Temple Square

I know, I know...these pictures are a little old, but I thought, "Better late than never." I want you to notice how darn cute Parker is.

St. George 5K

Last weekend, I ran my first 5K. It was in St. George, so we also were able to spend time with Matt's sister Sarah and her husband Eric.

For being in St. George, I was cold running the 5K. Well, most of me was hot, but my hands were icicles. Matt's dad, sister, and brother-in-law ran it as well as Matt and I. I got the worst time out of everyone, but I still beat my goal. My time was 29:02 for the 3.12 mile run (9:20/mile pace). Matt did awesome at 25:27 (8:11/mile pace). Everyone got addicted to the racing idea.

I got to use my Christmas present that Matt gave me: Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch and heart monitor. I love it.

Afterward we went mountain biking on the Bear Claw Poppy trail. You're probably thinking I'm really hardcore, but don't. I did horribly. I was too scared to go down the big hills and too tired to ride up them. I still had fun...in a really slow type of way. I haven't been on a bike for over a year, so I'm going to cut myself some slack.

Next race we are planning on doing will be a 10K around the end of March. If you know of any, let me know.

99.9 FM

Yeah, 99.9 has become one of our favorite radio stations. Don't bother turning it on to see what great music it has because it hasn't any. It is just static. But strange enough, Parker loves it. This is a fairly common situation: Matt and I are driving down to Bluffdale and Parker is crying because he HATES his carseat and the only thing he hates more than being put in his carseat is being put in his carseat with no one to play with. So we tune the radio to 99.9 FM and it is like a mute button for Parker. Silence...well except for the annoying static in the background. I've started to get used to it though. I imagine it being the sound that comes for a large beautiful waterfall on a tropical island. I have a good imagination.

I got the idea for the static from reading the book The Happiest Baby on the Block. It teaches about how babies love white noise. Supposedly my uterus sounds like a TV with poor reception. I guess all the liquids floating around them make a loud whooshing sound. This explains why all cultures use this sort of sound to quiet their babies. In the good ol' USA we say 'sh' but other places say 'ts' or 'ch' all with the same effect. Interesting, no? So that's why you know when the librarian puts her finger to her lips and whispers "shhh" you should be quiet.

We try not to use this magic trick with Parker too often. We don't want him to become reliant upon the static in order to fall asleep. But is nice during those emergency occasions to settle him down. Parker loves his static.

Oh, and 99.9 has a slightly better quality of static than other stations.