Go Orange!

We supported our fellow Phoenix Suns tonight thanks to our friends who gave up their tickets for the evening. The game was a complete blow out, but we still had a great time! Thank you Brown's for a great date night!

Spring Break!

Weeee........ what a spring break vacation we have had. I still haven't decided how I feel about having annual Disneyland passes. However, we decided to take advantage and head over to the happiest place on earth for a few days.

Luke didn't seem to mind or listen to keeping his arms inside the train, he was willing to go on the wildest adventure in the wilderness!!

It wasn't nearly as crowded this time around. Since we spent three full days over Christmas vacation we felt we had the parks down to a science. We only spent about 4 hours each day between the parks, which was perfect.

My kids were are all business when it came to the rides. No Fantasyland or Toon town was allowed. It was Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Thunder Mountain, and Indiana Jones.

After getting official drivers licenses, it was on to California Adventures.

I personally could have sat here all day. Note to self getting up at 3am to drive and get there when Disneyland opens, really isn't the best way to go. Mom and Dad lost steam quite quickly.



But, with smiles on our face we headed over to Jared's FAVORITE place. Paradise Pier. My personal favorite is still Toy Story 2.

After two days, mom and dad had enough and we headed down south to the beach! See you in a few months Disneyland!

We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather. Highs were in the 60's and we were surrounded with blue skies.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay at our Carlsbad Inn, so we opted for a 2nd best staying at Tamarack Beach Resort.
We lounged by the poolside, read, ate, and of course supported our local 7-11 thirstbusters!

We spent a full day at the beach playing in the sand.

Eating Cessy's icecream cones.

And walking along pacific coast highway. Thank you California for having us, we hope to come back again VERY soon!

Wham Basketball

A few months ago Doug toyed with the idea of coaching Jared's basketball team....I know he was super hesitant, but he went with it and took the plunge. It's been difficult juggling work, church callings, family, AND basketball, however I think he did a superb job. We hand picked a few players and gathered just barely enough for a competitive team.

They won about half of their games, but most importantly I think they all had a great time playing together as friends. Tonight we held our end of the year party.

The boys presented Doug with a gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings (a personal favorite). It was very sweet.

I have to say that Jared really has been blessed with a great group of friends. His friend Zach also happens to be in his class at school.

"THE WARRIORS"

Jason, Max, Coach Doug, Landon, Thayne, Jared, Zach and Jacob

It was a great season, especially since Jared was surrounded by his best friends. With basketball checked off for 2010, we are now shifting into baseball mode.

Flying Solo

It wasn't until a few months ago that I realized Luke really started to shine when it came to doing things solo. It began when I enrolled him in piano lessons. I knew he would do well, but I never imagined him to take it upon himself to practice non-stop on his own. Now 6 months into lessons, he can play a few church hymns.

He is one of my only children to loose his teeth so late. Still to this day he has only lost 2! Taylor and Jared at this point had lost at least 6.

He surprised me once again but really enjoying the snow and his ski lessons. By the end of his first day he was getting on and off the lift and snow plowing down the hill.

Last, but not least Luke has taken up golf. He is once again the only one out of my boys who has expressed interest in this solo sport. With 3 sets of lessons under his belt, he still is eager to learn more. One thing is for certain, if it's something HE wants to do he soars. It looks like he may be my only one who enjoys the "individual" aka solo sport. We are so proud of you Luke!

Luke with his golf instructor

Procrastination At Best

1. After months of trying to schedule, I finally took Taylor to get her hair cut. We ventured out to JCPenny's. We were both satisfied, except the fact the girl took nearly 1 hour for a trim. I guess we can't complain, she did a great job! Now, she really looks like a full blown teenager. *sigh*

2. We started planning this dinner with Doug's siblings I think nearly 6 months ago. Last night it finally came to pass. We headed over to Cadallac Ranch for some cowboy dining. We were all amused by watching several drunk folk ride the mechanical bull, however I think this discouraged us from making a fool out of ourselves. Good food, good company, no bull.

Getting ready to race 7:00am start

3. Ah, yes my 3rd and final procrastination really happened. I still can't believe I am actually typing it. Over the past year or so I have been literally BEGGING my husband (you can even ask him) to run a half marathon with me. Time came and went and it seems the stars never aligned, except for today.....We offically completely our 1st ever half marathon together!! I have to give major kuddos to Doug because it was definitely the most challenging half I have done to date. The first 6.5 miles were all at a steep incline including the last quarter mile.

