More pics of Kay

Kayla's 11th B-day

Today is Kayla's 11th Birthday. She is very excited. As we celebrate birthdays throughout the year, she sometimes feels like September, and then the very last day of September, is never going to come, but here it is. We spent most of the day playing at the beach and then had dinner at Red Robin.

Her sisters and parents showered her with fun gifts, but mostly we were just glad to spend the whole day together.

Kay is a special and wise spirit. She is self-motivated and driven to excellence in all that she does. Her compassion and love for others can easily be felt by those around her.

We love her so very much and are so grateful that she is a part of our eternal family. Love ya K!

Disney Afternoon

This morning we left for So Cal about 6:30 am. This was the 1st time I had ever driven to LA without another driver in the car. I was a little nervous, but confident I could do it (cause 'we can do hard things'). The speedometer on the Suburban has been temperamental lately, so I wasn't exactly sure how fast I was going, but we seemed to be making pretty good time. We hit St. George at 9:45 and were in the Disneyland parking structure at 2:30 p.m. (Don't do the math, please) We actually hadn't planned on going to Disneyland, but I threw our passes in at the last minute. Once I saw that we still had almost 6 hours before we had to get Dad and Aubrey from the airport, we decided to hit the rides.

It was quite a spontaneous move for me. Most of the girls were still wearing their clothes from the day before and hadn't brushed their teeth or hair, as I had quickly moved them from bed to car while they were still out of it. But who cares about fashion, we were together and came to have a good time.

Gotta make a stop by Minnie's house. I wish I had the camera ready when Brenna went in and hugged her. It was so sincere, you could tell how much she loves Minnie and it felt reciprocated.

Halloween time at Disneyland. We then headed back out to the parking structure to get Aubrey and Dad from the airport. What a fun, fun afternoon!

Girls

The girls did a little photo shoot in the backyard. I loved these because it reminds me of each girl in their current stage. Emi in a 'peace shirt'; Brenna in her pajamas; and Lindsay wearing purple. I love these girls and every stage of their lives.

Kayla's 1/2 Marathon

Today I ran my first 1/2 Marathon. It was the worst and best day of my life. I ran with my dad for most of it, so it couldn't be too boring. It took a long time to train, and I have had a fun time waking up in the morning at 6:00 and running 2-13 miles, before school alot of the time. It was also a lot of fun also being able to know I was done. I finished in 1:59:22, and for all those 13.39 miles, (they made it longer than 13.1) almost everyone that passed me, or was behind me said, "Good job Kayla!" I am so glad everyone could support me in this, especially my family. I love you guys! Here are some pics. of me after the race.

With my finishers medal.

With my award, for free registration next year instead of a medal plus they are sending me a custom award in the next few weeks.

Mom's perspective - So emotional. I had so much fun training with Kayla. We have run every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday morning for the past 10 weeks. Somedays it was really hard to wake her from a sound sleep at 6am to go run, but we committed to do it, and we both believe strongly in keeping our commitments. It is emotional now just to write about it. Kayla physically pushed me to my limits, and I pushed her mentally, sometimes to her breaking point, as we continued to add more miles. It was a journey, and one I will never forget. It has brought us closer together and has strengthened our commitment to be close as a family.

Thanks to Robert and all of the girls for their support in this endeavour. So glad we could all share in this together.

Finish Video

Here's the happy finish. Then I start balling. It was such an emotional moment, couldn't have been better. Click the arrow to play.

Stitches

Brenna was excited to go to the hospital today and have her stitches removed after a short 4+ days. The ER doctor did a great job and put 8 small stitches in that may not end up leaving a scar. Our only challenge is going to be continually applying sunscreen to the wound for the next year when she spends time outside (and guess what, with a pool in the backyard she spends a lot of time in the backyard). I was glad to get the stitches out so I did not have to look at them anymore.

Brenna's Cut

Ugh. I don't know if I can even write this post. I may need to pass this task onto Robert, just as I passed our Brenna off to him when I saw all the blood coming from her head. Ugh.

So around 8:00 tonight Robert and I were sitting in the office talking and planning while the girls were in the family room playing a game. What we did not realize was while the other girls were playing Monopoly, Brenna's game consisted of jumping on the ottoman with a pair of scissors in her hand. What we learned later was that Brenna decided that she wanted to jump to the couch, so she threw the open scissors onto the couch (so in her own words "she could jump better") and proceeded to jump from the ottoman onto the couch. All went well until she landed on the couch and her face hit the open scissor blade. This is were Robert and I actually entered the picture. Brenna began screaming and running toward us covered it blood. Given my feelings on blood, I ran the other way out of the room while Robert swooped her up and tried to figure out what was going on. Evidently, there was so much blood that it took a while for him to figure out where it was coming from. Once he saw the cut, Robert realized we needed to go to the ER and get her taken care of.

