Baby Blake

Back in September my sweet sister-in-law, Andrea had her second baby, Blake Matthew. Isn't he adorable? He's much bigger now, and looks just like his daddy. Anyway, she had him a little early, and no one else could make it down to help at that time, so I packed up the boys and we drove down to California!

The drive was the worst ever. I will spare you the details, but let's just say that I kind of hate Las Vegas. Sorry to all you Vegas lovers...it was all worth it though because I got to hang out with some of favorite people!

They had a monster heat wave while we were there, (well into the hundreds) so we packed up the kiddos and headed to the beach! I know I have said this before, but Reid and cousin Audrey have SO much fun getting into trouble together it's ridiculous, and I LOVE it. I hope they always stay so close...

Blake did a lot of this

Andrea did a lot of this

And I spent my time chasing after these little monkeys!

Thanks, Andrea for letting us invade your little place and hang out with your awesome family! We'll see you at Thanksgiving!

Red Rock Relay

So, this post has been haunting me since September. There are so many pictures, and so much to say about them that are important and exciting to me, but super-boring to you. Feel free to skip this post if you would like! Here's an abridged version of the Red Rock Relay for me and my teammates:

-12 man (and woman!) Team with 3 legs each
- 186 miles from Cedar City to St George
- Almost two full days of running
- Almost no sleep
- Lost of eating
- A little bit of dehydration
-8 weeks pregnant=a little pukey
-My car with 4 fun gals I know and love PLUS two single guys. Oh Yea, baby.
- Delirious giggling and peeing on the side of the road

And now on to the long version. Settle in people:

We drove to Cedar City the night before the race, and we stayed in the cutest little KOA this side of the MIssissippi. That's Kamping with a "K" people.

Cute, no? I felt like Abraham Lincoln in this friendly little dwelling.

Our team was divided into two vans of six, and these were our lovely single BYU students (also brothers) who happened to get stuck for two long days with four married women with small children. Poor guys. They did happen to impress us with some amazing singing, and I believe they are doing "you're always a woman to me" by Billy Joel here. Awesome. Also, for those of you that read my post about my half-ironman the one on the left is the lucky man that received my text-message. Not embarrassing at all.

This is most of our team the next morning. I didn't know anyone before the race except the girls in my car.

THIS is the announcer to whom I gave my blanket because it was freezing at the start. We started at Brian Head which is about 10,000 feet above sea level. Let me tell you, it is HARD to breathe while running at that elevation. Yikes!

Jess and I rode the chairlift to the start of the run.

This is our first teammate finishing the first leg of the relay.

While we were waiting for the other van to finish, my group (the sun team) decorated my car in pirate garb, and we discovered that Tyler was quite the arteest, so he gave us all skull and cross bone tattoos.

John was on a police relay team, and Steve (the crazy guy on the left) wore a different costume for each of his legs. He was hilarious!

This is Travis finishing up his run. We lucked out having him on our team because he is FAST -like 5 minute mile fast. He was a rock star!

You can't tell, but Travis is handing me the baton here.

And I'm off on my first leg!

Jen and Jess decided to steal my camera and take some pictures during my run.

I actually ran this leg really fast for me, and felt really good about it, other than the fact that I had to go to the bathroom the whole time.

Not sure what you're doing here, Jen

Or here...but you're still adorable!

Coming in to my hand off!

I love this picture of Jen during her run. What a beautiful background!

Our group ran through the middle of the night, and things got a little out of hand party-wise in the car. Let's just say that we pretty much sweat awesomeness.

This is the only evidence I have of the night run. my leg was at about 2 in the morning, and we were all pretty exhausted, so not much was documented.

The next day was brutal. We got very little sleep, and came in to St. George with temperatures over 100 degrees. Unfortunately, the friendlies in our other van weren't really "runners," so they were a bit slow, and we started on our last leg later in the day than we were hoping.

Kathy did the first leg, and was a rock star!

Unfortunately, Tyler injured himself during the night run, so Kathy's husband TJ was our pinch hitter and ran Tyler's last leg. It was a tough run, but TJ did awesome! We were so grateful he was willing to help us out!

