Ragnar #4

I love running in Ragnar Relay races. My very first "race" was a Ragnar. I remember I had always talked to Alan Bird about his marathons and the next thing I know he had invited me to join his Ragnar team. Spending thirty hours straight in a car with six people cheering on your team mates makes for a very close group of friends by the time you're done.

In my last Ragnar Mom, Kira, Ben and Sharley ran with us. It was so much fun and I think Kira must have convinced Justin how fun it was because apparently his family planned a Ragnar this year. At the last minute two of Justins cousins were unable to participate so lucky for Alex and myself, we were invited to join. I of course didn't hesitate. This Ragnar was in Las Vegas.

Justin created a "whatsapp" text group so everyone on the team started checking in on Thursday announcing their departure plans.

 Justin, Chelsea and Dallin were chilling in the first class lounge at the Calgary airport.













Alex was still at work but looking forward to catching a late flight to Vegas.

Chelsea and Justin on the plane.  I should point out the "creeper" who was sitting behind them. 

 I was the first to arrive in Vegas and let everyone know of my arrival.

Brian checked in from Phoenix letting us know that he was getting ready to leave.

There is that creeper "again".

 Teresa, Andrea, Dallin, Jason, Katie and Curtis were in van #1 and got up at 3:30 Friday morning to get to the starting line for a 5:30 start. The poor guys. Van #2 was sound asleep.

The starting line was in the mountains at the Ski and Snow Board resort. 

Curtis in his pirate outfit.

















Maybe Van #1 had to get up early but their reward was a long down hill run. This is Curtis handing off to Jason.



















Do you see the shadows cheering Jason on?


















Jason handing off to Andrea

 Does Andrea look excited or what?


















And then Andrea hands off to Katie to bring the baton into Van #2.














Meanwhile we are starting to get moving at the house looking forward to an exciting day.














Justin, Alex and myself in the middle seat













Chelsea and Angie with Brian in the back seat. Heading to our starting line.

Katie after her leg.













The entire team except for Angie who is running to bring the baton to Van #2.

Justin, Brian, Craig, Alex, Fred, Chelsea Sarah, Andrea, Teresa, Dallin, Katie, Ryan, Curtis, Jason










Van #2 is at the starting line ready to relieve Van #1. Brian, Alex, Angie, Justin, Chelsea, Fred

The kiss that started it all. When Teresa brought it in for Van #1 and handed off to Chelsea she gave her nice peck on the cheek. By the time this run was finished we decided to change our name to the kissing cousins. You will see why.















Chelsea started out for Van #2 and then handed off to me.

Hanging in there. 

Chelsea enthusiastically cheering me on. 

I then handed off to Alex

 Brian was next so he decided to stretch.


















Alex drew the short straw. He had a long five mile stretch that was all up hill. It was a trough run but he ran well.

You gotta love our tattoo's

We had made a bunch of stickers with our team name and we would stick them onto as many cars as we could. While we were waiting for Alex; Angie and I walked past a police car. I told Angie that she should stick one on the cop car. To my horror she proceeded to do just that. As I walked away pretending not to know her I heard the cop yell at her asking her, "what do you think you're doing?" When she explained he gave her a bunch of police badges. Pretty cool.




And here comes Alex into the exchange point.

To Alex's great surprise he was greeted by Brian with a big wet kiss. 

Brian handed off to Justin.













Justin then handed off to Angie but of course he can't hand off like a normal person but to her shock she was greeted with a big wet kiss. She shouldn't have been surprised though because he had been threatening to do so all morning. Between Chelsea, Justin and his dad, the kissing cousins was becoming a movement that ended up renaming our team the "Kissing Cousins". We became well known among our team mates.

When we were finished our first round we went back to the house to chill. I actually had a nap but everyone else was downstairs having a good visit. I suffered a minor bought of FOMO but feel asleep before I could do anything about it. Not long before midnight we were once again on the track. Chelsea led the way and then handed off to me with a kiss on the cheek.

