Justin and Kristin

Halloween 2009

I really like unique costumes for Halloween, and I also like dressing up in a theme as a family if possible. I know that this won't last forever since 1) Sage will soon realize she should probably get to pick her own costume and 2) I'll get even more tired and lazy and won't want to spend time creating unique costume ideas. Until that day arrives, this year we came up with these.....

 A FAMILY OF SPICES

Obviously Justin and I were salt and pepper (we bought those costumes). And the girls were unique little spice bottles. We made their costumes. Sage was....can you guess?

Obviously, Ground Sage, and Cadence was...

  Herbes de Provence, but to personalize it we changed the Provence to Cadence (since in French they rhyme).

 

 It was fun trick-or-treating the real way; house to glorious house. These two were a hit at every one we went to. You can't even imagine how adorable it was to see them walking up to each home. Especially little tiny Cadence. What a trooper too! She ran to every house! That's my girl. She was even saying "Trick-or-Treat" by the end.

The girls costumes were pretty easy to make, in case you were wondering. We just bought some foam and sewed a circle on top. We cut out arm holes and a hole for their neck. Then we cut the back open and stuck on velcro.  Justin did the cutting and sewing and I did the design of the labels which I printed on iron-on-paper and then ironed straight onto the foam. Simple as that! I haven't had the chance to take any really good close up shots of them in their costumes so you can at least see the cute labels I designed here they are:

6.66

...miles that is. That's what we ran today in the Devil's Chase "10k" in Salem! How cool is that?

Anyone who really knows me knows that my favorite holiday ever is Halloween (yes even more than Christmas), so what a treat to be able to run a Halloween race in the capital of Halloween itself - Salem! It was so fun! Tons of the runners were dressed up like devils so we joined the festivities of it all too. We were able to run with the girls this time so that made it added fun as well. It was a beautiful run through the quaint and erie town of Salem. Even though we ('I') had to take it easy again we still ran it faster than our first 10k little more than a year ago (Not bad for 17 weeks pregnant)!

 

 (That's Justin's scary face by the way.....not very scary...)

 We definitely got some oo's and aaaw's regarding the two cute little devils we were pushing along. They are cute aren't they?

 

I think we should definitely do it again next year.

More on other Halloween festivities to come......

Brotherly Love

I know I'm a slacker and haven't written anything for a bit. I guess with being a mom, working, training for our marathon, and trying to have fun with family and friends while we're in Utah is just gobbling up all my time. This 4th of July was super fun. Not only did I get to take another trip to Lake Powell, but I got to spend half the week with my little brother Nick, who came in from New York. I don't have a favorite brother....but if I did..... Anyway. We took a few hours and did an "America's Next Top Model" shoot with him. Talk about fun! It was great to be able to do something a little different artistically. Here are some of them. If you want to see a few more I made a photo album of him on my photography blog.

He's a little hottie, hu?

I Always Knew I Didn't Like Utah County

The reason for the bitter title to this post is that the job Justin has been working his tail off to get, fell through this week. They strung us along, made Justin prove himself over and over again, wasted our time and energy, even gave Justin a contract to sign before 4 days later saying "Oh wait, never mind." I keep telling myself that I didn't want to be in Utah County anyway. But now we're back to no insurance, and no income. Seriously how long is this trial going to last?

On a different note. We have made good use of ALL this free time. Last week we made it to the mountains for our first hike of the season. Sage hiked up by herself and even about half way down the hike before wanting a ride. We're glad that she likes to hike!

Grandma Gina came along for the fun.

Catch Up

Well, I'll catch you up to speed. These past few weeks have been crammed full.

First and foremost on May 10th Justin graduated with an MBA (or as we like to refer to it, his Master's in Unemployment!! :) ) I'm so proud of him for going after his dreams and working hard. Though there have been many sacrifices in our decision for him to go back to school, the things we have gained are immeasurable. 

 

Justin and I agree that graduating itself was kind of anti-climactical since he doesn't have a job to show for his efforts yet. But what was really great was that all of our parents were able to make it out (and one of Justin's sisters too) for the ceremonies! We enjoyed our time with all of them. Oh and um, hello? Doesn't Justin look just like his dad!! Crazy!

The week following graduation was spent packing up our apartment for the big trek back across the United States. The moving truck miraculously turning into Mary Poppin's bag and some how fitting EVERYTHING into it! Justin headed out alone with the truck (pulling the car) and due to a last minute change of plans, I stayed in our empty apartment with the two girls for a week. I couldn't have survived without all the help from friends, so thank you! Truthfully we won't miss the bugs, the humidity, the heat, or the 20 minute drive to decent shopping of Chapel Hill, NC. But we will miss Justin's schedule that allowed him to be home so often, our simple life, the Loop, the gorgeous trees that made our runs so enjoyable, and our friends we made in our 2 year adventure. It was hard saying goodbye to some of the best friends we've ever had, and that is what we will miss the absolute most!

