3rd Marathon=Logan Marathon

WARNING: LONG POST..Sorry.. don't feel like you have to read all of it!!!! :)

Last weekend I ran my third marathon. I have absolutely no clue why I decided to run another one. I was AWFUL at training this time around. It was so incredibly hard to get my butt out the door to run. I used Porter as an excuse but most of the time it was just me being lazy. Paul and I procrastinated big time and forgot to book a hotel in Logan for Friday night early enough...by the time we tried.. EVERYWHERE was alread booked out! Luckily my Mom has some friends who let us stay in their condo in Ogden for the weekend. That helped things a lot because I only had to drive about 45 minutes to Logan for my marathon Saturday morning. Friday night my mom, Paul, Porter and I first went up to the "Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity" Monestary to hear the monks chant in their church.

It was extremely fascinating to me to see. I also felt a great deal of sadness when I think of the isolated lives that they choose to lead. Porter started grunting very loud and Paul's phone went off in the middle of their service which was extremely embarrasing.. but besides those 2 moments.. we enjoyed ourselves very much. Afterwards we all went out to eat at a resteraunt up Ogden canyon called "The Oaks". It was Paul's first time there and so we were very excited to take him there. My Mom and I had been for our first time a couple of months ago. My mom and I had pasta, bread and salad which was to die for. Paul, unfortunately, ordered a chicken cordon bleu which was tastey but the portions were bird sized..poor guy. Afterwards we headed up to the condo for the night. The condo was BEAUTIFUL!! We put two comfy chairs together to make Porter a bed in our room and he slept wonderfully..(only waking up for a couple of seconds when he heard me leave for the marathon). I was busy getting everything together for the marathon and braiding my hair that by the time I finally got to bed, I was only able to sleep for 3 hours before having to get up at 3:40AM to drive to Logan. I ate the rest of my pasta on the ride up and also chewed on a cliff bar and drank a yummy glucose energy drink! When I arrived in Logan I had only 5 minutes to pick up my packet and load the bus for the ride up the canyon to the start of the race. I sat next to 2 girls who were very nervous for running their first marathons. They had a whole bunch of questions for me which were a lot of fun to answer. I could pretend I knew something about marathons! :) Sitting behind us on the bus was this guy that said that he recognized me from somewhere but couldn't figure it out. He finally found out that we had both ran Ogden Marathon last year and he had recognized me from the bon fires that we stood around before the race started. He asked me to run with him throughout the marathon. We ran together for the first 8 miles and he wanted to get a 3h:30m time so he pushed me way to hard. Finally I told him that he was going to have to go ahead because I was too out of shape to keep up with him. So he left, and I was pretty thankful for that. At about mile 16, I stepped in a pothole and sprained my ankle. I had to get it taped and the paramedic guy sprayed some incredible pain killer stuff on it which helped a lot.

Throughout the whole marathon, they only had 2 stops which had GU. I was so frustrated about that because usually towards the end of the run when you are so tired..almost every station has GU.. so I was very disappointed about that. Well, I finally finished my marathon at 5h15m which was an absolutely AWFUL time. My best marathon time was 4:30 (Ogden Marathon).. and so this race was 45 minutes worse than my best time! Oh well.. at least I finished. I am going to have to run another marathon this Spring to make up my time. I am thinking probably the Bear Lake marathon in June!! :) After the marathon, Paul had to drive home to finish his homework but my Mom, Porter and I stayed Saturday night up at the condo. Natasha and her boyfriend Colby also came up for the night. We went out to "The Oaks" resteraunt for dinner Saturday night as well. I orderd a vegie sandwhich was to die for. I love that resteraunt..soooo delicious. We had an awesome weekend!! :)