We did it!!

Thanks to a power gel and a few FRS's we both completed our race with great times.

Jenny: 1:52, and Doug 1:57. Good job honey!!!

Now we have moved on to relaxation mode. I read that chocolate milk was good for recovery. Weird?!....I don't have a verdict on it yet. I think it was a little too sweet after a huge race. Not to mention drinking some of the calories I just burned off!

Doug back in his happy place reading a book on the sofa.

Despite all the procrastination that occurred I think it was a pretty successful week.

More stuff to check off the list!

Things

I'm not sure if I would trust these two. They could be pretty dangerous today.

Adventures of the Ragnar Relay

Another Ragnar has come and gone. It seems like I am still re cooperating and lacking energy. Each one seems to bring on a new adventure. (Tiffany wished for adventure...and did she get it). You can only prepare the best you can for running 24 straight hours, but somethings I have found are just completely unexpected. This year we were the first van which meant we were the first 6 runners to start the race.

Van #1 Carson's Crusade
Tiffany, Minnie, Jenny, Tishia, Kim and Nichole.

Leaving the night before was much more calm than last year. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed up to Prescott, arriving around 10pm.

Tishia and Jenny ready for some sleep!

Even though we had a nice bed to sleep in (our room was super nice), I don't think I slept more than 2 hours. Dang nerves any how! The alarm clock at 5am was definitely not welcoming.

Excited to start the race.

We arrived at the start line about 20 minutes before our start time. We quickly gathered our numbers, race map, and got Tiffany ready to go. Reflective vest, red flashing light, and head lamp. Check!

Checking in.

And there off!!

It was a mean 23 degrees when Tiffany led off with about 7 other teams at 6:30am. All I can say is BRRRRRR. My body was not happy.

Run.... Tiff...... Run!! She didn't even realize she was running by this beautiful lake.

By 7:ooam our second runner Kim was ready to go. I was starting to mentally prepare for my mountain climb. I choked down a Power Gel (I had never tried) and was hoping for some serious energy boost. After all that's what the package states. With about 5 minutes to spare I hit the port o potty one last time. Just as I was walking out adjusting my pants, Kim ran right by me! I sprinted behind her to grab the baton...not really how I wanted to kick off the race. But, I managed and blasted my music and was off.

Faking my excitement with a smile. Really I was dying.

Running up the beastly hills. Feeling much better at this point.
Nichole taking extra clothes from me.

The first 3 miles I was DYING. I am not sure if it was the combination of the high altitude, my numb toes (I was still freezing) and running up hill. But, it wasn't good. Hoping for some sort of energy boost, I plowed through the wall and around 4 miles by energy kicked in, I was warm and ready to run. Unfortunately, I only had 2.6 miles to go at this point, but you better believe I ran them fast. (PR 7:34 down the hill!)

Tishia followed me, then Minnie and our caboose was Tiffany's sister Nichole.

Exchange 6, meeting up with van #2 at 11:00am.

Once Nichole finished our set of legs (aka runs) were done, so we headed off for food and a place to sleep. Along the way back we stopped to stretch at the lookout point. The views were really amazing.

The town of Wickenburg about 15 miles from the exchange definitely didn't have many restaurants to choose from. We spotted a pasta restaurant and decided that would be a great carb loader. We walked around looking for an entrance and finally found the "Pizza" sign.

Italian food?? Oh, around the corner.....

We walked in and was confused by the inside. It was very cowboyish and the menus on the table read: Cowboy Cafe. Huh?? I knew we were tired, but seriously a completely different cuisine?

The proof we weren't all CRAZY

Tiffany questioned the waitress (which hardly spoke English) and basically told us she had no idea what we were talking about and said we don't serve pasta. O....K...A....Y.... being completely exhausted to get up. We all decided it wasn't worth the effort to try and find another place to eat. We are still cracking up that the lady who supposedly walks in the door everyday had NO clue there was a HUGE Pasta/Pizza sign on the door. We ate and all felt a little more alive and headed out to find a place to crash.

