Post-Thanksgiving Visit with Olsens

After saying goodbye to my family Saturday morning, we got to meet up with Kaki, Diana & Chris for some Olsen family fun. We started with a delicious breakfast at Kneaders for Kaki's birthday, and then moved the party to a park when the boys got a little too squirrely. 

I love this photo of everyone pushing the three boys on the swings next to each other:

Can you find Cal in this photo?

 After our sibling birthday breakfast, we drove up to Salt Lake to take the cousins to see the lights at Temple Square with grandma and grandpa Olsen.  I have many memories of being freezing at Temple Square, so I bundled Cal up like we were braving Antarctica. I didn't regret it -- it was a very cold night.

Two of the best dads ever

I love how much Richard wants to be a part of the boys' lives.  He was excited to take them to the fountain at the new City Creek center, and they loved it!

We also walked over to the candy windows at Macy's, which were fun and creative:

Each ornament is huge, and is decorated entirely with candy

We had a wonderful time, and we can't wait to come back for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Break with Richeys

For Thanksgiving, we made the long, lonely drive to Salt Lake. The I-80 through Northern Nevada is a pretty desolate journey. The few towns that dot the highway have tag lines that fail to convince you of their importance. My personal favorite is "Battle Mountain: Halfway to Everywhere!" 

Despite the drive, we were happy to come and see our family members. Rachel convinced several of us to do a Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning. When we woke up the day of the race, none of us were particularly excited about it, especially since it was freezing outside. 

As we huddled beneath the heat lamps, we were having major deja vu about our frigid Ragnar just weeks before. 

 The wind was whipped our faces the whole race, which was mercifully short -- just a 5K. We were glad to get back in the car and drive home, heat blasting, to our Thanksgiving dinner at grandma's house.

After dinner, we packed up some leftovers and drove over to Meredith's house. The two new babies were still on oxygen and heart rate monitors at the time, so she was basically housebound. Cal discovered Carson's tricycle, which he immediately started calling "my bike."

This one's my favorite:

Carson was happy to join the fun in his little car:

Somehow we managed a family picture, which is miraculous considering even the wee babes were in it!

We had a lot to be thankful for this year, but one incident in particular made this Thanksgiving even more of a reminder: the day before the holiday, my grandma had an incident with her heart. I'm still not sure if it was a minor heart attack, or if a part of the heart muscle was paralyzed, but she spent Thanksgiving Eve in a hospital bed in the ER. It was frightening for all of us, and we were so glad and grateful to have her back with us for our Thanksgiving dinner. 

Taking the cousins on the carousel during a shopping break

I love Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful time to remember how blessed we are. I'm grateful for my liberties in this country, for my religion, for my family, for our health and safety, and for the myriad of opportunities I have ever day. We are very, very blessed.

Ragnar Vegas

We have the Ragnar bug around here! This November, Reed and I each completed our third relay (I've done Napa twice; Reed has done both Napa and SoCal). Anyone who has participated in a Ragnar knows that while they are a total blast, it takes a lot of planning. Especially with a toddler in tow. Both sets of grandparents graciously offered to take Cal for the weekend, but we decided it made more sense to drop him with my mom and dad in southern California since we'd be driving that direction on our way to Vegas anyway. 

Cal was very excited to spend a weekend with "Cally-coo", his name for my mom. (Tangent: it was originally his nickname, but he apparently got confused and now insists that the name refers to grandma. Now, when I accidentally call him "Cally-coo", he says, rather indignantly, "I not Cally-coo! Cally-coo in Redlands!")

We bought him a new backpack and rolling suitcase for his special trip. He was very proud and excited to have luggage of his very own: 

Here he is testing it out (yes that is his Halloween candy on top of the T.V.):

My mom is awesome, and met us at the infamous train station McDonalds in scenic Barstow, where we delivered the goods. This little guy was excited!

With the drop-off successful, we continued toward Vegas, where we met up with the other 10 runners on the team in a house that our captain arranged for us. We went to Blue Man Group Thursday night, and were a little unnerved to see that ponchos were provided on the seats:

We had a great time, and my little sister Rachel even got teased as part of the show. An announcement came up on the screen saying that she had one a bronze medal for synchronized swimming. They even put a spotlight on her. I've never seen her so shocked. Hilarious.

The next morning, we were all like, "Oh. Right. Running."

These next two pictures are actually from the second day of the race, but to give you an idea of what a Ragnar exchange looks like, it's this:

Vans at the exchange.

...and this:

Teams waiting for the handoff from their incoming runners

...repeated 36 times.

