I suck at Goals...

So, when is that last post, end of January? And uh, when did I make the goal to post once a week? Uh...beginning of January. Ah! And whats even worse is that it's not like there was nothing to report. So much has happened these past few months!!!! So, this post is going to be a bit long. I considered doing separate posts for each topic, but this will work. Who wants to read all that anyway. I will summarize.

Ok, first, BIGGEST thing, is about grad school! The decision has been made, and the choice is...
Brigham Young University! This is not that exciting of announcement since we are already in Provo, and so no big changes will go on in our life. However, the following reasons are why this is actually pretty cool:

1) Chris was one of only SEVEN applicants accepted to the program! I don't care what school it is, that is tough odds, and amazing!
2) Chris received a tuition benefit for about 1/3 of the tuition cost
3) Chris was selected/hired to teach one of the sections of English 150, the first writing class all undergraduates have to take. Not just TA, actually teach, its his own class, he creates the syllabus. So, any of you who still need to take it, take it from him! :)
4) The stipend for this job essentially covers the rest of tuition, books, his health insurance, and then there is even some left over. AKA FREE MASTERS DEGREE! You cannot beat that. Period.

Other good reasons to stay in Provo are that I LOVE my job, so I don't have to bother finding another one, and it is taking very good care of us; we have family here; since its a 2 year program we will still be in Provo when my younger sister Camille and Chris's younger brother Jason (same age) come up here their freshman year (cross your fingers, they are on track to get it right now so we are planning on it!); rent is CHEAP here, especially where we live; we LOVE our ward.

The only sad thing is many of our closest friends are leaving for this fall. We still have friends though, and love making new ones, so all in all everything will great for us here.

Ok, second biggest announcement is that we ran our marathon! April 17th, Salt Lake City. The weather was perfect, until the last 45 minutes or so it got up to like 70 degrees which is just too hot for running. The word I have decided to use to describe it is sublime. This is a word that the general population uses slightly incorrectly, to mean something like wonderful. If you are more involved in the art world though (Humanities major, anyone? :) haha) you would know that this does not really encompass the whole of the world. What it really means is like terrifying beauty ish type thing. Like a lightning storm really close to you, or a really tall cliff that you are standing on the edge of. Hope that makes sense. I use this word because at the end I was like "I JUST FREAKING RAN A MARATHON" but during, and even after the excitement wore off, I was like I am never doing that again, it was pure torture! At mile 13 (half marathon distance) I felt awesome and wished that I was done. My sister Chelsea and I ran together the whole time. Unfortunately, we completely forgot to bring things for the actual race we had used the entire time training. First, we left our electrolyte jelly beans in the car, so energy was a bit lower. Then, we forgot granola bars to eat half-2/3s way through. If you were to eat and drink before running, and then not replenish at all during the run, about 17-18 miles in your body would pretty much be completed depleted of all it had to give. And I can testify to that because even though I had been drinking water now and then, about mile 19 I was starving, and you know when your stomach is so empty if you drink it will make you throw up? Yeah. So I was so thirsty (running 20 miles at that point), but so hungry I couldn't drink, and none of the stations had any food. Finally about mile 23 a medical bike person gave me a power bar, so some bites of that helped, though it was almost too late at that point. Chelsea seemed to do much better than me. I think she would have left me about then and just ran faster and finished well before me, but she is nice and stayed with me till the end :) But, all this being said, the WORST part of all was that the last 2 miles were UP HILL. Can you believe that?!?! We turned the corner to keep following the route, see the mile 24 marker sign, and are staring straight up that hill in the heart of SLC that leads right up to the Capitol Building (for those of you who can picture that spot). The whole race we had been consistently running 5 minutes and then walking 1 minute, we had not broken the pattern really at all. Until then. Not only was I so tired and hungry, but that just made me lose all heart. I would try but could only run like 2 minutes, and then I would walk for like 3. Up hill uses muscles I hadn't trained enough. And THEN, you know when you see the finish line so you are remotivated to just run to it? Yeah, it was around another corner behind building, so I saw it for literally the last probably 50 feet. Worthless. When I ran over the finish line I almost started sobbing I was so exhausted, but then I realized it was all over, so I could just breath. And eat. And drink. And walk. And sit. And see Chris :) Chris injured himself in January and was pretty much out until the last few weeks before the race, so he ran the Half Marathon instead. But, this is pretty amazing, still, having not run for 2-3 months, and then the longest before the race being only 5 miles, he ran the entire thing, no walking at all, in 2 hours! Pretty awesome. Ok, here is a video Chris's dad took of us finishing. I would like to say that I thought I was runny really fast. When I saw this I laughed so hard, because I am like hobbling along. Also notice the old man in the yellow jersey who has now beat us. I like how the guy says "you are winners" its so lame. And if you catch at the VERY end my arm goes up to my face, yeah, that was me about to sob. But I didn't.



Here also are just some pictures.


Chris's Mom, Dad, and brothers Jason and Austin all ran the half marathon as well. Please notice Chris's head band. And hair. I love my husband!

It was pretty cold when we first got there, the race started at 7 am so we were there at like 6:30



This is a video Andrew, Chelsea's boy friend, took of us when we first started the race. Whats funny is I am still not really running very fast. I guess I'm just a slow runner.

Finish line

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

LOL! Sorry Chelsea, had to put this one in, its classic!

Go Team Purple! We saw there great running tops for only $10 we all got them.

(Last one I promise) Our AWESOME friends Travis and Jaimee had this made for me. I am keeping it forever.

For those of you wondering, I HAVE kept running since then, usually a 4-5 mile run once a week, last week I was tricked into running 7 miles by Giovanna :) I want to keep it up so I can train up to Half pretty easily and keep running those. As for the whole thing....I'm not sure. Maybe in a couple years when I forget how horrible I felt toward the end I will be crazy enough to do it again!

This post is already WAY too long, none of you are even going to read the whole thing probably. There are random things here and there, but I can post them later as they are not really important, just interesting. And this annoyingly long post and made me recommit to writing every week so it NEVER happens again!