BRITTEN

BRITTEN

KAMERON

KAMERON

MY BOYS!

MY BOYS!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Birthday's, Running, and Home Work

Before I dive into June, I wanted to make mention of what a great Memorial Day Holiday we had.  We spend the afternoon having a BBQ with my family.  I always remember growing up that one of the first times we would pull out the grill was on Memorial Day.  We also got to take our kids to the cemetery in Farmington where my grandparents are buried.  It has been quite a while since I had been there.  It was nice to spend some time there with my parents and hear the stories of my grandparents, some of which I remember, most of them I don't.  I was only 3 1/2 when my grandma died and I only have one memory of her.  My grandpa has only been gone for 6 years (I think).  We did not spend much time with him but I do have several fond memories of the horses and chinchillas he raised.  It was nice to have my kids hear the stories from my parents.  I am grateful for those that have gone before me.  It is always so humbling to see the cemetery decorated with the beautiful flowers, and the roads proudly lined with the American flag.  It makes me so grateful for the place that I live, the freedoms I have, and the opportunity to share these experiences with so many family members and friends.

For our family,  June is the month of endless birthday fun.   Between Jason's side of the family and mine, we had 10 birthdays to celebrate, and several of them occurring on the same day.  Only one of those birthday's actually comes from our little family.  It is Jason!  He turned "old" this year, or so he says.  However, I have decided that if you consider yourself "old" you would never do something as crazy as running the 2012 Wasatch Back Ragnar Race...yep, he just did that.  I will let him share this experience.  But I will say a big THANK YOU to his brother Kevin for making him do it!!

Britten finished up with baseball and has altered his swing to that of a golf club.  He spends every Wednesday morning with a friend from school and his cousin hitting the links.  He LOVES golf!!  Not to mention he is not bad at it.  I love seeing him get so excited about golfing and then coming home and giving us play-by-play of the 9 holes.    Now if he would only get that excited about folding laundry and taking care of his household responsibilities.  (I will keep holding out hope for that!)

Kameron has spent June mostly hanging out with mom. Poor kid!!!  He has been able to spend the night at grandma and grandpa Sheriff's house a couple of times.  We go to the park every Wednesday and have started to go to the fun kid movie's every Tuesday.  So I guess he is not stuck with just mom all the time.  He has perfected his Angry Bird skills and discovered the bizarre world of Plants vs. Zombies.  Kameron loves to spend time hanging out with Britten, when Britten is home.

We are now on the tail end of the 5 weeks of cake and ice cream.  I think we have all gained 10 pounds, but it has been a happy 10.  Both Jason's dad and my dad have birthdays on the same day in the first week of July, then we have a break until September.   In the meantime, we have plenty of "home work" to do to work off those extra pounds we gained.

When we moved into our house, we had a swamp cooler that was on it's last legs.  Somehow, we managed to milk it for all it was worth...until it started to leak about a year ago.  It was time for it to go.  We finally got central air (aaahhhh) and have gotten around to removing the unsightly beast from atop our roof.  Jason, my dad and Kameron patched the roof. (yes, Kameron too.  He has no fear of being on the roof.)   Now we needed to patch the inside too.  With a couple of phone calls, we had lots of help and in a matter of 4 days, we had new sheet rock, lots of mud and dust, and now texture thanks to Jason's dad.  The only thing left is more sanding and some primer and paint.  Then we get to paint the rest of the house too.  Jason is so excited he can hardly stand it! :)

I will leave the rest of this post to my crazy runner of a husband.

So, I guess I am supposed to talk about Ragnar.  I think it has become such a large event that most people know what it is.  For those that don't, Ragnar is a 200 (approximately) mile relay race from Logan to Park City.  Well, perhaps I should retract that statement.  The Ragnar Wasatch Back race is a 200 mile relay from Logan to Park City.  There are now Ragnar races in many different places in the country, including So. California, Vegas, Colorado, and many others.  Kevin has run the Wasatch Back and So. Cal Ragnar events for the last 2 years, and was excited to create his own team this year.  It took some doing to get the team all put together, but at the end of the day there was Kevin, Kirstin, dad, Adam, myself, and a friend of my dad's named Nick that made up van #1.  The second van was made up of some ward members from dad's ward, some work associates of Kevin and Adam, and the guy who grows mom and dads cows.

Friday morning at 9:15 Kevin left the track at USU beginning our adventure.  I won't go through a step by step recall of our trip, but will say  I was very proud of all of us.  I watched Kirstin run farther than she ever has before, and that was just leg #1 (each of us ran 3 legs).  I watched Adam run like 12 miles without breathing (the dust was too thick, I'm sure he couldn't breathe.)  I watched my dad run up an 8 mile hill up East Canyon at midnight (or later).  I watched Kevin make the rest of us look old and out of shape.  I ran up a fairly large hill myself over by Jordanelle.  I heard stories of the cow man getting over 40 kills (that's what they call it when you pass someone) while running up guardsmans pass (which is about the equivalent of running up Mt. Olympus) smiling the whole way.  Perhaps it was because we ran 200 miles on about 3 hours of sleep, but it was surprisingly emotional to watch us all go.   It was a proud moment when our final runner appeared at Park City High School's track, and together we all ran across the finish line.  Good work Ragnarwhals!!  You done me proud.

We did not make it to the finish line to see the Ragnarwhals end their epic run.  So my kids decided we would make our house the "real" finish line. With balloons, posters, and crepe paper later we had our own finish line at our house.  The kids were so happy to see dad come in the door and cross their finish line. 

And there you have it.  Doesn't it make you want to get up off the couch and start running?  Not me, I will be happy to be the cheerleader.  Until the fireworks fly....that's all folks.