Springtime in Wyoming

Well, after living here for 5 years, I think I'm finally resigning myself to accept the fact that at 7000 ft. elevation, spring really does not come until June.  Our weather has been awful!  I think Josey has had two track meets that have not been canceled due to the weather.  While this is fun for me (I get to see him more), it is not fun for him or his track team.  I keep praying for better weather; meanwhile, Jarrett keeps saying in his prayers that he is thankful for the snow and ice.  I guess I could try to learn something from his attitude because it doesn't look like anything is going to change anytime soon.  

We did get one little dose of sunshine in March when we took a little trip to St. George.  It was perfect there (low 70s) and we made sure to get in as much golf, running, playing in the park, hiking, and swimming as we could in four days.  We went with my parents and an aunt, uncle, & cousins, and we couldn't have asked for a better weekend.  

Other than that, we've just been plugging along with everyday life.  I volunteered to coach Jordan's soccer team this year.  It was his first year playing and I wanted to pull all my hair out at the end of each practice.  I seriously don't know how kindergarten teachers manage to do their jobs.  It was very hard to teach these kids anything, but hopefully they had fun and learned even a little bit along the way.  I had high hopes for Jordan since I was quite the soccer star as a young child :), but he was a lot like the other kids: not paying too much attention to the coach or the game and always wanting to do his own thing.  He is pretty aggressive (he was the only one I had to call pushing on) and he never stops moving, but often his head seems to be up in the clouds.  Maybe with a little more one on one work I can teach him a few more skills.  

Tomorrow Jaycie will be ten months old.  It's crazy how fast this time has gone by.  She's finally decided that it's fun to crawl on her knees instead of doing the army crawl, and she's getting a little braver about once in awhile letting go of the furniture and trying to stand on her own.  We took her swimming today at the indoor pool and she enjoyed that for the first time (she didn't like it in St. George).  She loves following her brothers around and they love her like crazy.  Jarrett helps me out with her a lot by trying to entertain her and play with her when I can't get to her.  The other day they were playing in her crib and Jaycie started crying really loud.  I could tell Jarrett was getting really frustrated when she wouldn't calm down.  He kept saying: "I'm sorry Jaycie.  I didn't mean to hit you in the chin.  Stop crying!"  And she wouldn't stop and he couldn't understand why she just wouldn't listen to him.  I thought it was a cute conversation to listen to.  I love listening to my kids interact.  

And finally, I don't think anybody cares about this, but I've really been enjoying changing up my exercise routine just a little bit.  I started lifting weights a little more than I was before.  I found a book I really like called "The New Rules of Lifting for Abs."  Kind of a dumb title (I'm not aiming for washboard abs, although they might be hidden somewhere there under a layer of flab), but it's really about lifting to strengthen your core, which is what I need as a runner.  Anyways, it basically just gives me a structured program to follow, but I feel really dumb in the weight room sometimes because I'm not just using the machines and sometimes I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing.  But I feel like I've already made quite a bit of progress and I feel stronger.  My main goal is to have a stronger core so that I'm less likely to get injured, but it's still a full-body strength workout.  Anyways, with more lifting, I've been running less (around 20-25 miles per week) and I'm training for a 10K at the end of the month.  After that, I'll look for a half marathon to run this summer and then in August I'm running a relay with some family members from Logan to Jackson Hole.  I've heard the relays are really fun so I'm looking forward to that.  I ran 10 miles outside today while getting snowed on, but it was still great to be outside.  I rarely get to run outside until Josey is out of school for the summer, so I'll take any chance I can get.