Crack is Whack

I have a training update: On Saturday we ran (jogged really) a whopping 10 miles, which is the farthest run I have ever done in my life. That puts my grand total for the past 4 weeks at 63 miles. And please don't take any of this as my bragging. This is completely and totally as motivation for me to keep truckin'. Even if the scale hasn't budged, I know I've accomplished something.

This leads into my realization that I haven't blogged in two whole weeks. Please forgive my absence. Last week I went on a work trip to St. Louis. I found the experience to be pretty positive, even though I was gone during the hectic week we had to be out of our rental house and officially moved into our new (and I can say OUR) home in Mt. Horeb, WI. We are now officially Mt. Horebites. And Wisconsonites, too, I suppose. Mt. Horeb is a cute little town that reminds me of the Logan, UT I used to go visit when I was younger. Before they had a Chilis or a Red Robin. And the house, which we will get pictures up sometime, reminds me of my grandma's house, in a good way. I want to redo the bathrooms, but I almost feel like ripping out the gold 70s linoleum would be betraying the very soul of this house. I'm sure I'll come to terms by the time we have money to renovate.

Back to St. Louis: don't go for a drive by yourself to see the arch at night because you're bored. I pulled into a gas station to get an energy drink and was told by a couple of people working there that I should probably leave the area soon and then on the way out to my car, a man approached me and offered me something in his hand. I looked at it and said, "I don't even know what that is." He said, "It's crack baby." I had never seen crack in my life before. It kind of looked like a dried up booger or dried glob of rubber cement. Anyway, I said, "No thank-you" and went back to the hotel.

I'm glad to be back. I finished my 6 month requirements and so will be getting my next pay bump and my first review. I am a little nervous for that because I still don't know the ropes, but we'll see how it goes. And mostly I'm glad to be back with my family. Matt has worked REALLY hard getting this house ready and still has lots of projects on his to-do list.

Ally is going through a fun mimicking phase. She is still a crazy, full of enery girl with 0% Stranger Anxiety. We went to a friend's house to watch the BYU foootball games yesterday. She was crawling all over this man (who was the father-in-law of one of the game-watchers visiting for the weekend, both of whom we had never met before)and bouncing on his stomach while he tried to watch the game. And she warmed up very nicely to a woman whose necklace she stole for the duration of the game. She likes to dance. She likes to sing made-up songs. She likes to help me put laundry into the hamper. And she likes to help me sweep.