Introducing...

The newest Citizen to the United States of America! Yes, you heard it right folks. As of yesterday at 2:15pm. I am now a full fledged American! I can hardly believe it myself. I don't know what I'm going to do when I hit the border and don't get harassed like I have been EVERY SINGLE TIME I'VE tried to enter the US from Canada! :::sigh::: You better believe I'll be voting for the first time in my life come November! Gary's very excited, for some reason, he was really stressing out about what nationality our children would actually be and this event has eased his fears. (I won't tell him that Canada will STILL consider them Canadian!)

FOUR DAYS TO GO!

I'm supposed to be training for a half marathon that I will be running with Liz & Todd (a sister and brother in-law) down in St. George this Saturday. I have to admit, I haven't been following my training program too well. Thanksgiving and Christmas threw me for a wild loop (and a bit of weight gain too)...but I think I've got that under control now and I'm still very excited about this race!!!
I thought I'd share with you the run I did yesterday! I worked it up on the computer and then ran it (making a few minor changes to the course while I ran due to SNOW packed side walks or NO side walks and snow packed roads...a possible dangerous situation) but managed to keep my distance the same. When I came home and re-worked the actual route, I was quite proud of myself...it looks like I just ran across the whole country or something!!! It felt GREAT! I'll fill you in next week on the race!



And, I DO have a Christmas post that is in the works, I just haven't finished it and posted it...stay tuned!

Isn't it ironic?

...that my last post was all about how much I love the SUN and HEAT? Well, let me tell you a little story. Last Friday night and all day Saturday it SNOWED. I got up early and went running with my friend Pam IN THE SNOW. It was actually quite fun! Well, the day went on and later that day Gary and I went up to Salt Lake to attend a BYU basketball game where they played play Michigan State and play in the Delta Center (or whatever it's called now). It was fun and the drive wasn't too bad considering all the snow we got. On the way home Gary and I talked about going sledding. He was SO excited, I was sort of like, YEAH, if it wasn't already 8:30pm! With (I hate to admit) some fake enthusiasm that I don't think Gary picked up on.

After we got home Gary decided he was going to "shovel the walks" - That's a real term right? I went inside and did some laundry, the dishes and then made some hot chocolate for Gary.

A good 30 minutes later, I remembered I had a husband who was STILL shoveling the walks!! So, I put on some shoes and prepared to brave the snow as I left our little apartment...only to find, the driveway completely cleared...and NO Gary. WHAT?!? So, I looked up and down the street to see if he was playing with some of the kids that were out and then I realized that his car was gone too!

Of course I did what any of you would have done and went back inside and called Gary. He answers the phone singing Jingle Bells and proceeds to tell me that he decided to go to Wal-Mart to buy a sled! And then tells me to get my stuff ready because he's coming home and we're going sledding TONIGHT!

We get ready and hop in the car...at 10:30PM...all our snow stuff is actually at my parent's house and I didn't want to go all the way to their house and then find a hill, so we did the best that we could with what we had. We ended up being plenty warm and had tons of fun!

We decided to go to Rock Canyon park in Provo. First of all there was NO WHERE to park! We get there and there are kids EVERYWHERE...sledding down whatever piece of hill they can find on both sides! There had to be at LEAST 500 kids there...I think that number might even be a low number too!

Gary and I hop on this little sled of ours and start making our way down the hill. We did this quite a few times until we decided to make the LAST one before we left. We picked a different part of the hill and started down the hill. Well, three fourths of the way down, we hit a jump. A big jump. A jump that neither of us saw or noticed until we were way up in the air! Fun? Yeah, not really. You see, when we landed, I landed on my tail bone and couldn't move. It hurt SO SO bad! So bad that I couldn't stop the tears from coming! We also hit heads pretty hard when we landed and Gary thought that was why I was crying and even though immediately got a really bad head ache, nothing compared to my poor little bottom!

All I can think about at this point is getting home to take some pain killers and what does my sweet hubbie say to me? "Tara, you stay down here cause your bumb hurts and I'm going to go take a few more runs down the hill and then we'll go home." You heard it folks! My husband wanted to sled rather than take care of his wife who was in an enormous amount of pain! :) it was kind of funny actually. That was Gary's first time sledding (or so he says) and he was loving it too much to think about anything else!

ALL day the next day, I couldn't sit...at all. I had to lay on my stomach...and two weeks later (yeah, I started this blog a week ago) I'm still sitting kind of funny. I can't sit for long periods of time and if i sit a certain way, it really hurts. I don't think I broke it but I'm pretty sure that I bruised it pretty bad. Have any of you done this? Any advice? Does the pain go away? Please make me feel better!

It's 1:15 am and Gary and I leave for Kentucky in less than 10 hours and I'm blogging and haven't even packed! I think I'm hoping that it will just get done by itself while I'm on the computer. We're really excited for this trip but I'm really tired so I better go so I can finish packing and get some sleep!!!

Tropical-ness

Put me in the sun, sand, and water...and I could stay forever! It's 175% true!...well, I might need a few bottles of sunscreen and my fabulous NuSkin Lotion/Aloe mixture! I think I would have to say that I'm a fish of some sort. I LOVE water...can't get enough of it. When we go swimming, I'm the one begging Gary to just leave me there and come pick me up after dinner! :)I love the sun...when we go to Arizona to visit Gary's brother and sister, NO complaining here about that 115 degree weather. Honest! Ask Gary, he'll vouch for me! I can't figuure how how I can be so much of a fish but yet dispise them so much at the same time. I do not like Fish...I don't eat them, I don't 'fish' them, I don't touch them, and if I happen to be somewhere like Lake Powell, where there ARE (so I've been told) fish, I don't like to see them so that I can tell myself that if I don't see them, they don't exist. Kind of strange, I know. If I don't see them, then they are NOT there! :) I think this love for water came long ago when I was born to a family with the name of Salmon...

Anyhow, I came across this web site that has some SWEET looking pools. As I drive around in cold snow for the next few months during this winter season, I need to have something really good to think about...it will be these!

I'm pretty sure I'll be printing this one out and putting it on my dash board! And yes, I'll also be pretending that Gary and I are the ones in the picture! :)

Please, TAKE ME HERE!

Does it get any better than this?!? Lake, Pool, AND Hot Tub?

...pretty cool looking, except that it's not OUTSIDE. Remember that thing about water, sun AND sand? well, I can go without the sand...occasionally. But never the water or sun together.