Halloween!

This month has gone by so fast with Halloween festivities! On Wednesday I put on another Wanda Witch Party for the Young Women in our ward. They had a great time... but I'll try and post about that later. And for Halloween this year we decided to do something different. So Friday we headed down to Utah and celebrated with Adam and Cindy. We started off the weekend by going to THRILLER! It was a lot of fun!!! If you ever get a chance to go don't let it pass you by. One of my favorite dances was Frankenstein. It was amazing to watch the girl being flopped around the floor like a rag doll. The guy who did the Ghostbusters was pretty fun to watch, too.
Andy was being silly and it took a few tries before he would just smile for the camera!

Saturday morning Cindy and I ran another race. SHOCKER--- I know!

We met up with Emily, Sarah, and some of their friends from Saratoga Springs. This was Sarah's first half marathon and we all wanted to support her. Cindy wanted to try and finish under 2 hours and we were cheering her on!

This was at the end... Cindy finished in 1:57!!! And Sarah finished in 2:01!!! We are so proud of both of you. Awesome job, girls!!!

It was so hot during the race. It was super cold at the beginning and I wasn't sure I would be warm enough. I wore 2 long sleeve shirts plus all my crap for my costume. Somehow I managed to unzip my dress, unpin my stupid necklaces, take off my gloves, and take off my top shirt... while running! Cindy thought it was pretty funny. I tried hard to keep up with Cindy but she was hauling butt. After awhile I slowed way down. I ended up walking a ton of the race, but I really didn't care. However, I feel pretty good about my time. I didn't train for this race AT ALL! I ran once since my marathon and it was only 4 miles. When I finished the clock showed 2:07. My legs are killing me today and I think I may have pulled a muscle in my left leg. I think it's Carma laughing in my face because I didn't train. (My wig looked awful at the end because it was all over the place even though I tried to pin it down.)

We then took the girls up to Grandma and Grandpa Wyne's house. And then we finished the night with trick-or-treating. The girls had a lot of fun and it was perfect. We did one loop around Adam and Cindy's little neighborhood and Katie kept saying, "Are we going home now? My hands are fweezing." They were on quite the sugar high and ran around in the basement for a long time. Hopefully they'll calm down by tomorrow. Thanks for an amazing weekend Adam and Cindy. We love you!!!

Fasting for Shelby

My niece, Shelby, was in an accident awhile back. You can read about it here. Later Sarah took her to Primary Children's Hospital down in SLC and saw a specialist. They learned that she had a piece of glass stuck in her brain. She had surgery on Friday and there was a family fast for her. Andy and I talked to the girls about what was going to happen and that we needed to keep her in our prayers. We told Sammy that she could fast for one meal if she wanted but that we understand if she didn't want to. That's a lot for a little six year old to skip a meal. She first told us she would just pray for her, and we said that was fine. Friday morning Sammy came in to me (no school that day) and said, "Mom, I think I want to skip breakfast and fast for Shelby." I told her that would be great. Maybe an hour or two later she came back in to me and said, "Mommy, I think I want to skip lunch, too. I really want to fast for Shelby. I just want her to be okay." I had to hold back my tears as I hugged her. I was so proud of my little girl. She fasted all day long and didn't complain even once. I know that her prayers were heard and that her faith was strengthened. All of our prayers were answered and Shelby's surgery was a success. It turned out that there were 3 pieces of glass they extracted, but they were able to do it without opening her skull. That was such a blessing and she is now home and doing very well. You can read about the details here. She'll go back on Wednesday for a follow up appointment. I just had to share the amazing love my daughter has for her little cousin. We love you Shelby and we are so glad you are okay.

Wanda Witch Party 2010

We had our annual Wanda Witch Halloween Party this last Friday. We had a really good turn out and things went pretty well overall. This year instead of doing traditional clues we decided to give names of an intersection and a distance they had to go... but didn't tell them which direction. It turned out to be harder for them than I thought, so that was a plus. If we ever do this party again we'll go that route for clues. It was much easier to get out my Garmin running watch than to figure out a poem or something similar.

There were so many great costumes this year it made it really hard to decide on the winner. The slide show below is only missing one couple that was late and I didn't have a chance to take a picture. And I really wish I had a group picture... whoops! There were a total of 20 couples!!!

I can't reveal most of the challenges, yet, in case some of my YW check out my blog. We are going to do this next week for our combined activity. But one of them I knew for sure they wouldn't stand a chance doing. The clue led them to a friend's house, they picked a paper bag with a secret ingredient, and then had to play a short version of Zilch, a dice game. If they made the goal they didn't have to put the ingredient in, but if they busted then they had to add it to a milk shake. After everyone rolled the dice then they could reveal what was in their bag. Megan mixed it up and then it had to be completely consumed, but it didn't matter who or how many people had to drink it. The items were chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, chow mein noodles, 2 hard boiled eggs, spam, Wasabi horseradish, minced clams, and the worst of all... sardines in tomato sauce!!! Disgusting!!! I couldn't believe we actually had a few girls drink the revolting shake!

