Stay-cation

Scott had some days off of school last week and we really wanted to squeeze in a mini family vacation. We decided that instead of spending all our time and money going somewhere far away we would just find a hotel in Salt Lake and have a fun filled stay-cation. The only criteria we had for the hotel was that it had to have an indoor swimming pool. We stayed at the Raddison which ended up being in the perfect location where we were within walking distance of everything we wanted to do. I'll spare all the boring details and stick to the highlights.

• Discovery Gateway children's museum. It was fun to watch Brynn and Mason enjoy some of their old time favorites and also discover some new things they liked. It was Miles' first time there and he absolutely loved it. No surprise that his favorite spot was the ball area. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Swimming in the hotel pool.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• City Creek lighting of Christmas lights and arrival of Santa. Mason and Brynn had a lot of fun. Miles was not impressed being bundled up in his stroller all night.
  
  
  
  
• Eating at McDonalds every single day.
• Swimming in the hotel pool, again.
• Disney on Ice. Brynn was really into it and loved all the songs. Mason was so preoccupied with a silly little Mushu stuffed animal he wanted, but we wouldn't get for him, that he hardly paid attention to the show until the Mulan part at the very end. Miles did well for the first half and then decided he was done sitting still. Thank goodness for back row isle seats. Mason and Brynn have been on a serious Mulan kick so the Mulan segment was definitely their favorite. As we were leaving, Mason told us he wants to be Shang in Disney on Ice when he grows up. To give him credit, Shang's back flip was definitely the coolest trick during the show.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Scott was beaming with pride when Mason was adding every Eagles and Phillies item in Fanzz to his Christmas wish list. His pride quickly turned to embarrassment when Mason insisted on getting a Shang barbie doll for his trip souvenir. The way I see it, when he grows tired of Mulan then Brynn will have a boy barbie doll to play with. 
• Did I mention swim in the hotel swimming pool? We went swimming multiple times a day.
• Found out firsthand the biggest downfall to having an amazing sleeper like Miles who we just lay down in his crib at home and he puts himself to sleep. He needs his room and his crib to go to sleep. He would not go to sleep in the pack n play, wound not lay next to us on the bed, and would not let us rock him to sleep. There weren't many naps or early bedtimes happening. 
• Walked around temple square and visited the Church History museum.

Overall our stay-cation was a huge success. We got all the fun parts of a vacation without the travel.

Snow Day

While I was in cold and windy Las Vegas, I was shocked when I received these pictures from Scott.

Playing in the snow!

Trapped inside :(

 Apparently Utah was experiencing some inclement weather of its own.  It started snowing and then kept snowing and snowing, until Orem got almost a foot of snow in 24 hours. Scott's parents' house in Woodland Hills got more like 4 feet of snow. Scott bundled up the kids and took them to the Murray's for a day full of sledding and snow fun. By the looks of things, they had a great time. Poor Miles was trapped inside all day because we lacked proper snow gear for him, and he's just kind of at a hard age for playing in the snow. But I think he still had a good time playing with Grandma Linda.

  

Girls' Weekend -- Ragnar Style

Back in October my friend Marie told me her Las Vegas Ragnar team was looking for a last minute replacement and asked if I was interested. Without hesitation I agreed! The idea of a girls' weekend in Las Vegas sounded like exactly what I needed. Marie assured me the other girls in the van were awesome, and she wasn't kidding. They were the best!! 

We were van #2 of The Untouchables. We didn't really have any connection with van #1 other than our matching shirts. Each van functioned as it's own team and we just handed off to each other and it worked out beautifully.

Van 2 starting off on our adventure.

At our first exchange waiting for van #1

 Marie: Fastest.Runner.Ever. This girl runs marathons to WIN them. She's a mother of three and a seminary teacher for individuals with special needs. We all saw a new side of Marie when caffeine entered her system.

 Katie: Life of the party. She kept us laughing all day and kept us up all night with her snoring :) She's a mother of three and apparently the best wife in the world.

 Amy: A real adult. She is the PTA president and in the stake Relief Society presidency not to mention a mother of four. She makes the most incredible sandwich I've ever eaten. My favorite part about Amy is she laughs exactly like her sister who was one of my high school buddies.

 Kim: Fellow OHS class of '03. She is a parole officer and mother of one. My back row buddy in the car.

 Karli: Van Captain. The mother of our van, preschool teacher, and actual mother of five. One very determined person!

And last but not least me.

