Salt Lake City Half Marathon

This was not the best Winter to train for a Spring race. The entire month of Jan and into Feb was single digits and even negative temps. I really wanted a sub 2-hour half, but it was so hard to train. I love to run but I was getting so sick and tired of the cold. March was decent weather and I trained really hard. I started to get excited and was pumping myself up for a great race. 

Then this happen

I was at work when my Mom sent me a text: A bomb went off at the Boston Marathon. My heart sank and I felt sick, I had friends and coworkers running. Fortunately everyone I knew was safe. After work Nick and I talked about it a lot, I told him I didn't want him to come, I didn't want him to be at the finish line. Nick told me that we couldn't live our lives in fear and that he would freak out if he was at home and something happened. We were not going to let the actions of evil men rule our lives. 

Friday my sister and I rode the train up to SL Nick met us up there after work. We carb-ed it up at the Cheesecake Factory.

We signed the banner at the race expo

We wore blue and yellow ribbons on our racing bibs (the colors of the Boston Marathon). Sat morning they had a moment of silence and then played Sweet Caroline at the starting line. There was a ton a of security, at one of the tracks station we all had to get off and a bomb sniffing dog went through the train before we could get back on. There was more than usual police officers along the race course and there was a police helicopter following us the entire route. 

About half a mile into the race it started to rain, and it rained the ENTIRE 13 miles. It was cold, it was freezing, it was pouring rain, it was miserable. 

Mile 10 soaking wet and freezing cold and we still managed a smile.

Mile 11 I was hurting, the cold was making my muscles cramp and my shoes and jacket were heavy from being soaking wet but I kept going. WE FINISHED!! do you see all the ginormous puddles? 

We look like crap

I didn't make my goal but I did set a new PR 2:02:07

Cousins of the Year!! 

They drove up and cheered us on in the freezing rain

My sister has the BEST co-workers!

Husband of the Year goes to this guy. He ran almost 3 miles from the hotel to the finish line to make sure he was there to support me. 

House Hunters

In January we decided to start house hunting. There was so much about the process that we didn't know and it was so intimidating. I found a loan officer (who happens to be in the High Priest Group with my Dad) and we started the pre-approval process. I was thrilled to find out that we defiantly qualified for a loan (we both have "excellent" credit) and interest rates were the lowest they've been in decades. Our realtor was recomended to us by a co-worker and she was wonderful. *side note: Nick and I being on the same page and having the same taste made the process ONE MILLION times easier*
In Feb we found a house that we absolutely loved. It was in a great location and the builder did an amazing job (with Nick working construction and doing finish work for 10 years, he was SUPER picky) and the best part was that the house was listed in our price range!! We meet with the builder, looked at the floor plan, started going through the process. Turns out the house we walked through and the house that was listed (that was within our price range) was 2 different houses AND the lot we wanted cost more AND the price of lumbar and concrete had gone up. SO now the house we loved kept going up in price. We kept readjusting the numbers to see if we could make it work. We decided to go ahead and go into contract (so so stressful) our realtor came back and told us the price of the house had gone up even more. We were now $35,000 over budget! I was sick, that was way above what we were comfortable with so we said no and walked away. I was devastated and cried for 2 days, house hunting is such an emotional process. CURSE YOU HGTV FOR MAKING IT LOOK SO CAREFREE AND FUN!
Our amazing realtor, Nancy, told us not to get discouraged and to keep on looking. It obviously wasn't meant to be so back to square one.
One Sat morning in March I happen to get online and look for any new listings. I found this super cute house, Nick and I really liked all the pictures and it was listed in our price range. I called Nancy to look into it. The house was just put on the market the day before and they wanted 24 hours notice to show the house so we planned on seeing it Monday. She called me back 20 min later and told me there were already multiple offers on the house and if we wanted to see it we had to see it now! We rushed over to Lehi walked through the house, loved the house and decided to put an offer in. We offered their asking price and said if it's meant to be it's meant to be. We didn't feel as stressed this time around, actually we both felt pretty peaceful about it. Monday night Nancy called and told us they accepted our offer! There were 5 offers on the house and we weren't even the highest offer but the seller felt like they should pick us. Obviously it was meant to be and this is where the Lord wants us.  We had just bought a house!!
We'll close on this Friday (April 26) and we'll be able to move in middle of May.

It has been a loooooong process. I've never signed so many papers in my life! You don't have to sign this much for open heart surgery!  I'll defiantly post more pictures (this is the only picture I have) I've only been through this house once and that was 6 weeks ago! We'll both be so happy once it's finally done and we finally get to move in.