Memorial Day - City Of Rocks, Idaho

For Memorial Day, some friends invited us to come meet them and do some climbing at City of Rocks, Idaho where they were going to be camping. (Click on any picture for a nice big slide show)

We managed to get out of the house by 7:30 am to start the drive. We had been told it would take about 2 1/2 hours, but it ended up being 3 1/2 from our house. We got there at about 11:00 which, unfortunately, was too late for Pete to get out on the first climb with them. They did a 3 or 4 pitch climb first thing in the morning and were hoping to be back by 10. But, after eating our lunch and sitting around at the campsite waiting for them with the wives and children for about an hour, we decided to go do some exploring.

This was our first stop. I think this one was called "Camp Rock" and there were pioneers' names scratched into it. Pretty cool!

Then we went across the road and had to take the stroller through some mud! George didn't mind, though! 

Some flowers Elle picked for me.

We drove around for a while, and George fell asleep so I went out with the kids this time and Pete stayed in the car. This was a cool rock to climb up on that had a bunch of little pools on the top.

Finally, we spotted our friends driving to a new climbing spot! We parked and got everything packed up and ready to go then hiked down to the climb with them. (Hiking is kind of hard when you're carrying a 25 pound baby!)

Here we are waiting for the guys to get the 2 ropes set up. They had to belay from the top so it took a while to get it all set up. George was so funny and just laid down on the rock!

 Elle (5yo) got to go first. She made it about half-way up which was the tricky part, but she did a great job and that was still really high for her!

George just had fun playing in the dirt and being outside. What more could a little boy want?

Mindy (9), waiting her turn.

 Here goes Ethan (8)!

Look at my girl's form!

Mindy and Ethan both made it to the top! It was probably close to 100 feet high so that's pretty impressive for them! This picture kind of shows how high it was. Here, Ethan, in yellow, was about 1/3 the way up. You can see the guys on top belaying. It was a little difficult doing it that way since they couldn't see the climbers so we were constantly yelling up at them. It worked out ok, though, and everyone had fun! (except for one of Rob's boys who had recently broken his arm and wasn't allowed to climb)

After all the kids were done, I went up the one the boy in the red is on. It was a really fun climb! It was mostly really easy, but there were a few tricky parts, and the fact it was so high made it seem more impressive. I wore a finger-less cycling glove over my hurt right hand. It's nice and padded so it gave it a lot of protection. It was a little weird climbing with a glove on, but it was totally fine. I didn't hurt it at all! The hardest part was coming back down over the edge since I went up and sat on the top for a few minutes to let the guy belaying me rest and to chat and admire the view. I was slow, and my heart was about to jump out of my chest, but I just backed over without any panic attacks! Whew! Pete was watching me from the bottom and had to shake his head at me. I was impressed with myself for even being brave enough to do it, and not getting stuck at the top!

We left as soon as I finished because it was getting late. Even though we all only got to climb once, and Pete didn't climb at all, it was still worth the trip. It was a really cool place to see and I'm glad I got to climb!

We drove for about an hour and a half before we came to a town with food! I think it was Snowyvill (population 171 or something like that), and we stopped at Mollie's Diner.

George LOVE the homemade chicken noodle soup!

Mmmm, we were sure hungry from some home cookin'! It was a nice stop. We got home at about 10:15 so everyone was very tired! Luckily at least  Mindy and Elle slept. Ethan and George just have too much fun looking at everything to fall asleep in the car.

The Long Run (14 Miles!!!), The Zoo, and The Ballet

I hate to admit it, but I was scared to run on the sidewalk again after last week. I'd got running 3 times since my fall, but those were all on a road, the bike path, or the track. I knew, just like with anything, I needed to face my fears, so I took the exact route I did last week. I made it, but I did slow down to walk a few careful steps at the spot I fell, but really there is no big obvious thing there that might have tripped me. I didn't see any blood on the sidwalk, but it had rained later in the day after I fell so it had long since been washed away.

