Gobble Gobble

This was our first Thanksgiving in Utah in a whole lotta years.  We came home one year when Josh was in flight school, but all other Turkey days were spent with family back east, or with friends.  I think Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday.  I love starting the day out with some Turkey Trotting and ending it with food and family.  That's a whole lot of good stuff.  There are no presents to buy, no decorations to put up, no craziness and running around with hair on fire.  Just some time in the kitchen.

As a vegetarian, one would think I hate turkey day, but I have no qualms about eating a plateful of potatoes, rolls, jello salad (yay, Utah!), and following that up with some punkin pie.

The Cottonwood Heights Turkey trot started less than a mile from our house.  It was a crazy hard course, but still fun with a huge crowd.  I loved participating each year in the turkey trot in New Bern, but I think this one will work out just fine for a new tradition.  Brooke Larsen also ran, so we got to visit with them after and the girls got to see Olivia.  

We had dinner up at my parents this year.  It was a small crowd, but yummy food and good company.

Hello Winter

 This is what November 11th looks like around here:

We got home from Jackson to some serious snow.  Poor Josh has been shoveling away.  The girls (and Blue boy) were loving it, so we took off to purchase snow boots and sleds and off we went to the local park.

The girls were both pretty brave and even went down by themselves after a couple of warm up runs.

Our newly purchased ski season passes are now burning a hole in our pockets!  We can't get up there soon enough and make up for lost time.

Jackson Hole Marine Corps Ball

We just got back from a great trip to Jackson Hole for the Marine Corps Ball.  This was the most unique ball experience we've ever had, and definitely the most family friendly.  Josh's unit is spread out across several states, so everyone meets in Jackson as a central location to celebrate for three days.

We got to visit some of our favorite Jackson restaurants.  The girls had fun playing with their little friend Olivia Larsen during a yummy breakfast at the Bunnery.

Just like we always do when we're up there, we paid a visit to the spot where we got engaged in the town park.

The ball itself was very low key.  Some people even brought their kids and they had a great time on the dance floor.  There is a good chance this will be our last Marine Corps ball.  It's always an honor to celebrate the history and tradition of the Marine Corps and I am of course so proud of Josh.  Plus, the dude rocks that uniform.

With Greg and Brooke Larsen, who we got to know while we were camping in Challis over the summer.  Strangely enough, these two moved to Salt Lake from New Bern as well.  It's a small world.

 Happy birthday Marines and Happy Veterans Day!

A Princess and a Frog Celebrate Halloween

October was one fun thing after another celebrating Halloween.  There are so many things to do here with kids - we had to pick and choose because its just not possible to get it all in.  Early in the month, we went down to Thanksgiving Point for the festival/maze/Halloween celebration down there.  There were bounce houses, climbing ropes, little mazes, pumpkin patches, an entire area for princesses, etc, etc.

 Climbing up the rope ladders

 They had these giant "pillows" for the kids to bounce on.

 Riding some kind of swing horse and sitting on the princess horse.

Later in the month, we also went to This is the Place Park for some trick-or-treating.  The girls got to ride the train there and get candy from the "candy cannon".  Bubba and Grandpa came with us, but I forgot to get pictures. :(  We also went to storytime at the library, which had a halloween theme and the girls got to go trick-or-treating there too.

A few days before Halloween, we decorated pumpkins with tissue paper shapes.  Easier for little ones and less messy than carving them.

The girls decided to be a princess (Josie) and a frog (Piper).  They came up with these costumes completely on their own without any prompting on our part.  I think it is pretty representative of their personalities and how different they can be.

We had a great (and very full day) on Halloween.  The girls had a party at preschool, then we hit up my mom's work party and my work party, then spent the evening with friends and did more trick-or-treating.

 Bubba's work goes all out with their party.  She was a spider and her entire department was covered in spiderwebs.  There were two floors of their building set up for trick-or-treating.

 Josie and Piper had to keep reminding themselves that "bubba's not a real spider".

 Here they are dressed up next to the pumpkins we made and ready to head out.

 Halloween is definitely a lot more fun with little ones.  Can't wait for next year!

Fall in Utah

The Things They Say (and Do)

It's been a long time since I've done a real update on what Piper and Josie are really up to these days, aside from the quick picture and recap of places we've been.  When I was writing the monthly updates, it forced me to sit down each month and talk about how their personalities were emerging, what kinds of new skills they had acquired, and what they were doing that was really challenging us (always something!).

As they approach three, I found myself googling "strong willed child" the other night after a particularly rough day.  Each day, I strap on my seatbelt and hold on because I truly don't know what we're going to get.  Naps?  Piper, most of the time; Josie, not so much.  Early wakeup?  Seems to be happening more and more frequently.  Eating the meal I make for them?  Piper, never!  Josie, pretty good.

There are, of course, so many sweet moments.  They hold hands when walking somewhere together, they give Blue boy impromptu hugs and kisses on the nose, if I hurt myself, they ask over and over if I got a boo boo and if I'm okay.  They love their baby cousins, Mia and Emery.

Piper was the child prompting me to do my google searching the other night.  She is smart, sweet, and unbelievably stubborn.  There is nothing that truly means "no" to her.  Move her candy up high so she can't get it?  That's okay, she drags the chair over and climbs up the fridge to get it - right in front of us.  Threaten to put her in time out?  No problem, she truly doesn't care.  The only thing she takes seriously at all is taking away her baby doll.  (The other day, I asked her several times who she loves more, mommy or baby doll and the baby doll came out on top every time).

