Our Trip to Illinois

Ryan and I had the opportunity to meet up with my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins at my Grandparents house in Illinois so we could all go to my little bother, Seth's, endowments. He is going to New Zealand on his mission, in July. I am sad that he is growing up so much, but I am so proud of him. It was the neatest thing to go through the temple with my little brother!

We did a lot of fun things while we were there too. We went canoeing, played basketball, watched basketball, went shopping, spent time with grandpa and grandma, went running. The list goes on. Here are a few random pictures from our trip:

Sethie has grown up so much! He is so handsome :)

All of my dad's brothers were able to meet up with us. My grandma White was sick for most of the visit so she wanted me to try to take pictures of everyone. She really wanted a picture of all her "handsome sons". They are pretty sharp if I say so myself.

Going from left to right:

Uncle Drake, Uncle Mark, Uncle Burke and my Dad (Jack)
This is my beautiful sister making a silly face for the pictures.
This is a very happy Levi after some delicious cake!
We were all pretty happy :) It is always so great to be with family. I feel very close to my dad's side of the family. I grew up with them in the midwest and it just felt like being home again.
Nick's birthday occurred while we were all together so we got Dairy Queen icecream cake for everyone. Dad and Uncle Burke had a difficult time cutting into the cake.
Grandma was able to make it out for the birthday song.
Grandma and I were pretty serious about decorating the cakes!
Another one of Anna's silly faces. You gotta love her :)

Ryan and my cousin Brace enjoying a nice ''man hug".

It was a wonderful time and I can't wait for our next trip to Illinois!

Trip to Idaho to meet the Wonderful, the Amazing Jack Logan White!!!

So Ryan and I have been very busy lately. We have become nation wide travelers! :) We are blessed to have jobs where we can work our schedules out so that we can have 8 days off at a time without asking one day of work of! It is nice, but it does wear us done. We started off our traveling stint by working 5 days in a row. The last night we worked was Tuesday night; as soon as we got done working at 8:00 a.m. we headed straight out to Dallas to catch a flight to Idaho to visit my brother Scott and his sweet wife Roberta and the Incredible Jack Logan!

Ryan was exhausted! We had been awake for more than 24 hours at this point and we were waiting to board our plane in Denver to go to Salt Lake. He gave up trying to be awake and propped himself up on the luggage. Our trip was long we had a 3 hour drive to Dallas then a flight to Denver then a flight to Salt Lake City and then a 4 hour bus ride to Rexburg, Idaho. It was a LLLOOONNNGGGG day!! But soooo worth it!!
This was right when we got to Rexburg at 1:00 a.m. Ry was a little dazed.

Ry perked up for the picture!
And here he is!!! My sweet, sweet nephew!! I fell in love with this baby and I am so sad that I cannot hug and kiss him every day!! Even though he was born at 36 months he is doing so well. He was a month old in all of these pictures and he had put on tons of weight!

This little boy was soo alert! I was so amazed!

Scott wore this exact same outfit when he was a new born. The funny thing is that Scott weighed more than Logan when Scott was born then when Logan was a month old.

This is a little outfit that I bought him. I thought he looked super handsome :)

Really, could he be any sweeter?

Once again Ry looks a little tired. We stayed up all night with Logan a few times during the night because both Scott and Roberta were sick when we were there. I loved those nights. It made me realize that work has made me able to adapt to not sleeping well. I think I will be able to handle waking up every 2-3 hours when I have a baby.
He is posing in this picture. He knows how cute he is...

One day Roberta and I went shopping and left Ryan to babysit, when we got home this is what we found... Ryan asleep with Logan sleeping on his chest. I am in love with both of these men!
Ha, this is Scott trying to tickle him...I don't think he enjoyed it yet.
Roberta is such a good mom. You can tell that Logan knows who his mom is and his loves her so much. Roberta loves him so much too!

Seriously, what a stud!!!

There is something soothing about feeding a baby. It really makes you bond close to them.

What a angle!!!

Logan is definitely in love with his daddy too. Scott is a wonderful dad and takes good care of Logan. I think they are going to be best friends.

Logan and I got to be very close during the week I spent with him. On one of the last days I was there, I had been out running errands I came home and Logan was just resting. I said something and Logan woke right up and was totally aware I was there and it seemed like he missed me...Maybe it was in my mind, but hey I can believe what I want, right?

Thanks so much to Scott and Roberta, they were so sweet and such great hosts! We felt so comfortable there. I love Scott and his family tons and I can't wait to see them in August!

Our FIRST Half Marathon!!!

