Jacob's Half Marathon

So Jacob had his half marathon last weekend. We camped at Bandalier since it was pretty close to the race site in Los Alamos. I think we all learned that our tent is a wee bit too small for our family--especially with Keiger rolling all over the place all night. It's a wonder we give him a sleeping bag and pad, because he doesn't seem to use them. Anyway, Bandalier's pretty cool, just like Mesa Verde, only smaller. The more I learned about this half marathon, the crazier it was. It was a trail run basically up Jemez Mountain (lots of elevation gain) and then back down a ways. So Jacob has been training by running up a trail up a ridge behind our house. For some strange reason, he thinks that's fun. The last bit of the course was this crazy steep uphill narrow track that was formed by water running down these rocks. Does that make any sense? Anyway, it was steep and knarly enough that I certainly would not want to run up it at the end of 13 miles. In fact, I think I only saw a couple of runners who were able to run it without walking--Jake said he was using his hands to pull himself up. The morning of the race, we woke up early and Jake downed his peanut butter sandwich on the drive to the start. Brad and Brooke from the ward also ran, and the Leishers came along, so the kids had lots of buddies to play with while we waited for them to finish the run. I was mighty surprised to see Jacob power up that last hill so early--neither of us had imagined he would finish that soon. He finished 15 minutes faster than he thought he would and ended up placing 11th or 13th (I can't remember) overall. There were 280 runners. So I was pretty proud--and he was pretty tired. Brad and Brooke did awesome as well. I was quite impressed--that was a tough course and they are very good runners. One race down for Jacob. He has one more in a couple of weeks at Pagosa Springs--so we get another camping trip.

APOLOGIES for no pictures! I forgot to take the camera--horrid, I know. You probably won't be surprised to hear that Jacob just wore an old soccer jersey and shorts--no shorty running shorts for him. Although, his ankles have become super skinny from all this running! You have to see them. I couldn't convince him to let me make him a t-shirt to run in, so we cheerleaders made shirts for ourselves to show some support for Jacob, Brad, and Brooke. Those shirts deserve a picture, because I think they're pretty cool.

Here are some pictures from the run's website (Jacob)
The bottom of the mountian (looking downhill, around 3 miles into the race)

Starting the climb (around 4 miles in)

about 5 miles in

from the top looking down to Los Alamos 6.4 miles in

Sage turned 6 yesterday if you can believe it. I can't. She had a dog birthday party earlier this week before school let out. Lots of doggie fun there. What do you get a girl for her birthday when all she wants is a dog? And we're not getting a dog. Oh well. I think she's pretty happy with the alternatives she got. Sage did finish school this week. The kindergarten class had a sweet awards ceremony, complete with puppet shows and a performance on recorders. Sage received the award for "Best at Drawing Chickens." We're so proud.

We're in Utah right now to play, and Jacob is spending his free time in Taos searching for antlers. Must be summer.

