Run, Sleep, Repeat- Part Tres

This was my third year as a Wasatch Back Relay participant. The first two years I did it with Seth and a team of random friends and acquaintances. This year I wanted to put together a team of all girls. Every year while doing it I have thought, "Why am I doing this?" but then somehow I find myself loving it and keep going back for more.

Mandz at the starting line!



Jamie and me at after our firsts legs. Look at our cute shirts!

This year was a blast, although we had a few minor mishaps the week prior and one minor incident during the race. Also, during the two hours we were able to sleep some random person kicked me (I was sleeping on the grass) and then some ladies came and stood over me and told me I needed to move or else I was going to get run over.



Working Girls-Amber, Abbie, and Me-We all work together at DCFS. We dressed up in Diva attire to cross the finish line.


For all of you who are unfamiliar with the Wasatch Back, it goes from Logan to Park City, about 180 miles. You have a team of 12 and starting from Logan you always have one person running until you reach Park City. Each team member runs 3 times with an average distance of 3 - 8 miles. You literally only get about 2 hours to sleep, but somehow this is fun.



Abs passing the baton off to Kacey. Abbie totally rocked this race. She had super hard legs but did way awesome. She's a little drenched in this pic, but it's not sweat. Diva's don't sweat, they glow.

This year our team name was "The Diva Dozen" and we had super cute shirts made by one of our team mates, Amanda Ogaard.

I forgot to mention that last minute we had a team member drop out (we actually had two drop out last minute) but this particular member was going to provide one of the cars. Luckily, my dad knows really awesome people like Tom LaPoint, yes that's right, of LaPoint Ford. Mr. LaPoint hooked us up with a way nice truck to use for the race for FREE! If you ever are need of a Ford truck, definitely go to LaPoint Ford first!

Half of the Dozen-Jamie Johns, Me, Kacey Ludlow, Abbie Ogaard, Amanda Ogaard, and Nicole Jamie's Roommate (I don't know her last name)

The other Half Dozen (not pictured)-Jade (Smith) Pew, Sierra (Smith) Pugh, Amber Rudd, Amy (Robbins) Petersen, Ashleee Andreasen, and Jessica LifeSaver (not her last name either, but she was our last minute girl who saved the team!)


I'm thinking I will take next year off, but that is probably a lie because I said the same thing last year.

Here's a special little treat from this guy:

Post-Boards

Seth survived the boards and this is what he looked like when he got home. He said he thinks he did okay, but thinks he now has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of it. All week he has been thinking of questions he may or may not have missed.

The Boards

Seth takes the boards today and man, does he seem nervous. He's been studying for the boards since he started Medical School, but has beens studying like a maniac for the past 5 weeks. Don't worry that he set 4 alarms this morning so he'd wake up on time. I've never known Seth to sleep through an alarm, but he just really wanted to make sure he didn't sleep in. I laugh because he gets so nervous, but always does well on tests.I am so excited to see this book thrown away! Not to mention the bazillion flash cards we have around our place. I admire Seth, I could never study this much, for this long. Heck, I couldn't even comprehend one flashcard, it's honestly like reading Japanese.

Thanks to all the friends and family who have encouraged Seth and wished him good luck on this big day! We'll let you know how it goes in about 4 weeks!

Weekends should always be like this

This weekend was awesome. I ran a 10K with my dad, had lunch with friends, had date night with Seth, and got new carpet!!!




The awesomeness started with waking up dark and early Saturday morning to run the Crack of Dawn 10k with my dad in Emigration Canyon, downhill of course. I finished under an hour and thought I was pretty cool for doing that. I passed a bunch of people on the last 2 miles, which NEVER happens, so I thought I was even cooler for that part. I have experienced getting passed on many a races, but have never really experienced the pleasure of making others eat my dust. I thoroughly enjoyed it even if the people I passed were double my age. It was a rainy and cloudy day Saturday morning, so the Crack of Dawn thing didn't really pan out. My dad did awesome too, but he would deny that. We treated ourselves to the always delicious Einstein's bagel afterwards.




After the race I waited for our new carpet! Such an exciting moment in my life as a home owner. It was a little awkard however because there was really nowhere for me to be because all of our stuff was crammed into the living room while the bedrooms were being carpeted. I kinda just sat in a corner and pretended to work on my Sunday School lesson/watch t.v. The carpet looks awesome and our apartment is starting to smell less and less of old people.




