RunnerWatches.com

Since my last post was in January you can tell I've been busy with other things.  The main consumer of my time has been setting up my new website runnerwatches.com
It's been a learning experience but I'm excited to sell GPS watches, sports watches, and pedometers.  In my experience I have found that keeping track of my time and distance has helped me be a better runner which also leads to a healthy body.
Check out my website runnerwatches.com and let me know what you think!

Books Read in 2010

It was suggested by a friend and fellow book lover that I post the titles of the books/series I read last year:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

Artemis Fowl Series by Eoin Colfer

The Book of Mormon translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.

Inkspell Series by Cornelia Funk

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Akhenaten Adventure Series by P. B. Kerr

Guardians of Ga’Hoole Series by Kathryn Lasky

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher

Fablehaven Series by Brandon Mull

Icefire Series by Chris D'lacey

The Crusader Trilogy by Michael Cadnum

The Darkest Age Series by A.J. Lake

Bullies in the headlights by Matthew Buckley

Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull

Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull

Tangled Roots by G. G. Vandagriff

Of Deadly Descent by G. G. Vandagriff

Ingo Series by Helen Dunmore

Stoneheart Series by Charlie Fletcher

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The Serpent Tide Series by K.L. Fogg

The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan

The Associate by John Grisham

The Youngest Templar Series by Michael Spradlin

Beneath the Surface Series by Jeni Grossman

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

The Mima Journals Vol 1 - the Water is Wide by Marianne Monson

Shirts and Pants and Shoes, Oh My!

133 pairs of shoes.  2 33-gallon yard garbage bags and 12 storage bins of kids clothes (I still haven't tackled me and Trevor's closet).  We cleaned out all the clothes and shoes that the kids and us have outgrown.  I'm still not quite sorting and storing but a vast majority of it has been sold or given away.  I have to give a huge thank you to Maggie for motivating me to do this monumental clean-out not to mention she stood next to me for hours sorting the clothes.  Because of her I can admit that "My name is Angela and I'm a clothes hoarder".  Once I admitted it it was a lot easier to part with so many clothes and shoes.

Bedtime Zoo

Gabriella and her neighbor friend, Kyle, love to pile all of their animals on their beds and sleep with them.  you can't see some of the animals cuz she has them under her and her blanket.  It looks mighty uncomfortable to me but she got a big kick out of it.  My favorite is her Flynn Rider doll (aka "Zapunzel's boyfriend") sitting in the prime spot on top of her "Unicorny" pillow pet.

Marvelous, Magnificent Michelle

Michelle was student of the week (aka captain of her class) this week.  It was a fun trip down memory lane when searching for pictures (it was actual photos not digital clear back then in 2002).  From this green sheet she filled out I learned some interesting things about her I didn't know, like that she wants to go sky diving and her hero is Amelia Earhart.  Love you Belle!

I love to read!

Just over a year ago I added the shelfari.com bookshelf to my blog.  Even though I don't often update my blog posts I have been very faithful in keeping up on listing the books I've read.  Last year I read 72 books!  A lot of those are books I read because Caleb really liked them and wanted me and Trevor to read them too (ie Guardians of Ga'hoole) but some are classics that I've always said I was going to read and finally did (ie Gone with the Wind, Tale of Two Cities and The Maltese Falcon).  Keeping track of the books has been a good thing.  Just the other day Caleb asked me what the name of the book was about a young knight and I was able to scroll through my list and tell him "The Youngest Templar".  This year I plan on reading just as many books but this time have a few more of the classics in there.

2000 miles

My first post ever on this blog was November 7, 2008.  On that morning on an 8 mile run, I had passed my 1000th running mile.  This morning on my 7 mile run, I passed my 2000th running mile!  Once again I raised my arms and said "I did it! I'm so great!"  The second thousand were a bit more traumatic than the first thousand probably due to me having my first ever surgery.  My knee has made a pretty good recovery.  I'm excited to test it out this next summer-there's some PRs I'm looking to get in the 10k and half marathon distances.

Merry Christmas!

 Caleb and his Legos

 Michelle and her Easy Bake oven

 Gabriella and her new clothes and Unicorn pillow pet

 Megan and her Ladybug pillow pet, princess castle and fuzzy blue hat that Michelle gave her

 Trevor in his new vest and boxing gloves that go to his boxing bag

Angela and her new reading chair

Christmas Vacation Fun

Since a vast majority of people don't want to go to the dentist the few days leading up to Christmas, Trevor took this week off of work.  We spent the first few days doing some major projects around the house.  So today we played all day.  We went out to lunch then to the Nickelcade then roller skating.  I haven't been on roller skates in probably 25 years but it came back pretty fast.  I spent the majority of the time pushing Gabriella around on her scooter.  Toward the end my feet came out from under me and I found myself real fast on my hind end.  Let me tell you falls are much harder on a 38 year old body then on a 12 year old's body.  I bruised my tailbone pretty good and also the heels of my hands (which put a damper on my making our family's supply of bread).  Other than that I think the kids enjoyed their day. 

