SANTA RUN!

Some days you just need to dress up in a santa suit and run a 5k! ...or at least jog/walk a 5k while stopping often to take fun pictures and eat cookies and milk at every aid station...

Shout out to Tracy for the sweet pics! And shout out to Steph for coming in 5th place overall!! That's right, she is L-E-G-I-T.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

randoms

(1) I PASSED MY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM!!! basically this means my coursework is complete and i am officially a PhD candidate! sounds official eh? so now i only have my dissertation left to complete. psh that will be cake ;) currently, writing this paper takes up most of my day...

“MOLECULAR DETAILS OF MEMBRANE FLUIDITY CHANGES DURING APOPTOSIS AND RELATIONSHIP TO PHOSPHOLIPASE A₂ ACTIVITY”

Gibbons E, Pickett KG, Streeter MC, Warcup AO, Nelson J, Judd AM, Bell JD

(2) with the semester over I get to do research full time for the summer! i'm super lucky because i got a fellowship with the BYU Cancer Research Center....so they basically pay me more money than i would usually make to do the same research i would have done anyway! lucky me. (oh and they took me out to lunch at la jolla groves in the Riverwoods...BEST. SALMON. EVER....oh and the bathrooms were pretty shnazzy as well...bonus)

(3) I may or may not have tripped on like 3 chairs at once the other day while i was all alone in the lab. i may or may not have fallen HARD CORE all the way to the ground, right on my knee. i may or may not have a huge black bruise on that knee.

(4) my bro-in-law ryan and i decided which half marathon we're going to do this summer! the hobbler half marathon (no pun intended) is 12 weeks away so this was my first week of training! I've run 3 out of 4 days this week so i'm feeling pretty heroic. saturday  i'm running a 5k with steph in payson for her school so hopefully i can beat my sad rex lee run 5k time from march. (sidenote: it's super depressing to start running again after you've been slacking. hopefully my body will forgive my recent neglect)

(5) so i get asthma when i'm running...but the more i run the better it gets and it usually only lasts about 1 mile. who cares though...the funny part is what i think about when i'm running with asthma, all i can picture is a diagram dr. judd drew me of a glob of mucous in my airways hanging there making it harder for me to exhale. we called it the loogie explanation and got a good laugh out of it (because i wondered why mucous in the airway wouldn't prevent inhalation as much as exhalation ... turns out there's this thing called gravity making the loogie hang the way it does). disgusting i know. sorry about that. i may or may not have drawn this on the board during my final review for the physiology lab i TA. good times.

(6) one of the highlights of this week:

we got to meet the Guschins! they are my parents' good friends in Novosibirsk and were visiting the United States from Russia for their daughter's graduation. we had such a fun visit with them...they were so kind. it made me happy to feel a little more connected to my parents since they seem a world away. it made it more real that they're actually in Russia. a favorite quote from Brother Guschin: "your father IS russian...he is a russian man." :) so proud of my jukie and pops.

(7) When i was growing up, my mom would always make the 4 girls matching Easter dresses. they were usually the same pattern but different colors. it seems like annie was always blue, jenny always pink, and then abby and i were purple, yellow, or green or something. we were pretty cute. if i had old pictures on my laptop i'd put one on for your viewing pleasure. since i DON'T...here's one from THIS year :) some things never change...

(8) did i mention i bought a fedora? sometimes i'm random like that.

(9) i finally applied for my passport so i can go to Russia in August!! SO EXCITED.

(10) so i was just looking up something on Craig's List...and thought this was funny/weird. sorely tempted though. enjoy...

FREE PHYSICAL LABOR

My name is Mike and I'm looking to do some physical labor for anybody who needs it. Why am I offering this? Lifting weights is incredibly boring! I'd much rather help somebody move a bunch of bricks, dig a hold, pull some weeds/plants etc. The catch is it's gotta be something that will give me a good sweat so I can get a work out. I'm 6'3" and a big strong guy, so give me something difficult! I need to do this! Give me a call anytime, leave a message if I'm not there. I teach piano so that's the recorded message you'll hear when you call. Thanks!

Thanksgiving Part II

To start off the holiday, Annie and I ran a 5k in Draper!

 in the car before the race...

Mandy and Chantelle joined us!

AFTER the race! excited about Annie's first 5k!!

Then off to the Glenns' for wonderful food and fun company :) here we are with Grandma Glenn!

And more of the group! (missing a lot...)

Annie and I then went over to say hi to the Stonemans! They fed us wonderful pie and we had fun visiting and joining in a Christmas sing-a-long with the whole group! Highlights:
*the grandsons getting super excited when they heard annie and I were there! Then some confusion...turned out they heard "a lizard is here!" Turns out cousin Liz is NOT as exciting as a real lizard.
*Calvin's dance during the group's rendition of "Feliz Navidad"
*Gunther requesting an encore of "Feliz Navidad"
*Little Kayla correcting Uncle Augie's confusion with the page numbers again and again
*Playing football with Grahamburger :)

OTHER WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:
-> Fun shopping day getting Josh's Christmas package all put together with Annie.  Now today we'll get it shipped off to Mexico!
-> A fun visit with Michelle! (and a repeat of our favorite past time: singing at the piano! it'd been way too long!)
-> Michelle and I headed over to Lori's house for a visit with the whole Riches family! love that house. intense mario kart tourney.  reminiscing. teasing kristin. the usual.
-> movie marathons with annie! holiday inn, random chick flicks on TV while waiting for our jello creation to set up, anne of green gables AND anne of avonlea (the gilbert version...where you skip any part without gilbert in it), and the music man!

Annie and I were so grateful to our extended family for making us feel so welcome! We missed mom and dad in Russia, the Bosters in Texas, the Shawcrofts in Colorado, and Josh in Mexcio...but we are certainly grateful for skype this year!! technology is a great blessing in my life as my family is scattered around the world.  I'm also very grateful for my dear sister Annie holding down fort here in the family home so I have a place to come home to :)

More than anything, I am thankful for the Atonement of my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am grateful for His ability to do it, His willingness to do it, and His love for each of us that motivated Him to do it.  I am grateful that it makes it possible for me to enjoy peace, healing, and progression. I'm grateful He never gives up on me :) He is my truest friend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

my life as a runner . . .

Let's be honest, I haven't always been a runner. In fact, the first time I really ran consistently was with my dear friend Diane. She and I (then Sister Bush and Sister Gibbons) started running together on the mission with the Glacier Park ward cheering us on :)

After running 4 miles with Sister Moulton and Sister Allen on preparation day!

After we got home, we ran our first 5k together on Thanksgiving!

Next stop, HALF MARATHON!!

April 16, 2011

I paid today, so I guess I better really do it now :) I've still got a long way to go, but I started training this week and I'm feeling great! I figure if my pops can run like 50 marathons, I should be able to do a half right? He's my inspiration, and Diane is the perfect person to do it with. LOVE YOU BOTH!