It was SO nice to be able see my Grandparents and spend time with them a few weeks ago. It had been so long since we had been there and I just missed them. My grandpa is going through chemo right now and my grandma is having a surgery on her leg this upcoming Monday so they are always in our thoughts and prayers. 
We had a great time with them and went to the Hill Air Force Base Museum in Utah. It had a great kids area with lots of fun activities for kids as well as TONS of planes to look at. Brayden absolutely loved it and I am totally recommending going there. We really had a great time looking at all the planes!
Brayden taking a ride with Grandpa Peel
I think this is one of those pictures that I will always cherish. Its so cute!
Tyler was so happy sitting on Grandpa Peel's lap that he just rode with him for awhile and loved it! It was so adorable!
Look how long that hair is getting!!!
Brayden testing out a pilots chair and Ty back in his usual mode of transportation
Their were some people at the museum who had guide dogs that BB loved! It was amazing how well trained those dogs are.
As Brayden was shaking this dog's paw the dog went in and gave him a big lick on his face! It was pretty funny!
Here's BB in the kids area pretending to drive a plane (seriously if you have kids and live in Utah you should check this place out...its free!)
My grandpa used to be a navigator for the air force and he flew on this kind of plane and the one below. It was really cool to see these planes in person and picture him inside of them back in the day.
Brayden thought that Grandpa used to fly on the coolest plane there because it was the biggest one they had! :)Thanks for letting us come and see you guys and spend time with you! I'm sad that it had to be such a short visit. We love you both soooo much and miss you!!!
So we started our trip down there leaving Texas early friday morning and flying into Salt lake. Of course, things never go smoothly when you want them to. Our flight was late and then it took us like an hour to find all our bags. And then when we went to get our rental car, they didn't have our reservation on file for some reason but luckily they still had a car we could use. Finally we got on the road and we made it to Provo where we stopped at Guy's sister's house for a quick pasta lunch and then continued our drive to St. George. By the time we got there, we were SO tired! I don't think this much traveling the day before the race was a good idea but now we know better! Guy and I ran over to the expo and picked up our race packets and ate another quick pasta dinner and went back to the hotel. Brayden slept over with his Grandma and Grandpa Hill in their hotel room and we kept Ty since I'm still feeding him. We didn't really get much sleep cause Ty was up so much that night and I was just so nervous! But somehow, we managed to wake up at 4 AM and get ready to go!
Every time I would look over at Tyler I would want to join him! I kept thinking about what I was about to do and sleeping in a warm bed sounded so much better!!
Our hotel had a shuttle service that took you to the buses to take to the starting line so we got up early to catch a ride on that.
They had bonfires set up everywhere that helped all the runners stay warm.
When the race started we just hung back by the fires for awhile since its all chip timed so we started to run about 10 minutes after the gun went off. It was so crazy how many people there were but we just shuffled along with all of them. Seriously the first few miles my toes were so numb so it felt weird to be running on them but they warmed up eventually.
Guy's younger brother Mike took pictures of us the whole race which we owe him for because they turned out great. The weather was perfect once the sun came up. It was sunny and in the 70s for our run. We heard that last year it was really cold and rainy for the marathon so we were glad we didn't have to deal with that!
They had aid stations every 3 miles with water, gatorade, bananas, oranges, gu gels, and clif bars. They also had first aid stations at some of them and people that would rub your legs down with icy hot near the end. It was really nice and organzied so well. As you ran through the aid stations everyone would just take a cup and drink it and then throw it on the ground. The ground was so sticky from all the spilled gatorade!
We had heard about the big hill at mile 7 and so right before that we decided to do a bathroom stop since we both really had to go. All the lines had been so long up until that point so we just figured we would have to wait in one eventually so might as well get it overwith. So after mile 6 we stopped and waited in line for 15 minutes! It was awful. One of those things where after you've been waiting awhile you think maybe you should just forget about it and keep running but then you think about how long you've already wasted waiting in line so you might as well stay cause it can't be much longer. Anyways, after wasting so much time waiting we were on our way again and the next port-a-potty we passed only had 2 people in line! OF COURSE!
The course in St. George had a lot of downhill with just a few uphill parts. I thought this would be easy but it was really hard on my legs because Texas has no hills. We really did almost all of our training runs on flat and even ground. So my legs were really tight for the last 10 miles. It was awful!
saw this video on youtube and I had to laugh because I can totally see Guy and I finishing this way! I'm pretty sure I will be crawling across the finish line too! I'll let ya know how it goes! :)
Brayden's latest obsession is dinosaurs! It all started with the new show on PBS called dinosaur train. It's seriously a genius show...what little boy doesn't love dinosaurs and trains combined! He now knows the names of dinosaurs that I can hardly even pronounce so at least he's learning something from it. He even knows which ones are carnivores or herbivores...seriously, who needs preschool when you have PBS! :)
