/Shamae original....

Bree was kind enough to make another hair design house call. Tia loved Bree's latest hair creation.

And tomorrow is the Women of Steel Triathlon. Give a cheer for Bree and I. We'll be hitting the water at 8am!! I'll try to get a post in on how it went soon.....

I did it!!

So, last December Steve and I stayed after church to meet meet with the bishop ( I can't even remember why now). As we were leaving the church we run into a friend from "the other half" of our ward (you know--before it split). He asks us about how the running is going, if I have any trialthlons planned--he also does tri's--and before we know it we are agreeing to sign up for the Moab half marathon with him and some of his friends (whom we vaguely know).





Now, I have never run anywhere near 13 miles before, so I research out a training plan I think I can commit to and get going. My body does not like moving up to three running days per week. Remember that this trianing has to happen between January and March in UTAH, and that I am a firm believer that NO ONE should be running more that 6 miles on a tread mill--talk about boring. I work through shin splints and aching hips and brave LOTS of cold windy runs outside. I find out that getting new running shoes helps the shin splints and the pain in my foot. I also find out that I CAN do this. I realize that new music, and more of it, is a must. (thanks Cory) I learn alot about my body and how far I can push it--turns out I can push alot more than I would have thought.





And then March comes. I actually complete two different 12 mile runs. I even start to get excited. There was a very cold day at the beginning of March (yes, really) so I decided to go do an interval workout on the treadmill. I haven't done this workout since the beginning of my training. I find out that I need to push those max settings up from 7 to 7.8 to get the same exertion. How cool to actually get to see a measure of my improvement. Yes, I will be able to do this.





So, last Friday Steve and I packed up the camper and headed for Moab. We left the kids home. We had a fun evening enjoying the Moab race weekend excitement, had dinner, did some shopping, and went to bed early.

Saturday morning I wake up sooooo nervous. Can I really do this? Steve is taking everything in stride. This is an easy short race for him (and he's done this race before). But he is supportive and patient with me. We didn't have anyone to be a photographer with us. I would have liked to have some proof for this--but we did do one self portrait just before we locked everything in the car and went to meet the buses. It was a cold, windy morning. We were freezing by the time the race started. Steve went up to the front. I played it conservative and went about 3/4 of the way back. 5000 runners! I think I should have started a little further up because I spent the first two miles doing some serious weaving and passing. I actually passed lots of people all the way through the race. I didn't enjoy the massive head wind coming up the canyon. I actually got blown around a little bit. I'll blame about 5 minutes of my time on wind!



I ran the WHOLE thing all by myself. And I'm really proud to say that. Steve waited for me and ran with me for the last mile. He's so nice!! It was just what I needed to keep me going. I finished in 2 hours and 10 minutes and I stayed with the first half of the runners. There were almost 600 women registered in my age category!! So no top prizes there. I did get a good shirt out of it though. And a few bragging rights.... I think I might even do it again!

(Oh, and while we were gone Brooklyn had her first gymnastics meet of the season. She was the top scorer for her team and got a gold medal. (thanks to grandma for taking her) Tia tried out for the ballroom dance team, and made it!, Kobe did and 10 mile hike with his scout troup which turned into a 14 mile hike, and Alex made sure the fish and the hamster got fed--what would we do without him!)