RAGNAR Vegas Style Baby!

So another fun filled, sleep deprived, triple legged, crazy teams, Ragnar Relay has come and gone. This time it was in Vegas. I have done the Wasatch Back the past two years. This past June after completing the Wasatch Back (or Dub B as I may start calling it) I learned of a new race opening up in Vegas this fall. If you participated in both, the Dub B and Vegas Ragnar, not only would you receive your medals for each race, on top of that you would get an official limited edition 'Saints and Sinners' Medal! What?!?! Count ME in! So when I learned of this news, I shared it with my team, hoping, but not sure if anyone would bite. (At this point I had run with the majority of this team twice in one of the most insane races around, yeah I should have not under-estimated these people). Of course they were in! So we rightfully named our Vegas team 'All for a Medal?' And it was fantastic!

It started out the night before the race at Mary Ann's house gathered together for a team bonding spaghetti dinner. I am in full support of making this a tradition! It was so much fun to get both van's together and hang out before the race even started. Then came the decorating of the vans. Our team name may have been 'all for a medal?' But we decided to play up on the whole Saints and Sinners theme of said medal. One van were the Saints and one van were the Sinners. Those in the Saints van wore Halos during their runs and those in the Sinners van wore devil horns during theirs.

that 'thing' strapped to the front of our van was our mascot, Louie.

We started at 9:30 Friday morning in Logandale Valley of Fire, Nevada. 171 miles and 27 hours later, we ended at the Red Rock Casino in Vegas. This race was so fun to do, but I have to say that it will not take the place of Dub B in my heart!

Let me introduce you to my team....

On the left side we have the sinners...Dick Johnson, Jonathan Nelson, Penny Jensen, Mary Ann Schoenfeld, Amanda Webb and Tawna Patterson. Then the Saints....Mike James, Dixie Johnson, Natalie Lowry, Rocky Turner, Marcia Johnson and Derek Sharp.

Jonathan started us off.........STRONG.Then came Dick...

Then Penny, one of my good good friends and also an Animal with a capitol 'A'.This is her, running this race and due in Feb. At first she liked all of the people cheering her on when they saw she was pregnant,but that got old real fast. From there on out, she was more than happy when she wasn't noticed.

Then came Tawna...
Then to Mary Ann....And finally to me...Let me say this, it was H.O.T. On all of these races, my first legs are always up hill and always in the heat of the day. I even got a sunburn on my arm in the shape of my music player... see?okay, so you can't see it very well here, but I promise, it was there and it was bad.

This is my AWESOME van getting ready to start our midnight runs.Now our midnight runs were filled with adventure, I will just say this.....Ragnar better step up their game next year for this race and mark the dang course, I ran a while in the wrong direction and turned my 5.3 mile leg into about an 8 mile leg. (mary ann joined me for part of this leg and got lost with me, then jonathan came looking for us in the middle of no where and added a little over four miles onto his mileage as well, it was a llllloooonnnnngggg night.)

Over the course of 27 hours spent in the van you start to get a little tired, wired and shameless with the photos you take, here we go....not so bad right? just wait...this was me with gobstoppers in my lip....aka bunny face.
this one, not really bad or shameless, just really tired and very done with running.



This is what it looks like to stretch out in the van.














all in all lets just say it was a lot of time spent in that sinners van....








When all is said and done, I am so proud of myself for doing this race and proud of my great team for doing it with me.
and just in case you were worried that we had forgotten Louie, no need, he crossed the finish line with us too....
So many people ask me why I run.
I think, if you have to ask, you'll never understand.






The Medals are nice.....




















But this is why I run....

Birthday Boi

This is Landon.

Landon is Twenty Seven.

Landon likes to ride bikes.

Landon loves birthday presents.

See Landon blow out the candles?Blow Landon Blow.

Amanda loves Landon.


Happy Birthday Babe.

Confessions of a Non-Gardener

Okay, this is embarrassing, but I am going to admit to it and share it with you all. I am not a gardener. That is not the embarrassing part. I really try to and sometimes I even think I am. You know, in my mind I have my own show on HGTV and the whole shpill. Again, that is not the embarrassing part. I have a couple of pots out in the front of my house and when we first moved here I filled them with flowers with hopes of them taking root and looking beautiful. Sadly this was not the case. They died. So I thought, what-ev. I'll just plant more. This I did. When to my dismay these new flowers didn't do too hot, I refused to spend more money and time on flowers that just die on me, so I was done. I came to this conclusion when one day I noticed a little green miracle in my pretty orange pot outside. Once just a twinkle in my eye was now a reality in bloom. I watched this little gem and it grew and grew. This was the most amazing flower EVER. Even when I would be gone for a few days and didn't water it, it looked great! Okay, here is the embarrassing part: The day that I realized my amazing strong flowers were in fact---weeds. Yeah that's right, the only thing I can keep alive are weeds. Now for the really embarrassing part. Even after I realized this, I left it in my pot. My thoughts were this, 'Well, at least it adds some green. I think I'll leave it in there.' So last week I went to work in Cache Valley and came home to my dear beloved weeds really taking over. (which I guess is what they do, hence weeds, right?!?) I only hope that no one who has come to my door knows the difference between weeds and flowers. Just pray that the adorable Gay couple that live across the street with the immaculate garden don't look over here and see my disgrace of a pot of plants.

