We got it!!

We found out earlier this week we got the house we wanted in Reno.  We are SOOO excited.  It seemed so far out of our reach, but some how...some way...WE GOT IT.  We are set to close in a few short weeks!  I have about 2 weeks to pack up our place, move it into storage and then we are headed to St. George to stay with my grandma till everything goes through for the Reno house.  Then....we are official Renoins....(is that a word???)

Our new house on Little Sorrel Court

Another Year Older, and Wiser???

I love that every 5 years my birthday falls on Memorial Day weekend, so I get to party..ALL weekend long!
Stu has been out of town all week, but was able to catch an early flight and got in at 9AM on my birthday.  It was so great to see him after almost a week of not seeing him.  We were going to go to breakfast, but decided to hit up lunch instead.  We went to City Creek and went shopping for Stu...wait a minute..its my birthday..should I get something?? :)  He had to get something for the Reeder family pictures later next week, so it all good!  We went to lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then went home and everyone took a nap!  
Stu had dinner plans set for that night, but around 3:15 my parents (who were watching Hannah for our dinner night) called to see if we wanted to go out early.  I checked movie times and there was a showing of Star Trek that would work.  So they arrived and we busted a move to Gateway.  We arrived 15 min late, but as it turned out, the previews took a little longer and we didn't miss any of the movie.  I also messed up and the time of the movie was for IMAX 3-D.  Stu was pumped but I did leave a little sick from all that action.  
Dinner was at Ruth's Chris!  Yum..Yum.  Our waiter was great and the whole staff made me feel like royalty.  They knew our last name for the reservation and kept saying "Happy Birthday". Even the table was decorated.  Our waiter offered to 'buy' us a dessert.  Can't turn that down (even through we had a piece of cheesecake at home in the fridge).  Overall..the day was grand.

The next night Stu got all my old friends together and we had Indian Food.  It was so great to see them all especially since we are moving and wont see them very often.

And Sunday...Arrested Development premiere!! And birthday dinner for me at the Reeder house.  What a fun birthday!  The older I get the more I just want to spend time with family.  The gifts are nice :)  But its really about the love ones!

Ogden Marathon-2013

I wish I could say I was ready to run this marathon-but I wasn't.  I didn't train like I should have.  I have never trained in the winter time, and I talked myself out of many runs.  But I was set to run it and hope for the best.  What I was NOT set on was the rain that was forecasted for race day.  Hello...I have run a marathon in the rain before, I volunteered at the SLC marathon in the rain to appease the rain gods...why does it have to rain?  Its been 80+ just a few days before.  Needless to say I had MAJOR anxiety about running another marathon in the rain.  I was so miserable during my last marathon, I didn't want to repeat the torture.  But I awoke 3:15AM to get ready and head up to Ogden.  

My brother Coleman was running with me and after we picked up his friend in Bountiful we started up North to catch the 5 AM bus to the starting line.  Thankfully it was not raining as we boarded the bus and it did rain at the starting line, but I came prepared this time.  I had on sweats and a poncho for this go around. 

 Coleman and I on the bus

The starting line was fine, not as much of a party as St. George, but there were fires and porta potties so all was well. 

Starting line.  I am ready for the apocalypse!

 I had an old co-worker of mine that was running so I wanted to go to the section he was going to run and say Hi.  I left Coleman and about 10 min later the run started.   The rain started.. I couldn't tell you when.  It rained the whole time.  It stopped here and there so combined it stopped for about 2 miles worth. 2 miles out of 26 isn't much relief.  The only thing that did help was the wind was not to bad, we were running in the rain, but the wind was only 3-5 MPH so it was doable. 

