Under Construction

We're in the process of updating our blog. We lost all the links to friends blogs, so if you feel yours should be on here, post a comment with your blog address. Don't be shy.

Also, if your blog is private and you'd like to invite us so that we can read it, ryanballen(at)gmail(dot)com & katiefallen(at)yahoo(dot)com. If you're reading ours, isn't it fair that we can read yours? :)

In other news, Carter has started trying to scoot around, Josh is trying to poop in the potty, and Katie is trying to keep from going crazy due to all the poop that doesn't end up in the potty.

Finally

Don't you just get the worst feeling towards the end of any vacation? Who really ever wants to go back to real life and everything that comes with it. It's so nice as an adult to go back and stay at your parents house, where the cooking & cleaning are all done for you. Not only that, but you have a default, handy babysitter for the kids when you have spur of the moment activities. I could never be a mother, they get no credit. Thanks Mom.

Well, now we're back from our extended trip from Utah, with lots of pictures to show for it. Let's goooooooooooo.

Let's start off with a couple dandies: Fake smiles all around. First Hayden on the left, then Josh on the right.



How about a trip to the coolest children's museum in all of Utah, the Treehouse:




What would a trip to Utah be without fireworks, right?



Hanging out with some old high school friends. Aaron & Heidi, Kayla & Brandon, and Christy (solo this time). Josh, Austin, Zack & Cole all enjoyed feeding the ducks & playing on the benches. At the end, Josh learned what it means to be a leader, and a man. Holding other dudes hands and showing them where to walk... He was actually too good of a leader, as you can see in the action shot, Austin is face-planting because Josh was pulling too fast.



Carter & Gavin were also good sports, giving us their best staredowns:

Lots of good times were had on our little trip back to Utah. One of the events that Katie was most excited about was the Top of Utah half-marathon. Somehow, I've no idea how, Katie was able to convince me that I could do it, and that it would be fun. In preparing for the race, I made a few goals for myself:

1 - Don't be a wimp. If you start the race, you finish the race.
2 - Let's be honest, if you're going to say you ran a half-marathon, don't you think you should actually run it? Otherwise you just finished a half-marathon.
3 - If you could run a mile in less than 5:30 in high school, shouldn't you be able to run at least a 9 minute/mile pace? Thus setting my finishing goal at under 2 hours.

The day before the race Katie approached me very politely, and asked me a question, obviously afraid of offending me. "Would you be mad if after the first half of the race I press on without you? I want to see how well I can do." To which I just laughed. I was getting ready to ask her the same question...

Well the morning of the race came, and the bus ride up to the starting line was waaaaaaay longer than I thought 13.1 miles would be. For goodness sake, it felt like it took us 45 minutes to DRIVE it. Doubt started creeping in, as did a little IBS. I had to make 3 bathroom trips in the hour prior to the race. TMI I know.

Before we knew it we were off and running. My first thoughts were a little rude. I mean honestly, who thought it would be a good idea to put 1,000 people at the FRONT of the pack who were WALKING after the first mile. It was madness trying to navigate around these people. If you know you run a 20 minute mile, let's start a little further back in the pack.

So Katie and I are cruising along, feeling good. Around mile 6 we each picked out a person that we wanted to beat. Around mile 7 our pace was not quite fast enough for us to keep up with the guy I selected, so I was forced to speed up, slowly leaving Katie and the target she was locked into. It was about that time that my competitiveness kicked in. "Heck," I said to myself, "I'm not letting anyone behind me beat me to the finish line." Easy to say at the halfway mark. Within a couple miles 2 50 year old women went cruising past me. Again I had to speed up a little to stay with them. I thought if I could stay within 50 yards of these out of control grandmas, I would be able to reel them in within the last mile. True enough, in the last half mile I passed grandma #1, and within the last 100 yards I passed grandma #2. However I did get overtaken by a teenage girl with about 20 yards to go. Big mistake on her part, as I had just enough in the tank to sprint past her 5 feet from the finish line!

I'm proud to say that I completed all of my goals. I finished the race, I ran the whole time, I did it under 2 hours (with an average time of 8:59/mile), and nobody passed me after the halfway mark.

Here's the proof. My cousin Kylee (who didn't train at all and ran it), Erika (who hardly trained and ran it), me (who half-way trained and ran it), & Katie (who trained the most and ran it. I think Katie could've completed another half marathon that night. The rest of us were dying).

Here are the Allen kids. Ashley, Nicole, Erika & Me. We'll never know how Ashley & Nicole would've done. They stopped around mile 10 to carry this kid to the finish line. I think he was faking it so that he could get Ashley's phone number. Why didn't I come up with something that clever in high school?!?

