THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!

I can't imagine a better Christmas. It was filled with tons of family and friends. Our annual Heck women's Christmas party was bigger than ever with over 30 of us attending. My mom's family even had a great surprise when my uncle who lives in Alaska showed up unexpectedly at our Christmas party - there were lots of tears and smiles- a moment I'll treasure forever. And of course one of my favorite Christmas traditions - Grandma Heck's breakfast.

However this Christmas was extra special because it was my first Christmas with Adam - my future eternal companion. Since many people reading this blog don't know our story, I'm gonna share some highlights of our first few months together:


How We Met

In the summer of 2007, they "invited" those of us who weren't students to leave the Boise Idaho University Stake... so my roommates and I obeyed and began attending the Boise Idaho 7th Ward. It was a very small (OK small can't even begin to describe it!) but the Bishopric was awesome (I actually work with the Bishop) and we were all given great opportunities to serve. That's where Adam and I first met. However neither of us were interested initially. We both had interest elsewhere and it took a few months for things to properly align before we made it to our first date.

Our First Date
Actually we probably need more of a background leading up to the first date. It seems both of us have differing stories on who liked who first. I am convinced Adam was interested in me first and he thinks the opposite. I guess it doesn't really matter now, because since we both thought the other was interested I guess it made us interested ourselves. So that's how our first date came to be, Adam thought I liked him and after "Operation Pumpkin" (see posting in October) he decided he was right and that he better take me out. Good thing he did!

So on October 19th we had our first date. We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse where we waited for a table for over an hour - if Adam hadn't had a gift certificate I am sure we would have left. Afterwards he suggested we go Salsa dancing. We had a good time - well most of the time was a good time. Adam was a great dancer, but wasn't the best "protector". I got hit on by this short girl. She kept trying to get me on the floor and all but dragged me out there. I kept turning around to look at Adam with a look of "PLEASE SAVE ME" but all he did was laugh! I can't believe I even gave him a second chance after that one. Adam actually knew what he was doing on the dance floor and we had a lot of fun - even when his watch got tangled up in my hair and I almost finished the night off bald! We had some great laughs on that date.

The Proposal

Everyone always wants to know "how did he propose?" Well, it just kinda happened. We were just talking and basically decided we wanted to get married and he said "well I guess I should ask you then?" and I responded "probably" (not thinking he meant right then) and he said "I know this isn't romantic or anything, but will you marry me?" I of course said yes! The next step was picking out the ring, and we thought maybe he could surprise me then and ask me. Well, that didn't work so well either. Adam ordered the ring on the Internet and it happened to show up while we were in Oregon for Christmas. When we got back, Adam walked inside first, saw the package and put his computer on top so I wouldn't see it. Dan, Adam's roommate didn't know what was going on and later said, "hey yeah, I saw your 'terrorist' package came in" (it had shipped from the middle east). Well, I whipped around and looked obviously excited. So Adam made me wait a whole 15 minutes before he gave in and gave it to me. And here it is! I LOVE it!

Nutcracker

Ever since I've moved to Boise I have wanted to go to the Nutcracker and finally this year I made it!

If you haven't ever been to a ballet or seen the Nutcracker, I highly recommend it, it was a great way to bring in the holidays. The music is great and there is some incredible dancing!

It was the first time that Mary, Adam or I had ever been to the ballet so that made it extra special and fun!

Turkey Trot- Gobble Gobble!

The Turkey Trot is soooooooo fun! Its not your typical race where the winner is the first to cross the finish line. Its a 4 person relay team where the winner is the team who comes closest to their overall predicted time. Each person runs 2 miles and there are no watches or timers allowed on the course or by spectators.

This year our team was Emily, Mary, Dan and myself. It was pretty chilly that day but the rain mostly stayed away so it wasn't too bad. We didn't even come close to winning, but we had fun!

Oh and the best part our team name "One of us has a crush on Tom Brady" - can you guess which one??

Broncos vs. Aggies - Should this even be allowed?

OK, so going into this game I had no doubt that BSU would win, and although they are also my Alma mater, I had to stick with my first and foremost and don the USU gear. I had every hope that USU would make some kind of a showing - after all, when we were there two years ago it wasn't horrible, and although USU hadn't won a game all year, they had come close several times.

Well I was wrong... USU got slaughtered! It was disgusting. Well at least the weather was good! Especially for Logan in November!

Zeitgeist!

I know what you are thinking - what the heck is Zeitgeist? Well first of all let me give you a pronunciation guide its said Zeit - like Z-ite (as in kite)-guy-st. Wikipedia says "Zeitgeist- is originally a German expression that means "the spirit of the age", literally translated as "time (Zeit) spirit (Geist)".

What does Zeitgeist mean to me? Well its 13.1 miles of craziness including two hills with total elevation change of 1,180 ft. Why do I do it? I don't even know. But it was the 2nd year in a row so I must like it I guess!

