Old Town, San Diego

These are some of my favorite images of when I went to Old Town.  

Seriously, I love that place. I have the best memories of when I was a child visiting there with my family. We had some churros, the best homemade tortillas, and visited the Mormon Battalion. 

We have officially taken down our Christmas tree and decorations yesterday on January 11. And because of that, our house looks extremely boring.  

Tomorrow I start working out with my co-worker after work (too many "work" words in this sentence).  We have a gym at our work and we are going to start USING IT! I'm reallyyyyyyyyyy excited. I love having a workout buddy. Since she has never worked out before, I will have the opportunity to teach her some stuff! We plan on running a 5k together. 

I love having home teachers come visit us! Mostly for selfish reasons. 1) Forces us to clean our home top to bottom. 2) They come bearing gifts in the form of cookies. Yummy!

13.1

Ahhhh, this blog post has been in my draft section for MONTHS. I MUST PUBLISH IT TODAY. 

Real quick, let me update you on my half marathon all the way from OCTOBER.  The weather was perfect for running-cloudy, cool, and not hot. Note to other future half marathon runners: do not use the on location restrooms because it will be backed up forever and you WILL start your race after the official start. Although my training wasn't exactly on point, I still managed to finish my race at 2:37.  That's pretty good to me! I'm incredibly proud of myself for doing this.  My knees didn't give out either and I had been praying that they would not give me a problem. Running a half marathon has always been on my "bucket list" due to my physical limitations (a.k.a bad knees, hips, and ankles).  During the race I couldn't stop smiling, that runner's high definitely kicked in. 

Start of the race, look at that goofy smile. That girl doesn't know what she got herself into.

This was taken right after I finished, STRONG WOMAN! 

I couldn't move at all. I collapsed right after this picture. And I wouldn't be able to walk for weeks after either. 

Running across the finish line cheering!

Mama Ruth, this is my medal I was telling you about........

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 There's something refreshing about starting a new year. It gives people hope to start a new year by establishing goals and becoming better.  

This year we started it out with a BANG!

Okay. so that's a little cheesy. 

But really, one of our goals this year is to try new activities. 

Activity #1: Shooting. 

You can guess who's idea this was.  At first I didn't want to do it. But how could I refuse my husband especially when the gun rental is free on that particular day?  I'm not a gun advocate (no, this isn't a political view) so I was really hesitant to do this. Somehow after a while you get used to the sound of shots being fired. By the end, I was a pro! J and I really enjoyed this activity and I'm glad we did it! It was really exciting. 

J & I are at a really good place in our lives.  We love where we work, location, our church friends, and our beautiful home.  No, I'm not saying that our lives are perfect but we do feel very blessed with what we have.  As I've been thinking about my goals for 2014, I want to make sure that they are goals that stretch and improve me. 

2014 Goals: 

• Run a half marathon 
• Work towards saving for our first home. 
• Pay off my school loans. 
• Attend the temple every month.
• Read the New Testament.
• Work out at least 4 times a week. 
• Get in good shape and lose 20 lbs. 
• Finish an art project every month. 
• Open up my own Etsy shop. 
• Become a better wife.