Saturday afternoon I went to lunch with my dear old friends, Jamie and Amber. I've been friends with Jamie since the first grade. That's 18 years folks, yes, 18 years. I have so many funny memories with Jamie. I'll have to dedicate a post to that. Jamie, Amber, and I became BFFs from choir class in 7th grade. I think Jamie and I thought Amber had cute clothes or something and decided we should get to know her. Ha! The three of us went to lunch at the most wonderful restaurant in the world, Trio. I am totally obsessed with the place. I rode my bike to the restaurant with gas prices being like $50 a gallon. It was only a like 6 or so blocks away, but it's really hard to ride a bike with a big purse. We ate amazing food and talked for like 2 hours and I didn't want it to end. I love getting together with old friends.

Saturday night Seth and I went to the temple and then went to dinner at The Garden at JSMB. Seth decided the restaurant felt like a cafeteria and decided we shouldn't ever go there again. I thought it was okay, but our server wasn't the nicest. I think she was mad because I only ordered soup and therefore she figured I wouldn't leave a good tip. Loser.

Dearest Uncle Sam,

WHERE. IS. MY. MONEY?! I've tried to wait patiently, but I just can't do it anymore. I've had your generous gift earmarked for some fabulous IKEA flooring and I would really like to purchase it as soon as possible.

Now, I am just a lowly state employee and as you know I get paid beans. You can imagine my excitement when the news of a stimulus package came about.

I've been very good this year, please send me my money.

Sincerely,
Heidi

Happy Birthday Times Two!

Happy Birthday to two fabulous Herway women, Anita and Mel! I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful mother-in-law and sister-in-law! I definitely lucked out on the in-law department. I hope both of you have the best days ever and that you are spoiled and pampered to death, you definitely deserve it. Can't wait to spend time with both of you this summer and now in December too! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Weiners and S'mores

I know I just barely complained about not getting to have fun this summer, but Seth and I were actually able to get away a couple of weekends ago. We went down to southern Utah for a little weekend vacation. I use the term vacation loosely since my idea of "vacation" does not usually involve camping. It was however, a vacation from the daily grind. Seth wanted to go to southern Utah to get ideas for a business venture that he has been dreaming, thinking, and talking about for the past several months. Stay tuned for details in the next several months.




We took the long route to SoTah (Southern Utah). Here's Seth in Panguitch, enjoying a Sanguitch.

We made a stop in Bryce Canyon National Park and bought an Annual National Parks pass for 80 bones. Turns out it's not such a great deal since you can get into a lot of National Parks for free. We're going to make the most out of this pass by visiting as many of the National Parks as we can within driving distance. We're living on the egde.



We spent our first night at Sand Hollow reservoir in Hurricane (pronounced Hurricun by locals). We didn't really fit in with the rest of the crowd since we forgot our ski boat, truck, 54 foot RV, 4-wheelers, and dirt bikes. The scenery was beautiful though.


We spent the next day in Zions National Park and hiked Angels Landing. I had fun freaking Seth out by standing close to the edge. I thought it was funny, Seth did not.




By the way, Euros LOVE national parks! We saw a lot of them in both Bryce and Zions.

That night we camped along the Virgin River and had a traditional camping dinner. Weiners and S'mores. We were very unprepared and didn't have any cooking or eating gear. We roasted our weiners the good old fashioned way with sticks we found.



Sunday we stopped by my grandma's house to visit. This is what prompted my "wo is me" post from a couple of weeks ago.

We had a really good time and it was so great to be in the great outdoors for a couple of days. I was pretty impressed that I went two days without showering and handled it like a champ.

We also took the long route home and stopped by the Mountain Meadows Massacre site. Did anyone else that grew up in Utah think that it was a massacre of Mormons, not the other way around?

23 days til my next vacation and I can't wait!!!

She's 50 Ladies and Gentlemen!

My lovely mom turns the big 5-0 tomorrow. I am so grateful for my mom and totally look up to her in so many ways. Here are 50 wonderful things about my dear ol' mazsha.

