My First Half Marathon

I had been planning to run the Salt Lake City half marathon since I started running again in February. Molly and Rowdy were going to be in town the weekend of the race, so they decided to run the race with me. My farthest run before the race had been 11 miles. I felt pretty optimistic about the whole thing until I got super bad shin splints. My only real goal was to finish the race and never walk, so I guess I succeeded, but next year it would be nice to be a little faster. Molly and Rowdy both did awesome and were super fast with hardly any training!

Getting ready at 5:15 AM on the morning of the race.

All three of us before running our fist half marathon...

View of the finish line at The Gateway. It was really fun to finish at the Gateway. The Briccos and the McLachlans were all there to cheer me on. It was so nice of everyone to come out to support me. Next year I promise to make it worth their while and run a little faster.

After...

Gotta give a shout out to everyone who helped me reach my goal by watching my kids for me for hours while I got my runs in...Thanks Mom, Dad, Wendy, Bryan and especially my hot husband! Couldn't have done it without any of you guys!!!

This may have been my first half marathon, but it will definitely not be my last. I can only get better from here. I will never be fast, but I would at least like to be average. Next up...I will hopefully get in the lottery to run the St. George FULL MARATHON! Wish me luck...

Dad's surgery...

We found out just about a month or so ago that Dad would need to have open heart surgery to replace a faulty heart valve. Apparently, it was a birth defect that no one had noticed until now. He had just recently started to black out during runs, but other than that he had no real noticeable symptoms.

Last Saturday, April 17th, all the boys in our family came together to give my dad and mom blessings before he went in for surgery. My dad bore his testimony to all his kids and grandkids. Between that and the blessings...we were all pretty emotional. I just thought how special it was that Rowdy, Jamie and Craig would all travel from out of state to be there for my dad. Tyler would have traveled too if he had needed to. What a blessing the priesthood is! So happy that my husband and brothers are all worthy to exercise their priesthood when asked to do so!

Surgery went well, and my dad is now home to finish recovering. He still has a long road ahead of him, but the doctors say in a few months he should be better and stronger than ever!

Princess Bradlee

Here is Bradlee in her Princess Tiana dress. As soon as she put it on, she started referring to herself in the third person..."Princess Bradlee will help you make dinner", etc... She also told us that it isn't her temple dress....but it is her primary dress! Don't worry, there is no way I am letting her wear that to church!

Easter

Our kids really love coloring Easter eggs. Every year it gets more and more fun. Here you see Bradlee showing off all their wonderful creations...

Here is Brock on Easter Morning on his way to hunt for his presents from the Easter Bunny!

For some reason almost all of our pictures turned our really blurry this morning. Sorry, Bradlee...

We also had a fun surprise visit from Rowdy and Diane on Easter Sunday. They had a layover in Salt Lake and were able to come by for a couple hours. We had a really good time visiting with them.