Another New Year

I'm not a huge fan of new years resolutions.  I guess it brings to my mind a packed gym that is empty again in February, diets that are soon forgotten due to lack of will power, ect.  Yet the end of the year naturally causes me to reflect on the past year and what I want to accomplish in the future.  I am a huge believer in goal setting and I try to look at it as a year long process rather than a once a year activity.

To look at where I was a year ago and where I am now gives me a huge feeling of accomplishment.  My first big race of the year was the Boston Marathon.  I felt I was in great shape and although I achieved both my goals of running under 3 hours and placing in the top 100 I felt it was a mediocre performance after becoming very ill just a few weeks before.  I knew I'd need to improve a lot to have a chance at qualifying for the Olympic Trials in the fall.  The summer went fantastic though with PRs in everything I was running and a win at the Top of Utah half marathon.  Then Chicago was one of those races that every runner dreams of, where everything falls into place and goes perfectly.  After I qualified for the Olympic Trials in October I felt that I was on a high I just couldn't come down from for the next month.  My excitement of how all the training had paid off with such a perfect race and the anticipation of running at the Olympic Trials was a thrill beyond what I had ever experienced.  The satisfaction of accomplishing such a difficult goal was tremendous.  I often wondered how any running experience could top what had happened in Chicago.  I was enjoying some down time, just getting in some relaxing miles with friends because I believe recovery time is crucial to successful running.  Yet as the weather turned colder and time went on I found myself feeling flat with no specific goal in sight.  With 16 months between Chicago and the trials it seemed too far away to focus on.

A few weeks ago in church a neighbor asked me, "So what do you do now that you qualified for the Olympic Trials?  Do you think you can run faster?  How old are you?"  He didn't mean it in a rude way but the reality that I'm having a hard time accepting is that I'm not a young athlete.  I turned 37 a couple months ago and 40 seems to be looming up a lot faster than I want it to.  His question actually made me think about what I want to accomplish in the next few years before the inevitable starts to happen.  So here they are.  Things I want to accomplish before the big 40 and how I'm going to do it.

1. Stay healthy and maintain my fitness level for the Olympic Trials.  Obviously this is number one since my main goal for last year was to qualify for the trials.  Injuries are never fun but it would be terrible to blow this experience with an injury in the next year.  In order to accomplish this I need to train smart and keep up on my strengthening exercises (which is not my favorite part of running.)  As far as maintaining my fitness level, I need races to motivate me keep training hard.  The next big race on my schedule is the Ogden Marathon in the spring.  Along the way I've picked out several races on the USA Track and Field Utah racing circuit.  My coach Paul Pilkington is a huge part of my success and his advice has been priceless in getting me to the fitness level where I am.  I look forward to continuing to work with him.

2. Break 2:40 in the marathon.  This seems a little crazy since less than two years ago I was still trying to break three hours. When my neighbor asked if I still thought I could run faster I thought, of course!  What runner isn't trying to get faster?  This will be a tough one but I think a two minute PR in the marathon is reasonable.  I'm not sure if Ogden is a fast enough course but if I can't do it there I'd like to try at St. George sometime in the next few years.  And depending on what the course is like for the trials I will be running with the best runners in the country that could push me to perform better than I ever have.  Chicago was such a perfect race that it's hard to imagine going any faster but I think I can still train a little harder.  To me running is all about trying to get better and I'm going for it.

3. Win a marathon.  I've won a lot of smaller races but I've never come across the finish line first in a marathon.  This one is a little harder to make happen since it depends on who else is running and I can only control what I do.  But I learned this year I can run a lot faster than I thought I could in the past. I need to go out harder from the start and race against whoever is there.  Hopefully this will translate into a win for me.

I'm so excited to be on the Brooks ID Elite team this year.  Brooks is a fantastic running company and their support in helping me reach my goals is tremendous!  I really love their slogan.  Run happy!

