Running Update

For those of you who didn't know, Justin and I are training to run a marathon! It is now only 7 weeks away, yikes. We have both ran one before. Justin's was last year for the Salt Lake City Marathon and he had an awesome time, I think just under 4 hours. My marathon was in 2007 ( right Cali and Carrie?) and I did okay. My main goal was to finish and finish I did in 5:27 I think it was.

So we are gearing up for the Utah Valley Marathon.
http://www.utahvalleymarathon.com/charity-marathon.php . We, well I decided to go with this one. It was a little bit later so we could train more outside (yeah right) and give me a little more time to prepare. Also it's a charitable race. All the proceeds go to help kids with cancer to have a Christmas or to provide treatments for children who can't afford them or are in undeveloped countries. So all in all it's a good thing. I get to have bragging rights and help kids at the same time.

So the training has been going pretty good. My goal this time is to make it to as close to 5 hours as I can. My wish is to get it in 4:30. Justin's goal is to just run it with me. Since my training plan is to help you do it in 4 hours and I have been following as faithful as I can I feel confident that I can do it. My only problem is that lately I have been having a hard time getting in my long runs due to the rain or the snow, or the cold, or the general yucky weather we have been having of late. But I have been faithful to get my weekday runs in even sacrificing sleep, time, and my aversion to treadmills.

So I have been faithfully running since February sticking with my schedule but I did some bulid up runs during January. I have to say that now a few months later I am seeing a huge difference in not only my ability to run but also my body shape. I can run about 10-13 miles comfortably. I am not dying for a break or can't finish but I am definitly happy when I am done. I'm also getting faster. I can keep a 9:30-45ish mile pace for longer then just 3 miles. I haven't checked my weight in a while but I can sure see a difference. My jeans are all loose, my waist is getting tiny and my tummy is getting smaller. I feel good and usually look forward to running. The tagline for the marathon is true, "Pain you enjoy." I don't know if I always enjoy it but I sure do enjoy the results of running.

As with every training for a race there are obstacles and good and bad days. But the atmosphere and feeling you get after running a race is something wonderful that keeps you coming back for more and help you forget all the pain that it took to get you there. Kind of like having a baby. So I encourage all of you to get up and get active whether it's walking to school or a job instead of driving or register now for a race! There are so many options, fun runs, 5k, 10k, half-marathon, marathon, relays, the list goes on and on. If you need help let me know. I am not an expert but I have a lot of Runner's World magazines that has a ton of advice, training programs and even eating plans. So get up! Get active! Your body will thank you.

Quip from a General Conference Weekend

In Brazil, the medical field works much as it does here – if you have insurance, you don’t pay at the clinic you visit. You can receive the treatment you require, sometimes in emergencies, or at your leisure.

This works because that company gave you a special number. With your number came a promise to cover your expensive-ness.

Alaina and I watched Patch Adams the other day, and the character’s defense of medicine as ‘improving the quality of life,’ instead of just delaying death, gave me pause.

In America, we use the term “policy” to describe health insurance; Brazilians use the term “covenant”.

Covenants are essential to salvation. However, covenants are important to those who make them their priority. What was important to Jesus Christ during His ministry is meticulously recorded for our benefit.

He promised Heavenly Father to atone for the misdeeds for which we earnestly repent; He promised a divine, perfect love for these imperfect children’s divinely seen potential.

Jesus remembers us as we were, as we promised and covenanted to hopefully become before we came to Earth.

Have you ever thought of what your testimony of Christ was before you came to Earth? Why did you believe He would keep His promise to you?

Don’t live beneath your privilege of being Heavenly Father’s son or daughter; brothers and sisters of the Christ, the Master, and your Friend.

He continues in life to this day; He lives the same promise He made, and kept. Let's try our best to make Him as important as He treats us. :) ~Justin

Holi Festival

According to the calendar it's supposed to be be spring, however mother nature seems to have other ideas as I continually wake up to snow. So in hopes that spring will keep on a coming my sisters , husband, and I went to the Holi Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork. It takes place at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple and is so cool. Basically, it's a festival to celebrate the colors of spring. So you get these powdered colors and at a specific time we all throw them in the sky together. It's also to celebrate differences and how everyone can be a different color, check this out: "Holi means fun. Holi means colours. Holi is one of the oldest Hindu festivals that goes back thousands of years. Like any Indian festival, it is full of meaning. But Holi is not just about colours…Originally Holi festival is known as Utsav of ‘Holika’ or ‘Holikotsav’. It’s also celebrated as spring (vasant) festival in northern India. But Holi is not just about colours as it is quite symbolic of the colourful diversity in India. A closer look at Holi reveals an Indian lifestyle which is so colourful in every way that it comes across as an overwhelming experience to a tourist. But the humble desi takes it for granted as he lives and breathes those colours everyday.." It was a lot of fun and TONS of people were there. It was on the 26th, and 27th of March and they had throwings every two hours starting at 11:00 to 8:00. We had lots of fun. Before and After shots. We started with snow and ended up with mud. Trying out the colors.

