Tis the Season.....let the Festivities begin!

Okay, so my family thinks I am a little over the top at this time of year. What can I say, I love Christmas! This year I had my trees (we have 10 trees) up before I ran my race in November, knowing that I had a full calendar of events in December to be ready for. I had the privilege of helping to decorate the JetBlue "New York...New York" themed tree for the Festival of Trees,

Here is our tree that we decorated and all my friends from JetBlue. Left to Right is Margot Miller, Melanie Nebeker, Me, Brentz Brandt, and Karen Western. It took us about 7 hours, but....

Look at the detail. If you have ever been to New York, you would recognize everything on the tree, including pizza, chinese take out box, and taxi cabs. I went back to the festival on Friday and loved seeing people just taking their time to look at everything on the tree.

This is another great tree at festival of trees...The Grinch! Too fun.

These next pictures are things that reminded me of Germany. The windmill nativity is what I brought back as a souvenir, mine is not this elaborate though.

This Gingerbread house reminded me of New Swanstien Castle that we visited in Germany. I love going to the festival of trees every year, and really enjoyed being able to help with a tree this year.

Okay, so I host several Christmas parties every year at my home. The first was my team JetBlue party that me and my good friend Betty give every year for the past five years for our teams. We have the tradition of inviting one of our children's choirs to come over each year to sing to the crowd. This year we had the Madrigals, from Taylorsville perform for us. What a treat, I think I want a hippopotamus for Christmas now! This is why we love to have this party, for the great entertainment.

I think the crowd loved the singers! The night was a hit! I have since had my bunco group over for our Christmas party, and this week I will have the JetBlue supervisor party and the Haupt Family party next Sunday. Good thing I have a family that puts up with my crazy December over load of parties. We wish you all could be here and enjoy the fun with us! Happy Holidays, and we hope you are having a great time too!

Haupts Happy Thanksgiving

We are so Thankful for Family and plenty of food. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa Haupt and Keith, Cindy, Morgan and Breadan for Thanksgiving. Keith will take credit for the Turkey, even though Grandma got it ready to put in the oven and Keith actually put it in. It was a delicious meal.

Friday, after Thanksgiving we had a small family open house for Keith and Cindy. Cindy got a "Haupt" overload from all the family that stopped by.

Baby Olive was checking out Grandma Haupt's teeth, She is a future dentis

Uncle Jim entertained the kids with his magic tricks. Breadan and Morgan enjoyedtheirselves.

Ohh.... Thanksgiving morning we got up bright and early and started the day with our traditional "Human Race" 5k. The girls are all smiles, even though it was freezing cold outside.

Here we all are before the race, our traditional group picture. This year Aubs talked her honey Austin into joining us this year. He was a good sport! We're sure he is hooked on this tradition too!

Now.....the real reason the girls love this 5k in the freezing cold. While we were waiting for the race to start we decided to walk to the front to get away from the strollers. We stopped and started talking and I turned around and the Indian that ran last year was standing by us. He was nice enough to let us snap a picture with him. I think that they are all ready to be enlisted for this race again next year. Morgan may even come all the way from Oklahoma.

Here are all the runners, there were over 3,600 runners. Bigger than last year. The best thing is all the proceeds go to the Utah Food Bank. We love the tradition and plan on continuing this for as long as we can. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving and we are soo Thankful for all the blessings that we take for grant each day. We know that we are truly blessed. We hope the you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too.

Valley Of Fire...Girls just having fun!

This weekend was one wild and crazy weekend. Austin and I ran the Valley of Fire 10k last year for the first time and decided to run it again. This year I knew going into it what I was up against.....hills....hills .... and more HILLS! What was I thinking???

Here we are at the start of the race,,, all smiles. Bring it on!

Going up one of the many hills. I lost count of how many hills we went up and down. I just know that they changed the route and added a few more hills. Perfect, I was running on a bad knee, and hills love bad knees!

I walked up a couple of the hills so I snapped a few pictures while I was walking. I don't run this race for the time, but for the scenery. I am never disappointed!

We did it! Me and Austin after the race. Austin took first in her age division, I took first in my age division and Austin's friend took first place overall in the womens. We crazy people stick together!

My very own cheering section. Both of my girls came with me to the race. That meant getting up at 5 AM and driving for 2-hours, then hanging out for around 3-hours. They are the best cheerleaders ever! Love you girls!

