Love the Nike +

I am loving my Nike+. If you are a runner or even a walker you have got to check it out. It's a chip that goes on your shoe and corresponds with your iPod. It tracks EVERYTHING it keeps a running log of all your runs and updates automatically to the Nike website (FREE Membership) anytime you plug your iPod into your computer. The part that I love is that it even keeps track of all your best times and best paces automatically. You can also set up challenges or compete in other challenges for medals. Right now I am part of five different ongoing races with other nike+ users all over the world it helps keep me motivated so I won't get passed up by other runners. It even has online coaching programs, Foote has been doing a walk to run program and has really come a long way. So if you are looking for Christmas ideas for a runner this is one of my top suggestions. If you already are a Nike + user we will have to connect online so we can race.

Our Aly Cat

Alyson has been going through a phase lately. Well, I hope it's a phase, we are now going on month five of this "phase" and it's still in full force. She spends probably 90% of the day at home as a cat. A cat? ...Yes this is the phase where my daughter insists that she is a cat. It was cute and fun the first month, but after four months it has become annoying. It probably doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of cats in the first place (Sorry to any cat lovers reading this.) I can't tell you how many times I have had to argue with her about taking a bath because she insists that cats don't like water, or how many times she has had to sit in time out during dinner because she cannot eat straight off her plate. Not to mention how extremely annoying it is when she licks my face. Whenever I find that she has climbed up on top of the fridge or on top of the cupboards she informs me that cats like to climb up high. Aly always wants to wear shoes on her hands when we go places so that she can still walk on all fours. It's a little weird to have to make rules like you have to walk standing up when we are in public. It has become such a frequent thing that Brooklyn even comes to me and asks if I have seen her kitty. I am starting to become a little concerned. I haven't had any of her teachers in preschool mention that she thinks she is a cat so I am hoping that eventually the cat thing will pass.

Annual Hunting Trip

For those that don't know, my dad and brothers are big time hunters. I can still remember when I was little, going hunting with them. I was the girl in the middle of all the boys so I would always cry to go because I didn't want to be left behind. I know my brothers love to tell all the stories about how much of a pain I was to take hunting, but I remember that there were a lot of times I went when I helped haul Elk off the mountain.

The whole year revolves around the week long hunt and all my brothers come from all over to hunt together even my brother Ed who lives in Virginia makes the time to come out for the hunt. They have meetings to discuss strategy...you get the picture it is SERIOUS stuff for them.

Foote was invited to go with them for the first time last year. I was the one that had to tell Foote the difference between an Elk, Antelope, and deer...needless to say I was a little worried for him to hunt with my family. I kept trying to prepare him "If my brothers and dad aren't nice to you just ignore them." I kept trying to drop hints to my family remember he hasn't been hunting all his life, so have some patience. Well lets just say it probably did not go over so well poor Foote was so out of shape that he about died hiking the mountains, he told me that all the guys had to wait for him for over an hour while he tried to hike down the mountain on his poor, stiff, injured knees that were completely shot even after getting home he could barely walk down the stairs for a month. Not to mention that after all the hiking and work they had no luck and came home completely empty handed.

SO I figured that he had experienced enough hunting, but to my surprise he announced that he wanted to go hunting again he bought his own Elk tag and gun and even started working out everyday so that he wouldn't die on the hunt. So he spent the last Week down in Antonito Colorado on the border of New Mexico and Colorado hunting with my Dad, brothers and a bunch of other hunting buddies. Not only did he survive the hunt and for the most part, but he was even able to keep up with everybody sort of. Even tough he didn't shoot his own elk, their hunting party was able to bring home three good size bulls so they were all excited.

Pumpkin Fun Run

This past weekend Aly had the chance to run her first race. She has been so excited to run a race for so long that it was fun to see her get her ribbon and jump up and down I winned! I winned! despite the fact that she was probably closer to the end of the pack of runners and not the beginning. She loves to run and always is requesting to go running with me. The race was at the local Venetucci farm and all the kids got to pick a free pumpkin out of the patch at the end of the race.




At the end of the race they had the path marked off with cones so the kids would be able follow the cones to the finish line and our little bizarre Aly had to touch the top of every cone while doing her half run half dance all the way into the finish line. It was funny to watch.


I also got the chance to run in the 10k race. It is funny how relaxing it is to run a 10k race after training for my triathlon and half marathon it was kind of nice to be done after only 6.2 miles.

September Sum Up

I would really like to be more consistent at posting, but since that has not recently been the case I find myself so often trying to sum up a whole month in one post.

September just flew by and I think it was because we were all back to the routine. The girls both started school at the beginning of the month. Aly is attending a Co-op I put together with a group of other moms, she goes twice a week. My sister-in-law Shanda started a Montessori preschool/toddler class in her basement, so Aly attends the Montessori school one day a week and Brooklyn attends Shanda's toddler class two days a week. Both of the girls are loving school. Despite the two very different learning styles Aly really likes going to both of her schools.



Photo of Aly's first day of school (I stole this photo off my friend Valerie's blog because I am such a photo slacker I did not have any photos of Aly's first day, but I knew I could count on Valerie for a great picture and sure enough. Thanks Valerie.)


I completed my first half marathon on Labor Day, it was definitely more challenging than I expected it to be. Part of the problem may have been splitting up a lot of running training with triathlon training, I had not done as many longer runs as I would have liked. I definitely need more practice on hydrating while running, I am horrible at hydrating like I need to. I very rarely drink anything while running and this was the first race that it really affected me. I cramped up from about mile 9 until mile 12 which really hurt my time, but still a great race.

Me and a couple of my running buddies at the starting line.


Gay, Julie and I after the race with Judy our running group coach she was nice enough to come cheer us on.

