cake making....

Lis and I made Mckell's wedding cake....I had never made a cake before and lis had only helped with mine...so we were major beginners but we are creative and ambitious so we picked a design and jumped right in. It was a lot of fun to make, and my sweet friend Sammy came over and helped us while i was in logan to make it, and i'm so glad she did because it made it so much easier to have a 3rd person. It was quite time consuming, but very fun for me because i got to spend the day with lis, ave, and sammy....We think that it turned out so good, and we are really happy with it. We made it out of styrofoam, except for the topper, that was real cake (except kell and spenc never even cut the cake, but oh well).... pics are from start to finish. enjoy.

school

[IS NOT VERY FUN]

{i need a break & were only 4 weeks into it}

labor day

I went home on monday for Kell's bridal shower....it is still so weird to me that she is getting married, and even weirder that its in 3 weeks. but i am so excited for her. Her bridal shower made me want to have another one...such fun gifts. I think that her announcements turned out adorable...(Thank you etsy)

The rest of the day was spent going out to lunch with the girls + dad. pretty chill....but always fun to be home with my sisters. aren't they cute?

Then, on tuesday night my parents came up and went to the State Fair with me, i found my newest obsession...frozen chocolate covered raspberries....i paid $5 for about 6 dipped raspberries...a little pricey for the amount, but totally worth it. (now i'll just make my own) But really they were {that} good.

Thats all!

13.1

{TOP OF UTAH HALF MARATHON}

The week after i finished running the Wasatch Back in June, i was still on runners high, and signed up for the Top of Utah Half Marathon, one week went by....didn't go running, two weeks....still didn't feel like running, three weeks and even four weeks....still hadn't hit the pavement to go running, not even once. anyways....long story short, i was having a super hard time motivating myself to go running, {thankfully i have a super awesome mother in law who teaches aerobic classes weekly to help keep me in semi-decent shape for 2 1/2 months}....so when the race approached last weekend, i had tallied up a TOTAL of 4 runs in the last two months, none of them over the distance of 4 miles...hahaha, really?! So i couldn't decide if i was really gonna go through with it or not, and when it came down to it, i decided that i would do it...but had little or NO expectations for myself, ( + i would be able to go spend the weekend with lis and little ave) so i went. My good friend Jana had signed up to do it as well, but both of us had slacked somewhat in training, me more that her. But we both decided to do it, laughing at ourselves the whole bus ride up the canyon where we were to start the race.


seriously, i kept thinking "what in the crap am i thinking" last year when i trained for my half, i worked my butt off and trained so hard, but for some reason it was hard for me this year. Anyways,.... race started, and there were like 3000 participants, it was crazily packed, but i loved the atmosphere, the canyon we ran through was beautiful, and the adreniline that i felt was pretty high.....

crazy thing is, the adreneline NEVER left, the running got a little difficult at mile 10, where the uphill started, but i am pretty darn pleased with how it all turned out (especially for not training) I met my goal of never walking, and finishing under two{2} hours. I finished the race in 1 hour and 50 minutes.... and i placed 18th in my age division. I was seriously shocked! but really happy, and it felt really good. (i'm kinda sore now, but i guess thats my payback for not training @ ALL, right)...anyways...it was fun, and i'm glad i did it.


{jana & me: pre-race}

{jana's friend Betty ran as well, and did awesome}

{i can finally see the finish line, and it looks good}

I am super happy and proud of Jana for doing it, she did so awesome too, and really if it weren't for her i probably would have dogged out on it...so THANK YOU jan, your awesome!




And of course i have to throw in a few of sweet little (but getting bigger) Avery + lis...miss you both already...loves!

{boring}

the last few weeks have been slightly uneventful....hence the zero{0} blogs in 5 weeks. it happens. wish i could say something super exciting was coming up. Chase started the DREADED hunting season on sunday....dreadful for me, wonderful for the Chaser man (but i'm sure he misses me too, even tho he loves his job). I sure do miss him for the 3 months that he is nearly non-existant from my life. but hopefully it won't be too bad.

I start school next week...gross! but its my last semester EVER. thats pretty awesome.

little sis, Mckell, got engaged a few weeks ago. SUPER excited for her and mr. spencer mendenhall. he'll be a fantastic addition to the fam. yeah for them.

my annual anticipated ALUMNI volleyball game is this weekend. Thats always something fun to look forward to. i miss volleyball. a lot.

we had a fun summer. kinda sad to see it gone, ok, really sad to see it gone. But i do love love love the fall.

....until something cool happens, peace!

lots of green stuff

In the spring, when i was buying my seeds for our garden, i called and told my sisters that i was going to have "one hell of a garden this year." Then i realized that neither chase or i had ever grown a garden before, so it could be a trial and error process. But we have had nothing but success in our garden thus far. I am so impressed with chase and our garden, he babies it so much...and takes such good care of it. It certainly is not perfect and were already thinking about what we will do different next year in our garden, but we sure feel blessed to live in this beautiful place and have the opportunity to grow a big garden. and everything tastes so yummy and fresh. This year we planted lots and lots and lots of squash, cucumbers, tons of tomotoes, peppers, green beans, pototoes, brocolli, cabbage, peas, carrots, red beets, onion, and corn, and so far all have turned out great. we are happy gardeners.

Big ol' thanks to my amazing mother, for always growing such an amazing garden...i'm sure glad she is skilled in the field of gardening because i have turned to her for gardening advice many a times. thanks mom!

tough decisions

so awhile back i was offered the J.V volleyball coaching position this year at the high school...which i happily took. I loved coaching last year and i was excited to move up in the ranks this year.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, the head coach called me and told me that the budget was cut so they weren't going to be able to hire a Freshman coach, and that the J.V coach (me) had to coach both teams. AHHH! that doesn't sound fun.

So i've been thinking this week about how or if i could handle doing this while taking 20 credits for my last semester of college. could I? I would have to practice at 6 a.m. go to school all day, practice at 3 p.m., try to do homework, and possilby work a few hours inbetween. sound like pure STRESS to me.

So, after much contemplating, i decided that i would have to turn down the position. I'm pretty bummed about it. I know its for the best, and i'll probably do way better in school. But seriously,
tough decisions are not fun....at all.