Easter 2010

So another Easter has come and gone. That happens so fast!!! Ours was a pleasant one beginning with the FHE we had the Monday before. We watched the DVD "Finding Faith in Christ" with the girls and discussed the true meaning of Easter.
(Sidenote: Emma and Dani had been making lists of things they wanted from the Easter Bunny for about two months. I was just a little worried that the Easter Bunny was becoming a second Santa Claus to them and that they didn't even know why we actually celebrate Easter.)
The movie and discussion really helped the girls to better understand Easter. I didn't realize how much so until a few days later when Dani and I had a very grown-up discussion about Jesus being resurrected and what that meant. She soaks everything up like a sponge! And she can now explain what resurrected means! That's so cool!
Also, to add to our "true meaning of Easter" Easter week, we took the girls to see the "Reflections of Christ" traveling photography exhibit that was at our stake center. I love these pictures and the stories behind their creation. If you ever get a chance to see this exhibit, don't pass it up!
I was personally excited for Easter this year, because we were able to stay home and enjoy General Conference with our extended family. The talks were great, the company was great and the food, well, food is always great!!!
As for the visit from the Easter Bunny... he made his annual deposit of "bunny poop" from the girls' bedrooms to their Easter baskets downstairs in the kitchen. Dani was so excited to scoop up the poop (not to worry, it's just Whoppers candies) as she was following it down to the baskets. They all got more candy than is good for them (okay, so mom's eaten more than is good for her!) and hunted up more candy in the plastic eggs that the Easter Bunny left all around the living room. Dani and Emma both got kites and Natalie got a boomerang frisbee, which they immediately assembled and tried out after the candy feeding frenzy had subsided. Unfortunately, Dani's kite flying ended abruptly when her little tummy which has been hurting for a week decided it was time to puke in the street out in front of the house. She recovered quickly though and felt okay for the rest of the day.
After conference ended and family went home, we spent the evening video chatting with my parents in San Diego and my brother Rob and his fiancee', Kelley, in Hawaii. Isn't technology AWESOME!!!
It was a great weekend for my family. I'm so happy that I get to be a mother and to share my testimony of Christ with my children.
And on a completely non-spiritual note, I'll end with the Dani"ism" of Easter 2010: "Remember my first Easter when we put a Peep in the microwave and it got bigger. And then it got run over by the Peep bus!?"

Adventure Is Out There...! Part 3: Kellie Ran 13.1 miles?!

Okay, so I finally have the pics and the time to write up the final installment of my adventure weekend! It's true folks, I ran a half marathon last Saturday, March 27. It was the Zooma Women's Half Marathon at Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop, TX. (That's just south of Austin a few miles.)

Anyway, on Friday night after leaving the tennis ranch in New Braunfels, I drove to the hotel that my friends and I booked to be closer to the race since it started at 7:30am the next day! My lovely running mates were Christy VanDerwerken, Leilani Rogers, Esther Perrill and Tannie Smith. We got a deluxe sized room near the airport where we had to park the next morning to be shuttled in to the resort. (Lost Pines didn't have enough parking to accomodate all the runners.) I arrive at the hotel first and got a quick shower and rest (kinda tired from a day in the sun, swinging 50 feet in the air!) The rest of the crew arrived later bringing dinner from Tannie's bro-in-law's italian restaurant. MMMM, pizza, pasta and salad - and so the carbo-loading feast began.

After feasting and getting our gear ready for a 6am departure, we sat around snapping silly pics and laughing. We did get to be before midnight and for the most part we slept pretty soundly. But that 5am alarm still came early. We were ready though. The anticipation was high and we dressed and ate quickly. We all had matching tie-dyed purple t-shirts. We got quite a few compliments during the run about our purple shirts - yeah, we're cool!

Once we had parked in the airport shuttle parking we boarded school buses for the 1/2 hour drive to Lost Pines. It wasn't a very interesting ride, but we were pumped and took some more silly pics.

At the resort we began our pre-race preparations: bathroom break, check-in bags, more pictures, bathroom break, stretching, oh yeah, and one more bathroom break. (Hate to have to stop to pee during the race!)

