Bittersweet

See this girl:

And this boy:

These beautiful babies are the most precious things in the world to me!

I love being a mother. But I kind of hate Mother's Day. I know, I know that's complete blasphemy for me to admit, especially on Mother's Day. But it's just a really hard day for me.

For years it was because Mother's Day was painful. When you're a woman who's reached a certain age and has been married a certain amount of years, the only accessory people seem to look for on your arm is a child. And when all of your attempts to obtain a child either biologically or otherwise, seem not to have panned out, Mother's Day can just seem like a painful reminder of all your failures.

I thought my feelings about this day would change once I became a mother. But in 2008 with a six week old Gideon in my arms was easily my most emotional Mother's day ever. I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude. Both for the chance to be his mother and for the young girl and her family who had sacrificed so much to make me a mother. In addition to the gratitude though, I felt a bit of pain of sadness. Knowing just how much that sacrifice had hurt that very special family. It tore me apart to think of it.

Every Mother's Day since I deal with the same overwhelming bittersweet emotions. I'm so blessed and so thrilled that I get to be "mommy" to the two greatest kids ever. But there's also a pang of sadness, for their beautiful birth mother and her family. Knowing that they're living without these two precious babies. I'm the one who gets the "I lub you, mommy" everyday from a toothless 3 year old. And lots of slobbery wet kisses from the happiest 7 month old ever.

And while I have absolutely no doubt that Heavenly Father meant these children to be mine, it kills me knowing that my joy had to cause someone else so much pain.

So on this day when most mother's are being treated to breakfast in bed and flowers, gifts, cards and so many hugs and kisses, my mind inevitably turns to that special family and their angel daughter who sacrificed so much so that we could finally be a family.

Why I Can Identify with Kirstie Alley

I haven't really been following this season of Dancing with the Stars. At least not to the degree I've followed past seasons. There just wasn't anyone I was really intrigued about when it started. So I generally skip the Monday night dances altogether and only tune in to the last 20 minutes of the Tuesday elimination show just to see who gets kicked off.

However as the season has progressed I've found myself silently rooting for Kirstie Alley. I didn't really realize why until last week when Travis was downstairs and made some comment about her having gotten really fat since her days on "Cheers" and in the movies. It bugged me but I didn't figure out why until later this week. After unloading on my sister Shiloh yesterday about my weight struggles of recent years I realized I am Kirstie Alley.

Okay no, I'm not saying I'm a 60 year old actress who's struggled to find jobs in recent years. But there are several ways in which I can identify with her. Did you know she adopted two children? A boy and a girl. I can certainly identify with that. But mostly it's her well documented struggles with her weight that I totally get. Here's a woman that really had to work hard to remain thin during her heyday in the 80's and 90's on television. And when she started putting on weight after her second sitcom was cancelled the press was absolutely vicious. She tried to make fun of herself in a short lived show called "Fat Actress" but she wasn't happy being that size. That's when she contacted Jenny Craig. Everyone remembers those commercials right? Watching her lose weight and get other celebraties on the program also. And who can forget that moment when she appeared on Oprah in a bikini at the age of 57 looking amazing! It gave hope to millions. Including me. I'd put on so much weight in the course of my marriage I was miserable. And I hated feeling so tired with a brand new baby boy to take care of. I didn't go on Jenny Craig, but I started running and trying to be more concious of what I was eating.

Sadly the weight loss didn't last for Kirstie. What she'd worked so hard to take off, got put back on within a year and half. It's so tough because even though I was running and eating more carefully, my weight didn't seem to change at all. So I went on a diet. It was under the direction of a doctor but it was very restricted calories with a supplement. Had I done it on my own it would have been considered starvation. But it worked I lost 23 pounds. And for over a year I managed to keep it off. And then last fall after Parker was born, things got hectic. I wasn't working out as much. After Travis got laid off and the kids ended up in the hospital I gave up on eating well entirely and I didn't get to work out for nearly two months. The result is that I've put on two-thirds of what I had previously lost. It's disheartening to say the least. It makes me sick to be this size.

The problem is, I only know one way to lose weight. And it's not healthy. But the honest truth is that the only times in my life I've ever lost weight have been when I've restricted calories to the point of starvation or something near to it. I feel helpless. I'm working out and/or running 5-6 days per week, I'm obsessively counting every calorie, carb and fat gram. My food journals contain copious notes, not only about what and when I eat, but how it makes me feel. And yet everyday the scale tells the same sad story. I'll lose a few ounces over several days and then wake up one morning and be right back to where I started. So I'll eat nothing but an apple, cottage cheese and a hard boiled egg all day long and the whole process will start over again.

