I'm a Triathlete!!

So here it is Wednesday already and I have not yet posted about the triathlon I did on Saturday! So here is the run down:

It was so much fun!! We were there to check in at 7:20 a.m. We started out in the swimming pool at 8. We did shifts in the pool, since there was only 6 lanes that we had to double up on. Since I don't freestyle without swallowing the whole pool, I figured out that a side stoke works really well for me. It still gives me the work out too, especially with my arms. Swimming a side stroke when you are sharing the lanes so closely with many others, doesn't leave you a whole of room to move, so I kicking people, I felt so bad.

After the swimming, we jumped on our bikes, which was my mountain bike, with my hubby's street tires put on for the speed. I thought the bike would go pretty smooth, but little did I know on the other side of the nice cruise down hill was quite the steep incline. I struggled up the hill and many times just wanted to get off and walk, but I pushed through it and was able to stay on my bike, just going a very slow pace.

Then for the final part, running. We ran the same route we biked and about half way up the incline, I did have to walk a little ways, but I made it, and I finished the race. I am very proud of myself and my dear friend!

So I don't know exactly how the scored everything or timed everything, it is quite confusing to me, but I finished the whole race in 87 minutes! Not bad at all for a first timer!! This, we realized later, was not even a half tri. They called it a taste of a tri, which for your first time, I just perfect. I would love to try a full triathlon, just to say I can do it, but that would require me to train a lot more and a lot harder. And definitely to get on a bike more than just at the gym a couple times. But I loved every minute of it and I look forward to another one and to keep training.

Now our next training is for my friend to run the Ogden half marathon in May. I didn't put in for the lottery because I was afraid I would get drawn out, but my friend did and I promised her I would help her train, and I will definitely be there when she runs the whole thing!

Everyone should try something that is out of their comfort zome! I have found that these races are so much fun, and I love being in the pool, even though I don't swim all that well. You always learn things about yourself that you never knew before when you do something that is hard for you to do. Keep training, and loving life!

Clean house!

For once, my house is somewhat clean. My kitchen counter is still covered in canning stuff and some dishes, and seeing as how my expensive vacuum is getting fixed (grr) the floors have not been vacuumed, but at least things have been picked up and the kitchen floor has been mopped! I figured out a great way to get my kids to do their chores. Hopefully each week will be just as good.

So here's what I did:

For a long time now I have had a chore list of the generic chores: kitchen, bathrooms, tv room, front room then we rotate each week so that the kids wouldn't  have the same chore but every four weeks. This just wasn't working out, my kids could care less that their chores needed to be done everyday. So I decided to mix things up and just have then pick chores.

I sat down and wrote out on strips of paper different chores like kitchen floor, kitchen chairs, front room, tv room, upstairs bathroom, downstairs bathroom, closet, walls, Windows etc. I figured this would be easier on them than to try and tackle the whole job at once.

Friday is early out day from school for them, so Friday is perfect, since our Saturdays are pretty busy. They did very well today, I was impressed. I don't know if they liked the idea of having a random chore or not knowing what they would get or just doing something different, but they liked it.

I had them pick one and complete it and then I checked it and then they drew a second one and completed it and then I checked it. I still felt like I was having to show them each little thing that needed to be done, but that's where my explanations came in handy.

I also sat down with a notebook and wrote out each thing that needed to be done with each chore. That way they know and I don't have to tell them all the time. I am very excited about this new method and think it will work good. I also told them if they come tell me they are bored or don't know what to do, then they can pick a chore from the jar. Maybe they can start entertaining themselves more on their own. We will see. ;)

So much for blogging more often. It has seriously been crazy the last couple months. I have been sewing as much as possible and canning up a storm. I honestly don't know how much I have canned (I need to start keeping track better), but I have done grape juice, peaches, pears, salsa, tomatoes, grape jelly, raspberry jelly, apricot jelly, apple sauce, pickles, pickeled beets, and still have apples and tomatoes left to sauce and salsa. My house is a disaster and I have been overly exhausted. But this is all worth every minute in the end.