So I made the 6 1/2 hour flight alone  with the two girls (too traumatic to relate) and we find our self living in my father's basement. Justin is still looking for a job....help!!! and my LCSW license just went through so, I'll be starting up at LDS Family Services here any day now. For more about how we feel about our move back to Utah please refer to a few posts from last year

Here and Here

We are signed up for a 10 mile race in a week and a half, another half marathon in August.....and (gulp) a marathon in Sep. Wish us luck with the training!!

Another Race Down

Justin here!  I thought since school is done, I am unemployed, and had a little time on my hands I would try my hand at blogging for the second time.  Here we are for the fourth time in seven months.  This time it was the Tar Heel 10 Miler.  A 10 miler race through the streets of Chapel Hill.  Going into a race I usually have in mind how I expect to perform and a time per mile goal.  This race was no different.  Things were going along fine until mile 8.5.  I had taken a gel shot about two miles earlier and it had not been sitting very well with me.  Then at mile 8.5 I began dry heaving and had to walk for a minute or two.  Kristin tried to motivate me and keep me moving but I just couldn't.  So I told her to go on without me.  After a minute or two I calmed down and started running as if nothing had happened.  I tried to make up for lost time but I had lost too much and Kristin beat me by about 50 seconds.  Even with the minor setback we both came close to our goal of an 8 minute mile (Kristin 8:07, Me 8:12).  I ended the race a little frustrated but Kristin put a positive spin on it, as she usually does when I am upset with myself, and said that it just leaves us some room to progress.  What can I say, she is always right.

Runners in Action!!

So my OCD doesn't want me to post this out of order.....but I'll try and deal with it. Here are some pictures of us actually running our half marathon. Thank goodness for "Fotojack", our only fan!

 

  Obviously this must be towards the beginning of the race because I'm still happy.

This is Justin trying to decide if he's thumbs up or thumbs down.

I don't know when this was, but I think I had less than a half a mile left. I could care less about playing up photos for the photographer at this point.

Our First Half Marathon

I guess since I titled this post "Our First Half Marathon" that it is assuming that there will be a second. I suppose now that it's a day later I'm actually considering it. Though during the race, I must have told myself a hundred times "Why am I doing this to myself? I am never doing this again!" 

Here we are before the race. Feeling good. I was a bit nervous. Justin wasn't, but he now realizes that was because he had no idea what he was in for.

Here are a few highlights:

The weather:

It was 60 degrees with 99% humidity!!!  UGGGG. It was suppose to rain during the race but didn't. I wish it had. We were SO hot!

The most discouraging moment: 

The track runner/competitive side of me was a bit discourage any time ANY one passed us. Justin kept trying to tell me to ignore it and just focus on running our race. Around mile 5 this old man passed us and I looked to Justin and said, "Now tell me THAT doesn't discourage you." He claimed it didn't. About 30 seconds later this old woman, and I mean OLD, passed us. I swear to you she had to be in her 80's! I'm not exaggerating! I saw her at the beginning of the race and thought, "Oh that's awesome. You go granny!" I had no idea she would PASS us!!! We caught a glimps of her again around mile 9, but seriously she was long gone.

The hardest mile:

I think for me it was the first mile, just because it was so humid and we were used to training in 40 degree weather.

Justin said mile 11 was his worst. He wanted to walk, but he toughed it out!

The easiest mile:

No idea. Was there even an easy mile?

The greatest compliment:

Most of you know we're the kind of couple that does most everything together, so Justin and I ran with each other the entire race. I don't know if I should look at it like I'm such a good runner that I can keep up with my husband; or if I should look at it as I have such an awesome husband that he runs slow just to stay with me. Either way I guess it's a good thing!

The grossest thing:

That would be eating that Gu crap which made me nauseous and then throwing it up about 4 miles later!

Injuries:

I was worried my tendonitis would cause me trouble. Taking it easy the week before the race really helped I think. I didn't have any troubles with it. I came out the race with two blisters and Justin was unscathed besides a sore knee. We can actually walk normal today!

Our Goals:

When I finally convinced Justin (a self proclaimed NOT-runner) to start running with me, for him to even consider a half marathon was out of the question. So just having Justin there with me was a great accomplishment! When we started training we wanted to just finish without dying. Then our goal time started to come down. I think we really were shooting for under 8:30 minute miles. (About 1hr and 50 minutes). 

