St. Jude Marathon

Guy ran his second marathon on Saturday in Memphis. It was the St. Jude Marathon and all the proceeds went to the St. Jude children's cancer hospital there. It was such an amazing cause and Guy did AWESOME!!! He finished the race in 3 hours and 43 minutes! Thats like an 8:30 pace for each mile which is amazing!!I have no idea how he ran that fast but we are SO proud of him!!!

At the expo on friday we saw Hal Higdon, who has run over 100 marathons. We used his beginner training plan to run St. George in October!

Here's Guy before he left for the race! It was SOOO cold that morning in Memphis. I think the temp at the start was like 30 degrees and it only warmed up to 45 later in the day. Guy said he was fine once he was running but for those of us just standing around watching, it was cold!!
Here's the mass of people at starting line. A 10 year old St. Jude patient got to sing the national anthem before the race which was so cool and she did a great job :)

They got to finish in autozone park baseball stadium which was really cool

Autozone park

Guy right after he finished. I was sad I didn't catch him coming across the finish line because there were too many people in the way. But we saw him and we heard them announce his name!! I was shocked he was coming in under 4 hours!!!

Guy loved the course and it was nice because they had aid stations at every mile. They also got to run through the St. Jude campus and see all the St. Jude children outside cheering for them and giving them high fives. We talked a lot this weekend about how it would be to have a child with cancer and how grateful we were to have 2 healthy boys. St. Jude's is really an amazing organization. They never turn a child away because they can't pay for treatment so the hospital is mostly run on donations. It was really cool to contribute to that and know the money from the race was going to such a good cause!

Good Job Daddy!

After Guy showered and rested for a bit we went back to autozone park and got a picture of the finish line

This is the entrance to the park

Guy and BB

We took a drive after to Graceland to see Elvis Presleys house. We didn't want to pay for the tour so we just took a picture

View from the street

That night there was a Christmas parade in Memphis that we watched. All I can say is that it was an interesting parade but at least we got to see Santa so Brayden was happy.

We walked down Beale Street and had to get a picture by BB Kings for BB

Family pic on Beale Street

We had a great weekend and Guy was amazing!

We are SOOO proud of him! :)

Turkey Trot

This year we spent our first Thanksgiving in Texas...we've always gone to either Oregon or Ohio and had it with our families ever since we've been married. But this year it didn't work out so we decided that we needed to do something festive since it was just going to be the 4 us. So we signed up for the turkey trot in Dallas. Originally we had planned on running the 8 mile course but after getting there and seeing how crowded it was we stuck with the 5k. We didn't realize that Dallas was the biggest turkey trot in the country with over 37,000 people running it. Ya, it was crazy!!! But it was really really fun and a great way to start out the holiday!!!
Here's Tyler all bundled up in the stroller! It was a nice sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky but at 9 am it was kinda chilly(for us Texans)!!! Ty ended up sleeping for most of the run which was awesome! This was Brayden's view from the stroller before the race started!! It was pretty funny! People could bring their dogs so there were seriously dogs everywhere!!!

Here is the starting line for the race. We had to line up in the back since we were pushing a stroller so we were stuck forever in the chaos of strollers and leashes!!! Since there were so many people we pretty much just ended up walking the 5K but it was still fun and Brayden was absolutely loving it. He told us on the drive down there that he had been waiting for this day all year!

Guy, BB, and Ty
We went by thanksgiving tower which was fitting for the day! There was also live music all along the way which was fun!!

Brayden was such a fast runner!

Almost to the finish line

We did it!!!! When Brayden saw the finish line he got so excited and ran as fast as he could to it. He has been telling everyone that he won the whole race! :)

After the race, we went home and stuffed our faces all day!! We managed to make a turkey all by ourselves for the first time and it was actually really good! Even though the whole turkey cleaning process pretty much scarred me for life! SO Gross!! I was glad Guy was here to take care of that! Hope that everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!!!

How we met Elfie

There was a knock at our door last Saturday night
And Brayden answered it and he found a present sitting there
He was super excited so he brought it inside
"Brayden, this is all the way from the North Pole!!!"
From Santa!!!
Brayden opened up a letter from Santa
and Mommy read it to him

And then it was time to see what was inside

Tyler got excited about the wrapping paper but Brayden did most of the work

It was a little elf that Santa sent us

We had to think of a name for him and Brayden chose Elfie

Then we read the book that came with him that told us all about this special elf

The elf spends all his days with us watching to see what we are doing and then every night he uses his magic and goes back to the North Pole to report back to Santa if we've been naughty or nice. Then in the morning we wake up and have to search for the elf because he will be in a new spot for the next day.

We've been doing this for a few days now and it has been SO fun. The first thing Brayden does in the morning is search for Elfie and see where he is hiding this time. And Guy and I are having fun "helping" Elfie find new places to hide and leaving little notes and things with him for the kids.

Plus, its been a geat bargaining tool...all I have to say is "Brayden, Elfie is watching and he's gonna tell Santa about that" and it works every time. In fact, yesterday I overheard Brayden telling Tyler that he better stop messing up his toys because Elfie could see him and would tell Santa and Santa wouldn't be very happy. So funny!!

Anyways, its cute and its a fun new tradition to do every Christmas so I just thought I would share!!

See Santa...check

Well, we weren't planning on seeing Santa on Saturday but it just kind of happened and it was nice to not have to wait in huge long lines like we've done in years past. We were out doing some christmas shopping and stopped at bass pro shops outdoor world cause we had never been inside and just wanted to check it out. We were glad we did because Santa was there and you could get a free picture with him! I was glad too cause both the boys were in their buckeye jerseys from the Ohio State-Michigan game earlier so I thought that would be cute! Anyways, we had to kill some time before we saw Santa but luckily there was lots to do in the store and Brayden was pretty much in heaven. They had a reindeer carousel set up to ride for free and christmas crafts you could do. Plus with all the boats that he "drove," the millions of tents he played in, and all the dead stuffed animals, he basically had a blast! We had our camera with us so we took lots of pictures in the store which is kinda corny but it was fun so who cares :) Santas reindeer The boy still loves the trains!This is as close as Brayden would get to this shark. We told him to put his head inside but he wouldn't even take a step closer then this!
So I came and stood by him

Driving one of the many boats they had on display
Riding the reindeer carousel with mommy...he kept turning around and asking me if I was having fun yet! haha, yes the carousel was a thrilling ride!
Brayden climbed on this and told us maybe he could get it for Christmas! haha, in your dreams bud!
Standing by a big stuffed bear

And this bear was seriously HUGE!

Brayden with the picture he colored there that he wanted to give Santa

Brayden loved Santa and of course Tyler cried. He took one look at Santa and that was it! He must get that from me because I was always scared of sitting on Santas lap

Brayden and Santa without his crying brother!!

He was such a cute Santa and I'm glad we got to see him. I am getting SO excited for Christmas already!

December is always the best month!!! :)