Strides Against Breast Cancer

Saturday October 9th Courtney and I ran our last race together for the next year and a half. We ran the "Strides Against Breast Cancer". JetBlue was an offical sponsor, so we were there with a couple hundred great JetBlue friends and family. It was the perfect day for a race, a little on the cool side, but that just makes me want to run faster! Here we are at the start of the race. over 90% of the people walk the race since it isn't timed. Courtney and I started walking with all my friends, but I just couldn't do it, I had to run.

Jan Pack, our fellow supervisor and Breast Cancer survivor Terry Healy and me before the race.

Courtney and me after the race. I am soo glad that she was a good sport and hung out with me. After the race we had to go up to the Festival of Trees open house, then to the JetBlue Craft Fair. She leaves to the MTC in two days, I will miss having her come with me to all my crazy adventures. At least Cameron only has another year before he gets home. Kandace is on call for now. :)

Fall Fashion Show Frenzie!

All I can say is there is never a dull moment when you are with the Leavitt Girls! Last night we went to Courtney's friend Lexi's bridal shower. Man, it has been a long time since I have attended one of these festive occasions. We were divided into teams and given 3-rolls of toliet paper and told to design a wedding dress. I was the lucky model...yes by the look on my face, crazy things were being done with the materials given. Okay...my design team now has a plan. Let's get serious girls!
Me with my great design team. Kandace, Bridget and Courtney.
What the heck I should have just put on Kandace's jacket, it would have been perfect for the sleves.

The designers with a great plan for the skirt.

Ta Dah.... the finished product. Yes, my design team made the best dress ever! We may have to bring them back when one of them get married. It was a blast, and when we got home......

Courtney and Bridget put on a "Missionary Fashion Show". They modeled several of Courtney's new missionary outfits. This is Courtney's first outfit. (Image the music like Go Sister, yo sister. and We are family...I got all my sisters with me in the background) Kandace was the sound person, and I was the offical photographer for the fashion show.

Courtney and Bridget working the floor!

Okay, so a little dancing in a fashion show keeps the audience entertained! Right?

What stunning models and fabulous outfits SISTA's

Oh the show just went on and on....Sister Leavitt is so ready for Russia!

Another amazing round of outfits, with a "Super Fly" ending!

And the Grand finale....a Russian Ballet with a twist. Things will be too quiet once Sister Leavitt leaves, but Bridget promised to come and spend a few weekends with us and entertain us just as much as Crazy Courtney!

She didn't model her coat and boots, but I am sure we will see many pictures of them in the next year! Thanks Sister Leavitt and Life Size Bridget for the great treat of this lovely fashion show!

HP Holy ROLLERS!

Okay, about a year about Steve and his two HP counselors wanted to take a road trip together on their motorcycles. We have all been trying to find a time that would work for all of us, and this weekend we finally made it happen. So we planned and scheduled a date and all met bright and early for the big COUPLES RIDE.

Here we all are in front of the Barth's house, ready to ROLL out of town. Margaret wasn't able to ride on the bike, she just had her knee fixed, so she was our HP HOLY ROLLERS Support Vehicle, and she was the best support ever, always making sure we had everything we needed. Gassing up in Brigham City. We also stopped for lunch. Then we were off. The three HP's. They really enjoy being together, and they are such a great bunch of guys. This is a quick stop in Logan Canyon.

Us at the BEAR LAKE Lookout.

Here is the whole gang. Mike and Connie Barth, Steve, me and Matt and Margaret Cooper. Such a great looking bunch!

The guys ready and just waiting on the gals.

This is Connie and me just goofing off with "Mr. Bear"Matt and Margaret had a friend that let us stay in their cabin. This is the amazing view from our balcony out our bedroom. And the bikes enjoying the beautiful view. Another fabulous view from the balcony.

Steve and I took a walk around and I saw this awesome guy just hiding in the trees. I thought it was kinda cool.

And this is us leaving and heading back. It was way to quick of a trip.

Just a view of the road out, from the back seat of course.

On the way out, we just wanted to stop by "Paris". This is a beautiful tabernacle that the pioneers built. They had to haul the red sandstone by sled across the frozen Bear Lake to build this. We all had a great appreciation for this beautiful building.

Another great shot of the view from the backseat of the bike. There was soo much beauty everywhere we looked.
The beauty and wonder never ended. We really lucked out to have the perfect weather for the ride and the leaves were absolutley amazing! Love FALL LEAVES!

