Ivin LOVES Water

So, one of our dear friends called us this week and told us we didn't have any pictures on our BLOG of Ivin. We're glad to know that some of you actually read this thing. Maybe calls like his will entice us to write more often. But for now, here are a few pics to get me off the hook from writing tonight. I'm tired.

Apricot Season is Upon Us

Every soul down in Bountiful, the tall and the small,
Was picking, without any breaks at all!
They hadn't stopped the apricots from coming.
They came!
Somehow or other, they came just the same!

So, for some reason the grinch popped into my head when we got ready to do this post. I assume it comes from us not doing anything every year and having apricot season hit us with a vengeance. Don't get me wrong. I love the fruits of the labors. I love the juice, the leather, the dried fruit, the whatever else we think of to do with this stuff. The fun part this year was actually taking advantage of the humongous apricot tree behind us. We had all of our neighbors over here at some point or another, and we still have them coming. After all the picking, the tree doesn't even look like it has been touched. We haven't even started our tree yet. If anyone is looking for free apricots, come over NOW. Apricots have a window of about 2 minutes. They are not quite done, not quite done, then done, then nasty rotten.

This is the reason we go through this every year. This is also the reason we don't cut this tree down. mmmm... yummy... are you thirsty?


Along with the apricot fiesta, Ivin started going after them. He would slam them down by the handful. We had to watch him pretty close to get the pits out of them before they ended up in his little intestines. Despite our efforts, he choked down at least one pit that we know of. We were totally worried about the thing. All we could think of is that sharp little pit slitting up his little bowels and coming out in a bloody mess. SICK and OUCH! It took 48 hours-ish for the thing to pass. I made sure to take a photo for Kelly and send it to her when it all came out. I won't post that photo for each of your enjoyments.

Kelly and I are getting ready for the Park City half. We both went out on longer runs yesterday. Kelly did great and had a great time running with our neighbor Bethany who is also doing the half-marathon with us. I on the other hand, got out about 5 miles and tanked. It all went down hill. I had to alter my route, walk a bit, find a water stop, bath my face and shoulders in the water fountain at the golf course, strip myself of my shirt and cuss quite a few times. I'm pretty sure I didn't have enough water in my little body - maybe not enough food either. I made it through, didn't die and have moved on with my life. I hope this week goes better.

Weekend Warriors

So, I work a little with the GOAL Foundation in Ogden, Utah. It is known for the Ogden Marathon that it organizes and own as well as its ability to draw in huge events like the XTERRA Mountain Championships and the World Archery Championships to the Ogden area.

A while back the foundation asked me to help lead out the marketing for a new event called the Hurt in the Dirt. To make this blog a little shorter, we'll say I was stoked about the idea, not too stoked about the venue. The idea was to draw in a regional crowd and show off the Ogden area. So, the natural venues of Snowbasin, Wolf Creek and Powder Mountain came to mind. However, the organizers had a different place in mind - Fort Buenaventura (AKA The Fort). Having grown up in Ogden, I knew of The Fort. However, I had never been there. I had my own stereotypical - this is the ghetto hole where the mountain men come to party - view of The Fort and fought tooth and nail to have it somewhere else.

I have to admit. Helping organize this event wasn't my best showing in participation. I helped a bit a first, but then was out unable to attend most of the planning meetings. When it came down to it, I was really out of the loop and when the event came up I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But, I knew I needed to participate and show my support.

The Hurt in the Dirt race is a crit race. However, it is an offroad crit race. This means that there are a bunch of loops that you go through. There is a run loop as well as a bike loop. The run loop is 1.75ish miles and the bike loop is 5.1ish miles. Each participant, or team, has to complete 2 loops of the run course, 2 loops of the bike course, 2 loops of the run course and then finish with 2 loops of the bike course. In total the running is about 7 miles and the biking is about 20.5 miles.

I asked Glenn, my father-in-law and all around great cyclist, to be my partner and do the bike legs of the course. We weren't to stoked about the 5pm start of the race, and were both kinda pooped after a long day and contemplated not showing up. However, after participating the race, rubbing shoulders with the other competitors, and having an all around grand time, we will do this race again, and again, and again. This will most likely be on our annual event calendar.

Now, we need to explain offroad. One would naturally think of mountain biking and trail running. That is what I had in mind. I love trail running and given the right trail I can knock out some quick times trail running. However, offroading to the GOAL Foundation when applied to the Hurt in the Dirt race is not trail running. It is more like off-trail running.



