Val's Wedding (finally)!

Okay, so I got the pictures from my sister Val's wedding back!  Here is fair warning.  There are WAY too many pictures in this post for anyone but me to ever look at. 

My brother and his family came into town the night before the wedding.  They tagged along to a couple of soccer games Saturday morning, then we had a big brunchy/lunchy kind of thing with Val and a bunch of our family.  Preston made his famous French toast and we all had a good time.  Before we knew it, it was time to get ready to head to the wedding!  Arden and Cora were flower girls along with their cousin Brynn and Dax was the ring bearer, so I wanted them all look good!  It took me a lot longer than I thought to primp and curl and gel and tie and button all the kids to within an inch of their little lives, but they looked so cute all dressed up.  They drove over with my parents as I tried to throw myself together.  When I got there, I found the flower girls "helping" Val get ready.  Awww!

They loved the fact that they had access to the Bride's Room, while all of the boy cousins had to stay out. 

 The little girlies were all sitting on the stairs looking cute, but when the photographer tried to get a shot, Cora got shy and ran off.  I tried to coax her back on the stairs, but she wouldn't sit without me there.  Oh well.

Eventually, it was time for the big show to start.  Have I mentioned that Dax was the ring bearer.  Dax ADORES Val and was so excited to help her out.  He told me he knew exactly what to do since he had seen "Tangled Ever After," which is a Disney short about Rapunzel and Flynn Rider's wedding day.  In the show, Maximus, the horse, is the ring bearer, and walks proudly up the aisle with the rings on the pillow.  (After he makes it to the alter, he sneezes and the rings fall off the pillow, roll out the door, and Maximus and his little lizard friend chase them all over the kingdom.  Chaos ensues.  I was hoping that Dax was referring to the walking proudly up the aisle part, and not the chaos part.  But you never know with Dax.) 

My boy was also supposed to stand next to the best man all during the ceremony.  I was juuuuust a little worried about how he would manage to hold his wiggly self still for the 15 minutes.  I had absolutely no idea what would happen. 

I walked myself down the aisle and then turned around to see this.  I so almost melted into a big puddle of mommy slush.

 Dax cheesed this awesome smile all the way up the aisle.  Best ring bearer EVER.

 Right after I got finished gathering my slushy knees up off the floor, here comes another wave of adorable to knock me right back over.  How excited is Cora to be spreading those flower petals?  So excited!

Next came Val!  She walked down the aisle to a fancy string instrumental version of "Sweet Child O'Mine."  I kid you not.  I found this out at the rehearsal dinner so I was prepared.  At that moment when Val started walking down the aisle and everyone was turned around watching her start to come up the aisle, I busted out a short Axl Rose shuffle.  I had warned my other sister Amanda that I was going to do it, so she saw it but I don't think anyone else did.  Except maybe Val and my dad.  Sorry Val, I couldn't hold it in.

The ceremony started and the kids were hanging in there.  Dax is pondering the meaning of the universe or admiring the shininess of the rings or something.  The point is that is he not roaring like a dinosaur or trying to tackle the best man.  Score!

The girls did pretty good, as I knew they would.  Plus, they were within my arms reach in case of emergency.

Still doing great!  I can't remember the name of the judge who performed the ceremony, but he did a really good job and was pretty entertaining. 

Dax finally got to hand over the rings.  By this time, Cora was tired of standing up and had taken a seat so she could be more comfortable and see things better.  I got her back up after a minute.

Dax was being so careful with the rings.  My knees are melting again!

 Unfortunately, after the rings were safely on the bride and grooms, Dax felt a little less pressure and decided that he might take a seat too.  I shot him a "look" and he stood back up.  Good boy!

Aha!  We did it!  I mean, of course, Val and Josh did are married!  But I must admit that I am nearly as happy about the fact that that there were no major kid-related fiascoes during the ceremony!  Hooray all around!

 After the ceremony we headed outside for more pictures!

 Here is the one where we all look impressed with Val's ring.  Are we good or what?

 And here is the whole famdamily! 

What a beautiful married couple.  My baby sister is a Mrs.!

Next on the agenda was dinner!  The kids decided they wanted their own "kids-only" table.  Sounds good to me!  The biggest problem with the arrangement is that the kids table was right next to the self-serve punch container.  Dax apparently loves punch.  That kid drank about 17 glasses by the time dinner was served.

