I'm not dead, if that's what you're thinking

AND this is actually the 4th post I've written in the past four months, but I just thought they were all so boring so I never posted them. I know. Lame, right? Well I guess I'll post one of them for you, as it was the most comprehensive and you can decide for yourself.

Before that, I thought I would pick up where "something awesome" left of...the Top of Utah marathon. Yeah, it's this Saturday, and yes I'm still planning on running it. As you can see I have only run about half of the miles I was supposed to by this point, but I have done a couple of "long" runs (17 or 18 miles) and only one of them killed me. :D Getting that first one under my belt was an amazing psychological boost and I feel more confident than ever that I can finish a marathon! Four more days....

Anyway, here's that other post. It was aptly titled "you should blog about that"

I've heard that a lot lately. Must be because I have had a very eventful summer. Can I use this as an excuse for my absence in the blogging scene for the last three months?

Highlights since May include:

Wasatch Back Relay. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this race, teams of 12 relay 180 miles from Logan to Park City. Mike and I were part of a team put together by one of his coworkers called Command-R. It's a mac command that "runs" a program. So Command R=RUN, get it? Anyway, the race was a blast! Each person runs 3 legs of an average 5 miles each. I ran 17 miles total. My last leg--6 miles, slightly uphill most the way, at 1:30 in the afternoon which made it 95ish degrees, oh, and most significantly my third time running in about 18 hours--was by far the most difficult. Overall though, an experience I hope to have again in the future.

Kate's first birthday. We celebrated Kate's first birthday in June. We had a swimming party at my dad's house. I made her a "Woof" cake, which she picked at but never dug into. Kate loves swimming, and is not afraid of the water. I think it may be time to get her into swimming lessons. I think she would do quite well.

The whole week before Kate's birthday she was sick. When I took her to the doctor they said there were several stomach bugs going around and she most likely just had one of those and to keep her hydrated. Then the day after her birthday, she had her well child visit and got 4 vaccines. A couple of days after her party she started having a super high fever (104 degrees) so I took her to the doctor again (third time in a week) and because all her normal checks were fine with the exception of the fever and fussiness and lack of appetite, the doc decided to take some blood and urine samples. So within a 5 day period she got poked 7 times and had a nasty experience with a catheter. The urine test showed she had a bladder infection and she needed further testing to determine the cause. Poor girl. Seriously no fun for anyone.

Following the latter tests we found out that she has a grade 3 reflux, which is where the urine backs up into her kidney on one side. It may not be serious enough for surgery, and in most cases corrects itself by the time they reach age 5. But as is, we have to see a pediatric urologist and most likely have her checked out yearly for changes. Sure explains her uncharacteristically bad mood for almost the entire month of June.

School. Yuck. Summer school is never fun, but this semester seemed especially burdensome. Mike and I finally took a class together and it was a bit of a beast. Not looking forward to starting again in a couple of weeks.

Fourth of July. Due to a massive load of homework, we didn't celebrate all too heartily. The highlight for me was a run I took that night right at dusk. I got to see a couple of firework finales from a few nearby cities and ran past several neighborhood celebrations. When I was telling Mike how much fun it was, he said, "sounds like the Sandlot." Yes, very much so.

This is boring...I'm outta here.