Pine Valley Carbo Load and MARATHON!

10-4-14 - Another year has come and gone and here we are at the crossroads of the marathon again except this year we have Debra.  Her first St. George Marathon and she did a great job.  As you know, the night before we always head up to the cabin to have a Carbo Load party and drop off the runners.  Shayne found her other home flag and showed off her new phone cover. 

When we got there George was picking apples in the tree and throwing the bad apples out.  Which only made the little kids pick them up and throw them back at him.

This year we had Charles, Abby and Tyler, Us, John, Kristal, Brian, Deb, Mason and his family, JoEllen's family and Jillyn.  Then about an hour later Spencer, Shana, Josh, Laynee and Drew all showed up.  They had been up in Cedar at the Cross Country meet and came the back way through Enterprise to get there.  We were grateful that they could bring Josh so he did have to ride the bus home and miss all the fun.  Thanks so much!  Then we all left and they tried to get a good nights sleep for the race the next day.

Here's Spence getting his stuff ready.  He was sitting out of camera range so he gets his very own picture.

Of course the first person to cross was John, so I don't have a picture of him.  But Brian was next.

Then came Spencer.  He did a lot better than I thought he would :)!  As soon as he was getting ready to finish a lady's legs decided to give out.

He helped her all the way in.  Such a good guy.  And look at that time!  Great job Spence.

Here is Debra.  I had no idea that she even passed until someone told me so I hurried and snapped this picture.  She's in all black.

Then Joel came. Here is a picture that Kyle took up at the Ledges golf course at mile 17 of both Joel and one of Charles.  

Charles had a bum knee that was hurting him so he was walking up this hill.

 

Here is Joel finishing.  There was a misunderstanding between me and Shayne about where to stand.  I guess she's been out of the country or something because she went right where I didn't want her to go.  There are bleachers for you to stand on and cheer but they put the very first set right at that bend.  See where the red fence goes out?  Right there.  If you are standing down along that fence you CANNOT see anyone coming down the road.  At all.  So it makes it impossible to take a good picture.  And believe me I have had 8 years of this and pretty much 6 years of crappy pictures.  ALSO, the kids love to give their dad high 5's as he runs past so we like to be where he can see us and we can see him coming.  So I know where to stand but I guess I didn't explain it good enough to Shayne.  So she stood up on the bleachers where she could see just fine and David and I went closer to the front where we could see him coming and Ben was confused so he just walked back and forth between both of us.  So here's a picture of Joel (in all blue) cheering in front of Shayne because they are cheering for him.  But no high 5's.  

With Charles' knee problem, he came in last.  I felt bad for him. You could really tell that he wasn't having any fun at all.  But he did a good job.

Here are some after shots.

The one of Kyle is the best.  He has some bulging disks in his back was told not to run anymore so he had to withdraw from the marathon.  He wasn't very happy to say the least.  He did get a good bike ride in though because he rode it out to the Ledges and back to watch the marathon.  That's why he's dressed like that.  Mason was in a car accident a couple weeks ago and got severe whiplash and had to stand at the sideline and cheer too.  Maybe next year they"ll both be healthy enough to run.  The best tradition about this whole weekend is that later on that night the men all go out to eat at Panda Express and then go to the Men's session of General Conference.  The women go out too.  But we don't get quite the spiritual uplift that  they do.  We get some by getting away from the kids for an hour but it doesn't compare to the inspiration that they receive.  I love this weekend.  One of my favorites!

Josh turns 15!

My sweet  middle child is now 15.  Where has the time gone.  He is now on the High School Cross Country Team and is loving life.  For his birthday he got a couple little Star Wars Legos, bow ties (his favorite) and a bunch of Cross Country clothes.

He also got this really cool sign to hang in his room that says,  "It's won't always be easy, It won't always be fun, But it will always be worth it so get out there and Run".  It holds his bib numbers and his medals.

 Because his birthday was the same exact day as Shayne's homecoming he had 2 ways of looking at the day...#1 He got put aside and forgotten or #2 He had a bunch of family and friends come over for a b-b-q and birthday cake.  It looks like #2 by the smile on his face in this picture.  But then again Sloan and his butt can make anyone laugh.

Then we sang the traditional Shelton Happy Birthday Song for him in which Jan and Andy belt out this horrific rendition and hold out the last note until they almost pass out.  It's awesome!

Jandy made this awesome cake for the occasion.  Here is Josh blowing out his candle.  We could only find one.

A couple days later Joel took him to get his driving permit.  Watch out!!!

Shelton Caramel Apples

My family came down for Shayne's Homecoming and we all made caramel apples from the apples that came from the tree in my dad's backyard.  They are delicious! 

So Cute!!!

 Here are the older "kids" playing cards.

Here were the teenagers all on there phones until I said something about it.

Then they all decided to dog pile on Shayne a little while later.  I'm surprised the couch didn't break.
  It was a great way to welcome her home.