Marine Corps Retirement

Last month, Josh officially retired as an active duty United States Marine.  I would love for him to sit down and write about his thoughts on this and what the last 11 years have been like for him, but I don't think that will happen, so this will have to do. :)

We have reflected a lot about what path our lives might have taken had we not decided to take the plunge and head off to Quantico in October of 2002.  When Josh first presented the idea of pursuing a career as an aviator in the Marine Corps, I really hoped it was just an idea that he wouldn't really pursue.  I was scared for a lot of reasons - scared to be so far from my family and out of my comfort zone, scared to have no control over where we live, scared of the deployments.  It turned out that those were all valid concerns.  Those three things presented significant challenges for us over 11 years.  Going through three cycles of IVF away from my family, and one while Josh was in Iraq, being on bedrest, having premature twins, living in places like Meridian, Mississippi - they were all very trying times for us.  But we got through it and it made us stronger.

I really have no idea, but I will say that I'm SO glad we did it.  It was even harder than I suspected it would be, but it has strengthened us as a couple, family, and as individuals.  We also met some of the best friends we've ever had.  We opened up to people who were different than us, who came from different places, backgrounds and had different perspectives.  I learned how much can be gained from a friendship by loving someone for who they are, and appreciating their own unique perspective, rather than always sticking to people who were more like us (not that I don't adore those friends too).

Also, I couldn't be prouder of Josh for taking the steps to make his dream come true.  It seemed a little "out there" to a lot of people when we told them what we were doing, but everyone thinks its pretty darn cool now.

In recognition of Josh's retirement, his command at RS SLC had a going away dinner for him.  Here is his CO presenting him with a retirement plaque.

Then, later that month, we had all of our family over for a little retirement party.  Nothing too crazy, but it was nice to have everyone there to recognize his service.  We put out a lot of his awards, patches, and a picture book that I made.

 That's it for now.  Now to figure out our next adventure...

Camping in Moab: First time in a tent!

 Earlier this month, we headed down to Moab for a weekend of camping and some fun in the side-by-side.  We went down with Brett and his kids and another friend and his daughter.  This was the girls' first "real" camping trip, i.e. sleeping in a tent.  They loved it - almost as much as they loved setting the tent up in the basement and "camping" there.

We set up camp in the slickrock area.  Here's our group enjoying some breakfast.  Josh made homemade scones over the fire.  Yum.

 Saturday morning, we all headed out to ride fins 'n things, a trail we've ridden before.  It was a little too hot.  Moab wasn't quite ready for summer to be over.

The girls had a great time playing with Leah (and Hayden too).

Heat + camping = a trip to the local Moab pool, probably a highlight for the girls.  There was an indoor and outdoor area, with big slides in both and the girls ran back and forth.

Next year, we'd definitely like to take more camping trips, but I will be more picky about the weather.  Call me a fair weather camper, but 95 degrees is no bueno when there's nowhere to escape.  But we did have camping on our summer checklist, so I'm glad we made it happen!

Big Cottonwood Marathon

This summer has been another summer of marathon training.  Lots of early Sunday mornings sweating it out for a few hours.  But this year I had company!  It was so much fun training with Brynn and we put our training to the test on September 14th at Big Cottonwood Marathon.  Our main goal for this race was to get a solid BQ time so we could go right home and register for Boston 2014 before it filled up.  We accomplished those goals and ran a solid 3:14 on a downhill course.  It was a lot of fun.

Here we are waiting at the top of Guardsman pass for the race to start.  The race did not get started without a hitch.  There were about 45 minutes where we were wondering if it would happen at all.  Here's why:

That's a bus, carrying a bunch of runners, trying to make the turn up Guardsman pass.  Mr. bus driver got himself high centered right over that hill.  This is a problem when the canyon is lined with other buses waiting to bring the rest of us up to the top of the canyon.  It's also a problem when there's no other way up.  We were still 3 miles from the race start, so there wasn't going to be any running up.  After a very amusing 45 minutes of watching a bunch of skinny runners try to push the bus off, while everyone else wandered around in the dark canyon trying to find somewhere to pee, they finally had us walk up 1/2 mile where another bus picked us up and shuttled us all up to the top.  Then eventually the bus was towed off.  We started 45 minutes late.  Oh well.

 The race itself was tricky.  It's difficult to run a course like that and we started out with a bunch of people who were trying to run a 3:05.  We paid for running that fast in the canyon and slowed WAY down after we came out onto the flat/hilly parts.  The last six miles were a bit of a death march - moreso than most marathons.  But it was enough to get both of us a PR and BQ.  It sure was fun to see our families at the finish.

 Now, we will take on a long winter of running in order to line up ready to go on April 21st, the day before Brynn's birthday.  Can't wait!!

