Ready to Run!

I sure love me some 5K races.  Especially when they are with good friends!  I was going to run a relay race today, but things just didn’t work out with that the way I originally hoped they would, so I started to look for a 5K race I could do. I found one, so my friends, Genesis, Nicole, and Amber were gracious enough to come run the Utah Runner Girls 5K in Alpine with me (and of course every single one of them beat me :)).   I haven’t been feeling the best this week on my nightly runs, so I was hoping I could still manage a good race.   Physically it was an awesome course, but for some reason I just didn’t have it in me mentally to do as well as I hoped.  It totally helped, however, that the time I was just about to start walking, Amber yelled at me from behind - “RUN JANELL!!”  It totally helped me finish the last mile of that race.  But that’s okay, gotta get some bad races out of my system, right?   I still finished in 31:41, and I hope I can get over this mental block in the next week or two to hopefully start training for a 10K in October. :)  Here are some pictures to document this fun event, because really, it was a lot of fun.

 

 

Here’s a picture of the four of us before the race – Gen, Me, Amber and Nicole.  Gen is an animal , who is also 25-weeks pregnant with a baby girl, whom she is going to name after me. Okay, she’s really not going to name her after me, but I wanted to make sure y’all were reading.  :) But I am so excited to meet her baby girl in December!

Gen and I after the race

 

Amber and I after the race.  So glad I could start and finish with her!!

 

5 years!

We were so young and cute back then :)

On the 19th and 20th we headed out for a fun little vacation to celebrate our 5 year anniversary.  My sister and mom were great to watch the kids (And paint my sister’s apartment).  We headed up to West Valley Friday night to see Joseph up at the Hale Center Theatre, which was fabulous.  We also stayed at the Springhill Suites by the airport for a kid free night (yay for sleeping in!!).  On Saturday, as before mentioned, we slept in, then went to a session at the Jordan River Temple and had lunch at the Olive Garden.   It was a simple, fun weekend, and it was great for us to get away!! I sure love this tall handsome prince charming, and I’m so glad he still loves me, and that we can work together on future goals for the next 5 years, and then to infinity and beyond!

 

 

My Weekend Ramblings and Guest Poster - Go Me! :)

One of the things at the top of my wish-list for life right now is for people to build houses on the empty lots next to us, and for someone to move into the house across the street that has been vacant since before we moved in. I have some amazing friends in my neighborhood, but I've been longing to have some great people right here to help me feel more settled I guess.

Well, Saturday we noticed that a family was finally moving into the vacant house across the street! SOOO excited! :) When I noticed them moving in, I asked Darrell if he was ready to head across the street. :) We roped his brother, Brad, into going to help them, and my sister, myself and the kids went over to introduce ourselves. Turns out the new neighbors have 4 lovely daughters (6 year-old twins, a 3 year old, and a seven-month old). Steven had a BALL playing with the girls while the boys helped move stuff in.

Come to find out, our new neighbors were getting baptized that evening! The missionaries invited us to come to the baptism, and I'm so glad we did. It was an amazingly spiritual experience, and it was so neat to see the gospel in such a new, fresh light in Phil and Amie's lives. They were so excited, and I haven't felt the spirit that strong in a really long time. I'm grateful that they let us share that special evening with them.

Sunday in church they received the Holy Ghost, and it was evident the spirit was again strong in the meeting. I think it touched many people in the audience.

At a time where we live in the day-to-day things of trying to do our best and trying to live the gospel to the fullest, it was just refreshing and wonderful for me to see this amazing family just starting out on a journey I've known for so long. The reminder of wanting to feel that spirit all the time was delightful, and I'm going to cherish this weekend for a while.

On an unrelated note - I was a guest blogger today for a friend - Elise. It does include a giveaway so go check er' out if you want!!

Thanksgiving Point Children’s Gardens

This past week my friends and I took our kids to the children’s gardens at Thanksgiving Point.  It’s fun for all of us to have kids the same age, and we thought this outing would be a lot of fun.  They have a splash pad area as you first enter the gardens, so the kids had fun playing and getting wet. :)

 

Then we headed through the gardens for fish feeding, block playing, and down the hill rolling fun

         

 

My Almost 4-Year Old

I only say that, because he reminds me of it almost daily.  I still have a month to enjoy him being a 3-year old though, and so far 3 has been a great time for my little man.  I’ll just leave you with all his cute pictures and get to all the sentimental stuffs for him next month :)

 

My Cute Kids

They say a picture can say 1,000 words.  So I’ll let these speak about 15,000 adjectives to describe stinkin’ cute. :)  Thanks again Collette! 

18 Months Old

Welcome to Picture Overload :)  This little lady turned 18 months old on July 13.  We had pictures taken of the kids the week after, but I’m just now getting them.  But the wait was totally worth it.  Our friend, Collette, took pictures of these kids up at the Jordan River Parkway up in the Salt Lake Area.  My kids were the biggest stinkers, but you’d never tell it by these pictures :) I would recommend Collette to anybody looking for a great photographer at a great price.

Anyway, at Lillie’s 18 month appointment her stats were:

Weight: 24.4 lbs (Somewhere in the 40th percentile)
Height: 31 Inches (Somewhere in the 30th percentile)

She is just absolutely adorable, and her blue eyes can win just about anybody over.

Some of her words and phrases include:

Ball, Flower, Please, Cheese, Balloon, Kitty, Dad, Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Sheri, Steven, Bye-Bye, See Ya Later, Hi Dad!, Hello, Water, Fish, Drink, Step, Jump, Up, Down, Izzy, Abby.

She specializes in car noises, and animal noises such as:  horse, cat, dog, pig, bear, and a dinosaur.