I always start the relay with excitement and adrenaline, and then the night leg comes, and morale tanks. I find that I'm always hyper-nervous, like I'm going to be attacked or something; plus, it's dark, and cold, and lonely, and isolated...ick. To make matters worse, it was uncharacteristically cold for Nevada. Let me correct that: IT. WAS. FREEZING.  When our van started the second round of runs, it was 36 degrees and the wind was blowing 40 mph.  None of us had prepared for freezing, so the best we managed for the first nigth-leg runner (Reed) was a light jacket and a wary "good luck."

Let me tell you about this night run. It was like a war out there. Reed's run was just over 8 miles, so we stopped along the course (before the exchange) to support him with water and food.  At one point, as we were parked waiting for him, there came a knock on the passenger-side door. We opened it, and a 20-something runner whimpered, "Can I get in your van for a second and warm up?" We instantly brought him inside and threw a blanket around him, and he just stared blankly into space like a Vietnam vet, muttering in a hollow voice such phrases as, "It's...just...so...cold" and "I can't feel my face anymore." When he finally went on his way, we were all completely psyched out. None of us had run our night-leg yet!

Just then, I get a call from Reed on my cell. When I pick up, all I hear is a frantic sort of mumbling: "Sheenckies!!! Sheenckies!!!"  I knew what to do.  I grabbed two twinkies from the bag labeled "Reed's running nutrition" and went out into the frozen night to meet him.

He could barely move his mouth when I reached him. He just mashed the Hostess confections against his tongue like a distressed newborn and went dolefully on his way. 

Ralph was next, and then me. I took this quick, blurry shot on my iPhone to show how far away Jean looked when it finally came into view.  I didn't dare stop to take a good one, because the girl in the pink running socks ahead of me was the only person I could see in the darkness. Some primal part of me postulated that if I lost pace with her, they would find my frozen body weeks later, half-eaten by lizards and buried in scratchy desert scrub.  I ran to survive, people.

I've never thought of Jean as an oasis, much less a blessed haven, but I could have cried when I finally reached it. The neon sign from the Gold Strike casino was like a lighthouse of hope calling out to my forlorn soul as I crept ever toward it in the night. Bless you, Jean. Bless you.

 Reed recovering (crying?) after his grueling 8-mile freeze-fest.

The funny thing is, once the sun comes up, we all got super happy again! I went from Rime-of-the-Ancient-Mariner to I-love-Ragnar-and-friends-and-vans-and-breakfast-and-everything(!!!) in about 3 minutes as the sun popped out over the mountain ridge. Look how happy we are now:

Rachel tricked her friend Amber into being crazy with us

Water bottle situation

Vans at the exchange

Reed happily checking off his last run!

Even with the difficulties of the night run, we had a phenomenal time.  I felt like I ran my strongest race yet. If you've ever played with the idea of running a ragnar, do it.  Hard things give us such a sense of accomplishment, and overcoming difficulties makes us stronger people. It's the funnest hard things you'll ever do, I guarantee it.

On our way home, we stopped in Redlands, where Cal had a blast riding the "Vroom Vroom" with Grandpa:

Thanks to everyone who ran it with us, and thank you to Sulgi, who had the difficult job of being team captain. And a huge thank you to my mom (a.k.a "Cally-coo") for meeting us in Barstow and watching the Nugget all weekend long. I'm so blessed to have awesome people in my life.

Cal's Halloween Costume

Back at the beginning of October, I took Cal to the Halloween costume store to let him look at all the costumes and try to decide what he wanted to be this year. I walked him down the aisle with all the superhero costumes, and asked him, "Do you want to be this?" as I pointed to Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Power Rangers, Batman, Spiderman, and a whole wall of others that would be sure to impress. And each time I asked, Cal answered with a bored, "Nooooooo...." -- until finally, he pointed and said, "Cal want that!"

Here's what he was pointing to:

I said, a little incredulously, "You want to be a pizza?" He assured me that he did, so I took a look at the costume. It was poorly made, little more than a pizza print on a flimsy poncho. I figured I could make a cuter one for cheap, and so Cal and I went to the fabric store. $6 for felt and glue, and here's what we came up with:

Cal was satisfied, and on Halloween night, I could tell he was proud of his costume. All the little kids could recognize what he was, and his little friends were very excited about his costume, so I think that added to his excitement and pride.

 And of course, getting a bucket full of candy never dampens his mood:

 We went over to a friend's house to trick-or-treat in a group. The moms stayed behind to get a fire going for s'mores (seriously), and the dads took the kids around the neighborhood. Reed said it was a scream. We all definitely had a Halloween hangover the next day from staying up too late, but it was such a fun night for our little pizza boy!