Christmas 2014

I tried to have everything done this year by the day before Christmas Eve so that we could just have fun on Christmas Eve.  I'd gotten a late start getting ready for Christmas this year and it was a hectic few weeks leading up to Christmas.  I felt like I had everything done though and the plan was to go to Melanie's house for Christmas Eve breakfast then head up to the ski resort for a few hours to pass the time while the kids were waiting for Santa.  Instead we were woken up early in the morning by Skyler throwing up.  So Jason headed off to the breakfast with the older kids and I stayed home with Skyler.  I felt so bad he was sick again after being sick on Thanksgiving and hoped it would be a quick 24 hour bug and he would feel better on Christmas.  Jason offered to stay home with Skyler in the afternoon so I could ski but I decided to stay home and just get an early start making dinner so they all headed up to the ski resort while Skyler and I stayed home again.  We were finally able to enjoy the evening together with clam chowder, Christmas songs and stories and the kids acting out the nativity.  Skyler was feeling well enough that he was enjoying hitting everything in sight with his shepherd staff!

After an extremely warm and dry December we woke up to the first big snowfall of the year Christmas morning with snow still coming down.  It really made for a picture perfect Christmas morning (although I never did take a picture of the snow.  It was a beautiful morning with lots of happy kids and we enjoyed just staying inside, watching the snow come down and taking our time opening presents.  Skyler was the new owner of more trains than you can count.  Kaitlyn was thrilled to join the electronic club in the house with an iPod.  Jared added a Lego set to his collection. (What else would he want?)  Andrew was soon dreaming up all the tricks he would be recording and showing off with his new Gopro (video camera he can attach to the top of his ski helmet.)

The finished project a couple days later.

Andrew with the quilt his grandma made him.  She is so talented!

It was such a wonderful day.  For some reason it hit me this year hard that we only have a few years left with everyone at home together.  Sometimes it feels like time just keeps going faster and faster.  I really kept feeling that something was missing this year as I prepared for Christmas.  I realized that I really missed how the last few years during all the busyness I found some time to go help my grandma with her Christmas preparations.  It was never anything big but now it is time that I cherish.  And when I was missing her so much I came to the realization that this is what Christmas is all about.  That our Father loves us enough to send His Son to earth in a stable.  And because of that we can have our families forever.

Christmas/Winter Activities

December meant lots of concerts, parties and activities.  Here are some of the highlights.

The kids' piano recital was held at the Eccles Art Gallery.  It's my favorite place for a recital especially at Christmas.  It's an old restored house downtown that has been turned into an art gallery and it is decorated beautifully at Christmas!  The Steinway the kids get to play on is awesome too.  Kaitlyn made it through all 12 verses of the Twelve Days of Christmas this year.  It's fun to see how much better Andrew and Jared have gotten.  Here they are with our friends, the Larsens, and their piano teacher, Sharyl Tucker.  We were excited to finally get assigned the same recital time.  Our two families took up most of the recital!

Andrew enjoyed being part of the Jazz band at the junior high this year playing the keyboard.  They played a Christmas concert at the food court in the mall.  They were a great band!

Kaitlyn loves to sing and is constantly singing around the house.  I thought she would enjoy being part of the school choir and signed her up.  She did enjoy singing but complained a bit that Friday afternoons is when the rehearsals were and she would rather be playing.  She did a great job at the Christmas concert and was all smiles up on stage.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas time without skiing.  After a pretty dismal start to the snow season we had several storms over Christmas break and had a lot of fun skiing while the kids were off school.

Phoenix, California, Running and Thanksgiving

After cross country season ended Andrew continued to train with the high school team.  In the post season the team went to the Nike Regional race in Phoenix the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Andrew took off with the team a few days before the meet.  They split the drive into a couple days and got a chance to look over the course.  The rest of our family drove all the way to Phoenix on Friday.  We arrived at the hotel late at night after 12 hours in the car.  The next morning we were up early and headed to the golf course where the race was being held.  The weather had turned chilly at home but Phoenix was sunny and warm but luckily not too warm for racing.  It was exciting to watch some of the best teams from several states compete.  Andrew had a great race and ran his best time ever on a 5k course.  17:52!  (That's about a 5:45 mile pace and just a couple seconds shy of my fastest 5k.  I won't be able to beat him at that distance much longer!)