At first we were slightly bummed with the colors that we bought. They weren't as bright or stuck on you as well as the others. But then random people would be throwing and we would get little bits on us. Every few minutes we would find a different color on someone. By the end of the throwing we ended up with a lot more colors on us, check out the colorful hair pic.

They started by getting everyone together and saying, " No early throwers people don't want to date an early thrower." Except we totally had early throwers in the first one. Then they counted down from ten and BAM! Colors everywhere. It was crazy being in the middle of all the people after they started throwing the sky around us got all dark almost like we were under a tent and some of the colors were scented so we had a pretty strong smell going on as well. Then the dust somewhat settled and everyone is covered. So fun. We got there for the first throwing and then stayed for the second. Oh the best quote of the day the annoucer guy says, " Are you guys ready for the first throw of 2001?" umm......let's add ten years to that. =)

After the second throwing, we got a lot more colorful and no early throwers.

Awesome. Happy Spring everybody!

Temple Week

In a crazy moment we had a great idea to go to the temple every day for a week. I can't remember who's idea it was but we liked it so we did it. We planned out a week where it would work easier with my work schedule and found the temples that were closest to us and bam! There ya go. Our schedule went something like this. Salt Lake, Monday, Bountiful Tuesday, Ogden, Wednesday, Jordan River Thursday , Logan Friday. It was a busy week that's for sure. We were able to make it to all of them and had enough family names to use as well. It took some sacrifce of time, sleep, and money, but it was an exeperience that we will never forget.

Spring break recap

You wouldn't know it today but spring is here. Thank goodness it was lovely weather for when my sister was here. We did lots of fun things. One thing that we really wanted to do was to go to the Salt Lake City Temple and do baptisms for the dead. It was so beautiful and so nice being there. Isn't it pretty.




After exploring around temple square for a while and playing with all the new electronic stuff they have there we decided it was time to go. So when went and spent some time at this store:




It was really cool and had a ton of stuff. We were a little bit nervous because a lot of the reviews said that they owner and workers were really mean but they were perfectly nice. There were some beautiful dresses and purses and then some really ugly ones. It was fun and a cool place to go browse around.

Then we went to an amazing art show at the BYU museum of art called the Carl Block exhibit. http://carlbloch.byu.edu/ It is totally worth it as it's free! It was a really cool experience to see the different paintings of Christ and to see how many I recognized. Definitely recommend going to this. It's still here for a few more weeks.

All in all we had a fun time just hanging out, running, watching Modern Family,(Don't talk Black to me!) talking and having fun.



BOO!

Hooray for Spring Break!

Lately I have been feeling really frustrated with my job. It's hard to live the life of a Vampire. Up all night and sleep all day. I feel like I miss out on a lot and then there are some days where I don't get much sleep and I feel like this:



or sometimes like this:


( poor Dawsen, did Joey break up with you again?) Good ole Dawson's Creek.

or even this:



My sweet husband is good at picking out which one I am and is nice to help me through it. So when my sister wanted to come for a few days for her spring break I was more than happy to have her come. If not to have fun and adventures with her but also the fact that I didn't have to work for a few days. YAY! It was a great few days and we had fun. ( more to come on that next time)

Now I am recharged and ready for another week of work. Hopefully my patients are nice to me this week or I just might do this:

Welcome to blogging

So in our grand attempts to make contact outside of the marriage bubble we decided to start a blog. Hopefully, it goes better than our previous blogging adventures.

We have been married for almost 5 months and we've had fun spending time each other and figuring out each other's quirks. Such as Justin likes do the dishes in freezing cold water while I like to have it really hot. I love butter and cottage cheese and Justin loves juice and jam.

Those things don't really matter much but one thing we both get irritated over is Driving. We both have very different driving styles and want our way to be the right way. Justin has learned to compromise and I've learned to keep my mouth shut.

We have enjoyed becoming each other's best friend and figuring out how to live together, taking it one day at a time.