Come Run The Marathon With Me!

Due to my lack of training for the St. George Marathon this Saturday, I have decided that I need to find some way of taking my mind off the fact that I have to travel 26.2 miles on foot. I found something to carry my phone in and so you will have the chance to follow me on Saturday and see just what it looks like from inside the big race. I hope you'll join me, it starts early. Anytime you feel like commenting or encouraging, I get comments sent to the phone so its almost like you're talking to me. Just no telling me to go faster or stop walking. Anyways I hope to hear from you Saturday, check back throughout the morning for my blog from the road.

Bring A Rain Coat If You Watch A Scary Movie With My Wife

You can't really tell from this picture but I was just witness to probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
We were in the middle of watching a show called Fringe when a very scary and intense scene happened. Melissa was holding a giant cup of water and actually jumped so bad that she spilled it all over her face. You read that right, she threw a cup of water in her own face because she was so scared.

If anyone needs a good laugh just invite her to the next scary movie you want to watch.

P.S. Look closely at her pants, she spilled it clear down there. (I hope)

Family Rodeo Fun?

We took the kids to the rodeo tonight. I have always liked the clown shows, apparently smart people don't find them quite as amusing.

In fact both kids weren't as thrilled with the whole rodeo experience as we had hoped. Kendal seemed to be annoyed slightly with the sight of animals getting thrown around and roped for fun.

Our saving grace came in the form of free snow cones given to the kids by the people in front of us.

They said they bought them because they were afraid our kids would have whined if they came back with snow cones and our kids didn't have one. I think they did it because they were sick of hearing ours whining for something from the minute we got there. That or it might have been the fact that the guy was our kids dentist and needed some job security.

I'm Crazy

We just started a cooking club at work, I have to be crazy to want to do this. The club is for about ten of the youth in the treatment program where I work. My job is to teach them how to cook. It should be pretty fun to have a bunch of teenagers in a program running around with knives right?

From time to time I will either post recipes or pictures, or both of some of the things we try making. If anyone decides to try the recipes, let me know how they turn out. The first one up is creamy carrot soup. Here is the recipe courtesy of the book Food Matters. If you really like the taste of carrots, this ones for you.

Creamy Carrot Soup

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion chopped
1 1/2 lbs carrots chopped
1 large potato peeled and chopped
salt and pepper
6 cups vegetable stock (or chicken broth which I used)
1/4 cup parsley

Heat oil and cook carrots and potato until soft
add stock and cook for 15 min. Use a blender to puree the soup mixture. When creamy and no chunks are visible, return to heat to warm. Add parsley just before serving. Serves 4-5

There you go, our first recipe, remember if you try it, let me know what you think. The kids aren't fans of carrots but I liked it.

Training Has Begun

As you may have noticed, the name at the top of my blog here has been changed with the addition of a couple letters. So to let you all know, I have been caffeine and soda pop free now for almost a month. I still crave the Diet Coke, but I have a purpose for doing such a crazy stunt.

I am now in the final month of my "no-training marathon training plan", and have started to look for any advantage I can find other than actually running to help me prepare for the 26.2 miles of fun coming up on October 3rd. If its any consolation, I have endured months of grueling mental training that I hope will be of some benefit during the race.

I have come to the realization that I will be going slower than last year which will actually be difficult to pull off in itself, but that's what you get when you don't train until September and then rely on the training plan that only includes the stoppage of soda and caffeine, one of which was the main reason I finished the thing last year.

In all actuality I have just now started to run with the help of a used treadmill my sister donated in an effort to keep me from scaring others on the road, so I will keep you informed on how the training is going. Who knows maybe I will take the Blackberry on the road during the race and post from there, that might be fun. I would just have to edit it well before sending.

Lesson From A Baptism

This post is a little late but I figured I hadn't posted in awhile and this would be a good way to start one. My son was baptized last week and I just had to write a few of my observations from the event. As we headed to the baptism room, Brandon was as close to running in the church as he possibly could be. It could best be described as a cross between power walking and Olympic speed walking. (he knew not to full out run) Watching him go down the hall reminded me of what it means to have something important in our lives.

This was his big day, he had waited all year for this and he was so excited. He knew what he was doing was right and true and couldn't wait to accomplish it. He wanted it so badly and it was so important and special to him that he would have ran through anything to get down that hall and to the baptismal font.

It made me wonder why the older we get, the less often we feel like running towards the goals we want to accomplish. We tend to wander and meander our way through life and put off what we can and should do today, always meaning to do it tomorrow. One area I notice this happen more than it should is in my spiritual life. I remember the days where I, like my son, sprinted towards spiritual goals I had. There are many days now where I don't muster the speed of an old person with a walker.

My new goal is to become more like my 8 year old son, a sprinter in the spiritual sense of the word. I want to do better at things I often neglect. Prayer, scripture study, and even church and the callings associated with it often bring out the old man walker in me. I don't mean for these things to, but I have become weaker in them than I should, and when you are weak in something, you don't race off to do those things often. I want to be better so that when I see my son running full steam ahead, I wont have any regrets of my own in the back of my mind.

Good thoughts for the Chef...

Hi all! This is the Chef's wife. The Chef is a little stressed. He's finishing up his last class for his Bachelor's and it is a doozy! He's been so busy all week and right now he's finishing up a three hour test online. And, he's decaffinated, so he can't get himself a big dose of caffeine to give him a little pep. So, I thought it'd be an awesome idea for everyone that reads to give him a few words of encouragment to help him get through the next couple days. I'll start:

My dear Chef, I sure love you! Thanks so much for all you do for the kids and I. You work so hard at work, and then you come home and work so hard doing homework so that you can provide a better life for us. I'm so thankful for all you do and for the wonderful husband and dad you are. You are amazing! I love you! {Just please, please, please don't ask me to help you with your homework anymore, my brain can't take it!}