After we watched all the races we got in the van and drove to LA.  It should have been just a six hour drive.  It made for a lot of driving in two days but we were glad that we had the shorter drive on the second day.  It went pretty smoothly until we were about half an hour from my parents house.  We kept telling the kids we were almost there.  We were all tired of being in the car and hungry.  It was Saturday evening so we didn't expect traffic but suddenly we were completely stopped.  It took us an hour to go a mile due to an accident.  So we finally arrived at my parents house very hungry and ready to be out of the car.

California was beautiful for late November.  It was sunny and warm.  It was perfect temperature to just sit on the beach and watch the kids play.   The older kids loved the body boards while Skyler played in the sand and flew kites.

Tuesday was my birthday.  We debated about going to Disneyland but decided we didn't want to fight the crowds two days before Thanksgiving.  Instead we went to the LaBrea Tarpits.  We had a fun time stepping back into the ice age in the museum and touring the grounds to see the tarpits.

After we had gotten lunch in La Brea Jason decided he wanted to take me to get an ice cream sandwich at a place he had been to at UCLA called Diddy Reise.  The ice cream sandwich was great but the only problem was it was the opposite way from my parents house.  Traffic was terrible.  We thought it would be a 20 minute detour and 45 minutes later we finally arrived.  The ice cream sandwiches, made out of chocolate chip cookies, were good but then we had to get back on the 405 south to Orange County.  It was shortly before 4:00 and everyone was leaving work early to get home for the long holiday weekend.  What should have been an hour drive took us over two and a half hours!  I'm not sure the ice cream sandwiches were really worth it.

Wednesday we took Andrew and Jared to the Newport Beach temple to do baptisms for the dead.  It was Jared's first time going to the temple.  We had a great time.

On Thanksgiving morning we got up before the sun was even up and headed to Dana Point Harbor for a Turkey Trot.  My race was first with the 10k.  I had been on recovery since the marathon, not running any speed and just doing distance.  I knew this would be a competitive race with the prize money they were offering.  With the shape I was in I thought maybe I had a slight chance of getting third and taking home some prize money.  The course went back and forth along the edge of  the harbor so there were lots of turn around points to see where you were.  The first turn around was at a mile and a half.  I was in 5th place and there was one lady ahead of me that I thought I had a chance of catching but the first three were so far ahead I knew I was beat.  I kind of checked out mentally at that point and struggled through the rest of the race.  Every mile was slower and when I came across the finish line I realized it was the same pace I ran the first 10k at the Chicago Marathon and I was beat!  I guess that's what I get for not taking the race very seriously.  Jason had a much better race.  He ran in the 5k masters race.  It was kind of fun since he had just turned 40 the week before.  He ran a great race finishing 4th overall and 1st in his age group.  Andrew struggled through his race as well since it was just a few days after regionals but he was 3rd in his age group and I was 2nd in mine so we still got a collection of medals to bring home.  Katilyn and Jared both ran the mile race.  Kaitlyn accidentally ended up in the older kids race but still did fine keeping up.  Skyler had a rough morning.  I couldn't figure out why he was so unhappy and then he started throwing up.  Finally he crashed and fell asleep in the stroller.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal my mom had made for Thanksgiving with my parents, Spencer, his girlfriend Janelle and Janelle's mom.  It would have been a perfect Thanksgiving if it weren't for Skyler being sick.  He was hungry but every time he ate or drank anything he would throw up so we had to keep him eating tiny bites of food and sips to drink.  I felt terrible doing that to him with all the good food around.  All too soon the weekend was over and it was time to go home.

Jason's 40!!

