The Grand Prize

98 Plymouth Grand Voyager

Finally! A picture of the Van I got as a result of the accident. I got it 10 days after the accident, the day the rental car (I sooo loved that car!) back. It is SO nice to have a van to tote all of the kids around in. And as an added bonus, it has air conditioning! lol. Daniel helped me find it (okay, okay, HE found it! :)).

My Toothless Beauty

If you ask Charlene what she wants for Christmas she will just roll her beautiful blue eyes cause she has defiantly heard that one before! She is currently missing seven of her front teeth. How she chews her food I will never know! I tell her she looks cute with no teeth and she rolls her eyes (isn't that supposed to start when she is a teenager? lol) and says Mom! I have teeth.. (and she points to her cheeks) back here! I love her toothless smile! They are just starting to grow in, but I will never forget my toothless beauty!

Awe... How sweet!

I couldn't resist taking this picture. We just ran to the store to pick up a few things for dinner and Charlene wanted to push the cart. Bella just kept leaning over and giving Charlene a hug and a kiss. This is what being a Mom is all about! I love these girls!

Can you see it?

Original picture taken with cell phone camera. Can you see it?

Slightly cropped auto corrected image in Adobe Photoshop (Brightness & contrast)
Now can you see it?

Cropped even more. . . . .
Can you see it now?

I saw this image while laying in bed. It was in the vanity mirror next to the bed. I say "was" because shortly after the picture was taken, I realized how dirty it was and Windex took care of the problem. I have no idea how long it's been watching. . . :)

Keep looking, because the longer you look, the creepier it gets. . . .

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is always really special to me. It is the one time of year that the Cemetery comes alive. There is an energy in the air that is only there during this time of year. And it always brings a smile to my face. We went to Memorial Estates last night to put flowers at Carolyn's grave. Daniel looked around and saw that there were some headstones that looked new although they were very old. We went home and he looked up how to clean a headstone. We went to the store and made a kit with all of the things necessary to polish a headstone. We went back to the cemetery and cleaned and waxed her headstone. It looks next to new now. I am so happy with it. What a thoughtful thing to think of doing.

Breitling Hill Haven

Harrison, Merlin, Bella, Charlene, Zoey

Zoey, Bella, Charlene

My Man

My Dad's family has a cabin in Mt. Air. Every year we go up and help clean up the grounds and do some spring cleaning inside the cabin. I have not been able to help for several years as I have worked on Saturdays forever! Well my schedule just changed at work so I have weekends off and today was my first Saturday off. I was really glad that we could go up and help! Daniel helped my dad with the heavy lifting and I helped rake the leaves that had accumulated. I helped inside a little bit, vacuuming the lofts. The picture of the kids up in the loft sure brought back a lot of memories! As we were leaving my dad asked Daniel to get up on the shed to hook up the tire swing. I just had to take a picture. Luckily Daniel is not scared of heights and so it was not to big of a deal for him to do that. I am like my dad.... I would have had a really hard time doing that! Thank you for all your help Daniel!

Indiana Jones

My work rented a whole movie theater at the Gateway for Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Lost Skull. Daniel and I took Harrison, Merlin, Charlene, Zoey, and Bella with us to the movie. It was fun to see Indiana Jones back in action. Although I would have to say that I was not too impressed with the story they decided to tell. It would have been more intertaining if they had chosen a story that I knew anything about! I had not even heard of a crystal skull until Discovery Channel showed a special on it, just for this movie. There was a lot of comedy in it, and it is always nice to laugh! It was nice to go out as a family!

What's the Debate?

Last week Daniel and I attended a dinner for Bingham High School's Debate team. Daniel's eldest son, Derrick is on their debate team.

I haven't been inside that school since I graduated ten years ago. What a strange feeling, but it was very nice to get dressed up and go out with my man...

TEAM WILSON!!

When we got to Liberty Park we were pleasantly suprised to see that my Mom and Dad were already there waiting for us. We registered and got our Bibs and Mark and Barbara showed up! To our most pleasant suprise, they were going to participate in the race as well!

We helped Mark and Barbara into their Team Wilson T-Shirts. I was so proud to be wearing a shirt with Mark's picture on it! I said, "Hey Mark! Do you recognize this guy? He's famous!" And Mark just replied, "Yes, would you like an autograph?"

