A Little Cafe

Cami and I had a Mother-daughter date yesterday. While Caylee was at a birthday party, Cami and I decided to go to lunch. She picked a little cafe just up the road in a neighboring subdivision. I had a croissant sandwich and Cami had a Spring Salad.

We sat at a tall square table in front of the window. The book case next to our table had an old Milton Bradley game called "Stay Alive". We pulled out that game and played while we ate and drank our shared Mango cream smoothie.

Marathon Training

I am really getting fired up about my marathon training. I ran 17 miles last Saturday ( a week ago). I have my sights set for 20 next Saturday. Can you imagine 20 miles! It seems unbelievable to me that I can actually do that. But I think I can. I am almost sure I can. I have been following the Jeff Galloway training method for the last 3 1/2 months. I run 3-4 days a week and walk on the other days. I have figured out what to fuel my body with on the long runs, how to hydrate enough, how to recover etc. It is like a grand adventure with new experiences at each turn. I now have an ipod (thanks to Cassy), I down loaded an audio book - The Zookeepers Wife, and have been listening to that for the last couple of runs. I bought new Saucony running shoes. It didn't take me long to break them in from a beautiful shiny white to a dull ugly gray. When I come in from running I have a brown line where my socks are. Kicking up lots of dirt I guess. I bought a new running toy yesterday I am excited about so now I can hardly wait to go out tomorrow. It is a Nike product. It is a watch with a chip that goes into your shoe. The chip measures your speed and distance. I need to find a track tomorrow so I can calibrate it to my stride. It is made to work with Nike shoes and an ipod mini. I don't have either of those so I am improvising. It also plugs into the computer to download the information. I think I am running faster now than before so I am excited to use this new watch and get some good data during my run. I bet you didn't know running could be so exciting! Wish me luck for the big 20 mile run on Saturday!

Becky and Steve

Becky and Steve the day before entering the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. They will receive about 11 days of training then off to Africa. We are very excited for them and proud of them. It was hard to say good bye on Sunday though! I will miss them a lot! They will be serving a Service Mission in Ethiopia. They will be responsible for overseeing the installation of a water pipe line. They also are overseeing a program that helps with the medical needs of babies. I wish I could squeeze in a trip to Africa to visit them sometime in the next 18 months! Good luck you guys and safe journeying!

Lichfield Family Reunion

Yea! The Lichfield Family Reunion was a sucess!

I had to organize a reunion as an extra curricular activity for the Family History class I am taking. I recruited two cousins to help me. We all gently encouraged our own sides of the family to attend.

Elaine and Royal offered their house for the party.

Becky, Cindy and I attended as well as my Mom, Dad, Steve, Jared, Amanda, Cami and Caylee.

I was guessing we would have about 30 people if we were lucky. I bet we had closer to 50! It was fantastic.

My cousin Kim brought his mom, Aunt Afton. From the Nelson side of the family, we had Dianne, Bruce, Kim and Linda as well as their spouses and some kids and some grandkids. I hadn't seen those cousins in years!

On the Henderson side, we had Rolaine, Claude, all their kids, spouses and grandkids came as well as Claudia and her husband. It was so fun to see them all and to catch up a little on each other's lives. I have nice relatives! Rolaine told me she thought Cidne and I look a lot alike. So we had our picture taken together. You can be the judge, are we alike?

You can see in the last picture Afton, Dad and Elaine. Elaine needs to stay on oxygen. When Dad sat between them for the "family" picture, he took the oxygen tube and put it up to his nose. Elaine said, "Oh Ernie!" and snatched the tube away from him. Then she removed it from her nose and told me to take the picture QUICK!

The young lady with Bruce is his daughter. Her name is Callie Ann! She is about 6 years older than our Callie. I was noticing in the family group sheets that Rolaine gave me that her Cidne has a Callie Ann also. Popular name!

Camping with Grandma and Grandpa

The girls and I took off for Panquitch Lake Utah last week. We were invited to go camping with another family and I invited Mom and Dad to come along. Cami and I decided we would see how much wild life we could see along the 500+ mile drive. We hoped to start off our wild life hunt with the Buffalo herd in Genesee. Nope! They were no where in sight. Then we looked for Big Horn Sheep at Georgetown. Another big NO! After a while, we gave up and had to be content with spotting "wild BEEFalo". Finally, after camping for two days, we saw a bald eagle sitting on the lake shore. It flew off in a wide circle overhead. It was very beautiful. Our wild life veiwing luck changed. We were surrounded by beautiful blue dragon flies with black stripes and we saw quite a few mule deer! Cami and Caylee both caught a trout each. We ate Caylee's and it was delicious!

Mom, Dad and I went to "Cedar Breaks" and hiked along a beautiful trail full of bluebells. I have never seen so many bluebells in one spot before. Cedar breaks is a geological formation - a mini Grand Canyon. The girls went Geo-caching with the other family and missed our little hike. They had grand adventures of their own.

Cami and I had hoped to go Trilobite hunting on the way home but I decided it was too far out of the way and I didn't want to out on the desert with just the two girls. My cousin told me, the trilobite site was a lot further away than I had thought. So, it turns out it was a good decision. We will have to save that hunt for another time.