Before the race began at a participant meeting, I was told that I would cross a river twice, run up some stairs, climb over some trees and follow some flags. I was not told that I would stumble through a mud pit (one side of the river), nearly be decapitated as I fenagled my way through some trees while trying to watch for some flags marking the "course", pop my quads burning up 80-100 stairs, only to bomb back down another set trying to keep my balance, or have to nearly crawl under some other trees like a rabbit being chased by a bear. Nor was I told I would eventually lose one of my shoes in the mud, drop the other one, and run the final "offroad" 1.5 miles like shoeless Joe Jackson - that was by my choice, though I don't recall mentally making this decision.

This does deserve a little explanation as it landed my name in the paper. I remind you that this came after five or six miles of "running" - more like obstacle coursing - the Hurt in the Dirt obstacle course. I came up to the first of two river crossings on the course. I plunged into what I thought would be the sweet spot to get me across the river the quickest. Turns out that I picked the sweet spot to gobble up shoes, because after sinking up to nearly my hip in water and mud I felt and heard a great suction cup noise relieving me of the weight of my shoe. I took the other step it took me to get across the river and without any thought whatsoever reached down in stride and yanked my other shoe and tossed it.

About 50 meters down the path, it occurred to me what I had done. It also occurred to me that I had nearly 1.5 miles to go to the exchange. The heat must have really been getting to me, because for some reason the 10-15 trees I had to climb over, the other river crossing, the stairs and the tree dodging that I still needed to do - now without shoes - didn't seem to be an issue in my mind. Luckily, I completed the course without any injury - other than some pains in my feet.

Hurt in the Dirt is one of the coolest events I have ever participated in. The Fort was an excellent venue. Any negative words that might have come out of my mouth about this event need to go right back in and be replaced with total positivity. Props to the organizers of the event and the GOAL Foundation for pulling off and excellent unique first year event. I will be back, Glenn will be back too. We might even bring a few other friends along for the ride - challenge. This race brings a whole new meaning to race. It brings a whole new dimension and challenge to training. It doesn't matter that I can click of sub-six minute pace for hours. It doesn't matter that I can click away miles on end above 20 mph. This race brings a whole new challenge to the table. It is a race of agility, stamina, reaction, and a whole lot of unique fun.

There were some amazing photogs at the event, one of them even dug my shoe out of the mud it was buried in, picked up the other shoe I had tossed, and brought them to the finish area for me - thanks Bryan. This photog in particular created some sweet documentation of the event. I love his style. Check out the start to his video of the event and some of the pics he caught.

Dirt Preview from Shane Osguthorpe on Vimeo.

I hope to see each of you out there with Glenn and I next year at The Fort for more adventurous fun!

New Year's brings New Life, but No Blogging - sorry

So, we've had quite a year, but haven't had any blogging. Good thing that wasn't a goal.

However, to report, we have done quite a bit on the bathroom and it is nearing completion. Ivin may have his first tubby in the bathtub upstairs in the next few weeks (knock on wood). Funny thing is I remember telling Kelly when we first started this gig that I thought we could finish the bathroom over the weekend if I took off early on Friday. Well, that was over a year ago now and we are still nearing completion.

We've had some great fun this year with little trips here and there and getting to spend time as a family. We've had a quite a bit of fun with the youth in our area and are finishing up the summer camp adventures for this year at least.

Now that we are feeling a little more on top of things and back to some kind of a schedule, we'll see what we can do to BLOG our little lives away again.

New Year's brings New Life

I'm glad we didn't set any goals surrounding our BLOG last year, or this year. We would have failed really miserably. Kind of like the 100 pushups a night goal from last year. I was hoping to get up to 100 pushups a night. Because, according to my grandpa's diary he was doing that at 80. Well, as much as people like to say I look like my grandpa, my body was telling me when I hit about 70 a night that my shoulder's were going to pop off my body if I kept it up. I'm still feeling the repercussions of that endeavor.

But, despite the lack of the BLOG goal we do have some goals in mind for the coming year - 100 pushups a night is not one of them (I like my shoulders right where they are - on my body).

Some of the new life that has come to our home this year is fueled with the completion of school. I made it through one more degree. This has brought numerous nights of fun at home with Kelly, Ivin and a torn apart bathroom. Yes, that project that started probably 6 months ago, yes that one that we posted pics of a while back, it is still in the works. And while the main problem that started this whole gig is fixed (the bathtub area is all tiled in) the rest of the bathroom has been in disarray for a few months now. Tearing everything out was so fun, I just kept on going and now we have a stripped bathroom that we have to piece together. It's coming slowly.