So as my own struggle to get thin become increasingly more frustrating, I find myself rooting for Kirstie Alley on DWTS each week. I hope she proves them all wrong. I hope she continues to dance her full-bodied self all the way into the final. Because maybe, just maybe if she can do that, I can find something, anything that might work in my own life.

Just waiting for summer!

Did you know that as of today it's been 190 days since we've seen a temperature of 70 degrees or higher? The record for that particular streak is 215. And sadly, we could break that record this year as nothing in the next two weeks shows that we'll be getting any warmer that mid-sixties. Although we have had nicer weather lately. It's been up into the 50 & 60's, so on the few days that there isn't too much wind, we try and get outside with the kiddos. (It doesn't happen often though.)

Parker's getting really good at sitting up. She can't sit herself up, but she doesn't tip over as much as she did and she's trying hard to crawl. I think somewhere I have a video of that I'll have to post sometime.

So lately Gideon hasn't been taking naps. He's an absolute bear in the evenings, but he goes to bed right on time that way and sleeps great through the night. But there have been a few days when he just couldn't take it anymore. And about an hour before bedtime we look over and he's just out. It's pretty cute.

And that's about it from here. We just can't wait for summer to come so we can play outside and go for walks and soak up the sunshine.

At Least There Was A Chocolate Bunny (or 3)!

I'm not sure what I expected this Easter to be. I was hoping it would touch me in some way I can't even explain. This probably doesn't happen to anyone else, and I know it's my own fault for letting myself get sucked up but the distractions of real life, but lately I've been feeling a little bit spiritually drained. Don't get me wrong, my faith is as strong as ever, but I find I've been craving one of those overwhelming spiritual experiences. Something that would be both cleansing and cathartic. Conference was wonderful, but it didn't happen then. A visit to the temple with my husband last week didn't do it. So I've just been moving forward, hoping something would trigger that experience. Typically Easter in general does that for me. I feel so overwhelmed with love and gratitude for my Savior I live close to the edge of that kind of overwhelming spiritual catharsis. Alas today was not that day. I'm still waiting for that experience. Maybe this week during a quiet scripture study or prayer alone. Maybe not. We'll see. It just wasn't today. It just seemed like any other Sunday albeit with new clothes and lots of candy. Don't think it was a bad Easter day. I mean afterall when there are chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps before breakfast, how bad can a day actually be?

Gideon (yes, those are his Christmas pj's) found his basket around 7:30 this morning. Actually the first thing he went after was something that caught his eye in Parker's basket. But I got him steered toward the right one pretty quickly. He was excited to find lots of fun stuff.

And then he noticed the eggs. He only saw one or two of them at first, but we gave him a few subtle hints and he eventually found all 18 the Easter bunny had hidden. Of course, he got very upset when I started cracking eggs and using them for our traditional breakfast of goldenrod. Naturally he didn't even touch his breakfast because by that time he'd had several peeps lots of bites of chocolate bunny and a few jelly beans. It was probably mean to take him to church & unleash him on the nursery leaders with that much of a sugar high, but we had to deal with him for the rest of the day so I don't feel too bad. That was only the break we got.

Parker doesn't really care too much. As long as she has something colorful enough to play with/chew on, she's really content.

If I were as talented or as ambitious as my mother or some of my sisters, I'd make my kids' Easter clothes. Or at least coordinate our look as a family. But I really feel like I'm doing well just to get new Easter things for both of them and myself. I did manage to pull that off, but as you'll see, we're really not coordinated. Oh well, I think we look cute anyway. Of course there's no picture of all of us together because one or the other always had to be behind the camera.

After surviving church with a very hyper boy, we went to Nana & Grandpa's house. Turns out the Easter bunny had visited there too. We spent the afternoon visiting with them and eating a delicious Easter dinner prepared by Nana herself.

The upside to the sugar high is that Gideon got no nap, but he was sound asleep by 7:30pm. So at least we had a nice quiet evening. I hope everyone else had an equally sucessful Easter.

When is 7.5 miles harder than a Marathon?