After dinner was cake cutting!  I love it when the bride and groom feed each other the cake so nice and sweetly.  I don't like to see cake coming out of people's noses at their weddings.  That is just me.

 Then...dancing!  Bride and groom:

Bride and Dad:

Now everybody!  Dax agreed to dance with me, but according to Dax, "dance" means "jump around like crazy and try to pull mom off her stilettos." 

Preston had it much easier.  Say it with me.  Awwwwwww!  Gotta save this picture for Cora's wedding (*sniff* *sniff*).

 The other flower girls were partners for each other!

 Grandma and Grandpa are showing off now:

After a few dances, it was time to throw the bouquet.  Here is Arden and Brynn diving for the prize.  Brynn won but Arden ended up with a few torn flowers clutched in her fist.

Next was the garter throw.  Guess who won?

(Notice how red his face is?  It takes a lot of effort to jump around like crazy and try to pull mom off her stilettos!  Then he ran outside to play tag.  Weddings are strenuous!) 

Soon the night was coming to an end.  We all got to hold sparklers which was partly fun and partly terrifying.  (Please don't sword fight with your sparklers!  Please don't set your hair on fire!  I put so much hair spray on it that it would go up like lighter fluid!  You get the idea...) 

 Bye Val!  Bye Josh!  Congratulations!

Are you still reading?  Congratulations to you too! 

More Dinosaurland Weekend Stuff



Back to our weekend excursion!  After my much-needed shower, we grabbed some much-needed food and then headed out to see the sights.  Our first stop?  The great big pink dinosaur holding the Vernal sign, of course!

 

The girls especially liked this dinosaur because, well, it was pink.  Duh.  Also, if you look close it has eyelashes and its eyes actually move back and forth like it is watching you drive by in your car.  Kind of freaky, actually.  Also if you look closely, Dax is still showing off his race medal. 

 





After we had our fill of Pinky the dinosaur, we headed over for a more authentic dinosaur experience at the Utah Field House museum.  The kids can't resist brushing the dirt off some fossils. 

Look at this!  A woolly mammoth photo bombed this picture:

They had lots of cool stuff inside to look at, but also had some life-size dinosaur statues outside.  Cora told me to "pose pretty" in front of our favorite dinosaur, the stegosaurus:

And here is Dax, doing his T-Rex impression in front of the real thing.  Cora is looking concerned, much like the Triceratops is probably doing if we could only see its face.

After we finished up at the field house (where we spent probably as much time in the gift shop as we did looking at the actual exhibits), we headed back to the hotel for some more swimming.  My legs were a little stiff by then, so swimming felt nice, and the hot tub felt ESPECIALLY nice.  After the swim, we ordered some pizza and then called it a night.

The next day, we got up and had some of the free hotel breakfast (it was really good!  They had waffles, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, sausage, muffins, bagels, etc. etc. and on and on.  Of all the many options available, the kids were the most excited to eat...Trix.  Yup, I am one of those mean moms who don't buy sugary cereal very often, so they were so, SO excited to eat their fill.

After the kids were full of Trix, we took one more swim and/or soak in the hot tub, we packed up and got out of the hotel room.  We had some lunch and then put Dinosaur National Monument into our navigation system.  It navigated us to a road that quickly headed out into the middle of ab-so-lutely nowhere.  At one point, we had to stop and wait for a cow to get off of the road:

I was a little concerned that our navigation system was playing jokes on us, but nope, it was right.  Dinosaur National Monument is in the middle of Noooowhere.  But we found another Stegosaurus statue (this one has a better background, don't you think?)

We looked in the visitors center (mostly at the gift shop) and then headed up to the quarry.  Awesome!

Here is Dax, next to a sauropod femur that is just as tall as he is!

Cora liked the put-together skeletons better than the wall.  Actually, the kids were a little under-whelmed by the wall of bones.  I guess they aren't so good at using their imaginations yet, and were hoping for some animatronic Allosauruses or something....

Soon Cora was so bored she took my camera away from me.  She took a bunch of pictures.  Here is only a very small sample:  First, me and Arden trying to identify some fossils.  There were quite a few like this.

Then suddenly, I get an eye-full of this.  Wha?

