ode to santa cruz

this is like a million years late, but... the day after my fam ran the ogden marathon, we all hit the road for home sweet home - good ol' sac town. nothing like a 10 hour drive to soothe your aching running muscles, eh? the day after we arrived home in sacramento, my mom, morgan and i (with kids and puppies in tow) left for our annual memorial day camping trip at new brighton beach in santa cruz! this is seriously one of my favorite things to do ever. we get to hang out with the family, eat lots of yummy food, visit with all of our old pals that we don't get to see very often, and, of course, go to the beach! morgan didn't get to stay very long because she had to a wedding or something stupid like that :), but it was fun to have her and asher there for at least a little bit. joel absolutely LOVES dogs, so needless to say, he spent most of his days in santa cruz in the position above. my mom keeps telling me that i'm going to have to get a dog someday for joel, but that is just not going to happen... sorry joel. he'll just have to enjoy other peoples' dogs.
while joel was hangin' with the pups, kadin spent most of his time around the food cabinet, getting in to the animal crackers and the fruit snacks. kadin is a serious snacker. both joel and kadin probably didn't eat a single nutritious thing the whole week, but i just had to keep telling myself that we were camping and that their eating regimen would return to normal when we got home.
they were both constantly filthy the entire week, but hey what's a little dirt, right? although, i enjoyed our trip, i was relieved to get home and wash the campfire smell and the dirt out of everything. unfortunately, the campfire smell lingered for about another week... a sweet memory of our trip. :)
kadin totally ripped it up on the long board. he's basically an x-games child prodigy. :) good times. i can't wait for next year.

my sweet ben

so, in honor of my wonderful husband and the father of my children, i wanted to post a tribute to ben on this father's day. here are some of my favorite pictures of ben...

ben has an awesome sense of humor. he's always doing silly things and making me laugh. and he makes a really hot "wolverine." :)



ben loves to play with his boys. he wants them to wrestle like he in did high school soooo bad. i can't say i'm too stoked for my children to be wrestlers, but they have so much fun doing it with their daddy. :)

ben is amazingly helpful around the house. i must admit, i have not cleaned our bathroom since we have been married. you're probably thinking, "eeww gross, their bathroom must be disgusting." but no, it is spic and span 24/7, thanks to ben. he really likes to make things shiny. i have to actually tell him that he can't do the dishes sometimes, so that he'll get other things done, like...eat his dinner, for instance. he's a dream.


ben treats me like a princess. i've had way more massages (compliments of my sweet hubby) than i deserve. thanks ben, for putting up with me and my brattiness. we have so much fun together. i always feel young when i'm around ben, because he's always thinking of silly things to do. he's like a kid on christmas morning, but all the time. what a great example of optimism to me. :)













here's some of my favorites of ben with the boys.




happy father's day sweetie! i love you more than words can express!

the marathon has been conquered!

so, my marathon report is shamefully overdue. for those who are not updated on my life, my family and i ran the ogden marathon on may 19th. it was great fun and i'm already trying to decide which marathon i will tackle next. i have to say, my favorite thing about the whole experience was sharing it with my family. they all did so well and i'm so proud of them... and the family members that didn't run were the most FABULOUS cheerleaders! so here's an introduction to "team busath":


here we all are running together somewhere near the beginning. we are all very fashionable in matching yellow tank tops and my dad has a coordinating shirt with yellow down the sides. don't we look great? :)


bill - the paternal unit:
finishing at 5 hours 5 minutes and 37 seconds. my dad is soooo awesome. he's always been a good runner and he probably could have kicked all of our trash time-wise, but he stayed with all my sisters right to the end.

whitney:
finishing at 4 hours 19 minutes and 10 seconds. i really like this picture of me because it makes me look like i'm schooling those girls behind me. haha! :)

morgan - my inspiration:
finshing at 5 hours 5 minutes and 29 seconds. here's morgan waving like she's miss america! i was so impressed with morgan because she had just had a baby and had like zero experience running when we started training and she totally did it. she's pretty much totally awesome.


jillian - the speed queen:
finishing at 5 hours 5 minutes and 28 seconds. all throughout our training jillian was always leaving us in the dust. she's a pretty fast runner ...well, by our standards. :) i love this picture of jillian because she looks so triumphant - like she's just finished a marathon or something. :) jillian's pretty much totally wicked awesome, as well.

hailey - the amazing:
finshing at 5 hours 5 minutes and 35 seconds. this picture of hailey totally cracks me up. :) i have to say, i was MOST impressed with hailey. she's 16 years old ...and she gets up at 4:00am every other day to do a paper route ...and she goes to ballet class like three times a week ...and she's in a performing group that practices two times a week for several hours ...and she goes to school everyday, etc, etc, etc... wow, this girl is also completely awesome.

so, i have to share this one funny story. around mile 4 or 5, we were literally like 100 yards from the porta-potties and this lady just dropped her pants about 2 feet from the side of the road to go pee. i'm talking full on frontal nudity shot. she totally didn't even squat down before she pulled her shorts down. she couldn't wait to get to the johns, i guess, nor could she wait until she got behind the trees that were only 10 feet away from her. we were all totally shocked. it was pretty hilarious. the best part was that this random lady running next to me, turns to us and says, "where's a camera phone when you need one?" amen sista. then again, i'm not sure i want a picture of a naked lady peeing. eeeeww!


here we are at the finish line. i remember thinking around mile 20 or so, "why do i like doing this again?" so, needless to say, we are all very relieved that we don't have to run anymore... today. :)

so tuckered out...

more proof that joel just loves to cuddle... our church gets out at 4:30pm every sunday and pretty much kills all chances of my children having an afternoon nap. usually by the time we get home from church, they are total basket cases. so, today after church, we put on fantasia 2000 for the boys. joel was so tired, he climbed into my lap and totally crashed. so cute. there's nothing better than your sweet little angel sleeping in your arms. :)

hot or cold?

ben and i went to check in on the boys tonight, as is our routine before turning in. this is how we found joel. he had got into the bottom drawer of his dresser, pulled out every single blanket in there and put them all on himself. he's a cuddling man after his daddy's heart. :)

this is how we found kadin. kadin is more like his mom, i guess. "don't touch me, i'm trying to sleep here."