St. George Marathon

Every year since 1990, my dad has run the St. George Marathon, with the exception of 2006 because of some crazy medical stuff that happened that summer.  He is an animal.

Nobody would believe it now, but growing up I hated running.  I thought it was the most stupid sport in the world and I couldn't understand why my dad and sister loved it.  This was marathon #5 for us.  I got Derek hooked, enough so that he will run them when I am injured and can't.  (Insert sad face...)

We trained hard.  We trained smart.  We moved to SLC which = running LOTS of hills.  And it paid of because.....

WE ARE GOING TO BOSTON!

For those of you who aren't into running, qualifying for the Boston Marathon is a big deal.  The Boston Marathon was the first marathon established in the USA and is now 118 years old.  The only way to get into it is to qualify, or donate obscene amounts of money.  You can't just sign up and get in via raffle.  You have to qualify and even then sometimes you don't get in.

Anyway.  Derek has qualified before.  Last year I was 25 seconds off my qualifying time.  Not this year.  I don't mean to brag, but we crushed our times.

Derek needed a 3:05:00 to qualify.  He ran a 2:57:56!!  That is an average of 6:46 minutes/mile for 26.2 miles.  He is amazing.

I needed a 3:35:00 to qualify.  I ran a 3:23:50!!  That is an average of 7:46 minutes/mile for 26.2 miles.
And something I didn't expect was getting 8th place in the Women's 25-29 division.

 I won't lie.  I felt really good until mile 24.  That is when my legs started to feel that I had been running for 3 hours.  That is when I saw someone holding a sign that said, "All walls have doors."  That is all I needed.  I went through the door in the wall I was hitting and I finished.   I wanted to die at the end.

Derek did some PT on me right after I finished.  This is me trying to follow his instructions for him....

Wedding

Derek's best friend since the 7th grade, Mr. James Alexander Marshall, got hitched this month to, Sierra Debbenham.  It was the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to.  It was on the lawn of the Hobble Creek Lodge, beautiful ceremony, with a 4 string quartet, and his sister singing.  The reception was beautiful complete with crepe bar, mock-tinis, and other beautiful food, dancing, music via the Marshall family, and toasts.

It was awesome.  It was fancy.  It was fun.  Here is to a lifetime of happiness to James and Sierra.

Me and the best man.  Doesn't he look slick in a tux?

Sierra smashing an entire pie in James' face.  It was awesome.

Fall Update

This summer has been a busy one.  River trips.  Camping trips.  Family reunions.  Boating.  Running.  Hiking.  Adventures.  House stuff.  Working.  Koda.  It has been crazy.

But here are a few things we have done this fall and by fall I mean September.

Hiking with the pup.
He is getting to be a good little hiker, as long as it isn't too long of a trail.  He gets super excited when he isn't on a walk in our neighborhood or Sugarhouse Park.

A few dog friendly favorites near us are Ensign Peak (nice and short)

Ferguson Canyon: short, fun, great climbing we need to explore later.  Koda is great at navigating getting up the trail, hopping up rocks etc.  But he is even better at getting down.  He will race Derek down the trail, dodging rocks etc. and he is fast.  And then he will stop, look back, wait for me, and then run again.  All on his own accord.  So funny and so cute.

We love this sign.

Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove.  We did this hike with our friends, Nicki and Ty, and their lab, Hank.  Super fun to see those two together.  Hank is 100% lab and a spaz and Koda was just trying to keep up and yipping at him as to say, "Hey.  Hey.  Notice me.  Play with me."  Hank didn't even notice.

Message Board

One thing Derek and I have struggled to agree on/find for our new house is a message board.  You know, those cute boards with slots for mail and other random stuff and a chalk board and a cork board. I see them on Pinterest all the time.  But Derek has set firmly that we were not making our own because, "Pinterest projects never turn out the same.  It won't look good and I want it to look good."  So we have searched high and low again and again since June for one of these boards.  But they run around $150 for a nice one.  No way were we going to pay that much.  So finally, Derek let me show him a board I had pinned and he agreed to make it.  Wahoo!

Anyway, the site where we found the project is called Shanty Chic.  If you want to make a similar board, you should check out her site.  She gives you step by step instructions, all the dimensions, etc.  She isn't a blogger that I swear leaves out an important step so your project never looks as good.

So anyway, this is our project.

It is great.  Now all Koda's stuff isn't EVERYWHERE and we can always find our keys.  And I don't have to make a million to-do lists because I always loose them...

It started with making a plan and heading to Home Depot.  Like she says in her blog, try to get left-over cuts of wood if you can.  We went at the end of the day and it had been picked clean.  But that will cut your costs dramatically.

So, step 1: get your wood, wood glue, hooks, chalk board spray paint, ban saw (Derek was really excited to make that purchase.  As was I because now I get to make more projects), and have them cut your wood.

Step 2: Print out patterns for the fancy cuts (we had to go to the library because our printer broke and we never got a new one)

Step 3: Go home and start building.

I was in charge of spray painting the hard board into a chalk board and applying the wood glue.  Derek got to use the fancy saw and put it all together.  Only fair right.

