Ally Jane...

Today our little Allyson turns 7 years old. She's been such a blessing to us and a joy in our family. After having three boys in a row I was consigned to expect that I would only have boys. When the ultrasound showed she was a girl I cried...finally my girl!

(Ally age 2)

Ally arrived with some drama and maybe that's why she's such a character now. When she was born on the morning of January 9th, 2003 the cord was wrapped around her neck 4 times and the doctor had to pull her out because she was blue. She's the only one Rich didn't cut the cord for and I didn't get to immediately hold. They rushed her over to check her vitals and help her breath. Poor little thing didn't look like a pretty little girl, more like a boxer after a fight. That night the pediatrician who checked her told me that her collar bone was broken because of the way they had to pull her. I was so sad my little girl had to start out life like that but she's a tough little thing and I guess I'm glad she is.

(Ally and Julia)

She's always held her own with her 3 older brothers and still been a sweet and protective big sister of her little sis.

(playing dead at the Grand Canyon, age 3)

She's quite the comedian in our family and is always the ham and the trouble maker. She's my only child who ever got kicked out of Nursery at church for hitting the other kids. She talks non-stop, is curious about everything, is afraid of nothing except monsters in the dark, she plays mommy to the little kids, has more energy than anyone else, and is very loving and snuggly when she wants to be.

(The self inflicted bob, age 5)

She has cut her own hair a few times and actually did a pretty good job of it so people told her it was cute.

(Ally and Julia @ Knott's Berry Farm)

She loves all of the big rides at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and gets mad when they say she's too little to go on some of them.

(Ally riding Abbey)

She loves to ride Abbey, her Great Aunt Sally's horse. She tells everyone she is the best horse rider in our family. She's confident, sassy, funny, goofy, sweet, and a force to be reckoned with. I adore her and although she's not what I imagined I'd get in a girl I'm so glad I get to be her Mom because she's so much more. I know that as she grows she will be an amazing young woman. Happy Birthday Ally-bug. We love you!

Just a bit of bragging...(moms can do that)

Last week we attended the St Marys Medical Center Christmas Dinner for the volunteers. There are 60 kids who volunteer at the hospital in all areas. Jeremy works with the lab and the emergency room. He accompanies the Phlembotomists and takes the blood to the lab for them which cuts down on the time it takes to get test results back for the patients. Jeremy has had some neat experiences and some hard ones. He has volunteered to hold infants to keep them still while blood is drawn. He isn't afraid to do that because of the compassion and experience he has learned from helping out with his little brother and sisters.

At the dinner they also gave out 5 awards for outstanding service in different areas. Jeremy was chosen as the winner of the Teamwork Award. We are very proud of him! We were told so many sweet and wonderful things about him from his colleagues and supervisors. We are blessed to have such a great teenager!

(Jeremy receiving his award)

Los Angeles Temple lights

Last Wednesday the Young Men and Young Women leaders at church took the youth to the LA Temple to see the beautiful Christmas lights that are displayed every year. Rich and I went along because there were a lot of kids going, two of them are ours, and we have a Suburban so we could fit a lot.

It is always wonderful to be reminded of the true meaning of the season...

and why we can rejoice in our blessings no matter what our circumstances.

It was the first time some of the kids had been to the LA Temple. They were all very excited to be there.

The boys posed...

and the girls and their leaders posed for many, many pictures. These are only a very few of what was taken at every possible picture spot on the grounds.

The lights were beautiful.

Pictures do not do them justice.

The kids had a fun night. After we walked the grounds hot cocoa and cookies were served and then we did the long, late drive home. We will go again in the next few weeks so that all of our kids can enjoy the lights and being at the temple.

So much to be thankful for...

This year is a bit tighter than other years financially because of the economy and how it's affected our business but we still have so much to be thankful for. We have wonderful and healthy kids (except for the occasional cold or ear infection), we have so much fun together as a family, we have great friends and we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives that makes all the difference. We are indeed thankful everyday for the blessings we have.

