Race for the Cure!

My Amazing Mom!!

As some of you know, and some of you might not, at the end of January, 2009, my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. As far as cancer goes, it was the most treatable and she caught it early, but it was still a pretty big shock for us. She ended up having surgery in March and did radiation treatment after that. She qualified for a new type of radiation treatment, because her cancer hadn't spread, and she had five days in a row of radiation instead of having to do it spread out over weeks. She was such a trooper through the whole thing. She is a strong and inspiring person and I'm so glad to have her as a mother.

After running the March of Dimes race in January, I was planning on running the Susan G. Komen race in May when I found out about my mom. I decided everyone one else should also take part, and I called my sisters and my sister-in-law and they also decided to take part. As the race got closer, my mom was feeling well enough to take part also. It turned out to be an amazing event! My mom did a great job, especially with all she had gone through in the months before. Here are some pictures of the event - it was a lot of fun!

This is us right after we arrived at the event. We parked at Cashman field and had to walk a while to get to where the race started. I guess it was a great warm-up :)
Ulma, Jen, My Mom, Me, Tosha

This was taken right before we split up. Some of us did the 5K run (or walk) and my mom did the 1 Mile walk (still incredible after her treatments!)
Tosha, Nicole (friend), Pam (friend), Me, My Mom, Ulma, Jen

Here I am before the race with my Awesome Sisters!!

Here's another shot of us right before the race. My mom wore the pink shirt as a "survivor." There were a lot of pink shirts!

We decided before the race to meet on a certain corner. Thank goodness we did, because there were people everywhere and it would have been crazy to try to find everyone. This is the family shot after the race. Vegas is already starting to warm up and it was hot! As you can see in the background, there were a TON of people there. I think there were over 18,000 people registered to run or walk!

Here I am after the race with some of the friends that ran with me:

From left to right: Pam, Me, Nicole, and Patricia

Here I am with Pam. I sure had fun running with you!

Overall, it was a great experience. It was really nice to be able to have a place to go and show our mom our support for what she is going through. I also feel really blessed that she was able to take part with us. Great job everyone!

It's all about Kaitlyn...

May 1st, 2009. It's Kaitlyn's 7th Birthday! I can't believe my little girl is getting so old! She is such an amazing girl and I love her dearly. I'm so glad that she is a part of our family!

Here she is with her new desk that she got for her birthday. She loves to have her "own" space where she can organize her things and put everything. She loves playing "office" and is always asking for old receipts. Sometimes she keeps a little too much stuff, but she does have her own space (one of the perks of being the only girl).

Here is William posing with Kaitlyn by her desk. Although I don't have a picture of it, William is Kaitlyn's wrestling partner. They get pretty rambunctious, and occasionally even hurt each other, but Kaitlyn loves her little brother!


For her birthday, we went out to the movies and to dinner. (Not a "friend" party year!) We went and saw "Monsters vs. Aliens" in 3D and the kids loved it. After the movie, we met some of the family at Mimi's Cafe. What a fun night!

Here is Kaitlyn with Grandpa and Grandma Anderson.

Here is Kaitlyn and Zach with Grandpa and Grandma Lightman.

Here's a shot of the rest of the family.

Here is Kaitlyn getting ready to blow out the candle on her slice of cake.

I end up collecting a lot of different shots of each kid throughout the year that don't necessarily make up their own blog. So I've decided to talk a little bit more about each of my kids and put together all of the extra stuff I have on each of them, in one post. And what better time to do it, than on their birthday! Kaitlyn has the first birthday of the year, as far as my kids go, and she'll be the first one I can do this for.