When I came in to hand off to Alex I was a bit surprised to see that Alex had a horn. Angie had brought along a unicorn horn so Alex had to run with that.

Justin had what may have been the most beautiful of all runs. Between  Las Vegas and Boulder the road goes over a small pass. Justin ran on a trail that roughly paralleled the road. It was out in the boonies so there was no light and Justin decided to turn off his head light and run in the dark. He took this picture of the city lights. He also claims that the stars were exceptionally bright and he witnessed no less than 12 shooting stars.

Justin handing off to Angie and Sarah to finish off Van #2's night time run.
















Angie had the last night time leg for Van 2. She was nervous about running alone at night so Sarah ran with her to offer moral support. This leg ended only blocks from Sarahs house so she knew the area well. She may have shown Angie a few shortcuts.












Curtis must have had a good nap, he looks rather chipper.













Julie was actually signed up with the team from the beginning but an injury late in the training forced her to give up her spot. That is how I got on the team. Well an injury in Van #2 gave Julie an opportunity to run this one leg. She looks quite exited don't you think?








Jason comes in and hands off to Julie


















A sample of the view that we had along the run.













Teresa and Natalie

On Angies night time run some jerk ran past her and did a karate chop and yelled out "kill". It was rather rude but of course the rest of the race we were karate chopping all over the place.

Chelsea, Angie, Craig, Alex, Justin and Jason

Most of Van #2.

clockwise from bottom left, Katie, Teresa, Dallin, Curtis and Julie

Uncle Craig saved the day. Teresa was nursing so she couldn't be too far from her baby. Uncle Craig basically followed Van #2 with the baby in tow so Teresa could nurse him as required.

Craig, Alex, Angie , Fred, Brian, Julie, Curtis, Chelsea, Dallin, Justin, Natalie, Teresa

I didn't want to freak Chelsea out too much so when she handed off to me next I picked her up and swung her around. I figured that would be less traumatizing that a kiss.

When I handed off to Alex next he was wearing a sombrero and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. Apparently as I was out running they came across a garage sale. Alex picked up a sombrero.

















And Angie picked up this weird beaded head covering. I'm not quite sure what she's doing here.

When Alex came in to hand off to Brian he was greeted with a bear hug. We were truly getting cozy on this run.

Brian picking up refreshments and cheers along his run.



















And then the ultimate was the full on lip-lock between father and son.

We were racking up the kills.

















Teresa coming out of the tunnel we all formed for her.

Early on our leg Justin was waiting for Brian to come in when he saw a man come in but he had no one greeting him. He then started yelling for "Brooke". Justin then went looking for Brooke. He was in a crowd of people yelling for Brooke when the girl next to him said, "I'm Brooke". Justin told her that her Dad was waiting for her on the exchange point. During the rest of the race we met up with Brooke and her family at least a dozen times and every time we did everyone yelled "BROOKE".

The funniest part was that in the evening, after the race was over we were in a buffet eating dinner and there was Brooke and her family.

This is a picture of some of us with Brooke.





Angie went in the porta pottie to do her thing when Brian thought it would be fun to trap her inside. She was quite concerned when she tried to exit the porta potti and the door wouldn't open.

















These are some random pictures that I pulled off the Ragnar web site.

Here are coming across the finish line

Receiving my medal

















Cheering our fearless leader Andrea with gratitude for all the work she did.

Go Team










Team Palmertoe

Celebrating at the end

Brian, Chelsea and Justin Palmer. Thank you for letting me run with your family.

Breakfast the next morning.

The Hash House has big servings of really good stuff.

Taste testing at the Coke Place on the strip.

And poor Justin had to go home to looking at this outside of his office window. Poor guy.

But he had a very cool medal.

We all wandered around the strip the next morning but Alex was hitching a ride home with Julie so they missed out on this cool roller coaster. Justin got yelled out for snapping this picture even though there was a big sign saying NO PICTURES. You can see Justin and myself in the front car holding our hands in the air. Chelsea is hidden behind Justin and Brian behind me.












