A Day at the Park

Christie's New Skills

We all know that Christie has mad skills at everything, and here is an example of some hair decorations she made for the girls.

What's New?

We haven't posted for a bit now and we don't have any new pictures for you all to look at, but a couple of things that should be fun and exciting. First, we have just reserved our hotels and are buying our tickets for our Disneyland/Sea World/San Diego Zoo/have fun trip. We will be going with Mike and Tiff and their two kids and everyone is excited to go. We will be heading down there in July. The second thing is that Dave has been accepted to attend a Literacy Institute that will take us to Park City for a week during the summer and also other meetings and trainings throughout the year. He is very excited to be able to improve his literacy teaching skills and the week in Park City should be fun for Christie and the kids as well. This acceptance also means that Dave will not be attending grad. school this year and will wait for next year after this is over. It probably is also good since he will be adding another subject to teach for next year and will be busy. Well, if you are reading this, have a good day and we'll post some pics in a momento.

Salt Lake City Marathon!

Well we are back and we did it. Getting up bright and early this morning (we left the house at 4:50 a.m. because Dave's ride was at 6:00 downtown Salt Lake) we made our way to the Olympic Legacy Bridge where our races were going to start. Dave took off and rode 25 miles around the Salt Lake Valley and finished in about 1 hour 5 minutes. It was a lot of fun and something that Dave looks forward to doing again. Now for the exciting news: Christie was amazing and finished the half marathon in 2 hours 16 minutes! Way to go Christie. We are now tired and Christie is quite sore but it was well worth the effort and time we put into this weekend. Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera, and Christie's parents' camera ran out of batteries and no other camera was around, so we don't have fun pictures of the weekend, but that is okay.

UPDATE!: If you want to see pictures of Christie running, go to www.marathonfoto.com. Once there, choose salt lake city marathon (not 07) type in Lee for last name and her bib# was 5709. She looks awfully cute, so check it out. Oh and race results are now available on www.saltlakecitymarathon.com

Our Little Va-Ca

Since spring break has come, we decided to start ours with a little fun trip to Torrey, UT and Capital Reef National Park. Mike and Tiff came down with their two kids (Bella and Noah) and we all went down to stay at the Cabins and Torrey Trading Post, which Mike's parents own. The kids had so much fun on the four wheelers; they constantly were asking to go for more rides. You couldn't start one up without Logan crying until he was on, ready to ride. And if you were looking for Macy, chances were that she was sitting on top of one of the ATVs, that or hanging out in the main cabin with Mike's family. The kids had a lot of fun just playing out in the rural habitat and if we kept our vacation in that one spot, they would have called it a fun vacation.

We left Friday night and came home Sunday night, but wished we could have stayed longer. We ran out of time before we could do everything that we wanted to. But, we did do a few things. Our first hike of the trip was to Hickman Bridge. It is a large arch. It was a fun hike and the girls loved walking, and Logan absolutely adored the backpack. At one point we pulled him out and let him walk around, but he walked right back to the backpack and tried to climb in, silly boy. The views were incredible and it was a great hike to start our season off with. This hike was even more fun because we were able to share it with friends.

On Sunday, after church, we decided to take it a little easier. We went to the boardwalk where you can see some petroglyphs. They were interesting and it's amazing how long those have survived. After that short walk, we went to this place where there was a waterfall among all of the sandstone. Last time we were in Torrey and Capital Reef we stopped here and played in the river. Now we have kids and the water was cold, so we just looked for a few minutes before heading out for home.

Enjoy all of the pictures below, they are only a smidgen of the fun we had while camping with friends and enjoying God's wonderful creations.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was warm. The sun shined the entire time and we came home with sunburns. It was a great way to forget the cold weather we will still experiencing and it looks like we brought the heat with us, yeah!

Fun, Fun!

Petroglyph Boardwalk

The Petroglyphs

Hickman Bridge

Hickman Bridge

Pictures from Hickman Bridge

Run Around the Cabin

It's Your Birthday Christie!

Okay, I know Christie celebrates her birthday on the 9th (which technically was yesterday) but she was born in California at 11:59 pm, which means she was really born on the 10th here in Utah. There now that my justification for writing this late is over (and don't worry, I gave Christie a hopefully great day yesterday) I just wanted everyone to remember that Christie is now closer to 30 than 20.
I met Christie when she was only 18 years old and fresh out of high school. I am lucky enough to have been able to love her for the last 8 years, and nearly 7 of those years I have been able to call her my wife. I look back and think about the time I have had with my sweetheart and these landmarks (like birthdays and anniversaries) and think about another year I get to be with my eternal love. So with my proverbial glass in the air, join me in a toast to Christie, the 26 year old woman I love; Christie, the best wife, mother, and friend a husband could have!

