Halloween

Our Halloween was filled with candy, candy and more candy.  The boys dressed up as Hulk and Captain America for school and then they were Sulley and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.  when they went trick or treating.  Between some small toys and candy, we had close to 200 pieces.  We ran out in just over an hour.  Hope your Halloween was just as fun and sugar filled as ours!

Deep Thoughts

I was editing some pictures for a blog post and caught this shot of Rowan.  He was staring out the window, obviously thinking about something.  I wonder what you think about when you are 4?  Whatever it was, he sure was adorable just sitting there.

Denver Rock N' Roll Marathon

My brother Jason and I ran the Denver Rock N' Roll Marathon on September 22nd.  We had a really fun weekend together and the experience was amazing.  We flew from Salt Lake to Denver on Friday, the day before the race.  I found really cheap airfare and it made a lot more sense to take an hour and 15 minute fight than to drive for 9-10 hours.

On the plane, ready to go!

 We got into Denver just before lunch time and headed over to our hotel.  We got checked in and relaxed for a bit.  My brother booked a really nice room for only $60 per night.  It had like a living area with a sectional couch, a huge TV, nice comfy beds.

Next, we ventured into Denver to get registered for the marathon.  We mapped out parking the day before, and figured we were going to have to walk about a mile to the starting line.  Once at the Expo center, we got all checked in.  Here I am with my bib!

We wandered the expo hall for quite a while, and bought matching running belts to carry Gu, Clif shot blocks and Jelly Belly sport beans.  The first marathon I ever ran, I made the mistake of relying on the aid station Gu.  When I got to the aid stations, they were all out.  It was really hard to run a marathon when I didn't have pick me ups.  I made sure that wouldn't happen that time.


Realizing we were pretty hungry, we stopped at a posh little wine and food place and had some appetizers.  This salad was delicious!

Then we walked around downtown Denver for a while.  We did a little bit of shopping and got Gelato.

We set everything out the night before the marathon so we wouldn't be in a hurry the next morning.  There's nothing worse than forgetting something or running late and feeling the pressure right before the race.

 On race day, we were so ready and excited!  We drove into Denver and walked the mile to the starting line.  We checked our bags and headed for the starting line.  It was at that point that I realized that I had left my ipod in my jacket.  Jason left to head for the starting line and I ran back to the bag check.  Luckily I got my ipod in time and headed to my corral.  It was such a big race, and they started the half marathon and full marathon together.  We were in corrals of a thousand depending on approximate finish.  Jason was in corral 3 and I was in 12.  They started each corral a minute apart so there wouldn't be so much chaos.  I *think* there were around 16,000 runners.  I don't think my corral started until 15 minutes after the race started.  Jason and I had signed up that it would send text messages to our family when we started, and crossed certain miles.  I knew my biggest challenge would be not to gas myself out.  In other words, if I started feeling out of breath, I needed to slow down.  I got into a comfortable pace of about a 10:20 mile and stayed there a lot of the time.  I spent a lot of time passing people, which made me realize I should have been in a faster corral.  I made sure to walk through every aid station to drink, and would eat a Gu or Shot block when I started to feel fatigued.  My muscles started to ache at about mile 18, but I could breathe well and I couldn't believe how good I felt overall.  The first marathon I ran took me 5 hours and 12 minutes.  I had a goal to finish in 4:45 this time.  At the very end, I saw Jason.  He was yelling at me to "Empty the tank!"

 I sprinted the last minute and finished with a time of 4:35.  I still can't believe I ran it that fast.  Jason ran it in 3:43 which is pretty darn amazing!  It was exciting and a much better experience than the first time.  Looking back on it, it's crazy that I voluntarily ran 26.2 miles.

Jason & I after 26.2 miles

After the race, Jason and I had to walk another mile back to the car.  My legs were aching so bad, and I kept having to squat down to stretch when we would come to intersections.  We hung out at the hotel for 3-4 hours and took showers and rested.  Since we were in Denver, we decided to go explore a bit and went to Cherry Creek in Denver.  It was a really nice shopping area with restaurants and was just really pretty.