Among all of the canning and other things I am doing, I have trained for 5ks and a half triathalon that is this Saturday!  I have one of the best people training with me, that is so patient with me when it comes to not wanting to do anything and complaining about how much I hurt. She is so gung-ho about this whole thing tho. She will go some days to the gym or swimming, twice in the same day! She is a great example to me, and one of the most spiritual people I know. We have had many great gospel discussions, but more than anything we have each other to enjoy some adult time with, without kids or worries of having to be at home cooking and cleaning. We still worry about that stuff, but we can get out of normal routine and enjoy just being.

September 13, she and I participated in a 5k run. This was my first ever 5k. We trained pretty hard for this one and had so much fun. It was a prehistoric theme and we ran at night in and out of the dinosaur park here in Ogden. We did most of our training on the track at the high school, which was nice, but once we decided to start running down on the river parkway, we just fell in love with running there and will probably never go back to the track again!

I finished my first race at about 40. Not bad at all for my very first time!! I loved it, it was so much fun. I did have to walk at one point, going around the D loop on the way back. It was pretty steep and my legs just couldn't take it. It was a great run though and that just ballooned into what we are doing now. I never thought I would love running so much!

 

My dear friend Ashlynn and I after the race.

 

My Famiy.

 

 

My family and especially my husband have been so supportive of me through all of this. Two weeks after this race, we ran again at our Stake 5k. It was fun running just through the neighborhoods where we live. I finished that race in 34:35. Much better than the first one, but I also had some more time to train.

 

Now our new thing is this half tri that we are training for. It is this Saturday at Weber Sate University. It is being hosted and paid for by the North Ogden Council, which takes in 10 Stakes in our area. They are pushing lots of sports in our area in the church, which I think is great. So they are now doing Pickleball, whish is so much fun and a great sport for all ages. It's basically life size table tennis. They are also doing this half tri. We were so excited to try this as a first for both of us. We can take our time and just enjoy the experience. The tri consists of 300 meter swim (6 laps), bike 3 laps around campus (aprox. 5.7 miles), and one lap running (approx. 1.7 miles).

 

I have been in the pool training for a few weeks now and I love swimming. I have a hard time putting my face in the water, but I am good a side stroke. I am almost as fast as Ashlynn who does a freestyle. It is definitely a full body workout! It amazes me every time I go, just how out of breath you get from swimming. I have done the stationery bike at the gym and have done the 6 miles and then went right into running and did 2 miles, but putting all three together back to back will be interesting. I am very excited to say that I have accomplished this though. Can't wait till it's done. I will definitely continue to swim! I love the water and it is a great workout! So until next time...keep on running. 

Ok, I was not intending to let my blog go over the summer, but as it is, it did. We were so busy camping and having fun and just being, so I didn't take the time to blog. So now that school is back in (YAY!) I plan to start doing more blogging. I will start by just giving you one thing that I have done this summer, when I had a little bit extra time. I have become maajorly obsessed with sewing and have SO MUCH fabric that I just want to sew up and sell, so help me out here and help me know what to do.

This is the first project I am doing. It is an artfolio set. It has two pockets on the one side for coloring books or notebooks, etc. On the other side is slots for markers or colored pencils. If I were to sell it, I would include a coloring book and a set of 12 colored pencils. Tell me what you think of this idea. I have so many others, like wallets, skirts, barbie clothes, baby doll quilts, etc, so please help me decide if there is people out there that would even buy handmade items and then how much you might pay for something like this.

Here is the first one, the artfolio. It has batting, so is a little thicker and sturdy than just double fabric.The only thing it is missing is a piece of velcro at the top to keep it closed. Thanks in advance for all your input and help.

*Sorry, my pics are not working currently, but I will update as soon as I can it working. Thanks for your patience.

Spring Break!

I love the little breaks in school! Spring break, fall break, Christmas...It's always fun to do something as a family and have some time off away.  Growing up, we had Spud Harvest (I grew up in spud country Idaho) when all the older kids would go work in the potato fields during the harvest time. We got two whole weeks off, which was nice for us, maybe not so much for our parents who had to put up with us, especially since we didn't work in the spuds.

By high school, it was down to one week instead of two, but still a nice a break. I don't remember doing much traveling or family vacations where I was yonger, we did most of our family trips in the summer.

