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!

Moab

Barrett and I went to Moab with my coworkers in May. It has taken me quite a while to gather pictures from everyone, thus the long wait to put them on the blog. We love Moab! And we also love Arches! What a beautiful place. It actually was quite cold when we went at the beginning of May. The pictures don't show it, but it was snowing at the beginning of the hike where these next few pictures are from.

We found a way to climb on top of this arch. The arch is not as scary on top as this picture makes it look. Below is us on top of the arch

Barrett decided to be crazy and climbed to another spot underneath where we were standing in the last picture. As you can see he is now in between two arches. Kind of cool!

Now if you compare the pictures, I am standing underneath the arch in the bottom right corner of the picture before.

This is the group we were with. Same hike as before.

We were also able to go through Fiery Furnace and took a lot of neat pictures. It is amazing to see God's creations and to try to figure out how all the formations are made.

Barrett had fun posing for everyone in pictures!

The pretty view at the end of Fiery Furnace.

In Moab we also went on a Hummer 4-wheeling tour. This is one of the areas we rode up.

Our group next to the cool Hummer.

The Hummer.

Now the funniest part of the whole trip... First we have to go back to 2003, our junior year of high school. We weren't dating each other at the time and didn't even know each other very well, but we went to a dance together. We were dressed up as cowboys and a cardboard cut-out of John Wayne was in our picture. Here we are in the picture shocked to see John Wayne. Who wouldn't be, right? (We are in the back row on John Wayne's left)

Well, while we were looking in the shops around Moab we came across another cardboard cut-out of John Wayne. So of course we had to take a picture with him! How fun that we have those silly high school memories we can share with each other.