So there you have it, my confession. In all it's glory.

The Final Four

Inches that is.

Which brings my total to nine.

Nine inches.

Off my hair...

yup.

Well, it was no Twitch...

But it was a lot of fun anyways. Tuesday night, American Idol tour. I was pretty pumped up for this event because last year, my friend Dana and I attended the SYTYCD concert and afterward went out back and met ALL of the dancers. I'm talking face to face, autographs, photos and kisses! I'll spare you all of the details (embarrassing for me, funny for you.) So, remembering how much fun we had that night, I got a couple of my friends together and we decided to go enjoy ourselves some American Idol goodness. Now, don't get me wrong, I really enjoy me some A.I. but let's all be honest with ourselves for a minute here, it doesn't even hold a candle to SYTYCD. Seriously, BEST.SHOW.EVER. I know I am not here to talk about that so here we go back onto the real topic at hand here.

American Idol tour 2009. Tawna, Lindsey and myself. I will post the photos with the singers, but only with this pre-curser... I fully understand how crazy excited I can get around certain people. (Mary Ann and Chana, you know what I am talking about--remember Thriller last year with Mat and Natalie) So with you knowing that I know of my craziness, here is my disclaimer: With the photos of Adam and Chris, yes, I look like a nutty stalker. I get that. I'm okay with that. So on with the photos...Megan- She was teeny tiny! Super cute and really friendly, which kinda surprised me.Anoop- He was really really cool! He even posed for my photo, I looked at it and started to laugh and reached out, grabbed him and told him thanks for posing and he just started to laugh too. Matt-He was one of the chillest ones there. He was totally cool to walk all around and talk to EVERYONE! He would kinda dance from one spot to another. He was great.Scott-He just walked past us, I think that the flashes were getting to him ;)Allison-She was not that cool, Actually the top three were the least friendly! (Kris was the nicest out of all of them) She just sped past us at first then she came back over and signed stuff, but she really seemed to be out in La-La land. See what I'm talking about, nutty stalker. I know right?!?

Adam- He wasn't that impressive. He looked like a drag queen and he hardly spent ANY time out with his fans. Probably 95% of the people out back were rooting for Adam, even when they had someone else standing right in front of them, they just kept screaming for him. He was one of the last to come out and one of the first to leave. Not cool Adam. Not cool.Kris- Now some of you may be saying to yourselves, 'It looks like Kris is saying something, I wonder what that could be'. Well, he IS saying something and here is the story... They all kept saying that they couldn't stop for photos, so I would just stand next to them, get my arm around them when I could and take one anyways. When Kris came, we were having some camera difficulties, he had to keep moving so I kept moving with him, so in this photo as it was being taken, Kris Allen was saying "Dang, this girl is persistent!"
But I like to think he was just checking out my butt.Michael-He was the first to come out and was one of the friendliest. He stopped to take a photo with me and since it was the first one of the night, Tawna couldn't figure out my camera, so we stood there for a sec or two while we worked out the kinks. Right before the photo was snapped, He said, "Man, you smell really good, I better get moving!" Ha Ha Ha! This was hilarious because right before we got out of the car, we sprayed perfume on us so that we would smell good!
Danny-I saved the best for last. Danny was my favorite. One of my favorite from the season and of that night too. He was third to come out and he was going down the line. There was this group of girls right next to us that asked him for a photo. He said that he couldn't. I reached out, got his attention and asked again, he was autographing a picture and was telling me the same thing, then he looked up and said, well, okay let's take one. HA! It was so funny to have those girls glare at me! -it would only be better if he was actually looking at the camera-

Lil Rounds never did come over to us, but I got a good look at her booty and it was better in person that it was on T.V. All in all, it was really fun!

Now just because it is MY blog and I get to do what I want, here is a look back at the best night of last year.....Tickets go on sale NEXT Sat at 10 a.m. I will be at this years concert and you can bet Lil Round's booty there will be a post about that one!

A post about nothing...

So here is a post kinda like a Seinfeld episode, filled with stuff but all about nothing...