The race started just after 8 AM. This was a 5k Walk and Roll Race which is 3.1 miles. This was not a timed race, but according to my GPS we finished in 29:39:21. It was a pretty cool run. It all took place at Liberty Park. We basically ran around the park twice. When we arrived at the finish line, Mark and Barbara were already there waiting to cheer us on as we crossed the finish line. They had gone around the park once, which was just over half the distance of the race.

Barbara told us they completed it in 26 min. Mark chimed in to let us know that it was 26 min and 25 seconds. Then as we started talking about something else we heard Mark clear his throat and say "and 33 100ths"! So their time was 26:25:33! I love Mark's sense of humor and I was honored to run for him!

Harrison, Merlin, Charlene, and Zoey were able to be there and cheer us on at the beginning and at the end! As always, I love running with Daniel and hope to have many more experiances like this one!

This is the image that is on the shirts that we wore! Thank you Daniel! You did a wonderful job!

Oh My Gosh! It's the Flamingo Man!

Right now Daniel is in an audition to play a mini golfer named Flamingo! He will do great! And whether he gets the part or not, it is an audition under his belt.... Besides that, doesn't he look sharp?

My New Car?

I got to pretend for a week anyway! The insurance adjuster came and looked at the car on Monday and the car was declaired a total loss and we were given a check. The good news is, that we got more than we thought we would get.... And they sold us our old car back for only $350! Can't beat that! So Daniel is going to fix up the old car to make it drivable and we will be looking for a van that we can drive ALL the kids around in safely. Got to love looking for a new vehicle! LOL

Run, Run, Look and See

So I was going to post all of mine and Daniel's long runs on this blog, but then I decided that I want to post all of our runs and all of the training that we do. So I created a seperate blog so that it does not take up every entry on this blog since we run five times a week! lol. So if you are interested in our training, and the runs we are doing, you can see them there at lisandanielrun.blogspot.com You can also get to it from my profile. We are so excited for our race in a month from tomorrow and we are looking forward to qualifying for Boston in October!

Happy Mother's Day!!

I would have to say this is the best Mother's Day that I have had. :) This is a picture of the card that Charlene made for me. IT IS PERFECT! It makes me feel like I am doing something right when my children know without a doubt just how much I love them! In sacrament meeting they opened the time up for anyone that wanted to make a comment about a Mother in their lives. Daniel stood up and showed the ward the card that Charlene made and Charlene was so embarrassed she hid at my feet until he was done. lol. I wish I could have recorded what he said because every word meant so much to me. I appreciate his love for me and the ways that he is able to show that love to me. After church we went and visited my Mother and my Grandmother. I am looking forward to relaxing with my kids the rest of the evening before Daniel and I go out and run 9 miles!

Here We Come St. George!!

We just found out last night that we will be running the St. George marathon on October 4th 2008! It is a lottery and only 7,000 people get to run it! (did I just say only? lol) Anyway, by we... I mean Me (of course), Daniel (my best friend in the whole world), Christina Breitling (my bestest biggest sister) and Amy Conklin (my oldest cousin on my Dad's side).

I have been looking for an excuse to post my story from my first marathon that I ran on October 7th 2006. And since it was St. George I am going to post it here. Christina and Amy both ran that race. Christina by my side the whole time. While I was running that race I actually pictured running that race someday with Daniel. (I had only known him for a week, but I had convinced myself we would be together forever and that we would run together.... and look at where we are at... lol)

This is Daniel's first marathon. Not only will we be running it together, but we are planning on qualifing to run Boston as well! It is going to be an interesting summer training really hard for the race. But I am SO excited to being doing it and to be doing it with Daniel!

St George 2006 Story Written by Lisa Johnson on or about Oct 16, 2006. Everything in parentheses was added today. :)

Almost exactly two years ago, I went to Boston to visit Christina. We took a tour of Boston and during the tour the finish line for the Boston Marathon was pointed out. I asked her how long the longest marathon was that she had run... She smiled and told me that all marathons are the same.. 26.2 miles. It was in that moment that I decided I wanted to run a marathon. After the tour I expressed my interest in running. Christina was excited for me. Told me I could do it! Her first marathon was the St. George Marathon, so I decided that is where I wanted to run my first marathon.