I am thankful for Rich. He never fails to make me laugh everyday, and he cooks! What more could I ask for? He made most of the Thanksgiving dinner this year. He is a Food Network junkie. He loves Alton, Paula, etc and so on. He cooked two turkeys this year. The first was Alton Brown's recipe which went to the community center for the dinner for less fortunate individuals. The turkey he cooked for our meal was from Tyler Florence. It was a Maple Bacon Turkey and it was so delicious!

(mmmmmm...)

He rubbed sage butter under the skin, covered it with bacon, and basted it every half hour with maple syrup. It was juicy and sweet!

We had all of the rest of the trimmings...garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, stuffing, cranberries, olives, rolls and apple & yam casserole. It was just our family and Janet. A small gathering but that means more left overs!

(they're all thinking..take the picture already, we're hungry!)

We ate about 1:30 and let the food settle a bit while everyone played games. About 4:00 we drove down to Riverside to visit with my side of the family at my Grandparent's house.

(my beautiful cousin Rachel)

My cousin Rachel was busy helping my Aunt Jody cook their dinner while we visited with everyone else. Jeremy and Gage got to hang out with their cousins, which they love to do, and we had a fun time just sitting around visiting with everyone. Holidays are always a bit more special with Grandpa and Grandma because we don't know how many more we have with them. That is another thing I'm grateful for, that we live close enough to visit them often so my kids will remember their Great Grandparents like I remember mine. Grandpa has given up shaving, which I guess he can do at 88, so he's looking very Santa Claus-ish.

(Grandpa & Grandma Goodwin and Julia)

We stayed until late because we always hate to leave. It's such a blessing to have family!

(The 4 generations of girls...Mom, Ally, Grandma, and Me!)

Julia and Guster

We got a puppy last week! We named him Guster, after Burton Guster from Psych (one of the our favorite tv shows). Mostly we call him Gus. He's a Lab mix and is very snuggly and is coming along on the house breaking. Right now the biggest problem is that he nips at the kids a lot. I know all puppies do that and they aren't being mean. He seems to like to chew on Julia the most although he has many chew toys she's his favorite.

This morning when the girls got up early they went down to watch tv before getting ready for school. I came down and found Julia watching tv while sitting in the dog's kennel that he sleeps in. Smart girl.

That way Gus can't nip at her when she wants to watch tv!

BYU!

I finally convinced Jeremy that BYU would be a great place for him to get his undergrad degree. He wants to be a doctor, as you know, and was not thinking BYU was where he wanted to go. "Too many Mormons there"....uh, yeah. Not that he's against our kind but he thought it'd be better to be in the REAL world. See what all that had to offer. "Okey-dokey, your choice" I said.

Then last Wednesday we went to an informational fireside about the Church Educational System. We heard about the LDS Business College, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, and THE BYU in Provo. That helped some. For being a fabulous school BYU is very inexpensive. Plus #1. They hold your spot and scholarship if you go before your mission so you don't have to reapply after. Plus #2. But still Jeremy was not convinced. "They have no pre-med program". So I did research.

BYU has a pre-med counselor, a pre-med club, and is a very good school to go to for someone who wants to be a doctor. I didn't find any schools with a specific pre-med program (that wasn't Ivy League), you just see what the pre-requisites are for med school and get into a major that takes care of those. "Hmmmm, maybe" he says. His favorite cousin Katie lives in Provo and they could go to school together...still "maybe".

The deciding factor? "I know Aunt Wendy took skiing as a PE class, maybe they have snowboarding." I say. "I'm in!". Really? That's all it took? I checked, they only have skiing but I'm not telling him that. He's close to the canyon, I'm sure he'll have friends who snowboard and will take him along.

Woohoo BYU!

St George Marathon 2009

After running over 400 miles in the past 9 months I finally made it to the St George Marathon!

The family and I drove up to St George on Friday. Thankfully the kids are out of school on break so that wasn't a problem. We met Matt and Wendy and their friends Brian and Emily, who were also running the marathon, at the Pizza Factory for our spaghetti dinner before the race. Gotta load up on carbs! It took a long time to get our food so by the time we finished we had to hurry over to the convention center to pick up our race packets before it closed. We made it just in time!