Today was a first for me. I ran my first ever trail race. To say that I was ill prepared would be the understatment of the year. I knew I wasn't ready going in, I mean I don't even own trail shoes, but somehow I thought having lived on the buttes for so many years and hiking them I'd be okay. Boy was I wrong! When I got there I realized I was out of my element in my old worn-down road running shoes & windbreaker. Some of these people looked like hard core trail runners. (And as I found out, some of them were. There was even at least one runner from the La Sportiva National Mountain Running team among us today.) I noticed a few differences between this and a lot of road races I'd done. First everyone seemed to know each other. They were all trading stories about past races and chatting like a big group of friends. Second there were no iPods. Seriously at a road race at least half the field will have ear buds in and no one had one out here. I had slipped mine discreetly into an inside pocket in my jacket, but I was determined to go as long as possible without plugging in the tunes. As we were milling around the parking lot waiting for the start I started talking to a few of the others. One guy told me I was brave to make this my first trail run. He's run it the last three years and said, "This course is no joke. It will chew you up and spit you out." I figured he was exaggerating. He wasn't. At the very last minute I decided to ditch my hand held water bottle. I had planned on taking it, but then the race director explained the course directions and said there would be 2 water stops. I figured that two water stops for 7.5 miles would be more than enough. That was my second mistake.

The course is daunting. I put a map below but I don't know how well you can see it. For those who don't know, the buttes are dormant volcanos. So this race is insane. It's basically 12 kilometers of climbing & descending and climbing lava rock again & again while dodging sagebrush, boulders and wildlife. There are even parts of the course that are more like rock climbing. You're literally climbing up a cliff so running isn't even a possibility. Anyway you start by running straight up the butte. There are switchbacks, but don't let that lull you into thinking it's going to be an easy back and forth. You're still scrambling straight up the side of a volcano. Once you get to the rim, you drop down into the crater and run across the floor, then it's back up the other side and you run the south rim of the thing. Then you head back down into the crater and run the floor again only to come up on the north side and run that rim. But you only make it halfway before you desced on the north side and run down under the "R" (I'll explain that later) and then you turn around and come all the way back up to the rim where you finish running it and finally hit the path back down to the parking lot and the finish line.

When we started I felt strong. The weather was perfect mid-30's and lots of sunshine, just a little breeze. But within a quarter mile my calves and quads and glutes were on fire. I'd been passed by just about everyone I thought and when I turned around I found myself dead last. I was upset at first, but finally decided just to let go of it and enjoy myself as much as possible. We were less than half a mile in when I looked up and saw that probably 3/4 of the field was walking. It was that painful! I will admit that I walked more during this race than I did in the marathon. And frankly, I worked harder during this race. I mean sure I sore and worn out toward the last six miles or so of the marathon, but in this race I was breathing hard and feeling burn within the first mile. And I wasn't even running! I decided about halfway up to break out the tunes. I just didn't know what else was going to power me the rest of the way up. Since I was in the back anyway and no one could see me I plugged in and kept pushing on.

Okay this is not the best picture of me, but this is up on the south rim and I was talking to the volunteer who was shooting pictures.

Anyway the start doesn't look as tough as it really is, but you're climbing a pretty steep grade from the first step.

This is about a quarter of the way up.

And way down there is the parking lot and the start line. This is about halfway up.

Again a little further up.

And finally up to the rim where you can see down into the crater and through to the other side.

This was the descent into the crather. Don't be fooled, it was a lot steeper than it looks. And then a wolf ran across the path directly in front of me. That was kind of cool.

From the floor of the crater.

LOTS of Sagebrush and lava rock! Some people think it's beautiful, but I think I've seen too much of it.

And up to the south rim. In the distance on the other butte you can see mom & daddy's house.

And yes, this is part of the path. See what I mean about part of it being rock climbing.

It's kind of like an alien planet up here. And while the terrain isn't as steep there's still a lot of lava rock to dodge and it's a little breezier. But the pay off is that you get to have a real "I'm King Of the World" experience because you literally do feel like you're standing on the top of the world.

Looking down across the crater to the other side. My second drop down into the crater was tough. My legs were like jello. You might think that running downhill should be easy, but every runner knows it can totally trash your quads. And my were already quivering pretty badly. It was scary knowing I still had two more steep descents before the race was over.

Hey daddy, see how high the water is already? And we've got tons of snowpack still, so they're really worried about flooding this year again.

