A Mountain Run

Joseph is pretty good to me. I love that he spent so much time working on those crazy valentines just for me! Emily is in awe of his paper-crafting skills and Caleb definitely appreciates the Minecraft pop-up.

So, living in Colorado is an adventure. Yesterday I mapped out a run for this morning, and it ended up taking me a good two-and-a-half hours because of a few things. First of all, it was up in the mountains and I was not always totally sure which way I was supposed to be going, so I backtracked a couple of times to check signs and things. Secondly, check out this picture:

 

 This portion of the trail was solid ice. There was really no way to run on the side, so I had to pick my way across it. And it was like this for a good quarter mile. It was thick and slick and unavoidable. Slow going.

The third factor was the steepness of my carefully selected path. I did not check on the change in elevation when I mapped my run. I took the picture below because it was an awesome view and a good break in the trees, but it was right before the final, steepest ascent of the run, which lasted about a mile and a half.

I'm pretty sure I ran up one side of a mountain and down the other. It was hard. And slow. But beautiful.

Joseph gave me a call when I was two miles from home and reported that Jake had stuffed a bead up his nose and needed to be taken to Urgent Care. I made it the rest of the way home chanting, "Jacob's got a bead in his nose. Just keep running!" to myself (in my head). It's all taken care of now though. He's fine. And Joseph made a play dough baking soda/vinegar volcano with the older kids while we were out! It was an eventful morning.


These have all been cell phone pictures I've been posting, since Joseph likes me to run with a phone when I'll be gone for a while. As I was putting the pictures on the computer, I came across these gems from a long time ago.  Can you tell which baby this is below?

 Yeah!! It's Baby Elinor, enjoying the Texas heat. Isn't she just a doll?

 

And these guys. They look like an oddly matched celebrity couple headed out to their sweet ride (a 1998 Ford Windstar).