Morgan, the Half Marathon Runner

So we headed down to Albuquerque this past weekend for the long-awaited half marathon. Honestly, I was so ready to just run the thing and get it over with! The training over the past few months has been pretty crazy, especially since I couldn’t even run 2 miles around Thanksgiving. So I am pretty excited to know I don’t have to go running tomorrow and I don’t have to go on a long run…unless I want to, which may not be for a little bit. We’ll see. Anyway, the morning of the race finally arrived! It had rained during the night, so part of the course was muddy, which I thought was appropriate. We are from Taos after all: land of springtime mud and wind. But, best of all, the course was FLAT!! I couldn’t get over it! Seriously, there is pretty much nowhere to run in Taos that doesn’t have hills, and I was tired of them! I cannot emphasize enough the wonderfulness of running on FLATNESS. That made all the difference. That and I had a great buddy to run with. I really can’t imagine how anyone could do something like this alone, so I am very grateful for a friend who was willing to stick around by me through all this training and eventually the race. I won’t bore you with those minor details of how fast I ran or where I placed. Suffice it to say, we set out to run the whole thing, all 13.1 miles of it, and we did. I didn’t die, and the medical staff didn’t have to remove me from the race because I looked distressed (I was worried about that!). I am quite proud. And I’m Jacob’s hero. And I got a medal. Pretty good, eh? Thank you to all our cheerleaders, whether you were there or not, and even to those I didn’t even know. You really helped!
So now we look forward to Jacob’s crazy half marathon in the Jemez Mountains next month, which includes a lot of STEEPNESS. Not good. I am very excited to go, mostly because I don’t have to run it. Jacob is pumped, and I’m all about being a cheerleader. Any suggestions about what to write on his T-shirt for him to wear during the race? Yes, Jacob, you are getting one! Even if you say you aren’t going to wear it.
Sage has been losing teeth lately, which has pretty much freaked her out. You can imagine that she wouldn’t let anyone try to help pull them out—she would barely do it herself. It seems she would rather have the teeth dangle out of her mouth forever, as you can tell by the pictures. It was a little gross. Can you see her adult tooth already growing in? After a wee bit of drama, the teeth did finally come out, painlessly too. That was really important to Sage. And she has learned that the tooth fairy really does exist and pays a lot more than what I got when I was a kid.

Disneyland

I am honestly going to try to be better at updating the blog. It’s been typical spring here in Taos: warm and sunny one day, snowy the next. On Saturday morning, the kids were outside in snow-pants and coats playing in fresh snow. By the afternoon, it had melted and the sun was shining. I think we’re all ready for spring. I put in a seed order for the garden and can’t wait for it arrive so I can start some stuff. The half marathon training continues. Jake is cruising right along. It makes me soooo proud and happy to see how easy this is for him. Just kidding. He really is a good runner. On the other hand, I seriously doubt my body was made for this running business…BUT, I will make it through the race in a few weeks…I hope!

We had a blast at Disneyland last week. Even Jacob admitted that he had more fun than he thought he would (that’s huge, by the way). The weather was perfect and our kids did so well. Finn was so good to just hang out in the stroller or our arms—I think he liked having so many people around. I do think we’ve freaked Sage and Keiger out about going on rides. After taking him on the Matterhorn, Keiger was afraid to go on anything, even the train. I kinda forgot about the abominable snow monster with glowing red eyes that pops out at you on the Matterhorn. We couldn’t have traumatized him for life, right? Sage put on a brave face, and went on pretty much all the rides she was tall enough for. It was pretty funny to watch her face. She’d be so nervous during the rides, but as soon as it was over, she would talk about how “awesome” it was. But if you asked her if she wanted to go on it again…no way!

So, if you had to get stuck on one ride at Disneyland, what wouldn’t you want it to be? Yep, we got stuck on “It’s a Small World.” Poor Lance. He told us he’d never go on that ride, but we dragged if along, and, or course, something went wrong with the ride and we were stuck. At least they turned off the music! Oh, and Keiger had to go to the bathroom too! It was pretty funny.
By the way, Keiger has just learned to pee standing up. I never thought I’d be so proud, but I am!

Ever since we got home, Sage has been coloring birds and hanging them up all over our bedroom wall to turn the room into “The Tiki Room.” I got them a CD that has the music from all of the rides at Disneyland, and they’ve been listening to “The Tiki Room” over and over again, along with the yo-ho-ho song from Pirates of the Carri-BEAN as Keiger says. Anyway, if anyone wants to take a trip to Disneyland, I’m up for it.

Sage as we were headed up the climb for Space Mt

After it was all said and done.