Alex had too much excess energy so him and Julie went home and partied up a storm at some dance.

--------------------trivia--------------------

human beings can run farther than any other animal on earth

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Ella Grayce Crowley

No sooner had Jack arrived than I needed to set up the Baby Crowley Pool. The Baby Crowley Pool had no name because Alycia and Trevor couldn't agree on a name for the baby. Well to state that more accurately, Alycia had many names for the baby but Trevor couldn't agree with any of them but never put forth any suggestions of his own. So, she was known as baby girl up until a few days after her arrival.

As with Sharley we made a guessing game out of baby girls arrival. I created a pool and most everyone made their guesses. As it turned out Alycia also had to be induced. I claim to have won the first pool but once she was admitted to be induced we created a second pool. Kira won that one beating Mom by eight minutes.

Mom, anticipating the eventful day took a week off of work just a few days after school started. The school does not like it when she does things like that but her attitude is (and I agree with it) family is first and if she has to choose between her job and her kids the kids will win every time. She never worked when the kids were at home and now that they're gone she can work but the kids still come first.

So Mom flew Aug 26 to be with Alycia and her due date was Aug 27. As it turned out she went into the hospital to be induced on the Aug 28. After a very quick delivery baby girl entered this world at 4:44 AM Saturday morning. We were all quite surprised by quickly it all went. Before they left the hospital they decided to name baby girl Ella Grayce Crowley. I love the name for a number of reasons. First of all it sounds like a very classy name but it also is a very "family" name in several ways.Ella Dora Darnell was my great grandmother and from all accounts she was a great woman. Grayce is also my grandmothers middle name but she spelled in Grace. Grayce is also Lisa's mothers name. It is also Alycia's middle name. It was because Lisa's mother spelled Grayce with a "Y" that we ended up putting a "Y" in Alycia's name rather than the more traditional Alicia.

A few months before Ella was born Alycia entered the "nesting" phase of her pregnancy. I have learned that as the big day arrives expectant mothers have a very strong urge to get the baby's room (and everything else) ready for the arrival. Alycia pointed out that she would love a brass light shade for the nursery and she was certain that I would be able to make it. Well I was able to make it but if I was paid by the hour for that light it would be a very expensive light. I sure hope little Ella appreciates her new light.

I will add a few pictures of Ella so you can see her first few months by you might also enjoy this short video that Alycia put together of Ellas first week.





 Off to the hospital

 Whew, it is finally over. I am told that it was a very quick but very intense delivery.

 I love this picture of the very proud Grandma.

 And we're home again.

Once Ella has a fully belly and a clean diaper she love to stretch out. She does it every time.

















A very beautiful little girl.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Armadillos nearly always give birth to identical quadruplets.

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Jack Abram Leavitt

Sharley was expecting to deliver her baby in early August but then it turned out that he was induced a few days early. We had a family pool betting on when the baby would be born. Technically Kira won the pool, but once Ben took Sharley to the hospital the night before, we decided to have a new pool for exactly what "time" the baby would be born.

Justin actually won the second pool. A month or two before Jack was born Ben and Sharley announced his name. He actually has a very cool name. Jack is named after three different people. Sharley has two little brothers who she is very close to. They are twins named Jacob and Zachary or Jake and Zach. If you combine their names you would get Jack so Jack's first name is for Sharley's twin brothers.

One of Bens closest friends growing up was Abram Jones. Abram was like a brother to Ben and like a son to us. Ben had a toothbrush and change of clothes at Abrams house, (right around the corner from us), and Abram had the same at our home. He never bothered knocking because he truly was one of the family. He even came on family vacations with us. Jack's middle name, Abram, is after Abram. For more on Abram go here. 