Step 4: Stain it, we used the same stain we used when we re-finished our table and chair so they match.

Step 5: Finishing touches, hang it up, and use it.

Footsteps for Fertility

As you all know, Derek and I had the opportunity for participate in the Footsteps for Fertility 5k as contestants for a fertility grant.  I cannot describe the outpouring of love and support we received as we prepared for this opportunity.  Friend and family responded to our need and spread the word far and wide.  We had the largest team by at least 40 people.  105 people signed up to be a part of Team Baby Storrs.  And it was amazing.

On August 30, we all came together to walk a 5k in Liberty Park and wait with baited breath for the winners to be named.  How it worked was for each person on your team, the team captains (us) got a raffle ticket.  (Hence why we wanted the biggest team).  The raffle consisted of 2 free rounds of IVF and 11 $5000 Fertility Grants.  Our odds were good.  And we were blessed to win a $5000 fertility grant to be used at the clinic of our choice to put toward the fertility treatment of our choice.

This is such a blessing to us.  After a long time of feeling hopeless and alone, we have a beautiful ray of hope and we could not have done it without all of our amazing family and friends.  Thank you all so much.  We love and appreciate you more than we can ever express and more than you can ever know.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trip to my Childhood

When I was little, my dad would take me camping what seemed like every weekend.  I am sure it wasn't every weekend in the summer.  But it was really often (at least 2x a month) to give my mom a break from my Tazmanian Devil self.  We would always go to "the Boonies" which is somewhere far off the Mirror Lake Highway.  We never staying in "camp grounds" because my dad taught me that we didn't go camping to sit next to 100 other people.  So we would get into "The Beast", my dad's bright yellow International Scout, and find a dirt road and get as far away from people as we could.  It was awesome.

We recreated that this weekend.  Derek had never been up there and Koda had never been camping.  Both needed to be remedied.  We couldn't get to the actual "Boonies" because we have a Haudai Elantra.  Not the same as the Beast.  But we did just pull off the road and find our own, hidden little place to set up camp.

It was great.  Here is why.

Koda is a champion camper.  He loves to be in the tent hanging out on his blanket.  We tied a rope to him so he couldn't wander too far, but he didn't make it past the tent

View of the Provo River at dusk from our "campsite"

First time sleeping out of his crate and he did great.  We were worried about him getting cold, but he jumped into both of our sleeping bags at different times in the night.  He did great and we slept great.

When I was little, we would sometimes go hike Bald Mountain.   It is only 4 miles round trip.  We figured we would be carrying Koda most of the way, but he made it all the way to the top.  Such a great hiker.  Here is our summit photo.  He is tired if you can't tell.

Me and my Mountain Dog

Panoramic shot of the surrounding peaks and Derek

Tired puppy getting carried down the mountain.  He actually ended up walking about half way back down.  And rightly so, passed out the entire drive home.

It was a super fun trip.  Can't wait to camp some more.

Our House

As you all know, we bought a house In Sugarhouse back in March of this year.  For all of you who didn't know that, we bought a house in Sugarhouse back in March.  Yes, we are officially grown ups.  We have a mortgage...but we figure, we would much rather be dumping most of our hard earned cash into something that will someday be ours instead of dumping it into a gaping black hole of our landlord's pocketbook.  

Home owning is fun.  It is awesome to have a place that is ours.  We can do whatever we want to it.  If I want to run my Blendtec (which roughly sounds like a rocket ship blasting off) at 5 am or 12 am, I can.  No worries.  We can have a dog.  Finally.  We have a yard.  We can paint the walls orange and not be afraid to put holes in the walls either.  It is awesome.

There are some less awesome things too.  Like paying full utilities.  All I have ever paid is gas and electricity.  I forgot I had to pay for water, trash, sewage, and street lights.  (The concept of paying for sewage and street lights was very new).  We had to buy a lawn mower?  I think we have spend a zillion dollars at Home Depot over this and that.  But we now have the parts of the house that we use looking good enough to show the world.  So without further adieu, here it is.

Here  is our bathroom.  Look we have matching towels and everything.  It only took 3 weeks to decide this color scheme.  No worries.

The most important room in the house.  The walls were originally bright red and I hate the color red.  So we painted them.  Because we can.  I still need to make new curtains.  Red curtains no longer match my bright, sunshiney kitchen.

The room we never use because we don't go in or out of the front door and our home teachers have never come to visit.  But we are ready for them...

 If you haven't caught the trend.  We bought all new furniture (we are hoping it lasts for our entire marriage) but don't worry, we got screamin' deals on everything and my back hasn't hurt once since we got our new bed.  Hooray for really firm gel infused foam beds.  You cannot even tell there is someone on it with you unless they touch you.  It is awesome.

We both have our own dressers now.  If you couldn't tell, this one is mine.  Bought it at Ikea, sanded it down, and painted it turquoise.  Yay.

Parts of the house not pictured: 2nd bedroom upstairs aka junk room, 3rd bedroom in basement, laundry room in basement, 2nd bathroom in basement, main area/Koda's room in basement, back yard

All in all, we are pretty stoked.  Come by and see for yourself.

