Ode to my Father

I always considered myself a "Daddy's girl"growing up, and loved to try and tag along with my Dad wherever he went. I thought he was the coolest, and always wanted to impress him. Dad's approval always meant the world to me. I mean there's a lot of things Mom's get upset about, but if I really dissappointed DAD, I'd be heartbroken. Daddy's are so important to little girls and I'm so grateful to have mine.

Here's some favorite memories I have growing up with my Dad:

• Going to his flag football games when I was little. I loved to bring a blanket, sit and watch my Dad play for like 5 mins (haha), and then go off to make friends and find pollywogs or whatever it is we would do.
• Playing Stratego. I don't even remember how to play it now, but it was an old board game he loved and I felt so grown up when I'd play it with him.
• When he coached my basketball team. We were called the "Blue Devils". My Dad came up with that name. haha.
• Having free throw shoot offs with him in the backyard. Or as he called it, "The Bread and Butter shot".
• Going to movies with him like Star Trek or Star Wars, not because I was particuarly into them but because Dad thought they were really cool (which made me excited). I also loved the running commentary I'd get throughout the movie as he'd love to fill me in on the history I was missing. "See, Spok is HALF human, HALF vulcan..." LOL
• Staying late at Disneyland when Mom had to retire early with the babies, and closing the park down while we ran from all the "big kid" rides like Space Mountain and Matterhorn.
•  Going to work with him once on "Take your kid to work Day". I remember just having paper and markers and sitting at a desk (I think I just stayed til lunch time) but I felt so grown up and cool in a real office. I loved seeing where my Dad went everyday.
• Going golfing with him, and getting to drive the golf cart. I became quite the experienced stunt driver on that golf cart.
• Saturday morning pancakes. My dad is the master of pancakes and I think that's where my love for them started. Weekends you could always count on Dad for a good stack of pancakes.
• Staying up late and watching Headlines on Jay Leno. Me and my Dad were both always the night owls of the family, and it would usually just be us two left up. Every Monday was our favorite, that's when Jay Leno held up the hilarious headlines and news storys found in the paper the past week.
• And of course, the best memory of all... watching him get baptized and getting sealed as a family. This is the one I will forever remember, and the one I am eternally grateful for :-)

I love you Dad. Happy Fathers Day!

I really wanted to put a picture of my Dad and I when I was a baby, but my scanner wouldn't work!! So these will just have to do.

Little guy, Big chair

He looks so Huge...

...and then I zoom out.

Hitting Home

So remember that river trail I posted so lovingly about 4 posts ago? The one I abandoned my treadmill for? Last Wednesday, a girl was severely beat, raped, and left for dead while on the very same trail. You can view the news story about it here.

The attack happened right in the middle of the day, around 3:30. I am in shock. I can't believe something like that happened so close to me, that someone could really do that to another human being. What really gives me the chills is that I ran on that trail alone the day that happened. Just a couple hours after. It is so frightening to think how easily that could have been me. I was always nervous while running on that trail, constantly looking over my shoulder, and breathing sighs of reliefs when I saw groups of people up ahead. But I don't think I ever really expected something like this to happen, especially not something of this magnitude.

Friday night I returned back to the gym where I will continue to run from now on. As I was driving home, I was thinking about that poor girl, and I kind of got hit with a wave of emotions for her. She is so young, and because of the heartless, brutal actions taken against her that day, her life will never be the same. On top of all the emotional issues she will deal with for years to come, the police say she has physical injuries that will most likely be lifelong. This is someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's best friend. An innocent 19 year old girl that was attending college. My heart breaks for her, and for the fact that its no longer safe for women to do something as basic as exercising outdoors.