I ran my usual long run route, and just missed a train on 300 North. I ran up to City Creek, taking the time to stop and get a drink every time I passed a drinking fountain which are about every 1-2 miles. I think that added up to like 7 drink stops. Most the time I also took a sip of my hammer gel which I carried in a flask in my jacket pocket. It was a nice cool morning so I was happy to be able to wear my jacket and use that to carry my stuff instead of my belt which I'm getting kind of sick of with all it's bouncing around! I had actually planned on wearing gloves to keep my hands protected as well, but ended up forgetting. Luckily it was ok. The thought had crossed my mind that I should just start wearing gloves everytime I run like "The Glove Runner" who runs by our house all the time and is always wearing gloves, no matter the temperature. I've wondered why he does that. Maybe he hurt his hands once too. Who knows.

Anyway, I had planned on running up the jeep trail I'd started last time, and just turning around at 7 miles. This plan worked out really well at first. I really enjoyed that trail and it was so pretty! It reminded me of being a kid when my dad would take us up in the mountains pretty much every weekend, and I loved that!

Unfortunatly, that jeep trail doesn't go very far, maybe a quarter mile, before it dead ends at a cute little picnic spot. I ran back down to the base of the trail and headed back up to do it one more time, then I got back on the road, continuing up until I hit my 7 mile mark which took me about 1:25.

Somewhere up there, when I got to a garbage can, I took the bandaids off my left hand and never felt the need to put new ones on. That hand is mostly healed up, wahoo!

I ran down, and tried to just enjoy it. I didn't really go easy, but I didn't push it too hard either. I stayed at the top end of heart rate zone 2. When I got back to 300 North, which is a little more than a mile from home, again there was a train! This time I didn't make it in time and had to stop. I stood there and stretched for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. There were actually 2 trains and one of them was really long and moving really slowly.

I texted Pete, "12 miles and now this!"
He answered back with, "LOL" and "Every dang time"
I say, "Don't think I'm going around..."
Then he says, "You can do it!"
I realize, he's right of course and say, "Yeah, I can. North Temple, here I come!"

I had to run back up one block, then over two blocks to get to North Temple, where I then got to run up the big bridge and over the train. On my way there, I imagined the train being gone and being mad at myself for not waiting, but when I saw the train it had stopped so I knew I'd made the right decission.

Besides, I wanted to run 14 miles, and without that little detour, it would have only been slighly over 13 so I was glad I did it!

I felt really good! Amazingly good! Sure I was tired by the end, but my legs, hips, knees, feet -everything! - felt great!

I hit 14 miles about a block from my house so I stopped my timer and walked the rest of the way. It had taken me 2:44 which was a little longer then I had planned for, but you've got to account for the train, right? It was a good thing the kids didn't have school becuase it was almost 9:00 by the time I got home.

I took a nice hot bath, rubbed my legs and put on my compression socks to hopefully help me not get sore. The only thing that really hurt were the bottoms of my feet. The skin just kind of felt raw, but putting on my recovery shoes made that feel all better!

My sister came over and we took the kids up to the zoo. It was such a perfect day to go to the zoo too - overcast and cool. We got to see two shows, one of them was the elephants which George loved!

The baby elephant, Suri, is 3 years old now, and still really cute! We watched them eat popcorn and peanutbutter by the trunkfull so that was fun.

We also rode on the carosel and George got to ride on the baby elephant. He was pretty much making the elephant sign/sound (which to him is putting his hand on the top of his head and saying, "mmmmm") the whole time we were there. It was so cute!

We had ice cream, then I was able to take a little nap when we got home, and we had a nice relaxing evening. I went on a Chipolte run after the kids went to bed too because I was so hungry! I'd even been really full after the encheladas we had for dinner! Pete and I ate our huge burritos and watched Serenity which is a great movie!

I woke up the next day feeling like that 14 mile run was just a dream. Seriously, everything from my muscles to the skin on my feet felt perfectly wonderful. It's a good thing too because Saturday was my girls' big ballet performance! I was tempted to still try to get my long ride in, but knew it would be too stressful so I just put it out of my mind.

After breakfast they took turns taking baths, then getting their hair slicked back into industrial strength buns, and getting their makeup done. Look at Mindy's dark and mysterious eyes:

We also packed lunches (and dinner for Mindy who would be there from 11am to 9pm), and I even hurried and made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies so they could take some with them.