One might think that Las Vegas in November would have ideal running conditions. Not so much. The three days we were there Las Vegas was experiencing unseasonally windy and COLD weather. We made it to our first exchange and absolutely froze to death while waiting for the runner from van #1 to arrive.

  I have to mention that there was a lot of excitement about the port-a-potties. They were called Port-a-Janes and their slogan was Port-a-Jane cause John can't aim. They had men and women port-a-potties. The men's were just your run of the mill port-a-potty, but the women's flushed so you didn't have to see all the waste below and they had sinks in place of the urinals. I loved listening to literally every person who walked out of the port-a-potties exclaiming what an enjoyable experience it was.

The wind was fierce for our first leg. My 3.5 mile run was almost entirely into a headwind which made it feel like I was running in place. We were all frozen solid after running and couldn't bare the idea of camping out like we had planned and since there are a few hotels in Las Vegas we decided to grab a room to thaw out between legs.

The plan was to get some sleep, but three gabby giggling girls in a double bed didn't cater to a lot of sleep happening. We did get warmed up and rested for our second leg that fell in the middle of the night.

 The wind settled down and our night legs ended up being significantly warmer than our first leg. I was the sixth runner so by the time I started my 9 mile leg it was 4:30am and no one had gotten any sleep. I could tell the other girls were exhausted and I felt bad my leg was going to take so long. I pushed myself and ran as fast as I could. I did have to stop and knock on the window to wake them up each time I ran past the van, but I didn't care, I just felt bad they were all so tired. I pushed myself hard enough to finish the leg in 1:14 which was faster than I had anticipated. Neither van was expecting me to finish as soon as I did and it was so cold they were all staying in the vans as long as possible before coming out to the exchange. When I finished no on from my team was there so I got to wait for a few minutes until the runner from Van 1 arrived and I handed off to him. Then I found my van and knocked on the window to wake them up and let me in. They felt TERRIBLE and I pretty much could have gotten away with murder from that point on because they all felt like the worst teammates for leaving me out in the cold, but I truly didn't care. 

We got a couple hours sleep back at the hotel and woke up to find the sun shining and much warmer temperatures....at least for a little while.

 

We started our last leg and all the girls were raving about how warm it was.  I knew it was too good to last and sure enough the cloud cover rolled in and the winds picked back up before it was my turn to run.

Those familiar with Ragnar rules know that during the "night time hours" which is from 4:30pm-6:30am you have to wear a reflective vest, flashing light, and headlamp to run. It's kind of annoying. I was the lucky winner that had every single one of my legs fall during these hours and got to sport this gear every time I ran. It's a good thing I look so good in it, right?

Anyway, I started the very final leg of the race which was supposed to be 5.5 miles. At 2.5 miles I was confused to see a one mile to go sign.  They had changed the course, but failed to let the teams know, so my entire team was still parking when I crossed the finish all by myself.  I wasn't the only one, though. The majority of teams didn't make it in time to finish with their runner. It was kind of an anti-climatic way to finish.  My teammates were all furious when then came and saw me standing at the finish. This race definitely hurt in the organization department. But we were finished and FREEZING cold so we took a picture and headed back to our van. We were so anxious to get out of the cold we didn't even claim our free beers at the end ;) 

Running Ragnar in Las Vegas was a whole different experience than Wasatch Back.  Running through the city streets was interesting and challenging in it's own way.  It was frustrating when you had 5 traffic lights throughout your run, some lasting as long as 3-5 minutes. The "hills" were a joke compared to the mountain faces we ran in Wasatch Back, but you won't hear me complaining about that. There were only 550 teams instead of 1200 which gave it a different feel.  There is no local involvement from high schools and churches.  It was very different, but still really great.
This weekend was so therapeutic for me! Thanks to Scott and my mom for making it possible for me to go.

Autumn Time

 Autumn in Utah was unbelievable this year.  Dreamy temperatures, clear skies, and the most beautiful colors I can ever remember seeing.  Everyone keeps complaining about this global warming business, but all I know is 2012 has been the perfect year for Utah Seasons. I'm not sure if this is a wonderful farewell gift from Utah on one of our last years here, or if it's just salt in our wounds of what we will be missing. Either way, I'll take it.

Back in early October we drove the Alpine Loop. The colors were so vibrant they were practically neon. We got out and took a stroll around Cascade Spring so the kids could collect some leaves and explore nature. This was one of the many fun fall activities we enjoyed this year.