Melody's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Mel's first birthday! We kept it pretty casual and had some family and friends over for cake and ice cream. Melody had absolutely no idea what was going on, of course, but she definitely enjoyed getting new toys. Jameson and I can't believe a year has already gone by.

This video shows that Mel was not very interested in her cake.




She got a little bus to ride around on and loves it

I had fun putting up pink party decorations

Summer Recap

I didn't do much blogging this summer, so I thought I'd share some of the fun things we did.

Melody experienced the zoo for the
first time and really enjoyed it.

Melody also enjoyed playing with her toys, and learning to walk.

Baby blessing for my brother's baby boy, Aaron.

Mel and I had season passes to Seven Peaks.

She is quite the water-baby!

Jameson and I spent a week in California with his sister Jessica and her husband Mike. We went to Disney Land, hung out a the beach, stayed in nice hotels, and had a great time!

Me and Jam at the Santa Monica Pier

Mike, Jess, and I at Disney Land.
It was my first time so I was excited!

We took Melody on her first boat ride on Utah Lake.

Jameson participated in an army recruiting camp called LTC.
He ended up coming home early because
he decided the army wasn't for him.

Well, that was a quick recap of our summer activities. Man, summer sure flew by.

Marathon Complete!!

Yesterday, Aug 22, I woke up around 4:00 AM to prepare for the Park City Marathon I had trained for all summer. I was really excited but also nervous that something would go wrong... hurt my foot, pull a muscle, roll an ankle, have no energy, have a sick stomach the whole time...

I picked up my neighbor, Janene, and my sis-in-law, Jessica, and we drove up to Park city, giving each other tips and advice about running marathons, but secretly hoping we'd all do better than the other. Actually, I know for myself that I didn't care who I beat as long as I kept an 8 minute mile pace, which would bring me to the finish line at around a 3 hr 30 min time.

For the first several miles, Janene and I were the first two girls in the lead, running at a 7.25 minute per mile pace. Eventually I told Janene that I would need to slow down in order to make it to the finish line because running 7 minute miles for 26 miles was too much for me. I also noticed a slight pain in my right foot, but tried to ignore it. Around mile 9 the pain had worsened and was starting to shoot up the inside of my right leg. I realized that it wasn't a muscle pain, but a bone pain. I didn't stop running, though, because I told myself I was going to finish no matter what. At mile 13, my two biggest cheer leaders, Jameson and Melody, were waiting for me to cheer me on.

I stopped and told Jameson

about my pain, and he grabbed a different pair of running shoes out of the car for me to put on. I purchased this second pair of shoes during my training, but they ended up giving me lots of blisters on my long runs, so I decided to use my old shoes for the marathon, even though they were falling apart. Well, at this point I felt like I would rather have blisters than continue wearing the shoes that were causing a stress fracture.

Well, I eventually made it to the end, with pains shooting from my right foot and leg, but not too terrible to keep me from finishing. I crossed the finish line with a time of 3 hrs 50 min... not as fast as my goal, but considering the pain I was in, I gladly accepted the results.

Didn't quite reach my goal...oh well!

The Park City Marathon is extremely difficult, with TONS of steep hills and gravel roads. One experienced marathoner said this was the hardest one she had ever run. That made me feel better!

My plan is to run the Provo marathon next summer. I will make sure to get good shoes that work well for my feet, and hopefully I will reach my goal. For now, I am going to take a little break from running until my foot heals, and then I'll

be back on the roads again!

Me and my super fans, Jam and Mel

Jess and I are so glad to be done!

Jess, Janene, and me

What a cute cheerleader!

Steph's Marathon Training

Well, I've been training for the Park City marathon for about 6 weeks, and I'm happy to say I ran a 17-miler yesterday!  Last month I got really sick with the flu and couldn't run for about two weeks.  For those of you who run, you know how quickly you can get out of shape when you don't run for a while.  I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to make up for the lost time.  The first run I did after I was sick was a four-miler and I could hardly breathe.  I was extremely discouraged but kept on running everyday to try to build back up.  Well, I guess a miracle occurred somewhere in there because now I'm back on track with the training and feeling good!  Park City, here I come!

