Grand Canyon Trip

We spent last weekend at the Grand Canyon, wow, what a trip! Neither Dave nor I had been to the Grand Canyon before, so we decided to take a road trip. One thing can be said for sure about Dave and I traveling, we always have adventures! We left at about 10:00 last Wednesday morning driving Dave's work car, we got to Filmore about an hour and a half later and the car broke down. The mechanics in Filmore couldn't fix the car, so we ended up driving back to Provo, we spent about an hour and a half there until we were able to get a rental car. We ended up leaving Provo at 5:30, starting a little later than we had hoped.
We drove to Page, Arizona and spent the night there. The next day we drove to the Grand Canyon and set up camp. We spent the next couple of days enjoying the views and having a great time.
After that first little incident everything else went pretty smoothly. It was a lot of fun, but I have to say, that if McKenna was a little older I would not have wanted to take her there. I know it is a huge canyon, obviously, but it is fenced off in very few places. I admit that since I am afraid of heights I am more than a little biased, but I can't imagine how scary it would be to take a child who liked to wander off! They could easy walk off the trail and over the edge! Other than that minor detail the Grand Canyon is absolutely amazing! It was a fun trip!


Kenna and I playing in the pool

Dave and Kenna in the freezing pool

Kenna playing in the pack and play in the tent

Kenna enjoying the warm weather and a snack

Dave and Kenna at the Grand Canyon

Kenna and I at the Canyon
(Notice Kenna's finger? Yep, on this trip she learned how to pick her nose, major milestone!)

My Family

My little girl is so grown up!

Me looking off into the canyon! (cheesy!)

Dave and Kenna playing in the tree

There were so many elk here! They are so used to people that this giant elk was walking right along the road.

Yep Folks, She's Walking!

It is official as of last week, Kenna is walking! It is amazing, each day she takes more and more steps!

She is also talking! She says Whoa, Mom, Dad, Ball, Bird, and Tap.
My little girl is growing up!

We Did it!

We did it! This morning we ran the Utah Valley Marathon! After 18 weeks of training, it is all finally over! It has been quite a time consuming adventure! At one point I didn't even think I would be able to run because I pulled a muscle in my leg. But after taking about a month off my leg is feeling better, so I decided I would go for it.
The race started at 5:30am in Wallsburg, so Dave and I got up at 2:45 this morning after getting about 4 hours of sleep. We rode a bus up there and stood around in the cold and dark for about an hour. As soon as the race started it started raining. It rained for about the first two hours and was about 40 degrees, not exactly ideal running conditions.
Dave is absolutely my hero! He ran 26.2 miles in 3 hours and a half hours! He is amazing, he was on track to run it in about 3 hours and 20 minutes but he ended up getting a really bad cramp in his hamstring, so he had to take the last three miles significantly slower.
I ran the race in 4 hours 25 minutes, which I am pretty happy with. Next time I will definitely shoot to beat that time, but for my first time, I don't think it was too shabby.

Hiking in Alpine

Dave and Kenna starting out our hikeDave and Kenna at that top

Kenna and I hiking down

Kenna excited for the hike

Dave and Kenna sporting their sunglassesLast night we went on our long-awaited hike in Alpine. We have been wanting to do this hike for a couple of weeks now, but every time we had it planned something came up. Last night we finally got out and did it. It was awesome! We haven't taken Kenna out on a hike for quite a while, and she had a blast. She also got to try out her new sunglasses, which she was a huge fan of. Dave said that the little canyon we were in was Dry Canyon, even though there are quite a few Dry Canyons in Utah. It was so green and beautiful, I love spring and early summer in Utah!
Dave is such a good sport, he hiked up with Kenna on his back. I felt so bad because it was really hot! By the time we got to the top and we switched so I could hike down with her it had cooled down considerably, I was really lucky.
I am so lucky to have a family that loves the outdoors so much!

Sick Baby

Coming from a mother, there is nothing worse than a sick baby. McKenna came down with a fever last Friday afternoon and I felt so bad! It is so hard when your child is sick, and they can't tell you what is wrong. Everyone keeps asking me if she is teething, well, that is a good question, I really don't know. I don't see any teeth coming in, and when she got her first four teeth she didn't get a fever, but maybe?
I have to admit there is a small, selfish part of me that was a little frustrated with her timing, Dave and I had all of these fun plans for the weekend, and they pretty much all went up in smoke. As soon as I think this I remember that it is not me who is sick, it is my little baby girl, and I stop thinking that.
With all of this being said I have to say I am so grateful for modern medicine. I am not even talking about the serious prescriptions right now, if we didn't have motrin and tylenol this last weekend I don't know what we would have done. I guess I can be thankful that I live in these modern times and not 50 years ago.

My Addiction

So as addictions go, this one isn't that bad, I really can stop anytime I want to, but it is just too much fun! I LOVE babysteals.com, if you haven't checked it out already, you need to! Every day at 9:00am they post a new deal for babies. I have gotten some really fun stuff off of this website. Another cool feature is it is a local company so if you live close enough you can go and pick up your purchase and save on shipping. I know this sounds like a plug, and I guess it is, but they have some really fun stuff on this website, and did I mention that everything is discounted? Usually it is at least 50% off! It is my justification to buy Kenna things that she doesn't really need! Anyway, I am done ranting, but check it out!