This year was really fun because I had a great group of friends run it with me, which included one of my favorite old roommates Sara who came down from UofI to run it with me. Sara actually did awesome and finished 3rd in our age group. As for me? Well unfortunately I was sick all week and didn't run and admittedly really had no business being out there - but I beat my time from last year and crossed that line!

Resourcesfullness!

Forget hints from Heloise, bring on super duper useful hints from Abbey! OK, so it might not be so useful to most people, because lets face it, most of you probably have a decent vacuum. And those of you who don't probably at least have good carpet. Well, unfortunately we have neither. So what happens on a Friday night when your trying to clean and you can't get these stupid green fibers left over from your roommates Halloween costumes off the floor? You say to your roommate "Hey Mary, do you think if I put duct tape on my feet and stomped around it would come up" "Yeah probably, " she says. So I think about it some more and finally decide to give it a shot. So here are my handy dandy instructions for removing crappy fibers that are ground into crappy carpet:



Step 1: Wrap your foot in tape. OK, so I was hoping for duct tape, but I had to resort to whatever I could find. Oh and make sure you have scissors in hand.









Step 2: Stomp all over the floor. Hint -Stay on your tiptoes where there isn't stuff you want to pick up.












Step 3: Check out all the stuff you've picked up! If the tape starts not to stick anymore, start over at Step 1.

Halloween!

Well I must admit that I don't generally get too excited about dressing up for Halloween. I guess I have a fear of looking foolish. However, this year it looked like I didn't have much of a choice. For some reason there seemed to be an extra abundant supply of activities and parties where dressing up was required. But still, with my general hesitation to dress up, its no wonder it took me up until the day before to figure out what I was going to do.

So it wasn't too original, but I figured I would just use what I got and that's how I ended up a disco star. Yeah, turns out my hair can actually make a pretty decent afro with enough gel, hairspray, some serious blow drying and some treacherous teasing. Normally I don't have a tender head, but let me tell you trying to pick that mess out was brutal! I was somewhat worried about the hair because the whole outfit kinda depended on it, but it worked out great don't ya think!

Anyway, I also took some old cords from the DI and added some "vents" to them and used the extra fabric for a headband. My roommate Jordan did my makeup and with some jewelry the outfit was complete! It was actually a lot of fun - but I think I'll stick to my normal everyday hair from now on.

OPERATION PUMPKIN

So my cute roommate, Mary, has pumpkin decorations all over the house... 14 of them to be exact. They are the cute type of Halloween decorations, not the scary ones, and they make our apartment look pretty festive. Well, a few weeks ago our friend Adam was over and he made some comments about our pumpkins, although he insisted he wasn't making fun of them. The next week he was back and this time he walks in and the first thing he says is "Oh, lets count how many pumpkins there are!" (That's how I know there are 14, and lets be honest some of them are collages of pumpkins and they are all small so its not like a pumpkin patch in our apartment.)

Well, so having a slightly devious mind, I start to vision putting pumpkins all over his house. The next day as we were driving over there to watch the football game, I tell Mary "I wish we knew where his outlet switch was outside because it would be funny to hang up pumpkin lights". Well we walk up to the house, and there in plain sight is the outlet! SCORE!

So all week I search and search for pumpkin lights and we end up with a nice stash of goods; pumpkin lights on a string, one that hangs on the window, some real mini-pumpkins, and some little pumpkin candy holders - a total of 20 pumpkins in all.

Tonight was the night.. Operation Pumpkin! We knew Adam and his roommate, Dan, would be playing basketball and it was our perfect opening. So off we went! From the pictures you can't really tell how many pumpkins are there, but its pretty cute. And now we wait to hear the reaction.... I can't wait!

Orthotics

For some reason that seems to make me think of old people... yet today, I was fitted for orthotics. Yes I laid on a doctors table while he made a plaster cast of my feet so that I could turn over $380 for some insoles that are supposed to make me run better. OK well let me back up, why do I even need orthotics? Well one of the after effects of running a marathon, for me, was shooting pains in my right foot. The pains came and went and some days I could run fine, but the next day I would hobble around. So I broke down and went to the foot doctor. The result? He tells me I have high arches. Duh. I could have told you that. You might think by looking at the picture of my calves that I lift weights, but that would be untrue. I was gifted with high arches and the consequence? Huge, tight calves that I want to shoot off after just about every run I go on! Now I should say that all this running definitely helped define my calves and they weren't like that before running. And don't get me wrong, I have grown to love them - except when I can't find hooker boots to fit and my jeans won't pull on cause they won't go over my calves. Other than that its great getting referred to as calf girl. A friend (male) was even over a couple of weeks ago and we had to measure to see who's was biggest. I won by 1/2 an inch (ps he is a rugby dude, biker, pretty decently fit guy).

So what happens now? I get orthotics. Will my calves shrink? Probably. So I take a picture and say goodbye (hey a girls gotta have proof so one day when my teenage sons start thinking they are all that I can show them the picture and say, "oh yeah, well back in the day your mom had 17 1/2 inch calves!"