Ivin has been a little sicky that past few weeks. The poor little guy has a cold or something. Not to mention the whole set of teeth he has clawing through his gums. He now could be affectionately referred to has Niagra Falls with how much juice he's got coming out of his mouth constantly. And, I have to admit, I am a little worried that he may take up being one of those metal or glass chewers that you see at the circus. Anything that could almost fit in his mouth, now finds its way in there to ease the pain. I'm working on not complaining too much about my trials at the dentist and a 6 month long root canal job. Next time I'll start chewing on a book. I don't know if the dentist felt bad for how many house payments I made for him this last year or what, but last week when I went in for my checkup he let me off the hook with no cavities this go-around.

One of my goals this year is to get back into shape. I have set-up a few measureables that will keep me going, but have scaled them back from original 4 marathons this year. My body started telling me no when I was building up miles so fast to be ready for the first marathon in April. I did get asked to run on a team at the Lake-to-Lake relay in St. George in March. I've committed to that much, along with a few other things I'd like to do as far as running goes this year. One includes Ivin on a half-marathon. If anyone knows of any half-marathons that allow baby strollers, let me know. That will probably be towards mid-summer/fall time, after I can get him out in the stroller for a few months.

Good luck to everyone else with your goals. Maybe I'll fill you in on some of my other goals this year as we get going. They say that the more people you tell your goals to the more likely you are to accomplish them. Now the whole world knows a few of mine. Wow, talk about obligation. I don't want to let you all down.

Mutterings of Fall...

So, Ivin has had kind of a rough week, but whatever it has been he's laughing about it as you can tell. We've had some little flu-like symptoms going on through our house and we don't know if that's what's been bugging Ivin, or if its been a couple of teeth that are breaking through on the top of his mouth or what. But, he's still a cute little guy despite the middle of the night rampages and yoga-defying backbends that make a parent wonder what he is doing wrong.

Maybe Ivin is semi-like his father and doesn't have Halloween on his list of best events of the year. Or, maybe its all the running around to Halloween parties and being drug around town in the beautiful fall weather we've been having that he doesn't like. Despite this running around, he's been having a great time as have his mommy and daddy at the fall/Halloween festivities.

We went up to a sweet Halloween party at Jefferson Square in Ogden. Yes, Jason this is the building you were looking at buying on the corner of Jefferson and 26th Street. It was a very fun, family friendly party full of games, headless horseman rides and one little pumpkin man. We got to go on a tour of the mansion there that the owner/party organizer is refinishing. It was quite the good time. We were glad that our friends the Philpots went with us, because we didn't know anyone there. Ivin was the cute little pumpkin man, Kelly was a witch and as you can tell, Jeremy was a broomstick.

Then, there was the annual Halloween party at Kelly's aunt's house. The theme this year was Mary Poppins. As you can full tell from the picture, Kelly was Mary Poppins and Jeremy was Burt. Ivin was supposed to be sleeping in the other room, he actually was crying quite well. He could have been crying because he was dressed up as soot. You know the stuff that Burt sweeps out of the chimney - as he is a chimney sweep.

We've been doing a little fall cleaning. We cleaned out the storage room and the garage. Oh ya, didn't we start a bathroom project 4 months ago. Yes, it is still waiting. Maybe we'll get that done over Thanksgiving break. Jeremy had the week off of school, so we took advantage of having a few nights to actually be married and go out on the town together as a family. It was nice. Being a family is a good thing. It is even better when you actually spend the time to be a family. I haven't been the best at this while in school and I'm excited to be done to enjoy this wonderful thing again as school draws near a close. I start my last class tomorrow night. That means 7 weeks and we have a huge celebration party. On the other hand, I guess I could really work on being a better husband and daddy while still in school. This is far more important than the degree will ever be anyway. Its easy for me to say, now keep me in check so I do.

Ivin is Mobile... see for yourself.

So, as you saw, Ivin has given us a warning that he will soon be more mobile and able to get into things. I guess we'll have to start prepping the house for a mobile child. While this may not seem that urgent, he has been rolling for over a month now.

Usually, I try to play the piano a little bit every day. OK, so it really turns out being maybe a few times a week. Anyway, I'll put Ivin on the floor with a few toys, or in his saucer guy and he'll sit there and listen and join in quite often - he is quite a good singer. Anyway, the other day I got done playing a few songs and singing with him, he was doing quite well. When I got done I got up and turned around and Ivin was nowhere to be seen. I glanced all over the room, then looked down at my feet. He was lying right next to the piano bench grabbing and biting at it. Luckily when I stood up I hadn't moved out the bench. I would have really hurt him.

He sure is a cute little guy. Kelly took a few photos this afternoon. Here is a small assortment. Isn't digital photography a great thing? He's just past 7 months now and we love him so very much.







Not any real big news from us. Jeremy finished one more class. He now has one and one-half classes left before he completes this degree. The light is oh so close and feels oh so warm. Kelly has been a little ill. Not with this SWINE, but just a little sniffle in the sinus'. She'll be up in no time though.