Bowling with our Buddies

Joey, Kaiden, and Weston

Weston is pretty good now at throwing the ball down the lanes by himself, without using the ramps of coarse. He actually got a better score than me, disgraceful, I know.

Kaiden's attempt to roll it down with out the ramp like his big bro. He also beat my score!She's not ashamed. She'll use that ramp with pride! She killed my score. In fact, if I remember right, she beat all 3 adults and the 3 other kids too!

Here is one of here bowls, straight down the center, thanks to the ramp!

The gang - Hannah, Joey, Kaiden, and Weston

First Day of School

First Grade, here we come! Mr. Baxter, Weston's teacher, stopped by 2 days ago to introduce himself and brought him a balloon. He really wanted his picture taken with Mr. Baxter's balloon before he left for his first day. I asked him if he was excited or if he was nervous, and he said, "I'm just happy." Good, I hope he continues to love school as long as possible! Here he is at his desk getting ready to do his first assignment of the year.

Girls ONLY trip to Denali

From left to right - Melissa Castro, Cheri Gerwig, Allie Monson (and baby Reese), Tana Wyman, Jill Craig, Jenny McLean, Me, Scharlin Jones, and Maaret Ingram. All 9 of us left our kids with our husbands for 2 nights and 2 days and we went to Denali, Alaska! We had such a great time!!! Here are some of the highlights out doors, I wish I had some pictures of us in our hotel rooms though (the 2 rooms were connected) because we had some good times ~pedicures, italian cream sodas, and of coarse lots of talking and laughing!All of us in front of this awesome view when we went on a hike.

Hiking in Denali

Some cool tree we saw and wanted to get a picture of it! Melissa and I are trying to give each other a high five through it.

Also on the hike

The real highlight of the trip was of coarse the rafting trip we went on! Poor Jenny couldn't go because she is prego, we sure missed her! We are all suited up and ready to hit the water!

On the raft. Before it got too crazy we wanted a good group photo.

Melissa, Allie, Me, and Tana

Maaret, Cheri, Jill, and Scharlin

Tana and I

Jill, Alli, Me and Tana

Allie, Jill, Tana, Me, Cougar(our guide), Scharlin, and Melissa

When we would get through something really scary and crazy, we would do a group high five with our oars!! I guess you could say we were happy to be alive and IN the raft.

The rest of the shots are from the professional photographer that was waiting on the edge of the water.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. I loved rafting, but I really loved just being single without any responsibility for a couple days. I feel guilty admiting that, but it's true. It was also nice to spend so much time with not only women/friends, but all of us are good, righteous people too. I love that we talked about funny and stupid things at times, but we also talked about religious and spiritual things too. There wasn't gossiping or crude topics, it was always clean and good. I am so grateful to have such good friends in my life!

Santa Claus Lane Half Marathon

There are so many amazing things about Clayton, but this particular day I was in awe. This is the same half marathon that I ran last year with my good friend Nora, but this year I decided to run with my friends Cindy, Cheri and Allie. So, needless to say I have been training for several months to prepare for the race. No big deal really, just getting my endurance back to its best, and my running legs ready to RUN! Well, the day before the race Clayton decided he wanted to join in and run too. Just so you know, he hasn't ran/trained AT ALL since he was deployed, and even then it was at the beginning of his deployment (so like December of last year-ish!) Well, he ran and not only did he run the whole thing, he ran it crazy fast! This is a picture of us before the race.

Here I am crossing the finish line.

Clayton and Cheri crossing the finish line....the clock is the actual time. The race started at 9:00.
So, this is a funny story. Clayton and Cheri decided before the race that they would try to run together. Cheri did a full marathon earlier this year and maintained a really good, fast pace throughout the race, but Clayton is just generally fast. So Clayton thought she would be a pretty good running partner for him, and was kind of guessing that somewhere in the middle he would have to go on ahead with out her. He was SO wrong. Clayton pushed her in the beginning and gave them a good pace for the first few miles. Then all through the middle miles they kept and maintained a really good pace as well, comfortable for both of them. But towards the end, the last few miles were harder on Clayton and she pushed him through them. All the way to mile marker 13, where Clayton just stopped. He forgot the last .1 of a mile!! Cheri turned around and yelled at him to keep going and reminded him that it's 13.1 miles!! It took all of his might to pick up and keep going for that last little stretch on the grass to the actual finish line. In the end, their partnership was perfect! They are both competitive and fast and talkative....I am SO glad he had Cheri to run with. Thanks girl! But Clayton, I have to say I am so proud of you!! You did great!

This is where he had to pick up and get going again. He's mentioned how hard it was to try and catch up to her and finish. I think he even mention wanting to die! But he did it!!

The 5 of us after our race. From left to right - Allie, Cindy, Kari, Clayton & Cheri
So next year, Cindy and I are determined to do the Mayor's Marathon in Anchorage (June), but once again Clayton is going to beat me to the full marathon finish line. He decided just a couple days ago that he is going to run the Equinox Marathon on September 18th. Just so you know, the Equinox is said to be the nations 3rd hardest marathon. He has just over a month to prepare himself for this. Mostly I think he is crazy, but I have no doubt that he will not only finish it, but he'll do great again!