Next Dax had a turn behind the camera:

Okay, that is enough.  Let's go on a hike!  Here are the kids looking down at the beautiful canyon below:

Here is me looking down at the stairs they have so thoughtfully installed on the trail and wondering how my stiff legs are ever going to get down them.  But get down them I did.  Very slowly and not very gracefully.

On our hike we saw more fossils and some pretty wildflowers, but we had to start heading back so we could get home in time for bedtime.  There is not a lot to see between Vernal and Heber City, and luckily the kids did pretty good and we only had to stop a couple of times.  At one point we stopped at a rest stop after about 90 minutes of driving.  Holy COW my legs were so stiff I must have looked like a zombie or something shuffling along trying to herd the kids to the rest room.

It was a fun trip, but as always, I was very glad to get back to my own bed (and to put Cora in hers!)

Dino Halfs (Marathons and Miles)

Since I don't have any wedding pictures yet I am going to skip ahead to our weekend trip to the land of Vernal.  The reason we ended up in Vernal on this particular weekend?  Well, if you remember, I was a little disappointed that I didn't make my 2-hour goal at the Disneyworld Half Marathon back in January because of the 25,000 other people in my way (not exaggerating).  I wanted to give it one more try in a less-crowded race to see if I could make it under the 2 hour mark.  I checked online and found a race called the "Dino Half."  It cost less than 1/3 the amount of the Disneyworld Half Marathon, started 2 hours later in the morning, and had 1/100th the amount of runners.  Win, win and win.  The race was being held on a slightly-downhill course near Dinosaur National Monument and other dinosaur stuff.  Hey, I know a kid who kind of likes dinosaurs. 

 

Sign me up.

 

After I signed up, I noticed that there was also a half-mile kids race.  It only cost $10 and the kids would get a t-shirt AND a medal.  The medals were in the shape of dinosaurs, so I thought that since Dax has an unending supply of energy and an undying love of dinosaurs that he might want to do the race.  I asked him about it and he was superexcited.  One for the kids race!  Arden was sitting next to Dax while we were talking about it, and she jumped in and said she wanted a medal too.  Um, okay, Arden can run half a mile.  Two for the kids race! 

 

Cora, who was nearby piped up and squeaked, '"I want to do it too!  I want to run a race and get a medal!"  Ruh-Roh.  "Corbie," I said, "You would have to run pretty far.  I am not sure you can run that far since you make me carry you to church, and that is only half a block away."  "But MOOOM!" Cora yells while bouncing up and down, "I AM SUPERFAST!  I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!  NEVER EVER!"  I laughed and I told her that we would go to the park later and she could run around the track to make sure she could really go half a mile on her own two little legs.  Running shoes ON!  Arden and Dax ran neck and neck furiously around the track.  I trotted along with Cora who was running and giggling and running and giggling.  She wasn't very fast but she successfully completed a couple of laps with only a two small walking breaks and zero requests to be carried.  Okay.  Three for the kids race!

 

I went through my training schedule okay, but I knew that it was going to be CLOSE whether or not I would make the whole 13.1 miles in less than 2 hours.  Really close.  I was hopeful, but not too confident.

 

We drove to Vernal Friday afternoon, and checked into our hotel.  Dax told the girl at the desk all about how he was there to run in a race.  After we dropped off our stuff, we went to pick up our race packets.  The kids were jumping around, so excited about the t-shirts, chap sticks and pens and temporary dinosaur tattoos the had scored that they could hardly contain themselves.  We had some dinner (where Dax told everyone he could find all about how he was going to run in a race) and then headed to the hotel pool for our evening entertainment. 

 

I was hoping that the swimming would wear everyone (mostly Cora) out, but we still had a little bit of a hard time getting Cora to keep her sweet little mouth closed over on the sofa bed.  Eventually we all got to sleep. 

 

Soon it was morning, and we headed out to drive me to the bus.  I realized after we were driving that although I had my iPod, I had forgotten my iPod arm band back at the hotel.  I couldn't face the prospect of running 13+ miles in silence, so we ran back to get it.  Luckily, the bus was running a little late too so Preston and the kids didn't have to drive me all the way to the start.  The rest of the crew headed back to the hotel for some breakfast and some pre-race swimming while I headed to the FrEeZiNg CoLd starting line.  I turned on my handy-dandy GPS watch Preston got me for Christmas (LOVE IT) and it started trying to find the satellites.  The start line was up Dry Fork Canyon, which has some tall cliffs on either side in some places.  The race started and still no satellites.  Crap.  I have no idea how fast I am running without my watch, so I just ran fast and hoped the satellites were found quickly.  No luck.  It just kept searching and searching, which had never happened before.  Crap.  After I pass the 1-mile marker and the satellites are still lost, I decided to just switch over to the timer so I would at least be able to tell from mile to mile how fast I was going. 

