My Birthday & Easter

I had a great birthday this year.  Joe and the kids woke me up with breakfast, cards and a decorated house.  They always make me feel so loved.  Later that day, while Nate was at preschool, Eli and I went on a bike ride.  It was a bit chilly but a beautiful day:

Eli loves bike rides, even if he kicks me in the back a lot.  :)

That night we went out to eat at Outback so I could get some cheese fries.  :)  It was a bit of a ridiculous outing with Eli being crazy and because Nate and Eli both managed to spill their full cups of lemonade all over the floor.  Luckily, we had a super-nice waiter who made up for it.  We went home and I got to have carrot cake and ice cream and open my presents.  It was wonderful.  

I got this painting that I love so much:

Just a couple of days later we drove to Utah so I could run in my race.  I stayed with Kari and Katie the night before at Katie's cousin's house which was right by the race so we didn't have to get up too early (still before 6, though).  We had a blast talking and laughing the night before but we still managed to get to bed at a decent hour.  I was so afraid that I would sleep through the race (especially since I had a dream that I did just that a couple of nights before) that I kept waking up to check the time on phone.  Finally, it was time to get up and go.

Before the race:

It was a pretty cold morning and I couldn't feel my toes for a couple of miles but after that I warmed up and it was a nice day.  I tried to stick by Katie for as long as I could and made it about 4 miles (Kari was running the 10k).  She was much faster than me.  I think that was good because it pushed my pace a little bit.  After that, I just tried to hang on the best I could.  I was a little depressed when the 2h15min pace runner passed me.  I was hoping to finish faster than that.  Luckily, I was able to pass her in the end so I felt pretty good.  My time was 2 hours and 12 minutes.  It was a great experience even though I felt pretty dead afterward.  It was a big boost to me to accomplish something so difficult.  

Right after the race:

We got cleaned up a little bit and then had a super delicious brunch at Cafe Zupa's.  Then we parted ways and I drove to Joe's dad's house to meet back up with everyone for Easter/Conference fun.

The kids got to color Easter eggs:

Later we went to a local school to let the kids burn some energy.  We had fun playing wiffle ball, flying kites, and having an egg hunt.

On Easter morning, everyone was so great and humored us in our sunrise devotional tradition.  Unfortunately we didn't take into account the mountains right by their house so sunrise was actually much later than we thought.  Oops!  It was a great little devotional, though, and the kids were quite good.

We had our cinnamon rolls and watched some Easter videos before Conference started.  It was a great way to feel the spirit of the day.  We had such a blast being with family.  It was a great weekend!