13.1 mile Results

I DID IT!!! I am so happy. I ran the Provo River Trail half marathon in about 2:25:00. So I accomplished my goal of less than 2 1/2 hours! Yeah, it's not a fast time. But it took everything I had inside of me and I am thrilled. I didn't walk at all, I just kept pushing myself. I was so grateful I didn't end up with serious foot pain, side aches, or shin splints like I feared. I was exhausted and was ready to collapse at the end, but that's what I signed up for.
Some highlights were: finishing, of course. What a relief. The last 2 miles were killer.
Also: I loved dumping water and/ or gatorade on my head at the last couple water stations when it was less shaded. I have always seen people do that on TV and thought it would be fun. And it is.
And: It was great to see Brandon at random parks throughout the race. I really appreciated his support and excitement for me to do well.
Last of all: There was suppose to be pancakes at the end, which I thought sounded gross after running and I said when I'm done with a run, I just want a smoothie. And they had them! There was Hogi Yogi smoothies, watermelon, & popsicles. I loved it.
I was surprised with the variety of people that were there. Anyone can run a half marathon, just try it!

Birthday Dessert

It's Brandon's birthday today and I've been trying to come up with lots of surprises for him. For dessert tonight I made éclairs for the first time. They are pretty simple. And delicious!

#1448

I have 2 days to train for the half marathon. It's all I can think about. I wasn't planning on running it due to a foot nueroma, but now I'm just going to give a try and see what happens. (they wouldn't refund my money, what else was I going to do?) I'll probably collapse. But I am going to get my full $30.00 memorable experience. And all the pain that goes with it.
As I was at the gym yesterday, doing some last minute preparing, I was thinking that maybe I'll write my name and Brandon's cell number somewhere on my bib or something, so if I collapse it will be easy to contact him. Then I realized that's exactly what those bib numbers are for. They are just trying to make it less obvious. They have you wear this large piece of paper on your front and back so if you go down, someone quickly scans the records and they can instantly start calling out for friends and family to go with you as they take you off in an ambulance. It's going to be an exciting day.

Car Chases

Tonight we are going to see Bourne Ultimatum. In preparation we watched the first 2 Bourne movies over the weekend. I liked the movies, but I wasn't really into the big car chases. (although, I'd watch more car chases than fight scenes) My opinion of a car chase is: dull. How many millions of car chases have I seen in movies in my life? What makes one more interesting than another? Yeah, maybe some exciting moves or crazy flips, but overall, cars get smashed, they drive like maniacs and sometimes they shoot at each other also. 15 seconds or less, that's what makes a good car chase. And fight scenes, 5 seconds, no blood.
"It's just my opinion, but it's true." -Jim Halpert

Hogi Yogi Run

Last night we played Settlers with some friends after dinner. Brandon creamed us, which he was very happy about. He commented on how he has been winning everything lately, since he won a few croquet games recently as well. Of course, no one wanted to hear how he was winning everything and we started suggesting other games that we could play so he would no longer be winning in everything.
The result of this conversation was a race between Brandon and Staci from our apartment to Hogi Yogi on 9th East. It's a little over a mile and since Staci is a frequent distance runner and Brandon never goes running we thought she would win. However, we didn't calculate in the fact that Brandon had a lot of competitive energy. And his legs are twice the size of hers. He had yet another win. I couldn't believe that at 10:00 at night we were watching these two race down center street. They both felt miserable afterwards, but it was impressive that they did it. Way to be competitive and entertain the rest of us.

Vacation Summary

Last week we went to California for a Miller family reunion, so I got to meet a lot more of my extended family. I decided they are just like my extended family, or anyone's probably. You have your cute kids, the sweet old people, the crazy relatives, the funny ones, the quiet ones. And we're the "normal" ones, of course. Or cool, you can classify us either way.

On our way down we stopped in Reno for a night with all the immediate relatives going to the reunion. Since it was my birthday they made a cake for me out of a stack of donuts. The funniest part was when the fire alarm went off from the candles at the hotel. It wasn't even that many candles. Probably my favorite part of Circus Circus was playing DDR (dance dance revolution) I even got Brandon to play and he creamed me, even though I am more experienced and more in love with the game than he is. Beginners luck. We'll see who wins next time.