The race began right on time. There were lots and lots and lots of racers! We positioned ourselves towards the back of the pack, with the theory that it would be better pyschologically to run so we were passing other racers most of the race, rather than being passed. We also committed to staying together for most of the race. Both ideas worked out well. We were able to help pace and encourage each other through the tough hills while we consistently passed other racers.

The weather was perfect! It was overcast for the entire race, but the temperature wasn't bad. In the 50's and 60's with little wind. Perfect for staying cool.

The first half of the race was pretty hilly, but I was glad for the hill training I had done, because the hills didn't make me as nervous as I expected. I ran up most of them and if I stopped to walk, it was only to catch my breath and then I was off again! That felt so good - to know I had trained enough to tackle the course and enjoy it at the same time!

We all kept chatting with one another to make the time pass - we came up with our group name: The PurPeeps (purple shirts, hanging with our peeps). There were plenty of water stations and we passed the half-way mark moving strong. Plus, the hills were pretty much over - yeah!

About mile nine, Leilani was accosted by a bad calf cramp. I ran and walked with her for a while, but unfortunately, the cramp stayed until the end of the race and Leilani fell behind the rest of us trying to walk it out. The last few miles of the race were on the Lost Pines golf course cart trail. We zig-zagged back and forth along the course and were able to keep an eye on each other as we began to space out depending on how much juice we had to make it to the finish line. Tannie and Christy both pulled ahead and made a FAST sprint to the finish line. I came in about a minute after them and then Esther and Leilani. We all received star shaped necklaces instead of finisher medals as we crossed the finish line. My official time was 2:29:34. How awesome is that for my first 1/2 marathon!?

After some time cooling down, we wandered through the sponsors area and grabbed our lunches. We picnicked on a hillside and listened to a live band. Of course there were more silly pictures. After lunch we realized how stiff we were getting (tired muscles and sweaty, salt-crusted bodies). So after one last picture in front of the awesome spring bluebonnets, we boarded the bus back to our car and then onto the hotel room for a quick clean-up.

We checked out and headed home that afternoon. When I got home I realized how stiff and swollen my knees were feeling. Jeremy suggested we grab a spicy bite to eat (apparently the spice helps decrease swelling) and then we returned home and I went straight to bed. It was only 4pm, but I think I deserved to turn in early - don't you?

I'm very happy and impressed with myself to have done this race. Six months ago, I would have said - Never, Never, Never could I do that! Just goes to prove, Never tell yourself Never!

Adventure Is Out There...! Part 2: Our Adventures A-Top the "High Ropes"

On March 25 Natalie and I left for an overnight school field trip to the Newcombe Ranch in New Braunfels, TX. The ranch is a resort mainly for tennis players (Google John Newcombe for background) but they also have programs for teambuilding training, which is why Natalie and her Quest classmates came. I came as a chaperone.

We arrived Thursday night, had dinner and then they divided everyone into several groups for a nighttime compass orienteering activity in the nearby forest. While Thursday had been a bright, sunny and warm day, the night before reminded us that it was springtime in Texas - major gullywasher thunderstorm. So our escapades in the forest were rather dark, wet and muddy. There was a beautiful moon out though, and it had the most amazing ring around it! So after about an hour figuring out how to read a compass and follow its bearings with flashlights, our group made it to the campfire to meet the other groups for s'mores. Then a muddy walk/ride back to our "summer camp" -like dorms for a quiet, cozy night's sleep with 50 chatty and hyper 12-year-old girls! Thank you to Apple for the creation of the iPod!! It kept me quite calm in the midst of the chaos until lights out at midnight.

The next morning after breakfast the kids were divided into groups again and tried their hands at several teambuilding exercises. Here are a few pics:

The challenges were trickier than they appeared and as an on-looker for most of the time, it was hard for me not to jump in and tell them the easiest way to finish the tasks. Guess that's just another lesson in patience for me!

After lunch came the fun - most anticipated - part of the trip. The high-ropes courses.