Gabriella's 4th Birthday

Our little Christmas Mouse is 4 years old! She brings such life into our family.  She's quite the picture poser and a fashion star who goes through an average of 4 outfits a day.  Once she hears a phrase she likes she'll repeat it over and over no matter who she's speaking to.  For example,  she thought it was funny to call people silly pigs ( I also need to mention that she hid under a table or behind me whenever anyone sang happy birthday to her) so today when my parents called to sing Happy Birthday she called them silly pigs and hung up on them.  A couple of other phrases she's enjoyed lately are "you're a hoot" and "oh, put a sock in your mouth". She definately keeps us on our toes but we love our Gabriella!

Perserverance

Along with the majority of Americans, this year has been financially difficult and stressful.  We've cut back on everything we could think of, we've traded in our Highlander for a tiny gas-conservative Yaris, and we've refinanced our mortgage.  The re-fi was a 3 1/2 month nightmare (we finally closed last Friday) that I won't bore you with except for the fact that during their scrutinizing of our financial records our accountant re-evaluated our '07 tax returns and got a pretty good sized refund 2 years in coming.  I just wanted to let everyone know that if you do all the Lord asks you to do and are very patient good things will come.

Happy St Nicholas Day

I'm half Dutch. My mom was born in Holland, then immigrated with her parents and two brothers when she was 18 months old.  When I was young we lived in Salt Lake.  Back then there was a huge Dutch population (they'd all fled war torn Europe) in SLC so we'd have huge celebrations for St Nicholas Day.  Trevor and I have always tried really hard to keep the celebration alive, besides it's one more good reason for candy.

This year St Nicholas brought each of us slipper socks which was a big hit with the kids.  The kids got Reese's candy while Trevor and I got See's Candy (St Nick sure knows the good stuff!) . Caleb asked me to ask St Nick if he could bring some See's to Caleb next year :)

The Ups and Downs of Running

Last night I was talking with my mom about buying my dad some running equipment for Christmas.  She was complaining about how expensive a sport it is.  I told her that once the initial items are bought then it's a pretty cheap sport but has lots of great benefits.  So this morning while I was out running I was thinking about our conversation.  I was thinking about how much our taking up running has improved our lives and health.  I was close to the end of the run and was having a great time thinking about how great I've felt over the last 3 1/2 years.  The song "Kryptonite" was playing on my ipod and I truly felt like Superman...until I tripped.
   The tip of my toe caught on a raised piece of pavement and next thing I know I'm flying just like Superman.  I landed in the push-up position before I slid on my belly like a seal for several feet.  Do you know how much force that puts on your arms, shoulders and back to fly down into that position?!  Fortunately I was wearing gloves otherwise my hands would be hamburger.  As it is the scrapes I do have didn't even break the skin and I didn't tear any holes in my clothes either.  A couple Tylenol have taken the achiness away so I'm good.

Football

This year Caleb wanted to play tackle football.  Having watched 3 of my brothers play football from grade school through high school and even a jr. college, I was worried about Caleb.  Visions of 2-a-day practices, having to play in searing heat and freezing cold, and injuries flooded my mind.  I admit that the first week of practice almost killed Caleb.  They were doing a lot of conditioning and running.  Caleb was gasping for air.  Turns out he has exercise-induced asthma and allergies to grass.  We loaded him up with meds and an inhaler and he was like a whole new kid.  Caleb played the position of Right Guard on the offensive line.  It's probably the safest position to play on the football team.  He was rarely tackled so the chances of injury were next to nothing, which, as a Mom, I was glad of.
The season was amazing.  Trevor was an assistant coach and the team went to the playoffs.  I was proud of Caleb for never giving up.  Tonight was the end-of-year party for his team.  Caleb and a few others were given an award for never missing one of their 9 games or 43 practices.  I must admit I love seeing my son wear a jersey with Smith on the back.  I hope he'll always wear it with pride.

Thanksgiving

Pre-dinner activity: reading Calvin and Hobbes with Dad and Grandpa Rains

This year for Thanksgiving Dinner we had my parents and my Oma come for dinner.  No one wanted to spend the time to bake a huge turkey so we improvised.  Each of us got to choose 3 food items that we wanted to eat.  Some of us chose traditional items like turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie but others chose macaroni and cheese, strawberries, chicken nuggets, cinnamon rolls.  But my mom, being the creative person she is, had each of us eating out of very untraditional dishes.  Trevor for example had a muffin tin for a plate (perfect for a guy that doesn't like his food to touch each other), a measuring spoon for a spoon, and a measuring glass for a cup.  My 85 year old Oma wasn't too sure she chose the right grand-daughter to have Thanksgiving with but she played along well enough.  Needless to say in the 61 Thanksgiving dinners she eaten since immigrating from Holland this is the most unusual.