Breakfast of Champions.

There are a few things that happen in our house--for sure.
Every day.
Rain or Shine.
In sickness and in health.
Till death do us part.

One of these is Mike's midnight snack.
He always has a midnight snack.
Always.
Whether it's a couple of cookies, a spoonful of peanut butter, a random treat,
a glass of milk, a bowl of cereal...
it's something.
Every night.

Another happening is Grant's early riser-ness.
Now, I do have high hopes that this is a phase.
A very long phase, but a phase all the same.
Regardless,
for the time being, he's up early.
And I do mean early.
Hello, 5 am!

In my perfect world he would just head on into the family room
and start himself a movie.
(Cuz, he can do that you know)
I don't live in that world.
I live in the world where he comes into my room to help me welcome in the new day.
Every. Day.

Last week I thought I had ventured into the other side of the looking glass.
I woke up at six.
Six!
On my own.
NO Grant assistance.
~Que Hallelujah choir~

What did I come out in the kitchen to find?
~cancel Hallelujah choir~
A little laziness on Mike's part
(not putting away the sugar after a midnight bowl of Chex)
and one very satisfied Mr. Grant D

That, my friends, is a cup FULL of sugar.
Bear in mind, the kid generally wakes up close to 5.
I came out just after 6.
We are talking about a good 40 minutes of a boy and his sugarcup.

I like to call this picture,
"Please...don't kill me Mom, it's all really my Dad's fault anyway."
I have to say, I can't really argue logic like that.

:o)
So go ahead, just give those kiddies a cup-o-sugar for breakfast.
Literally.
That's how we do it 'round here.

Casualties: 1

One of these piggies is not like the others.
Second toe. Left foot.
Poor toenail.
I don't think he's gonna make it.
Ragnar did him in.
Not gonna lie, I'm kinda proud.
Isn't that the sign of a real runner?

And now I have posted a picture of my feet.
Don't we all feel just a little bit closer?
It's so nice to tear down all these barriers.
Who says feet are ugly?

It could of been worse, I could of posted a picture of my other milestone
reminder...
stretch marks.
You can thank me later.

Just me and my Boy.

Grant and I are holding down the fort this afternoon. It is VERY rare for us not only to have our own crew running a muck, but we usually have at least a few extra friends after school.

I was sitting here at the computer just messing around, he was racing up and down the hall-sporting his Thomas undies and Double Diamond Dairy t-shirt- showing me his muscles and how fast he can run and as I watched him I was over come with how lucky I am to have him here.

That little stink really gave us a run for our money...one sick little bambino. I don't look at the pictures very often, but since I was sitting right here I pulled them up...

Six weeks old, he weighed only one ounce more than the day he was born. This picture was taken the day he was admitted into the hospital. He had already been under the lights for a few hours when this picture was taken. Pumpkin Boy was already pinking up, you can really see the difference around his eyes where his mask covered. The trouble was he had multiple symptoms. He was so jaundice, his levels were at an 18- should have been nonexistent or a 1 at six weeks. Compound that with his failure to thrive and that fact he puked up everything. He was a mess.

My momgut told me it was pyloric stynosis. Grandmagut confirmed- we have a family history. The doctor thought so too.

The test was negative. That night I spent in the hospital was horrifically long. Not knowing was the worst part. Thank the heavens above for my sweet nurse, Bobbi. We made it through the night together.

Grant's brilliant doctor ordered a different test, testing for the same thing the next day and sure enough...pyloric stynosis! One surgery later and we were one our way to a healthy boy. Never did figure out the multiple symptoms. But I have my boy, and that's good enough for me.

Three years later and I couldn't love him more.

Keeping the Flu at bay.

I'm pretty sure with hygiene standards as high as this...

(Sticky Fingers G. is what we like to call him)

we should have
no
worries of catching any sort of illness this season.

All for a Medal?!

Are you all ready for another Ragnar rundown?
Ohhhh, goody.
Cuz here it comes!!

If you ran the Wasatch Back and the Vegas Ragnar this year you got a special edition
Saints and Sinners medal.
Ten out of the twelve of our team members ran both,
hence the team name...
All for a Medal?!

We decided to decorate our vans accordingly.
Van #1 (my van) : Sinners
Van #2 : Saints
btw, that's Louie-short for Lucifer- on the grill of my van there, he was our mascot.


Jonathan started us off. Strong. Ya, he pretty much dusted the competition.
He is one fast hombre. That boy runs like the wind blows, I tell ya.


Here I am waiting to start my first run. All decked out in my devil horns.
Might I take a moment here to say something about Vegas...
It is freaking hot!
I know it's cooled down from the summer blast furnace, but Holy Hannah!!
With my own personal solar panel (black hair) I was a real live Hottie. ;o)


After we all got in our first run we went to hang out at the first major exchange while van #2 got a run under their belts.
Here's the thing, you are supposed to sleep at a major exchange.
It doesn't really work out that way so much.
Everyone lays out their blankets, you all lay down, you all close your eyes, you all pretend to sleep but, in the end you all give up the whole idea
and take '8 is enough' pictures instead.
This is a good time to introduce you to my van.
We have Jonathan(my brother), Me(farmgirl), My 27 chins(who need no introduction), Amanda(my sister), Tawna(amanda's friend), Dick(penny's dad) & Penny(amanda's friend and fellow prestonite and dixie johnson's little sister fyi for all my p.h.s. buddies).

