Grandma Time!!!

My (Julie's) mom came out to visit a couple weeks ago and while we enjoyed every minute of her stay (the girls especially) the highlight had to be our apple picking adventure! We took a wonderfully bumpy hayride out to the fields and got to shine the apples on our pants and test them out, right fresh from the tree. Cambree probably "tested" 8 or 9. So fun.

I remember picking apples (not so) long ago when my family was in MI and just how fun it was. When I heard that there are orchards around here to pick your own I put it on our to-do list immediately. Not that I remember much from my childhood picking days, but I picture apple picking to be very romantic. Why? Because I can't think of apple picking without picturing the scene from Anne right at the end when she and Catherine (with a "c") are picking apples (you know, right before the diamond sunbursts and marble halls on the bridge scene?) and Anne says she wants to make sure Marilla has 2 full bushels....we didn't get that much but we did a bunch.

Sorry, I digress. This post was supposed to be about my mom's visit. I just realized that I don't have any pictures of her at all from when she was here...probably because she took all the pictures. Sorry. She really was here though. Besides apple picking, we had a picnic at the park and found my local fabric store and played lots in the backyard and played adult games at night (oops, what I really mean is nonkid games...meaning that we didn't play Zingo or Memory after the kiddies were in bed). Oh, and she rented a car so we had wheels to go places during the day! It was wonderful! We are already, literally, counting down till Turkey Day when we shall see Grandma Jan again, only this time she gets to bring Grandpa along too. YEAH!!!

Fearless this one...she wanted to make her Uncle Twinkae proud rock climbing at 2!

We also took my mom to what has become one of my favorite places here in St. Louis. The Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. If you've been to the one in Arlington, it's pretty similar. It is enormous! I think it is the 2nd largest national cemetery in the country. Acres upon acres of perfectly positioned, evenly spaced headstones dating way back. If you come visit, we'll take you too.

Eleven is the second half of my new favorite number

Why you ask? Because I ran my eleventh marathon last Monday. The first half of my favorite number is 7 because they sale Slurpees there. Nothing can beat a Slurpee and some nachos for a post race refuel!

I had been training very well for this marathon. Better than I had trained since St. George in '03. I was running faster too, although unfortunately I was not very consistent. For whatever reason I could never get myself to run more than 5 days a week often missing out on 8 miles of training in a week. I say unfortunately because this came back to haunt me in the last 8 miles of the marathon.

The Story:
Julie and I packed up the girls after church on Sunday and drove 2 short hours to Columbia, MO, home of the Heart of America Marathon. This race has 2 claims to fame. It is the 4th oldest marathon in the country and this was the 5oth running. This is also the hilliest/hardest non-mountainous marathon around. It is not a course that you are going to set any personal records on. They really push the second selling point. I think that this is why despite being around for so long the field is usually only 100-150 folks that are mostly locals. This year being the 50th anniversary the field ballooned to over 200.

We checked into our hotel, drove the course (it looks scarier in person than the elevation map found here) and went to Fazoli's for dinner. Nothing better than greasy pasta the night before a big race. Once we got back from dinner we took the girls swimming. As Julie and I were getting ready by the pool Cambree decided she couldn't wait any longer. She stepped down on the first kiddie step into the pool. We figured she would stop and sit down right there. I guess two years is not long enough to make a good guess as to what your own child will do in certain situations. She kept walking... and by the time she stepped off the second step she was floating face down. Julie may or may not have been closer to the pool but she was the first one to jump in and save her. Usually I wouldn't think Jules could out run me but... this might be one situation where she could and may have done just that. Anyway, Cambree was just fine. Her parents, however, were quite shaken up.

After the swim we all got ready for bed. I put my Ipod in and Julie chased Cambree around the hotel room for a couple hours or so until she gave up and fell asleep. We were extremely pleased to find a hotel just a few hundred yards from the starting line so Julie and the girls didn't have to get up at 4:30am with me. I got up and headed to the start by myself.