They rode over with some friends so that was really nice! I put George down for a nap so I could finally take a shower and get myself ready. I went in an hour before the show started to help usher and it was dumping rain when I left. It was crazy! It made me glad I was going to the ballet instead of going on a bike ride in that weather!

Pete had his brother and sister-in-law watch Ethan and George, then my dad joined him and they met me there. It was cool to be an usher because I got free tickets for myself and Pete which was good because they were not cheap.

Elle did a little dance with her class in the first act, then got to come sit with us for the second act which was excerpts from Le Corsaire performed by company members and students of the SLC Ballet including Mindy. She did a really good job. It was a lot of stuff to remember! Watching the company members and the other adult dancers was really cool. It is amzing what they can do! It really made me want to start taking ballet classes along with my girls!

 Here's Elle after the show with her flowers.

After the matinee, we picked up the boys and went home for a while. Then my dad stayed with the kids and Pete and I went back to see Mindy in the evening performance, after having a nice dinner together. This time she got to do a little dance with her class in Act 1 which was really cute, and then Act 2 again. She's still so small compaired to a lot of the other girls, but she does prettty well. It is getting harder for her, but I think after a nice summer break, she'll want to go back in the fall and keep working at it. I didn't get a picture of Mindy after the show, but her bun stayed in so that was a success! Most importantly she was happy and had a good time!

Hand Update and Solar Eclipse

Friday night, when I re-did the bandages on my hand, I finally got the courage to get a better look at it. It has a big skin flap and it looked pretty dark like there was dirt or something in there (I know, gross, hu!?) so I looked under it, and sure enough there was dirt and gravel in there. I didn't dare try to get it out myself because OUCH, and the risk of infection of course. There was also the question of whether it was just a partial skin flap or a full skin flap or something like that. So I decided to go to the doctor and just get it checked out and cleaned up.

As soon as we got home from Mindy's 5k yesterday, I ate a couple cookies, changed, and headed to the doctor. It was nice that Pete was home so I didn't have to drag the kids along with me. That would have been difficult!

The doctor looked at it and said it was just a partial skin flap so it didn't need to be sewn up or anything. They just put some numbing ointment on my sores, and let it sit for about 20 minutes before the nurse came in and scrubbed them out. I don't know how numb my hands even got because I could still feel it, but it must have worked a little because it didn't hurt too bad.

After she got it all clean, the nurse bandaged me all up and they also sent me home with some penicillin just to be safe.

I looked like a kick-boxer all day. Hi-ya!

See that spot where the white is showing through? That's from George pulling on it. He's not exactly hurt hand friendly.

Today I just put some fabric band-aids on and that seamed to work pretty well. (Plus that's less conspicuous for church.) It is definitely more comfortable, unless I bump it on something, but I feel like the one bad cut on my right hand isn't as protected that way. Tonight I put the big bandages back on that hand so it'll be good to go for my run in the morning!

Oh, the bad news is that the nurse said I shouldn't go swimming for probably about a week, until I get a good scab on there.

Dang it!

I will just have to make this a really good run/bike/strength week then!

In other news, this evening was really fun because it was a solar exlipse! We went down to the Gateway where we waited in line for like an hour to look through a telescope. Then we got to look through some welders glass and that was really cool! It was really fun to go down there and see that! It's funny because we saw it the best in the parking lot as we were leaving. Some people had made their own pin hole cameras with big boxes and we could see it really well in those. Then we tried poking a hole through a card and looking at the shadow and that worked really well. That was really fun because we could shine it on anything!

It's crazy that even though we know it's just the moon going in front of the sun, there's still kind of mystical feel to a solar eclipse. I'm glad we got to see it, espeically the kids.

Girls On The Run 5k with Mindy

Today was Mindy's 5k with Girls On The Run. I got to be her "Buddy!"

We were the "Cougar Girls"!

The route was 2 times around Sugarhouse Park. We started off really well, but after a few minutes she had to stop and walk with a really bad side ache. I tried to have her breath and relax, but that dang side ache just wouldn't go away. We walked most of the first lap, and she was having a really hard time. She was almost to the point of crying a couple times, and sat down a couple times. She just kept focusing on how tired she was and how much the side ache hurt. I tried to just relax and not worry about how much we were walking.