Sisters! Good thing they like each other soo much. And this is the reason they really hung out with me...........

After the race we drove back to St. George and went to "New Moon". Ahh....Team Jacob is alive and well. We loved the movie and are planning to see it again this week when Courtney comes up for Thanksgiving. Give us a jingle if you want to tag-along.

The end of our perfect "Girls Day" was dinner at "In and Out" in St. George. Kandace hadn't been there, and the one in Draper opened last week and the line is still crazy, so we stopped in for a burger. Kandace has her own theory why it is called "In and Out", you'll have to ask her. This was the best weekend we have had for awhile. It was much needed. We are now looking forward to Thanksgiving and family visiting. Hope you all have had a great weekend too!

A Funny Thing Happened When I Went to Vote...

Okay, so today I actually remembered to go vote. I meant to do it on my way home from work but forgot. So Kandace and I had to run an errand and I told her I needed to stop and vote on the way home. I ran in to cast my all important vote which took all of 5 seconds. As I was leaving a lady said "Hey, I just saw you in the Utah Food Bank Newsletter". I gave her a strange look and said what are you talking about. she said, "Look, I just finished looking at it". She gave me her Utah Food Bank Newsletter, I opened it up and there we were, The Utah Food Bank Poster Family for the Thanksgiving Human Race. How funny is that? I have ran this race for the last 4-years. We give a donation, and half goes to the Utah Food Bank and half goes to the LDS Humanitarian fund. We love this Thanksgiving tradition. Last year there were 2,000 walker/runners so I had all of us wear our elf hats so we could find each other. How funny that someone took a random shot while we were taking our own picture. So the lesson of the week is...Sign-Up and run the "Human 5K Race" with us Thanksgiving morning at 8 am. We would love to have you in our picture this year!!! We'll be watching for you!

Elder Leavitt Enters the MTC

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 Elder Cameron Leavitt offically entered the Provo MTC. He will be there for two months as he learns Tagalog language. Here are the few pictures we took when we dropped him off.
Me and Cam in the truck before we got to the MTC. I was still smiling. After I took this picture I asked him what he was thinking because he was real quiet. He said he felt like he was going to throw up. Nerves.

All of us trying to smile as Colby takes our picture.

Elder Leavitt and his Big Bro. It was hard for all of us.

Cam and Colby saying good bye. Colby was great to keep us trying to enjoy the moment. And that was all we got was a moment. As soon as we unloaded his bags, the missionary greeting us started to walk away with Cam's bag. I said "That's it, he has to leave now", and the answer was yes. We all took a last hug and watched him walk away. He is so ready to be a missionary and serve the people in the Philippines for the next two years. We are so very proud of his decision to serve the Lord for the next two years. We are looking forward to his first letter and we will keep you updated on his service and experiences. Ohh, the video is from the kids practicing the song they sang at his farewell. This is for you Grandma Haupt. Enjoy!

One Crazy Weekend...Cameron's Farewell

Cameron's Farewell was yesterday. It was a perfect day. The kids all sang and Cameron did an excellent job on his talk. We know he will be an AWESOME missionary. We had more than enough food to feed everyone after the meeting. We wished we could just have the day never end. Thanks to all the family and friends that took time to come to his farewell. He really appreciated it. Missionary Cameron ready to preach. A rare moment, Steve and both his boys in suits. He wanted a picture to prove that mircles do happen! Saturday night we celebrated Christmas, just a few months early. We had a great Prime Rib dinner and then played the "White Elephant" Game. Kennedy really loved her gift she opened, a teacup with flowers. Perfect for her play kitchen. Courtney snagged the "Snuggie". Her and Grandpa Leavitt really went the rounds for this coveted gift, but Courtney won it. She was so excited. We all had fun stealing everything that Grandpa opened. It was a fun night.

The kids even made the gingerbread house for me. I am soo excited to have this all ready for our Christmas decorations.

Saturday afternoon we met at Gardner Village and Jessie, a friend of Kandace's took a few family pictures for us. We can't wait to see her copies, this one is just on my camera. She took some great shots. We'll be saving for our Christmas card. We know that that the next two years will be such a blessing in our lives, and Cameron will have the adventure of his life. We are so glad it was such a fun weekend. One we will always treasure. Thanks everyone! Here's to Elder Leavitt!

Temple Adventures continue....

