Noah's 2nd Birthday

So, Glenn and I have been training for a trail half marathon at the end of March.

Here is the description of the race on the website
"You'll traverse the dirt hiking trails through scenic Bothe-Napa Valley State Park, located at the north end of Napa Valley. Along the route, you'll be surrounded by majestic redwood, oak, madrone and bay forests. The course is a bit challenging with the hills, streams and rocks - which makes it all the more exciting and rewarding!"

Sounds like fun right?!

We were so excited, or at least we were until today. Glenn already went up to check out the trail a week or 2 ago but today was my first day. It is insane. While running straight up hill for almost 2 miles (and when I say running I really mean walking with my arms swinging like I was running) I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. It is pretty brutal. We have already signed up for it, but the worst part about it is that we have talked a bunch of friends into signing up for it (most of whom it is their first race). So we are probably going to have a lot of people hating us in a few months. It's going to be tough but I am excited for the challenge. Check out the picture, doesn't it look so tranquil and fun- looks definitely can be deceiving. I'm pretty sure a bit challenging like in the description is a little bit of an understatement. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I was hoping to improve my time, now my expectations have changed to just finishing the race!!!

I love this picture. We went out exploring looking for salamanders. It was a rainy day, so Isaac ended up finding over 50 of them. But, to our surprise we also found a newt. Isaac wouldn't hold it in his hand for a picture, but he did let us put it on his head. I'm pretty sure I would have opted for having it in my hand, but he is a boy. I guess he thought it would be sweeter on his head.

Last weekend we went up with a few friends to the coast and stayed at our friends place. The weekend couldn't have been more beautiful. There was almost no wind or fog. The perfect place to spend my birthday, especially since it was my 30th (I'm getting so old)! We played at the beach, snacked all day long and spent late nights star gazing in the hot tub. It really was the perfect get away.

Second, Christmas and New Years... This year the holiday season seemed a little less festive since we were so distracted with the move. I would go shopping and catch a glimpse of Christmas lights and be thrown off and say oh yeah it's Christmas. We still had a good holiday. We were able to celebrate and do a mini Christmas with my parents before we left and then celebrated together in California. We took a video of Christmas morning. It seemed so chaotic I thought this rendition of the video was fitting, or at least what it felt like.

So much to say...

First, this should have been a post from a month again, but I just came across these cute pictures we took with my mom right before we left so I thought I would share them with you. We went to the local museum to check out the christmas train display which ended up only being one little track, but it was still a lot of fun and we got some good pictures out of it.

The day we told Bayley we were moving she teared up and said that she wanted to spend some time alone in her room. She came out with a letter to her best friend. She came up with it all on her own.