Watch Out For The Spray...Yikes

Remember I am in denial about August ending and school starting. I'll explain my hesitancy right here...just kidding too lazy to add a link to my older posts.

Anyway, what in the world is summer without a good ol' fashion trip to the... zoo? Summer is just not summer unless you make a trip to stare at the huge animals in tiny cages (the cages are slowly transforming into something less cagey and becoming more habitaty)

 

 

The polar bear exhibit was so neat. The polar bear has some crazy OCD so he does the same thing over and over all day long. He comes right up to the window touching his nose to the glass then swims away. He does that for something like 5 minutes then jumps out and does laps around his cage then swims up to the glass again. Making for great photo ops unless you can't react fast enough to take a picture of you daughter nose to nose with the polar bear.

 

 

The baby elephant was adorable! She (girl or boy, didn't get close enough to know which) was splashing and playing in the water. Then all at once a cannon from 'This Is The Place Park' made a crazy loud blast and that poor baby jumped out of the water and ran as fast as she (she? he?) could to the other elephant and cuddled up to it.

While we were watching this playful little guy (gal?) romping around, all the nieces and nephews came running up saying "Oh cute, let's go see the elephant"  I replied, "You crazies we're looking at the elephants." "No we want to see the fake one that sprays water!" Crazy kids want to see the fake elephant not the real one doing tricks for the trainer and the baby playing in the water. Just so you understand where their heads were that day...they also wanted to see the monkeys...Gross! And trust me there will be absolutely no pictures of monkeys here, you all know my feelings on monkeys, none on my posts thank you very much.

 

The animals at the zoo were cute and the ones we drove to the zoo were just as cute. I think the thing they liked the most were the huge fans and water misters. Nora Bug just liked being there watching all the action...

 

 

and her favorite animals of all

 

 

 

There were a lot of awesome thing to see at the zoo. We all had a great day. I know I was definitely ready for a nap at the end of the day, that's for sure.

 

 

Kiss Me Dirty 2012

     What in the world was I thinking? Me, running a 5k, yikes I hate running. I mean I really, really hate running. Unless I am scoring a goal or knocking someone down there is really no reason for me to run. I have a horse so I don't have to run.

     My sister-in-law, Karyn asked if I wanted to run the 'Kiss Me Dirty 5k' with her and I thought, "Why not, I'll give it a go"

 

 

Now Karyn and I had different training techniques. She decided that running every couple of days before the race would probably be the best way to train. I thought sitting on the couch eating cookie dough, reading, and thinking about how terrified I was to run 3 miles would be a more appropriate training program for me. I mean really 3 miles in a row, who does that for fun?

 

 

Well a day before the race I panicked a little. I really needed to know if I could run 3 whole miles without collapsing because I had never ever run 3 whole miles in my life. So I ran on my parents treadmill. The good thing was I survived (barely). The bad thing was I was bored out of my mind. 35 minutes of running, not the funnest thing in the world. I even had some of my favorite tunes, still bored. In hindsight I think I shouldn't have run a day before the big race because I had a touch of the sore muscles on race day.

But I'm pretty sure sore muscles help with the game day jitters.

The perfect storm: Nerves (I peed like 10 times, 2 times in a port-a-potty, super gross, I must have been nervous!),  Sore muscles, 3 miles, Obstacles

     

and oh yeah, a little mud

 

 

I can't believe I am going to say this...wait for it...My name is Kelli, I ran a 5k and I loved every minute of it (minus crawling through a net, it made me claustrophobic (which I have because of my sister and brother. When I was little, they would chase me around the house and then lock me in the hall closet singing 'umpa umpa umpa dee do' from Willy Wonka) I almost needed to rip the net apart and get out, but I didn't)

We had many wondrous adventures that day, some of them a little more dirty then others (huh, you were waiting for that kind of joke sooner or later because, well  I did run the 'Kiss Me Dirty' 5k. I will tell you right now, that is the one and only). We ran through tires, ran 3 miles, crawled through tubes, jumped over walls, ran 3 miles, we even ran one mile straight up a dirt hill

 

 

Well almost a mile straight up, maybe like 1/2 of a mile straight up?

 

 

Climbed up a crazy high rope ladder, ran 3 miles, jumped over more walls, ran 3 miles, and swam through mud pits

 

 

 

We may have gotten a little bit muddy

 

 

We may have kissed a random guy holding a sign that said "I'll kiss you dirty" (that doesn't count as one of those jokes because he was holding the sign not me) While our husbands took a picture

 

    

We may have pretended to be running, so we felt better about our time

 

 

 We may have played like 3 year olds in a massive amount of crazy, fun bubbles

 

We may have been able to run through the finish line and not have to be carried through it

 

 

We may have sprayed each other off in horrible, freezing, cold water

 

 

 we definitely had fun!