So, we did it!!! We ran 13.1 miles! Wow, this has been a goal of mine ever since a college roommate asked me if I wanted to do it. I did and started training but hurt my knee in the training process so I wasn't able to continue. Well, in December my co-worker, Jena, out of the blue, asked me if I would like to run a half marathon with her. I didn't hesitate! I said yes. I ran downstairs to where Ry was working and told him we were running a half marathon in April. I could see the look of resignation in his eyes when he said ok and didn't even put up a fight. I think by now, he has learned that when I have a goal to do something, almost nothing can get in the way of it and it takes more energy to try to reason out with me then to actually just accomplish the goal.
This was us pre-race. I was so nervous! But it was so great to have Ry by my side. He helped me and encouraged me so much while we were training. He helped me even more during the race. Ryan, on the other hand, was not so much nervous before the race. He got more and more excited. When we first got married and I tried to get him to run, he would do it to help me, but he never loved it. As soon as we started to get into racing he started to really enjoy races. It is funny cause he does not have the same build as a long distance runner ( he is too muscular and broad) but he is really a natural. I was so proud of him!
This is Jena and Jessica. I work with these girls at work, they are the best! We really helped get each other to the race. It was such an amazing experience having such wonderful friends and doing something so hard.

(It was a really chilly before the race. I kept thinking, "Why are we starting at 0700? it is tooo cold!!" I realized as the sun came up that I was grateful we started soo early!
Jessica and her sister, Rebecca, ran together. Jessica really helped Becca. They were such sweet sisters!

This was Ryan and I at about the 1.5 mile marker. We look happy because this was in the beginning of the race.

This was Ry-guy. He ran with Jena and I for the first 2 miles or so, then he took off. He was sick all last week and had to work all this week. I was so proud of how he did! He was incredible!

The run was absolutely GORGEOUS!! It was hard to come back to West Texas after being out east (this race was in Groveton, Tx.) It reminded me a lot of Ohio and Iowa.
This was Jena and I. Jena and I ran together for most of the race. I really felt like we became a lot closer after this race. It is a hard thing to do to run for so long and to have somebody beside you the whole way really encourages you.
Just another picture of how Beautiful it was!!

This was Ryan finishing the race for the first time...(He ran the whole way. Our photographer didn't get him crossing the finish line, so this is him walking right after he finished.)
He looks pretty beat!

So here is me getting close to finishing the race...Yup, that is Ryan...running again! As soon as he got done running he went back down the trail to find me. He found me when I had about .75 miles left. He started running back with me. I was so beat by this point that all I wanted to do was to stop and walk, but my only goal for the race was tha I didn't stop or walk the whole time. When I saw Ryan on the trail and then we he started running with me, I knew I could do it. It touched me so much that after running his own 13.1 miles he got up enough strength to come and find me and give me the strength I needed to finish. To me that is one of the most amazing examples of Christlike love I have ever seen. Thank you Ryan for being the most incredible husband. You are the biggest blessing in my life!

I was definitely hurting by this point. It was ironic, but the last song that started playing on my i-pod when I had about .5 miles left of the race was "Your Love is my Drug". I thought that was an appropriate way to describe how I felt about Ryan right then.

We finished! The race was called the Davy Crockett Bear Chase, so we got medals at the end of the race and teddy bears that had the number we were in the race on them. Ryan was # 76 and I was #98. Hey I made it as one of the first 100 people to cross the finish line and there were close to 500 people who ran!

While we were running the last stretch of the run, I told Ryan that he better be ready to catch me when we stopped because I didn't feel like I could hold my self up too much longer. As you can see, Ry was ready to catch me!

I was holding on to Ryan so tight so I wouldn't fall! Luckily, I stayed on my feet. I like this picture because it symbolizes how much I we need each other to help support each other.

This is Jessica finishing! Up until she started training, she had never ran more than 1-2 miles. She just ran 13.1 miles! Go Jessica! You are amazing!

As soon as we got some food and drink in us, we felt much better! It felt so good to sit down!! I never was more grateful for my body and health than I was that day!


Jena's whole family came with us to the race. Her husband is the one who took most of the pictures. Matthew, her 2 year old son, and Ryan became very close. Jena says that Matthew doesn't usually open up like that to strangers, he did with Ryan though. It was really cute because Jena was going to get a picture with her children by the finish sign. His dad said, "K, Matthew, go get in the picture." and Matthew ran over to Ryan, who was standing to the side, and wrapped his arms around Ryan's leg and smiled for the picture. We had to get a picture of that!! Ry has a special touch with kids, that's for sure!
This was us girls representing the nurses on the 3rd floor of ARMC!! It was o fun!!
This is Ry and I. I just can't get over how much he supports me in all of my goals and dreams. He tells me he likes to help me do these things because it makes him more happier than anything to see me happy. The crazy thing is, is that he doesn't just support me and sit on the side lines and watch me do it, he rolls up his sleeves and gets right beside me and makes my goals and dreams become his goals and dreams.
I am started to better understand why Heavenly Father has commanded us to make our wills his will. I can see how when we make Heavenly Father's will our will we become one, because when Ryan and I make our goals, wills and dreams one, we become so much closer and unified. I think this race did more for our relationship and marriage than 10 years of marriage counseling could have done. Thank you Ryan for being my best friend and my strength. I couldn't do anything without you!
We ALL finished! Wow, now we are beginning to plan our next race....Should we do another half Marathon or an Adventure race??? That is the question!