Barrett's 24th Birthday

Barrett's birthday was last Tuesday and we were able to have a few days of celebration. We went to Barrett's parent's house the Sunday before to have dinner, cake, and open presents.

Sadly, he had to study for finals on his birthday, but we were still able to go out to dinner and he opened a few more presents.

Then on Friday my parents took us out to dinner and to see the Kurt Bestor concert. It was fun to be able to focus on Barrett for the week. I love you babe!

Goodbye Mountain West, Hello Pac 12!

Despite the somewhat embarrassing and uneventful game until the last half of the 4th quarter, the University of Utah pulled off the win for the last rival game in the Mountain West Conference. Barrett and I were so excited to find tickets the week of the game where we could sit on the 13th row of the MUSS! This picture is before the game.

Our celebration after the field goal block!

Ethan and Seth's soccer game

Since school started for Barrett and work got crazy for me we have not done anything exciting, at least worth taking pictures and blogging about it. But since I do like to try and keep new pictures coming regularly, I remembered these pictures we had taken of my nephews at their soccer game. Since they are close in age they were able to play on the same team. How fun to watch kids 5 and under play soccer! It is more of a large huddle of kids all surrounding a ball without much competition. But it was SO fun to watch.

I love this picture of Seth!

Each of the kids had turns being goalie. When I asked Seth if he like being goalie he told me: "I'm not very good. I let a ball go in once." How sad. I tried to explain to him that just because someone scored on him didn't mean he was bad. I hope all goalies don't dwell on that.

Time Out For Women-Logan

I went to Time Out For Women with my Mom and sisters a few weeks ago in good old Logan! We had a lot of fun together without all the children running around, plus got a spiritual boost from all the good speakers and music! The picture below is from our service project: making hygiene kits for a local women's shelter. Until next year...

Top of Utah Half Marathon

On August 28 Barrett and I ran our first Half Marathon! The Top of Utah Half Marathon is in Logan and it was a great first half marathon to run. Mostly downhill and the temperature was cool. I walked more than I thought I would, but I definitely wasn't disappointed by how I did. We ran it in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Again, not great, but we did it! Barrett was a sweetheart and would run a few miles, wait for me and run with me for awhile, then would meet me at the mileage I asked him to. Who could ask for a better, more loving husband? I told him that he needs to do another one on his own to see what time he could get. The first picture was taken as we walked to the shuttle to go to the start line and the second is after the race.

Days of '47 Rodeo

I forgot about these pictures! My sister took these pictures as we were on our way out the door to the Days of '47 Rodeo on the 24th of July. A few days surrounding the 24th of July we got to do a lot of fun activities with Barrett's mom's side of the family: Raging Waters, golfing, a barbecue, and the rodeo. We had a lot of fun and wish all the out-of-towners could come more often!

Basement project: replacing the flooring

Barrett and I talked with our landlady a few months back about the need for new carpet and new paint in our basement apartment. Our landlady decided that she wanted to replace the carpet with wood laminate and also the kitchen with tile laminate. She also mentioned painting the walls a different color. Barrett and I volunteered to do the work since we like the idea of having the experience and doing it on our own time. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into :). That's how it always goes with home projects. So we've taken some before and after pictures of the flooring we replaced. Keep in mind that by the time flooring was chosen and delivered Barrett only had two weeks left before school started and we had a friend trip planned one of the weekends.

We pulled up the carpet in the living room, bedroom, and hall and found this awesome tile!

It's kind of hard to tell but there is pinkish-beige and a tealish-green laminate. I told Barrett that styles often come back in years later and that maybe we should keep the floor in case it is stylish soon. Barrett didn't like that idea.

This was what the kitchen floor already looked like, but we took off the baseboard and it left this sticky-black mess. As we took off the wood baseboards around the rest of the house we determined that it was no longer re-usable. That was added to the painting we need to do after the floor.

After a long night of Barrett and my dad's hard work we had a new kitchen floor!

Barrett had just finished the last end of the floor and left to play basketball for the night. I went to bed early and he came home around 11:30 and went to bed. At 3:30 in the morning I woke up and vaguely heard dripping. Once I realized what I was hearing I bolted up and told Barrett that I thought something was leaking. We went to the kitchen and found the brand new kitchen floor completely flooded! Before Barrett could do the kitchen floor he had to replace the valve to turn off the water to our ice-maker. The new tube worked perfectly fine the whole time we were awake, but at sometime while we were asleep popped off and the water flowed. We still don't know what happened and have not hooked the ice-maker back up, because we would rather not chance it again and don't want/have the time to figure it out. So we spent a few days propping up the floor with chairs and sliding old baseboard under the floor so we could have a loud fan going all day and night to dry it out. Regardless of the immediate disappointment and the patience of letting it dry, it went back together without any problems and we were able to start on the wood laminate.

Thanks to the many hours Barrett, his dad and brothers, and Barrett's friend, Alex, put in we finished the floor before Barrett started school. Here is the finished product in the living room, bedroom, and hall.

We (and our landlady) love the new floor! The first thing I did once the floor was finished was dust! I never knew I hated dust so much. After living in it for a few weeks I couldn't wait to dust everything in sight. We have not had a chance to start the painting or baseboards so those pictures will come in future blog posts. If anybody has suggestions of where to buy inexpensive rugs let us know. Despite how nice the floor looks, it has made our apartment look a little more boring. But that makes finding bold rugs more fun! Until next episode of "Basement project" enjoy the floor photos...

Other pics from summer...

On the 4th of July we carried on the Penrod tradition of going to the Provo parade.