In the end the Scarlet Spiders joined the Grand Witches Council. Congratulations! A big thanks goes out to all the couples who participated and made the night enjoyable... and gave positive feedback. ;) Of course I had to show our costumes. I was Cyndi Lauper and Andy was my 80's rock star. (He put his hand up and pulled on my wig... dang it!) I wish we had more pictures because I don't think I will ever get Andy to put those pants on in public ever again! It was totally worth it, though. I even had "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" playing with speakers attached to my belt (thanks Becky). Underneath my awesome white rimmed sunglasses was amazingly bright blue eyeshadow up to my brow. Maybe for Halloween I can talk Andy into dressing up again... maybe.

Oh, and funniest story of the night...

Shuck's came as Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf. While at my mom's house for one of the challenges my girls asked Valerie if she would tell the story. At the end Ashley looked at Darren and said, "Is Grandma naked?" Valerie was a little stunned and confused and then it clicked that Ashley noticed Darren was wearing "Grandma's pajamas". She quickly said, "Oh, no. Brother Shuck got these out of Grandma's drawer. Grandma is still wearing her pajamas." Ashley is my little thinker.

It's official!

Okay, so I know I've been a slacker at blogging... but I have reasons. If you noticed my countdown to the right you might have seen, "Today is the day" for my full marathon. It's official, I have joined that small 1% of people who will ever run a full marathon. Am I Kenya? Heck no! Did I finish better than average for first timers? Yes I did! And considering all the things that did not go as planned I am proud enough of myself.

The race was about to start for all the runners and within 2 minutes or less I lost my running pack. It was holding all my energy beans and gum... or my lifeline essentials. I tried to hold it together and failed miserably. I lost control and began to cry. Amy grabbed my face and said, "Focus! You are going to be fine! You have no choice but to run without it." Emily gave me her back-up pack of energy beans and both gave me some gum. I dried my eyes and tried to shake it off. Although, it did mess with my head.

I crossed the start line and realized I forgot to start my garmin watch to keep me on track. I stopped and allowed it to locate the GPS. (I was so mad I was wasting time!) It located and I put my headphones in to find that my new iPod was not working at all!!! Boy was I ticked!!! Thank goodness I had a thought the night before to put a back-up iPod in my pocket... not my running pack. I thought that maybe I would want to toss my pack near the end but forget I had my iPod inside, so I stuck it in my pocket. However, I didn't know how much battery power it had since I never charge it before the run.

I was off and decided that I should preserve the battery life of my iPod and just try and talk to people running my same pace. I immediately found a girl I met the night before at the expo and was able to talk to her for about 10 or 11 miles. After that it was one girl here and another girl there, but only for a few miles. I made sure to drink 1-2 cups of Gatorade at the aid stations and dump 1-2 cups of water on my I was still thirsty I would drink a little more water. And I forced myself to eat the cliff bars.

Between about miles 17 and 22 I was running a pace of 9:16 and feeling great. I thought, "I can totally run this the rest of the way." And then... my iPod DIED!!! That's right, my back-up died when I had 4 miles left. Fortunately I saw Adam and Sarah at mile 23 waving my bright, hot pink poster! It was enough to get me through the rest of the race. If you want to see a blurb click here. (I am wearing a green tank top, black shorts, and a pink visor. And I swear I'm not ignoring Adam... you just can't hear my voice very well.) This was actually my favorite part of the race. It was so fun so see my poster along with a cheering section. Thanks so much for coming to support us Adam and Sarah!!!

I sprinted across the finish line and wandered for about an hour trying to find my crowd. NONE of them saw me cross! I was pretty upset at first, but now I'm just bummed. Once I found the rest of the group Amy, Emily, and I went to get our picture taken together. I saw this girl limping horribly. I said, "Oh, sweetie, you look like you're in a lot of pain." She looked up and I was thrilled to see my friend, Devry Krahenbuhl, whom I haven't seen in years! It made everything else worthwhile.

Today is the first day since the race that I feel mostly back to normal. Saturday and Sunday were the worst! Every part of my body hurt... from my head down to my pinkie toenail! After all that I still get asked, "Do you think you'll ever run another one?" And my answer is the same, "Ask me in 2 weeks. (Ha, ha.) In all seriousness, I might do another one just to see how well I could do if everything went as planned." But I only had two goals this time around. The first being to finish and the second is to do it under 5 hours. I finished, and in 4:53:07! And I'm so sorry I don't have any pics uploaded. If you would like to see the professional ones click here. There is also one of Amy, Emily, and I together, but for some reason it didn't make it to my photos. And if you are still reading I owe you a big thank you along with a candy bar!

Thanks to all my supporters! I was thinking of all of you while I was achieving my goal!