Hazel's birthday

My sweet Hazel girl turned 1 on the 7th. We decided to go to Fairy Tale Town in Sacramento for her birthday party. We went the Saturday before her birthday. Fairy Tale Town is awesome. It's a giant playground perfect for toddlers. It has a giant shoe slide for the lady who lived in a shoe, a rabbit hole slide, Christopher Robin's tree house, Robin Hood's forest, a giant foot slide for Jack and the beanstalk, a pirate ship, King Aurthur's castle, farm animals, a barn with a slide, Cinderella's pumpkin carriage and more. Hazel, Marston and my nephew Evan had a blast.  It was a chilly day but still fun. After we went to the park outside Fairy Tale Town and had a picnic. It was a nice day. Simple. By the time we sang Hazel happy birthday she was so tired and a little sick, she didn't care about her cake and presents.

On her actual birthday, the poor girl had the flu, feel down the stairs, choked on an apple, and fell and busted her lip on the coffee table. It was kind of a horrible day for her. I'm glad she won't remember it.

Yesterday she had her 12 month check up. She is 20 lbs and 29 inches. In the 30th percentile for both. She also got 6 (yes 6!) shots. And I still need to take her to get her to get a blood sample from the lab and a flu booster in a month. Poor girl.

Our house has been sick with the flu since Saturday. Runny noses, coughs, and throwning up have been our days. Not fun at all.

I have a half marathon in Santa Barbara this Saturday. Considering the past week of illness and not making all my long runs, I think this race is going to be tough. We'll see how I do. I wanted to make it under 2 hours but now I just want to be able to finish it. Low expectations.

Cinderella's coach at Fairy Tale Town.

Fairy Tale Town.

The fear in my face! Hazel is as cool as a cucumber. Makes me laugh.

Hazel looks so excited.

Once again, really excited.

We made sure Marston and Evan got to open a present too.

I made cake pops for everyone. Hazel likes to crawl under the computer desk and eat.

Evidence that we tried to make Hazel's birthday fun. Balloons are fun, right?!?! PS-we were all wearing stripes. Obsessed with stripes-maybe.

Pumpkin patches and Halloween

We got to go to several pumpkin patches this October. My kids loved it. We went to a small one in Granite Bay, Zittel Farms in Folsom and Bishop's pumpkin farm in Wheatland. It was so fun. Marston loved to climb on the giant pumpkins and jump off. We got to ride the train at Bishop's and pet the goats at Zittel's. For Halloween this year, Marston wanted to be a puppy. I made his costume from a picture of a costume from Potterybarn Kids. It turned out kinda cute. He loved wearing it and that was a first for him. Hazel was a mermaid. She was adorable. Good colors for her. Trunk or treat at our church was Saturday night and Marston had a grand time going from trunk to trunk saying trick or treat. Then the fun continued on Halloween. We went to Dan's parent's house in Grantite Bay and had a yummy dinner and went trick or treating around their house. After every house, Marston would ask "more trick or treating"? It was really cute. I'm a little sad October is over.

25 ways to wear a scarf.

I found this video on a design site I like to visit every once and a while, http://jonesdesigncompany.com/. Thought it was fun. I love wearing scarfs and video gets me excited for cooler weather.

Napa Valley Ragnar

I made the mistake of letting Marston play with our camera and it is now broken. So I have no pictures from my Ragnar race. Okay, I have a few from the other girls but I have none of my own. These I copied from facebook. Hopefully I'll get more later.

Ragnar was awesome. It's a relay race that went from the Golden Gate Bridge to Napa Valley (a little under 200 miles). There are teams of 12 and each teammate does 3 legs. We run for 30 plus hours straight. I was runner number 10 and I had a total of 20.8 miles. My first leg was 7.8 miles through the hills north of San Francisco on Point Reyes/Petaluma Rd. It was beautiful. I got to run past the Cheese Factory where Dan and I went when we were first "friends". After my leg I felt pretty good. Tired from the hills but okay. A couple hours later, I started to feel really sick. I began to throw up and didn't stop for hours. I couldn't keep anything down. I think I throw up 8 times. At one of the exchanges we ran into my home teacher and he gave me a blessing. After that I went back to the hotel and slept. They just drove through my second leg. I was really bummed. I was looking forward to my night run but I think if I had not slept I would not have been able to finish. After some rest I got back in the car and continued on with my team. I felt much better, not 100% but okay enough to finish. I ran my third leg of 6.8 miles and had my team van stop often to cheer me on. It was incredible. I ran on this road that went stright through the most beautiful vineyards I've ever seen.  I finished it, hot, sweaty and tired. I'm still sad I didn't get to do my 2nd leg. I was so sick. I still can't figure out why. I did everything right. My body was ready. I drank lots of water the day before and that morning. I had a good breakfast and energy bars. I carried water on my run and ate a package of Stingers. I don't know what happened. Part of me thinks that I needed to go through something like that so that I would have faith and trust in a Priesthood blessing. I know that's what allowed me to feel well enough to do my third leg. I felt lifted up when I should have been totally energy zapped. The power of prayer. Heavenly Father knows each of us and is ready to support when asked. There were many prayers on my behalf and for that I am thankful.  It was a very rewarding weekend. Good times with girlfriends, pushing our bodies to do something incredible. Well worth the sweat and tears.

i phone pictures

We came home from our trip to Idaho and found this. I had my neighbor come by to pick veggies while we were gone. I guess they miss this one.

We went to Tahoe for the day with Daniel's sweet parents. We love burgers from this dumpy place. And shakes too, of course.

This is the first time we saw Hazel pull herself up on the table. She is hard to keep up with!

My Dear Friend

My heart aches. My dear friend and mission companion passed away last Sunday night. She lost her short life to cancer. She was such an amazing person. She was always smiling and making people laugh. We were companions while I was in a small village called Wollerau. We were together for 5 months there. We has a grand time together. I have many great memories with her. She has touched my life and taught me to smile when I don't want to and to see blessings everywhere. I will miss my friend.

Going up some ski slope in Chur Switzerland.

Camping in Tahoe

We went camping at Lake Tahoe to celebrate Darlene's birthday. It was fun...mostly. It's hard camping with 2 little ones. The best part was boating. Daniel's dad rented a really cool speed boat and we spent the day on the lake. It was beautiful. Just breath taking.

Marston never wears clothes.

Love our tent. It can fit an aerobed air matress, a pack and play, a sleeping bag and still have room for our gear.

Still just in a diaper.

This is in emeral bay at Vickingsholm. Dan is swimming to the island with the tea house.