I still think she could make a heck of an engineer someday.  She likes to figure stuff out, such as the clasp on grandpa's watch, how to open a package (with a knife, of course), and how to make water spray all over the bathroom.  She's not all that interested in traditional toys - give her a broom and dustpan any day over her stuffed animals.  She's obsessed with the color "yeyow", frogs (which she'll be for Halloween), school buses, and the 17-year-old cat across the street, Fanny.  She's a monkey and doesn't hold still for one single second.  She absolutely hates when something is out of place.  Josh says that she is the reincarnation of his childhood self.  She's a riot.

Josie is becoming quite the performer and has quite the vocabulary.  She starts out a lot of her conversations with "sooooo" and used the word "otherwise" in the right context at the park the other day.  She asks almost every day when she can take the dancing class and the singing class (not until she's three).  She likes to put on her "singing shirt" and perform for us.  She's very emotional and up, up, up one second, then all the way down the next.

She's all but given up her nap, but is usually just fine with sitting on her bed with a stack of books during quiet time while I finish up my workday.  She's also very smart (of course, I am partial) and will "read" through each book with her own version of the story.  If she is awake, she is talking.  She picked a princess costume for Halloween (shocking!).  She loves her sister and told me the other day she's her "best friend".

We are going to attempt to teach the girls to ski this winter, or at least get them up there a few times.  It's going to be crazy chaos and we can't wait!  I think that's all for now.

Book Roundup (the best of the summer)

I've been meaning to write a little recap of some of the best books I read this past spring/summer.  I probably got through about a book a week, which is pretty good for me these days.  But there were a few really good ones.  I like to look back at certain periods of time and remember what I was doing when I was reading a certain book.  So here is my list:


Wild: I have a weird obsession with books about long distance hiking.  A Walk in the Woods is still my all-time favorite book.  This one wasn't a funny story and the author wasn't particularly likeable (it was a memoir), but I could not put it down.  I was reading this right after we flew into town to move here - we were still staying at my parent's house.




The Fault in Our Stars: I read this just a few weeks ago.  It's a young adult novel, so I avoided it for weeks, but the positive reviews on Amazon eventually persuaded me to get it.  It's about cancer kids.  How uplifting!  No but really, the writing was so good - the dialogue between the kids in this book made it hard to put down.



Gone Girl: This book has been all over Facebook.  Everyone has read it, including my parents and Josh.  It was a thriller of a book about a seriously dysfunctional marriage.  Quite the guilty pleasure.  I read most of this when we were camping up in Challis, Idaho.



Scott Jurek's book, Eat and Run, was another Challis read.  I cruised through this book in a couple of days.  He's one of the world's best ultramarathoners and also happens to be a vegan.  It's a pretty unusual combination and it was interesting to hear how he does what he does.  He gave some really good advice on following a plant-based diet and almost convinced me to try an ultra one day.


The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: I'm reading this right now - more than halfway through it (thanks to a couple of nights of persistent insomnia, yay).  So far, I like it a lot.  It's a story about a guy who decides to walk the length of England to visit a dying ex-coworker.

Happy 60th Birthday Bubba

My awesome, sweet, beautiful, and very selfless mom turned 60 a couple of weeks ago.  We had a great girls day out shopping at City Creek, then had everyone over to our house for pizza and cake and ice cream.  She also had a multiple-day celebration because her birthday was on a Wednesday.  So we had fun picking her up from work and having Mexican food that day as well.  Josh made his super awesome, delicious cake.

Happy birthday Bubba.  We love you so much!

Side note: With all of these birthdays (we've also celebrated grandma Shirley's and Grandpa Dick's birthdays), the girls are pretty much obsessed with their birthday.  They ask me almost everyday "is today my birthday cake?"  Needless to say, they don't understand the concept of "in two months" or "in December".  Also, with Halloween coming up, and all the talk of skiing in the mountains, then Christmas, they are a little confused.  Here are a couple of things they've said about the upcoming festivities:

• Santa Clock lives up in the mountains; he's gonna come down when we go trick-or-treating
• When its my birthday cake, I'm going to dress up like a frog (Piper's Halloween costume)
• I want a birthday cake with a yeyow Elmo on it (hmm, okay)

Happy Birthday Josh (and welcome to your late thirties)

Josh had a birthday last week.  His 36th.  I told him this qualified as his "late 30s".  He strongly disagreed with me on that!

Like any good birthday, we celebrated for four days with a day off work, some hiking in Bells Canyon, an overnighter to Park City, and some cake and ice cream with our families.

Family gathering at our house:

Josh and I had a lot of fun hiking up in Bells Canyon - just the two of us and Blue.  It was absolutely beautiful up there with all the fall colors.  We screwed up though.  It is a watershed and we weren't supposed to have Blue.  We were informed of that after hiking up the canyon for more than an hour.  OOPS.

 Happy birthday love!

Ready, set, go!

Top of Utah Marathon

Last Saturday, I ran the Top of Utah marathon in Logan and finally got the marathon PR I've been training for all year.  When Boston didn't go how I wanted it to, I decided to train for another marathon this year.  It was another summer of getting up at 5 am and it paid off on Saturday with a 3:20 marathon on a great day.

I also ended up getting 3rd in my age group and was awarded a moose trophy for my efforts.  Woo hoo!  It's not much, but getting a trophy at a marathon was a first for me. 

I had fun having Josh and the girlies there for me.  We also took a little trip down memory lane in Logan.  We drove past the first place I lived up there as a freshman - a sad little dorm room building.  And also the sorority house where I lived when I was a sophomore and junior.  Sadly, its no longer a Chi Omega house. 

Here are the girlies "helping" josh with our luggage.  Staying in a hotel with them is now a little nutty.  They don't sleep in pack 'n plays anymore, so there's no way to contain them when its bedtime.  There was jumping off the bed, stealing blankets, and general craziness until well after 10 p.m.  So much for a nice early bedtime for all of us before the race!

I'm super happy with my 3:20, but I still think I can run faster.  BUT...that will have to wait for another day well into the future. :)