We ate dinner at a delicious Mexican place, walked around more and then got hot cocoa from Starbucks.  We figured that we traveled over 30 miles on foot that day.


Sunday we got up and got breakfast and then headed for the airport.  It was a lot of fun to be able to experience it with my brother and go on our own little mini vacation.  I'm done with marathons for the season, due to an awful ankle sprain 2 weeks ago, but that will definitely not be my last marathon.  I'm hooked!

Graduation

The first part of August, I graduated from Ultrasound school.  I never thought the day would come, and  now it's done!  Marshall and I joke that I really should have a Master's Degree instead of a Bachelor's and a Certificate, but I'm really happy with what I've got.

 I've learned the last few years just how strong I am and as hard as it was to leave my kids, it's nice to know that if something were to happen to Marshall or if he lost his job again, I would be able to replace his income and we could live comfortably.  My boys have been so amazing and patient over the last few years.  They are such good boys!  Although I've been working as an ultrasonographer for close to 5 months, it's nice to say that I'm done with school.

My battle now is passing my registries.  There is one pre-requisite registry that you have to take before you can take any of the general ones.  It was a physics one that I took while still in school.  It took me 2 tries to pass it.  After physics, there are 5 different registries you can take:  Abdomen, OB/GYN, Neonatal Heads, Vascular and Breast.  You only have to take one to be a registered ultrasound technologist, but I'd love to be registered in a few different areas.  I signed up to take my Abdomen boards this last Thursday  and failed it by only 3 questions.  It was tough for me to swallow.  There were so many weird pathology pictures on the test, and the pictures weren't the greatest.  It was hard to decipher what some of them were so I did some guessing.  I have to wait 2 months until I can sign up to take the registry again and it's $250 to take it.  After I took the test, I called Marshall bawling.  I told him that I felt stupid that I couldn't pass a test.  He told me not many wouldn't or couldn't even attempt to do it and that he was proud of everything I've accomplished.  He also told me he had complete faith that I would be able to pass it.  Marshall seriously is my rock.  What a wonderful man.  My mom was down from Idaho that same day and we went shopping and to lunch.  While I was blubbering and crying to her, she told me that my dad had to take his architecture registry 3 different times.  My dad is a very very smart man and I was a bit surprised to hear it.  If anything, it makes me sit back and realize that I'll study hard again and try to pass it in a few months.  I said quite a few prayers that I would pass the registry and felt great going into it.  I actually felt a lot of peace the day after it was all over.  I knew it was Heavenly Father's way of helping me realize that the timing wasn't right and I needed to learn more before I could pass it.
Although the situation felt discouraging, I'll bask in the fact that I made it through school and have a great paying job that I love.

Last Day of Class with classmates Traci & Ruth

First Day of School

School started here the 3rd week in August.  Chandler missed the first few days of school due to us being gone to Island Park.  When the time came, he was really excited.  We went and met his teacher before school started and she seemed really nice.  We are almost 2 months into the school year now and just had our first parent teacher conference.  I wasn't able to go because I had to work that day but Marshall went and took Chandler.  His teacher said he was doing great.  He's a really hard worker, listens and is doing well in his school work.  He is really ahead on his reading and his teacher said he really needs to be reading chapter books because other books aren't challenging enough.  Chan reminds me a lot of myself at this age.  I really loved to read and would read anything I was able to get my hands on.  He's also doing great in other subjects and is really interested in things around him.  He's been on a kick with natural disasters and wants to know more about them.  He brought books home from the library on floods and hurricanes.  We spent an entire evening watching videos on youtube about flash floods too.  He's at that perfect age for learning and is constantly asking questions.  He's making lots of friends and even has a couple of girls in his class that are good buddies.  The one kissed him one day during class and we had to have a talk about that. ;) 
Chan started the year out refusing to eat hot lunch.  We finally persuaded him to try and it and he says he's so glad he did.  I think he likes not eating the same thing everyday.

