Ragnar Relay 2010

Wow! What a crazy experience this race was! If some of you don't know what the Ragnar Relay is, it's a race made up of 12 people on a team. 6 in each van. You run a total of 188 miles from Logan to Park City without stopping! (Yes, we run in the middle of the night) The ones who are not running try and rest in the van. While your van is not racing you get more of a break, but I still didn't get much sleep. Each run is called a leg. I was leg 11. We each ran 3 times. My first run was 3.8 miles steep uphill the whole way. Second run was 5.5 miles constant incline, (still kept up a 10 min. mile) 3rd run was 7 miles, steep downhill (ran this one in less than an hour) Everyones' mileage was different. I ran almost 17 miles! You get a 6-12 hr. break in between runs. depends on how fast your team is. I was the fastest in my van!! I felt cool :) Our team finished in 36 hrs and 57 min. I made my goal, which was to keep running, no stopping. I did it! I never walked, even when I was running up steep hills, or for water breaks, I kept running. I pushed myself to the limit! It felt awesome, but also crappy after each run. Feeling sick the whole time, exhasted and sore, but it was worth the accomplishment! :)

Ragnar Relay Team 508

I ran with people from my sisters work, so most of them are nurses. Our team was called Strip Tease! The lines you see on a heart monitor are called strips. Didn't know that, so that's the meaning behind our team name :) You will see in the slide show how they decorated our van. It has the heart monitor lines, then tease after that.

Tyson

My precious Tyson

Wow! He has grown up so much. Tyson is 2 &1/2 and potty training! he will have really good days, but then has those bad days, where he will constantly have accidents. So he wears pull ups when I don't want to deal with underwear for the day, but I'll still have him go potty often. he will also go poops in the potty, if I catch him in time! yay! :) I have to be on the constant look out for any signs of him needing to go. It is kinda stressful and time consuming, but I'm hopeing all the hard work will pay off soon.

I'm a big boy!!!

He thinks he's so cool in his big boy underwear!

Our dog ripped up a ball outside, and the parts have become Tysons' favorite toy. He puts them on his head like hats. He makes me laugh :)

Court

I am so upset right now! As some of you know we took our previous landlord to court for not returning our deposit of $500. Our court date was yesterday morning. We didn't recieve our deposit back. I have never known anyone who is as dishonest as Tony Loosle, ever in my life! He said we had $1400 in damages and over $900 in late fees. He also forged Brents' signature on a lease agreement! the Judge could see that, and compared signatures, but still went off of what Tony and his lawyer said.

At the beginning we even had to raise our hand and promise to tell the truth. This was real court! I just can't believe how people can lie and cheat and be okay with it. Seriously? We were never notified of these damages or fees, ever, while we lived there, or even after, until we started trying to get our money back. Which none of what he said was true at all! I cleaned that place from top to bottom and even fixed damages that were done previously. I replaced blinds and had the carpets professionally cleaned, which we paid for! We never once missed a month of rent.

I feel like all my work was pointless, and all the time and energy I've put into getting our deposit back was worth nothing! We do not have to pay the money he says we owe, unless he tries to take us back to court. Then we will be able to get a lawyer for free, since we would be the ones being prosecuted. We didn't have a lawyer of our own this time, cuz we would have had to pay for one. I didn't think we needed one. Why would we take someone to court if we didn't think he owed us money? That would be stupid if we knew we had fees, or had damages to the apartment and still tried to take him to court. We would't do that! That's our money and he's stealing it from us! Grrrrr

Can anyone even tell what's the truth any more? Really would you believe this guy and his lawyer, that look like criminals , over a nice couple, like us, without a lawyer? Come on really? I just don't know what to do any more, except vent and warn people to never, ever rent from Evergreen Cove apartments in Logan! This has happened to mulitiple people who rent from Evergreen. Hardly anyone gets their deposit back from these crooks, plus they charge you for things you never did!

If they don't get punished in this life, they will the next! Now we know that dishonest people will continue to get away with things, while good people get stomped all over! It is very sad and depressing. Can't this world be full of more good people than bad? I'd like to think there are more good people in the world than bad, but after this I don't know anymore. I've already spent hours crying my eyes out and now I am going to go running forever! Maybe punch some things. I'm so mad! Sad! Frustrated! Angry! Emotional! I feel betrayed! It's not fair that these crooks get away with it! How? I don't understand!

