Did you know she ran marathons?

For those of you who don't know this, Brent is training for a marathon. 26.2 blistering miles. In order to qualify to even run in the Boston marathon, you have to run this distance ridiculously fast, like in about 1/3 of the time it took me to run it in 2007. (I am and will always be proud of my 5 hour 51 minute time. That means I finished.)

But, Wow! Elaine Dalton qualified for Boston, huh? That's kind of cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIrGKB5nRKE

Bequest of wings

She ate and drank the precious words
Her spirit grew robust;
She knew no more that she was poor,
Nor that her frame was dust.
She danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book.
What liberty a loosened spirit brings!

-Emily Dickinson

Mega Post - The Last Month

We've had a full month, rather than post all the events individually, I thought I'd use this post to catch up with everything:
* I got really sick (the flu) for almost two weeks. Sick enough that I didn't even update the blog :( Although I wasn't able to run for that time, I was still able to stay on track with my running goals. I did an 18-mile run last week and a 20 mile run this past Thursday, so I should be on track for the Marathon on 19 September :) (also National Talk Like a Pirate Day).
* Nicole finished all her work for her Bachelor's Degree. She can be seen here celebrating with the steam cleaner she picked as a reward for finishing all her classes. I call this picture "dualing vacuums." (She also got a bread maker, but we don't have any pictures of that).
* We found some great deals for trips to Ireland and ended up getting tickets! We're going next April with my Mom and Nicole's best friend, Marie.
* Another product that Nicole just had to have is called the defurminator (yeah, I know). It actually did work as advertised, as seen in the picture below. All that white stuff on the lawn is just some of the fur that was defirminated off Gabe. As you can see, it's totals more mass then Teddy (the little dog). Nicole also got Gabe a shock collar on account of the police visit in the middle of the night, but that's another story.

* This month saw a lot of activity on various DYI and home improvement projects. We decided if we keep going to Home Depot, we'll need a bigger car; you can only fit so much into a Corolla. We'll post some before and after pictures later, but we've 1) had a new roof put on the garage 2) new window put in the living room and bedrooms 3) initial painting done in the future "super-office" 3) Nicole repaired the sprinklers and 4) the swamp cooler 5) We're planning a new granite counter-top for the bathroom 6) actually, that's it, but isn't that enough for one month?
* We have continued to eat. I've continued to cook and try and be creative. Here's "Love with a side of meatballs":

* Nicole's also regularly been attending a weekly seminar in Salt Lake.

* In the midst of the defending of the thesis and the finishing of degrees and working full time jobs and home projects and running and eating, we also took the chance to take a long weekend in Cedar. We went camping in the mountains and hiked the beautiful Zion's narrows. Here's the pictures:

Pretty beautiful, huh? We also finished reading a book together (it only took about 8 months) so it was a nice break.

*Oh and we bought a car:

We're thinking of names. Here are the top contenters, place your vote or suggest a new one: Magnum, Prometheus, Remington (Steele), Craigen.

So anyway, that's our been our month. Up next: I'll wrap up teaching the Gender class and start teaching History at UVU and some other class at BYU. Nicole starts a Leadership training seminar. We go to Canada, New York and Connecticut and register our new car. Oh and I might apply for an internship in Salt Lake.