We went back to the hotel, got the kids settled and tried to get some sleep. My sister says it's a marathon tradition not to get any sleep the night before, she was right. I tried not to think about it, but every half hour, sometimes every three minutes, I'd wake up and look at the clock. I finally got about an hour of sleep when the alarm went off. It was 4:30 am, time to get up.

I quickly got dressed in my shorts and t-shirt then put my running pants, jacket and gloves on because it was cold and would be even colder up where the race started. We drove over to the pick up point where the buses took us up to the starting line. As we rode up the canyon and kept going and going and going it felt like we were traveling way too far. It was very comforting to have Wendy with me since she'd done all of this before and assured me I could make it. We finally stopped and got off the bus and I thought, "Wow, now I have to run all the way back. What am I doing?"

We all had to use the restroom and there were long lines for those so we stood and waited. By the time we all accomplished that task we had to hurry to get our warm clothes off just before the race started. It all happed so fast I didn't have time to be nervous.

In the race there are pacers. Runners who carry balloons with what time they will cross the finish line. So if you want to run the marathon in a 3:45 you keep up with that pacer. Just as the race started we rushed up toward the front because Wendy, Matt, and Emily wanted to be with the 3:30 group and Brian is faster than that and wanted to be even farther up. I was going to hang back with the 4:45 group but they told me to come up with them for the first few miles then I could drop back.

I started out with Wendy, Matt and Emily but with in the first quarter of a mile I lost them. For the next 7 miles everyone was passing me. I kept thinking it had to stop eventually and it finally did when we got to Veyo.

Veyo is the big hill about 7 miles into the race. The marathon is mostly downhill, it starts at 5200 feet and ends in St George at about 2700. There are a few hills but Veyo is the big one. It's about a mile up before you start descending again. I didn't mind the hill and was kind of happy that I finally started passing people. After that I seemed to keep pace with the people around me.

It was still dark when we started and the moon was full. It was so beautiful. It was cool because all I could hear was the pounding of thousands of feet and it was one of those surreal moments when I had to keep telling myself I was really running in a marathon. The time went by a lot faster than when I was training alone because I'm a people watcher and it was fun seeing all the different kinds of people running. I was surprised at how many older people were running...and running faster than me. There were even some kids that looked like they were about 14 or 15, also faster than me.

My split time was 2:07 at the half way point. I was so excited because that was so much faster than I thought I could do. I felt good at that point, it was nice. There were little pockets of people in the towns we ran through that cheered us all on and some had music playing. It was fun.

In the last 7 or 8 miles of the race there were some steeper hills we ran down. I didn't train on hills because we don't have many around us. I was doing fine until about mile 21 when the outside of my right knee started to really hurt, then the pain went up to my right hip. I think it was my IT band...if anyone knows what that is. I think I strained it or something. I kept running until my leg started to give out, then I walked for a few minutes and ran again until I couldn't. I did that over and over for the last 5 miles. I was mad. I wanted to run and feel good and sprint at the end but instead I hobbled at the end.
I did see my family and my best friend from high school waving and cheering me on at the end. That helped and I was happy about my time. It was better than I was expecting, hobbling and all.
My official time was 4:29:21, Jeremy took a picture of the clock at the finish line but I was on a little over 2 minute delay from when we crossed the starting line.
I got my Finisher medal and will get my official marathon shirt in the mail in a few weeks that I will run in proudly this winter. Matt got a great time and Wendy qualified for the Boston Marathon which was her goal.

I always thought this would be it, I just wanted to do a marathon to say I did it and be done. Now I want to do another one to say I did it and felt good and sprinted at the end. I have found running is addicting!
The icing on the cake for me was that my very best friend from jr. high and high school was in town with her husband. She lives in Texas and I hadn't seen her for about 15 years. When we figured out we'd be in St George at the same time we arranged to be at the same hotel. After the marathon and a little nap we got together and visited for hours. She got to meet all my kids and I got to meet her husband. I was so happy to get to see her again! It just made the whole weekend even that much more memorable. She runs too and there is a marathon in Austin where she lives.....hmmmmmmm.