All I can say, is that this has been a learning experience for me. I don't know exactly what I learned. I guess I learned that bad people will get away with things, and I just have to suck it up and turn the other cheek! I really am trying to do that. It will just take time, but is so hard when I dislike someone so much! I don't regret anything I did, and I'm still glad we tried to get our money back. Atleast we tried right? If you try and fail, atleast you tried! That's my comfort right now. I can't be mad at myself for trying, but at the same time I feel stupid that I did. Thanks for listening to my spill. :(

Brayden

My funny, sweet little Brayden!

The other day he told me he wanted to sit on the clouds. Brayden: "I can't reach them! I'm gonna grow big and then I can reach them" he says the same thing with the stars. He is very observant and really takes things in. "Look mom the clouds are vooving" (moving) My favorite was when he was using the bathroom one day and his little mind was going, he said: " We have 2 toilets, Grandma has 1 toilet..... and the church has 100 toilets!" So cute. :)
His favorite thing right now is video games! I have to limit him on it, cuz he'll play those games all day! Mostly he plays it when Tyson is napping. It's a good quiet time for all of us. every once in a while I'll find him like the picture. Zonked out.

Brayden told me that french toast will make his bum feel better. ha ha! He knows when he eats it helps him go poop. smart boy! He had a couple accidents at night, last week and now he wont drink anything before bed. Even if I ask him if he needs a drink he will say, "No, I can't pee in my bed"

Special Moment: a couple months ago my Mother-in-law had a dream that she was asking someone how she can help the children in this day to grow up and be strong in the gospel. (she also teaches primary) The thought came to her: sing a primary song with your kids every night before bed. She thought about that throughout the morning and was impressed to call all of her children and share this with them. When the phone rang Brayden, being silly said, "Heavenly Father?" like he was asking if it was Heavenly Father on the phone. I said "No, silly it's Grandma" cuz I saw it on the Caller ID before anwsering. My mother in law told me the message. I told her thanks for sharing that with us, and that we would try and be more consistent with that. After I got off the phone a flood or realization came to me. I felt the spirit so strong that I started to cry. Brayden was right! Heavenly Father gave my Mother-in-law this message through a dream. What can we do while our children are young, to help them be strong in the gospel when they are older? Sing a primary song to them every night. The primary songs are so special. they have so many wonderful messages in them, and if we sing to our children they will remember those songs forever and will think about them often, even when they are older. I'm so grateful for Brayden and the sweet spirit he brings into our home. Even a 4 year old knows how to listen to the spirit without even knowing it :) He just said what he thought and that, my friends, is the power of the spirit. Please make an effort to sing to your children daily. I believe it will help them in the future. I believe that now more than I did before this message was given to us.

Triathalon!

I conquered my first Triathalon Saturday May, 22nd! It was alot harder than I thought it would be and the weather did not help! It was rainy and cold the whole time, and even hailed for the first 5 min. of my run.
Getting ready to Swim! The swimming was actually the easiest! (Probably because it was the first thing)

Waiting in line for my turn to swim. I was closer to the back of the line and didn't start until the clock said 22:00 They then subtracted that time from my final time to get my total time. make sense?

Waiting till the guy tells me to go, right on the minute 22. It was nice that I could start in the water, instead of jumping in.

Sorry, blurry pic. I'm in the second lane doing the front stroke or Freestyle is what the swimmers call it :)

Taking an easy frog swim, to catch my breath. I alternated between front stoke, back stroke and frog swim.

Why, hello Mother. My Mom was there taking pictures, Brent came later after he got off work at 8am.

You can see here how crappy the weather was. I am coming in on my bike. I'm the one in the green helmet. The other crappy thing was that while we were inside swimming it poured, so my shoes that were waiting for me by my bike got soaked! By the time I came back from the bike ride my feet were froze! That was an interesting feeling, not being able to feel my feet for the first 10 min. of my run.

Sorry about the pic, that's my Mom taking pics for ya :) the sun actually came out toward the end. wahoo! If I ever do a triathalon again I will remember to train better. I had the swimming and the running down, but the biking for me was suprizingly the hardest. I only trained up to 7 miles and it was 12.5 miles. Plus I was on a Mountain bike. Next time I will for sure rent a road bike!!! I totally thought the biking would be the easiest so that's why I didn't train very well on biking. I was so wrong, it was the hardest! Even thought I ran very slowly, cuz I was tired and sore it was nothing like the biking. 300 yd. swim, 12.5 bike and 3 mile run. Boom baby! I was one of the last ones to finish, but hey, I finished! my time: 1hr, 55 min, 21 sec. Can you believe some finished in half that time?!