Summer is Here :) Moab, Wheeler Farm, Half Marathon

I have been waiting for Summer 2012 forEVER! Since Austin started walking in winter, he spent all last summer sitting; watching the other kids run circles around him, poor guy! Jake and I are so excited to spend the summer with our little guy. We can take him to do fun things and he's finally getting old enough to enjoy the zoo, parks, swimming, etc...

And what's a summer without a race, eh?

Provo City Half Marathon

Although I was super excited for this race, I was worried I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing. The last month of training was totally thrown off. Austin got sick, I got sick..you know how it goes. The longest run I made it to was 8 miles, and I was planning on it being 11.  But I thankfully I had gotten a good 2 months of solid training in before all the sickness. I was so grateful for Jake's dad, who came to play with Austin while I trained three times a week. Boy was I spoiled! Pushing a stroller can get tiring once you're going 6-plus miles, not to mention Austin gets bored after that long! 

The race itself was honestly so fun. I loved every minute of it. I started counting down the miles at about mile 10 1/2. I just kept telling myself the distance left to run was so short that if I were home, it would be a piece of cake. That's how I kept my mind from getting the best of me.  

The race started up Provo Canyon. Bill, Jandie and I rode the "shuttle" aka a school bus up with hundreds of other people. It was FREEZING up there. We had to stand around in the cold for maybe 45 minutes to an hour waiting for the race to start. But it was still fun. Bill started first since he ran the marathon so we saw him off! GO BILL!! He rocked it too! 3hrs 24min!

Jandie and I started 15 minutes after Bill. It was a beautiful run. Honestly running down a canyon is the best start you could ask for! Once I got warmed up, it felt so good to be in the cool mountains. 

The rest of the run was very peaceful for me. I love running alone. In fact, I prefer to be alone, is that weird?! Anyway, it was great. At about mile 8, my mom, Joe, and Kristina were at the sidelines (I felt so terrible they had been waiting in the cold waiting for me!!) cheering me on. I wanted to tell them more than "they started us late, sorry!" but I hate talking while I run so that's all I got out haha. I also threw my long sleeve shirt to my mom...she's so wonderful. Joe took pictures and cheered me on with Kristina..yay! 

Once I got into the city the rest is history. So many bystanders cheering! And a lot of angry people in their cars trying to get through lol. The finish line was something I have never experienced. Ever. My mom, sister, and Joe were there. I seriously sprinted the last mile...I just had to finish under 2 hours. The second I crossed the finish line my mom looked me in the eye and we didn't even say anything...I just started crying! I could tell she was proud of me, so then I was proud of me!

This was Jandie's first race, and I think I was more excited for her than myself!!! GO JAND!!

I finished in 1:59:19. Dang. So pretty much 2 hours. I would have loved to be faster, but I think I was smart with the pace I was going. I was just happy I didn't have to walk!

On to other things...

Lately Austin likes to take his stuffed animals around with him. He feeds them, gives them drinks (complete with "slurping" sounds), puts them down for a nap with blankets, gives them rides on his toys,  he even puts them on the toilet so they can go potty! 

 

Feeding Elmo lunch.

Jake's new job gives him days off during the week, which is FANTASTIC. I seriously love having him home during the week. With his old job, he was off on the weekend. So pretty much Saturday was our only day to do family things, run errands, etc. It was just always crazy and we never had time to get in all that we wanted to. Having Jake home allows us to go out and do fun things more often as a family! The other week we took Austin to Wheeler Farm.

He loved feeding the horses. This one even tried to eat Austin's hand, which was gross, but funny.

Wheeler Farm sure has changed since I was a kid! There's a huge slide in a pretty cool little playground. It's not the one above. I didn't actually take a picture of it...But this picture below is Austin after he went down with daddy, looking up to see the other kids coming down.

Now Moab! 

I don't know how I let this happen, but I had never been until now.  What an amazing place. I decided I prefer red rock, desert hikes instead of mountain hikes. I still LOVE mountain hiking, but the combination of scenery and terrain in Moab is unbeatable. 

