Cold Turkey Run

On Thanksgiving Day, my sister Anne and I ran the "Cold Turkey Run" in City Creek Canyon. It WAS cold, and a lot of fun, too! Here's the course from the starting point:

I'm really thankful that I have a body that can run and jump, and experience all sorts of great things. I love to run in races, they always motivate me to live my life better and to take good care of myself. The adrenaline pumping through my blood after the gunshot fills me with all sorts of excitement. Thanks to Anne for running with me, and to my awesome support crew:

Love you, Andrew and Emma!

Trick or Treat

Halloween was a BLAST! We had not one, not two, but three parties last Saturday. Emma's favorite was the ward one; she LOVED pulling candy from everyone's bowls and just sucking on the wrapper. Imagine next year when she actually comprehends what is INSIDE that wrapper. :) Here she is as my little pumpkin; I was a baker, carrying around Halloween cookies, and Andrew (sorry, no pic) wore a funny hat and a mustache. Emma got lots of comments from people saying, "Oh, he's so cute!" I thought pumpkin = androgenous costume. Hmmm . . .

It was so funny when we went to my parents, because the moment my mom opened the door, Emma squealed with terror. She was so scared of my mom in her witch hat and garb. She kept turning to look at her, then clinging to my shoulder. It was pretty cute!

Andrew went as "Utah" and Emma and I were "BYU." Not sure if you can tell, but I'm pregnant in those pictures. ;) My dad spiked his hair, and wore an earring that creaped me out! Made for a great "spooky" Halloween.

Six

• the number of months I've had with my beautiful daughter (check out her first up-do!)
  

• the number of cups of apples in my first apple pie

• the dollars I paid for my pansies

• the amount of miles I ran on Saturday


• not quite that many hours of sleep :)

Emma Update

DOO doo doo DOOO! Announcing Emma Jean's six month mark! She's gone from this:

to this:

She's eating solid foods, bouncing on her knees, rolling all over the place, and just barely, crawling!!! Life happens fast around here. I can hardly post something or write in my journal before it's yesterday's news and Emma is doing something else. She's such a doll, we just love her so much. She LOVES to babble, especially right before bed time. Also, she loves to stand. Last week in church, she spent at least half of Sacrament meeting standing on the bench holding on to the back rest. It's adorable because she does this little wobble where she shakes her hips in and out. She does it with the biggest grin on her face. :) You should check out her "fish" crawl. She looks like she's doing the worm! Whatever the case, it's quite effective, and very adorable. I've been trying to upload a video of it for days, so, I just post now, and perhaps, later, I'll get the video.

Puzzled

A couple months ago, Andrew bought some items at Savers, a second-hand thrift store. At the cash register, when one of the items rang up more expensive than Andrew expected, he asked the sales clerk to remove the item, he decided he didn't want to pay for it. She said she couldn't, and because Andrew was in a rush, instead of pushing it, he just asked her for the specs on the return policy: Return within 7 days, with receipt and tags. Okay, fine.

Well, within those seven days, I went back to the store to make the return. After waiting in line at a register for 10 minutes and then being directed to a different line to make a return (apparently register 4 is not as cool as register 1) the sales clerk asked me, "Where are your items you are exchanging for?" I told her I didn't want to exchange, just return, please. "EXCHANGE ONLY." What!?? So, first, they ring up an item for my husband, and when he asks them to take it off the total, they refuse, and tell him he can return in, but really we can't?!!! Kinda feels like a sleezy way to get 40 bucks from us. Since I didn't have anything to exchange, she agreed to give me credit, but it expires in 7 days. She also agreed to keep my items, and just write the credit amount on my receipt. So, if I didn't return within 7 days, they'd get to keep my money AND the items we originally bought! And seeing how I didn't have the items with me the THIRD time we visited the store, the next sales clerk was suspicious of me. Nice.

Andrew and I went back the THIRD time to find $40 worth of merchandise to use our credit before it expired in, yes, 1 week. Okay, this should be easy, we thought, just find some things we want and spend $40, kinda fun. I saw a bunch of games and puzzles I wanted, so we started putting them in our cart. The puzzles were $0.99 a piece. Oh dear. This was going to be a long climb to our goal of $40. Well, to keep a long story from getting to much longer, we actually found a few nice pair of shoes that Andrew got, and I DID end up with a few puzzles, just not 40 of them! So, at home, I have recently enjoyed putting a puzzle together. I wondererd, of 1000 pieces, how many would be missing, since this was from a second-hand store. Check it out:

Not a single piece missing! Pretty good for $0.99. So, if you like puzzles, check out Savers, but buyers beware, you may not end up SAVING like you think . . . .

Recent Adventures

Lately people have been asking me, "What have you been up to lately?" I don't know why this question seems to leave my mind blank. Maybe it's because a list of: practicing violin, doing laundry, tutoring, doing laundry, teaching, etc. doesn't sound interesting. Well, the truth is: my life IS interesting! And here are some pictures of the intereseting things I've been doing with Emma:

Last week admission to the Tracy Aviary was free, so Emma and I went with our friends Ethan and Michelle. Emma was quite attentive during the bird show, and perhaps she picked up on facts about barn owls; I found these quite interesting, too. Did you know that an owl can turn its head 300 degrees? Or that it has twice the neck vertebre of a human (14 vs. 7)? Well, it must have been too much for Emma, because she was out cold for the rest of our visit, except, of course, for the cute picture at the end.

Old McDonald had a farm . . . I don't know about that, but I know Old Man Wheeler did! :) For playgroup with the med wives yesterday, we visited Wheeler Farm. I wasn't sure if Emma would take interest, but she definately noticed a lot of the animals, including the goats, pigs, and chickens (which she wanted to feed her fingers to).

Check out this crazy, dirty pig! He was not your average Wilbur!

For Grandma Warren

We love you!