The temp was perfectly in the 60's and there was a nice crowd of runners at the starting line. After chattin' with a few ol' timers I headed to the start line with the other 200+ runners. The gun went off and so did the heard of runners. The first mile was downhill and I tried to hold back but it was hard not to let the legs go. Mile 2 was the first big hill. It was so foggy I could only see a few runners ahead and a few behind me. I got into my groove and relaxed for the next 5 miles. By mile 7 the sun was starting to try and push through the fog but I was still wishing I had brought my goggles.

Around mile 7 I met up with a guy that reminds me of my track coach in high school. Turns out he actually was a high school CC coach and this was his 69th marathon. I only have 58 more to go. I made it up the hill at mile 8 and then started the long descent down to the Missouri river. I left my new friend Jim and started running with another new friend Dan. Dan and I ran and talked strategery for the next hill, Easley (not to be confused with Easy). His plan was to walk the hill so he didn't "blow up" by the time he was at the top. Having driven the course I thought walking up Easley Hill was probably the way to go. This thing was a "Triple Black Diamond" minus the snow or an "HC" minus the bikes if I have ever seen one. It came right before the halfway mark so I was still feeling good when I got to it. I ran the first little bit and then decided to walk for a while to try and prevent myself from falling apart at the top. Dan didn't take his own advice and he ran away from me. That's ok though because Jim caught up with me right before the top. Just a note, these pictures do NOT by any means give credit to this hill.

Easley Hill part I

Easley Hill Part II

Easley Hill Part III

Easley Hill Part IV

I hit the halfway point at 1:46, which is right where I wanted to be, and I was still feeling pretty good. I ran with Jim for a while then he let me go. The course was nice rolling hills at this point and after a few miles I had caught up with Dan. I felt great until mile 18. That's when I started to loose my mind. Thoughts of, "you'll never make it" and "why do you do this?" kept running through my brain. I knew I was in for a long finish. Somehow I managed to make it up the long hill at mile 20 and started to feel much better mentally. Unfortunately now my legs were starting to go.

I slowed to what felt like a snail's pace and watched Dan run away from me. By mile 22 I was done, again. I walked a good portion of mile 23 which was a up the same hill that we ran down in mile 1. Halfway up the hill Jim caught up with me again. I tried to go with him but my legs wouldn't let me. I managed to find my own pace again and was thrilled to make the last turn onto Broadway street in downtown Columbia. I was still with it enough to hear the announcer call my name and inform the whole crowd that this was my 11th marathon and first Heart of America.

I finished in 3:42:42. A little off my goal but a respectable time. It was the first marathon I have run since 2003 in which I went faster than 3:52. I ended up 5th in my age group and 59th overall. Jim assured me that this was a rather fast field. I took his word for it since it was his 69th marathon and the dude beat me even though he is well into his 50's. I was beaten by only 10 women. If you don't believe me you can check the results here. I am not sure if I will run this one again, but it sure was a well run event.

Where's Daddy?
I only wish I could have come in this early. If you can't read the clock it is at 3:16

Julie says I have to run more. She is still in search of a perfect marathon finish photo.
I thought this one is good enough, but I guess I 'll have to run another.

Lost in Translation

Just finished watching the BYU game and, although it was a pretty entertaining game, the following comment was by far our favorite moment.

Commentator So and So:

"He (Max Hall) just said 'oh my gosh' or... whatever they say in Provo."

So my friends, those who are Provoites and those who have been, what do they say in Provo?

Taters Anyone?

For Cambree's 2nd birthday, we had a Potato Head party. As much has she loves playing with Daddy's Spud Tator, Darth Tator, andR2 Potatoo, we decided she needed to be exposed to the classic Mr. Potato Head. So...

Making the cake with
my very own spatula-cleaning expert...

Playing hot potato to The Wiggles singing "Hot Potato"...very fitting to our theme (Mom got out first of course) This was a hit!


Below: Playing Pin the feature on Mrs. Potato Head...

The Birthday Girl opted not to use the blindfold.