Confessions of an Ophidiophobiac

I don't know what it takes to qualify your fear as a legitimate phobia, but I'm pretty sure mine's the real deal. I'm TERRIFIED of snakes. Unfortunately, I spotted a couple on my river trail run the other day. TWO in one run. I had to come home and take a shower, and I still have the heebie jeebies from it. lol. (I laugh, but really this is no joking matter).
It's not like these were even rattlesnakes or some poisonous kind, they were just watersnakes (according to Jared. I'm not an expert on snake breeds, but it makes sense since they were next to the river). Here's how it went down.
Encounter #1: Running merrily along my way and see some girl walking toward me up ahead. It looks like there's something dangling from  her hands. I squint as I run closer thinking "no, it couldn't be", then sure enough... it is. I see it's hanging body wriggling and freak out and jump as far to the other side of the trail as I can. Now I have to point out this was some crazy Hot Topic teenager. No offense to any Hot Topic fans, but really what other kind of person would see a snake slithering along the road and decide to go pick it up and bring it with them?! Maybe she was planning on doing some type witchcraft with it. I don't know. I picked up my pace a little, and ran off thoroughly unsettled. About a quarter mile later...
Encounter #2: Still freaked out from encounter #1, a snake pops out of nowhere and slithers with superspeed across the road right in front of me. Ahhh! My skin crawls and I am so glad I am coming up on the end of the trail.

I get home and tell Jared about my creepy excursion, and he just doesn't get it. He describes snakegrass to me, and tells me that basically wherever there's snakegrass, there is snakes. His description is "tall grass, that is seperated in bunches, and has fuzzy type stuff at top".

Fast forward a day later to my next run. I am on edge, and keeping my eye focused alongside me for snakegrass. Much to my chagrin, there were about 15 variations of grass next to me during my WHOLE run, and they ALL fit Jared's description (After looking at this picture, turns out NONE of them actually were snakegrass). I was on pins and needles the whole time, expecting a snake to pop out at any given second. All the sudden I hear a rustle in the grass. I about jumped out of my skin. I look over to the left as fast as I can....and out pops a little quail. Though I was safe that time, I kept my guard up for the remainder of my run. Luckily I didn't have any more sightings.

When I returned home, I told Jared about how paranoid his snakegrass lesson made me, and my scary experience with the quail. He cracked up and said "I figured educating you would make you not as afraid". "NO", I responded, "there's a reason I have to close my eyes and flip the channel the second a snake comes on TV!"  Ignorance is bliss. He tried to tell me some mumbo jumbo about the snake being one of God's creatures. Lucky for him, I corrected him. "No, the serpent is a tool of Satan, and was cursed to have no legs".
"What are you really afraid is going to happen?", Jared asked. "Well that one will hear me coming, get scared, and try to go to the other side of the road really fast, but will end up landing right by or under my shoe, and get scared and try to bite me! Or that I'll step on it or something." These are the things I constantly live in fear of.
Jared maintains that even if I stepped on the snake it wouldn't bite me, but I'm not believing him for a second. He says the thing he's afraid of when I go on my runs is creepster guys. He said "Tell you what, why don't you wear a little fanny pack when you run with mace in it. That way you can use it on any predator that comes along and if it makes you feel better, you can use it on a snake if you see it." Genius idea! I don't even know what a snake would do if I sprayed it with mace. Would it even hurt it? Would it freak out and bite me? Hmmm maybe not such a good idea.
Until I figure out a better solution, I will just have to continue facing my fear every other day. Pray for me. And let me know if you can shed any light on this snake/mace situation. Now excuse me while I go jump in the shower.

Rolling with Laughter

Emmett and I spent a little time down on his blanket this morning. He would make some type of baby noise and I would respond by imitating it. Apparently he found it really funny to hear his own sounds repeated back to him!

PS - If you can't tell, this guy is well on his way to 12 pounds!!

New Blog

So I am about to make the big switch! I've noticed with the private blogs I read that new posts don't show up on my feed or change the title of their latest posts on my sidebar. So if you notice that my latest post hasn't changed in a few weeks, that's probably why! Check in every so often and chances are I'll have something new for you :-)