1. She was born in Chester, Pennsylvania.
2. Grew up in Wilmington, Delaware.
3. She claims she could do pull-ups "forever" (we're not sure if we believe her)
4. She won a beauty contest as kid (or a Halloween costume contest, either way she was dressed up like a beauty queen).
5. She was horseback riding as a kid, and spooked her horse by screaming. The horse took off with her on it.
6. She first heard about the LDS church because she was in love with Donnie Osmond.
7. On a family trip to the West, they stopped at Temple Square. My mom filled out an information card.
8. Later that fall, 2 missionaries showed up at her front door.
9. Before she was baptized, she went to early morning seminary for a full year!
10. Her first day of church at an LDS ward, she wore a huge cross necklace around her neck. She couldn't figure out why everyone knew she wasn't a member.
11. She was baptized at 15 years old.
12. She was a homecoming queen candidate.
13. She found a great group of friends from her ward, and is still good friends with many of them to this day.
14. She graduated early from high school and went to college at BYU.
15. She did study abroad in Israel and got to go again a second time. Again, she made great friends there and is still friends with them too!
16. On her way back from Israel the first time, she toured Europe. She even visited her missionary boyfriend who was serving in Sweden. Ha!
17. She likes to bend the rules and push things to the limit.. (I love that about her!)
18. She met my dad in a student ward in SLC. My dad asked her out by sending her flowers and asked her out in the note that came with the flowers. My dad was really shy back then and never called my mom to follow up for the date. My mom had to call him to make sure the date was still on.
19. On Dec. 5th 1983, she became a mother to her favorite child.
20. She is a fabulous homemaker.
21. She makes world-famous mint brownies. They are in high demand at any family function or work party. It's funny though, because nobody in our immediate family likes them, not even her.
22. She makes the BEST missionary care packages. My brother was totally spoiled in El Salvador, I was spoiled in Russia, and she has also spoiled cousins who've served missions.
23. She loves watching my sisters play soccer.
24. She is her kids' biggest fan.
25. She loves tennis, both playing and watching. Lanx was born during Wimbeldon, which is probably why Lanx is my mom's true favorite child.
26. She lovews laying by the pool and getting tan. Mother like daughter.
27. She makes the most wonderful Sunday dinners. She loves having people over on Sundays and feeding them until they pop.
28. She loves a nice, cold Diet Pepsi.
29. She is very artistic and creative. We always had the best projects in school, because my mom practically did them for us.
30. She is a fabulous interior designer.
31. She's won awards at Parade of Homes.
32. She now is an interior designer for LDS temples.
33. She did the Nauvoo Temple.
34. She is a super hard and efficient worker. She can get things done 10 times faster and better than most people.
35. She's ultra-organized.
36. She is genuinely interested in other people.
37. She extremely empathetic toward others.
38. She cries in movies, while watching tv, commericials, and reading greeting cards.
39. She once missed an entire day of work to get caught up on episodes of 24.
40. She did the best braids in our hair when we were little.
41. She threw great birthday parties for us.
42. She took us to the pool practically everyday of the summer and has lots of dinners with fresh corn on the cob.
43. She's a movie buff. Loves, loves, loves them. Especially with movie theater popcorn, no butter please, but lots of salt.
44. She a talented seamstress. Pete and I have matching outfits to prove it.
45. She is a thoughtful gift giver.
46. She is always down for a pedicure.
47. She is beautiful and classy.
48. She always has gum.
49. She had a crush on Luke Staley's calves.
50. She stays in touch with old friends.

oops, too many great things, guess I'll keep going.

51. She loves Josh Groban.
52. She is often praised for the wonderful job she does at work.
53. She is very selfless
54. She has a strong testimony of the gospel and lives it everyday.
55. She's the #1 mom, sister, aunt, friend, daughter, mom-in-law, and wife!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I wish I had a picture to show you all my cutie mom, but luckily, most of you know what she looks like .