To start off, Landon and I recently had our FOUR year anniversary. Now, you may or may not know this, but we haven't ever been really successful at getting our anniversaries celebrated. Year number one: Landon's dear older sister got married the day after us, so we spent it with his family. Year number two: Landon's siblings came from out of town, so we spent it with his family. See the pattern starting? Now, if I didn't LOVE his family so much that wouldn't have been a very good thing for us, two years in a row and all, however, Landon has an amazing family. (and no, I am not just writing that because some of his fam reads this, I promise! :] Year number three: Our first time actually getting to celebrate! Yay. We didn't do anything huge, came to Salt Lake for a long weekend and got massages and ate at great places. It was fantastic! That brings us to year number four: I was in Cache Valley and Landon was in Phoenix. It was sad. But my dear sweet husband sent me the most beautiful PINK roses I have EVER seen! Honestly people, the flowers were amazing! Although I would take having my lover around over flowers, they did seem to help.


Many of you know my silly little dog. I know that blogging about an animal may seem totally lame to some, but this little guy has been a lifesaver for me. Since we have moved down to Salt Lake, Wilson has been so great to have around. Being at home all day would be pretty boring without him. I know he isn't much for conversation, but he is always good for a game or to cuddle and when I need to go in the basement and am a little afraid that I might meet up with a spider, he is right there!

I mean what spider wouldn't be afraid of this face?!?

Wils loves to be outside and that is a BIG reason we can hardly wait to get our backyard done. The deck just isn't as comf as a nice lawn is.

Next up are my recent culinary adventures! Last week we had a BBQ with some great friends and I was in charge of the dessert. I thought and thought about what would be good and finally it came to me...

FRUIT PIZZA.

It was so good! I have never made it before, but it's so not hard, so that is a bonus. I put a few different recipes I found together and it turned out great!

A couple of days ago, I met a freaky unwanted guest in my basement. It had eight legs and that's all I want to say about that. I TOTALLY flipped out, I mean this thing was B.I.G. I texted Landon and told him he needs to come home (I knew he couldn't but I really wanted him to). He did his best to calm me down and gave me his best pep talk to go kill the dang thing, but I just couldn't do it. So I called my neighbor. She came over and saved the day. Her 2 year old little son came too- armed with a yellow fly swatter and ready to be brave. (it was so cute). I was slightly embarrased with my behavior, but completely appreciated her taking care of business. I had to do what I do to repay her. So I cooked up some pretty dang cute cupcakes...

All in all, everyone came out a winner, except that retched spider who had a burial at sea.

A Fourth full of fun

Fourth of July can mean many a thing to each of us. As for me what comes to mind is Lewiston, Utah. For the past few years now, my fourth of July starts out in the center of town promptly at 7:00 in the A.M. a whole herd of people start to scramble in three different directions depending on the distance you choose to run. There is a 10K, 5K or 1 mile. You can find me in the herd that is heading north participating in the Annual Patriot Border 5K Run.

(That is my 'two road kills with one shot' it was awesome)
I choose to do the 5K because it heads right up to my parent's property and the whole gang comes down to the border to cheer me on at the half way mark. This year was a little different though. I had a few more people running this race with me. Let me give you the background on each of them...

Heather Adams-

When I started to train for the TOU Half a few years back, I ran my first 5 mile run EVER with Heather. She had done a half the year before and was in town and agreed to go for a run with me. I really think the world of Heather, you wont find a nicer, more sincere person around.

Julie Stewart-
I have done Julie's hair for a while now and she trades Sensty with me (I feel pretty good about that trade!) About 6 months ago I gave Julie a running book and told her about this fourth of July race. It's pretty easy and you have a good cheer group half way through. She said she would think about it but never did commit to me for sure. The night before the race about 9:30 I gave Julie a call and asked her one last time if she was interested. She called me back a while later and gave her definite YES. This was her first race EVER!

Mary Ann-
(as we all know Mary Ann runs like the wind blows so if you look really close you can see her there in the distance!)
She had been up to my parent's house for a while and I really enjoyed having her around. We started out her trip with a race and ended her trip with a race. This was her first 5K and she did great!

Audrey--
Mary Ann's oldest daughter, a bit on the crazy side, but it was really fun to run with her, she is a seasoned vet when it comes to 5K runs on the fourth of July, she participates in Swiss Days annually.

And last but not least,

Jonathan--
(because he was so fast, I don't have a photo of him actually running!)

All I have to say about Jonathan is that he is a crazy good runner. He had been feeling a bit under the weather so he didn't want to set his goals too high, he was shooting for a 22 min. over all time... What-Ev!

Family Fourth of July Fun!

I love to recruit people for running, this was a great race with fabulous friends.

I do have to insert here that I got a new Personal Record for my 5K, my time for this race was 27:50 and I felt pretty darn good about that. Also, check out the super sweet shirts I made for me and Mary Ann, on them it says "God Bless this HOT Mess" And I got us Stars and Stripes crowns to wear.
We were festive AND fast!