 

 

And we may have felt a little proud of ourselves for accomplishing something that we never thought we could do

 

 

What did the Lil' Boss think?  You ask

 

 



Say It Ain't So

   Because I am in complete denial that August is almost over and I will be heading back to work in a couple of weeks, bringing an end to Nora girl and my crazy summer adventures, I am going to continue to post all of our July excursions, in hopes that September won't come.

   One such said adventure was a trip to the Benson Grist Mill. I was just recently informed that Benson Grist is not a first and last name but a grist mill is a type of mill. The Bensons owned the grist mill, not Benson Grist owned a mill. Go figure. What the crap is a grist mill? (can I say crap on this blog?) What exactly is getting grist at the mill? And what in the world is grist? Well I certainly have no idea. But one thing I do know is that Nora loves her cousins and while she didn't quite get the grist mill concept either, she did thoroughly enjoy being with her cousins.

(Here is the whole crew in front of an outhouse. Don't worry, it is just for decoration, although the cute cousins found out that someone before them didn't know it was just for decoration...gross)

   There were a whole bunch of activities for the kiddos to do. Nora mostly chilled in the stroller until after 5 minutes in it she wanted to get out and run through all the kids who were playing the games, messing up their form and stealing the equipment

 

Good thing she is cute or people would not have been happy about her cheating

 

We had a great day. I have a lot of super cute pictures of all the cousins but I didn't ask the sister-in-laws if I could post pictures of there beautiful kids. So here is a picture of Elanora's hair-do that day.

 

You better believe that I am going to keep posting our July adventures, I think that it will make August last longer

My hubby just gets more and more romantic! I didn't think he could ever top surprising me with a birthday horse.


(First time with Blue, I had just gotten over the flu the day before this picture)

But boy did he hit it out of the ballpark this time, clearly he wasn't hitting off  Felix Hernandex.
This little gem of a story took place August 11. My very good friend Tanica was getting married. Chris and I were excited because we thought it would be so fun to get to go to the temple so close to the Anniversary of the day that we separately (he couldn't see me before hand, duh) drove to the temple with our parents, while both listening to "Going to the Chapel" on the oldies station in the car. And maybe one of us was late and the other one thought I wasn't going to show up. 10 years of us being late to things because of me would have calmed his nerves that morning. How exciting that we got to replay that amazing moment and at the same time getting to see someone I love starting her fairy tale for time and all eternity.
As we were sitting there watching Morgan slip the ring on Tanica's finger Chris slipped this little beauty on my finger. It is so perfect!


(It is on the wrong finger because it was a little too big)

Now you may ask, "Why weren't you wearing your original wedding ring?" It's simple, I'm incapable of having and maintaining really nice things. In the 10 years we've been married, I've knocked a diamond out of my ring twice. The first time I knocked it loose, we weren't even married yet. I was riding a horse that bucked and I went flying up onto his neck, luckily I didn't fall onto the really fluffy concrete below, where I'm sure a nice comfy pillow would have cradled my head. No I didn't fall but my hand smacked against the saddle horn knocking my diamond loose. I was able to get it reset and everything was okay. Unfortunately not too long ago, I was at a church meeting, I looked down and one of my diamonds was gone.

I looked all over but couldn't find it. I had fed horses that morning and think it must have fallen out in the pasture.
So I told Chris that maybe I needed a band, then I wouldn't lose another diamond. So Chris got me this ring. It is so perfect, he knows me so well. I don't like things very flashy or bulky. I like simple things and this is just that simple with a little extra sparkly bling. I absolutely love it!  Good job hubby! Awww, so sweet! I think I will kiss Chris right now!

A Celebration

To celebrate 10 years of pure marital bliss, we decided that going to Oregon would be awesome.

(This was Oregon, a long time ago)

 The fact that we are still in Utah might clue you in that we started planning too late and just couldn't fit the trip into our schedules, darn it.
But never fear because Kelli had something magical up her sleeve :) We have a gift certificate to Ruby River and thought that would be a super yummy treat for our August 9 Anniversary. Little did Chris know that I had altered our plans for something a little more fun.
I decided it would be romantic to have a beach side picnic and then go swimming because Chris had said a couple days prior he wanted to go swimming. Lil' Boss loves water so I thought it was a win win.

