Joni recently ran in the Reno/Tahoe Odyssey, a 178 mile relay race that lasted a couple of days. They had a ton of fun as you can see from the pictures, and their team placed first among women's division with about 270 teams participating.
The whole idea is to run a few miles, hand off to the next person and continue doing this 24 hours a day until the race is finished. Each girl ran 3 legs, Joni ended up running 4 because one of the girls was hurt. The first part of the race went up Donner Pass, Joni ran 8 miles entirely uphill and off-road (no pavement) climbing over 2,000 feet in elevation. You can see below how sick she was afterwards (she wouldn't even look at the camera & if you know Joni, that means she is near death), she is a trooper...at least she got a bumper sticker for running that leg (leg 4)...I know all I need is a bumper sticker to motivate me to run...at all.
The girls from Joni's van...The crazy thing to me was that they ran so much in the first place, but that they did it with little to no sleep, and also ran in the dark at 2am around Lake Tahoe. Joni forgot her headlamp so it made for an interesting 2nd leg. All in all she ran about 20 miles in 26 1/2 hours.
I'm guessing by the end they were all delirious because they put on tutu's and danced on the highway to the honks of cars passing by. I wonder where the energy comes from? Maybe she was so happy to get away...
Good job Joni!!!
A couple of weeks ago we took a much anticipated trip to Utah and Idaho, and like always we did a good job of taking pictures the first couple of days, but then we didn't do so well. We had a blast and it was so fun for the girls to see their families.
The zoo was...an experiment...Ellie had a meltdown but eventually warmed up to the idea after some time alone in the shade with a snow cone. They had some mist machines that were the highlight as it was pretty hot. We spent the first couple of days with Joni's dad and fam in Pleasant Grove, it was Brent's 60th birthday and we came as a surprise.
We drove from there to Vernal for a couple of days. We took zero pictures in Vernal, but it was nice to relax after a busy weekend. We saw much of Joni's family there and ate out and talked a lot. After Vernal we drove to my mom's in Idaho, and Glen and Joel's families were there too. It was the first time for many to meet Reese.
That didn't make her shy about it, she was totally sucking on Erin's face for the longest time and we were all getting a kick out of watching.
We had a fun time floating down the river and feeding the fish, and enjoying the beautiful views of the Tetons. In total we drove about 2700 miles. The girls were much better than we thought they would be, and they were such troopers to be in the truck for so long.
Ellie still talks about the trip and saying how she wants to go back to grandma's house, or the hotel, or "Lick Cone's"/Nichole's house. She has special memories of each place that she will always associate certain things with. Thanks to everyone who hosted us, we wanted it to last another 2 weeks.
Ellie had her first day at preschool this week. The bus comes right up to our doorstep and an aide comes out to make sure she gets on and off safe. I have to admit it was a bit sad and emotional to watch her but she was soooo excited to get on the bus she didn't even say goodbye to us. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to watch her at school.
Waiting for the bus...
Summertime near Lake Tahoe means beach time!
