Hitting the "Finish Line" for Elder Leavitt...

In less than three weeks Elder Leavitt will cross the "Finish" line of his mission, and what a race it has been. Just like a real race, and the last few miles are the most enduring, and don't give up miles. He is going strong and giving his all to the end. He has been sick for the past week and in bed. He HATES to be sick and make his companion stay home from missionary work. This is a recent picture of Elder Leavitt and his companion Elder Dela Cruz. His companion makes fun of his Tagalog and he makes fun of his companion's English. He has really enjoyed his companion.
Why is it that Cameron always have to pull the "Goofy" face? This lady was their latest baptism. She took them to this park for a picnic lunch and site seeing.

Enjoying their picnic lunch.

Just driving in the car.....not a Jeepney or taxi.

One of the sites they visited.

We are so excited for him to come home, and know that he will miss the people. What a LIFE adventure he has had and will have stories to tell for a lifetime. Can't wait for him to cross that finish line in three weeks. Go STRONG Elder Leavitt......you don't get to the finish line and quit!

HP Holy Rollers Take Two....

Okay, it is that time of year again when the weather starts to cool down and the guys think they need to get their bikes out for the final rides of the season. Last weekend we hit the road with our HP Holy Rollers for our ride to Bear Lake. The plan this year was to leave early enough that we would be in Logan to meet Marathon Margaret at the finish line as she completed her race "TOP of UTAH". Our plans had a huge damper when Mother Nature decided that we needed some rain and hail just before we hit Brigham City. We forged through the storm and some how made it to the finish line just as Margaret was coming in. So, the funny thing about getting there just as Margaret was coming in, I just hopped off the bike and told Matt and Steve to go find somewhere to park the bikes and come find me. We were two blocks away from the finsih line and as I rounded the corner and saw the "FINISH" arch I felt a hand come over my shoulder and say "Hey Karen, you made it" I turned and looked and there was Margaret running her last block, I started to run with her in all my leathers, helmet and all. Then I looked at my silly self and told Margaret to just go finish the race and I would be there. I can only image what the onlookers were thinking as I was running down the street in my leathers, kinda crazy! So here we all are after the race. You can't tell, but everyone had wet pants and shoes. We all went back to Margaret's hotel and put on dry pants, socks and Steve had to go buy new boots. Then we all went to lunch. Mike and Connie were too cold to continue the ride and stayed in Logan. The rest of us went on to Bear Lake, it rainned for about 5-minutes up the canyon, then it was dry the rest of the ride. I was disappointed that the leaves were not changing yet, I am sure after last weekend they are now changing.
Once we got to the cabin, we all changed and got cleaned up to go and watch the BIG game, UTAH VS BYU at Coopers bar. Holy cow, what a crazy night. We were the only ones in the bar that were not drinking, and the more the U scored the louder the crowd got. Let's just say, it was very interesting being there. We left when the score was 38-10 and poor BYU kept fumbling.

The next morning was BEAUTIFUL! We all went on a nice walk and enjoyed the beauty all arounnd us.

Cute Matt and Margaret....what an amazing lady, runs a marathon then hops on a bike. I still can't believe she did that and kept up with us.

These were about the only fall colors I could find.....but at least there were some colors.

Here we are as we chatted with the neighbors that had just got home from church. We were just leaving to enjoy the ride home.

Bear Lake is so beautiful, next year we are going to try and stay longer so we can enjoy the water.

Matt and Margaret zipping around the lake in front of us.

BLUER than BLUE! The lake is so BLUE!

We had to stop at the beach and snap a quick picture!

Wild things....Matt and Margaret!

We went home a different route, through Randdolph, UT, which took us over some high mountains and into Huntsville.

At the summit, such a beautiful view! But it was COLD! I was glad I had my leathers handy to put on.

The bikes enjoying the view. We had such great weather for the ride home. Steve got a little too much sun...which you will see in a few....

When we got home, Kandace had made us all "HOT Peach Pie" just waiting for us! It was her first attempt at any pie, and it was soo YUMMY!

Yes, I still had my duo rag on from riding all day...but can't wait to have some peach pie!

Poor Matt choking down his pie......he bet Kandace she couldn't do it again? Actually she did last night and it was even better!

And here is Steve...see what I mean about too much sun. I felt bad I kept laughing at him because he looked like an Easter Egg that was half dyed. At least he really enjoyed his pie. We had a great weekend even though the rain tried to ruin it for us. Next year, please let us have more SUN!!!

I Love to see the Temple...I'm walking there someday....

Bright and early Saturday morning I arrived at the Draper temple to drop my car off, catch a ride to our chapel and walk 7-miles with our Young Women to the Draper Temple. Yes, it was a little crazy, but we found out that there were more crazy young women in the area that walked from the Draper Temple to the Salt Lake Temple. Here are the brave eight Young Women that actually showed up to join us for the "Walk to the Temple"

This is the half way spot a the Historic Draper Park. The girls were in good spirits the entire walk and entertained each other and the leaders.

Along one of the paths a horse started to talk to us, so Chandlor had to go say "Hi" to Smokey the Horse.