There was too much blood for me, so I drove the car while Robert sat in the back and held a towel on Brenna's face. Since the girls were distraught, we asked our friends Kelvin and Jody Anderson to stop by and make sure they were ok while we were gone. About halfway to the hospital Brenna calmed down and stopped crying. We went to the relatively new hospital in Riverton and found the ER to be empty. Brenna was taken through triage where she proceeded to tell the nurse what had happened in a manner like she was recalling a trip to the store (this by the way was how we learned what actually happened). The nurse commented on how smart and brave Brenna was and quickly took us to a room and gave her a coloring book.

Here you can see Brenna coloring with her bloody hand. It was amazing how calm she was in the room. A new nurse came in and proceeded to have a nice conversation with Brenna while she cleaned up her face a little bit. Eventually, the doctor came in and administered the anesthetic and stitched her up. I think she said "ouchies" a couple of times during all the shots, but never cried nor tried to get away. The doctor was amazed at her courage and commented on how they usually have to restrain 4 year olds when the do stitches.

Unfortunately, Brenna was wearing her favorite pajamas and as you can probably guessed, they were ruined. Fortunately, our good friends Mike and Amy brought her over some new ones the next day and she now has new favorite jammies. It was a rough night, but I am glad it happened tonight as Robert is to leave for NYC in the morning. Mostly, we were just happy that our B was ok and that the scissors did not get her in the eye or her ear or do something worse.

Alta Peruvian

Today was one of our favorite races of the season - Alta Peruvian 8K Downhill Dash and BBQ Bash. This year everyone ran except Aubrey and Brenna. This was Lindz and Emi's first 5-mile race, so they were a little nervous. The race starts just above the Alta Ski Resort (brought back some memories of our 'endless hike') and runs down Little Cottonwood Canyon, literally just right down the Canyon road. Kayla had a 5mile PR of 37:30 - averaging 7:30 minute miles. Crazy!

Emily found the distance a little dauting, but she and Lindz stayed together for most of the race and their goal was to stay in front of 'the guy in the orange shirt'. They were able to stay in front of him and finished in 46:20, beating thier goal of 55:00. This is how Emi felt after the race.

And this is how Emi felt after she learned she came in 3rd place for girls 12 and under. Happy as could be! She and Lindsay each won breakfast for 2 at the Alta Peruvian and Kayla and Mom each won dinner for 2. I think there's going to be a lot of daddy/daughter dates to Alta over the next little while. We had a great BBQ after the race and enjoyed being up at Alta together.

Lion King

We took the older 4 girls for a 'night on the town'. We went to dinner at Olive Garden, one of their favorite places to eat. We were lucky enough to sit by some of our neighbors and had fun visiting with them.

From there, we headed downtown to see Broadway's The Lion King. We had never seen it, so it was quite a treat. The costumes and set were incredible and the girls liked knowing the story.

It was a definite hit and fun night with our crew. Love you girls!

Collage of TRIathlon - click on to enlarge

Girls TRI

Aubrey is a TRIathlete. This is her 4th triathlon and I decided to buddy along with her this time. It was a record cold morning, 42 degrees at race time with frost on the ground. I started first with the adults and she started with the 11-15 age group. You can click on the collage to enlarge the pictures. And yes, that is Aubrey in the green swim cap with all those muscles. Swimming is her strength.

You can also see her transitioning from the swim to the bike. She is always most nervous about the bike, but this was her best bike ride yet (and she assures us she will do even better when we buy her a 'new' hybrid or road bike) Biking may have been my strength in this particular race. I was cruising past people with race volunteers trying to tell me to slow down. It's my orange Felt bike, it's just super fast. Or it may have also been the cowbells my family was ringing for me. 'More cowbell'.

Then to the run. I had only done 2 bricks (that means consecutive swim-bike-run) with Aubrey, so I wasn't totally prepared for how noodly my legs felt when I started running. Wow. I also don't have Tri-laces like Aubrey, so I had to stop and tie my shoes twice. Ugh. But I was able to finish in time to see Aubrey finish up on her bike and head out on her run. It is so awesome to see her out there running her heart out with all her sister (oops. Kayla was off running a 5-mile Temple to Temple race in South Jordan with some of my friends - running her heart out too and making people nervous as she threw up at the finish line. I forgot to warn them that's how she does it) But Aubrey had a great Miller crowd cheering her on and she finished strong.

We received our times as we finished, but not our overall place due to the fact that it was a staggered start. We waited around for the awards ceremony and found out that Aubrey came in 2nd for her age division (17 seconds behind the winner) and I finished 1st for all women. Crazy, it totally caught me off guard. I won a gift certificate for a pair of Asics running shoes. Pretty cool. Looking forward to continuing to train with Aubrey. She ROCKS! Thanks for letting me TRI with you babe!

Swimmer Girls

The girls love to swim. Though we were not looking for a house with a pool, now I can't imagine not having a pool. It is something that everyone can enjoy together.

There's Mom doing her 15 practice laps before the TRi, while Brenna is Kung-Fu diving.