Family Fun

Last weekend we were able to spend the last weekend in Parowan with my family - and all of us were there. It's still a little weird to me that we are all grown up and it takes concerted effort to get us all home at the same time. One thing on the top of the agenda was to take family pictures - now that Andre is a permanent addition. We drove up through Brian Head and over to Cedar Breaks to do so, making various stops along the way. It was surprisingly warm and everything was blanketed in a foot or two of snow. 

Ameya learned very quickly that she is not too fond of snow as deep as she is tall, although she did seem to enjoy it in the beginning.

I honestly don't know if I had ever seen a snowy Cedar Breaks before - it's quite striking.

Much to Brittani's dismay, all of the boys walked out to the very edge causing her a little newlywed panic. As a side note, Hunter slipped in the mud when he first started (making a mess of his belt, pants, jacket, and gloves) which caused me to panic a little as well.

More snowy baby dog...

She was definitely over it by this point.

Of course Kenny had to take advantage of this awesome tree chair.

Then for the individual(ish) pictures...

Beachy Days and 26.2

I'm a little slow catching up with it all, but here is some more from Hawaii! Here's to wishing we were still loving the warm, clear weather in Hawaii rather than this nasty 20 degree high inversion we are experiencing in Draper. This post is to warmer days. 

We had one day devoted to the beach. On our way out, we stopped at a Buddhist Temple that was really close to where we were staying. 

It was pretty fascinating and felt like we had been teleported to Japan. 

Do you see the perfectly maintained rock garden? Wow.

North Shore in December = HUGE waves, just in case you were wondering. It is a workout just playing in them for a while. Big waves are my favorite kind to play in. We were smart though and learned to surf in Waikiki with much calmer waves. 

 I don't think you can really say you've been to Oahu without hitting up Matsumoto's for some shaved ice. 

...or the Shrimp Shack for shrimp of course. Best food of the whole trip - and I don't even like shrimp normally so that's saying something.

Our final day in Hawaii started with the whole reason we went in the first place - so Hunter could run in the Honolulu Marathon. All of Oahu was invaded with people there so they could participate. All in all, there were 31,000 participants. We got to meet and talk with quite a few others. The ones we talked to the most were Benji and Amie Durden. Turns out Benji is a marathon legend taking 3rd in the Boston Marathon in 2 hours and 9 minutes at his peak. What?!? Small world it is, they know Hunter's Cross Country Coaches and are good friends with them. Even crazier - Benji finished this marathon in 3:46:14. Making him 792/31,089 - placing right after Hunter.

Here are Hunter's stats:

Time: 3:46:11

Overall: 791/31,089

Gender: 688/10,830

Age Group: 86/1,077

Pretty impressive for his first go at it, no?

Don't worry, the frisbee made it too. haha. 

We finished the day off with the swap meet at Aloha Stadium (where I got these glasses - here's to hoping they last for a while) and bumming it at the beach. 

We were so sad to come home. It was a quick but awesome trip. One we will definitely be repeating - with or without marathon involvement.