At this point I'd just made it up and out of the crater for the second time and was now on the north end of the rim. I was completely alone in my running and decided to unplug because somehow Nickleback and Breaking Benjamin just didn't seem to fit the terrain. I ran the rest of the course with just myself and I was surprised at what popped into my head. At one point I was humming the theme song from "The Man from Snowy River" and at another I was mentally planning where I'd hide Easter eggs. It was all very random.

This is the beginning of the descent down under the "R". I passed a couple of race volunteers who were on their way up. They told me to turn around at the green gate. I figured there'd be other volunteers or markings. But once I got to the "R" I didn't see anyway so I just kept running. It felt fast and out of control because it was quite steep with lots of loose gravel. And my legs were really shaky by now.

There was only a little snow left in a few areas, so that was good at least. By this point it had warmed up to almost 40 so I was seriously wanting to ditch my jacket.

And we finally get to the "R" It was painted there for Rick's College in Rexburg. This butte looks out over onto the town. However Rick's was changed to BYU-Idaho 10 years ago. But yet we still have an "R".

By this point I was wishing I'd brought my handheld bottle. I'd already passed both water stations and I was really feeling feeling tired and thirsty. This is also where I managed to add an extra mile or so to my run. You see I was looking for a green gate. Only I kept running and running and running and there wasn't a green gate. Finally I realized there were no shoe prints on this part of the trail and there hadn't been for a long time. I hadn't even seen a course marker in ages. So I turned around and went back. Sure enough a volunteer met me on the way back up saying that he'd erroneously told me to look for a green gate when it was actually a brown gate. (Which I'd passed through a good half mile earlier.) It's okay though, I was already last so what's an extra mile?

Finally back up on top and the trail got rocky and steep again. I wouldn't recommend this race to anyone with a fear of heights. At some places along the rim you're running along the edge and it's pretty far up. I love heights I think they're exhilarating, but I know some people who would be quite nervous up there.

Finally I spot the finish. (It's the dark patch way down by the road.) I was still a couple of miles away, but it wasn't so bad from this point on. The trail down was tough though. It's so steep it's really hard to keep from falling. Not to mention my legs were already feeling like jello. But I powered it in. By the time I got to the finish the race director had heard about my extra mileage and apologized profusely. He offered to refund my entrance fee, but I told him not to worry about it because I got to run it and that's what I paid for.

All in all it was a good race. And despite finishing last and adding extra mileage I felt great. It was a lot of work and I'm going to be super sore tomorrow but that's why they make ice & ibuprophen. And the best part of the experience was after the race. The race director and several of his staff were lamenting the fact that we just had to run on the north butte because the south one is privately owned, but they've always dreamed of doing a twin buttes run. I made their year I think when I told them I could make it happen with one phone call. (It's nice to know people.)

Well that only took 10 Years!

True Story: After a decade together (9 years of that as man & wife) Travis and I finally have "our" song. It's funny because there just never was a song that seemed to fit us. We have different taste in music and just never seemed to find the right one. But the first time I heard "Are you Gonna Kiss Me or Not" by Thompson Square I was floored and I just started laughing because it was pretty much telling our history. Anyway it just fits us so perfectly. I'm sure at some other stage of life other songs will become "ours" but for now it's fun to have "a song." Even if that is kind of a silly juvenile thing.

So here's a little history for you, Trav & I went on our first date in February of 1999. He took me snowmobiling all day in Island Park up to West Yellowstone. I always say that he chose that particular activity so he didn't have to speak to me at all. Anyway with or without conversation it went well enough that he asked me out again. For the next two months we went out at least twice a week, in addition to having lunch together nearly everyday. After about six weeks he still hadn't kissed me and I thought I'd made it pretty clear that I liked him. Having never been shy I decided to ask him. So one night when he walked me to the door I turned to him and asked, "Are you EVER going to kiss me?" He got very embarrassed, he mumbled what I thought sounded like "Yes" and then before I could even catch my breath he FINALLY kissed me for the first time.

Honestly at the time I had no idea I was kissing my future husband. I left a couple of weeks later for my mission so it was another year and half before I even saw him again. But within six months of coming home we were officially a couple and a year after that we were married. And the rest, as they say, is history. There are many other quirky stories from the adventure that has been our life together but for now, here's a link to the video if you're interested in hearing "our song."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDUOcHg5ijg