So my adventure of letting my body "learn" how to walk or whatever will begin in a few weeks. I'll keep ya updated.....

I used to wonder if I was crazy.... Now i KNOW I am!

One bleak December I came home with an idea which I proposed to Emily.... "Hey," I said, "I found us a marathon to run!" Now neither of us had run a marathon and Emily had never even run a half. But for some reason that day I was feeling, well, adventureou. Really, I was just putting the thought out there just to think about. Since then I have learned better... Never, ever make a suggestion like that to Emily unless you are serious! Less than 5 minutes after my original remark, Emily had made me "poundsies" on it... I was stuck. No way out! We trained for the Race to Robie Creek all winter, and exactly 1 week later, Top of Utah traning began!

My summer went like this, Monday- run, Tuesday-run, Wednesday - run, Thursday - nope no running.... but 3 hours of Softball.... Friday - run, and you guessed it Saturday - run! Conversations thru the summer included, "how was your run?", "Shoot me in the Calve", "I only have to run 12 miles this Saturday" (are you kidding me, I actually said ONLY 12 miles?), "I hate fartleks" (yes thats a word..... swedish for speedplay), "I'm a mess".

My atire... well... ummm. Let me tell you NO cotton was allowed and ummm, tank tops and short shorts were my best friends! I'm a little scandelous when I run. Oh yeah, and I have 4 pairs of Asics in my closet, that well look basically.

What did I eat? Well, I ate MOSTLY healthy. OK, so I shoud say I ate all my required fruits, veggies and drank all my water... but well. We have a little tradition, OK, more like insatiable craving, for greasy burgers after our long runs and oh yeah, Scotch and Sodas (not the alcoholic kind). Don't worry I didn't lose any weight in all this running. In fact I gained no less than 5 pounds in the last month of training... Another side effect- my pants don't fit. My calves and thighs won't squeeze into them anymore... I had no idea calves could get so big! My hooker boots better still fit....

Anyway, so the weekend came... we travled down to Logan UT on a Friday afternoon. By we I mean Emily, Mary (our official race mom) and myself. Our first stop was to pick up the race packets. At this point I am getting a little nervous, ok maybe a lot. At the "Expo" I found the coolest wood plaque with three hooks on it, it said "Marathon: Run Hard, Be Strong, Think Big" The problem was the board had 3 hooks... yeah, so that means I have to run 3 marathons? What the heck I said, and bought it anyway.

Very soon after we took off to find our resturuant to carb-load. Let me just tell, eating a lot can be fun, but trying to stuff your face with carbs for 2 straight days, is well not the most pleasant feeling! So we ate, and ate, and ate.. and then sat in our hotel room while Mary and her sister ran off to get Aggie Ice cream with out us. How fair is that? But I had sworn off of sugar in anticipation of the race. OK so before you go thinking that was a major feet - let me say I swore off of it for the last 4 days leading up to the race!

Logically, we would want to get lots of sleep the night before right? Well no luck, Emily's brother, cousin and their roommate show up at our Hotel at midnight. They hadn't planned ahead on where to stay and all 6 of us ended up sharing. Ughhh... The one amazing thing - not one person snored all night - well all 4 hours of it!

4:15 am. The alarms go off. We struggle out of bed. I try to cram a bagel down my throat - I only make it halfway. Mary drives all 6 of us to the race start. We get all set and climb onto the buses that will take us up the canyon. We make it up there at 6:40 ish and jump in the port-a-potty lines then literally run to the last bus transporting warm-up clothing back to the start. its about 40 degrees at the race start.

7:00 - gun goes off and I literally jump - it was scary! We take off down the canyon! What the h**** am I doing!

Mile 2, I begin dedicating my miles to people who have influeced me, past and present roommates, family, friends, teachers... etc.
Mile 6 - I think wow, now only 20 miles left! Thats the farthest I ran and that was on fresh legs!
Mile 7 - Must stop at the port a potty!
Mile 10 - I know what to do with those other two hooks - forget the getting 2 more medals, I am hanging pictures on them!
Mile 13 - halfway. This feels good. My pace is good. I might hit my goal time.
Mile 14 - Bathroom stop again!
Mile 17 - Oh there is Mary yeah! Fresh Powerbar Gels! I still feel good, my pace is good.
Mile 18 - The wall. Yes it exist. My pace drops by 3 minutes per mile instantly... I'm becoming delirious. I can't remember who I have dedicated my miles to!
Mile 20 - a 10K left are you kidding?
Mile 23 - ummm.... have to add in some walk breaks
Mile 24 - now I am really delirious
Mile 26 - OK at least finish strong. Didn't hit my absolute goal time, but I'll hit about what I thought!
Mile 26.2 - Its over! Get me some water!

Wow - what a feeling! But, not one to be repeated in the near future!