The Jim Bell family comes to Utah

Chris' oldest brother Jim brought his family, Tracey, Stoughton, Chamberlain, and Julian, for a short and packed 3 days. They stayed with us at my parents horse property. To sum things up, there was a lot of 4-wheeling, pollywog catching, jumping on the trampoline, feeding the goats, horse riding, more jumping in the trampoline, good food, and a day of Park City. Somehow we only have pictures of the horses so you'll just have to believe me about the rest.

Lake Powell

Although my parents swore of Lake Powell before July, they picked a week in late June just so Chris and I could go. We had so much fun with our family, the Fullmers, Austins and Tensmeyers - the same crew since I can remember




. We took the long boat ride to Rainbow Bridge which we hadn't seen in years. Such an amazing and beautiful natural arch.

Bear Lake on the 4th

An unusually cold 4th of July at Bear Lake. It seemed more like Memorial Day weather. Nonetheless we had a fabulous time with the family and were glad that we could have one last hurrah before heading to California.

Little Red

I always love to get my family out to do something active and to stretch them a little. This weekend my mom and sister Jan and I rode the Little Red Ridinghood. It is an all women bike ride with distances to fit anyone. We did 33 miles. This is the most my mom had ever ridden, and was both Jan and my mom's first organized bike ride. They did awesome and looked super chic in their Big Daddy jerseys and shorts. We only had a couple of hang ups when my mom couldn't clip out fast enough and fell over still attached to her bike and Jan got a flat tire after going over a gnarly set of railroad tracks.

26.2!

This past weekend we ran the Ogden marathon, a first for the both of us. Our training started out great over the latter part of the winter but faded towards the end, leaving us with 18.5 miles as the longest training run. We battled some overuse type injuries and upper respiratory infections but for the most part made it through without any major mishaps. Vacations and such got in the way as well, but at the same time allowed us to rest and recover. Paige's parents came to see us finish and took some pictures, but unfortunately there was no memory card in the camera so we have no official documentation. Because of this, I have picked out some representations of the race from Google:

Me (I managed a 3:55, reaching my goal of beating 4 hours):



I tried to find pictures from Ace Ventura (part 2 or 3, I can't remember which) when he has a spear in both thighs but for some reason could not. But that would have expressed my pain so well....

Paige ran a great race, finished in 3:38 and qualified for Boston! We have yet to decide if we'll be able to make it out there next year. Here is my impression of how Paige looked:


We loved being able to do this and we are grateful to have the ability (physical but also time, energy, monetary, etc) to do these fun but punishing things. How else do we discover our limits? How else do we reach our full potential? We have definitely been walking funny these last few days, but as the soreness and fatigue fades the experience becomes more enjoyable in our memory. Funny how that works....

For Kim...

We haven't written anything in a bit. Partly due to laziness and partly due to busy-ness. Chris had a Sports Medicine conference in Cancun, Mexico. So, of course, we had to go so Chris could fulfill his work duties. Chris did actually spend the first half of the trip going to lectures and presentations, but we made sure we found time for fun. We toured Chichen-Itza, swam in a cenote, snorkeled and played in Xel-Ha, got really sunburned, healed and then sunburned again. I had my first fish taco - which always sounded gross but was actually very yummy. I read 3 books, almost passed out from heat stroke while running, and totally gave up on trying to speak any spanish. When Garth Brooks sings the song "Pina Coladas" and he says that 'heartaches are healed by the sea' I really think he means that Cancun cures snoring... well, in Chris' case it cures colds which equals no more snoring. Few things can beat sleeping in and then walking out on your balcony to look at the ocean.




This is a fun and innovative bike seat for giving someone a ride

WARNING!

Ingestion of one or more of these may result in ingestion of at least two or three more.

Introduced to us by our friends, we were given an almost full jar of these to take home. Notice that the jar is now very empty. I hear you can get them at Costco.