Livin' it up Utah style

The boys and I, minus Ryan, have been visiting with my family for the past week. We're out here in southern Utah for two weeks while Ryan studies, in New York, for the boards. This is the major test he takes in order to be a legitimate dentist. I don't know whose idea it was to have me fly cross country solo with two boys ages two and 4 months, but let me tell you, it was a bad one. Okay, so it was actually Ryan's idea. The flight was five hours long: the first hour went well, the middle three went bad, and the last hour went well compared to the middle three. Honestly, though, the boys did well all things considered. The nice guy who sat next to us kept telling me what a wonderful mom I was which made me feel better. It wasn't all bad, though....in mental preparation for, and as consolation after, the flight, I bought myself some nice running shorts.
This leads me to another bad idea...Ryan and I signed up to run the Top of Utah half marathon in Logan on the 29th of August. A lot of Ryan's family is running in it, so they convinced us to run it. Luckily I've had a great running partner here in Cedar: my brother Jeff. In fact, I convinced him to run the race as well. We've made it up to running nine miles (okay, so I've made it to nine miles. Jeff could do more, but he's nice and sticks with me) and on Saturday we're going to run 11 miles, so I'm hoping I won't die in the race. The verdict is still out on that one. But just to reiterate this fact--Jeff is a great running partner. He keeps me going, but he doesn't push me (very much appreciated), he pretends not to notice that I'm out of shape, and he's easy maintainance because he's in shape, unlike me.
Actually, he's also just a great brother. It's been fun hanging out with him this trip. He's been watching my kids (Josh has decided he likes Jeff more than me), and we've gotten to talk a lot and do a lot of things. He sure is a great kid.
Another shout out goes to my dad. He's watched the kids every time we've gone running. He's had to pull out all the stops to keep my boys entertained. No wonder they love their grandpa. And my mom--Josh has finally warmed up to her (he still remembers when she came to visit when Carter was born...she was nice and did the disciplining for me since I couldn't move much). But I tell you what, Carter took to her right off the bat! He saves his biggest smiles and coos for grandma, honestly. Now that Josh has gotten over his temper tantrum throwing transition to Utah time, he's having a blast. My parents have a yard, a sandbox, and a basement--things I really miss...things Josh will really miss here in a couple more weeks.
The one thing missing here, though, is daddy. Josh misses Ryan a lot. He talks to him on the phone every day, for as long as I'll let him. We'll be glad when we can trade in the phone for the real thing.

New Running Shoes

So a couple of months ago Katie got all excited about a race she wanted to run in Central Park. She spread the word around the ward, and got others excited. Promises were made, "I'll do it if Ian does it," I said, to which Ian replied "I'll do it if Charles does it," to which Charles replied... You get the idea. So with my guys backing me, I told Katie I would run in her 4 mile race. Perfect excuse for new shoes, right? So I ran a few times before the race to break them in and to get my fat butt into shape.

Race day comes, and what's this? Ian & Charles didn't register? What? I'm the only guy in our ward running it? Thanks a lot. In Charles' defense, he came and watched all the kids. Anyway, long story short, I totally amazed myself. I ran a 9 minute mile pace, and was not even tired after the race. Not the greatest time, but hey, it far exceeded my expectations. Katie finished a couple minutes after, followed shortly by Jamie & Rachel. All in all it was a good experience. We'll see if this continues. Katie told me that if I run a marathon before I graduate, she'll move to Germany with me. Hmmm.



In other news, Josh is a true New Yorker. I find the NY accent so difficult to imitate. He sure seems to do well with it. I'm truly amazed that he's picked it up. Where in the world would he hear it? None of his little friends have the accent, nor does anyone else that he spends 99% of his time with. Here's the proof:

Our little Carter is getting so big. I guess I should say he is still big. But he is such a sweet little guy. He's always happy, and is so much fun:

Josh loves his little brother and always wants to be with him. Likewise Carter loves Josh.

Modest is hottest

So this past week in Young Womens we had a chastity lesson. In the adult session of our stake conference, our stake president said that we aren't teaching our children enough about chastity and said because there's so much going on now in the world, that we need to have frank talks with our children about what is okay and what isn't. (Luckily we can wait for a while before having the talk with Josh). Anyway, this led to a lesson coming from the stake that we taught last week and today. Part of the lesson focused on modesty, so I had Ryan and my counselors' husbands come in to talk to the girls about what modesty means to a guy. I thought what Ryan said was really telling of what great girls he hung out with in high school. He told the young women that he didn't really hang out with immodest girls because all of his girl-friends (is that how you write non girlfriend girlfriends?) were modest. He said that because they were modest, he was able to get to know their personalities, like who they were as individuals (the guys were explaining that a lot of boys don't care about anything but looks and kissing in high school), and appreciate their intellect. He also said that he respected his friends because of their modesty. I can't repeat it like he said it, but it was neat to hear how important his girl-friends were to him and what a positive impact they made on his life. Thanks for your examples!

Late night picture of the new -do. See, Ryan respects me too because I throw random shirts over my shoulders to be modest. Besides the fact that it does wonders for my complexion.Carter pooped all over his one outfit at my friend Rachel's house, so he got to sport a lady's onesie for a while. He didn't seem to mind....although I have to admit, there's no way he could pass for a girl--he's too manly!My real-to-life photo shoot. Josh has entered the stage where nothing is safe from his curiosity. Today when he was supposed to be napping, I found his clothes all over his bed with him sitting in the top drawer of his dresser....