Our last shot on the way home. We had so much fun. Steve has been working soo hard on our basement to get it finished for my parents, that he needed this relaxing weekend. We all decided that this will definatley be an annual COUPLES RIDE. Maybe next year we will all have offical "HP HOLY ROLLERS" shirts made.

Happy 27th Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. We really think of it as 28 years together, since we met on September 16, 1982. So, here we are in a RETRO picture on Steve's motorcycle. Man, we were so in love we didn't even care that we were dirt poor and that Steve's only reliable form of transportation was his bike. After we were engaged he would drive his motorcycle from Logan to Salem every weekend to see me. Oh...what TRUE LOVE will endure. So, since we have a couples motorcycle ride to Bear Lake planned for this weekend, we kinda just went low key on our actual anniversary. We were going to go to a nice Inn, but oppted out and decided to go to one of our favorite resturants downtown "The ROOF" at the top of the Joseph Smith Building. This is what our view was from our table. Simply SPECTACULAR! The sun was setting and every five minutes the sky changed and I had to snap another picture. As we enjoyed each others company, we admired th amazing architecture of the Salt Lake Temple. A view and appreciation only seen from our table.

I will spare you from all the pictures I took, but as you can see from these pictures, we really did have such an AMAZING VIEW of the temple. As we sat and admired the temple I reflected that 2-years ago we were on the beaches of Hawaii. And this view was every bit as amazing and appreciated. It was such a beautiful night. After dinner we wandered around the building, enjoying the beauty of the Joseph Smith Building. It was a quiet night there and we visited with a few of the couple missionaries working that night. We took this picture walking around temple square, and even got to stop in and hear the choir practing for their sunday broadcast. It was the perfect night, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Thanks Steve for the most AMAZING 27 Years, let's enjoy the next 27 as much as these. We head out in the morning for our Motorcycle ride, so I will post those picture, which I am sure will have some great fall colors, as soon as we get back.

Huntsville Most Holy 5K...and Mr. T

Five years ago my cousin Sandy challenged me to join her at the Huntsville Most Holy 5k. So Cameron and I trained for a few months, and we ran our first 5K in September 2006. Now, five years later, it is one of my very favorite races to do. Last year Cameron went with me, this year, Courtney had the "Duty". So bright and early (6 AM) Saturday morning we set out for Huntsville. We got there early enough to stretch good and be ready for the race. Here we are at our "Traditional" picture spot, Me Courtney and our cute friend Bridget, ready to start the race. Since my knee surgery, I start out slower, but get into my "Groove" after a few minutes. It was cool out, but after about 5-minutes, I was sweating up a storm. I finished before Courtney and Bridget, but I alway go back run them in. They were walking, so I made them RUN to the finish line. They did great!

Here we are at the finish line, just waiting for the results of the WINNERS!

HOLY COW! We are both WINNER....WINNER..Chicken Dinner! I took second place in my age division and Courtney took third place in her age division. (Yes, there were only three entered in her division...but she Medaled!) It was one of our most GLORIOUS moments ever! I love the Huntsville Most Holy 5K! By the way, it is called this because of the Monk Monastery that is there. They have the best Raspberry "Holy Honey".

So...everyone is a WINNER! The lady who took first place in my age division took off her medal and put it on her dog. Ahhhh...so cute!

After the race we took a minute and drove around the BIG city. Since it was Labor Day Weekend, there were alot of people out on the Pineview resevior on their boats and Jetskies. It was a beautiful day to be out. I was wishing Steve was there on his motorcycle, we saw alot of those too! And here we are after the race, at the reservior. Another fun weekend! But I got to thinking...who will be going with me next year? Kandace.....Casey.....you better start training, you know Dad would never join me!

And now......Meet Mr TURTLE..OR MR. T for short.

Last week Kandace came home with her new pet. She has really wanted a DOG for ever, but Dad says "No". This is her compromise.....

Meet...MR. T. He is still getting use to us, and doesn't have much of a personality. But Kandace is soo Happy!

Mr. T taking a Sunday stroll for the poporatzie.

He is not a fan of the grass...but you should see him RUN...in the carpet! He is entertaining us, and he isn't as demanding as a dog.

Kandace is happy.....and that's all that matters! Welcome to the FAM Mr. T!

NY GIRL TRIP!!!!

When Courtney got her mission call she requested that we take a Girl Trip to New York to go see a Broadway play, then go to upstate New York. So of course, working for a fabulous airline, I could totally make that happen. This week, we did just that. We left Tuesday night, after I worked a full day, and rode jumpseat to get someone's buddy pass riders on. That is why this first picture I look exhusted already. This is us in Time Square. We had to pick-up our tickets for the play, then we had a quick lunch. This picture is for Dad...since he is ALWAYS watching the NASDAQ, Courtney had to take a picture here.