After good times in Reno we spent a day at Lake Tahoe, which was beautiful! I got to swim my heart out in cool, clear water. What I love about swimming in a lake is that you don't have to stop and turn around like you do when you're swimming laps in a pool, you just keep going and going. I really want to swim across a lake sometime. I just need to figure out a way to do it without getting run over by a boat.

Then we were on to the reunion, which was full of camping, food, more swimming, card games, lots of family socializing, and the olympics. I never got a gold medal, but I did get a couple second places. Definitely not in the donut eating contest (bleh) but I did pretty good in the airplane throw and the water balloon toss.

Card fanatics

I'm a fan of card games. I played the speed games as a kid and I learned hearts later on in college, and love it. At the Miller family reunion I learned a new game, Blackout. We got their Thursday night and got to enjoy a friendly "pre-tournament" game. The next day was the real tournament, followed the day after that by the finalists tournament for those who qualified. yeah. This was serious business. It was a really fun game, although one family member, that I just barely met, got mad at me because I didn't understand one of the rules and kind of messed up a hand. (I was going to win it either way, I don't know what the problem was) I was creaming everyone in the first round, but lost it in the second round and didn't make it to the finalist tournament. I'll have to practice for the next reunion.

Shaved Head?

Brandon said he was thinking of shaving his head. I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I like his hair. I said I would photoshop him to look like he had a shaved head. I did the best I could. (it helps if you squint while looking at it) What do you think? Hair? No hair?

Plates

I just received a package in the mail from Cedar Fort: a whole pile of plates that I illustrated! So maybe you will see them in the stores somewhere. (I'm hoping they will be in stores somewhere, otherwise I will never get any royalties off of them)

Talent Show

We had a ward camp out this weekend. We didn't plan on participating in the evening talent show, but they were actively recruiting and I figured we could come up with something simple. Then I remembered how Brandon is a really good song whistler. I thought it would be fun for us to get another couple and just whistle a patriotic song. Brandon refused. He insisted that he would laugh and you can't whistle and laugh at the same time. (that is very true) Fortunately I remembered the croquet set in our car, with 6 colorful balls. So we performed couples juggling! We didn't do anything fancy like throw the balls to each other while juggling, but maybe that can be added to the act for next year. Or whistling while juggling.

(special thanks to Beth for providing this blog with a picture)

Moods

Typically I'm not a big fan of organizing, I don't know what to do with stuff and I especially have difficulty finding a place for papers. Today I suddenly just started organizing a filing box that we've had for almost a year that had piles of junk in it but now contains all those little green folders with labels like: Wells Fargo, Taxes, Contracts, etc. It happened before I even realized what I was doing.
I wonder what causes these "moods"? I don't mean things that are common daily, like being in the mood for eating ice cream or going water skiing, I mean the unique moods. They seem so unpredictable. Sometimes I'll be in the mood to just clean and I'll scrub everything in the apt. just because I feel like it. I didn't think it was even possible to get into a filing mood. That has never happened to me before.

Miller Smell

When we came home earlier I thought our apartment smelled pretty bad. Brandon said, "We just have a smell now. You know, like people's houses that always have a certain odor and everyone in the family kind of smells similar. We have our own smell now." He had a big smile like this was an accomplishment we had been working towards for a long time. I'm pretty sure we just need to empty the trash. I hope that's not "our smell".
The only people's houses that I've noticed with a certain smell are either incredibly filthy people who don't bathe, wash dishes, nor do laundry, (not us) OR people who have everything spotless clean, brand new stuff all the time, and constantly use air fresheners or candles (also not us).

Weekend adventures

We went with the Miller family to a cabin in the Park Cityish area. It was really nice and we had over 15 people staying the night. We had a great time. When we were driving up the long windy mountain road we had to stop suddenly because there was a moose right in the middle of the road! It just stared us down. It was huge. I was scared for a minute until it turned and casually trotted up the really steep mountain side and into the woods.
I really wanted to go running in the morning, I run so much better when I am away from home with new surroundings, and being in the mountains made it even better. Not everyone else thought I should go though and continued to persuade me that I would be eaten by a bear. Even though I thought this was illogical and less dangerous than driving down University Ave, I was definitely influenced by what they had to say. When I took off down the road for a beautiful run, every time a bird or chipmunk would rustle the bushes by the road I would jump and my heart would start racing. It was ridiculous, but really hard to not be freaked out. Needless to say, it wasn't a very long run.

