Friday, November 16, 2012

Running

I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about running in the past. There’s a very good reason for this that goes a lot deeper than might be expected. Over the past few years, I’ve been struggling with something that has caused me to evaluate what’s important in my life. I’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over this problem and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t always handled the stress well. In fact, I’m sure I was unbearable to be around. However, about two years ago, my sweet mother-in-law handed me a training schedule for the Salt Lake half marathon. I dived head first into the schedule and found that I was thinking more and more about running and concentrating less on my problem. My problem never went away, of course, but I was able to move it to the back of my mind while I thought about minutes per mile, lactic acid and Asics shoes. It made me a happier and more relaxed person, something I needed in order to cope with all I had been dealing with and I didn’t realize how much running had done to distract me until I got shin splints and had to stop running. I had been training pretty hard to increase my speed in order to accomplish a running goal I had set for myself and all of a sudden, I was sidelined, unable to run even a mile. All at once, I couldn’t do anything to accomplish my running goals, I had more time than ever to sit and think, and not only did my problem come crashing down around me again, it seemed to intensify because my distraction had now been added to the problem. The 6 months I was unable to run due to shin splints and then a knee problem were torturous to my mental well-being. I was forced to look my problem straight on and I’ve come to terms a bit with it, though I’m still not happy about it. And now I am slowly getting back to running and I’ve regained my equilibrium and I have some peace back in my life. And I was able to run my first big race since healing (I did run a half marathon while I was working through my knee problem, which probably wasn’t the best idea because it set me back a bit). I ran Ragnar Las Vegas with Chris, my sister, some friends and some people I’d never met but who quickly became friends. It was a relief to be back and I feel more equipped to handle things that come my way.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Walden Pond

When Chris and I went on our trip to the east coast to see baseball parks, we wanted to include a few other non-basebally things as well, so we asked our friends and co-workers what we should see and do. Chris’ boss suggested that we go to Walden Pond which was only a few miles outside of Boston (I should mention that Chris’ boss is a brilliant lawyer who went to Harvard and thus knew all about the area including Walden Pond). I had read the book by Henry David Thoreau in high school and knew the history of the place. Mr. Thoreau had decided that he wanted to see if he could be totally self-sufficient so he built himself a tiny cabin near the pond and thought deep thoughts for two years as he relied on no one but himself. Over all, I thought that it was somewhat pretentious and stuffy, but it was an interesting idea and you can’t help but admire him a little for giving it a shot. So when we were in Boston, we decided to rent a car and drive out there to see where the fellow had spent his solitary two years. As we neared the pond, we found that cars were backed up along the road at least a half a mile from the pond. We were really confused because, honestly, how many people really read Walden these day and out of those people, who really wants to take the time to visit the pond (I suppose Chris and I are a little silly). As we sat in traffic, we noticed that people were walking around with picnic baskets and in their bathing suits. We couldn’t figure out what was going on until we arrived at the pond. It turns out that it is no longer a place for intellectuals to sit and contemplate. The whole place is more like a beach party. We had to pay $5 to park our car in a giant parking lot, we walked past a gift shop to get to the pond, and people were swimming and playing in the pond, with proper lifeguard supervision, of course. And the only contemplating I saw going on was from me, thinking about how Thoreau would be rolling in his grave if he knew what was going on. Much as he would have hated it, Chris and I couldn’t help but laugh. And when Chris got back to his office and told his boss that we had gone there on his suggestion, he said “wasn’t it awesome! ”
This is what we were expecting.
This is what we saw.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Baseball Trip

Chris and I decided to use our time off on a baseball trip this year. We've been trying to see all the ball parks in the country and have slowly been marking off one park after another, but we decided that the parks in the east are so close together that it made more sense to take a longer period of time off and knock 5 off the list all at once rather than taking 5 different trips out there. So we packed up our stuff and flew to Boston to see the Red Sox play, then took the train to New York to see the Mets, rented a car and drove to Philadelphia to see the Phillies, drove to Baltimore to see the Orioles, then drove back to New York to see the Yankees. We did some other things along the way, which I might post about later, but for now, I'll just post some pictures of the different parks.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Pioneer Trek

About six months ago, Chris got a call from our stake president's office asking the two of us to come in and see him. Immediately we both thought the worst, some stake calling that was going to keep Chris really busy. So with heavy hearts, we went in to see what it was. Instead of having a stake calling, we were asked to be a Ma and Pa on the upcoming pioneer trek. We were both so thrilled that it wasn't a stake calling for either of us that we said yes right away, thinking that we had dodged a bullet. Later, when we thought about it, we realized that it was going to be a little harder than we had anticipated. This particular trek was going up to Wyoming, at the actual sites of the original trek, Martins Cove and such where all those people died in the early winter storms. We were going to have to take 3 days off work, wear authentic pioneer garb, collect all kinds of camping supplies, and supervise 6 teenagers. Chris is not a camper, and he was sure to make that clear when he was called to be one of the young men's teachers, and I do not know how to relate or talk to teens, so between the two of us, we were in big trouble. We attended meeting after meeting about what to expect, what to do, how to behave and resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to be tested a bit in this calling. Much as we may have complained, though, it turned out really well. We ended up having a pretty fun time, and this I attribute to the kids who ended up being in our family. They were all wonderful, helpful and funny and kind to each other. Also, Chris didn't mind the camping so much, we were well fed and had great sleeping pads. So it turned out well, and though I can't say that we'd ever want to do it again, we had fun.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Uruguay

Chris and I talked months ago about taking a trip down to Uruguay where he went on his mission. At first we sort of joked around about it, but the more we talked about it, the more we wanted to do it. So we saved our pennies and went down there for Christmas this year. It was absolutely amazing! It was beautiful and warm and we were able to do so many fun things. We ended up spending Christmas eve and Christmas on the beach (after going to church of course) and we hiked up a mountain, took a day trip into Brazil, window shopped at many different little street fairs, and did so many other fun things that I can't enumerate them all here. Instead, I've just added a few pictures below.
Every city and town in Uruguay has at least one plaza and each contains some sort of statue or fountain and they're all beautiful. This fountain was in the middle of Montevideo.

Chris was still on his mission when they opened the temple in Montevideo so he got to work at the open house and go through it a couple of times.

This was a small town along the Atlantic coast that had beautiful beaches and very few people.

This is the largest plaza in Montevideo. It's called the Plaza De Independencia and the statue is of the great leader for independence in Uruguay.

We went to a few different zoos while we were down there. They were pretty funny because only a chain link fence separated us from most of the animals, so we could reach in and pet them if we wanted to. Chris wouldn't pet this nandu no matter how much I begged him.

Uruguay has so much coastline that they had to build many lighthouses. This was just too beautiful not to take a picture.

We were able to meet up with one person Chris knew on his mission. Pedro spent a lot of time with the missionaries while Chris was on his mission, so he got to know him really well. They kept up on facebook and we were able to contact him on our last day. This is him with his wife and daughter.

And finally, Chris and me. We were sitting on a bench outside the temple on a lovely warm day.