Rowan started back to school the week after Chandler.  He is going to two different preschools this year.  One is a preschool that my neighbor teaches.  She has a cute preschool in her basement.  The other is his preschool through the school district for his delays.  He is gone everyday to school and I think it's been good for him to get back into the swing of things.
He's making progress as far as speech goes.  His IEP goals are to answer who what where when and why questions.  He was able to do so with a 60% accuracy last week which is a huge stepping stone for him.  We still have a long way to go to get him where he needs to be, but I have a lot of faith that we are headed in the right direction.
Rowan is really into playing with friends, being outside and transformers right now.  He would stay outside all day long if he could and he spends a good portion of the day out there.  He's incredibly independent and a lot of times it's his way or the highway.  Although we butt heads sometimes, I think it will be to his advantage later in life if he's always trying his hardest for things to work out in his favor.

It was weird for me to not have a first day of school this year, although I am studying to take a registry in a few days here.  I'm reaaaalllly hoping that I pass it.  It's been nice to have some time to myself each day to clean, exercise, study, blog and get other things done around the house.  In another sense, it's weird to realize that my boys are growing up and see how fast time really does go.

Island Park

Only a day and a half after we got home from California, we headed up to Idaho to stay at a cabin in Island Park with Marshall's family.  I had to work Sunday and the plan was to head up on Monday morning.  Rowan had been sick the day we were coming back from California and Chandler and I were lucky enough to get it from him.  Needless to say, our plans were delayed and we didn't get up there until later Monday night.  Luckily, we all felt much better and were able to really enjoy ourselves.  The cabin that we stayed in was absolutely beautiful.  We spent our time visiting, eating, playing games and just being with each other.  One of the highlights was playing sardines late at night.  It was a big enough cabin that there were endless hiding spots.  It was funny trying to wander around in the dark to find where people were hiding.  The boys loved playing with their cousins and we had a few fun filled days.

Balboa Beach

How can you not go to California and not visit the beach?  This beach was about 30 minutes from Anaheim.  The boys loved playing in the waves.  I spent my time worrying and being paranoid because they were so big.  Typical mom, right?

Universal Studios

I have this post and one more and I will have finally blogged about our whole California vacation.  (6 weeks later... ;) )
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Universal Studios but we all really liked it.  I liked that there were entertainment options as well as rides.  We had media tickets to the park, and they upgraded our tickets to give us "Front of the Line" passes.  It was definitely nice to have those.  They allowed us to go to the front of each line once.  I'm not sure that we would have even gone on the new Transformers ride if we didn't have the passes, the line was over 2 hours long.

When we first got there, we went to the Water World show.  It was pretty entertaining and had some cool special effects.

I still love this picture with Chandler & Frankenstein.  We went through the haunted house and it was actually pretty scary.  I think it's because we had to walk through.  Chandler had a death grip on mine and my dad's hands.  I'll admit that it was kind of scary.  I don't love things jumping out and grabbing me.

They had a huge Curious George area which the boys loved.  There was a big water play area and then an indoor area.  We didn't bring the boy's swimming suits in and Rowan was soaked.  We took his shirt off and that's how he took his picture with Curious George.

The Curious George indoor area had hundreds of balls.  You could shoot them with guns, put them into suction tubes and more.  Marshall and I had fun playing in here with the boys for a while.

 

The Studio Tour was another fun ride.  It was about an hour long.  We saw a special King Kong 3D movie, saw where they film Desperate Housewives, saw the set for The Grinch, the biggest greenscreen, Jaws, the plane they used in War of the Worlds and more.  Here's Rowan sporting his 3D glasses right before the studio tour started.

My mom and I spotted this candy store and went in for some overpriced theme park candy.

Getting a picture by the Lorax.

Shrek 4D was another fun attraction that we went on.  It was a 4D film with moving seats.  We all loved this one.