Our Results:

We came in at 8:35 minute miles (1hr and 52 minutes). Dang it! Now I HAVE to run another one just to do better!

Out of over 1500 runners we came in 349th and 350th.

Kristin placed 20th in her age group and Justin placed 43rd

Our thanks:

Thanks to the Hemmerts who sacrificed half of their Saturday to watch our kids. Not to mention all the support and encouragement they gave us all throughout our 12 weeks of training!

 

Pheww.....it's done! I'm so proud of Justin for hanging in there with me! When they put some running photos up on the web I'll post some. We will take a week off and then pick back up with training. We have a 10 mile race in 4 weeks.

A Plea From the Desperate

So here's the thing.....I'm sure I don't need to explain the economic troubles we are all facing at this particular moment in time. 

Ok, so keeping that in mind...add to it, Justin who is graduating on May 10th with an MBA, student loans that will begin to need payments, moving out of our apartment, 2 kids who need medical coverage, oh and did I mention that Justin's MBA emphasis is in investment management? Ok so he has no job lined up and we don't know where we're going to live.....blah blah blah blah blah blah....if you really want to hear me complain about it and explain all our stresses in detail give me a call. In the meantime my plea......

If ANYONE knows of any job in investment management (i.e. stock analysis, manager selection, asset allocation) or corporate finance PLEASE let us know! Or at the very least do you know someone who works in that field already!? Give us a contact.

Also if anyone knows of a home that is for rent for super cheap or even better yet, if someone needs us to live in their home (i.e. house sit) for FREE let us know! 

We would LOVE it if either of these things were in Colorado, but I suppose we're open to a few other states as well.

And for all you people out there who are "hands off" kind of friends, at least try and keep us in your prayers. THANKS!!

"Snowed In"

So we got snow....I know that may not seem like a big deal to any of you (especially the ones in Utah or Colorado)...to tell you the truth it wasn't to me either, but apparently it is to a lot of North Carolinians! With no snow plows even a few inches puts things to a stop here. This was me out running in the snow, and then Sage's first snow man! The size of him shows you the "magnitude" of the storm!! :)

OBX 2

Being in NC for the holidays had it's advantages. One was being able to go to the Outer Banks again! We got a great group of friends together and a cute place close to the beach. We enjoyed playing games, more room for our kids to play, the beach (even though it was freezing!!!), and of course watching the UofU win (thanks Jake for genuinely rooting for the U even though you're a BYU fan!), oh and of course SLURPEES!!! Even though we all had napping kids it was still nice to just all hang out and relax. It was great that there were other kids for our kids to play with and entertain them. Sage took to Ali, who is 3, and just wanted to do everything she did. It was so nice to get away, we're already thinking about when we can do it again!

 

Merry Christmas

I think we sent these out to most of you, but if by chance we had a wrong address or simply forgot...well, Merry Christmas! We miss family today, but will try to enjoy just having each other!

Winter Wonderland Wedding

So here is one more photo from my sister-in-law's wedding. If you want more go to my PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG.

Oh the wonderful things in October

Well, October is an awesome month! Here are some of the best parts of it:

* Crisp, clean, cool air

* Fall leaves

* Carmel Apples

* Carmel Anything

* Pumpkin treats

* Pumpkin artistry

* Dressing up

* Free Candy

* Spooky stories

* Scaring little kids

* Scary movies

* Haunted Houses

* Halloween parties

* Seeing your kids learn to trick-or-treat

What's this!? A photo with my two girls actually together! As you can see it's a bit blurry which is my challenge every time with them now. How do you get a 2 year old and a 6 month old to sit still at the exact same time!? Not to mention both looking and smiling! Miracle!

 The "Marshall's"

The girls were cow-girls and, obviously we were their cows!

  

Ocean Isle Beach

So one more 10k under the belt. I do have to admit that it was miserable at first since it was freezing cold and raining. We were unprepared for that. Thank goodness one of our friends could watch the kids while we did the race with his wife! Those little girls never would have made it! It was kind of nice to be stroller free. We ran it in 56 minutes, which is about 9 minute miles. I know it's not spectacular but good for us, so back off!! ;) I place third in my age group. The first place female over all was in my age group, so hmmmm....I guess my age can't be an excuse for anything! Our friend, Rachel, got a little "behind" but not her fault....you'll have to ask her! hee hee... We enjoyed the rest of the weekend at the Oyster festival, went to the beach (once it warmed up a bit) and saw the dolphins swimming there! A first for me! It was just fun to be with cool friends! Thanks for the invite Hemmerts!

