Our Wild Weekend

Fall time is such a busy time - back to school, cross-country, etc. So we decided to make an already busy time, busier. Haha. The second-to-last weekend in October, Ben had his Army Drill weekend in Utah, Emmy had her regional cross-country meet 4 hours east of us, there was a home BYU football game, and we had a niece getting married. So we decided to mash them all together and create a wild weekend!

I drove out Thursday to Emmy's regional meet in Pueblo. I had good timing. . . The team had left the day before. They stayed at a hotel in Canon City - about 45 minutes from Pueblo. About 20 minutes before I came into Canon City, I got a call from one of Emmy's teammates. Turns out Elijah, the lone senior boy and the fastest runner on the team, had left his running shoes at the hotel. I was able to stop off on my way and pick up his shoes. Perfect. :)

It was a hot afternoon and by the time our girls were up for their race, it was about 83 degrees. Emmy does not run well in the heat and she probably had like her worst run of the season - of her 2-year cross-country career?! I mean, she's had a few slower times this year, but those were on hilly, mountain trails. She ran this race a good 2 1/2 minutes slower than last year. So weird. She was of course bummed. But one interesting thing: Annabelle and Emmy are usually within 15 seconds of each other, with one and sometimes the other coming in first. Emmy beat Annabelle (which always makes her happy - even though she and Annabelle are cross-country besties) - so Annabelle likewise had a weirdly slow run, too. The other girls on the team were just slightly slower than their norm - certainly not 2 1/2 minutes. Emmy had been nursing an injured knee for 10 days and hadn't run as much - maybe that was the reason? Who knows. Emmy still had fun, though, at the hotel, hanging out, going to dinner, lounging in the hot tub, etc.

Emmy at Regionals. Regionals is significant because the top 15 finishers qualify individually for state and the top 4 teams qualify as well. So it's a big deal.

Regional runners and coaches.

Emmy and her cross-country bestie, Annabelle.

The cute Montrose XC girls.

After the race, I enjoyed a nice walk along the riverwalk path in Canon City. It was pretty! But slightly disturbing as just across the street was the State Prison, haha.

I stayed in the same hotel that night so I could get up early and drive Emmy home. The team was going to be leaving later and Emmy and I needed to get home by 12:00 so we could grab Lucy and head for Utah. Ben had left for Utah on Thursday night and actually stayed the weekend at the hotel with his parents - who had come out for Emma's (our niece, their granddaughter) wedding.

We had a good drive home and grabbed Lucy and then made our way to the Provo City Center Temple. We girls did baptisms and it was nice to be in that beautiful temple. 

After that, we got our first-ever In-and-Out burgers and then made our way to Emma's reception in Payson. It was such a lovely venue and was fun to see family - Emma and her family of course, Jim and Diana, a few other nieces (Claire and Melanie), a cousin, and an aunt. Emma, and apparently all of her siblings, love to dance and they sure got down there! It was fun watching them and Levi, a second-cousin or something, finally got Lucy and Emmy to join in.

I didn't take any photos at the reception, but here is a picture of the gorgeous bride Emma and her handsome groom Nate.

On Saturday, Ben was back to his army gig. The girls and I had a good day in the Midway area. I loved my morning run. Those runs ALWAYS make me want to live there. I took the girls to get their hair trimmed, we did some second-hand shopping and all scored a few items, and I took them to Quench It to be a typical Utah person, ha. We headed down to Provo later in the afternoon and watched the football game that started at 5.

Ben got off a bit later than hoped, but was able to catch most of the last half of the game. Unfortunately, it was a less-than-exciting second half. The first half BYU looked decent and scored 24 points. The second half, BYU looked bad and scored only 3 points. Sad for Ben, but it was still fun just being there!

On Sunday Ben was again back to the army. We girls went to my parents' ward and were lucky to have President Oaks surprise everyone with a visit! It was awesome; he is awesome. :) The speakers that day did a fantastic job and so it was already a great meeting. Then President Oaks got up and spoke for just about 5 minutes - all that was left, really. I thought it was cool he didn't go over . . . He then visited the various classes during the second hour. He went into the Young Women's room and so he was up-close and personal for my girls - how special! Anyways, it was pretty cool.

Then we ate a delicious meal made by my mom and then made our way home. I let Emmy drive all the way from Wellington to Grand Junction, which included driving on I-70 going 80 mph. I hated it; it's just stressful. (I don't even like driving with Miles still. . . He's totally a fine driver, but he's just a kid . . .) Emmy did just fine, though.

In the end, from my Thursday morning heading out to Pueblo, to Sunday night arriving back home in Montrose - I had put on around 1,200 miles on my car. All worth it, though!