CHEERLEADER MOMENT!

This is a TOTAL brag story! After having to delay my long run due to weather and health issues I finally got out today. I generally do my long runs with Kelly. After looking at our schedules and the weather forecast I knew we were on our own!!! I made several attempts at finding a friend to run a portion with me and with no luck I was on my own.....I don't do long runs alone!

So today I sucked it up and put on my cutest running clothes filled the MP3 with great tunes (who cant enjoy a little ABBA "Dancing Queen" mixed with a little OZZY?) turned on the GPS and out the door I went.


It is amazing that I needed to get in 15 miles and all the people I encountered
at first it was the psuedo excercise group. Moms in strollers causaully walking and the new runners just trying to get mileage, then the INL government workers out for a "LUNCH" jog (of course we all know then they take the 30 min lunch after the hour run) and then to my surprise, nursing homes drop the elderly off for a stroll around the greenbelt. Is that safe?

MILE 7.5 I pretty much feel as if I am amazing
Mile 10 ok maybe it hurts, My mind wanders to my kids and them cheering me on at
races....GO MOM...They are great motivation.
mile 11 AM I STUPID? who pays 100$ to run marathons and have to train for them?
Mile 13 Ok you can do this!FOCUS!!!
Mile 14 one more (it does not matter if you are running 5 or 15 or 26 the last mile
I think is the hardest, Just finish!

Mile 15 I think I am pretty much a super hero! And I do have to thank GOD daily that
I have the body and the ability to run and feel like a SUPER HERO!

Technology love or hate

Ok this is just a quick thing!
I have become quite dependant on my Garmin GPS unit when I run. Not very often do I have problems with it, and if I do it is always the fault of the user (me). I LOVE that I know my mileage, pace, overall pace and other various types of information.

this weekend on a long run I lost signal some where AHHHH! I was really angry about this. I heard it beep at 10 miles so I knew I was on track for my goal for the day. Kelly stops me about 3/4 miles later and asked me what my mileage was because his was wrong! Can you believe it had actually subtracted miles from my total! I was robbed!!

Those darn satellites! If I ran those miles I want credit...............Thanks for listening

catching up!

I received an email from my cousin that reminded me that it had been a while since I have posted..........................

the first reason was our Internet connection that we were borrowing required a password and I was not given the password! So I had to go back to my crappy dial-up connection, and I found to post was almost impossible. So I have been looking for high speed Internet. I finally found the right provider for me. And for you that think my borrowing is dishonest, i have left mine unsecured for all the months that I borrowed. Just to make it fair.

Second, our lives have been CRAZY! Kelly's job has been getting a little more time consuming and he was spending more time at work trying to make deadlines.

Third, OUR SUMMER!!!! If we had the time to fit in one more thing we would have tried! From the moment that school got out in may until school got back in until august we were out of town and BUSY! We did just about everything you could do! It started with out of town baby blessings (Clifford Fell and Lucas Williams), weekenders to sun valley, star valley, gooding, boise, and palisades. We took a GREAT vacation to Disneyland and stopped in Vegas on our way to California, spent some time in Cour 'd Alene at the Lake. And between girls camp and high adventure those took two weeks of vacation from Kelly and I. Kelly brought a calender home with out summer schedule and we maybe had 2 weekends open, then Kelly,s brother announced his engagement to get married in the summer. We got home from girls camp just in time to make it to the wedding. Then you have the annual Williams Family Rodeo, and the work party in the same weekend. And we spent Labor Day weekend with my family in Yellowstone.

I have never been happier to see a summer end. We are now getting ready for the Vegas marathon and I hope not to leave town again until then.

So now with great Internet and Kelly being home a little more, and our family being home more I will post more often.

Driving

Recently I have become a mother of a teenage driver. It has been quite a roller coaster, literally. In January Kolton got his permit and enrolled in Drivers ED. May he finished Drivers Ed and was released to his Idaho Mandated 4 months of supervised driving. When i received my license you just got to drive, trial and error none of this crap of driving with a parent. I think this is punishment for the parents. My very favorite day was almost rear ending 2 cars, moving over to oncoming traffic so the driver behind us could get around since we were making a left hand turn, and merging onto the hwy 20 without yield for the semi that was skidding so he would not hit us. All of these things happened in a short 5 mile drive to the river. WOW!

It is true that the things you learn in the Barnyard make you a better person, It was great to see the Driver Kolton became after moving to the farm. I don't want the details nor do I ever need to know how far he went alone, but wow it was much improved. I thought we were making progress until the day we let him take out the old beater truck we bought for him to drive. (83' ford ranger stick shift) I had this bright idea to let him drive Kelly and I in "the truck" to pick up the pizza. As we leave the parking lot he decided to dart across the road to the other parking lot. this road is 5 lane traffic and we have people coming at all sides! That was it, I am done.

I went to work and complained about my parenting woes, and my great friend turned on my light bulb. she said " I just got to the point that it was better that they just drove alone because they were going to be scary if I was with them or not" What a profound statement.

Last Monday Sept 24 Kolton PASSED the drivers tests and is now a proud owner of a license!

Not only did he pass he got 100% of the driving test and only missed 1 on the written. I commented the the instructor how he must have nerves of steel to do this job, his reply was "not very often do I give 100 on the driving portion he did great" I was along for the ride and I did my "hand thing" as Kolton would call it many times during the drive. SO I am obviously a little more nervous than I need to be. Well now another chapter closed in my book of life. On to the next.....