Alyson also started gymnastics at the beginning of September and she loves swinging on the rings and jumping on the trampolines.


Our little Gymnast Aly

I took a little mini vacation with the girls, Grandma and Aunt Ann to go visit Aunt Jenice in Kansas. The girls loved it, Jenice has a lot of property and the girls loved being able to play outside. Her propery is right next to a church that has a playground set and swings in the yard, Aly was so impressed she kept saying "Aunt Jenice has a park in her yard."

Uncle Dan even came up from Oklahoma and spent the day with us and it was good to see him too.

They also got there first chance to go horseback riding and they loved it when I rode with Brookie she didn't want me to hold on to the raines at all, she was determined to do it herself.

Good times Doing Nothing

August is over and I am so sad because I had a list a mile long of all the great things I wanted to do this summer and only crossed off about a handful. We have been trying to cram in as much summer fun into the last few weeks as possible.

We spent our traditional week in Vail, the best way to sum up what we did is to say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! well we went swimming. We go every year so we have already done a lot of the things that there are to do, but mostly after me quitting my paper out and Foote having some hard weeks at the office the most appealing vacation was one in which we did nothing. We spent our days taking naps, swimming and eating and that is about it.

Swimming at the time share we only had one scarry near drowning experience with the girls and considering we were probably in the water at least three hours a day I guess that is not bad.

Camping With the Family

We also have done a couple camping trips. One with the extended family, it was fun to have Dan and Natalee come and spend time with all of us. After all the years of camping in Colorado and constantly being warned about bears and hearing all the stories they use to scare you into making sure no morsel of food can possibly be found in your camp. We had our first bear visitors in our camp this year. Only two small black bears and they ran away as soon as we walked towards them. They were very persistent and kept coming back until they had checked out everything they thought might be holding food.

Aly loved Grandpa's hat and wore it around for most of the first day of our camping trip she didn't want me to take her picture so she refused to smile


Preston, Shanda and Dan playing with the kids in the lake when we tried to do some swimming to cool off.... that is before we got told by the campground Nazi that there was no swimming in the lake. I really wanted to ask if wading was aloud, but since there was no sense of humor detected I figured I better not.


Aly and Talia playing in the Hammock. Cousins are the best.

Brooklyn and Dad sharing some love



Our second camping trip was with my brother Preston and his family. My brothers are big hunters and spend a lot of time planning and preparing for their big hunt. So this was a family campout/scouting expedition.

Everyone trying to warm up by the fire after a cold night.


Our Beautiful campsite

Take me Out to the Ball Game

My friend Angie and I attempted to go watch the local semi-pro baseball team, the Skysox but it rained out so we swaped our tickets for another game. We chose kids eat free night and did a girls night out. The girls loved it they clapped and cheered and could not keep their eyes off of the mascot, Socks the Fox, who even stopped to say Hi. Brooklyn was brave enough to give him knucles but Aly, who is always terrified of mascots kept her distance.






The girls didn't mind the rain at all and could not figure out why everyone else did not want to come out and play in the rain






Our Second Attempt it was a beautiful evening and the girls had a great time.

Some of our happenings over the last few weeks

We went with our friends Derek and Angie Johnson to Water world. Foote's mom also came along to help us out with watching the kiddos so we could go on some of the grown up rides. It was a lot of fun, but also very very busy. The girls loved the slides we went on and had a lot of fun playing in the various little kids water parks.

In other news, Foote and I celebrated our 6th Anniversary. We were able to spend the evening in the temple and then went out for some middle eastern cuisine which brought back a lot of college memories for me, since I had my own gang of Arab buddies that used to cook dinner for me all the time, I was almost tempted to eat with my hands and sit on the floor for old time sake.

I also did my triathlon sprint. It was harder than I remember it being. I think I have spent the last six months saying it is only a sprint, and talking it down long enough that I convinced myself it would be super easy. It definitely was not. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but it still felt like a good accomplishment, and gave me some things to work on for next year in order to improve my time. Thanks for everyone that came out to support me, I know that watching someone competing in a triathlon is not all that exciting and is a lot of waiting around more than anything so I appreciate all the support.

Alyson completed two weeks of swimming lessons. After the first day she informed me that she didn't like swimming lessons because the teacher wouldn't let her swim by herself. She loves to swim underwater and was completely convinced that if the teacher would just get out of her way she could swim all by herself, which is definately not the case and the poor teacher spent a lot of time moving the drowning Aly back on to the stairs after her attempts to swim off by herself.

Last but not least, I completed my last day of the paper out. This is big news!! I will actually be functioning on more than four hours of sleep a night. Not to mention how much easier it will be to do morning training runs without having already being up since 1:00.

I will miss a few things believe it or not. I will miss my private audiobook time, I probably easily listened to two or three audiobooks a week while doing the route. I will also miss all my late night friends that worked in all the various places I delivered papers to. The 7-11 Nepal guys that gave me free hot chocolate and always gave me a bad time. The circle K guy that referred to me as the newspaper wench (some how after a while it stopped annoying me) the Wal-mart ladies that gave me the weekly updates on all the weekly grocery deals. On the other hand, I am so excited to have energy to get all the way through the day. It will be nice to be able to take vacations without having to worry about getting a substitute. I might make it through a movie without crashing.

Pueblo Reservoir

We spent a Saturday down on a rented pontoon at Pueblo Reservoir with Natalee, Angie and her little girl Cassidy. The girls loved swimming in the lake and jumping off the boat. It was a lot of fun, here are some videos of us jumping off a cliff.

The warm up dive - I especially like Aly saying Ready.. Set.. Go.. Jump!

Camille jumping off the lower rocks - Style and Grace.

Angie jumping off the higher rocks

Natalee jumps off a cliff

Camille doing the Monkey Jump

Foote doing the big dive