A Marathoner of the Relay Variety

Earlier this month, on what was quite possibly one of the coldest days of the year thus far, I ran a marathon relay.

I know.  What was I thinking right?

Had I not be committed to my team, I may have bailed.  It was that cold!  When we arrived at 10am it was in the teens.  By the end of the day, it was a toasty 30 degrees.

The good news is we finished and had a lot of fun in the process.  I also ran a couple of sub 10 minute/miles  which I have having trouble replicating.  That is a post for another day.

I'm thinking I may run this race again next year either with the same group if they are interested or with another group.  I loved the team aspect of it!

16 Months

This post must be completed before Lauren turns 17 months in a few days.  Or does she actually turn 17 months this month since there are only 29 days and she was born on the 30th?  Hmmmmm.  These are thoughts I ponder while running on the dreadmill as I just did while she napped.

Maybe I can also get this post up before she wakes up?   

This is her 16 month picture.  Yep.  Fancy.  It just so happens to be the only picture of her I haven't posted from the trip so there you go.  I took about 7,000 pictures of scenery and wildlife and maybe 10 of people.  

What is she doing now?  A lot.  This kid is busy!

Her two favorite forms of entertainment lately are throwing the ball for Tonka and relocating all of the spices from the spice cabinet.  Both of these activities = hilarious laughter.

Throwing the ball for Tonka is self explanatory.  Relocating the spices?  Not so much. 

Our spice cabinet is within her reach and contains nothing of harm, so we continue to allow her to use it as entertainment while we cook each evening.

She opens it up and proceeds to carry each spice container one by one into the living room and sits them on the table before returning for the next one.  Rinse, wash, repeat times about 30.  For whatever reason, she LOVES this game so we let her do it. 

I can't wait to tell her about this when she is older because it is so random.

Her vocabulary continues to grow.  In the last week or so she had added "Huh?" and "Stop It!" to her collection.

It seems like each time I speak to her lately she looks at me and goes" huh?"  Awesome.  I now feel like I'm speaking to a mini version of her father.

"Stop it!" is very new.  Not sure how I feel about this one since it has been added to" all through" when I'm changing her diaper.  "All through mommy stop it!"  Yea....no kid it doesn't work that way.

Other than that she has about 16 teeth and is still only about 2 feet tall.  Actually, I think she is 27 inches and 18 or so lbs. 

I've been going through her closet pulling out things to sell at the daycare consignment sale.  It amazes me the sizes she can still wear at almost 17 months old.  6-9 months clothes still very much fit along with a few pieces that are in even smaller sizes.  She is just such a peanut!

Hopefully, in the next little bit I'll pull my camera back out again.  Since I packed it up to come home from vacation it hasn't really been used because I feel like we are still catching up.  No, I do not need a reminder that Thursday is March 1st and that vacation was a month ago.  Denial.  I'm there.

Speaking of which it is time for me to go get some stuff done around this house!  Until next month......

Wild Wild West Vacation Part 5

And then it was the last full day of vacation.  The next 2 days would be consumed with travel as we drove back to SLC and then flew home the following day.  This was the final day of vacation shenanigans. 

Just to be sure we had gotten what we paid for in the weather department......

 

It snowed.  A lot. 

 Sadly, this was also the day we decided to take family pictures.  Not the best choice we made while on vacation.  Oh well! 

These pictures very clearly summarize our vacation so there is that I suppose.  Snow, snow, and more snow!  It was great to see especially considering I've seen all of 1 inch or so in North Carolina this year.

 

We also took a group visit to see our mountain goat friends again since not everyone had been on the first outing. 

Nephew snowboarded perfected his snowboarding skills while the rest of us had lunch in town at Cadillac Grille.  Bison burgers all around.  If you are ever in town and want a good bison burger this is the place to go.  It was yummy!

After lunch, we burned off a few calories doing some last minute shopping in the best tourist fashion possible before heading back to watch the newest professional snowboarder come down the slopes for a bit.

Do you see all that snow?  It was snowing!  Crazy right?

At this point, it was nearing time for figuring out dinner and then packing up to head out the next morning for our drive back to SLC.

So long vacation.  Until next time!

Wild Wild West Vacation Part 4

The next day it was finally time for the rest of our group to hit the slopes.  Again, the rest of our group.  Not I, said the one who gets scared when going downhill with no brakes.  I'm just here for the pictures.  Don't mind me.

We all packed up as group to head over to the ski resort.  It was just around the corner from our house.  Definitely 5 miles or less. 

There are no photos on my computer of the weather that day but it was snowing.  Hard.  Even if I enjoyed skiing, I'm not sure I would have done it in these conditions.  This was the day where it wasn't sunny and it wasn't just snowing.  It was actually the nastiest weather day we faced.  At any point during the day, it was raining, sleeting, and/or snowing.  It was actually kind of yucky but hey whatever works right?

