Our new treadmill

ye haaa - I'm so excited for this new treadmill. Most of you know that I completed a half marathon this last December in Las Vegas. I am sad to say that my short break after that race has become a two - three month long break. So now to help me squash that cycle and give me no excuses for not getting some good cardio in 6 days a week. We have two different "scratch and dent" exercise stores in our area- we found this treadmill at one of the stores for about $140 less than the competitor.

Thankfully I have my wonderful sister in town who has a Tahoe so we could get this monstrous thing home. We started to unload it when Ben really started to question my upper arm strength. So we rested it on our garbage can while Ben enlisted one of our new neighbors for some help lowering it onto the driveway.



Once down we had to disassemble it a bit as our doorways are small.


We hauled it inside, put it back together and.....


viola -


We also decided that we needed to rearrange the guest room/ exercise room a bit so we took some time out of our weekend to get it settled. I am excited to get movin' on it tomorrow.


-I also took another survey of the yard today while talking to my mom and dad - there is some progress and I will photo document it in a few days.

the craziness that is utah

So look at the post just previous to this - flowers blooming, sun shining......

then we got a rain storm.. that turned into..
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this!!!







Which turned into 7-8 inches of it in the morning. Good ol' Utah - you just never know what it is gonna throw at you.



The plows even had to run this a.m. to clear off the streets.

Photos from last week

So not a whole lot new going on. We finally have some sign of flowering life in the yard- there are these two random little purple flowers that popped up in the middle of the lawn. All the stuff that I posted on last week looks about the same - ugh- I want flowers!!!



I am just going out every few days scanning the yard hoping for some more. The lilacs are putting out more buds and I am getting really excited for those.

This weekend my nephew came and spent some more time with us - here I was drying my hair in my turban-ish towel style. He thought it looked pretty cool and wanted one too. I wrapped up his head in a hand towel and he wore it for a while.



also - I had to go to the eye dr today and they dilated the heck out of my eyes so it is hard for me to see so sorry for any typo's.

More photos......

So here are some photos from the past weeks.........

My sister Saundra emailed me this great blog/website Smitten Kitten I love it and gave this recipe a try. It was very yummy and I will be making it again for sure.





The week prior I also decided to make some more cupcakes. I decided to give the frosting that gave steph and I so much grief another go (swiss meringue buttercream) and I conquered it!!!! I was so proud - but as a trade off my caramel for the cupcake centers did not turn out. sad.







Last Wed we got our dining room table. We had already purchased the chairs from another furniture store during one of their sales (may I add for an awesome deal thanks to my hubby). We then had to shop for a table to match the chairs - a bit backwards but oh well. We found a great table at a small store north of Ogden. Even though it was the last weekend in Feb when we found it, they were still having their "Presidents Day" sale- he he he.
We were a bit afraid that the table wouldn't fit or the chairs wouldn't match but we love it and thankfully the chairs match and it fits the space perfectly.



This past weekend we had our nephew Tafton come stay with us (and it turned out tobe a good thing cause his poor mom got hit with some bad kidney stones and his dad had to work a bunch)
Tafton had a lot of fun with his Uncle - we opened up the grill for the first time this year and grilled some steaks.


We also explored our yard to see what was going on and we also started some long needed clean up of the back yard.




We found some new growth on our lilacs


it also looks like we have some type of spring bulbs that are popping up in various places




it will be nice to have some flowers show up so I can really figure out what the heck they are

Then after a long day of playing and eating (life for a kid is so hard) a bubble bath to round it out.

Lots of photos

Well maybe not a ton but for sure some updates!!! So the past month has been busy -

-Steph my oldest sister is married!!! Congrats to her and her new hubby (mike). I am excited to have some of the Harbour clan here in Ogden with me. HE HE HE
-My good friend from work Chelsea is preggers so I threw an awesome baby shower for her with an (if I do say so myself) impressive spread of cupcakes that Steph and I make from scratch.
-I painted my fireplace!!!

I didn't grab any pics from the wedding cause I was too busy fussing over Steph (which was so much fun, all of us are so great at giving directions but not that great at taking direction)

So first pics from the baby shower - I really got a crafty nerve for this one. Ever since we first found out Chels was preg we were planning on doing a shower at our house so I had a long time to get excited for it. I occasionally love to bake and came up with the bright idea to do cupcakes and in my true nature I could not do just one kind no - I had to do seven. Thankfully my sister now lives in Ogden and I recruted her to help me.


Here we are - so gorgeous in our baking garb - trying not to eat the cupcakes


they were so good, these ones were mini chocolate -salted caramel filled. Yummy!! I did not take a pic of the first batch of caramel that I burned beyond creation - literally it looked like bubbling black tar. Not yummy.
- PS saundi - steph said I need to perfect the caramel recipe so I can mail you some salted caramels -


Then one day at work a fellow nurse (chau) and I were talking about fun gifts and we brought up diaper cakes. I had seen another person at the hospital get one from someone who had made it at home so I figured if they can do it, so can I!