Annoying People

We are proud to announce that we adopted a baby boy.  He is now just shy of 3 months old, has black hair, brown eyes, 4 legs, and a tail.  Yes, we rescued the world's cutest and most wonderful puppy.  He is a shepherd lab mix and his name is Koda.  We are nuts over this little guy.  I could (and do) easily call us "Annoying Dog Parents."  We don't dress him in clothes because that is mean.  But we seriously did not know we could love a dog the way we love Koda.  I guess after 3 years of pent up desire to nurture something, it is like the flood gates of motherly and fatherly love have burst open onto this here little pup.

Here is the day we brought him home.

He is really mellow (yay) and is cool just hanging out working those razor blade teeth on a piece of rope or stuffed animal

I never realized how much puppies need to sleep.  They average 15-20 hours/day.  Wow.  And he has claimed our kitchen rug as his own...

And the corner behind the kitchen table

But what I love most is that he is a great snuggle buddy.  Oh how we love this boy

Toby

Toby.  You have been good to us.  More so to Derek.  He knew and loved you more.  You were the super star of many an adventure, move, good deed, and hauled a LOT of recycling in your day.  We are sad to part with you, but know that your life will continue to be awesome.

Derek bought you when he came home from his mission and has had you since 2007.  He bought you for $14,000 and put about $1500 into you.  We sold you in 2014 for $18,500...you were good to us in more ways than one. 

To the memories.

 

You will be missed.

Quick Get Away

Want to know one of our favorite things about living in the Salt Lake Valley?  The mountains are only 20 minutes away.  Close enough we can do things like this.

Thursday night we are driving to a wedding and planning out our summer.

Derek: "What should we do this weekend?  We need to furniture and car shop.  Cody is buying the truck at 12:00 and we have a temple assignment at 10:00 a.m."

Katie: "We could go on a hike.  Sleep at the trailhead?  Let's backpack to Lake Blanche.  It isn't long.  And we can totally be home by 9:00."

Derek: "Done."

And so we did it.  We prepped our stuff Thursday night.  Friday when I got home from work, we left.  Started hiking at about 6:15-6:30.  An hour and 45 minutes later, we were setting up camp.  It was awesome because we were totally alone.  Got up with the sun, broke camp, ate breakfast, and came home in plenty of time for our temple assignment and to sell the truck, and furniture shop all day.  It was the rejuvenation we both needed to cope with getting ready to move.

Lake Blanche just before sunset

SELFIE #1

We got a new tent with our REI dividend.  (FREE!)  And it is AWESOME. 

Watching the sun go down

Selfie #72 (we went a little overboard.  I chose my 2 favorites)

Convenient sitting spot

Lake Blanche at sunrise

 

Good trip.

Girls Getaway

A few weeks back I got to go on a girl's getaway with one of my best friends, Brenna, and her friend (and now my friend, Alyssa.  We went to Moab/Canyonlands and it was awesome.   I took a TON of pictures so I shall blog via pictures instead of words.  We all know we like those blog posts better anyway.

Brenna and I at Tower Arch.  One of my favorite places in Arches National Park

View from behind Tower Arch

Brenna got stuck because she is pregnant.  HA!

View of some desert fins after exploring and chimney-ing up and down cracks until we were all alone with the desert

We met up with Doug, Brenna's bro, and he showed us awesome things.  Like this pictograph panel just outside of Moab.

View of the Colorado from the Shafer Trail.

This river is so special and beautiful to me.  So many memories.

Cool spot just off the Shafer Trail Doug showed us.  Look carefully, I am in the picture

Dino bones just off the Shafer Trail.  Another win for Doug.

Love the desert.

Sunrise through Mesa Arch, Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Brenna and Alyssa in the Fiery Furnace

Skull Arch, Fiery Furnace, Arches National Park

Surprise Arch, Fiery Furnace.  Can you guess how it got its name?

Panel #1 Horseshoe Canyon, The Maze, Canyonlands National Park

These are up really high on the canyon wall and super big.

 Panel #2

 

Close-ups of Panel #2 (I like the dude with the ray gun, or a snake gun, I haven't decided which it is)

Another close-up of Panel #2

 

 I would like to take a moment to say that although I took pictures, I am not posting Panel #3.  Teach your children and friends, and family not to desecrate ancient art by scratching their names ON TOP OF IT.  I was so sad to see such ignorance and disrespect all over Panel #3 because it is close to the ground.  No wonder they drew up high.

Part of Panel #4 aka The Grand Gallery.  This panel is over 200 ft. long with figures 10-15 ft. tall.  This piece is called the Holy Ghost and archaeologists think that the figures surrounding him are mummies.  Makes you wonder what this canyon was used for.

My favorite picture of the best part of the panel.  So many colors and intricacy still in tact and preserved.  Truly amazing.  We got up early to do the hike so we were the only ones here for 45 minutes until we left.  It was awesome.

Dino footprint in the middle of the trail.  I almost stepped on it.

The desert is in bloom right now and so beautiful.  Of all the flora pictures I took, this one is my favorite.  I don't often see pink cactus blooms.  Usually yellow, so I had to capture the moment.

 

Amazing trip.  Tons of fun.  Great memories.