Once at the resort, we got everyone who was skiing setup with their rentals then did lunch as a group.  Once we were done eating they all headed up to the top of the mountain on the gondolas.

I stayed in the lodge and watched L nap while having a couple of beers.  I'm no fool.  The wind was blowing and the visibility was near zero.  There was no way I was getting in a box and riding up to 10,000 feet especially knowing full well there was no way I was coming down with any pictures worth having.

So I waited.  Drank beer. L napped.  It was actually pretty glorious.

Upon their return, we parted ways with the guys.  They were off to ski/snowboard and the girls were off to town to shop.

We visited every.single.store in the town along with every coffee shop we could find. 

Tourists.  That was us.

Finally, it was time to head back to our condo to meet up with the guys and discuss dinner plans. 

Just before the turn off to get on the road that led to our condo, some other tourists stopped their car abruptly.  After saying a few choice words, I realized they must have spotted some wildlife. 

I looked off to the right and spotted this guy!  Bullwinkle!

My wildlife mission for the trip was almost complete.  Now I just needed to locate a bison and I'd be all set to head back home.

 We enjoyed a dinner of leftovers along with some relaxing before heading to bed. 

One more day in Jackson Hole to come and then it would be time to start our journey back home.

Wild Wild West Vacation Part 3

In the wee hours of the next morning, we all awoke.  The rest of the group, minus myself and the 2 youngest girls, were headed out to snowmobile through Yellowstone National Park.

I've done it and we had a toddler in tow so I made the choice to stay behind with her and our niece.

The van was scheduled to pick them up at 6:15.  We were all awake.  All of us.  The entire house.

As soon as they left, I looked at my phone to see what time it was....

They won't be home for 12 more hours and I'm responsible for 2 kids.  Ruh roh.

Soooo, we had breakfast, picked up a bit, and got dressed to walk to the coffee shop.

I made both kids walk uphill both ways the quarter mile or so to the coffee shop in the snow.  Well, one rode in the stroller while the other walked.  Either way, I needed coffee so I could map out a plan of attack to get through this day.

Upon our return, I still didn't have a plan of attack.  Honestly, I was kind of tired because we had been on the move since Friday essentially so the thought of packing them up to go anywhere seemed a bit daunting.

While pondering this dilemma, I decided to take some photos from our living room.  This was our view each day from our condo.

Truthfully, we only had 3 sunny days the whole trip.  The good news is they could not have been better time to fit our needs.  The drive from SLC to JH, the day everyone snowmobiled, and the day we drove back to SLC from JH all looked like this.  Every other day it snowed all day long.

It was all beautiful whether it was snowing or sunny.  There was only one day that was kind of iffy.  We were greeted by a very mercurial Mother Nature one day which included rain, snow, and sleet with changes from one type to the other with little to no notice.

This condo was just perfect for our needs.  The way it was setup worked wonderfully for our group.  Our little family stayed in the master downstairs while the rest of our group had the 2 bedrooms upstairs.  We hung out in the living area on the middle floor. 

At this point, I've been happily snapping away when I realize the kids are still in the living room looking at me like ummmm, lady what are we supposed to do while you take pictures?

So outside we went.  It was only 8:15 at this point.  Crap.

We get outside and L decides she isn't really a fan of the cold white stuff. 

10 more hours.

We decided to walk around the neighborhood for a bit.  I think that lasted 5 minutes?  Once that commenced, the older one decided she was having a sock malfunction and wanted to sit down and take her shoe off to fix it.  Having been down that road with her brother at another time and place in my life I decided it was time to go back inside.

I surrender. 

Once back inside, I decided we needed to regroup.  L needed a nap (as did I) and our niece is too old for naps.

Sooo, I did what any genius adult would do....

I put L in bed and set our niece up in her bed with my laptop, some movies, and as many pretzels as she could eat.

The rules were we will all "rest" in our own space quietly until L wakes up.

Thankfully, she slept 3 hours.  In that 3 hours, I was able to regroup considerably.

Once she woke up, we did lunch and then packed up to go exploring. 

We were headed to the Elk Refuge again. This time we were going to look for moose and bison instead of gazing at the elk.

We found deer.  This was in a neighborhood on the way to the Elk Refuge.  There were 3 of them just standing in someone's front yard.  It kind of felt like I was at home.

We found mountain goats.

And pretty scenery.

No moose or bison.  It was getting close to sunset, so we headed back after a quick stop at McD's for ice cream to reward ourselves for making it through the day.

Not long after we returned so did the rest of our group.  We chowed down on baked spaghetti and garlic bread before crashing for the evening.