The scenery was great I think. Most of the time my sight was to the ground as I watched for puddles of water.  I didn't really matter if I landed in any, its not like my shoes were dry.  I had a mantra for myself-"You have control over your breathe".  For me that was the ONLY thing I had control over.  I had to tell myself that over and over again.  I would occasionally shot in "your great, your strong, you can do this".  I had one thought that would go through my head-"you need to show your daughter that when you say you are going to do something, you do it!  No matter how hard it is, you follow through".  I knew at her age she wouldn't know what I meant, but in my mind, I wanted to be strong for her and show her that no matter the heartache, you can accomplish anything.

Back to the race.  I ran pretty much the whole time.  I was feeling good, except for my tummy. Not a happy camper.  In the end I wasted probably 35-40 min hitting up porta potties.  When I hit the half way mark I was thinking I was around 2 hours maybe a little over..nothing prepared me for 2:20.  I had wasted so much time!  I was feeling deflated.  I had 13 more to go.  I kept going trying to gain some ground.  At mile 19 I decided to ditch my sweats (they were soaked and heavy) and my poncho (bad mistake) and run in my running clothes.  Wouldn't you know it, "the clouds opened up and God said  I hate you Alfalfa" -Little Rascals.  But the rains did start to pour down.  I was freezing because I left the comforts of my sweats and poncho back a few miles.  I saw people picking up ponchos off the side of the road so they could have some relief from the penetrating rain.  It was rough.  I was worried about Stu and Hannah and if they were in the rain waiting for me.  My goal was shot out of the water and I knew I would be off by a long shot, I just didn't want them to suffer in the rain like me.  I called Stu-- he text me later and said they were in the car watching my progress on the phone app and would go to the end when I got closer.  My brother Coleman called me at mile 24 asking where I was.  "Hell" is what I wanted to say to him.  As I closed the gap to the end I realized that I was almost done.  My time was shot and I was cold and wet, but I did it!  Once again I did a marathon and I did it in the rain.  As I ran in the shoot to the finish line I saw my brother off to my right screaming my name and cheering me on.  Stu was up a little bit with Hannah on my left, both were waving to me.  I finished!  The rain has stopped by this point and when I finally met up with Stu and Hannah, they both hugged me and put a warm blanket around me, and I realized, I didn't give up.  The though entered my head but I pushed it aside.  I was strong and I accomplished this goal.  I can tell Hannah one day that momma didn't give up!

My official time was 4:54:24.  My goal was 4:30.  Good thing I got into St. George and can shoot for that goal!

 Sarah, John and Coleman at the finish line.  Coleman was smart and kept his poncho

  My biggest fans-Hannah and Stu

Visiting Great Grandma

With the passing of my grandpa, my grandma hasn't had any visitors in about a month.  So with Stu out of town again, I decided to load up the baby and the dog and head on down to visit her for the week. We had a great time seeing her and spending time with her.  Its so strange to go to their house (they have had the same house since I was born) and not have my grandpa there.  It was so quiet...

I was not sure how it would be traveling with just the baby (I have never gone that far with just her before) but she did great.  We stopped for lunch and I let her and the dog out to play.


Hannah playing at lunch time

My grandparents back yard was as haven for birds.  My grandpa LOVED his birds.  So my grandma is keeping up the tradition of feeding the birds.  That also includes the hummingbirds.  Hannah was intrigued by 
these small birds that created a 'humm' when they flew.  Here she is looking at the hummingbirds (or Honeybirds as my sister Leah called them)


My grandma gets a lot of junk mail (who doesn't).  One day she got a bunch of stickers and started to put some on Hannah.  Hannah thought this was so funny and she came to "show" me the creation.


