A new niece - Sierra Louise St. Felix

I now have one more niece to become the favorite aunt (although Ann Marie is going to give me a run for my money with Sienna & Sierra)! Sierra Louise St. Felix joined the St. Felix family this past week. She was a big baby (9 lbs. 5 oz). I love the times when they will actually cuddle with you & sleep on your chest. How cute is Sierra.....

Maintaining the Favorite Aunt Status

Tonight Nicole & I took Hannah & Madi to 7-peaks. It was "Patient Appreciation Day" from my dentist (seriously so nice!). So we all went to 7-peaks for free. We had pizza, soda & went on all the big slides. Madi and Hannah especially liked the two tube run slides, especially the one that was in the dark. They also had a great time on in the "big kids" pool and the wave pool. Unfortunately the waves never came on....I guess they were broken or something. Madi even rode a "big, big kid slide" (she was exactly 48 inches tall). It spits you down a tube & then you go round & round until it sucks you out the bottom. We were sucked out backwards on our tube which freaked me out, although Madi thought it was the best slide ever!

Here are some pictures of the event. Needless to say with 7-peaks & Hannah Montana in one week it is going to take some serious effort by the other aunts to even come close to competing with me!

Champions!!

As usual, our NuSkin team is the upper division City League Champions. We have won 3 (or more, I can't remember) years in a row. However, this year we decided to make it interesting. We were undefeated in the regular season, but lost the first game of the tournament by 1 point. We had to play up through the losers bracket & beat the same team twice in order to win (3 games in a row tonight), but we did it!

Unfortunately my batting didn't help the team to win today. I hit the ball to the pitcher 5 times....yes the pitcher. Seriously I don't know what my problem was. I had been hitting really well this year, even better than previous years, but apparently I'm reverting backwards now.

Anyways, here is a picture of the champions. Be sure to insert a picture of Jenny Fowler in there as she played all season, but is in Oregon today so she wasn't there. And what is with the YELLOW champion shirts. Is it to make sure everyone sees us when we wear them?


Hopefully I can still play next year even though I don't work for NuSkin anymore..

Happy 4th of July!

This 4th of July was one of the better ones I've had. I'm so sick of the "mid-singles social scene" and trying to pretend like watching the fireworks with a bunch of single friends is still really fun at 32 (note....it isn't). Thankfully this year my new employer, MonaVie, sponsored the Stadium of Fire and they gave us each tickets. With Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) as the headliner I found the perfect "date" for the evening.....7 yr old Madison.

To begin let's just say that Madi was OVERLY excited for this event. Earlier in the week she came to Jenny & my softball game & couldn't stop talking about it. It made me happy that she was so excited. When I picked her up I could hear her excitement before the door opened. She had also been working on her "You Rock" sign she planned to give to Hannah Montana (obviously this was her first concert).

First we went to the MonaVie BBQ where Madi entertained everyone with her charming personality & super excitement to see Hannah Montana. She would tell everyone who we were going to see & showed them each the sign she had made. Once we finished eating it was off to the BYU baseball field for our instructions. Since our seats were on the field, we were also part of the pre-show. We walked on the field with a lot of military troops.....but first we could make a poster if we would like. Since Madi had already made a "sign" to give to Hannah Montana entitled "You Rock" it was obviously assumed that we would just make it bigger and better. I think the signs were supposed to be for the troops....however, I suppose "You Rock" could be for them too although Madi informed me several times she wanted to give the sign to Hannah Montana.

So here are some pictures of Madi coloring the poster (note the original she made in the upper right hand corner, we were copying it as she had put a lot of thought into it, especially the music notes & the star)

I was in charge of coloring red..... (note all pictures taken of just me were taken by Madi....she did a way better job then I thought she would).


The final product (complete with a rainbow AND a rainbow exclamation point...Madi's extra touches). I also saw many, many "You Rock" signs so this must be an important sign to Hannah Montana. Miss Madi knows what she's talking about :)


Here we are waiting to be cheered onto the field as part of the show...LOL! They told us we may be on TV (big screen) to which Madi said "I'm nervous, what if I forget to smile?" Not to worry.....when she saw how many people there were cheering for "her" she was all smiles and informed me that she "can't count how many people are here!"


Here is Madi with the crowd behind her (we had pretty good seats compared to them). Also note the "corralled" kid dancers behind the blue barricades. They were seriously squished in there like a mosh pit and all freaking out the entire time Miley Cyrus was performing.