Okey dokey, here's the part were I tell you about the night running.
No pictures, sorry.
Jonathan, Dick, Penny & Tawna all get their second run finished.
Tawna hands off to me, I take off for my 3.6 miles.
The plan was for my team to meet me at 1 mile to give me water.
I had gone about a half mile, I could see one runner a little way ahead of me and ahead of her I could see two people walking.
Bare in mind we are out in the middle of NO WHERE.
I was thinking maybe the two people were her team members.
She runs right past these two and they just keep walking.
I am came up to them and saw it is was just two guys, clearly no part of the race at all.
I was a little concerned, but by now my team van was in sight so I just ran past them.
Tawna gave me water and I took off again. We had decided for them to meet me at 2 miles.
Luckily, right as they were pulling away, they saw these two guys start to run towards me and felt just as uneasy as I did about them and decided to shadow me.
THANK YOU TEAM!!!
So the van and I played leap frog for next 1/2 mile until the two guys were no where in sight.
The rest of the run was great, I ran next to Lake Mead.
Moon over the lake...Be-A-U-ti-Ful!

Night run fiasco: phase two.
I passed off to Amanda.
She had two miles of trail running starting at 1 1/2 miles in. I got out to give her water and Jonathan yelled from the van, "Does she want someone to go with her?" She said yes.
I'm right there, it's only two miles, Jonathan was in the van with his shoes off so I decided to just go with her.
We started on a bike trail. After about a mile we veer onto a dirt road, after another two miles we were running next to some industrial plant of some sort. A couple of runners start running back towards us because they came to a locked gate.
Ugghhh, we were off the course!
So we turned around and started heading back. A security guard came along in his truck and took us all back, we weren't the first to make this mistake.
(note to Ragnar people--Mark the dang course!)
By this point I am exhausted.
Amanda made the comment she was surprised Jonathan hadn't come looking for us.
I kept telling Amanda to leave me, but I didn't have a vest or a head lamp so she stayed until we were back in sight of the road and we could see the vans, what a good little sister.
At that point she took off.
I made my way back to the van to find out that Jonathan had indeed gone looking for us.
We missed him coming the other direction and never crossed paths.
He ended up running almost back to the beginning of the trail before he realized we weren't there. He sprinted back to the van, got the full scoop and headed back out to finish Amanda's run with her.
Whew, what an adventure!!

Amanda handed off to van #2 and we headed out to our last major exchange.
Jonathan started running again at about 4:30 am.
p.s. once he put those running shoes on-he didn't take them off again the rest of the day.
He was prepared to run at a moments notice--
Have I mentioned he is a stinkin' fast runner?
He had told us that every leg of both Ragnar's he had 13 road kills (passed 13 people), but he wasn't so sure how this leg was going to be.
His finish was amazing.
He was coming at us fff-aaast, about 1/4 mile left to go.
He was going after runners that were a long way ahead of him.
We figured he was trying to get his 13 road kills.
He passed the last one 5 feet from the finish line,
ran through, raised his arms in the air and said,
"Fourteen!"
I know this is a crappy picture, but he was so awesome I had to post it any way.


Next up, Dick.
Dick's night adventure was that he forgot to change into his running shoes and ran in some old tennis shoes. So this morning run was mighty painful.
He was great. A lot of fun to have in the van.
He told us he wouldn't run again unless it was on a team with a bunch of old guys. :)
Don't worry, Jonathan ran Dick's last mile with him too.


Dick passed off to Penny.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I fail to mention that Penny is 5+ months pregnant?
She is. And she is a machine. And that is one proud Daddy standing next to her.


From Penny to Tawna.
Tawna kept saying she wasn't much of a runner, but she did great and had some serious hills to climb in the heat.



Runner #5 coming atcha.
That would be me.
The running rock star.
I'd love to tell you that I looked even remotely like that during my 4.1 miles.
Unfortunately, it was only for the last 20 yards.



I handed off to Amanda.
Who is saying in this picture,
"Holy Crap! Did you see how I didn't let that dude beat me? How I raced him to the finish and won?"
Yes, My Dear, we did. And it was fantastic!
She handed off to van #2 and they brought it on home.


Here's the whole team at the finish line.
Jonathan, Penny, Me, Tawna, Amanda, Rocky, Derrik, Dick, Marcia, Mike, Dixie & Natalie
Just a bunch of Saints and Sinners.
Looking for a good time.
Crazy enough to run a combined 171 miles.

For me?
3.5 miles + 3.6 miles + 4.1 miles + 4 miles with Amanda = 15.2 miles
One 3 mile training run last week.
A cough that belongs to a chain smoker.
Total exhaustion yesterday.
Seriously sore muscles today....


All for a medal?!
You betcha!!!