5K

I headed down to Riverton/Bluffdale this morning to run the 5K I had signed up for.  It was a perfect morning for a run.  70 degrees and overcast.  The trail would be following the Jordan River Parkway.  Lots of nice scenery to look at as I ran past.  Not to mention lots of gnats!

I've been training for the last few weeks at the high school track down the street.  So I had a general feeling for how long it would take me.  My fake goal (this is the goal I said out loud) was to finish in less than 35 minutes.  My actual goal (the one I kept locked up in my head, so if I failed, no one but me would know) was 33 minutes.

So there I am, running my little heart out.  There is a mother and a teenage daughter in front of me, and I keep thinking, "Man, I would really like to pass them."  But in front of me they stayed.  This race was the kind where you get to a half way point, and then turn around an run back the same way.  So shortly after I pass the "1 mile" sign, I see the future winner of the race headed back in my direction.  Yikes, I better hurry up.  Before long, I make it to the turn around, and then I was able to smile my encouragement to all those who were still going in the opposite direction.  Meanwhile I'm thinking to myself, "Good, at least I'm not in last place."  And then I finally got to pass the mom and daughter in front of me.  Yee Ha!

At last I see the finish line, and I run as fast as I can.  Todd was off to the side with Emily and Ryan, and I hear Emily  saying "Go Go Go!"  As I cross the finish line, I look at the time clock and it says 31:00.  I was so excited.  I blew my "fake" goal out of the water, and even beat my "real" goal.  I can see how this could get to be addicting.  There is another 5K race next weekend, and I'm tempted to enter, just to see if I can beat my time.  Hmmm...  Will have to give that some thought, if I can move tomorrow morning.  And if my face ever returns to it's normal color, instead of being "tomato red."

I wonder how many gnats I swallowed?  

Hamburgers x2

Todd said goodbye to his twenties today, and joined the thirties club.  I've seen people really stress about this birthday, but it just didn't seem like that big of a deal.  After all, it's just another day older, right?  I guess we'll see if I still feel that way in a few more months when I turn 30.  We will just keep on taking life one day at a time, and enjoying it as much as we can.  Thirty?  Bring it on!!

I was trying to come up with something fun to do for Todd's birthday cake, and was coming up empty.  He doesn't really have any "Favorite" things, so I couldn't really mold the cake around anything like that.  I had almost decided on a plain white cake with frosting and a few sprinkles, but then I ran across this idea.  

I was on my brothers family blog, and my sister in law had made the cutest desert for an upcoming BBQ.  They were going to have hamburgers for dinner, just like we did tonight.  She had been put in charge of dessert, and decided to make hamburgers too.  (She actually got it from bakerella.blogspot.com) Thanks for the idea Amanda!

So we BBQ'd hamburgers tonight for dinner.  Then I brought out the second round of burgers:  

It was so much fun to eat these.  It's a cupcake, cut in half, with a brownie for the burger.  Frosting makes up the ketchup, mustard and lettuce.  The french fries are sugar cookies, with fry sauce frosting.  It was great!  To all those creative minds out there, keep up the good work.  And thanks for sharing  your ideas with the rest of us.

 Happy Birthday Todd!

Patriotic, Head to TOES!!

Emily loves to have her toe nails painted.  "Pretty Toes," is what she calls them.  Today we (okay, I) decided to go patriotic.  

She got a kick out of having matching toes with Mom.  

I tried to talk Daddy and Ryan into joining the toe painting party, but had no luck.

Like the picture taking nerd that I am, I made everyone pose for some 4th of July pictures.  

Say "Cheese".  Look at Mommy.  Ryan, look over here.  Hey, over here Ryan!

Oh well!

Okay, now Daddy's turn.  Look over here Daddy!

Perfect.

Cheese!

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th of July.  Emily was scared of the fireworks, and Ryan didn't stay up for them.  Maybe in a few more years...

Splash

Last week we finally had a sunny and warm day, so we got out the pool.  Nothing fancy, just enough to get the kids wet.  It was Ryan's first time in the pool.  

He loves the bath tub, so I figured he would like this too.

Ryan started out warm and dry:

...and then ended up cold and wet:

But having a great time:

(They don't get away with splashing this much in the bath tub.)

Man! I feel like a Woman!

There is no better feeling than that of success.  Knowing that you made a decision to achieve something, and followed through to the end.  I have experienced this feeling on many different occasions.  I love to set goals, and am usually pretty good at following through.  They are usually small things like "I need to get all the laundry done today", or "I need to get my visiting teaching done early this month".  Some of the bigger goals are harder to achieve.  They include things like learning to speak Spanish, becoming more accomplished at the piano, catching up on my scrapbooking (will it ever happen?), and writing a book (or 10, why stop at one, right?).  Some day I hope to be able to say I've accomplished these things.   And then there is the ever popular; I want to loose weight.

We all have dreams and hopes for the future.  Those dreams are not usually easy to obtain.  One of my favorite quotes, recently learned from a Weight Watchers meeting, goes like this:

"Being overweight is Hard.

Loosing weight is Hard.

Keeping the weight off is Hard.

Choose your Hard."

But the fact that you have to work for something makes it all the more appreciated, right?  So, as I said in the beginning of this post, there is nothing quite like the feeling of success.  Today I feel like I'm on top of the world.  I made it to my goal weight.  I lost 50 pounds.  The song that keeps playing in my head is the one by Shania Twain, "Man! I feel like a woman!"  I went shopping tonight, and bought several new clothes.  Clothes that actually fit!  It will be a nice change.

I can't believe I'm going to post this, and I'll probably regret it in the morning, but here goes:

My Before and After pictures.