After a relatively mild labor Jack arrived at 11:36 on the morning of July 30. He was 7 pounds 4 ounces and twenty inches long. Ben used his Go Pro to make a pretty cool video of Jack coming home. I really hope the link below works because you will want to see the video. I have some pretty talented kids. Jack's arrival has made a lot of people very happy not the least of which are Ben and Sharley. Congratulations.

link to video

If the link doesn't work try cutting and pasting this address in your browser.
https://youtu.be/kpoy2yiRTQU

----------------------trivia--------------------

Maine is the closest U.S. state to Africa.

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Evans Baptism

The other day Lisa pointed out to me that now that I'm no longer the coordinator at the temple I should have more time to be writing in my blog. I guess she is quite right, that job took at least nine hours a week so I aught to be able to write a couple of blogs in that time.

I often think that my life is quite boring and that is normally the case but the last few months have been filled with all kinds of adventure. Evan was baptized, Jack (Ben & Sharley) was born, Ella (Trevor & Alycia) was born, Jack was blessed, Sydney was baptized, and then Ella was blessed. We have made quite a few trips. Even though I haven't posted in a while I think the next few posts will just be reviewing some of our past excitements.

Today I want to talk about our trip to Canada. First of all we celebrated Lisa's birthday and then we headed north. Because Alex was coming with us we drove and picked him up in Utah. As it so happened we were in Salt Lake City on our thirty fourth wedding anniversary. We actually went to Salt Lake on our honeymoon so it was kind of fun to be there on our anniversary. In fact, Lisa being so thoughtful made reservations for us in the Roof Top restaurant of the Joseph Smith Building. We had a table overlooking the temple. It was very cool. We had a piano player and everything.

We then continued on north and went first to Kira and Justin's. Tuesday we celebrated Evan's birthday even though his birthday was the previous week. The next day, Wednesday,  was his baptism day.

Thursday we parted company. Alex went with Kira and her family to Evan's SMA camp at William Watson Lodge in the Kananaskis. It is a cool lodge that is completely accessible for wheelchairs. Lisa and I went to Rosemary to see Gary and Pat Norton, but on the way out of town we visited with Maurine, and then we stopped and visited with Bob and Virginia Lundrigan. They used to live in our stake here in San Diego. In fact he was the Stake Patriarch. He is really failing fast. He has dementia and lives in a home.

We stayed up way too late at the Norton's and then headed out of town the next morning. We headed for the C.F.B Lybbert reunion in Pincher Creek but went through Cardston to attend a reunion temple session. It was cool to be on a session with all of my relatives. After the session we checked out the sealing room where we were married and then we were invited to do sealings. We figured what better way to celebrate our anniversary. One of the temple workers was Royce Leavitt. He is the son of Aunt Marguerite  and Uncle Devere. They lived on the old Leavitt homestead and used to babysit me often when I was small. Uncle Devere has passed away but we decided to stop and visit Aunt Marguerite on the way out of town. She remembered me when I told her who I was, but I had to remind her who I was at least a dozen times. She kept going on about how beautiful Lisa is. I agree with her.

There was a damper on the reunion because it rained the whole time, but they let us use a few large quonsets and all we wanted to do anyway was sit and visit. I won't try and name all of the people I visited with because I won't possibly remember them all, but most of Uncle Van's and Aunt Grace's kids were there. In fact, Aunt Grace was actually there in person. I also visited with Wade Smith. He and his wife rode up from Wisconsin on their motorbike. I love to ride my motorbike, but a road trip like that doesn't really sound like too much fun. Especially in the rain.

Saturday we headed up to the Kananaskis to join up with Kira and her bunch. What a beautiful place that was. We road bikes with the kids and went Kayaking. Alberta really is a beautiful place. It is just too bad their weather is so horrible.

And then it was back to Calgary and then we headed south on Sunday. It was a fun and very eventful trip.

-------------------trivia--------------------
&; used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet. It was called "and" and when the school children would say their alphabet they would say. "...x, y, z and per se and". This gradually became shortened to "anpersand"
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