Dancing girls

The girls have started taking a little dance class here at Black Diamond Sports Academy. We have been sort of hit or miss with activities so far which I chalk up to them being very young. But they have instantly loved this class. Partly because their preschool BFF Ireland is in their class and also because they have a great teacher. They love getting out their tap and ballet shoes and getting all ready to go. And it is so cute to watch.  My sweet little dancing girls. 

Sundance with the Jones crew

Last weekend we had a great time at Sundance with the Jones crew. Jer got us a great deal on a beautiful house up above the resort where we all stayed together for the weekend. 

The girls have a lot of fun playing with their cousins. They swam in that hot tub like it was a pool. On Friday we drove further up the canyon to check out Cascade Springs which were really pretty. It was great spending time together in a beautiful setting. Can't wait to do it again. 

A little taste of summer

Summer is flying by.  Our weekends have been full of fun.  I can't keep up on blogging about everything, so I thought I'd do a little recap of some of the fun we've been having.

Lots of park days, especially when its not too hot.  One of the things we love about living here in Daybreak is all the parks, pools, lake, etc.  Piper has a thing for climbing and here she is at the top of one of the climbing structures.  My little monkey.

Thanks to my parents, Josh and I got a rare night out a few weekends ago to see the Indigo Girls with the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley.  I'm not going to lie, it was alarming to see how "old" the crowd was.  Apparently we're not in high school anymore and other Indigo Girls fans aren't either. :)

Piper eating watermelon - that is a picture of summer right there.

One hot afternoon, we meet Brynn and Emery at the aquarium.  We tried to get Emery to join them on this frog, but it became a bit too precarious.  The girls love their baby cousin, but they tend to treat him like he's their size.

Another day when Josh was out of town, we headed down to Thanksgiving Point to see some dinosaur bones and also check out their 'Tinkering' exhibit.  I didn't think the girls were that into the dinosaurs, but then Piper asked to go back every day for two weeks.

We've had some fun times at the Daybreak pool.  Brynn and Emery came to join us a couple times (and a few times at the lake too).

This weekend, we had our Egan family summer party.  Just like last year, the Deckers put up the big waterslide in their backyard and the girls had a blast going down with their second cousins, Kage, Kruz, and Hadlee.

We made our summer trip to the zoo with Brynnie and Emery  The girls were in full-on whine mode and it wasn't the best outing of the summer, but we had a good time.

We celebrated Pioneer Day at Cowabunga Bay waterpark, just like last year.  This year though, the girls were able to go down some of the bigger slides, as long as they rode with one of us.

We still have a few fun more weeks of summer ahead of us.  I'm not at all ready for winter, but I would take a nice long fall.  

Birthdays in July: EJ and Jer

We celebrated some big birthdays in our family in July.  Our sweet little Emery turned 1 and we had fun celebrating at Brynn and Nate's house.  As you can see below, the girls were not bummed to have to eat cupcakes at his party.

 We love our EJ!

Later in the month, we pulled off a big surprise with a 40th birthday party for Jer at our house.  Erika, Josh and I schemed for a few weeks and were pretty shocked that it was actually a surprise when they walked in.  He thought they were dropping off their kids at our house so they could enjoy a night out, but instead he got a bunch of friends and family there to celebrate.

4th of July Weekend

Just like last year, we decided to head up to Snowbird again for the 4th of July.  It's hot in the valley, and lovely and cool in the mountains.  Plus, we love it there.  We decided to stay the night this year as well.  Grandpa and Nate were working, so Brynn, Emery and Bubba joined us for part of the day as well.  We started off with the pancake breakfast.  

 Then headed over and rode the tram up to the top of Hidden Peak to enjoy the beautiful views.

 The whole group together.

Can't wait to do some skiing here this winter.  Actually, I can wait.  I would gladly take many many more months of summer. :)

Then, we rode the alpine slide again.  Josie rode with daddy, Piper rode with Bubba, and I rode with Piper's babydoll while Brynn and Emery waited at the bottom.

During the afternoon, Brynnie and Bubba headed home, so we checked into our hotel and did some swimming at the hotel pool.  We had a great time cooling off, then had dinner at the Mexican restaurant.  The next day, we woke up, packed up and headed out only to find a note in the elevator that a rock slide overnight had closed the canyon.  We had some weird torrential downpours in the middle of the night and the canyon was blocked off for the better part of the day.

So...with everything closed (employees couldn't get up the canyon), we made our own fun doing stuff like this.  And chasing squirrels (which the girls call chick-munks) over and over.

Eventually we packed up the car and went for a little walk on a nature trail.  At around 3 pm, we heard the canyon was open, so we headed home.

 The next day, we met the Naisbitts up Bountiful Canyon to ride our side-by-side.

We rode to the top for some of these views.  It was actually freezing up there and we didn't have any warm clothes (yet still 95 in the valley).

All in all, a great weekend.  Happy birthday America.