Music City Half Marathon

Well, I may be completely insane, but I signed up with some of my gal-pals to do a 1/2 Marathon! This is something I've always wanted to do, but has always meandered towards the bottom my eternally long to-do list! But now I have a date, a plan, and good friends to help motivate along the way. So here goes nothin! Training started 2 weeks ago. I even trained while we were in Hawaii... which was really TOUGH to do while on vacation! Although, I have to say, running on the beach was pretty cool!

I made up a blog for our little running group. There are about 7 of us so far... and we are calling ourselves "The Marathon Mamas." The link is: http://www.tsrunners.blogspot.com/

Hopefully we'll all get through the training injury-free and make it through to the finish line. OH HAPPY DAY! This is an enormous goal for me, and I am excited for the challenge!

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."
-Oprah Winfrey

Thanks for all your support! (I'll need it!)

Ballroom Dance Class

Stegmann Dance Studio
www.stegmanndance.com

As many of you know, Shane and I have been taking a ballroom dance class. It's been such a BLAST! Bruce and Angelika Stegmann are such entertaining, funny, and talented instructors. Today is our last day of class.... that is until we get back from Hawaii, when we start the advanced class! We can't wait!

Jess's Family News

****NEWS****

GRANT AND KATE



Okay, I've been meaning to post this for a while... but my brother Grant and his wife Kate are going to have a little baby BOY!! CONGRATS GUYS!! We can't wait.

ELISE AND LOGAN



The other news is my little sister Elise is engaged to her Marine, Logan Riddle, who is now in Iraq serving our country for a year! I'm sure that's going to be a rough time, but you'll be in our prayers!!! LOVE YOU!!!

Road Trip to Arizona

Shane’s parents recently purchased a retirement home in Arizona, and asked us if we wanted to drive their car out for them (and it happens to be a fun sports car!). And we said, “Heck yea!” They met us half-way (from Louisville) and traded us Jada for their car and they flew with Jada out to Arizona. So, we’ll be on the road for 3 days, then we’ll meet Shane’s family in Arizona. Here are some of the places we drove through:

Memphis - known for their jazz and blues!

TexArkana – Otherwise known as hillbilly city! Although, I guess we can’t talk much coming from hick-town…..

Arkedelphia – So, what do you get when you cross Arkansas with Philadelphia?? This road sign might give you a clue… :)

Our first day, we drove 11 hours and stayed in Dallas, TX. The next morning, we decided to go to the heart of Dallas to hang out for a little bit. But, we found that the streets were nearly empty! Maybe it was because it was a Saturday and the weekend before Christmas, but still, it was so weird! It was like a ghost town. But we had fun goofing off anyway.

The next day we drove 9 hours, which was all through the great state of Texas. Here's some pics of some windmills and cotton fields we drove past.

That night we stayed in El Paso, and we were surprised at how COLD it was! We went out for some Tex Mex. I think they say in Texas "de-lici-oso!"

We drove 7 hours into Arizona the last day, and we didn't get any other pictures that day, except for one of me trying to get over the fence at the Mexican border. But sadly it was confiscated by the Mexican Police... :) Just a joke!

We had a fun little road trip together!

Arizona Christmas

Here's a picture of us at the Mesa Arizona LDS temple grounds. We had a great Christmas with Shane's family. I'm putting a slide-show of pictures of our Christmas soon.

Balance Boards

Last summer we went out to Lake Powell with Shane's family and stayed on a house-boat for about a week. We had so much fun wake-boarding, when I came home, I looked online to see if I could find something to help improve balance and such (since we don't have the luxury of being able to hit the lake out here in Tennessee!) So I found these boards online, called Indo Boards. http://www.indoboard.com/pages/index.php?page_id=indo_tv

They were a little too pricey for me, but I found a template online on how to make one, and decided to try it out! We decided to make one for Scott and Tara for Christmas. It's basically just plywood with wood stops glued at the ends, vinyl lettering, lacquer, strips of grip tape on the bottom of the board, and 4 or 6" pipe. Kevin (Shane's sister's husband) has amazing equipment and expertise, and helped us figure this out and make it look good. All of the edges on the board and pipe were so nice and rounded and smooth! He even helped us figure out how to get the bar codes and lettering off of the pipes (full strength acetone!) And it was a fraction of the cost of the Indo Boards.

Here's Dallin (Scott and Tara's Son) showing off his skills!

It was a hit and everyone wanted one, so Kevin and Shane went to Home Depot and got materials to make 4 more boards so everyone could have one!

Off Roading!

The desert may not be very pretty, but it sure is FUN! Keri and Kevin sure have some fun toys. We took this out just about every day up some canyon or dirt tracks just about every day. It was a blast!