Red for Yellow

So we bought a car. It's a 2002 Mazda Protege that we got from some guy in Salt Lake. I had never bought a car before, just my little scooter. I love my scooter. It was exciting and scary to purchase something that costs so much. I have a hard time spending money. We got a good deal though, and it's great to have.
It's kind of a bright car, don't you think? It sure makes our Honda Accord look bland. We're considering names, cars that stand out that much deserve some sort of nickname. Brandon said Old Yeller. My dad has a car the same color, (funny, huh?) and they call it Mellow Yellow (Mel for short). All I could come up with is fruit: Pineapple, Banana. What do you suggest?
And if anyone is in the market for a scooter, it's for sale on craigslist. (tear)

Salesday

Yesterday Brandon and I decided to venture out from looking at cars online and actually go to car dealerships to look at cars. We had to put up with a lot of salesman talk, a lot of things that they would say that didn't make sense, contradicted themselves, or just sounded stupid, to try and make a certain car sound good.
Some favorites were: the long shpeal about how awful Ford's are while looking at Hondas and refusing to sell one to his worst enemy, to 20 minutes later asking if we wanted to look at a Ford Taurus he has because Ford has really improved in the past few years.
Another: It's a little over $10,000, it's just $15,000.
After our fill of car salemen we went over to 24 hour fitness to check things out, and we got some "this is a great deal" "this is the absolute LAST day we have this offer" talk. However, we like the place, so we signed up. New gym membership for us!

Name Game

Every now & then Brandon and I will throw out names for our future children to see what each other thinks. So last night we started reading the New Testament, which has a nice genealogy list to start off with. After reading verses Matthew 1:4 & 5

4. And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;
5. And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;

I asked Brandon what he thought of the name Salmon. He thought for a millisecond, "Salmon Miller, hmmm, no, I don't think so....... but what about Booz?"
Good thing we're not naming children anytime soon.

Running Dilemma

Almost a month ago I had a horrible 7 mile run in my half marathon training (Aug. 11th) and I haven't been the same since. My foot is really messed up. I'm guessing it's another neuroma, like what I had surgery on 2 years ago, because it hurts in the exact same spot. lame. If I run over 5 miles it is just torture. It would be so sad to give up on the race, but what can I do? Walk the rest of the race? I guess the 60 year olds always seem to pass me anyways. Maybe I could sneak in some roller blades?

The sad truth...

The sad truth is when you wash your ipod in the washing machine, it will break.

Parade Shmade

We have quite the 4th of July location this year. The parade goes right in front of our apartment and then turns to go down 100 S. I've always thought it was funny to see people make their parade territory 5 days before the parade, but now it's even funnier because it's right in front of us. Parades just don't seem like the most entertaining thing to me. I kind of wonder how many people stake out their spots because they actually think it's fun to see a bunch of high school bands and some guys walking around on horses? I think more people reserve their spots because of the element of competition, getting the best spot. That, and, everyone else is doing it.
That's my personal reason. It's the biggest holiday of the year in this neighborhood. They party from 6 tonight with games & BBQ, outdoor movies, and then crepes in the morning, then everyone watches the parade. So, like all the funny people with their chairs & blankets, we've got our spot too. And a little space left on our lawn if anyone wants to join us.

Youth Trip

I went on a temple trip with the youth in our ward last Thursday-Saturday. We went down to St.George. It was the first time I went a day without seeing Brandon since we started dating. Before I left I stuffed a large comforter under the blanket on our bed to try and make it look like I was in there and Brandon didn't have to feel abandoned. Only it is a really fluffy comforter and even though I tried to squash it down Brandon said it looked more like Shaq had crawled under the covers. I got to see a lot of historic places and do some fun activities, like lots and lots of pool time. The kids were funny, we had a good time, but it was nice to come home.