And here we are on BROADWAY! We have been to New York so many times, it was nice to just do a couple of things, and not try and see everything. It is such a crazy busy place, even in the rain, it was hussling.
"THE LION KING", this is the play we went to this time. Courtney really wanted to see "Beauty and the Beast", I got checking into it and found that it closed in NY, July of 2007. So this was the second choice.

Courtney in front of the SCAR costume. We were both in AWE of the amazing costumes and how the scene's really came to life. So amazing, you have to see it to believe it!

After the play, since we attended the matinee, we wanted to just stop by the Manhattan Temple. We knew it was closed for cleaning, but still wanted to see where it was. The security guard took this picture for us. While we were talking to him, some workers came out of the temple. Then another man. He asked us where we were from and we told him Draper, UT. We told him we wanted to go to a session, but when we looked up the schedule, we saw it would be closed while we were there, but we still wanted to see it. He smiled at us and asked if we had our recommends. We said YES, then he asked if we had them with us and could show him. We both showed our recommends and then he smiled again and said he could let us come in and look around. We found out he was the Temple President. He gave us a private tour of the beautiful Manhattan Temple. Such an amazing experience. One that made our whole trip!

After our private tour, we decided to find somewhere to eat in this quaint little neighborhood. The streets were all tree lined and it really reminded us of "You Got Mail". This is Courtney by one of the cute shops with beautiful flowers. There were several shops wih flowers, we loved it! We did find a great Italian resturant and had a fabulous dinner.

When we got back to our hotel we noticed some missionaries waiting to check-in. I stopped and asked one of them if they were leaving or coming home. They were all coming home, and were all heading to Utah. Of all places, they were coming from the Ukraine! We let them know that Courtney was leaving in October for Russia, they knew some of the missionaries in her mission. Now Courtney needs to tell them "Hi". It was such a fun day!

The next day we flew up to upstate New York, to see the Church History sites. This is us on a cute bench that was at the Rochester Airport. We wanted to bring it home and put it in the back yard. It wasn't for sale and wouldn't fit in our suitcase. We got our car and set our GPS (AKA Chickie Doodle) for Palmyra. Our first stop. The site where the first Book of Mormon was printed.

We met Sister Esper, from Argentina. She was our tour guide. She found out that Courtney was going to Russia and had her be her companion for the tour. She put her name badge on Courtney and gave her scriptures to Courtney, then had her help behind the scene. Doesn't Courtney make a great missionary?

Courtney demonstrating how to put the ink on the letters for the printing press.

After the tour of the printing press, we headed out to the Whitmer Farm in Fayette, NY. It was an hour drive by car, so it must have taken at least 1/2 day on horse back for Joseph to run over to his friend, Peter Whitmer. This is Courtney and Sister Trujillo at the Whitmore farm.

Courtney and me in front of the Whitmer Farm.

After the Whitmer Farm we headed over to the Hill Cumorah. We drove up to the top. I wanted to take a picture of the cool road, but Courtney wanted to be in the picture...so she is.

Here we are at the top of Hill Cumorah. We met more people from Utah. They knew I was from Utah because of my great watch. Funny, I never knew that my watch say's "Your from Utah". Now I know that little secret, I will be using it!

Just s shot from the view at the top of the Hill Cumorah. It was so beautiful.

Next we headed over to the Smith Farm and Sacred Grove. The next picture is taken from the back door of the Smith home, the path leads to the sacred grove.

This is Courtney and me in the Smith family home. The glass case on the table holds the bible that Father Smith read with the family each night.

This is just a picture of the fence that lines the family property. I thought it was so neat.

And this is the Sacred Grove. Courtney and I just sat in the stillness and beauty of the grove. It was so peaceful, and you could feel a great spirit there.

Us, again.

We hurried and changed to our skirts because we had a 6 PM temple session scheduled. So this is us just before we went into the temple.

And this is when we came out. If you look close at the glass, you can see the trees from the sacred grove.

Courtney, outside the temple. After our session we had a great home cooked meal then head to our hotel. Thank goodness I brought our "Chickie Doodle" to help us find our hotel. We ended up at the wrong Radisson, but finally made it to our hotel around 10 PM. What a fun, filled to the brim day.

The next day we spent on planes getting home. We got home around 5:30 PM. This is us on the flight. Ahh.....what a great three days we had. We sure did see alot of blessings happen on this trip, and felt we were soo lucky to have this time together. Glad Courtney wanted to take a GIRL TRIP!