Yesterday Cameron, Courtney and I drove down to Manti to go to the Temple. It was a beautiful drive and we had a great time there.This is us on the side of the temple were the Manti Pagent is presented. This is Cameron and Courtney frolicking along the side of temple.In front of the temple. Cameron and Courtney on the side of the temple...where.....

Cameron was practing his tracting, again no answer, hope this isn't a trend! I was trying to get a picture of the red bushes and the temple and the sun came popping through. Wow, it was soo cool.

We had a great day, and stopped at a fun hamburger place in Fairview that reminded me of the "Burger Barn" back in my teenage days. They had a great grilled chicken wrap.

This is "Thanksgiving" last Sunday, we are celebrating all the holidays before Cameron leaves.

Tomorrow is "Christmas" at our house, and then Sunday is Cameron's Farewell. We'll keep you all posted on the fun.

Hamptons Half Marathon....

After six months of training the time has come and gone (my cute sister-in-law) and I set out to NYC to enjoy the city then head to the Hamptons for our Half Marathon. We got to NY bright and early Thursday morning. We both took red-eye flights, Austin came from Las Vegas, and we meet at JFK. We rode the subway to our hotel and they said our room would not be ready until 3 PM, it was 9 AM and we had 6-hours to kill. We headed out to see the sites. I think we covered more mileage than a marathon. We saw World Trade center, Wall Street, The Staute of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Canel street and headed up to Rockefeller Center, then Time Square where we purchased our broadway tickets to see "Mary Poppins". We went back to our hotel and took a quick shower and napped for a couple of hours before our play.

Here we are in front of the theater were we saw "Mary Poppins" Yes, we both look exhusted. The play was awesome, but if you ever go request balcony seats, you'll have to see the play to find out why. We went out for NY style cheesecake after, yummy!

The next morning we continued out site seeing by going to the Empire State Building, Central Park (us at the park) then......The Children's Natural History Museum, we both love night at the museum so it was a must! Then we rode a train to "HicksVille", no lie that was the name of the town where Austins friend Kim picked us up and took us to the Hamptons. We picked up our race packets then headed to "Nick and Toni's" a fabulous restaurant that the Barefoot Contessa recommended. I don't like pasta but loved the Arugula pasta that I order. I wish I knew how to make it. After dinner we headed out to the cool house that Kim had found for us to rent for the weekend. The house was soo cool. I felt like we were in Ikea. It was all black and white, no window coverings and very modern. It would be soo cool to rent for a week and stay in the Hamptons. I was pretty tired from all our travels, and my feet were completley swollen. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to run the next day. Austin helped me tape up my ankles, then I took Ibuprofen and headed to bed. I woke up feeling so much better and most of my swelling was gone. The weather could not have been more perfect. I turned on my ipod and headed out. This is part of the 2,000 runners that ran that day. It was such a beautiful run. The roads were lined with trees so we were shaded for most of the run.I just had to stop and take this picture of "Friends of Karen" , it was at mile 11, thanks everyone that wished me luck and supported me these last 6-months. This really did boost me when I saw it.Here I am at the bay. I had someone snap my picture for me. I figured I wouldn't have another chance, so what the heck. I met my goal of making it in 2:30 hours, I came in just barley after that. I was soo tired, but it was so incrediable to achieve a goal I never thought I could achieve. WOW!So here we all are after the race. All the gals and Gavin. L-R- Kathy, Katie, Darlene, Kim, Austin, Me, Gavin, Amy and Lizzie. Such great gals, and guy.This is all of us after we showered and went out by the pool to relax for a minute. Here we are in South Hampton. We ate at another awesome Italian resturant then walked the streets in the quaint town.We came across this funny sign, we wondered what "Proper Attire" means. I guess we were all dressed to code. After our stroll in town we headed back to the house and stopped at the wonderful produce and flower market.The fall colors were amazing!The fall beauty just never ended! Look close at the bumps on pumpkins in the middle row. So fun! The next day were were going to go to the beach until we had to head to the airport, but we woke up to pouring rain. So Kim just drove us by all the mansions on the beach. They were astounding. It was so beautiful there, I will have to take Steve back to see everything. Speaking of Steve. He and Cameron met us at JFK on their way home from their 7-day cruise. We all had a fabulous time and made such wonderful memories. I am soo glad that I survived my race. I am doing a 10K in November, then Austin and I will have to find another goal to achieve!