Now that we have kids, we try to go on vacations as much as possible.  Anytime there is a break, we do something, even if it happens to be projects on the house and taking trip after trip to Lowes to get things that we forgot the first time. Or even the occassional trip to Salt Lake to visit family, or up to Idaho to visit my sister and parents. Our kids love to go visit family, so we try to as often as possible.

We have tried for a couple years to plan a trip to southern Utah to see Arches and Canyonlands and Goblin Valley.  Every other time we tried to plan it, it just ended up being to expensive to stay in hotels and drive for hours to get to where we wanted, or just too much time in the car driving or we just didn't feel good about going (you have to listen to those promptings!).

This year, it just so happened that we felt good about going over spring break and we only had to pay for one hotel night, so much less. We left Thursday night and went into Green River, UT where we stayed overnight and Friday we went to Arches National Park. It is a very amazing place. We have never been before.

The land in Utah is very diverse! One minute you can driving through a big city only to go right into desert land and then immediately into the red rock and back to sage brush and into nice green and trees. It's amazing just how fast it all changes.

We met Mike's brother, who currently lives in Colorado, in Arches and hiked with them to Delicate Arch. First of all, I had never been to Arches so I had no idea what any of the structures are down there or just how big and fun they are. Delicate arch is the one that you see so often on advertising and on the licence plates. It is so much more awesome in real life! We took all of our kids (9 between the two families) and all but 3 of the kids even made the hike all the way up! I am so proud of my kids, they didn't even complain, one even said it was fun and he wanted to do it again. We went at one of the best times. It was around 70* which was perfect for hiking in southern Utah, but we definitely didn't take enough water. We could have used much more!

The hike itself was a pretty steep uphill hike, which didn't fare well for my shins over the next couple of days. I didn't know they could hurt so bad! But we had so much fun being with family and doing something we had never done before. There are so many rock formations in Arches, that we started naming them. It was fun.

This formation is called Balanced Rock, because it looks like it is just balancing there, it is pretty fun, my son thought he could hold it in his hand, since it's so small an all.  :)

This is us in front of the infamous Delicate Arch. It is so much more amazing in real life! Notice all the different land around and the snow capped mountains in the distance...Utah is so beautiful!

And there it is...With my husband, boys, Mike's brother and his kids standing underneath. This was the best hike I have ever been on!

If you decide to go to Arches, which I definitely recommend, be sure to take A LOT of water, you don't want to dehydrate in the desert. Chapstick is a must as well, especially after, our lips were so dry. And LOTS of sunscreen. I put on 30 spf before going on the hike, and still got sunburned. It was still fun though. Cost to get into the park is $10 and that is good for 7 days. So come and go as you would want

We followed our family back to their home in Colorado, about a 2 hour drive, which gave us some time to relax and my kids some time to sleep, and we spent Saturday and Easter Sunday in Colorado with them, which was a lot of fun and more than anything, relaxing! My kids had fun doing an egg hunt at a park and then playing with their cousins that they didn't really know all that well. It was a great time spent with family.

Monday morning we took off and headed back home, but not without stopping at another quick destimation, that was out of our way, but so much fun! Goblin Valley is seriously out in the middle of no where! It is a state park.  It is just a bunch of rock formations that look like tons of goblins spread out in this valley. It is just one huge playground! You can walk down into the valley and run and climb to your hearts content. It is really a fun place for the kids. The day we went, it was cooler than the other days we were gone, it rained on us as we drove home, so there was quite a bit of wind, which made it hard to see much in the blowing sand, and driving through a sand storm is just as bad, or worse, than driving through fog. But it was still a fun adventure. It is a state park and the fee to get in is $7 for the day.

 

 

Here is the fun Goblin Valley! We had tons of fun climbing all over everything. It is very pretty with the dark clouds in the sky. This was one of our favorite spring breaks ever! I hope everyone wants to get out and enjoy the wonderful state of Utah, there is so much beauty all around us!

It is with a sad, but thankful heart, that I inform you, that after a year and a half, I have decided to discontinue my produce co op for good.  It has taken some time and much contemplation to come to this conclusion.  I have loved being able to participate in such a wonderful experience.  I have met some very wonderful people over the year and some have stuck with me from the beginning.