Here's just a glimpse of some of the girls running with us. It was quite a big event, and fun to see so many girls out running all in matching shirts!

I would be able to get her to run just small sections, but she would always quickly stop and walk again, and this continued on until about half way through the first lap. I told her that I couldn't change her attitude, she was the only one who could do that. We went by a bathroom and I made a quick stop in there. When I came out, I asked her where she wanted to run to and she said, "That big tree that goes to the ground."

We had passed a big tree with branches hanging to the ground, but with space underneith that she wanted to go under on the first lap, but we didn't sttop. That was kind of a long ways away so iit suprised me that she gave herself that big of a goal, but I was excited that she was actually excited about something! She said she wanted to go under it when we got to it, and I said ok! She took off running, and she made it to the tree! That was awesome. She went insdie for a few minutes and was just so happy. When she came out, I said, "Ok, now we're going to run to the water station then we can stop and get a drink, then we'll run to the finish." And she was suddenly ok with running. Yay! So that's what we did. It was hard to keep her going all the way to the end, but she kept running, and we got to run under the finsih arch and she got her medal!

 Doing their cheer: "Go Cougar Girls! Rawr!" after the race.

The proud finisher with her very first medal!

On the way out, we had to stop and get our pictures taken as flowers. :)

I asked her if she was glad she did it, and she said yes! Whew! :) It was really hard for her, and I'm very proud of her for changing her attitude and finishing strong!

Drops of Blood on the Sidewalk

Do you ever see drops of blood on the sidewalk and wonder what happened? (I've seen this more times than you would think) Well, today I have a story to tell about one such trail of blood.

I went out for my long run at 6am this morning. It was a beautiful morning and I was excited to be running again. I even saw some friends right after I left my house, and waved to them.

Just before I got to the 1-mile mark, I looked both ways to cross a street, and my toe hit a seam in the sidewalk or something and I was suddenly falling.

It's funny how when you fall it feels like it's in slow motion.

At first I'm thinking, "Ok, I got this, I got this!" But then I'm still going forward.

I think, "Ok, I might have to put my hands on the ground a little to stop myself."

My hands hit, and I'm still going. They are now digging into the pavement and I'm still going down to my knees.

I was practically laying on the ground when the forward motion finally stopped. (I must have been running really fast! Hahaha) And a car was driving by right as this happened.

I was mostly embarrassed at first. I sat up and just tried to breath and pull myself together. I could keep going, I just needed to calm down.

Then I looked down and saw blood pooling and trickling off my hand. I looked at my other hand, and there was blood dripping off of it too! No, I was not going to go on. I was going home!

I slowly got up and started walking home, and I could tell I was leaving drops of blood all along the sidewalk.

I walked for about 2 blocks, then decided I wanted to run again. I closed my fists to try and keep the blood in and ran the rest of the way home. I was fine really. It must have been quite the site to see a girl running down the street with blood on her hands. Especially in my neighborhood... Nobody said anything, though. I passed two guys walking, and just smiled at them to let them know I was ok, but they hardly looked at me anyway.

I thought it was good that I had at least spared my knees since they didn't hurt at all.

Here are my nasty looking hands:

I made it home 22 minutes after I left.

With a little help from Mindy, who was awake reading in her room, I cleaned myself up and got some bandages on.

It was only 6:45 so I mustered up some courage and went back out to finish my run. (Cuz I'm hardcore like that!)

I had planned on trying for 9 miles today, but with this little hic-up I didn't have time for that anymore. I decided to shoot for 6. The rest of my run was pretty nice, but by the end I realized that my knees hadn't been completely spared because they were getting kind of stiff and sore. One of them got scraped up a little bit, but not even close to as bad as my hands. Good thing I was wearing capris and not shorts. Too bad it wasn't colder or I would have been wearing gloves too!

I finished with 6 miles in 1:04 which is pretty good considering 2 minutes of that were spent sitting on the sidewalk not quite crying...

Now I get to rock the fishnet gloves (bandages) Madonna-style for the rest of the day!