 

I wasn't too worried because the race had some pacers (people who run the race at a certain pace), so I figured if I stayed between the guy holding the 1 hour 55 minutes sign and the girl holding the 2 hours 00 minutes sign, I would be fine.  At mile 3 I was right behind Mr. 1:55, and I timed myself between mile 2 and 3 and I had done it in just under 9 minutes.  Cool.  I am feeling pretty okay!  (Other than the fact that the pacer (who I shall refer to as Mr. 1:55) is having a conversation with the person next to him like he is sitting on a couch.  He is not even breathing hard at all.  Totally annoying.

 

Mile 4...Mr. 1:55 is getting kind of far ahead of me.  Mile 5...crap, where is he?  I was planning on keeping him in sight for at least a couple more miles, but there was a hill and I lost him!  I am afraid to go much faster though because...well...I don't want to die at the halfway point.  By mile 6 I hadn't seen Mr. 1:55 for a good long time and I was starting to get worried.  I just kept plugging along through the next few miles trying to keep the time between mile markers under 9 minutes, or at least as close as I could.  When the 2:00 pacer hadn't passed me by mile 10, I snuck a peek behind me.  I didn't see her.  Maybe I can do this! 

 

I am kind of tired though.  It seems like the mile markers are getting farther and farther apart.  Mile 11.  Okay, I am really about ready for this race to be done.  I hear footsteps behind me and I am worried it is the pacer.  The way I am feeling if she passed me now I don't know if I could kick it up a notch to stay ahead of her.  Luckily, it wasn't her, just another runner.  Phew.  Are we seriously not at mile 12 yet?  Mile 11 lasted forever!  Eventually, mile 12 came into sight.  Only 1.1 more miles to go.  Just another 10 minutes. 

 

That was a long 10 minutes. 

 

The finish line was set up in a church parking lot, and I have to tell you that when I turned the corner towards the finish line and saw that I was going to make it in less than 2 hours, I was a happy girl! 

 

 



I saw Preston and the kids near the finish cheering for me, and that gave me another reason to smile.  Yay me!  I ran under the line while the shot clock said 1:57.  My official chip time was 1:56:49, which is about 3 minutes faster than I was aiming for :)  I walked over and got some water, chocolate milk and orange slices.  Then my legs decided that they would like to sit down.  So sit we did.  I sucked down some water and tried to get a bite of my orange slices before Dax stole them from me.  Preston kept bugging me to stand up and walk around, so after a minute Preston pulled me up off the ground and we walked over to get a picture:

And then I walked over to get some more snacks since mine had been stolen.  I saw popsicles this time!  I wanted a popsicle, and my legs wanted to sit back down.  I walked over to the curb and tried to give us both what we wanted.  Cora had other ideas.  Here she is, stealing my popsicle: 

I was too tired to resist.  Here is my Corbie, with her ill-gotten gains.  What does a tired girl have to do to get a post-race snack to herself?!?

Lucky for me, the kids race started after a bit, so I wandered over and got MYSELF a popsicle and got ready to stand still and take pictures while Preston ran with the kids.  On your mark, get set, GO!

Arden and Dax were pretty much neck and neck during the whole race, but right before the final turn Dax started to walk for a second and Arden pulled away.  As you can see from the picture, she ran about a 5:30 half mile.  Not too shabby.  Yay Arden!

Dax soon realized he was almost there and picked up the pace.  He was only about 10 seconds behind Arden and finished strong.  Yay Dax!

(Arden better watch out!  I don't know if she will be able to beat this kid much longer).  Preston and Cora were, as predicted, a little farther behind, but they were smiling as they finished.  Yay Cora (and Preston!)

Here is Arden, with her very own, completely-legal-and-not-stolen popsicle, and her medal.  We hung around and ate some more snacks and let the kids bask in the glory of finishing their very first race. 

We  decided we couldn't leave until we got a picture with the dinosaur that was wandering around, so here we all are.  Dino-Half finishers. 

Yay us!  Now carry me to a shower....