See what happy faces they had, and they still had over 2-miles to go. This walk was a challenge for some of the young ladies, but they were determined to do it, and kept right on walking throug sore feet and ankles. We did have a support vehicle that followed us just in case anyone needed to have a rest.

We walked through a tunnel that the girls each stood in one of the characters spots to pose, Cassidy made a great bird!

And then we hit the last mile, it was straight up hill. It was the hardest mile of the entire walk, but they DID IT! Kate even ran up the hill, but she was the only one crazy enough to run the hill.

See, the sign showing the temple is that way......

Almost up the hill. Such a great view of the valley behind them. So wonderful to see three temples from this hill. Where else can you see that many temples from one spot?

Arm in Arm arriving at the Temple!

They DID IT. They took a few hours of their Saturday morning to go for a beautiful walk.

We had eight Young Women and four leaders walk with us yesterday. When we arrived we had a light breakfast waiting for us and the Bishop came us and talked to us about the challenges we will have in our lives going to the temple, but the blessings we recieve inside, are worth every challage to get there. It was a great day, and I am soo proud of these Young Women for making the "Walk to the Temple"

GUR..The Great Urban Race!

Okay, in January I got this email from Active.c0m about the Great Urban Race. I was so excited and sent it out to everyone hoping to find some people as crazy as me to do this race. The information on the race sounded alot like "Amazing Race" which as a family we watch faithfully. So in March I offically signed up our team "Girlz havin FUN". My cousin Sandy, Kandace Bridget and I were all set to do the race in August. In June I remembered that we needed to have a team costume, so Bridget and I set out shopping and came up with our "PINK shirts and Tutu's" the plaid socks and poka dot bandana's were added for fun. So last Saturday the BIG day was here. Here we are at the starting line to ready to start the race. We were given an envelope with 12 different task and clues and had up to five hours to complete the task. We had our "Phone a friends" on call if we needed them. We started reading all the task, and after we had a couple figured out, we decided we better start moving and figure out the other clues as we walked. Can I just say "Thank You" for SMART phones, it really saved the day for us!
This is our first task completed. Take a picture of a street sign with double letters. "Jane likes coffee but she doesn't like tea..she likes pools but she doen't like to swim,....

We found a street sign with three double letters, we should have gotten extra points don't you think? Next we had to go to a rare book store and figure out more clues, I forgot to take pictures there, but then we were off to the "One World Cafe"

This is a cafe for the people with little money, they pay what they can afford. We all had to peel potatoes to be signed off on this task. It was soo HOT! We were so glad to have this task done. We had to play picture Tic Tac Toe, and take a picture with two strangers to make "YMCA" These boys were up from Provo and thought we were hilarious and stopped and ask if they could take a picture with us, so we asked them to help us in a couple of pictures of our own.

"YMCA" They were good enough to help us twice, since we all had to be in the picture.

As we were walking to our next task we noticed a fountain, another Tic Tac Toe picture we had to have of us trying to dive in a fountain....I think they were thinking a bigger fountain downtown, but hey...it's a fountain and it worked!

Next we had to go to "Wasatch Touring" and pump up bike tires. So here we are "PUMPING", check, another task done.

Okay, next we had to go to Luna Berry Yogurt and drink carrot juice to make a mustache, then take a picture. Here is Kandace's mustache and....

Here is mine. I was laughing so hard doing this that I spilt carrot juice down the front of me..oh well.

It was such a HOT day...it was 98 degrees, and the race started at noon, so we were pretty much running around in the heat of the day. We did have water with us, but running around made it hotter.

Another guy at the TRAX station wanted to take our picture, we got honks and yelling from all kinds of strangers. It was soo much fun! Our next task we had to go to "Planet Fitness" and do jumping jacks, lunges and sit-ups to complete the task. We only had three more task after that to complete...we were doing great!

Our next task was to take a picture in front of this clock at exactly 2:15. Notice, there is another team behind Kandace and Bridget taking their picture too.

Sandy and I taking our picture, there were about 10-12 teams here at the same time, since you had to take a picture only on the 15 minute mark, we were excited to see we were doing soo good in the race.

Next we had to take a picture in front of this sign, and then we were on to our final task....and the craziest!

Our last task was to go to "Good Times" tattoo and get "Inked" Sandy was a little concerned about where this was going???

And here she is completing our final task. It was soo funny. Kandace also got to have an "INK" of GUR on her arm. We ran back to the starting point, and we all were soo excited that we finished the race in 2 1/2 hours with no penalties. The first 25 teams to complete the race would qualify to compete in the championship finals in New Orleans in October. The race staff told us we were close and should stick around to see if we would make it. So we went and got some cold lemonade, and a bite of lunch, then came back to see how we finished.

To our surprise we placed 20th and 21st and recieved beautiful medals. Sandy had me laughing so hard as we showed off our medals..or "Our Major Award" as she was saying.

Bridget and Kandace and their Major Awards. All in all, even though it was like the hottest day ever, it was a BLAST and we would totally do it again. Hopefully I can have Cameron and Courtney join us next time, they would have Loved it too!