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.

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.

Marathon

I'm a runner! On the 19th Chris and I went down to Mesquite Nevada to run a marathon we had been training for for months. We started off really fast, mostly because the first 13 miles were all down hill. Once we hit mile 13, though, there was plenty of up hill. Unfortunately, all the hills on the course really hurt Chris knee and he was only able to make it to mile 22 before he had to stop. I kept running and was able to finish the marathon in under 4 hours, which was the goal. I even came in second in my age group, which sounds really impressive, but it's not so impressive considering the fact that there were only 9 people in my age group.
This first picture is Chris and me at the beginning of the race. We're both looking pretty rested and happy to be running.

This next picture is around mile 17 when Chris' knee started to hurt him. The look of pain on his face is a pretty good indication that he wasn't doing well.

After a little stretching and rest, Chris' knee started to feel better. I wonder if he'll try another marathon.


Here's me at the end of the race, happy to be finished and holding up a 2 for second place. Go me!

A Few Events

I've finally stopped procrastinating and uploaded my photos to my computer. We've had a fun last couple of months. The girls in my family and I went on our annual Shakespeare Festival trip. I had to miss one of the plays because of work this year, but the three I was able to see were great. This year, for the first time, Jason's wife Jennifer joined us, which was so fun. Pretty soon we're going to have to reserve a whole row of seats for all the Cutler women.


The other exciting event that happend recently was my little (I mean younger because there's not a whole lot littler than Joe who towers over us at 6'4") brother Joe returned from his mission in New Jersey. He's still the same gentle person he's always been, but with a new perspective. We're all so proud of him.

More Running

We've been at it again. Actually, all the running we've been doing lately has been to train for the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay Race, which was this past weekend. Chris and I ran two half marathons to prepare for it, one in Spanish Fork and one in Layton, and we did well in both. We're not really concerned too much with time at this point, so the fact that our times were relatively quick is just an extra bonus. The Ragnar was 187 miles of adventure. Chris and I were in van 2 of the Freeloader team, the team that won the free entry because of Brett Dunham's sweet mustasch. It was a lot of fun with lots of running and very little sleep.

Team Mullet

The majority of my family came up this past weekend to run the Dirty Dash. Last year was the first year I ran the dash, and it was a lot of fun. In fact, I told my family what a good time we had and they decided that they wanted to give it a shot. We came up with a team name, "Team Mullet: Business in the Front, Party in the Back" and we all bought fake mullets and leggings and shorts for the occasion, well all of us except Chris who had me shave his hair into a mullet just for the race. We encountered far more obstacles this year than last year, getting dirtier in the first mile than we did through nearly the whole race last year, but the essence of the race was the same, a lot of laughing, a lot of mud, a lot of people running around like crazy people. What Fun!

San Francisco

Chris and I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago as we continued on with our efforts to see every baseball park in the country. We saw the Giants and the Athletics play in their respective parks and also got to tour the city, which was a lot of fun. One of the funnest things we did while we were there was run across the Golden Gate Bridge. We ran across it relatively early in the morning while the top was still shrouded in fog but you could still see the bay. It was idyllic. Unfortunately it's too hard to carry a camera with you when you run for 10 miles, so I don't have any pictures of that beautiful morning. However, below are pictures of us in front of the baseball parks.


Apart from our trip, we've been keeping busy training for some long races by running some shorter races. We recently ran the Legacy Parkway Midnight 10K, which was a lot of fun, and, of course, the Waffle Run, our annual 4th of July race. We're planning on a few half marathons in the near future before our two long ones.