Can't spell clover without l.o.v.e: 4th of July Weekend

We had a fantastic 4th of July this year!

I have always loved the 4th of July, probably because only 9 days after it comes my birthday!! I love the fireworks, barbecues, and general festivities as well, of course.

This year we spent the 4th with Richard's sister Amy and her family and also his brother Chris and his girlfriend and her cute little girls. We started the day off with this:

5k!!

I know, it's not exactly a marathon. BUT Richard's brother Chris asked us if we wanted to run in it with his girlfriend and him a couple days before the race and we said yes!

Since we watch the office at least once every day, we couldn't help but think of this while we were running

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NimHt_shE

I run pretty regularly but don't push myself at all, ever. I'm basically a snail when it comes to running. Chris's girlfriend Kristen just ran a Ragnar, so this was no sweat for her. Chris and Richard don't do a lot of the running thing so I was a little nervous for them. They did us proud though! We all stayed together for almost the whole race.

The last mile was all uphill and that was a killer. The first 2 miles of the race we got to run down University ave. in Provo where the parade route is, so people cheered us on most of that time. I literally can't go anywhere in Provo without seeing a family that I work with so I was nervous that all the families I work with would be watching me as I ran along gasping for air, but I didn't see anyone so it was all good :) It was great fun and I was pretty happy with my time and where I placed.

I pushed myself so much harder than normal that it made me want to do more races! Next stop- 10k!

We rested up for a while and I made some BTS cake aka Heath cake aka "better than almost anything cake" for our barbecue later on. We saw Despicable Me 2 (cute) and ate and watched fireworks at Thanksgiving point. It was a great day!

That weekend we decided to try out the 9 MAN tent that we recently purchased. We went to Strawberry Reservoir with our couple friends the Malones, who are awesome. Here is the beast.