Racing Fall

These were the excited faces greeting me before we left for our trip. G was so excited about this trip that she kept telling me, "I've never even been to St. George before." Yes, except she was born there and spent her first year of life there. We tried to break it to her gently. B was just happy to be a part of all the excitement. When we were packing up the car, I loaded G's car seat in first and B started wailing immediately. He had been sitting in his car seat in the front room waiting for me to arrive and when I took G's car seat out to the car, he thought he was being left behind. Not to worry, we loaded in his car seat and reassured him. 


The first part of the drive was through the mountains south of us on a drive called the Nebo Loop. I had been wanting to take this drive for a long time and it seemed like the perfect opportunity with the mountains ablaze with color. It was stunningly beautiful. 


We even saw several cows grazing along the roadside. And B loved them and pointed out every cow he saw on the subsequent trip. He even learned how to say "moo." See what we were doing for his educational skills? 

The summit was an ear-popping 9000 feet. Definitely felt a bit woozy at that altitude. But I wouldn't have missed the scenery. 

We stopped at several lookouts just to take pictures. And good thing we did too because the next day this area got the first snow storm of the season. It was the last chance we had to see these views this season. 

Megan even bravely put a smile on her face and tried to enjoy the whole experience. She claims to have a little too much of Dad in her--the concept of plan it, do it, don't waste a moment. I've have been forever changed by a road trip I took to Florida with my aunt when I was just out of high school. We spent a week leisurely traveling across country, stopping to see many points of interest and enjoying our way through each state. I was hooked on that kind of travel from that moment. So, Megan got to enjoy too!

But we did--finally--reach our destination which was Brock and Julie's house. Julie had the big race the next day, so we chatted and ate her yummy sugar cookies and talked about the marathon. 

The next morning Julie left at 4AM for the race. We watched the clock knowing she began running at 6:45AM and that she wanted to run it in under four hours. We got to the very, very busy end of the course and walked in the pouring rain to see her cross the finish line. Yes, it had been pouring in St. George since early that morning so all the runners did the entire marathon in unrelenting rain. It didn't seem to mess up Julie at all though. She said her race went really well. She never felt like she hit a wall and she kept an excellent pace making it to the finish line at 3:55:56! She did her marathon in less than four hours. She looked totally triumphant at the finish line and we couldn't have been more excited for her. Brock and M had watched her months of training and they were her greatest fans that day. 

And Julie was all smiles. It was a great victory for her. 

We were all so enthused after watching her that we smiled as we congratulated her and snapped some pictures and then headed back to the car. Even G and B were great sports despite being soaking wet. 

They were just excited to be involved in all the excitement. 

After lunch and a long, hot bath for the runner, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Julie whose birthday is in a few days. And we kissed Mason and chatted up Brock. It was fun to have them all to ourselves. 



And we took a picture in front of the sign that Brock had posted on the house celebrating his favorite runner. It was a memory-making day.