Finally a semi-post

Believe it or not, we’re finally updating the blog - kind of. I guess things have been a bit busy. So…um…since we last wrote a few things have happened. We had a baby. Finneas. He’s really cute. Chubby. Drools a lot and loves to stick out his tongue. Finn is adorable & Sage and Kei just love him. Sage started kindergarten. She completely thrives on it and has such a great time. She has made sweet new friends and knows more Spanish than I do. Keiger continues to amuse us with his silliness. We got the kiddos new underwear the other day. You would have thought it was Christmas they were SOO excited. So, if you ever want to send them a gift you know what to get! Jacob and I continue to train for the half marathon. We hit the 8 mile run this weekend. This sure seems easy for Jake; I’m just a wee bit sore, but I am really amazed and proud that we’ve made it this far. I just posted a bunch of pictures to catch up on all our comings-and-goings.

Sage's Birthday and Mesa Verde

For a while now, Sage has had her heart set on a chicken-themed birthday party, so as May rolled around, I found myself trying to figure out how to create a chicken birthday cake and a chicken piñata for her party. One of the sweetest and craftiest ladies in the ward volunteered to help me make invitations, so she popped over one morning and created the funniest rolling chicken cards. I still can’t get over them. Another friend owns the Baskin Robbins in town and invited me over to the store so she could help me with decorating the cake, which turned out pretty cool. We found pictures of chickens from coloring books, put a sheet of wax paper over them, and then traced them with buttercream frosting. Then you put the frosting pieces in the freezer. When the cake was frosted and ready, I just took out the frozen chickens, flipped them over onto the cake, and peeled off the wax paper. I think I had the most fun of all with that cake.

Bright and early on the morning of Sage’s party, I heard some rustling in her bedroom. When I finally got of bed, I came into the kitchen to find Sage ready for the big day, dressed in her homemade chicken shirt and a tiara on her head. While we were planting the garden a few days earlier, Sage had disappeared into the house. Come to find out, she was creating her own chicken shirt. If you look closely, you can tell she has glued or taped chickens onto the shirt out of macaroni noodles, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, anything she found on the craft shelves. She even wrote “chick” on the top of the shirt. Too bad the shirt was pretty thrashed by the end of the day. I’m glad she hasn’t asked anything about where it has disappeared to.

Sage’s party turned out to be really fun. The kids got into the chicken theme. It was hilarious to watch this row of 10 or so kids doing the chicken dance and shaking their tail feathers. We made chicken bags out of paper plates for the piñata loot and had a chicken egg hunt in the yard. Whenever anyone asked Sage what she wanted for her birthday, she would reply, “Two cotton balls glued together to look like a chicken.” Well, her request was taken seriously, and she received quite a few cotton ball chickens from friends at the party, as well as chicken cards, chicken stuffed animals, even a chicken-shaped sucker. Funny, I know, but I was actually really touched by the thoughtfulness and kindness of everybody. We’ve been blessed with really good friends here.

We spent Sage’s actual fifth birthday camping in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado with Grandma and Grandpa. What a cool, new place to explore. The park is full of ancient cliff dwellings formed by the Anasazi and later inhabited by the Pueblo Indians. We saw all sorts of ruins and took a neat hike to some petroglyphs, where Jacob saved Keiger from stomping over a baby rattlesnake. Keiger insisted that some an old cliff dwelling was actually a sandbox and was not happy when we made him leave. Sage had a great birthday. There was one “stuffed animal chicken falling off a REALLY steep cliff and getting lost forever even though we warned her not to dangle it off the edge” incident, but I don’t think she’s ready to talk about that yet. And we did get poured on as we hiked out of one site, which was pretty funny. Both kids did great camping, and I had to go the bathroom all the time, but what’s new?
Justin and Maile’s family came for a visit from Arizona this weekend. I LOVE that the cousins have so much fun playing together, so it’s great for them to have time to visit. We drove up to an Alpaca farm in Mora, which actually turned out to be really fun. The kids got to feed the alpacas and watch them get sheared. They got to take home a little baggie of the fur, and Sage is convinced that I’m somehow going to make a blanket out of it. We also explored a new state park and let the kids fish for a bit, but no luck. We had a really good time with them visiting and are excited for the family reunion in just a couple of weeks.

P.S. I think we have a new little pet living with the chickens!