so this one time i never posted about an adventure...

So this is completely out of order, but i realized i never blogged about this, and considering this is kind of what i use to document my life... here are my adventures from April 16, 2011


on this day i was supposed to run a marathon.

this was on new year's at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago after I had signed up for the race. Running a marathon has always been on my bucket list and i thought what better time in life than now. except that was not the case. life got crazy busy and i ran out of time to train.

but after talking to my mother...a lot..she convinced me i should change to the half marathon. considering it was only 10 days before leaving for london she didnt want me to get hurt and ruin my experience here. she is so wise. my stubborn side had a really hard time changing to the half, especially because i felt like i was letting myself down. I had said i was going to do something and i didnt make it happen. I kind of felt like a failure. but at mile 12 I was so grateful to have made that decision.

my mom was the cutest and flew in early to see the race, and then stayed to watch my brother graduate. it was so amazing having someone cheering for me along the route. she came to two places en-route and then was at the finish line. it is amazing what having your mom can do. I would hear my name and get the biggest grin on my face when i would see her, i felt like a 6 year old playing soccer and hearing my mom cheer for me as i ran down the field. and not only was she so sweet to come and cheer for me, but she did it on her BIRTHDAY! i know, talk about selflessness, she came and cheered for me when in fact we should have been cheering for her all day long! unfortunately, the day before she came in, her knee freaked out and was as swollen as could be, so she did all of this with crutches. its true, she is a saint.

the race was up in salt lake, and my aunt and uncle were so kind as to let me spend the night at there house. it meant i got to sleep in before having to be at the start by 7. we started at university of utah and the end was at gateway. it was an amazing finish. luckily i had hannah, a girl i work with, to run with the whole time. that was our goal- to never stop running. and we did it! well if you dont count the water stations...there were times i wanted to stop, i just mentally couldnt handle running anymore, but hannah wouldnt let me stop. the devil of a course had a huge hill at mile 11.5 which broke a lot of people, but not us. hannah turned to me to say we could walk to the top, but it was revenge time. if she wouldnt let me walk i wouldnt let her. so we never stopped. it was wonderful.

unfortunately not walking at all meant our pace was slower, it was sad at the end because we started 'lengthening our stride' and it was easier to run. we were flying. it was sad because had we done that earlier our time would have been a lot shorter. we finished in 2:19.

my sister-in-law was so sweet and her and her kids came up to cheer for me at the finish line. except they got there early so by the time i finished they werent the happiest. as you can see by ari's expression.

after i finished. i was sooo gross. but yay for finishing

another fun aspect of the race was the people you saw. the two highlights were a blind athlete and a man in a speedo. the second was just funny, but unfortunately we kept on seeing him, and it was a little disturbing but gave us a good laugh. the first was amazing. the blind athlete ran with a guide and they were attacked with a "string" at their wrists. it was such an amazing example of faith to me. I have a hard time having someone lead me a few feet let alone a whole race where there are thousands of people.


after the race we ran back to my aunt margy's so i could shower before a full day of adventures with the family. i was sore, but i was surprised at how fine i was. I remember towards the end of the race the only thing i wanted was to be able to take off my shoes, and oh how lovely it was to do that. we then went at got lunch at red robin for cathy's birthday because she thought it would be a place the kids liked, and then off to "this is the place" pioneer park.


while at "this is the place" we went on a fun train ride, which as the kids pointed out was not a train ride but actually a car ride on something that looked like a train. oh silly kids. while on the train ride we had seen a fun looking ship you were allowed to explore and of course we had to go there, however it was a long walk and we didnt want to make mom hike it with her bad knee, so we asked the nice workers for a wheelchair. she will kill me for these pictures but it was such a memory i couldnt help it.

keri and ari started pushing and found it to be surprisingly difficult, no worries this is when  she realized the break was on . so funny.

do you see that really really long hill in front of us...it was the devil. ari didnt last to long and then keri and i switched between pushing cathy and ethan. it was quite the workout to do after finishing the half marathon.

we made it to the top!

ari is absolutely adorable. we had a fun model shoot. shes a natural. she climbed up this and said "ellie take my picture" and then struck this pose. i love her.

us on the ship

After realizing i was absolutely exhausted we decided it might be time to head back to provo. I got home to a lovely homemade banner on my door that said "congratulations ellie" from my roommates! they are the sweetest! i then laid down for a nap but realized i had to make cookies for the elder's quorum for the next day because they had won the book of mormon competition. so off to macey's to get supplies. nate was the best and was my human mixer as we made a quadruple batch.... so i have this thing where i like making BIG cookies because who wants a tiny little cookie, but it means that you dont make a ton of cookies with each batch. even with it quadrupled we were still a few cookies short. i ran out of time to bake the cookies before i had to run to take my mom to cafe rio for dinner for her birthday before we went to thanksgiving to see the king's speech which had recently come out in pg-13. it was so fun to have her here to celebrate her birthday with her, and the movie was fantastic. one of the most wholesome movies of the year. i strongly strongly recommend it to anyone.


the night was wonderful, but i didnt get home until midnight and still had 75 cookies bake. luckily i have amazing friends who let me use there ovens and we had those cookies baked in no time. a special thanks to adam, mccall, laurel, and nate. you all are wonderful.


sorry this is a provo interruption of my life in london, bt it was a pretty grand day.