Sticker Hannah

Then and Years later

I am a Studio 5 watcher.  A few months ago they were talking about taking a picture that was taken years ago and go back to the same spot and 'recreate' the picture, with the other picture in it.  If that doesn't make sense, here is an example:

 This is a picture of me in the front yard of my grandparents house when I was maybe 4 or 5

 Here I am in the back yard playing with the water

 Me again looking for Easter Eggs when I was 6

Wish I could have gotten this one better, you can see the tree's in the 'Then' picture and can see how much they have grown in the last 30+ years

Another Generation Picture

My sister found this on Pinterest and we decided to do it.  It is a 4 Generation picture-

It started with Hannah:
 

Then it was my turn:

Then my mom's turn:

Then my grandma's turn:

21 Months

It was such a beautiful day on Mother's Day that we decided to take Hannah's pictures outside the Grand America with all the flowers.  They turned out beautifully!  Not to many new things this last month-



"Cheese" Hannah


Hannah and Sarah

*Knows how to blow her nose. 
*Keeps her finger up her nose searching for something. :)
*Knows how to work the iPad and knows how to play some games we have down loaded for her

Mothers Day

Stu had to leave on Mother's Day for a 2 week training.  So before he left that afternoon, we went to the Grand America for Mother's Day brunch.  I have always wanted to do it and this year, we could afford it. 
It was AMAZING.  I have had Sunday brunch at the Grand before, but the Mother's Day brunch was way, way WAY better.  It was GRAND.  No other way to describe it.  We had such a great time and ate ourselves sick.



Hannah and Mamma


The family at brunch

Done Teaching

I am officially done with teaching at the gyms.  I have so enjoyed teaching at Golds and at The Gym and will miss everyone!  I will miss the wonderful people I have met and the joy they seem to have when I inflicted pain on them :)

Here's to finding a great place in Reno.  I hope to take my skills and share them with the people of Reno!

House Hunting

Stu and I headed to Reno to look for houses.  We decided to leave on Thursday to head down and my parents offered to stay with Hannah so we could get a lot done while we were there.  This trip would mostly be driving and I knew she would not be a happy camper in the car for that long.  We also had to get a new car.  The Black Panther had to be returned so we got the Red Devil 

As we drove to Reno I realized this was going to be my new route home once we move.  The drive wasn't terrible.  A lot of people told me there is nothing to look at.  They were right and wrong.  There isn't much to look at but mountains, but it wasn't a terrible view either.  The hardest part was that it took SOOO long to get there.  It was 7 hours, and that was without a baby.  I am not a car traveler so I kept asking Stu.."are we there yet??"  Luckily we had a portable DVD player and Arrested Development to occupy our time. 

The trip was successful.  We were able to drive around a get a feel for the place.  We were with our Realtor for 9+ hours looking at houses and getting  feel for the area.  We got to see not 1 but 2 movies!  We found 2 houses we liked and had a long car ride to discuss the pros and cons.   

On the ride home we realized half way home that we forgot our pillows in the hotel room and when I called them to have them set them aside for us till we could get them, I realized that we don't know anyone in Reno.  I couldn't call anyone to get them and hold them for us.  We know no one!  It kinda set in and I got really nervous about this trip.  But...its going to happen and I need to just have faith that everything will work out!


*Update.  We got back on a Sunday and Tuesday we put in an offer on 1 of the houses.  We discovered 3 hours after the offer was in that we no longer had the finance for a new place till our current place sold!  Soo discouraged because we were told the previous Friday we were good to go.  I told Stu.."If its meant to be..it will happen"  
We are currently under contact on our condo and the place we want in Reno is willing to take our low bid.  If they will agree to wait till our house sells, we are in the green.  I have had to have soo much faith through this process and I have to tell myself many times a day..."If its meant to be..it will happen"

Story Time at the Library

Stu had a rare day in town and decided to take the day off to spend with his girls.  I had a play date with my friend Patty and her 4 year old twin boys.  We were going to story hour at the SLC library.  We arrived a little late but didn't miss much.  Patty saved us a rug on the floor and we listened to stories about super heroes.  The story tellers were dressed up as well as a lot of kids where too.  They read stories, had a puppet show and even lead the kids on a hunt to find the missing jewels that were taken from the receptionist.  Overall...super fun half hour!

   

Hannah with her superhero cape

We are looking for the missing jewels

Hannah preferred to be outside with the water 

How can you say no to this face??