I'm sure the pictures do a better job than I can explain it, but basically it's climbing up 30-50 foot towers to either jump, swing, zip-line or tight-rope walk between towers. It's all "relatively" safe. We were harnessed in and hooked up to ropes to prevent us from falling if we slipped. Still, no matter how many times I told myself "I won't fall, the ropes will hold me" my hands shook and my knees knocked at the top of the towers. I climbed the 36 foot tower to stand on the top of the 12 inch diameter, swaying "telephone pole" and then jump off it while grabbing a brass ring suspended about six feet away. It was a serious adrenaline rush, that is after I was down on the ground! While I was up there I was just concentrating on what I needed to do to get down. I knew if I thought about it for too long, I'd FREAK OUT!!

Natalie was awesome too. She climbed up all the different towers with confidence and a healthy amount of fear. (My level-headed daughter!) She jumped for the brass ring, walked across the 50 foot high tight-rope to zip-line down and also team-tight-rope-walked with her friend Hannah (and me another time) across diverging wires to ring a bell at the other end. I also did the tight-rope and zip line. I love the zip line - brought back memories of the Costa Rican rainforest!

After we finished up on the ropes course, it was time for me to head back towards Austin, while Natalie had some free time and dinner while they waited for the buses to take them home. I however wasn't going home. I was off for the next part of my Adventure Weekend - the Zooma Women's Half Marathon in Bastrop, TX! Stay tuned for tomorrow's final installment of Adventure Is Out There...! Part 3: Kellie ran 13.1 miles?!

Adventure is out there...! Part One: The Phantom

So the past couple of weeks have been filled with new adventures for Natalie and me.
On March 18, Natalie and I went to a matinee showing of Phantom of the Opera. It was wonderful. I had already seen the musical about 15 years ago, but this time was so cool mainly because I got to bring along one of my favorite "besties" (Miss Nat) and because we had third row center seats!!!!! Talk about being "in" the action! No kidding, in the beginning, when the monterous chandelier explosively lights up and rises up and out into the audience, we were straight in its horizontal pathway! Then it stopped right above us about 15 feet up and rose to the top of the theater DIRECTLY ABOVE US!! Now if any of you have seen Phantom, you know what this means... what goes up, will come crashing down at the end of Act One! I kind of whispered to Natalie what was going to happen, but she still jumped out of her seat when she looked up and saw the chandelier free falling down on top of us. It did make an abrupt slide to the stage before it actually crashed, but it took some of the intermission for our hearts to stop beating in our throats. (Okay, that was probably a little overly-dramatic, but I am talking about Phantom here!)
The entire performance was awesome! To be so close to the stage to actually see the faces and expressions of the actors was way cool. And the costumes and special effects (besides the chandelier) were really spectacular! There was one point when flashes of fire explode from the stage and we felt the heat almost before we saw the flashes.
We went with several of my friends and their husbands and were able to snap a few pics after the show in the theater before the ushers reprimanded for taking pictures. Even with the curtains closed, we still weren't supposed to take pictures - huh? Like they're afraid we're going to recreate a red-velvet curtain? Anyway, when I get the pics from Christy, I'll post them.
Part Two (coming after I download the pictures): Our Adventures A-Top the "High Ropes"...

IT'S SNOWING IN CEDAR PARK!!! So here's what it looked like an hour ago...

Emma has already left for school (hopefully the teachers let them out on the playground for a quick romp in the, um,"powder"), but Natalie and Dani were totally excited about these HUGE flakes! These flakes definitely rivaled some of the best I've seen growing up in Utah!! But, to be fair I heard that this storm came from Utah - Greatest snow on earth!!!

It was fun to see the snow since it's so rare in these parts, but I still don't miss it. I guess 20 years in the stuff does that to you. But seeing the happy, red faces of the girls made me realize how different my childhood was from theirs. I grew up with snow every winter in a rural mountain valley, skiing every weekend. They're growing up in the typically warm Texas suburbs of Austin, where the A/C doesn't usually get turned off until Thanksgiving! And we can go camping in March without freezing!

It's all good!! Hope everyone is staying warm, though!!