Chasing My Joy

My journey to becoming an Ultra Runner and Ironman

  • Home
  • About
  • Current Gear
  • Race Reports
  • Pregnancy//Baby
  • Travel
  • Bucket List
  • Hikes

Archives for December 2018

December 31, 2018

2018 in Review

So much can change in a year, and it is so interesting how different years can be from each other. This year has been so much less racing and travel as we focused on adding a baby to our family and some unexpected difficulties over the summer. The focus of the year really seems to have been family, just as I feel it should be. There were incredible highs and a few lows but overall I will always look back on 2018 as an amazing year because we added our sweet Emerald to our family.

The begining of the year was full of hiking as a family, we really enjoyed getting outside even if it was cold as I closed out my second trimester.

Spring was fun celebrating Easter but mostly counting down the weeks until I got to meet my baby girl. Anyone who has had a baby knows how time slooooooows down in the third trimester.

  • Creating Easter baskets

We got the nursery ready for baby girl and did our best to prepare to become a family of four.

In April, easily the highlight of the year happened with the arrival of Emerald Catherine. Emerald’s birth was so smooth we were able to go home to be with Cannon the very next day.

  • Emerald on the left, Cannon on the right
  • Newborn, baby girl

The first month with Emmy was amazing, we loved getting to know our little girl. Cory took a month off of work (they don’t get any paternity leave so he worked really hard and saved up all his vacation time, come on aerospace company, you can do better). We played, rested and Cannon ran his first race!

But then things took a turn for the worse, Cory went back to work, which was an adjustment for us all but an expected one. What wasn’t expected was at a BBQ at the end of his first week back, when Emmy was not quite a month old, he would completely sever his Achilles tendon. My sleep deprived, postpartum hormone filled mind couldn’t comprehend what was actually happening. Cory came home from the BBQ and told me of his accident, he claimed it didn’t hurt too bad and he was certain it would be better in a couple days. I took one look at his swollen ankle and was certain he had badly injured his Achilles. The next morning I made an appointment with a doctor and begged him to go, I didn’t want it to get worse. He agreed to go just to make me happy, the doctor confirmed he had ruptured his Achilles and later an MRI confirmed a full rupture. Now we were looking at surgery and bedrest to recover. I will admit I wasn’t taking this all very well. We had a very active needy toddler and a one month old, Cory has always been a big help with the kids. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it all. In late May Cory had his surgery to repair the tendon and it was a great success.

On top of dealing with Cory’s injury and recovery, our pug was getting sicker and sicker. We took him to the vet multiple times and even up to the specialists at Colorado State University. After a few weeks of no answers I noticed that he had a bump that had grown quickly on his neck. With great fear I took him back into the vet, we hoped it was just an infection but I feared the worst since he had been acting so sick. A few days later I got the call I had been dreading, it was Lymphoma and it was spreading fast. We started steroids immediately and were contemplating chemo therapy. The cancer moved faster than we could and it was clear there wasn’t time for treatment. We were forced to say good-bye to our sweet boy in June.

Even with all of the difficulty and the sadness there was also so much joy! We celebrated Cannon’s second birthday with a Where the Wild Things Are themed party.

With Cory’s injury and recovery from surgery we didn’t have the adventure packed summer full of hikes and camping as we had planned but we did still enjoy the season and played outside a lot.

Summer also marked the return of running for me, I didn’t feel that I could leave Cory home with both kids by himself because of his injury so that made the return slower that I would have liked but it was amazing to get back out there.

At the end of summer we took a family trip to Oregon to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. It was a great trip visiting some of my favorite places in Oregon including Portland, Cannon Beach and SunRiver (near Bend).

  • Emmy’s first time putting her toes in the sand.

When we returned from Oregon it was time to head back to work after taking the summer as maternity leave. It was difficult to balance teaching and caring for babies but it was nice to be back in the class room.

Fall was also so fun to celebrate with Cannon, he is really starting to enjoy adventures and holidays. We went to vail for Oktoberfest and dressed up as Wizard of Oz characters for Halloween. Cory also returned to running and we started family runs again, and everything was looking better.

  • Somehow this Emerald girl has sapphire eyes
  • Oh Cannon…..
  • The ruffles!!!!

And then there was all things Christmas, we rode the Georgetown train, met Santa and spent a lot of time celebrating with family.

It feels a little sad to be saying goodbye to 2018, it is the year that Emmy was born and the last year that we had Winston with us. It is made a little easier by the very exciting plans we have for 2019.

I hope you all had a wonderful 2018, what was your favorite memory from this year?

Posted by bethcurtis Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Uncategorized

December 27, 2018

Christmas 2018

Christmas this year was magical and just a little bit sad. I have been looking forward to celebrating this year so much. Cannon is starting to understand the idea of Christmas more and this was Emmy’s first Christmas and that is just so special .

Wrapping our first gift to Emmy.

Christmas morning was a very early start for us with a wake up call from Emerald at 2am. Emerald has been sleeping through the night from a very early age so we were surprised to be woken up to her crying. We weren’t sure why she was waking up and upset but even with the extra early wake up it wasn’t all bad as we got some extra cuddles.

Feeling good on Christmas Eve

Cannon woke up at his normal time around 6 am. I threw our cinnamon buns in the oven (I use this recipe, it’s so easy and SO good) and settled in to open the kids’ stockings.

After stockings we packed up and headed to my parents house to celebrate with them and my brother.

