Friday, July 6, 2012

Didders and Sisterly Love

See - I told you it wasn't the last time I talked them into a 5k. We even got Lane's Grandma Wilson involved. Notice Taylor's charity smile. She was mad at us for making her get up so early. We all had a good race; Jack continuing to improve his time, and me falling back by about 45 seconds. I totally could have done better but I give up so darn easily. Lane told me he was going to walk the entire course, but his old high school track days got the better of him and as soon as the starting pistol sounded he was off and running. I caught up to him after about 1/2 mile and he was walking. So I figured, "Hey, he's a fast walker. I'll just walk the rest of the way with him and probably do just as well." So I started to slow down as I approached him, and he looked back and saw me and started to run again. The Jerk. He let me catch up to him, smiled at me, smacked my big ole butt, and said "Keep going." And then he walked again.


Crap. I had to keep going. I had figured out where the one mile mark would be and wanted to go that far before I stopped. But since I am me, I stopped too soon, even though I knew I could still go on. I keep telling myself if I can just get through that hellacious first mile, I'm good to go. So naturally I give up before the 1 mile is up. Truly, I am my own worst enemy.


I alternated walking and running the rest of the way, continually giving up while I still had more in the tank. And that's why I finished 45 seconds slower. And that's why I barely beat Lane.


Taylor arrived about 10 minutes later, and Grandma and Addie were about 5 minutes behind that. Grandma was thrilled to still have other people behind her.


As we waited for the time cards for Taylor, Addie and Grandma, our Fire Chief came over and congratulated Grandma on participating. The oldest age category was 70-99, and Grandma (age 81) was the only woman in that entire division. We were all both proud and amused that her card read "1st" in her division. We think she should frame it.

We set up at our spot in front of PG Printers on Main Street for the parade. We had a pretty large group this year, including my sister Sabrina and a few of her kids. (Sabrina and her son Dallas also ran in the 5k, and Sabrina and Jack were good cheerleaders for me for that final block.)
Busy, busy Jack had to get himself up to the high school immediately following the 5k to walk in the parade with his FCCLA group since he is the Vice President over Membership for the next school year. Needless to say, he was a little worn out afterwards.
I made these cupcakes for my neice Kassie's baby Hazel's blessing/2 year old son Emmett's birthday. They are lemon cake with fresh raspberry frosting. Seriously, the frosting is so easy - 1 cup butter (room temperature), 1 cup fresh raspberries, and powdered sugar. That's it. Really, that's it. Sooooo good.
These are my 4th of July cupcakes. My 4th of July sprinkles are all used up, so I used some metallic colored ones that my sister Mie sent me. Hopefully Mie also took the hint regarding my lack of patriotic sprinkles. She could just send them out with Amanda when she comes next summer, since I wouldn't need them before that. And hopefully she will also know how much I appreciate the metallic ones shown here as well as the snowflake ones, and the pearl ones, and the gold flake ones, and all the other ones that she's sent out. That's sisterly love, is what that is. Sprinkles, AKA "didders." Don't ask. My sisters will understand. :)

Memorial Day

For the very first (and surprisingly not last) time I convinced Taylor and Lane to do a 5k. This was the Run for Remembrance in American Fork. It was a freebie, and you all know how I do love me a freebie. We had to pay for the shirts, and of course the organization welcomed donations of any amount, but if you didn't want a shirt it was totally free. Lots of people were there, lots of families which made it fun. Several members of my ward were there, but they are REAL runners, including the long-mocked in this blog Stephanie and Molly. We had a good time and I hope we can make it an annual event. Jack had a really good run and finished in about 30 minutes. Since I already had one 5k under my belt for this season, it went smoothly, despite a large hill over by the cemetery. I beat my Running with Angels time by about 30 seconds or so.
Because my Grandma Walker tortured all of us grandkids on Memorial day when I was a kid by dragging us all over PG cemetery, I have decided my own kids can benefit from the same torture. We go down with my parents and my dad is pretty good at pointing out all the relatives graves (and in this town, there are MANY) and really submitting my kids to a torture that Grandma Walker would be proud of. To make is extra painful for them this year, we were met by some Henson Walker relatives at the Henson Walker gravemarker whom we did not know, so my dad had to go down through all the lineage to identify where exactly we met in with these strangers (different Henson Walker wives, it turns out). Oh my, the eye rolling that ensued. I think we were only seconds away from a full blown tantrum. It would be fun to see Jack throw himself on the ground, kicking and screaming at his age.


While we were at the cemetery my nerdy . . . no, my smart son Jack found himself a stick in the shape of pi. Totally made up for everything else.