We're alive and still here

Although you wouldn't know it from our extreme lack of posts. We had a great time out in Las Vegas and in Salt Lake visiting with family and we felt so blessed by everyone's love and support for us in Ryan's search for a job. He was finally offered a position at a great firm which we were hoping to get and I'll let Ryan tell you the whole story about that, but we are so grateful he has it. We were pretty much gone the whole month of Aug and now it's the beginning of Oct so some of my memories are already going, sad but true, so I'm just going to try and jot down a summary and get some pictures up in a couple days since they are all on Ryan's computer.

We flew into Las Vegas and pretty much just hung out at Ryan's parent's house the whole time we were there. I was training for a marathon up in Park City, UT so I would get up at 4 am to run most days and then I would bandage my toes up for the rest of the day because my running shoes were to small and they were causing me to get blisters and lose toe nails. I know gross huh but I'm happy to say that I now have properly fitting shoes and all my toes are on the mend. While we were there or really the whole reason we were there is because Grandma and Grandpa Waite wanted a family picture of everyone, kids, grand kids, great grand kids and amazingly it happened. I forget how many people there were but I think 60, it was large. We also had the opportunity to attend the Temple while Ryan's brother Hayden received his endowments. It was so wonderful to not only attend the Temple (since the Atlanta is closed and has been for over a year now for renovations) but to be there with the whole family minus Cameron who had class but we were thinking of him. I love going to the Temple, there is so much peace that you feel there and Ryan I and were lucky to be able to go back again by ourselves later on in the week.

The second week were were there Caleb and Sawyer has a chance to take swim lessons. My boys love to swim and Sawyer is a bit fearless when it comes to pools so I have to make sure his floaties are on all the time. Caleb loves to swim too but he's a little afraid of the water so he won't go in without his floaties. After the first day I think Sawyer learned to have a little bit more respect for the pool as he learned really quickly he sinks, but he's really good at holding his breath and he'll swim under water if I give him a little push to the stairs. By the end of the week Caleb was really getting the concept of kicking his legs and stroking with his arms all at the same time. He would still sink down if you moved your hand away from his stomach but I think if he would have had another week of swim lessons he would have gotten it. He even missed a day of swim lessons to go fishing with his dad and his papa. They drove up to Panguitch Lake in the morning and fished all day and then came home that night. They had a great day of catching fish and believe it or not Caleb caught the biggest fish of the day with a 21-22 inch trout! And we ate for dinner later on in the week, and it was GOOD! :o) That's pretty much all we did was eat, and eat, and eat, and eat some more I'm still trying to get motivated to get back on my diet after all that eatting, but I throughly enjoyed every bite I took.

Ryan's mom let us take her nice new Toyota Sequia up to Salt Lake and it was quite a nice ride with the kids since she had a DVD player in there. We did stop in Cedar City for an hour or so at a park to let the kids run around and the funniest thing of all was my friend Crystal from our old ward in Vegas was there with the Laurels (who all use to be my beehives when I was there) for an activity. It was so great to see these girls and the women that they are becoming, they are so beautiful and it just made my whole day, pretty much my whole trip to see them.

While we were in Salt Lake we stayed at my moms house and the boys got to sleep in their uncle Jeremy's tent that was set up in the room with us and my mom bought them both Toy Story sleeping bags so they had a blast with that, and we had a fun cook out in my moms fire pit with the biggest marshmallows you've ever seen.

We were able to drive up to Logan and see my grandparents and we also got to see some really good friends of ours Ryan and Cassandra Judd (who by the way set Ryan and I up and a blind date and well, the rest is history :o) We continued to eat and eat and eat while were there and I realized how nice it was to have a back yard that's fenced in and has a play set that the boys could just go out and play whenever they wanted. It was wonderful, I can't wait for the day that I have a backyard with a slide and a swing and even a trampoline, man my kids would be entertained all day. Ok who am I kidding maybe not all day but at least for a couple hours. Oh what sweet quiet I would have in my home and maybe get stuff done around the house.

We also had a fun time going up to Thanksgiving Point, although it was insanely crowed the boys had a good time and we got them to go on a pony ride, which neither one of them wanted to but after wards Caleb was all smiles taking about how he rode the horse and was a cowboy like woody.

So the day before we left to drive back to Vegas one of my best friends from High School Annie, drove down from Idaho to run the Park City Marathon with me. I know we're crazy but she's even crazier since this was her 3rd or 4th for the summer. It was a grueling race. From the start to mile 7 was all up hill then flat for a while then up hill some more, then flat for a while, then up hill some more. When you finally hit mile 7 it was all up the mountain until mile 16. Oh man I thought I was going to die. Not only was it all up for 9 straight miles but in those 9 miles we climb from like 6,000 elevation to 7,000 and I wanted to puke when I got to the top, but I didn't and kept pushing. By the last 6-7 miles my knee joints were killing me to run but my hip joints were killing me to walk so I pretty much alternated walking and running for the last bit until I had a mile and a half left and then I just made myself run so I could finish. So over all my time was 4 hours 40 mins. Not the best, not what I was hoping for but neither was this race. It was insane and I'm so glad I did it. People ask me if I'll do it again and I my answer is yes I'll run another marathon but just not the Park City one :o).

The next day we drove back down to Vegas, recouped for a day and then flew back home to Georgia. What a great time we had, it's good to be home, I love my home and I love my friends here they are wonderful, but I'm already missing my family. So anytime you want to visit please come :o).