My spirits were high, and I was excited to start the process to reach my new goal. I got home and started to tell people what I wanted to do, and to my surprise, I found no support. I did not start running. I was depressed from a failing marriage and soon lost sight of my goal. The separation from my husband was long and painful, as anyone that has been divorced know that is just how it goes. Anyway, during that process I met one of the greatest people I have met, even to this day. (now I know that this is not true, although he was a HUGE factor in running this race, I had already met Daniel, and now I know that he is a greater friend, a greater person than even the friend that helped me discover myself and start to run.  ) He helped me discover me. He did not turn me into someone he wanted me to be, but rather helped me find myself. He helped me become a more confident and independent person.

I moved into a new place, and I started to get my life organized. Up until this point, my whole life was based around my kids and my husband. I did not know or understand the need to do something for myself. One day, probably around Thanksgiving, I was talking to my friend about my trip to Boston the previous year. Of course that brought back the memory of wanting to run a marathon. He got so excited for me. Said it was perfect because it was something I could do for me. Something I wanted to do. Something that would benefit no one but me. Finally, someone believed in me.

I started running in the middle of January. I talked to Christina and told her that I wanted to run the 2006 St. George Marathon. She wanted to support me and be there for me, so she decided to run it as well! In late April I tore my IT Band on my right leg. It was extremely painful and took over 8 weeks to heal. It was discouraging but I knew I had a lot of time left to prepare.

The St. George Marathon is a lottery and names were posted on May 6th.I was so excited when I found out I was going to run. I called everyone I knew!! "I get to run in the St. George Marathon". I even asked myself at that point, now who in their right mind gets excited to run 26.2 miles?? I guess the answer is me, cause even now, I can remember exactly how I felt that day!!

So I started running again in early July, and as chance would have it, I got really sick with a series of sore throats from the middle of July till the middle of Aug. Ok at this point I looked at myself and had to re-evaluate how bad I really wanted this. I had approximately 5 weeks left to train and I had never run farther than 5 miles. And guess what my answer was? I wanted it bad. Bad enough to kick myself in the butt and make it happen.

The first week of those five weeks I eased into four mile stretches. Making sure that I did not injure my leg. I felt awesome. I ran my first 10 mile stretch, and felt incredible. The next two weeks I ran a series of 4 mile stretches and two 15 mile runs. I felt more confident in myself. Within a 14 day period I ran 64 miles. However, I was out of training time. So at this point I had to let every preconceived notion go about what it takes to train for a marathon, and just go for it. My friend that was the biggest part of making this happen for me, in the end could not be there for the race. He did give me the shoes that took me across the finish line, and he was there in spirit, but could not physically be there for me. I will forever be grateful for the vital role he played in such a crucial turning point in my life.

Ok, so during my down time before the race, I prepare for the big day. Got the outfit I was going to wear, and decided what I was going to take with me for the race. I tried not to worry that I was under trained. My goal was just to finish the race in one piece, and I was determined to do it. My Parents drove me down to St. George where we met my sister and had dinner. I was nervous, but only in an excited way, I had worked all year toward this day. I felt like it was Christmas Eve. I knew I would not be able to sleep. I think it is funny that the day of a marathon can be compared to Christmas, since I knew I would not be able to walk by that time the next day. But none the less, I was excited. I talked to a wonderful guy that night, (who happens to be the one and only Daniel!!) who had quite the calming effect on me, and I was finally able to sleep, only to be wakened by my alarm three short hours later.

My sister came and picked me up at quarter to four!!! In my tired and nervous state, I forgot EVERYTHING except for my shoes and my bib number. At that point I had to let go of every notion of what I thought the race should be like. And while letting all of that go, I was able to let go of all of my nervous energy. I was really calm the entire 2 and a half hours we waited at the starting line. It was surreal. I had played this moment over and over again in my dreams. And it was no more real at this point than in those dreams.

