Impromptu Triathlon

A few Saturdays ago, Zach was participating in a sprint triathlon.  He went to check in on Friday evening and when he saw the course decided that I would love it and should participate.  Since I was going anyway (for support) I let myself be convinced.  We had a great time.  I didn't get any pics of Zach since he is waaay faster than me but he was nice enough to take some of me.  It was a short tri, 300 meter swim, 8 mile bike and 2 mile run.  Zach's goal was to finish in 45 minutes and mine was to finish in around 1 hour.  We both did great; Zach finished in 47 minutes and I finished in 1hour and 1 second which was the top 20!  For me that is awesome!  

PLACE PLC/TOT  NO.  NAME          PLC SWIM    PLC   BIKE    PLC   RUN    TIME

16  10/22    149 SHANON BROWN   42  7:54    20   33:37    21   18:30   1:00:01 

Here's Zach and I before the race.

Me on the bike!  My bike's name is Lightening because it's so fast.

Me at the end of the run.  I ran it in 9:15 per mile.  For me, that's super fast!

Both of us at the end.

It really was a great triathlon.  Anyone who really wants to do one but is a little nervous, it's perfect!  There's only 150 people and it's shorter than a normal sprint tri.  It's very chill and the location is great, right through a beautiful neighborhood.  I would highly recommend it!  

Spring Break

As I sit here in pharmacology trying not to get too mad I realized that I hadn't blogged about spring break.  (I needed to go to a happy place in order to calm myself down.) I had such a lovely spring break.  It started with a few crafts, which I will show you in another post but the real fun happened when the Bade's came to visit.  It's been 2 years since we've seen each other and it was great to hang out.

We went to Jesterz!

This is a picture of one of the places we went out to eat.  We also had pasties, Joe's Farm Grill and lots of good homemade food.  I didn't need to eat for a week after.

Once the Bades left (insert tears) it was time to hang with the fam.  We took Jude swimming.  He loved it but he mostly loved hanging out by the railings in the 7 foot deep area.  You can imagine how this would be a problem since I am only 5'6".  

These are the g parents.  They were down for a few days and it sure was great to hang out with them!  Love these two.  They are truly one of a kind. (Each of them separately is one of a kind and both of them together is one of a kind too!)

All in all it was a great spring break and much needed.  I'm now 2 weeks back at the grindstone and getting closer and closer to the end.  Yay!

Birthdays and Unbirthdays!

Now that finals are over, I can actually take a breath and hopefully catch up on blogging. Not a lot has been going on with all the studying but I did miss blogging about Mindi's birthday. She turned 31 on Valentine's Day. We had a little party with good dinner and dessert! I made a chocolate chip cookie pie. It was pretty good. Anyway, happy unbirthday today to Mindi but here are pictures of her real birthday!

This was Mindi's birthday banner.  Can you tell I do not have her or Tessa's craftiness ability.  This was the best I could come up with.

Mindi opening her presents.

Happy Mindi!

Jude putting Mindi's presents on his head.  It was sooo cute!

Ethan's Run

Today I ran my first "official" 10K.  It was awesome!  It wasn't the fastest I've ever run a 10K but it was half uphill and it wasn't my slowest time either.  I was pretty happy with my results.
The actual run was only part of the awesomeness of this race.  It was the cause that made it even more awesome.  Ethan's Run was set up to benefit children with congenital heart defects so it hit very close to home.  Zach and I debated doing it because of the money until I heard that a couple in my old ward had just lost their first baby to one of these defects.  Well, that broke my heart and I wanted to do something to help.  In these situations, there really isn't much to do but at least I could pay a little bit of money to help someone similar to them.  The atmosphere at the run was amazing.  There were tons of families all wearing shirts supporting their little kiddo with heart problems.
While I was walking around before the race I ran into an old Sunday school teacher of mine.  She told me that she had recently lost her little girl.  I was amazed at how strong these families who had lost their little ones were.  Not that they weren't sad or having a hard time but they were out helping others.  I really don't think I would be able to do that.  It was very overwhelming to me.  I am so grateful to know that families can be together forever and that these little children aren't lost.  They are with a loving Heavenly Father waiting for their earthly parents to come to them.  

Birthdays and Brothers

This is Jude and he's my nephew. He is the best baby I've ever known, always happy and smiling and glad to see you. Just look at that face! Yesterday was his first birthday!

He got owl cupcakes for his birthday.  I think he liked them.  Just look at him stare those crazy owls down!

He even got to eat one all by himself. We were slightly worried when he stuck a whole half of an oreo in his mouth but he handled that cookie like a champ. Do you think he came to the right family?

Jude also got another surpirse for his birthday. He is going to be a big brother! That means that I get to be an aunt again and I am soooo excited!

Happy birthday Jude! I don't know what we ever did without you!

Good Day

Today was a good day at PA school. You don't very often have great days at school (it's really hard) but today was one of them. It was my first day of ACLS training and it was awesome! We learned how to intubate a patient (stick that metal thing into their throat and a tube down their trachea) and how to run a code on a non-responsive patient. (That means the patient was dead on the table and my team and I brought him back to life.) I have been very nervous about this part of training for a long time and I was even more nervous after our instructor told us he's made people cry before. It turned out great. It was a blast intubating and I did pretty darn good when it was my turn to run the code. Thank heaven! It's nice to have days like today occasionally that remind you why you are putting yourself through all of this. Today I'm excited about being a PA!

On a funny side note. I was talking to Zach about all of this and he asked, "were you doing all of this on people?" I responded, "oh no, it was on mannequins," to which he said, "Oh good, I was thinking you were going to have to practice all of that on me!" This boy really must love me if he was willing to let me practice intubating on him! Maybe someday I'll take him up on that. :)

The Big 26!

My little Zachary is 26 now. It was a quiet day for us. We did the Joe's birthday trifecta, which consists of eating at each of the 3 Joe's restaurants. They give you $10 toward your bill so the whole experience cost us about $25. We tried to do a little triathlon but that epically failed when I crashed on my bike. So we ran 7.5 miles instead. The rest of the day we chilled with Tessa and played the Wii and watched some shows. It was a good day.

Breakfast at Joe's Farm Grill. I would highly recommend their breakfasts to anyone!

Zachary and his spoils. Yes, that is a Yoda desk protector and and R2D2 USB port.

Lunch at Liberty Market. Zach was very hungry. Yes that is a shirt that detects if there is WiFi around.

Dinner at Joe's BBQ!

The day ended with amazing Texas sheet cake at Preston and Mindi's and the movie "How to Train Your Dragon." Highly recommended.

Happy birthday Zachary! You are my favorite of all the peoples!