5 weeks in Michigan

Josh has been traveling a lot, and has more trips coming up, so o decided to head home.

I came home to enough packages I thought it might be Christmas!!!!

One of those packages was this beautiful fabric, designed by Minick and Simpson who Lives in Michigan!!! And this fabric line is based on Michigan.

I babysat my sisters kids and we went out to pizza and it was amazing... and we had a great time, see the shirt the older one is wearing, I handed that down to her, and my uncle handed it down to me... 

I got to see one of my best friends announce her second pregnancy!

I got to meet one of the members of the online quilt group I'm in :)

My parents took me out to an early birthday dinner since we won't be together for my real birthday and they gave me this book I have been wanting :)

And I got these two books, my first books of grad school.

I was able to see the beach and have a great day with my sister and 6 of my nieces.

I may have also gotten a slight sun burn because I missed a spot with the sunscreen... oops.

I ran a 10 mile race while I was home, I was so happy to run it, I have heard about it most of my life. It was a tough race,  but good. It was fun to run past places I knew. And the medal HUGE

And later that day my cousin got married and it rained the whole afternoon and it was cold.

Saw some good friends

And my parents went on vacation and left me in charge of the house.

And being a good daughter I mowed the lawn and picked the berries...

I also dyed my hair for the first time ever!!!

And I spent a lot of time working on my fresh quilt, but I didn't finish it sadly, mostly quilted though... I tried to get it done so I could give it to my parents for their anniversary... maybe next year.

I met a friend and we picked apples and ate donuts!!! I love cider donuts!! 

And tried to catch this snake for my parents to no avail, I think it's hibernating in the garage for the winter!!! Eek!!! I even set rat traps! They said they didn't catch anything when they got home :(

Which was a learning experience, I had never set a mouse or a rat trap before, so thankfully my brother had been over earlier and set up one of the rat traps, so I could use it as an example.

Met up with more friends and hung out

And finally, 

Headed home

Vegas and Zion

We spent a week in Vegas and Zion National Park, it was HOT. We live in a desert now, but a high elevation desert. I will not be moving to a desert any time soon, it was way to hot. And neither of us really liked Vegas, it was ok, but we will not be frequenting.

The strip

 

   

The bellagio fountain, and because we went around the 4th of July they played "proud to be an American"

We checked out the Hoover Dam, we took the long tour and it was well worth it. The ticket purchasing process is kind of silly.

we got there an hour before they opened and waited in line and then still got into the second tour.

 

Then we checked out the Las Vegas sign. There was a line for that too!!! awe skipped the line and didn't care there were other people in our picture, I guess we don't like lines.

 

We checked out Cirque, it was good!

 

Then we checked out Zion

We found the hidden petroglyphs, it was really neat!

We hiked 5 miles one way in water in the narrows

To see this, big springs... 5 miles one way for this.

I would suggest getting the water shoes you can rent... we wore our keens, and kind of regret it.

This was the deepest part.

Then we went on a backpack trip.

The views were amazing. 

This is our campsite on the trail, for all of the campsites being booked... we saw 1 other couple on the trail... it kind of made us upset that so many people didn't keep their reservations,  it was super nice that we had the entire place to ourselves!

We walked right past Angels landing but chose not to do it because it was packed and we just came down from a much higher elevation and had seen the view...

 

Then we hiked down Walter's wiggles, there was no way in hell we were hiking back up those.

 

The next day we saw the emerald pools and some of the other short hikes

Then back to Vegas

Where we got to see Sibin!

Then we had to head backs home.

 

 

Day 511

Josh ran a 5k and I ran a 10k this morning, it was great, our friends ran too :)

Then we had a delicious breakfast

Days 501 & 502

I got a little quilting in before we went to our first child's birthday party

There were lots and lots of treats

An adorable birthday girl

A piñata , of course!

More treats

There was also a fully catered and they also had a bouncy house,

It was a fun day with friends.

Day 499

I woke up in the middle of the night to this

Isn't he so adorable? Sharing my pillow,

But later that day I found him breaking into the cupboard by the door

He then went inside And the door latched and he couldn't get himself back out, good thing I was home.

My friend brought me something from China, to replace the braclet I broke... It's different than the one I got when I was in China, but I like it.

And I was so inspired that I got back to quilting my client quilt!

Day 496

The big day has arrived!

To run the 1/2 marathon, I woke up so nervous, and we headed out early to get ready for the race. We used the port a potties and lined up.

we were well protected as the guards armed with AK-47s stood atop most of the government buildings surrounding the start.

I was pretty happy at the beginning, this is just after the start line

I had done some research on the course, but hadn't driven or walked it, as we do not go to this end of town much. after the first relativley flat mile, as you can see fromthe picture below, the next 6K were straight up a mountain... over 500 feet of elevation gain...

at the top of the mountain I go passed by a couple women dressed similar to this lady, who is in a traditional mexican style dress and if you notice sandals! I also got passed by a monk... running in full dress and sandals as well... 

then after we ran back down most of the mountain, we got to run through beautiful downtown. I wanted the picture below pretty badly, i told Josh where to stand and thankfully I saw him as I was running up so I could dodge across the street so I would be in the picture :D

then we ran around the alemeda downtown (a park), and down a hill, and back up for 5K and finally back onto some flat road! just in time to come in for the finish, I was pretty exhausted by then I almost cried up the last 5K because I wanted it to be over...

and finally it was, I finished and chugged some water, and felt like dying, I couldn't find my friends and really wanted to use a potty again, my stomach hurt so bad, but really not until I stopped running, it didn't hurt at all while i was running.

so finally we found my friends, and we stopped to take this picture,I was still dying in this picture

Josh drove me home, and then I took a good 2 hour nap, and finally felt better! So I went to the sign to get my picture, like I had wanted to do after I finished my race, but there was no way I could have made it!

and then we ate tacos. 

The end.