The first shots are of her playing baseball. She started playing when she was just four (she turned five during the season) and has continually been moving up every year. The first year (2007) she played "Bubba Ball" with a bigger ball and the coach sucked up close and always pitched. Since there were no strike outs, if the coach pitched a lot of balls and the player was still struggling, they would get out a tee. The next year (2008) she played with a regular sized ball and the coach pitched the whole time again. This time after so many strikes (I think it was 4 instead of 3) the players could get out. This year (2009) she played with a kid on the other team pitching and after 4 balls the coach would come in and finish it off. There was an umpire though, and the kids could still strike out. In 2007 and this year, she was the only girl on her team. I was a little worried (because she's so young) and I was considering keeping her back in coach-pitch, but we decided to move her up. She stepped up to the challenge and she really worked hard and did a great job this year.

Kaitlyn hitting the ball:

Kaitlyn running the bases:

One of the main reasons we moved Kaitlyn up is that we knew who her coach would be if we did. Lanny is our neighbor and his son had to be up in the kid-pitch league and we really wanted him for a coach. He did a great job with the kids and we're glad we made that decision. Ryan was also able to help coach. We lucked out with having most of her games on his days off and he was able to help a lot.

We had a fun party at the park after the season was over. The kids were able to play in the water and run around. I was a good time!

Kaitlyn and Lanny at the baseball party:

Kaitlyn's baseball team and the coaches:

Here is a picture of Kaitlyn with one of her best friends. Although Kaitlyn and Zach are getting old enough to have their disagreeable moments (it seems like the older they get, the more there are), they still love to play and hang out together. Sometimes, for the sake of the game they are playing, they will even dress alike:


Kaitlyn is going to love this picture when she gets older! I guess that's what you get when you mess around with mom's camera!


For a long time (2/05 - 9/09) I babysat a girl almost every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Her name is Danielle and she moved on to Jr. High this year. She and Kaitlyn had some good times and here they are at the park:


The last thing I have that Kaitlyn did is get her ears pierced. She started asking a while ago and while I came from a family (ok, my mom was a very firm believer that we needed to be 12) that didn't do it until we were older, Ryan and I decided that seven would be old enough. So on June 17th, a couple of weeks after school got out, Kaitlyn and I were able to head down to the mall. I have to admit that I was looking forward to this outing myself. I don't get down to the mall very often and Kaitlyn was nice enough to let me do a little shopping for myself. Then it was off to Clair's and "The Event."

This is Kaitlyn getting her ears marked.

They gave us the option of having two people do the piercing so it happens all at once. This worked really well and we didn't have to worry about her backing out after only one hole!

Well, she's still smiling after all is said and done! She did say that it hurt, but she was a trooper and got through it! Good job Kaitlyn!

That's it for now on Kaitlyn. She is such a wonderful daughter and a big help.
I love you, Kaitlyn!

1st Sprint Distance Triathlon!

On April 17th, I did my first Sprint Distance Triathlon. I ended up talking my friend Megan into coming down from Logan to do it with me (thanks for making the trip, Megan!) and also my husband and brother-in-law, Nate. It was also Ryan and Nate's first attempt at any type of Triathlon, but not to worry, they were awesome! I'm so proud of everyone! We had a great time and I can't wait to do one again!

Here we are posing for a shot. Even though you can't see our numbers, Nate, Ryan and I were 9, 10, and 11. Megan, with the last name of Richards, was somewhere around 280. They went alphabetically, at first, then according to Megan, the numbers were not in order. I wish I would have known because I would have opted to go later. I hated being the first one of 14 in the pool! I wasn't quite ready and had a little trouble getting through the swim. Luckily I was sharing a lane with my awesome husband, who had barely had time to train for the swim, and he got me through it. Thanks Ry! You're amazing!


Another fun part to this Tri, was that Zach and his friend Dawson (Megan's son) were able to do their first Kid's Triathlon also. They were simply amazing! I was so proud of them!

Here they are before it started. Show me your muscles, uh I mean numbers!



Thumbs up! They're ready to go!


Here is Zach swimming. Zach pushed really hard and did the first lap fast (shown here), but slowed down a little on the second lap :) He did really well!


Here he is finishing the whole thing. He had an amazing experience and so did we! Good job Zach! You're awesome!


Thanks to all who came to support! We have such a great family who really helped us a lot during all of the races. Thanks again!