When 6:45 finally came, there was a rush of energy as everyone made their way across the starting line. Christina and I ran and talked and laughed and joked. We stayed with our plan of running one mile and walking one min. The sky was dark and the moon was bright and full. I could not help but smile. My left foot started to hurt. I ended up stopping to unwrap it. It did not help. The pain in my foot never subsided. I was able to stay with my sister till about mile 15 and my body started a slow process of shutting down. I did not feel tired, I just felt like I could no longer go any faster. My sister kept running slower to stay with me. It finally got to a point where she could not run that slow. So she would run and take longer walking breaks until I caught up to her. I kept telling her it was ok to go ahead, she would not hear of it. She was there to support me. What in incredible feeling of love. To have someone believe in you so much that they will be there for you step for step through a 26.2 mile journey! I was still feeling pretty good through mile 22, then my body really wanted to shut down. After each walking break I had a harder time starting to run again. Christina would say, "there... you got it." And I would simply say "no, I don't.. not yet." But my spirits were high. I was going to complete my almost impossible goal.

During the last mile or so, I was very emotional. I wanted this to be over, I was happy I was doing it, and I could feel my sister's love with every step. I must have looked like I was in pain because I heard spectator's yell, "hey 5708, you can do it!!" It was awesome to have the support of hundreds of people that I will never know. When we turned the corner and could see the finish line, I looked over at my sister, her eyes were full with tears. She said, "Look you are a Marathoner!!" I simply said, "No, not yet" It was hard to keep back my tears. When we had about 10 steps left, my sister took my hand and we held our hands over our heads as we crossed the finish line together. And the tears started to flow. I had done it. But much more than that, my sister was there for me in a way that no one could ever be there for me again. She was my rock. The whisper in my ear. I knew I could do it, simply because she knew I could do it. From the first moment that the idea of running a marathon crossed my mind, to the reality of crossing the finish line she was there, step for step. There is no greater love, no greater support in this life than that. How incredible for me to have experienced that kind of love in this lifetime!!

So I am standing there crying as well, and she asks to place my metal around my neck. How incredible and fitting is that? My sister was able to award me the symbol of reaching my goal! We walked over to have our official time printed out. We had the exact same time- 5 hrs 9 min and 11 Sec!! I am sure my sister could have finished at least 30 or 40 min before me had she chosen to leave me behind. I will never forget her love and support during this event.

We all went to lunch at Denny’s after we took the time to shower. A guy stopped to ask if we ran the race, probably cause I could not walk right! I told him it was my first race. He said "now don't decide right this min that you will never run another one." I just smiled and told him that I fully plan on running another one!

I was inspired to run while in Boston. My goal is to qualify for The Boston Marathon and run it before I am 30. (The 2009 Boston Marathon will be my last chance to run it before I am thirty! The pressure is on!) Now to qualify for the Boston Marathon, at my age, as a female runnier, I have to run an official marathon in 3 hours and 30 min. Keep in mind that this is cutting and hour and a half off of my time. But I know that if I can complete a marathon with 5 weeks of training, that I can qualify for Boston if I train for a year. :) In fact... in finishing this marathon, I know that I can and will finish anything that I put my mind to!

And for those of you that have asked me how long this marathon is, I am sure I chuckled when I told you that every marathon is the same distance- 26.2 miles. It is not because I expected you to know that. It was simply because I remembered the moment that my sister chuckled as the answered that question for me! I look forward to many more experiences like this one, however I know none could ever compare!!

Hallelujah!

I have lived in my duplex for just over 7 months now. The lady that lived in the other side of the duplex when we moved in was a great neighbor and we were really sad to see her go. I had two hopes for the new neighbor's, number one was that they did not smoke. Number two was that if they had children that they were around the same ages as my kids and that they were nice children.

Well.... the first time I saw my new neighbors, they were out on they were both out on the front porch smoking. I was so hoping they were not moving in, that they were the ones cleaning the carpets or something like that.

I just have to say here, that I don't have anything against a person that smokes. I have had good friends that choose to sport the nasty habit. Heaven knows I have some habits that I would not want to be judged for, so I do not hold it against the person. But, on the other hand, I am not ok with breathing second hand smoke and I am even less ok with my kids breathing it in. So now that I've cleared up my feelings on that, I will get back to my story.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed that they smoked. Especially because the lady is 5 months pregnant. (so sad) They have two kids, ages 5 and 11. Very disrespectful. I do not feel good about any of the kids playing with them. So both of my neighbor requirements were not met.