My New Fave Craze

Bikram Yoga. The hardest thing I think I've done. First off, I'm not very flexible so yoga is hard anyway, but when you turn the heat up to 110 degrees and ad 40% humdity, well that's just insane! I started going to Bikram Yoga (also known as Hot Yoga) last week and have gone three times since. It's awesome, everyone is in as little as possible and sweats like crazy. You wouldn't think it'd be that hard but it is. My first day they gave me a little orientation..."Make sure to breathe in and out through your nose so you don't pass out." "If you feel like you are going to faint or throw up, just kneel down, or lay on your back." "Have fun!" Knowing there was a very good possibility of puking or passing out, I was a little nervous. I didn't barf or pass out, and ended up loving the class! It's 90 minutes long and at the end you feel such a sense of accomplishment and you feel like you lost 5 lbs. in water weight. The only bummer is it's way expensive. I signed up for an intro. pass which was super cheap, but a regular pass is like $300 a month! It's pretty clever of them to charge you a super cheap intro package, get you to absolutely love it, then charge you an arm to continue! I highly recommend trying Bikram if you already haven't. There's one in Sugarhouse and Sandy.

No fair.

I came to an awful realization over the weekend and it hit me even harder as I was driving to work today. This is my first summer as a full-fledged, 9 to 5, working class adult. I'm a tad devastated about the whole thing. I realized this over the weekend when I realized that most people had just finished their finals and were starting their Summer of Fun 2008.

The past two summers have been some of the best summers of my life!! The summer Seth and I were dating we went to Seattle together for his BFFs wedding, then to Coronado to meet the Herway fam, then to Hebgen Lake, then to San Francisco with my family, then back to San Francisco to watch Seth compete in an Ironman competition. (I think that was the order they went in). Then the first summer we were married we went to Havasupai, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, and England. I know that I was VERY lucky to do all this fabulous things, but I think I got a bit spoiled because now I expect summers like this every summer!

I also have been very nostalgic today thinking about spending summers at my grandma's in St. George and going to the pool everyday and eating THE BEST lunches afterwards.

Now that I have to be a grown up and be responsible and Seth has to study for boards, all we get is a measly (sp?) 4 days of summer bliss. I'm at work right now and all I can think about is how bad I wish I was going to the pool everyday and eating Otter Pops. I can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel though, because eventually I will have kids and I will be able to introduce them to the wonderful world of summers at the pool eating Otter Pops all day and playing night games at night.

Happy Birthday Fwiz O Biz

Today is my sister Taylor's 17th (weird!) Birthday! For some reason I don't have any recent pictures of her on my computer so I had to use this one from dinner last night. She refused to make a normal face, but this is pretty typical for her. Here are 17 things about Tatsie:

1. She's a way good soccer player. She plays on a great Comp. team and will be team captain of her high school soccer team this coming fall.
2. She knows the lyrics to like every song, even the rap songs.
3. She is very non-judgemental.
4. She is a friend to everyone and is interested in all types of people.
5. She is our family's comic relief.
6. She loves You Tube.
7. She makes me feel good about my clothing style by every Sunday asking, "I borrow?"
8. She LOVES CPK pizzas.
9. She is a great listener and always seems interested in what you have to say (except when she's texting).
10. She's obsessed with text messaging.
11. She's BEAUTIFUL!
12. She's very humble and doesn't like attention. (except she went through a phase of flexing her biceps a lot)
13. She drives a blue VW Bug with a Yo Amo El Salvador sticker.
14. She is way good with kids, they love her.
15. She worked a burger place called Take 5 for a few weeks. Someone ordered a Fresh Lime. She didn't know that a Fresh Lime was a drink and handed the guy a lime.
16. She has a ear for the piano. She took lessons for several years but can play a lot of songs by ear.
17. She has an eye for photography and is very artistically creative.

I have a couple more...
18. She had surgery when she was a baby to remove a big lump above her eye. Her nickname then was Lumpy Keeg.
19. She was super scared of spiders and tornadoes when she was little.
20. She is easily embarrassed by her family.
21. She is a GREAT sister!!

Happy Birthday Tay, Tay-Tay, Fwiz, Fwiz o Biz, Biz, Biznatch, Tatsie, Lumpy Keeg, Sqeak, Taylow, Taylor!

Before I Go Private

I still want all you lovely folks to be able to view my blog (cuz I still wanna view yours) but I need to invite ya'll by email. I have most people's email's but not everyone's. Please send me your email so I can add you...heidiherway@gmail.com

Going Private

I've decided it's kinda freaky and weird that anyone can look at my blog and I don't even have to know about it. Therefore, I'm setting my blog to private. I'm not sure how to do it yet, but when I figure it out, I'll let you (those of you who I know) know what my new blogspot is.

Why?