Earlier in the year I started trying to think of a fun party for Jason's 40th birthday.  I wanted to do something exciting for the milestone but everything I tried to plan just wouldn't work out.  We ended up going downtown to IRock to do some rock climbing.  It was fun to have most of Jason's family there to celebrate with us.  Some, especially the kids, were shy about the rock climbing at first but soon almost everyone was involved having a fun time.  Kaitlyn really enjoyed the rappelling and loved swinging back and forth kicking off the wall.  I am not very fond of heights and wanted to quit about half way up the wall but Jason was belaying for me and refused to let me down so I had no choice but to climb to the top!

Jason and Eric: I guess it's okay to be outclimbed by your little brother when you are 40!

Merrilee and Andrew

Skyler even joined in on the fun.

After rock climbing we picked up Olive Garden food and went back to our house for dinner.  Jason cracked everyone up when we sang happy birthday and instead of blowing out the candles he grabbed a fork and started eating the cake.  I made a big collage out of old pictures of Jason. It was fun to look back on the years.

2014 Family Pictures

This year will be a memorable one for family pictures.  In the end at least I can say we got a good picture of everyone.  After a mild week of weather, there was a storm coming the day we had pictures scheduled.  We moved the picture time up as early as we could to try to beat the storm coming in but the wind was already blowing.  After debating about locations we finally found a spot downtown that was sheltered a bit from the wind.  Then was the fun of trying to get a two year old to cooperate for pictures.  Skyler was having a great time running back and forth on the sidewalk listening to all the leaves crunching under his feet.  What we didn't realize is that there was gravel under some of the leaves.  He hit the gravel at full speed and his feet flew right out from under him and landed on the back of his head on the cement!  The bleeding head wound cut the photo session short so I was pleasantly surprised that we ended up with this many good pictures.

Fall Fun and Halloween

Jason was excited to have his mission president who is from Mexico in Utah this fall.  One of Jason's mission companions arranged a reunion while he was here.  It was a fun time for Jason to catch up with some of the people he served with over 20 years ago!  Jason's mission influenced his life so much and the Espinoza's are a couple that he looks up to so much.  It was wonderful to see them again.

Our family with Pres. and Sis. Espinoza

When the kids were off for fall break we took a trip to Black Island Farms.  Skyler loved the hay ride on the trailer that was pulled by a tractor.  He was so excited to pick out his own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch!  It's sad for me to see the older kids out growing some of the fun activities they have there but they had fun playing with Skyler.  And they aren't too old to enjoy a corn maze.  Unfortunately we really got lost in one and that was about the time Skyler got tired and was ready to go home!  We finally managed to find our way out!

Kaitlyn and I enjoyed going with her cousins, aunts, and grandma to Gardner Village for breakfast with a witch.  It's a fun girls outing that we get tickets to every year.  Kaitlyn loved the show the witches put on and all of their fun costumes.  She also had fun getting her face painted.

Skyler loved carving pumpkins!  Every time he looked at the pumpkins on our porch he would point and laugh.  Our neighbors made totem poles out of jack o lanterns and he spent half the week looking out his window across the street laughing at their pumpkins!

Halloween was unusually warm.  It made it nice for trick or treating.  Skyler wanted nothing to do with his costume.  We forced it on him and tried to get him to cooperate for a picture.  As soon as they went to the first house and he realized he was getting candy he didn't mind the costume anymore.  I didn't get a picture of Andrew, although he just wore the same morph suit he wore last year.  He spent the evening helping his friend with a haunted house since he's too old for trick or treating.  Another sign he is growing up too quickly.

Jason's costume needs a bit of an explanation.  He came home from his hair cut with his hair looking just like this minus the orange hair color the day before Halloween (and two days before family pictures.)  He claimed it was his barbers idea for him to dress up as Beaker from the Muppets and he promised he'd fix it before pictures.  He went to work looking like this on Halloween and I'm not sure if his patients thought he was crazy or if they just got a really good laugh!