Here is a video of Madi dancing. There were better "dancing" times during the night, but this one you can see her better as the spotlight keeps hitting her. It isn't the best video as it is dark and sometimes has some focus issues....but it is cute (about 1 1/2 min long)



When Miley Cyrus left the stage for the first time I told Madi if she held up her poster Miley just might come back out and sing again. Here she is....cheering for an encore. She was thrilled that her sign persuaded Miley come back out for a few more songs (he he!)



This last video I post only because it shows a bit of the chaos that was going on with all the little girls (and some adults). You will also see the mosh pit of the corralled dance girls I talked about earlier. If you listen closely (or not so closely) you will hear 50,000 little girls that know every word to the song "See you Again!"

Also, if you listen extra closely you may also hear one "hip" adult named Jen that knows some of the words (the only song I know and only because we do aerobics to it....LOL!). I'm up with the times!!!



And finally it was time for fireworks. Madi really enjoyed how big and loud they were....that was until a bit of ash fell in her eye. Then she was scared and kept shielding her eyes from the big fireworks. Luckily she got tired about 2 minutes after the show ended......it was a slow walk to the car (especially when stupid Jen parked far, far away to avoid traffic!).


It was the best 4th of July I have had in a long time. It is a family holiday and I loved having family to share it with instead of lame "mid-singles." Especially someone as sweet as Madison. She seriously told me thank you about 10 times throughout the night. Really, does it get better or sweeter than that?

Oh and one more thing.....as I drove home I was also pleased that my house was NOT on fire since when I drove up my street there were 8 (yes 8) firetrucks (some were the smaller trucks), 3 ambulances & I don't know how many police cars (barricading the road). The park behind my house had caught fire and the trees were shooting flames everywhere. They even had the big ladder out on the trucks and were fighting the fire from above the trees. Cool to watch from my deck (until 1am), but glad it didn't jump the street to the townhomes right there. Luckily they got it under control in about an hour. Sadly now the park has some partially burned trees....stupid fireworks!!

1 Run Down, 2 More to Go....Unfortunately

For the 2nd straight year I celebrated the 4th of July by getting up at 6am and running the Freedom Run 10K (seriously, what is wrong with me?). This year I wanted to run it faster and I was on track to do so. I was running about 9:30 min miles (normally I'm 10 min or above) all the way through mile 5. My left foot was asleep and my left knee was really, really sore, but I was doing well. Then we had to finish our last mile UP HILL. I knew it was coming, but my pace really slowed down. I ended up finishing only 1 minute faster than last year (1:01 vs 1:02). That last mile seriously drug me down!!! Laura, Sharon & I all went together, however they are speed demons so they were there to cheer me on at the end (believe me I needed it!).

For some reason I decided this year to do another half marathon (Provo River Trail this time). Again the goal is to be faster, but I have recently hit some physical hurdles (seriously sore knee) so we shall see how this goes. I have one more 10K on July 24th (with Jenna & Amanda!) and then the half marathon on Aug 9th. With my new job & subsequent 40 minute commute, let's just say that I'm not really looking forward to my early, early morning training runs (6am....BOO!). Too late to back out now....I've already registered, plus I'm already half way through with training.

Here are some pictures of the runners (I only wish I had make up on......remember it was early)

Me & Laura

Sharon & Me


Me & the Gardner clan! (Joe, Julianne, Laura, Me & Sharon)....Post-race with our "medals."

My own high school reunion

I haven't attended one of my real high school reunions and don't plan to attend any in the future. In all reality I have no desire to see most people I went to high school with. I don't really look back on those years super fondly. They were great at the time, but life is much better as you get older.

I do stay in contact though with my best friends from high school. We had a little mini-reunion with a few of us last night at Chilis (minus Amy who was in Hawaii....so lucky!). Shatie, Becki, Stacy & I all went to dinner. Let's just say our waitress was not pleased with our 3 hour dinner....but we had a lot of catching up to do. It was so fun to be back with friends that you have known for close to 20 years. I had a great time.

Here is a picture of Shatie, me & Becki. Stacy really was there, but she had to take the picture........you all know what she looks like anyways and she is probably pleased to not have her 8.5 month pregnant body all over the internet!

So Long, Farewell!

Yesterday was my official last day at NuSkin. It was not as sad as I thought it was going to be. I really thought I would cry. Maybe it was because I was the LAST person to leave from my department....man I'm a dedicated employee (even though I did leave at 3....LOL!). The past week has been busy trying to transition my stuff as well as all the parties! In the last week we had a good-bye lunch at PF Changs (so good!) and also had a little dessert party on this past Wednesday.

Anyways, so long NuSkin


.....on to MonaVie. Monday morning I start my new life . Seems like I'm going to be pretty busy, especially coming up to speed. I haven't been a "new employee" for 10 years. Anxiety I'm sure will set in but not yet!!