The Latest

Well, we finally moved to the storage facility where I work part-time.  I started working here in December of 2008 in exchange for free rent and utilities.  We were living in a condo temporarily while waiting for our apartment to be built on the storage facility site.  We moved in a couple weeks ago and love living here.  I love that I can walk out my front door, take a few steps, and walk into the office where I work.  If Melody is taking a nap when my shift starts, I just leave her in her bed and take the baby monitor with me.  The job is set up for stay-at-home moms, so it works perfectly for us.  

Melody's first two teeth finally broke through!  We knew they were coming because she was constantly chewing on things, drooling, and crying more than usual.  She is at such a cute age.  She loves to sit in front of mirrors and talk and play with her reflection.  She also loves music and enjoys pounding on the piano keys and hearing the sounds that come from it.  Jam likes to play the penny whistle for her because the high pitched notes make her smile.  She likes to say "da da da da", but I'm trying to get her to 

say "ma ma ma ma"... I guess it's a pride thing.  She is a constant mover and I almost think she will start running before she crawls or walks!  

Jam and I both had our birthdays in

 April.  Jam turned 25 and I turned 26.  Instead of buying each other presents, we decided to start saving for a cruise.  We'd love to get ideas from those of you who have been on cruises, as we're not sure where we want to go.  On my birthday, I asked Jam if we could go rollerblading on the Provo river trail, since we live right by it now.  We put Mel in the jogging stroller and set off.  About five minutes into it, the wheels on my right roller blade snapped off the boot part, then literally one minute later, the left one did the same thing.  After I stood there in absolute shock, the boots of both roller blades just crumbled into several pieces!!  Jam and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.  How random is that?  Both blades breaking at the same time.  Yeah, they were pretty old, so I should have known it was going to happen soon.

Spring Break

Last weekend we went to the Hanksville area of Utah to camp and go hiking. We went with Jameson's entire family. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Some stayed in a motel in Hanksville, and the rest of us camped by a little river outside of the town. Our first hike was in Goblin Valley. That was my first time to go and I thought the "goblin-like" boulders were amazing. Melody hiked with us in a backpack that Jameson carried. That night, after we ate in a little diner, we went back to camp, built a fire, and made smores. It was all fun and games until we went to bed and heard the coyotes come out. Apparently, they came really close to our camp and killed some rabbits. I could not only hear the coyotes, but the squealing of the dying rabbits. At the time, I didn't realize what the squealing was, so I was SCARED! I woke up Jameson and asked him if coyotes attack people. He said, "Yes, they like to eat people sleeping in tents". I knew he was joking, but the sounds were so close that I had a hard time sleeping. Somehow, we all made it through the night alive!

The next day we hiked in Little Wild Horse Canyon, which is a slot canyon. That was a beautiful and fascinating hike. We ended up having to turn around before everyone else because Melody was crying the whole time. Later we learned she was suffering with a fever and ear infection... I would have cried too if my parents dragged me along on a hike while feeling like that.

First ER visit

Being new parents has brought along a lot of firsts.  First smile, first laugh, and sunday afternoon, the first ER trip.   Melody had been sick with a fever for the last couple of days and we were able to control the fever with tylenol, but Sunday she couldn't hold down any food or medicine and so up went the fever and finally when it got to around 104, we took her to see a doctor.  She ended up having an ear infection and possibly a cold.  So our nurse( who was way nice) gave her a shot and some other medicine and we left 4 hours later with a happy baby.  

Now the only cool part about this whole experience was who our nurse turned out to be.  It was my old high school friend/girlfriend Becca.  I hadn't seen her for ever and Stephanie had never met her, so it was fun for them to meet and for us to catch up.   It was fun to say hi and see that she was happy and doing so well.