The weather started to get warm. So very grateful for that. :) However, since it is warm, I like to open up the window in my Bedroom. (who doesn't right?) Well, every time they went outside to smoke it would come directly into my bedroom. So irritating. Now, I am the kind of person to close the window and get upset internally and not do anything about it except for get irritable, which doesn't make anyone around me happy.

Daniel looked up what rights I have as far as not having smoke come into my house. Luckily for me, I have the right to file a nuisance law suit if smoke comes into my house more than twice in a one week period. With knowing this, I called my landlord and told her that I was planning on doing just that but I wanted to give her a chance to resolve it first. A couple of days later, I rarely smelled smoke coming into my house.

About a week later the guy neighbor came over (sorry, I never took the time to learn their names) and told us that he would rather we come to him if we have a problem, and not go to the landlord, or anyone else. That he was trying to quit smoking and that he would try to be respectful of the kids and not smoke on that side of the house. Not even two hours later he was smoking on that side of the house and continued to do so. He did a lot better before that conversation than after it... go figure.

Well our swamp cooler's fan was not working and so I called the landlord to tell her that it wasn't working and that I did not feel like I could open the window's because of the smoke that was coming into the house. She was so funny about it! She said, do you think he just forgot? like he was dropped on his head or something? Haha. I don't know what was said to him after that, but we have not had a problem since then with the smoke.

A couple of weeks ago, the girl neighbor's dad was outside (he is also a neighbor a few houses down on the other side of us.. joy) and was staring at Daniel as we walked from the car to the house. So Daniel just said “hey how's it going?” He responded with, “I hear you aren't minding your own business?” Daniel just smiled at him and said, “kind of like you right now?” Then the guy threatened to beat Daniel up and Blah Blah Blah... What a butthead.

So about a week ago, the lovely neighbors put up a trampoline. Now I don't have a problem with trampolines either, as long as they are in a back yard on your own property, but of course this was out on the lawn that we share and made our place look so trashy.

There were Dandelions all over the lawn, and my landlord had told me that the lawn would be fertilized so I wanted to let her know that it wasn't working. She called me back on Monday and told me that the fertilizer guy told her that he didn't dare fertilize because there was a big trampoline with a bunch of kids playing on it, so he did not dare use fertilizer on the lawn. She told me that the trampoline should be coming down the next day. Well, on Tuesday there was a For Rent sign out on the lovely neighbor's lawn.

I do not know what was said, or why they have decided to move... All I can say right now is Hallelujah!

My Car

Sad hu?

Daniel was driving me to an appointment with a school advisor. We were sitting at a dead stop at a red light at the intersection of 9400 South and 700 East. I was looking back toward Bella who, of course, was sitting in the back seat. Then a Jeep that had been lifted ran into the back of us, pretty hard as you can tell.

Since the jeep was lifted, it missed the bumper altogether and smashed in the trunk. The way I was sitting and the force of the impact really hurt my neck and I spent the next several hours getting to and being treated by a Chiropractor.

Because of the nature of the injury, I have to wait until he gets the x-rays back to have him adjust me.... Ah well, I suppose I will be feeling it when I get up tomorrow morning. Too bad it is going to be such a pain to get the car fixed... very grateful right now that it was not my fault!

As taken through the eyes of Chuck!

Daniel went with Charlene's school class on a field trip to Butterfield Farms today. He let her take a picture of him with his phone and he sent it to me. This is Daniel on the bus through the eyes of Chuck (Daniel's special name for her, I can just hear her now, saying "my name is NOT Chuck!"). I really wish I could have been there with her, but I am grateful that he was able to be there for her! Thank you Daniel!

A Day of Haircuts

So, I finally got tired of my children looking like they were orphans so we took Charlene to get her hair cut. Daniel got his hair cut as well but I did not take a picture... some opportunities just get overlooked (lol) and then Daniel cut Merlin's hair. As for Bella, well she still looks like an orphan on the days that Daniel does not do her hair.... Luckily her hair is so much fun to do, so she always looks cute!