7 Months Already

The months are flying way too fast! Here I am already blogging about Porters 7 month mark..soo crazy! Porter has started talking in "sentances" and he is so expressive when he talks and it is absolutely adorable! He definitely loves hearing all of the new sounds that he can make and we love listening to him. He also continues to love people and will do all that he can do to get their attention. He flashes a huge smile for anyone that comes near him and he just melts your heart. I honestly feel that he has been blessed with the gift of loving people and sharing his love with his beautiful smile. Porter is sitting up incredibly well now and very seldom falls over. He is very good at catching himself if he is about to fall over and can easily reach for things and still make it back to his sitting position. He also can stand by himself holding on to something for about a minute at a time. He still hates being on his back and definitely prefers to be sitting or standing. He is definitely in the oral stage and loves putting anything and everything in his mouth. I definitely have to watch him 24/7 making sure that what is in his mouth is supposed to be there. He especially loves sitting outside and playing in the grass with his toys or with the leaves. He could sit outside for hours if I let him. We fed him applesauce for the first time yesterday and he LOVES it. I think that is his favorite food item so far. He also LOVES drinking water from a cup and is so cute when he does it. He still doesn't have any teeth but his gums are pretty swollen and he has been extremely drooly and more fussy than usual, so we are just waiting for them to come. He loves animals just like his Daddy and will just laugh and giggle when he sees my Mom's dog and cat. He is wearing size 6-9 month clothes with the exception of sweaters and jackets which are 12 months and the 2 piece pajamas which are 2T. He sleeps about 10 hours a night and wakes up usually once in the night. He has started playing "patty cake" and it is the cutest thing in the world. He also claps every time someone new walks into the room, or when he is excited. It is so adorable. WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY PORTER! HAPPY 7 MONTHS!! :)

Trip to the Park

Today I took Porter to the park for the first time. Yea, I know that he is a little young for parks but he fit just right on the baby swings and he didn't cry once. He was pretty unsure at first but after a while he let out a couple of smiles. I think they were actually relaxing for him. After the swings I held him while he went down the slide...so much fun! We then went and played in the grass for a while. He loved playing with the big green leaves that fell from the tree above where we played. We had a lot of fun. When we got home, Porter took a three hour nap which hardly ever happens, so maybe we need to start going to the park everyday!!

Trip to St. Lukes Hospital in Idaho

Last Sunday out of the blue we received a phone call letting us know that Paul's Dad Doug was in the hospital and had been there for 3 days already and had also had three surgeries since Friday for a bleeding ulcer. He had been given 12 bags of blood for all of the blood that he had lost and he even had to have more blood shipped in from a nearby hospital because the hospital that he was in ran out of his blood type. As soon as we heard this information, we quickly packed up our bags and headed to Boise, Idaho to visit him in the hospital. Porter has been sick with the flu the last couple of days and so he was pretty fussy on the drive up..poor kid. By the time we arrived, it was pretty late and Doug was already down for the night. We found a Comfort Inn Hotel and stayed there the night. It was Porters first time sleeping in a hotel and we were nervous how he would sleep in a new environment since our last camping trip didn't go so well. We got a room with 2 beds and barricaded Porter with pillows on one of the beds. HE SLEPT AMAZING!! He was pretty hyper when we first arrived so we got him ready for bed and wrapped him in his blanket, turned off the lights and just let him wiggle to sleep.. he was asleep within 2 minutes..it was fabulous! :) He only woke up once during the night but fell back asleep within just a couple of minutes. The next morning we found him in a pretty funny position against the headboard of the bed...silly kid. That morning Paul went and got us breakfast and we relaxed and watching the morning cartoons.. I haven't done that in a long while. We then headed to the hospital to visit Doug. He seemed to be doing a lot better but he was very week. He was still on an all liquid diet and hadn't had solid food since Friday. He was super tired and slept a lot. After we visited with him for a while, we went out to lunch with Paul's sister Cerra and her husband Dillon. We ate at an awesome restaurant called Smokey Mountain Pizza.. and it was delicious!! I got a yummy appetiser salad and then Greek Penne Pasta. I will definitely be going back there.. it was absolutely amazing. Porter chewed on lemons and oranges and loved them. After lunch we headed back to the hospital and visited with Doug for the rest of the day. Paul is totally swamped with school and work and so we decided to head back to Utah that night since Doug was pretty stabilized and doing much better. Poor little Porter was not happy about getting back in the car for another long drive and pretty much fussed the whole way home. We are so glad that we went up to Idaho to visit Doug in the hospital even if it was a short visit. We hope that he feels much better very soon!!

Our little boy is growing up