Champions Again

Well, they did it in volleyball and now they have done it in basketball: Regional Champs! Despite some nasty players and sensitive refs (yes, Dave did get kicked out of one of the games), they won. Christie's team played very well most of the time and they really worked together as a team. Even in the last game when they were getting challenged and were losing for the first time, they worked together and ended up with a 10 point win. It was a lot of fun and we are all proud that Christie can call herself a two sport regional champ, way to go!

Christie's Basketball Pics

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter from the Lee Family. On Saturday, we went to an Easter Egg hunt in American Fork, which was crazy. They had a bunch of eggs and stuff and within (no kidding) 20 seconds the grass was picked clean. The kids had fun though. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Lee's house. Where we ate lunch and had another Easter Egg hunt. This one took a lot longer and the kids got a lot more treats. It was quite fun as well. Sunday was nice, and like Christmas, it is nice to have an extra reminder about these holidays and remember Christ and what he has done. We hope everyone had a great weekend.

Grandma and Grandpa's Easter Egg Hunt (yes, another one).

American Fork Easter Egg Hunt

Logan and the Fake Deer

Logan decided that it was more fun to play with some fake deer, rather than look for more candy.

Rex E Lee Run

Well, last night at about 6:30 Christie decided she was going to run the Rex E. Lee run at BYU today. We got up and made it there and Christie ran the 10k in 58 minutes! Way to go Christie! We were all super excited that she was able to finish in under an hour. Only one month to go until the half marathon. Keep it up. Sorry, no pictures, the camera was left on the counter at home.

Training

Well, Christie and I had originally planned on doing the Legacy Center Triathlon this year, but since moved to other pastors. I tried training for the run (by far my biggest challenge) but the knees would not hack it. Braces, ibuprofen, etc., could not help me out, so we switched venues. We have registered for the Salt Lake City Marathon! Well, before you wonder what in the world I would be doing running a marathon when 3 miles were stopping me in the triathlon, Christie is running the half marathon and I am going to do the bike tour (by far my strongest event, if I was doing the tri). So Christie is busy constantly running so she get her 13.1 miles in on race day (she is up to 8, way to go!) and I have transformed from a mountain man to road, sans the actual road bike. I still ride my mountain with slicks. So my ride is 25 miles through half of Salt Lake County and I am pretty excited about it. I have an excuse to just go out and ride (though I still prefer the mountain) and relieve stress and anxieties. That is what Christie loves to, to be able to hit the road and not worry about anything for awhile. After losing the weight we did last year, we hope to duplicate or more our success and this is our first challenge to help us, this year. Wish us luck.

Boarding at Beaver Mountain

On last Wednesday Christie and I were able to go snowboarding. We got two full day passes for 20 bucks, so it was well worth taking a day off of work and hit the mountain. No major injuries on our side, except Dave got clipped by another boarder on his knee, which drew some blood and bruises, and Christie tweaked her wrist on a fall. Oh, and if for some insane reason you decide to try a tow rope on a board, don't. It was the most miserable thing ever! Enjoy the couple of pics.

Boarding at Beaver Mountain

Blessed

A moment of tragedy struck our quiet neighborhood today. We were all set to make it to church today, when Dave needed to print off just a couple of things for our Valiant 9 class. For some reason, our always reliable printer decided to be very stupid. My computer kept saying I needed to install a driver, which is impossible for many reasons. Well, eventually my printer and computer decided to work and we were able to drive to church about half an hour late. We were quickly turned around at the parking lot by a neighbor. One of our other neighbors had been fatally shot in the parking lot and we were to go home. Having this happen so close was crazy, but even crazier was that we would have been in the parking lot at the time of the shooting. Who knows what would have happened, but we were not there, and we feel extremely blessed and know that there was a reason why my printer was not working this morning. Our prayers go out to our neighbor and her kids who have been left behind. If any of you out there wish to remember them in your prayers, please do. I will not say her name yet, since it has not been released, but Heavenly Father knows and if your prayers are said, they will get to the right place.