Easter Weekend

Scott's brother Craig was married to Marianne in St. Louis over Easter weekend. We had a fun time hanging out with lots of family. Scott and Nile enjoyed golfing with all the brothers the day before the wedding. We had a yummy Italian dinner the night before the wedding. After the wedding reception while we were helping clean up, the tornado sirens started going off, then the electricity went off at the church. We waited until the warning went off and then headed back to my mom's house. 270 was shut down due to down power lines. Then we learned the St. Louis airport had been hit. We drove by we were only about 10 minutes from the airport. It was crazy seeing all the destruction.

Saturday, I went on my long run with my brother Jason. Then we went to Scott's parents for an Easter egg hunt and dying eggs. Then we went to the Cardinals baseball game which was tons of fun and enjoyed some ted drews ice cream after.

Becca's Wedding

Book Club Ladies with Becca

Rob and Becca

So one of my best friends Becca got married a couple of weeks ago. She married a great guy. Becca is my running friend who talked me until running the Kansas City Marathon. She is the reason I have become addicted to running long distances. She also talked me into the Nashville Marathon which is April 30. I have been training for that this winter. My dad, sister, brother, cousin, and friend Jen are going to run the full marathon and a couple of my other running friends are going to run the half. I am sad though because she is going to move to Australia with her new husband in a month. I will miss her but I am sure she will have lots of adventures in Australia. I might even have to go visit her.

Her wedding weekend was fun because some of our book club friends that have moved away came back for the wedding. It was to see Amanda and Jenny and all hang out together.

Look Who's Eight!!

This is Claire's drawing for the cover of her program

Claire in front of the food table

Claire with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma

Nana, Great-Grandma, Claire, Carolyn, and Emily

The Family

Claire with Papa and Nana

Claire with Grandma and Grandpa

Claire turned 8 this past week. We decided to go to St. Louis for her baptism so her great-grandparents could attend. We had 34 people attend and Claire was related to all but 4 people. It was a great day!! Claire was able to wear the dress that I was baptized in and also my mom and sister. It fit her perfectly. After the baptism, we went to my mom's house for some yummy food!! It was great to be with all of our family.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

The Puzzle

All the Girls at the Zoo (while we are waiting for the tornado warning to disappear)
All the Maddox Boys

Brent and Claire at the Science Center doing experiments

Tourtillott Family and Maddox Family ice skating

Brent and Claire with their lego creations

Brent with Great Grandma

The Nativity Scene

Our White Christmas

Cousins building Legos together

Claire with her Justin Bieber Doll

We enjoyed a White Christmas in St. Louis this year. The kids loved playing with all their cousins, aunts,uncles and grandparents. Scott took the kids to a couple of movies. We explored the Science Center and the zoo. We were able to go ice skating with good friends who were passing through town. Scott, my brother Jason and his wife Brianna and I worked on a 2000 piece puzzle and were able to finish it which was quite an accomplishment considering my brothers dog Carmine ate a few pieces. We also were able to enjoy some bowling with the family.

Halloween Weekend

Claire has a vampire

Claire doing her vampire face

B with his bowl of candy he got

Brent as a BYU football player

Nile as Elvis

We had a crazy Halloween weekend. We had a church trunk or treat party Friday night. Then Saturday the boys each had a hockey game and Nile had his last football game of the season. We managed to carve some pumpkins in between games. Claire really got into trick or treating this year. We were out for 2 and half hours and she didn't even eat any candy while we out walking. She had a fun time and saw some of her good friends along the way.

The Big Haircut

Claire with her new do

Claire holding her ponytail of hair

Claire before the haircut

Holli cutting Claire's hair

So Claire has been growing her hair out for awhile now. We realized a few months ago if we let it grow out a couple of more inches we would have 12 inches to donate to Locks of Love. So last week, she went in for her big haircut. I can't get over how grown up she looks now.

KC Marathon

Becca, Me, and My dad

Nile coming off the field after a sack

Jason, B, and Jonathan

B and Scott waiting for me to finish

Jason, Nile, and Jonathan

So my friend Becca, who is an ultra marathoner, which means she likes to run a lot, talked me into running my first marathon. We have been training together since the end of June. She has had us run hills, lots of hills, which helped me on the marathon because Kansas City has lots of hills. We would meet every Saturday morning at 6am to get it in before the heat and all of the kids activities. Some mornings we even went at 5am to get the runs in for the week. We came to love our Wednesday morning 8 mile run which was how many miles I was used to doing for a long run. I have come to love my long runs on the weekends. It is so nice to get outside with friends and talk for hours while we run. I think training for a marathon is almost more fun than running the full marathon.

Race day was a beautiful day in Kansas City. My friend Becca was pacing the marathon at 5 hours 20 minutes, I stayed with her until mile 11 or so when I came upon a big hill and need to slow down my pace so I could finish the race. I was happy that I finished the race and I was still able to go to Nile's hockey game later that afternoon. My body is recovering faster than I thought it would which is good considering my friend Becca talked me into running the San Antonio half marathon in 3 weeks.

I also had talked my dad into running the half marathon the same day I did the full. I couldn't talk him into doing the full yet. He was able to set a PR with a time of 1 hour 54 minutes. It was great to have my brothers and dad and Brianna and Scott and the kids at the finish line.

We had a great weekend with the family eating lots of KC barbeque both Oklahoma Joe's and Jack Stacks. I even made homemade chocolate chip cookies for my brother Jonathan who just got back from his mission.

My brothers got to ice skate at Brent's hockey practice. Jason got to watch Nile play an awesome football game. Becca had given Nile the pep talk about winning is everything the night before his game. I told him he better hit those players hard because his game was while my dad and I were running and I wanted to hear that he had a good game. No pressure or anything. He also won his hockey game later that day.