I wanted it to be a surprise right until the last possible minute so I had to do some fancy finagling to get all the picnic stuff in his car (the one that doesn't need new tires) without him knowing. So, I had him meet me at the horse pasture right after he got off work so we had both cars in one place and I could do a little switch-a-roo. This is were I had to get sneaky. I left a little early from our house so I could get all the picnic stuff out of my car and hide it in a barrel outside the pasture all before he got there. Then I had to pretend like I had just pulled up to the pasture so Nora would be strapped in her car seat and I could say "Hey, why don't you take Nora in my car because she is already in and ready to go to the other pasture up the street,  there are only 2 horses to feed in that small pasture and you can watch Nora while putting out hay and I will feed the 6 horses in this huge 4 acre pasture (where it would be harder to watch her). He said " Man, that is a great idea, feeding will go faster." So we switched cars and I snuck the picnic and our swimming suits into his car. Then he came back to the big pasture and got Nora out to see her big blue horse (The way she says Blue is so cute, she rolls her little tongue on the L). After I finished feeding, I took Nora right by his car and said, "My mom is at our family friends in Uintah, (which is close to the horse pasture and close to the canyon to Pineview and we really do have friends that live there) we need to drop her off there so my mom can watch her. It'll work out great because we can drive together and go straight to Ruby River and pick up the car after dinner." Chris replied, "Oh yeah, that's a good idea, let's head to Uintah." Then instead of Uintah, we headed up the canyon and enjoyed a fun and romantic picnic on the beach as we watch the sunset. Boy that was a super long story, good thing love is patient.

When we got home I had 10 balloons, for 10 years of marriage, floating around (it really was a joke trying to get 10 balloons in my car with a baby, so in reality it only ended up being 8 balloons, we lost 2 in on the way home from the store) all had a memory tied to it (Thank you pinterest).

Things like: How we felt when we held Elanora for the first time, The time we got chased out of a ghost town called Hiawatha, Our first kiss... ahhh so romantic. I made chocolate dipped strawberries and we had sparkling pear juice and watched our wedding video, so sweet!

  

If you think I was romantic, wait until you hear what my boyfriend did. Man, Chris hit it out of the ballpark this time friends!

10 Years and Counting

Eternity might seem like a long time but if the first 10 years are any indication of the coming eternity, then sign me up.

(Our scanning skills are lacking, Chris's face is really smudgy)

I am a fairly happy, content person. I have always known whatever station in life I was given that I would thrive and be happy. Chris and I have both agreed that we would probably be happy without each other, maybe finding someone else or not, having 10 kids or not, being rich or not. But when our worlds collided we were forever altered. I think we were supposed to meet, the way gravity pulled us together was funny. The journey started long before our two selves were one (maybe one day I will tell those stories). Our planets slipped together and we made the conscious choice to stay in each others Universe. We haven't regreted it one day.
We both feel that we are truely blessed. We married young. I was only 20 and Chris 22.

 We had only dated a year before we were married. Without knowing each other very long, we were lucky we meshed so well together. I love him more today then I did back then. Even though he acted as if he liked gardening, which he doesn't. And he loves me still, even though he now fully understands just how crazy I am when it comes to horses. So cheesy but oh so true, we love each other! This journey through eternity has been interesting and sometimes hard but we still get along so well and not only do we get along so well but we have SO much fun together! T o this day if I have a girls night out with some awesome ladies, I always think "Man, I wish Chris was here". Because I always want him here. Forever and ever.

Maybe I will do this, it's scary to share the words that are straight from your heart. A little scary and a lot embarrassing. But oh well, here goes. I once wrote a poem. It reminds me of Chris and the way it felt to fall in love with him. Gulp, here goes. Don't laugh okay. Start judging me.....now

 Everything in place when we

  found us.

  In the place between falling                                                        

  and hitting the floor

 The complete fall of our hearts,

 it came so fast

 that there was no

 space

 between knowing and not knowing.

  Because the two edges of our

worlds slipped together

 and anything between them was now

   nothing.

Go Big or Go Home

I can tell you one thing, my family knows how to celebrate. In my family, the 4 of July is not just a night of fireworks...no way! It is a whole day of celebrating. We have been blessed to have men and women, past and present, who are willing to sacrifice for our freedom, making it possible for us to celebrate. And boy do we celebrate!
We start out with a little breakfast and a big parade at Layton park

Then we move on to wandering through booths in the park, including eating the best ribs you have ever tasted and this really cute tutu and hair bow that Aunt Nanci bought Nora at the booths. Look at that girl modeling her new outfit :) 

Then on to fireworks and pizza

We dabble in a little 4 of July magic. Just look at those Harry Potter, magic wand skills

How blessed we are to live in this free nation