Way to Go!

Kimberly was very excited to get this email tonight.

The Admissions Committee is delighted to inform you that you have been admitted to Brigham Young University to begin Fall 2009. Through your preparation and personal achievements you have distinguished yourself from a very strong group of applicants. We believe you will make a positive contribution to our BYU community. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to our campus to pursue your educational goals.

We thought we'd pass along the good news.

Sedona Marathon - I Did It!

About 4 months ago I got this crazy idea in my head that I should run a marathon before I turned 40! It turned out that there was a Saturday marathon in Sedona (only 2 hours away and beautiful scenery) on February 7, 2009. I told Diane (my faithful running partner) about it and we decided to go for it. We started training in October and got up to 11 miles before I injured my knees in November. I tried to run through the pain, but as it didn't get better, we decided to take the month of December off. In January, Diane went up to be with her daughter who was having a baby for 3 weeks, so we took that month off too. We ran twice after she returned (7 miles and then 11 miles). My knees felt great -- those 2 months of rest really helped -- and so to get the nagging feeling of "I have to do a marathon before I turn 40" out of my mind, we signed up for the marathon and took another week of rest!

ET was so supportive and drove us up to Sedona Friday night. We picked up our packets that night, had dinner, and checked into our hotel. The next morning was beautiful! ET drove us to the race site and saw us off, before going to play a round of golf at a nearby course. The scenery was beautiful, we felt great, and there were plenty of aid stations. The terrain was all hills (or should I say mountains!) and we were pretty tired by mile 21. In fact we were more hiking up the last hills then running. But we did it!


The Start of the Race!

Enjoying the scenery before the race.

ET and me (with ET as the photographer)


Getting ready to start -- notice my bulging pockets full of Jolly Ranchers (Thanks, Maria!)


We did it!

The cute pink jeeps that were at all the aid stations -- it was tempting the last few miles!

The beautiful Sedona landscape.


The cute poster I found waiting for me at home! My children were amazing! They cheered me on the whole way and welcomed me home with this poster and an immaculate house! Thank you!

Winter Formal

Kimberly went to Winter Formal tonight with Brantley. We hope they have a fun time!

Kimberly showed us this picture from the dance -- Haley you look beautiful!

If Matthew were President

President Obama's inauguration will be remembered for years to come! Kristin and Courtney watched it at school where Courtney's class was celebrating the 100th day of school and Matthew watched it in his class as well. His teacher assigned the students to write their own speech as if they had been elected President of the United States. Here is Matthew's speech.

Matthew's "Inaugural Address"

I am so honored to be your president for the next four years. I would like to build homes for the homeless, improve our health care, and lower taxes.

Building homes for the homeless would be great for the nation. Homeless people don’t have any homes or food. They have to look in trash cans for food. I want to stop it. That is why we should build homes for them.

Health care is another problem we can solve together. First we need to encourage people to eat healthy and exercise. When people are healthy they won’t go to the doctors as much which will reduce costs. It would be great if more people would make donations to health care.

We also need to lower taxes so people can keep more of their money. When people keep more of their money, they work harder. When people work hard, they invent new things. That is why we need to lower taxes.

Thank you for trusting me to be your president. I will try my best to solve these problems. If we work together we can make our nation great.

Camelback Mountain

This morning I hiked Camelback with Linda and Maria - a presidency meeting of sorts. We had a great time!

At the trail head.

On Top!

A view of the valley on the way down!

Our family had tried to do this same hike a few weeks ago over Christmas break, but could never find parking -- so we went out to lunch and climbed Hole in the Rock instead. Here are a few pictures from that little outing.

Happy 2009

I'm trying to figure out this new computer by blogging! We had a fun New Year's Eve tomale dinner with the family and then everyone was off!

Courtney was the only one who started the year off right -- she got a good night of sleep!

Matthew enjoyed playing ball with the boys!

The girls had fun at their New Years Parties!

Waffle Fest

After many years of not being in town for the annual "Waffle Fest" we were able to host the party at our house this year! It was a lot of fun and a great way to start off the new year!

There were plenty of waffles for everyone!

Yummy!


The cooks had fun too!

There were even left-overs for the late-comers!