Bitter Sweet

The third week in October is always kind of crazy at our house. I guess technically, the second and third week are... You may ask why, but if you know Brett or the Petersen family, you know it's gotta be because of the deer hunt. The Petersen family has a tradition of camping up Franklin Basin for the entire week of deer camp. They don't do the camp trailers (well most of them don't) they have two big wall tents that get set up, the sleeping tent and the cook tent. The sleeping tent does have a furnace inside so it stays very warm all night. Along with these two tents they have a poop tent for the bathroom, and a regular camping tent hosting the shower. They have it made. I'd say that it's a more luxurious way of camping but it's dang fun to be up there. Every meal is cooked to perfection, but dinners are always a special occasion. Most nights there are few of the woman and children that head up to deer camp for a night out in the woods and some great dinner. This year was no exception. There were lots of people up there every day and as always a great time was had by all.
Brett was able to get far enough ahead on his homework that he was able to take almost the entire week off. He headed up Tuesday and didn't come home until Saturday. Unfortunately, I had to stay home and go to school but I did manage to make it up there for Tuesday night, stayed until late morning on Wednesday and then headed up again Thursday night and stayed until Friday night. I told Brett this year that I would shoot a deer if we saw one so we headed out Friday morning to find me one to shoot. We saw about 10 deer but all of them were either does or fawns. Dang it! There's always next year, right?!?
Natalie brought Garrett up on Thursday night and the boy was in heaven the entire night! He got to ride the horse with Brett (notice in the picture he's got the reins in his hands and is ready to be top by himself) and he was enthralled with the fire. He came running over to the fire and then just stood there and stared, didn't move, I'm not sure the kid even blinked for about 5 minutes. He was even drooling quite a bit because he was forgetting to swallow. He loved the fire and found sticks on the ground to throw into it. He also loved poking the fire with a stick. I'm afraid we have a future pyro on our hands. The Maynards weren't able to make it up this year and they were really missed. It's now a bitter sweet time because the hunt is over and we can get back to normal life but the fact that we have to get back to normal life is kind of depressing at times and the deer hunt is a whole year away! Here's a few pictures of the hunt:

Garrett and Brett
Ride Cowboy, Ride!

Jan on her very first horse ride ever! This was also her first time at camp in about 30 years! Her presence will have to become more regular at deer camp.

Notice the stick in Garrett's hand and where he is headed...

Watching the stick burn

Garrett, his poking stick, and the fire

Las Vegas Ragnar 2009

This past weekend I ran a Ragnar relay race in Nevada. I was on a team that consisted of 12 people and between us all we ran 171 miles in about 27 hours. The 171 miles is split between the 12 of us, so the run is comprised of 36 legs all together. The race started in Logandale, a town just outside the Valley of Fire State Park and ended just outside of Las Vegas at the Red Cliffs Casino and Hotel. The entire team was in 2 seperate vans (6 people in each). I was in Van 1 so the people in my van would all run their legs and then the next van would run their 6 legs while we tried to rest and then we'd start the process all over. The Ragnar Relay moto is Run. Drive. Sleep? Repeat. Quite fitting for exactly what we did. This Ragnar Relay is just like the Wasatch Back that goes from Logan to Park City that is 187.9 miles. My team was my sister-in-law Emily, a lady from Emily's ward (Lori), Emily's friend (Kara), Karli Anderson, and my brother-in-laws little sister Mallory. The other van was full of Mallory's friends, unfortanatley from BYU but they were awesome so I guess I was ok with them being on our team... We had a blast staying up, cheering each other on, and just being silly. A few highlights from the trip:
-Mallory "thrusting" her way to Vegas - Mallory would get out of the car and say while thrusting her hips "Don't think of the pain. Just think of this...!"
- Mallory also drank an energy drink that didn't sit well with her stomach so a few of the stops consisted of Mallory trying to find cover behind the tiny sagebrush with a pack a wipes trying not to "explode" all over. - Kara was dicussing the type of underwear she wears when she runs and said, "I have plenty of regular undies. Scott likes me to put it on before we, ya know..."
- Back in St. George after the race, Emily was driving to Target and was delirious and made about 5 wrong turns just trying to get into the parking lot of Target. Then once we got in the store we walked around trying to find the customer service desk, which we passed just as we came through the first door.
- It was Lori's birthday on Saturday so while she was in the shower we thought we'd run to the store and buy some cupcakes to surprise her with. We didn't want to make it obvious that we had gone to the store just for that so we left them in the car until we went to pick up our take out order from the Pizza Factory. When we got back from picking up the pizzas our hands were full and couldn't take the cupcakes in. After we finished eating we got busy getting ready for bed and completely forgot about the cupcakes! So the big surprise was pointless and she didn't even get the cupcakes until the next morning.
-Saturday night, with all of us in our delirious states we were looking at pictures from the race and everyone's faces in the pictures. We were dying with laughter, especially thanks to Kara for all of the goofy faces she was pulling. :) Emily was laughing so hard she went to get off of the bed and fell off. Wow.... I don't think I can even explain our delirium....
- And probably the ultimate memory from the trip was getting not one but TWO flat tires! We got a flat tire on the second leg of the run while Karli was running. Luckily, another team (hell on heels) stopped to help us out. It was going to take a while so they helped to shuffle our runners back and forth until the tire was fixed. We couldn't find all the tools that we needed so we had to ask the neighbors for tools. They provided us with a floor jack, a sleg hammer, and crowbar. Once we got the car jacked up and the lug nuts off the tire was rusted to the axle and we could not get the tire off. The neighbors were so nice to help us out. We just so grateful it happened when it did or things would have been a lot worse! Then just as the second van was finishing their first legs they got a flat tire. We had to help shuffle a their last runner back to their car and then get to the finish line before Mallory did so our runner would be there. I think we were the only team to get a flat tire and BOTH of our vehicles got one.
***The sadest part about the entire race was at about 4:35 am Saturday morning. A 35 year old father of two from one of the teams was standing on the side of the road waiting for the runner from his team to met him so that he could cheer him on and give him water. While he was standing on side of the road a drunk driver lost control of his car and hit him. The car continued to skid, going over the center median, and overturning in the desert. The driver managed to get out of his car and run about a half of a mile before the police caught him. The father, who was running the race with his wife was killed on impact. A few of the teams tried to revive him before the ambulance got there but they were never able to. Luckily, we did not see the event take place but we heard about it. My heart breaks for this young family. I can't even imagine how hard things must be for them right now. You can click here to read more about the accident. On a much happier note, here are some of the pictures from the race:

Runner 1: Mallory Phillips

Runner 2: Karli Anderson

Runner 3: Emily Maynard

Runner 4: me

Runner 5: Kara Jorgensen

Runner 6: Lori Meeker

Cooling Lori off... It was HOT!

Flat Tire #1

Mallory's Hip thrust position

I'm not sure what i'm doing in this picture but the runners that ran by me an Mallory making fools of ourselves in the middle of the night seemed to enjoy our stupidity...

Van 1 Photos

The whole gang at the finish line