As the day wore on poor Emerald started feeling worse and worse she was having trouble napping and would cry and she rarely ever cries. Poor thing was feeling pretty awful. The silver lining is that she would sleep while being held and there were lots of volunteers to cuddle her.

We made it through a delicious lunch and cranberry orange cake. Then hurried home to try to get the kids down for naps.

In the evening we cuddled, watched Christmas movies and ate yummy lasagna.

It was so fun opening gifts with the family and Emmy got the cutest Mini Mouse dress.

Overall we had a good holiday but it was sad to see Emmy feeling so sick. Now we are all feeling a little under the weather and just taking it easy until this bug passes.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Anyone else sick on Christmas?

Posted by bethcurtis Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Uncategorized

December 21, 2018

Emerald Catherine | 8 Months

So many good things this month, I knew this time of year would be fun and we are enjoying it so much. Emmy’s first Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are just a few days from her first Christmas. I feel a little weepy that the year of her birth is almost over and so many firsts are behind us, but she is just so fun it makes me look forward to all the amazing things we will do together as a family.

At eight months Emerald is 28.2 inches long (88% ) and 18 lbs 7 oz (66%) BMI 36%. Emmy is wearing size 3 diapers, and is wearing mostly 9 month size clothes.

EAT

Emmy takes milk like a champ and happily drinks from her bottles, we are starting to work on her holding her own bottle. Anyone have any tips?

Eating solids is getting a little better but she still won’t put much in her mouth and spits out any solid we give her. 

She will eat traditional purees when fed to her with a spoon so we are working with that and just hope that she becomes interested in self feeding solids soon.

SLEEP

Sleep is going really great, still getting about 11 hours solid over night. Emerald is also really good at self soothing and that is really helpful.

Naps are where we have made some really great progress in the last couple weeks.  She was doing a lot of cat-naps. She would be awake for a short amount of time then want to sleep for 20-30 minutes. This was really difficult to manage with Cannon running around. We have been working to get her on a schedule of 3 naps a day, and have made some great progress. Most days she is down to just 3 naps a day (sometimes 4) with longer times awake and longer naps.

Her favorite person

GROW

Emmy has been working really hard on getting mobile. She is rolling, scooting, and itty bitty crawling. It’s surprising how far she can get on her own. It’s time to really baby proof the house again!

She has also been trying to stand while holding onto her walker or the furniture, it’s still very wobbly and not for long but she is making progress.

Emmy got her first haircut this month, I don’t think it’s as cute as her long hair was but it was getting into and bothering her eyes so we got a quick trim.

She also outgrew her baby bathtub and graduated to the big tub with brother.

PLAY

So much fun this month! We ran our first 5k as an entire family.

Then she enjoyed some mash potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Thanksgiving 2018

Then it was time to start celebrating all things Christmas. We rode the train in Georgetown.

Meeting Santa

Enjoying the lights

And generally enjoying the season.

Past Monthly Updates

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

Posted by bethcurtis Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Uncategorized

December 20, 2018

Thursday Randoms + a Change of Plans

Happy Thursday Friends!

4 miles with a few strides thrown in was the perfect way to start the day. While I am a little over the frigid temps at 5am it’s not icy so I won’t complain!

I can’t believe how close Christmas is and I have SO MUCH WRAPPING still to do ( I haven’t even started, yikes)

We actually gave Cannon one of his big gifts on Monday when it was his half birthday. It wasn’t really meant to be a half birthday gift, just a way to keep him from getting overwhelmed on Christmas day. Last year it was a little too much for him so we decided he would have more fun playing with his new train set all week.

I think it was a great choice for this year. It’s so fun that he is really getting the idea of Christmas this year!

The big change of plans coming up is that I have decided to change from the 50k at Arches Ultra to the Half Marathon. I do wish there was a distance between the half and 50k but the choices are 9k, half marathon, 50k or 50 mile. I have been having some hip pain lately and I suspect it is from giving birth this year. I don’t want to push too much and risk injury so a 50k in January just doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Once I made this decision I actually got really excited about the shorter race! Cory’s cousins and their two sweet girls are coming with us to Moab and I am so excited to hang with them and have our kids get more time together. Now that I am not going to be prepping and recovering from an ultra I will be able to enjoy our time in Moab so much more.

I will be able to say yes to hiking in Arches before the race and be able to walk around town after the race.

Moab, Delicate Arch, Arches

Moab 2015

After having Cannon in 2016 I felt like I had to prove to myself that I could get back to running long distances again, it was out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to. This time I KNOW that I can and will get back to ultras when I decide that I am ready.

So now it’s time to get serious setting goals for 2019, I am really on the fence about what I want to do.

Have you figured out your goals for 2019? Let me know what dreams you’re chasing!

Posted by bethcurtis Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Meet Beth

Follow

Search

Instagram

Follow on Instagram

Tag Cloud

Baby Baby Update Book Nook Bumpdate Cannon Disney Disneyland Emerald Europe Family Family Adventure Favorites Friday Favorites Gear Goals Hike Hikes Holidays Ironman Ironman Canada Ironman Training Kids Hikes Marathon Marathon Training Moab Monthly Update National Park pregnancy Project 366 race report Races Run run streak trail race trail running training Travel Ultra Ultra Training Ultramarathon Update updates Utah Weekly Recap Weekly Rundown

Monthly Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010

Easy Instagram

Loading...

Instagram Slider

Theme by 17th Avenue · Powered by WordPress & Genesis