My last blog brought back another memory. This memory was also brought back at the aforementioned assembly. This is where one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life took place. It was early spring of 2001. Student Body Elections were coming up and for some reason I thought I should run. I am still baffled as to why I thought I should do this, but I did. I'm pretty sure it's just because teenagers logic totally sucks and their brains aren't fully developed.

Like I said, people were starting to run for Student Body Government positions. I decided VERY last minute to run for Student Body Historian. This job would require poster making, photography, and scrapbooking skills mainly. I know, SO awesome, who wouldn't want this job? Well, as it is commonly known I was NOT a good student in high school and all the candidates had to have a certain GPA and attendance record. I don't remember the details but somehow I found out last minute that I could still qualify. I had to get all my teachers to sign a paper saying they approved of me running. I distinctly remember having difficulties getting my history teacher, Mr. Smith, to sign my paper. He DESTESTED me. I still do not know why, but he seriously, seriously hated me. I don't even remember how I got him to sign it, but somehow the paper was signed. I was able to turn my application in the day everything was due. The next day was the SBO assembly. For this assembly, I had to come up with a skit. I know, skit equals embarrassing, and magnified when in front of the entire student body. I also had to make posters and come up with a slogan for this. I actually think I had 2 or 3 days to do this now that I think about it, but still, hardly any time at all. Through all of this craziness I never stopped to think about whether I might actually win. Had I stopped and really thought about this, I could have saved myself a world of embarrassment. My slogan I came up with was "Life in the Fast lane". Don't know what the hell that had to do with anything, but that was my slogan. Something about living senior year in the fast lane. Whatev. I made my posters and put them all over the school, forced my friends to be in my skit, and we practiced like the night before, and I stayed up the entire night making a stupid banner. Since the whole weird fast lane thing was my apparent theme, I used a Limp Bizkit song that had the phrase "life in the fast lane in it". The skit involved Razor Scooters, that embarrassing song, and my friends and I wearing biker clothes. I still owe my friends SO SO much for subjecting themselves to the same humilation, although I was way more embarrassed because my NAME was attached to all of this. Our auditorium has 3 or 4 lanes that go in between the sections of seats. My friends and I started at the back of the auditorium and when the music started rode our scooters done the aisles, down to the front. Then, as I recall we did some kind embarrassing Razor Scooter routine. It's hard to convey the embarrassment of this experience. I can't even believe I was able to type all of this. I don't think I've been able to verbalize this story since it happened.

Well, elections happened that day or something and big surprise, I didn't win. I cried when I found out I didn't win, but I don't feel bad for my past self at all. Helloooo, you were wearing biker clothes, riding a scooter, and had Limp Bizkit playing for crying out loud! Plus, you weren't even that popular. Sorry, but you weren't.

Oh the joys of reliving past trauma. I hope you all enjoyed this little journey into my past. I'm really glad most of you weren't there to see the real thing.

Beauty Queens

I stole these pictures off Lara's blog because the pictures I took didn't turn out well at all. Anyway, Taylor was nominated to be a candidate for Prom Queen at her school. Our very handsome nephew, Zane, escorted Taylor down to the stage at the Prom Assembly. Aren't they both beautiful?! I sure think so.

The assembly was pretty funny for a couple of reasons. First of all, I realized that as much as Taylor seems to like attention around the family (she's definitely the comic relief in our family), she does NOT like attention by way of the entire student body. All the candidates (maybe 15 girls and 15 guys) had to do a choregraphed (how the heck do you spell that?) dance. Taylor is the bomb soccer player but dancing is not her thing, nor is it mine or anyone else in my family. She did a good job but I could tell by her facial expression that she was DYING the whole time. Second, I realized that high school is so retarded! I remember thinking that high school was going to be the highlight of my entire life when I was in middle school. I remember seeing my friends older siblings going to football games, dances, getting nominated for stuff, and thinking it was the coolest thing in the entire world. I can say all of this because Taylor never reads my blog and if she did she probably wouldn't care anyway. I will have to rememeber that when I'm a mom of a teenager, which will be in like 18 years or something, that when you're in high school this kind of stuff is a really big deal even if it seems completely ridiculous. Taylor didn't win and luckily she couldn't have cared any less. If I had been nominated for P.Q. in high school (I wasn't) I probably would have cried if I lost because I was dramatic like that.

It was just funny to be back at a high school assembly with a totally different perspective.