Notice I couldn't go without my Circle K Diet Coke.

There was a park across the street and we had about 2 hours to spare. I was so tired I didn't care what I was on, as long as I could lie flat. I am sure we all looked like a bunch of bums, but that was probably the best cat nap I had ever taken. By 4:30, it was time to head over to the next major exchange.

Lindsey running in. I LOVED these girls tutu's. I wanted to run in something like this, my teammates had different ideas........

For our 2nd runs (which were at night) we were smart and had bike pacers. Last year, none of us had anyone to ride with and it got a little scary. Ty and April Havey were SO nice to take time away from their family drive 2.5 hours to ride with each of us while we ran.

Exchange 12

Tiffany's #2 run was a dirt trail, which I know she was nervous about. Luckily, she had April beside her and completely half of her run before it got dark. Thinking we knew where we were going we drove out of exchange 12. 45 minutes later (passing the place we needed to be 2 times!) we made it 10 minutes after Tiffany ran. Sorry Tiff! She patiently waited as Kim grabbed the baton and was off for her 2.8 mile run. My night run was my longest out of the 3, (8.7 miles) thinking I needed some of that extra energy I went out on a limb and tried one of those 5 hour shot drinks. Crazy?! Yes. I felt like I was high on something for about the first few hours it was instant and quite bitter to the taste. About half way through my run my stomach was NOT happy. I managed to finish it, but the rest of the night I paid for it. No more energy shots for me!

Minnie, Jenny, Nichole and our bike pacer, Ty.
Jenny GLAD to be done with her run.

We left our other van around 11:30pm and headed back to our 2nd hotel. After showering and eating we climbed into bed around 1am. We were thinking the other van would finish around 5am or so.....but they called about an hour earlier explaining we must come quick there had been an accident. Our hearts all sank and really no one knew what was going on. Between phones and text messages we figured out that a boy had been hit on the Carefree Hwy while trying to give water to his runner. At this point the road was closed for a few hours, several runners were stranded, others stopped on the road. It was a mess. Our teammate Marisol unfortunately had to run by the scene as the boy had just gotten hit. Luckily van #2 got passed the accident and none of our runners were stranded. I think we all had mixed feelings at this point whether or not to continue, not knowing details, we started back up again at 5:30am to finish the last set of our runs.

They started the race back up a few teams at a time, 10 minutes apart.
Our start time was 5:30am. Poor Tiffany never ran except in the dark.

The reward of running early, check out that sunset.
Gorgeous!

This is the point in the race everyone is exhausted, tired of using port o potties, and ready to be done. Fortunately, my last 7.1 mile run was all down hill, however I never would of imagined it to be so difficult.

I managed to keep a great pace, (56 minutes) however my toes were not very happy. You can imagine how excited I was to be done at this point.

Over tired, and sleep deprived meant I was slap stick happy. Tiffany shared the same mood, and we amused ourselves for the next few hours in the front seat. Good times.

We each took turns giving water to our runners, at this point we were all fighting who would get out. I sacrificed and stood waiting to give Nichole some water.

Tiffany happy to stay in her seat.

Saturday at 11:15am an awesome feeling to mark off those last runs!!

Yay!! Now off to hot showers and the finish line! Van #1 was finished.


The beauty of all the major exchanges, which include a lot of the teams you don't normally see is how many crazy teams their are. This van was fully equipped with a flat screen t.v. and full bed. You can guarantee they didn't need a hotel!

Nice.

Then there was the "Victorious" team. Would you ever run like this?? Not. This isn't even close to half as bad as some we didn't capture on film. Except this guy......

He didn't have a problem posing for us, he claims to have lost a bet and said he ran like this. Hmmm.....I'm pretty sure he's okay in the confidence department.

Showered, clean clothes, and eating REAL FAT FOOD. Famous Dave's hit the spot!

We all ran in with Lindsey our #12 runner. Boy, did my toes hurt at this point!

One last team photo.
Carson's Crusade
Back Row: Lindsey, April, Minnie, Tiffany, Nichole, Tishia, and Jenny
Front Row: Martha, Jen, Marisol, Kim and Tammy


Ragnar Del Sol, 2010. Complete!
Thanks ladies for all the great memories!
My next half marathon is this Saturday, wish me luck!