(Still happy and warm before the race started)

(soaking wet, but at least we're done!)

(Bouncy castle fun)

(Little Spectator)

(Sage and Isaac are cute little buddies and for 1 1/2 - 2 year olds, they play pretty well together)

Outer Banks

Ok, home from two trips and on to another....I was in up state New York for my friends wedding, came home Sunday night and left for the Outer Banks Monday morning. We got home tonight and are leaving tomorrow for the beach again.....so I don't have a lot of time to put this post together. Oh and FYI I have some editing to do before I get any of my friends wedding photos posted so those are to come when vacationing settles down. Until then here are some pictures along with things we learned while visiting the Outer Banks.


*Gas is more than a dollar/gallon cheeper on the Outer Banks
*When I take night photos at the beach on a certain  setting it ends up looking like it was taken in the middle of the day (this is not that photo)


 *Nutmeg, on the other hand must have something special added to it on the Outer Banks because it cost more than five bucks!
 

*They have 7-11's so life couldn't be more wonderful there!


*I'm not the only one who loves my Grandma's homemade macaroni and cheese! I've got like 16 other followers!


*Sand-dunes are scorching hot even in the middle of October!
*Sand can and does get EVERYWHERE! 



*Having 3 points at the end of a game of Settlers is not a good thing
*Your next piece of Sports Equipment should be an actual pitcher's mound
*Apparently, Jell-O is a junk food, and Brussels Sprout is a kind of sandwhich.

 

*This is where all the balls end up when we try to play "Petanque" or as you may call it, "Bocce Ball."
*Sage actually likes to drink salt water.


*Cadence is happy anywhere. 
*She is already fascinated with sand. 

Tour de Carrboro

So we've been looking for extra motivation to get in shape,and signing up for races is what we came up with. It gives us more reason to get out of bed and push a 50+ pound stroller full of kids up and down hills through Chapel HILL (hill being the operative word). I must say that it has been great to have Justin to run with and keep me going. This says a lot about him since Justin abhors running! I don't think he's run more than 5 miles ever, so signing up for a 10k (6.22 miles) was ambitious of him (and very nice of him to do it "for me"). 10k's are like no big deal to me---when I'm actually in shape--which has been over 5 years! Two babies later I'm in the worst shape of my life. So this has been a challenge. But today was the Tour de Carboro and not only did we survive, but we did better than we thought we would!

A few friends from our apartment/ward were running the race as well.

When the race started this is who was in front of us and who was behind us:

(They told us that to be able to run with a stroller we had to start at the very back)

We pushed our way through the masses and were doing pretty well. We had a slight delay as Cadence decided to start screaming between mile 3 and 4. Eventually, we had to stop and sooth her for a bit. Then we kept going, and despite the delay we finished the race in 1 hour 2 minutes! Yahoo for us and our 10 minute miles!! We're signed up for another one in two weeks at the beach! Hope we can do even better!

Kanyon-Man

The day after the wedding in Utah we had grand plans to do this amazing hike....however I and the girls got sick, so we stayed home instead. It actually worked out great because we had a nice relaxing afternoon playing in the kiddie-pool with the girl's cousin Kanyon! We hadn't seen him in almost a year. What a cutie, and a total ham! It was fun to see him and get to know him better. We miss Mr. Kanyon-Man.

Cuties

No need for an explanation... They are just CUTE!!!!

A Continuation on Love....

Another post I've been meaning to put on here for quite some time. For those interested, I meant to follow up on my previous post It's About Love by showing you some photos of another get-together we had with my dad's birth family. This evening pictured, my dad was able to meet all of his brothers on his birth-mom's side. His two sisters weren't able to make it. It's uncanny how much he looks like some of them. I think it's safe to say that they have all been overwhelmed by my dad's new presence in their lives. Some overwhelmed with joy, and some just overwhelmed, but none the less they all have embraced him with open, loving arms.

So my obsession continued, and I couldn't let it rest just yet. I went back into my detective mode and found my dad's birth father......Once again, unfortunately he has already passed away; back in 2000. Since my dad hasn't shown interest in meeting him or his family, in a strange way, maybe it was good he had died; His death gave us the opportunity to learn about him in his obituary. We even learned some much needed/useful medical history (so applicable to many of us in the family) Since this side of the family may or may not even know of my dad's existence I won't post details, except that my dad has 4 more half brothers and 3 half sisters! I have to admit, I really would still like to meet these sibling - rocking the boat or not. His birth dad seemed to really be a great man. I suppose they can catch up in the life to come. Here are a couple of pictures of him. I think you'll see the resemblance here as well in the nose and mouth area (though he still looks more like his birth mom to me than anything).