Jess did one of the worst legs of the day. It was really hot by this point, and she had a few KILLER hills. She did so well though. I'm so glad we were on the same team!

I was after Jess, and my leg wasn't exactly a cake-walk either.

Passing the Baton!

I got to do some of my run on trail which was a nice change. This part was mostly up-hill, but I loved the dirt under my feet.

This picture makes me laugh every time because- who is THAT guy?! and why is he so excited to be in this picture?!

That's me way down at the bottom of that hill. I was about ready to keel over and die at this point in the race.

Done!

Jen was up next, and I think she looks like a sports model here. Maybe some day I will have arms like her...



Travis (the fastie!) was the anchor, and he had the hardest let of all. It was long, and it was late-afternoon, and it was scorching hot. We were literally dumping water on him every half mile to try and keep him cool. He did awesome, and we were finally done!

Bottom line: The race was fun, and a great experience, but I will probably never do a relay like this again. I am a big fan of waking up after a full night of rest, eating my usual pre-race breakfast, doing my race, and then going home and eating a lot.

The best Part: Hanging out with Jen, Kathy, and Jess-some of my favorite gals

The Worst Part: Later humiliating myself by sending text messages to Tyler.

Thanks Red Rock Relay! Maybe we will see you again in a couple of years...or maybe not so much...

Exploring

Sometime this summer Nate and I went exploring along the alpine loop. We walked some trails, had a picnic, and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. Don't ask me anything else about this outing because I waited so long to write about it I kind of forget when, where or why we did this...I sure think my boys are cute though.

Link is getting dad's boogers for him. Carry on little buddy.

Little Helper

Nate comes from a family of window washers, so when Grandpa and Grandma Tulett came into town for a visit Reid had to get a little "family Business" training in. Reid LOVES to help, and he also LOVES his Grandpa Tulett, so it's a win-win really. Anyway, Nate's parents and about 12 (not exaggerating) other family members came into town to visit in August. We had one full little house. To give you a clearer mental picture Nate and I slept in the kitchen on an air mattress. Awesome.

Also, this is the only picture I took the whole week they were here. This is why I couldn't cut it in the journalism business--I don't take pictures. At all. Also, I'm pretty bad at interviewing too. So, pretty much all I can do is write. What were we talking about again?

Two Moms and a Pop

Waaaay back in August I did a half iron man as a relay with my great friends Jen and John, and our team name was Two Moms and a Pop-awesome, right? Anyway, I did the swim, Jen did the bike and John did the run. It was really a good time, but I literally took a pregnancy test right before I went to the race, and was sort of preoccupied. This is code for: I had a super crappy swim time.

HOWEVER, I know you are only reading this for my embarrassing story, so here you go: In September I ran this relay with a group of 12 people, (I only knew a few of them) and there was this one 20 year old guy on my team. He was super nice, and I had his number in my phone because we had to do a lot of prep work for the race as a team. SO I have this single college student dude's number in my phone. Well, I ALSO happen to have that KILLER picture of me in my wetsuit featured in my "bun in the oven" post below (go ahead and look, I'll wait...) Are you back? Good. Well, Reid was playing with my phone, and SOMEHOW sends THAT picture to my single college student friend, and to make it worse he somehow typed in the word "bed" underneath it (go ahead and look at it again to get the full effect, I'll wait...) So, am I super awesome or what? Also, I DID pee my pants Megan, but I waited until I got in the water. Don't judge!




Anyway, here is John, Jen and me before the race started. We were all nervous and excited!

Jen coming in from the bike, and passing our timing chip to John. Jen was a rock star. She crashed, went off course a bit and STILL came in before most of the other women. I fully believe she would have had the fastest bike time if she hadn't had so many problems. She is my hero.

This is after John came in from the run. This was his first running race EVER (he is a super duper biker like Jen) and he did so well. He came in right on his goal time, and even managed to pass a few people. Most importantly, he passed one of his fellow police officers who had been talking smack ever since we signed up for this race!

After the race with our kiddos.

After I have this baby I'm going to do one of these all by myself! I can't wait!