NEW ADDITION

I just realized I wrote this long story about our new puppy Morty, however when we got our new dog Sydney I never wrote a thing.



So to make a long story short....We decided we wanted to have puppies so we have been looking for a little girl. After a long search in Idaho, Montana, and Utah. We were just not having any luck with finding one. So I got online and found 2 girls in Oregon. Our choices were a 8 week old and a 2 1/2 year old. Kelly chose the financial aspect and went for the 2 year old.

The first question I get from everyone "Why were they getting rid of her?" It was an older couple and they were having some health problems and could not take care of her anymore. they actually had 3 dogs and were selling all of them. So we bought their girl, Penny which we changed her name to Sydney. She has been quite the addition to our home. Not only do I not beleive in dogs I also was also never going to have another. OH MY GOSH I LOVE HER!

She is 3 lbs and is quite the princess dog, so she fits our family perfect. Because she is so small she goes everywhere with us. I put her in the pink dog bag and decided to head out to the store. An employee of the Store came up to me and said " Ma'am we do not allow animals in the store" so what do i do? OH ok, and head to the other side of the store. Animnal? sydney is not an animal Really!

For all of you that know mw very well you all know I have a strong dis-liking for canines. these cute dogs have changed me!! AHHH. Just recently I even stopped and talked to a dog walker around the river about the cute dog they were walking. I hated the dog walkers around the river, the path was for running!

I guess change is good

Life Changing Experiences

One year ago..............
It is the anniversary of the New Horizons Pluto Launch. I have recently spent time reminicing about this event. The year and a 1/2 leading up to this day was so different than I had expected and planned for.
So heres a little background...
May 2004
I just started a new job with the Red Cross and was training over in Boise. Kelly and I knew there would be a possibility of him getting this new job working in the Space battery program and knew it would be a high demand job. The weekend before I left we were unsure of my new job knowing that I was going from 12 hrs a week to 20-24 hrs week. However Monday morning I got on the plane and flew to Boise. Friday before I got back on the plane to head home I recieved a call frofm Kelly "HE GOT THE JOB". Now we were faced with my new job and his new job. I decided to keep my job because Kelly would not start his job until Oct.

Fall 04 to Jan 06

This was the time in our lives that Kelly worked 72 hour weeks, various shifts and various days. We felt like we were living in a different world. I have gained a new respect for single parents. I know we had weeks that all we could do was make it through the week, the day, or sometimes just through the hours. Our family was in survival mode. We only survived because of the outside help we recieved.
Jan 19, 2006
We were at Kennedy Space Center watching the fastest rocket ever launched head to Pluto. That was a monumental day for our family. Our lives went back to normal and we knew what it felt like to have a Dad in our home again.
As I said before Kelly started this Job in Fall of 04, early on during training they told these 12 guys who were hired just for this project "take a picture of your family because until this rocket gets launched you wont see them." WOW they were not kidding.

A year later it is easy to look back and forget how bad it was at the time. We would never have made it through this experience without family. So many people stayed withour kids while we were working or picked them up from activities. We are so thankful for the help we recieved. It is so nice to be able to look beyond ourselves and be able to help others.

Kelly is required to go into the schools and talk about the projects they are working on. It has been fun to go and listen to him speak on the Pluto project and the recent Jupiter fly by. Now we just get to sit back and enjoy the fun it brings. The next project that they are working on is the Mars Rover which is scheduled to launch sometime in fall of 09. My hope is that since we are down to 18 months they meet deadlines so he is not working 72 hrs a week!!!

Birthdays

I am having a hard week....My little princess girl will be turning 12 in less than 2 weeks. This is such a milestone birthday, I feel like it is a coming of age. This is the birthday where you start to grow up and be a woman.

When I think about it the tears flow and I just want to stop time. When McKenzie was born our world changed. She made us better parents and better people. We were not sure if we were having a boy or girl. When the doctor said "Its a girl" both Kelly and I were overwhelmed with emotions. We now had this little baby girl to raise and take care of. She was the highlight of our lives.

It was a hard adjustment for the first few weeks of bringing her home. King Kolton was not our only priority and on many occasions he would ask us to bring her back to the hospital. He had a rough time being the only child, grandchild, and nephew on both sides of our families. He now had to share to glory, and with a girl.

My favorite thing about McKenzie as a little girl was her love for being girly. Her world was pink. she would tell you her eyes were pink and her hair was pink. We could not leave the house without hair bows, matching outfit and matching shoes. What little 1 yr old needs 10 pairs of shoes?

She knew she had to grow up fast to get ready for her unexpected baby sister
(Kelsie is 16 months younger). It seems as from the time she was born we were going 100 miles an hour. At 5 months she was crawling by 8 months she was walking and by her first birthday we bought a jungle gym so she would quit climbing on the counters and piano. She kept us going and going and going.....Things have not changed she keeps us going and going and going. I wonder how she manages 3 days of dance, piano, basketball, snowboarding, and school. All sometimes within the same day. And then I remember this is our baby girl that we would find on top of dinning room table and she would go and go and go. So what should I expect?

As her birthday draws closer I spend time remembering the past 12 years and how they have flown. If the past 12 are any indication of the next 12 it will be a great ride into womanhood. I am afraid for me it will be a tearful 12 years I have a hard time seeing my children get older.

So Kenz this blog is for you because you bring us sunshine everyday. Your beautiful smile gets us every time. You have always been such a pretty girl and every year you become more beautiful. WE LOVE YOU!!!