I will miss having all the produce in my fridge at all times, as well as some things that I wouldn't normally buy just because.  I won't miss trying to find people all the time to fill spots, or having to cover the cost of extra baskets because someone just decided at the last minute that they were done with co op.  I feel like I now have my days back, even though it was just one day a week, it took a couple days to plan and order and then sort and wait all day for everyone to come pick up, since everyone has different schedules.

I did learn quite a bit about produce.  How to store produce to last for a couple weeks, what produce costs, which is more than most people realize!  I even learned a little about finances and how to work with less money to save produce spoilage and help people live on a lesser amount of money.  I loved every minute of it and maybe one day in the future, I will start up again, but for now, I feel that this is the best option for my family at this point.  My grocery budget will go up a little, or I will just have to revamp what I buy in order to accomodate for the extra cost of produce, since I will no longer get free produce.

If you want to start your own co op where you live, it is really quite easy.  It does take some time and thought, but anyone can do it.  Here is a previous post about my co op if you are interested in learning more.

Food for Thought

It has been a while since I last wrote anything. I guess I have just been busy and have not had anything inspiring to write about lately.

I have been busy with young women camp things, getting people to help with certification and cutting out messenger bags to make for young women camp. I have been very busy!

Today though, I have some food for thought.  In my religion we belive in an after life and that we will be able to see our loved ones again after we pass through this life.  Losing loved ones in this life is very hard and we miss them dearly, but I think having this knowledge helps us through the hard times.  I have recently heard of many people passing on lately, friends and loved ones of people I know.  Some have this same knowledge that I do, others have lost that knowledge.

Last year we had a couple really tough months.  We lost our dear bishop who we were fairly close to.  He was a wonderful man, and I worked closely with his dear wife in the young womens for a couple years and love her dearly.  We had the opportunity to visit him just a couple days before his passing.  We could tell he was in pain, suffering from cancer.  But through it all, he never gave up.  He was always positive and still cared so much for his ward.

My dear grandmother passed just a few after our bishop did.  She was such an inspiration to everyone around her and especially to her family.  She loved hugging everyone and cared so much for all of our children and loved when we would come to visit.  She had such a strong testimony of the gospel and especially our Savior.  I do miss her dearly, but I know that I will be able to see again, as well as my grandfather who has also passed on.  This is a wonderful knowledge that we have been given through the scriptures and through prophets.

So my food for thought today is this:  There are many people throughout the world who may or may not be church going, religious people, that belive that there is a heaven and a hell.  Most believe that if we are good we go to heaven, if we aren't, we go to hell.  This is true is someways.  I believe a little differently than this, but if pepole belive there is heaven and hell, then why would there be an end to life?  Yes our spirits leave this earth and our bodies behind, but don't they have to go somewhere? I'm pretty sure we don't just vanish and cease to exist.

I read an obituary the other day that said "he has returned to heaven" yet from things I've heard, this family doesn't believe they will see this person again, that this was the end.  How, if he has gone to heaven, can this be the end?  Heaven is a place, where I would think our spirits would dwell, so we still live on, right?  Maybe some people think that once our body has died, we just vanish.  This is a hard and sad thing for me to think that people just vanish, when we have so much more potential than that.  We have all been promised that we can live on and also become kings and queens, gods and goddesses.  Who would not want to try to attain to that?

I thought of this the other day.  I tried to imagine what it would be like to become a goddess, to reign over a world of my own and watch my many children live and fail and strive to do good and love others and have heartache.  I decided, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that.  What a responsibility!  I was overwhelmed at that thought!  I have always wanted to be great and achieve wonderful, fulfilling things that would inspire and uplift others, but being a God/Goddess, goes far beyond that!

I am so thankful for the knowledge that I have that we WILL live again after this life!  I WILL be able to see my grandparents again and all those in my ancestory who have gone before me.  I will be able to meet all those people who have inspired me in this life that I won't get a chance to meet here.  I WILL also be able to kneel at the feet of my Savior and to personally give him my thanks for suffering for my sins in this life so I can strive to be more like him and live with him again.  I know this to be true and hope you do too.  If not, I encourage to seek out the Lord and find out for yourself if these things are true!  Thanks for reading and allowing me to give my opinion.  May the Lord watch over you and yours each day, is my prayer!