It's always more fun with little kids!
Korver trying on Barrett's sunglasses.

Seth's turn with the glasses.

My cute sister and her husband!

I love this picture of Ethan and my brother. That look on Ethan's face just describes him perfectly: intellectual, as if he is pondering another piece of wisdom.

After the parade we had a picnic at a park near Provo Canyon. It was very relaxing and we all enjoyed the time together!

On the day of my birthday we went boating and stayed at a cabin with the Yates family over the weekend. Since I would not be having birthday cake, Barrett made this for me in the morning. How cute! It shows off his decorating skills... that flower looks perfectly symmetrical.

Sadly, it ended up being a rainy day at Jordanelle. This is what we looked like staring at the lake watching the rain.

But after the rain left for a minute we got to ride on the banana. Ha ha, isn't this the best picture? Sums up Barrett, Porter, and Isaac's fun relationship.

We also went golfing at Wasatch Mountain Golf Course in Heber. It was a beautiful course!

My last pictures of the summer are of Korver's contagious smile. You can't help but smile when you see him smile :)

My mom bought all of Melissa's boys sunglasses. There's Korver's smile again.

At the end of the end of the summer we also went on a short St. George weekend trip with our friends from high school and husbands: Natalie and Robbie, Hayley, and Julie and Nate. Sadly, we forgot to take pictures. But we had fun swimming, playing games, eating at Nelson's Frozen Custard and the Pizza Factory, doing a session in the St. George Temple, and watching movies. We had so much fun and will definitely have to do it again!

Well, that wraps up the fun posts for the summer. (Barrett and I just finished replacing the floor in our apartment, so I will need to put the transformation pictures on and I will post pictures from the half marathon we are running on Saturday.) Sadly, school has now started and the cooler weather has started to set in, but we were lucky to have such an eventful summer and will again appreciate the short amounts of time we get to spend together between the busyness of the school year.

Ragnar: Check!

The slogan says it all: "Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat."
Wow! So much to say that it's hard to know what to write. We finished the Ragnar. Many may not know the update that Barrett found a team to run with and was able to do the Ragnar as well. The fun part was that we ran the exact same legs. Our teams started a few hours apart, but it was fun to compare/contrast our 3 legs. It was cool to train with Barrett and to learn and grow from each other. I will try to explain more with the rest of the pictures.

My happiest part of the race, which you can see in my face. Our first leg was 6.9 miles, steep downhill, during the middle of the day. Both of us underestimated the effect of downhill on your thighs, so the first leg wasn't so great. But we did train for uphill. Our second leg was 8.1 miles, steady uphill with a steep incline the last 1 mile. I got to the top and was ecstatic to pass off the wristband! So ecstatic in fact that I was ready to keep running. The best part of the leg was that Barrett's parents and youngest sister were there cheering me on. These are the two pictures they took after. Running up the canyon at night was gorgeous! I loved having the chance to be alone with God and gaze at his amazing creations. As soon as I finished I knew Barrett was going to kill this leg... which of course he did... but his story comes later.

Our last leg was only 3.1 miles. And it was flat. But, funny enough, it was the hardest leg for both of us. My parents were there at the finish line and it was so good to see them! I had a few tears in my eyes seeing them and knowing I had finished something I never knew I could do.

Here comes Barrett....
I saved the best part for last. (I like bragging about Barrett's Ragnar experience) Barrett joined a guy from our ward's team and ended up being half the age of the youngest on their team, ha ha! They also had a blind man on their team who was an extra and ran when he wanted to. Between his 6 vanmates they had run a total of 110 marathons! Barrett learned a lot about the culture and wisdom of running being on this team. He also got to stay in a sweet cabin after running his last leg in Morgan.

If you look closely in the picture you can see him preparing to give my dad "bones." After you hear his story you will be surprised he had the energy to do so. So Barrett had a little adrenaline on his first leg and started by running a 6:30 minute mile uphill, before realizing he should slow down to save some energy. During the second leg he knew his parents were there to watch him so he already was excited for the run. However, the cabin they were staying in for the night was at mile 6 of his run. A runner from his other van planned to meet him at the 6 mile mark and finish the rest of his leg. But Barrett did not see his parents and still had a lot of energy. As a result he decided to run the rest of his leg to see his parents and then run back the 2 miles to the cabin. He made it to the top just as excited as I was, but still did not find his parents. So he made the trek back down the mountain only to find out that his parents just happened to be parked in the driveway where he was staying. He had run past them, but neither had seen the other. The next morning one of Barrett's vanmates was unable to finish his leg so Barrett picked up the slack and ran another 5+ miles uphill (probably steeper than our second leg the night before). A few legs later he got out again to run his last leg. All in all Barrett ran nearly 26 miles! After training for only a few weeks before Ragnar, Barrett discovered that he is a runner.

I left my team for a little while so I could see Barrett run in. How fun! This is us with my parents after we both had finished.
I was able to meet all of Barrett's vanmates and they were so nice! They made me jump in a picture with them. I wish we had pictures at the finish line. This was our finish line, but our other vans still had to run their last leg for the final finish line.
Barrett has more fun stories from his second van, a bunch of past BYU cross country runners who drew names at the beginning of each leg to determine who would be running next. I guess we could also talk about trying to sleep in the van and the quirky conversations after a van full of stinky, sweaty people come in from running. But if you want to experience that you will have to run it yourself. Overall, we had a great experience and love that we were able to share it together.
Next goal: Top of Utah Half Marathon. 13.1 miles. August 28, 2010. Bring it on!