So I did!! The plastic in the photo you will understand a few pics down. - So cute! Yeaaaa me.


So here are some pics of the final spread. There were white cupcakes with multi colored frosting, raspberry cheesecakes, devils food with chocolate ganache (sp?), strawberry with whipped cream frosting, the mini chocolate salted caramel ones, ....


carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and german chocolate. Cheslea made some chicken salad and fruit salad to add to the spread. I also made a really good punch.




The gals from work and some friends came to the shower (chelsea is the one in the polka dot shirt in front of the tv)


So the other project that I mentioned was my fireplace. I love the hearth but I hated the pink terra cotta tiles on it. Maybe if we lived in New Mexico, Cali, Arizona and/or it fit with the house but I just felt it did not. So I updated it.

This is a pic of the living room when I started painting before we moved in. I took the pic before I painted the hearth white but that happened right after the pic was snapped. The green that is on the hearth in the pic was the old color of the room.


So because I didn't want to try my hand at tiling quite yet I decided to spray paint. That is right - I got a special primer for porous surfaces, primed it and then used a textured spray paint in a light tan color. It still needs a few more coats for the perfect finish but I think it looks so much better.


Our modern fireplace - I love it and I got to light the candles tonight for the first time. So pretty.

Sorry I'm so awful

So I know I have been horrible! No posting in almost two months. No time to upload tonight but I did snap a few pics from the Super Bowl party we had tonight and I will post them.

This weekend we are heading down to Arizona for my sisters wedding. Woo hoo.

I Survived My First 1/2 Marathon!!!

Hello everyone - I did it!!!!
Sunday Dec 6, 09 was the Inaugural Rock and Roll Las Vegas Marathon

This past weekend I went to Vegas with Michelle -my friend from Mt- and some of her friends (Amy, Sue and Luis). We spent the first few days walking around Vegas looking at the casinos and stuff because Michelle had never been. We had some wonderful food, we had amazing seats to see O by Cirque De Sole(sp?) at the Bellagio and then watched the fountains.




Saturday we did some more walking around.

Sunday was the big day, we woke up at 5am to get ready.

We stayed at the Mandalay Bay hotel as the race started in their parking lot. The total count for the participants was around 27,500. This race was a new one in a group of races called the "rock and roll" series so in the AM they set off some fireworks to get things going. It was amazing to see the strip full of runners waiting to get started. That lighted bridge all the way up there is the start line.



They have the runners organized into corrals (yes like cattle) and they release the corrals in timed intervals so the race way does not get clogged. We lined up in corral #12 (even though none of our numbers were in 12 - he he he). We got lined up and then we were off ---
I put a big arrow over my head - yeaaaaa thats me-



I did make the rookie mistake of running way too fast!!! Amy (who didn't run this one but she was our amazing support crew) warned me of this. I had been training with an average of apx 15 min miles - my first 7 miles were averaging 10 min miles-. The race was very entertaining. We saw many many people dressed up as Elvis, many people dressed up as Santa, a trio of guys running as the Three Amigos, and also a lot of people with wedding attire as there was a run through wedding chapel and vow renewal area. As it was a Rock n Roll event there were many bands scattered along the way, my fav were the Japanese Drummers around mile 6-7ish.

I did hit "The Wall" for me it was around mile 8-9, my feet just felt like steel boots were strapped on them and I was craving pancakes (obviously I was in need of carbs). Thankfully there was a GU station at mile 9. GU is disgusting (-sorry to the makers- it is a carbohydrate filled, artificially flavored, gelatinous gob) but it was the most glorious looking thing at the time, I just needed something to keep me going. I passed up the Holiday GU (vanilla gingerbread, double yuck) and stuck with the triple berry. I told my dad I felt like such a hard core runner with my GU packet in one hand and my water and Cytomax (like power aid) in the other hand. With no free hands I had to tear my GU packet open with my teeth, squeeze a bunch in my mouth, chase it with my fluids and then throw them to the side of the road and keep going.

The last 3 miles were very hard and I swear there were really 5 miles in between the mile markers. My friends were already finished and waiting under mile marker 13 to cheer me on to the end but I was so ready to be done and so focused on my music that I ran by them. My friend Michelle said I looked really angry, oops I should of tried to smile.

-here is a link of me actually crossing the finish line *click here* you may have to search my name, I am at the top of the screen and if you watch they will count it down for when I am gonna cross-

My final time was 3hr 2min and 22 sec (03:02:22) wooo hooo!!! I didn't realize I had done that well cause the finish line clock counts the "gun time" which is when the first corral was released - we didn't get released until 24min later- they record both times.
Here is my metal for finishing!!!


After the race we went out to breakfast and I ate some great pancakes and eggs Benedict. Everyone else was ready to go out for the rest of the day as this was not their first race - I went up to the room and slept for abt 3 hrs-
Today I am back home with my wonderful husband. I am very sore and right now stairs are my enemy but I know I will recover.
I am planing on doing 2 more 1/2's this late spring and summer - woo hoo!!!!