Listening to Grandma and Grandpa sing "Happy Birthday"

Can't have a Potato Head party without a Potato Head cake, right? It was a delicious chocolate cake with (mostly) caramel frosting. Yum! Oh, and mashed potaters for dinner, but no picture of those. It was a wonderfully inexpensive theme. I highly recommend it to anyone.

She's saying "gum" as she picks out all of Mr. Potato Head's teeth.

Cambree's new slide!!! We were so proud that she shared so well with her sister. :) PS...You know how much a large slide like this costs to buy new? Gotta love Craig's list. :)

Bad Day...

...after being clawed by her sister and losing "Pretty, Pretty Princess" to her mother. Poor kid.

Transmissioned

When I heard an ad on the radio the other day quoting that the average cost to replace a transmission for your car is $2,500, I laughed out loud. A couple weeks ago our big red car died, in our "new" garage. It was towed back and forth between several fix-it places until we were told it was indeed, the transmission. We were also told the price to replace ours would be right around $3,700. Now you can see why I laughed. After learning that the cost of a new transmission was significantly more than the value of our car, we started car shopping (well I guess you could call it, window, or better, screen shopping as we just looked a bunch on line) Luckily...the fix-it guy then told us that he could refurbish an old transmission for much much less. Thank you sir, we will pray that it lasts us one more year. After 2 weeks of borrowing a car and then renting one, we now have our own car back. It feels good. Sure, we haven't paid the bill yet but it feels gooder than it could have.

On a much brighter note, there have been plenty of other things to keep our little family busy. Such as this:

Happy 4th of July! We felt right at home watching them on the lawn of a Baptist church. Haylee thought the fireworks were a bit too loud, "but not the green ones."

And this:

We're still not quite sure what caused this horrible rash on almost every inch of Cambree's body and it went away after a couple days...but yes, it was quite a scare.

And the (free) zoo!

Another venture:

This is the arch, but just one, very small portion blown up. We visited but haven't gone up to the top...yet.

And this:

Our new couch!!!

Oh yes, and one of the most colorful "events" was this:

Hard to see how bad this was from the picture but let me just tell you, it was bad. My sister Mindy and her family stopped here on their drive out to Utah and we all drove up to Nauvoo to camp and see the pageant and all that. Just before we left our campsite for the pageant, Haylee was running with her cousins, tripped, and fell in such a way that her head/nose hit the bottom part of an open car door frame. Within seconds, her head seriously looked like a purple baseball had been inserted under her skin, it was that big! Just ask any one of the Saaris. Or any one of the pageant actors/missionaries who visited us before the show. One, in fact, insisted we visit the pageant medic tent. After looking in her ears/nose/eyes for BLOOD and asking me all sorts of scary questions and really bad signs to look out for, oh and for making me panic more than I already was, they let us go. Jason, my brother in law gave her a priesthood blessing right away and I am so glad he was there to do that! I was able to be a little calmer (just a bit) than I might have been. Haylee did not say a single word or acknowledge anyone's presence or anything at all (not even her beloved Jaina) for over an hour after she fell. You can imagine I was a bit worried. But then she was fine. Just like that. Wow. What a night.

Here are some more pics of the rest of our Nauvoo trip:

Mindy had the insight to request stories (from Mom) of our pioneer ancestors who lived in Nauvoo which we read while we were there. It amazed me how much learning about those real people who lived during those early days of the church made the city so real to me. It is a beautiful place with a staggeringly powerful history.

It was a such a wonderful weekend. Tired kids, tired parents, and a lot more driving than we planned on but so nice to be with family and to camp and to experience Nauvoo again. Thank you Mindy for convincing us to go and making it work. Looking back it makes me realize how much we will miss having that Saari family so close. Why do we always fail to appreciate things until after we don't have them???

Bump

Tonight, around 9:30pm

"Mom, Mom, Cambree's stuck in her sheets!"

Now picture, if you will, a perfectly made crib mattress, wrinkle free even...aside from a whining bump in the middle.

She did not like it that we giggled a little, ok a lot, before she was rescued.

How she got all the way under without pulling the sheets off (or disturbing them in any way) is beyond me but at this point, I should stop being surprised at anything that she does.