While the guys went mountain biking, the girls hiked to Corona Arch..home of the world's largest rope swing! 

A few minutes into the hike, we hear a SQUAWK! Oh wow, it was a PARROT. What the????

Come to find out, this guy teaches parrots how to "fly" and basically how to come back to you. He had 5 parrots out. Gleam, Dreadful, Buckle, and I can't remember the rest of their names. He was still looking for two that had been lost for a while. Hope he found them!

I was so glad he let me hold his parrot :) I asked him because I really wanted to haha

See the people on top? Yeah they are crazy. We got to see one of them do the rope swing. I cannot believe people do that. 

That night we did a night hike to Delicate Arch. Now I can finally say I've been there! We started at sunset. People coming down were very worried about us haha. "Umm it's getting dark." "Did you bring lights?" "Umm you're no where close and it's going to be dark." blah blah blah.  Come on people we're not idiots, we realize it's night time and yes we have headlamps. I think we made pretty good time hiking up to it. I was in a hurry to see it before it was completely dark! I was a little nervous walking around by the arch...We were on a slant and it seemed as though there was a gaping hole in the middle!!

Again I cannot believe I hadn't been here before. It was breathtaking. There were millions of stars, we saw satellites.. Just the vastness of our surroundings was overwhelming. So pretty. I'd take Moab over a beach any day.

On our last day, we did two hikes before we had to go. One just up some falls, the other... We'll get to that..

gotta love finding a flat rock to set your camera on...

The picture below is actually part of the ride Jake went on with the guys..

Bill's Accident: The picture above was our second hike on our last day. It had a dreadful ending. We started out strong. We missed the fork in the river and took the wrong trail and ended up going waaay too far. But hey that's fine with me. It was beautiful! We were looking for these cliffs to jump off into the river. Finally we turned around, went back down, and found our destination. You can see Jenny jumping off the cliff. Jandie and I were across, on another lower cliff. Contemplating jumping! It was sketchy..shallow, and boulders/rocks everywhere. There really was only one small spot that was safe to land.

I finally jumped. Wasn't expecting to bottom out!! Luckily I tucked my knees and just hit my butt and elbow on the bottom. Then it was Bill's turn....yuck. It makes me sick to even think about it. He took a little running start and jumped. A huge cloud of dirt flew up once he landed and we already knew the landing wasn't good. The look on his face when he came out of the water confirmed it. He looked over at us and said he really messed up his ankle. He said it over and over until Lucas and Jake finally understood he wasn't getting out of that pool on his own. They pulled him out and that was the end of it. We all looked at his ankle and I can honestly say it was something off of YouTube. It was bent at a 45 degree angle outwards...stuck like that. A gaping hole under his skin, where there should have been bone. Just the site of it sent us all into a panic. How are we going to get him down? How are we going to get him help? I looked up at  Jandie who was still on the rock I jumped off of.. I just pointed to my ankle and said he broke it but he's going to be ok (right??) Ofcourse she started crying (who wouldn't) and the poor girl had to hike down the cliffs by herself not knowing what in the heck was going to happen to her husband..seriously I don't know how she did that.

Anyway somehow Bill's dislocated ankle went back into place on it's own while they were carrying him..But then that's when he passed out!! Unresponsive, completely pale. We were so lucky..some kid was an EMT and helped out. They laid him down on the trail and shoved Gatorade in his mouth and kept talking to him. He came to and then they picked him up again. The guys traded off carrying him down the mountain...I think it took an hour. We got him in the car and off we went, home! We dropped him off at the ER in SLC. Turns out he broke it in 2 or 3 different places, and had to have surgery to rebuild his ankle. I think he has 12 screws and a plate. We are hoping for a good recovery for our friend Bill!!! Oh and never ever again will we jump off a cliff! (hm the phrase "would you jump off a cliff if someone asked you to?" is ringing in my head)

Carly making breakfast and me making sandwiches for the boys' bike ride.

Where we stayed :)

The boys' ride (before Bill's accident)

 

Apparently Alex and Brad didn't get the red shirt memo...

A happy Bill with two functioning ankles...