Ironman

A few weeks ago Spencer's mission buddy, Wes Johnson, called up to let us know that he will be in town for an Ironman competition here in Phoenix. We hadn't seen Wes since we had been married so we were so excited to be able to meet up with him while he was here and meet his new wife, even if it was just for a few minutes.

We decided to drive out to Phoenix and watch part of the competition since we had never experienced the energy of the Ironman. :) And let me tell you... there is definitely an energy of the Ironman.

It's amazing.

We were both amazed at the dedication these people had. There were people on the side lines cheering EVERYONE on. It was an incredibly uplifting environment with thousands of people attempting to accomplish the unthinkable.

*at least it was to me... the IRONMAN is definitely not on my bucket list*

2.4 mile swim

112 mile bike ride

26 mile run

We met up with Wes' family who all drove down from Utah for a quick two day trip. We cheered him on from the sidelines and were actually able to see him a few times as he was running.

GO WES!!!

After seeing him run the last few miles, we walked over to the finish line as the announcers were declaring to each individual runner that passed through, "Congratulations Wes Johnson -- YOU are an Ironman!"

Wes finished in just under 11 hours, placing second in the swim. Incredible.

On one of our many drives to Mesa when we first moved to AZ, I noticed these bridges that looked so pretty with the lights strung across the entire stretch. I decided that walking those bridges was going to be on our "AZ bucket list" - things to do before we move away from Arizona. A few weeks later I found out that they were not the kind of bridges I thought they were... only cars allowed. :(

When we got to the Ironman I realized that the race was roped off so that the runners would run across those very bridges... which meant that we could walk on them too! Miracle!

Bathing in the... SINK!

Colby was completely fascinated with the water - getting to run his fingers through it and splashing the bottom of the sink with his hands. It took him a few minutes to warm up to the idea, but once he did he was throwing those smiles all over!

I love those baby rolls! SO CUTE!

Hangin' With Dad

It's a pretty happy reunion for the two men of the house when Spencer gets home from school everyday. Most days Spence is gone before Colby wakes up, so that makes for a LOOONG wait for the Colby man to play with his best playmate.

This little boy is in heaven when Daddy's home.

Kitchen Renovation

Over Thanksgiving break Spencer and I took on a huge project that we will never regret! I've always loved the size of our kitchen, but the honey oak kitchen cabinets were never my favorite. We had revisited the thought of painting them often, but every time got discouraged by the amount of time the project would take.

While I was in Oregon, Lindsay (my SIL) introduced me to a product called "Cabinet Transformations" which is basically a do it yourself painting kit made by the ever popular company Rustoleum. I really wanted to paint them a creamy white color with an antique finish, but after looking over the color choices many times, we decided on a darker espresso finish since the rest of our house was pretty light in color (tan walls, white crown molding, tan carpets, etc). We realized that once we move all of our things out of the house in hopes to sell, the white cabinets would pretty much wash out the rest of the house and would make it look much less appealing.

We painted/glazed for 5 full days... basically from sun up to sun down. Talk about a loooong project! The only things that kept me going were:

1. Knowing that I've already started painting and I can't really go back to what it looked like before ha

2. Picturing what our kitchen might look like when it would be complete!

Before

Oh man... looking at this picture makes me even more glad that we decided to paint!

First, we took off all the doors and labeled them accordingly. We also put the hardware for each door in a coordinating numbered plastic cup so it would be easy to match the door to the hardware when the project was complete.

Colby spent some time watching Little Einstein's... a little more than I would have liked to be honest. :/ He was really such a good boy the entire week. He would just play with his toys and talk to us while we painted in the garage. Such a sweetheart.

We let the paint dry on these pieces of wood.

After

Ahhhh. So much better. Everything looks better in our kitchen now and I absolutely love it!

Still to complete

1. add crown molding to the top of the cabinets

2. add hardware to the cabinets and drawers

We were a little tired during the process... so tired that we fell asleep in strange places. :)