Josh and his tricks!

Just had to show you one of Josh's great flips at the cenote. You'll have to turn your head sideways because I don't know how to flip it. Sorry!

Spring Break in Mexico

Spring Break was a lot of fun and very relaxing. We went back to the Gran Bahia Principe and enjoyed a great week of sun and fun. We spent half a day at coba and swam at a cenote, enjoyed church at the little branch in Tulum and mostly ate, played and relaxed. I am posting most of our pictures on our blog so head on over there for more details but here are a few. Let me add that as much fun as we had we did miss having the rest of the family there. We really need to do that again sometime. We love you all!

Hanging at the Beach

Ready for a ball game? The Gang at Coba

Tucson Update

Let me just start by saying that this post has been a long time coming. Sorry I'm so slow. Some of you may have already read about most of this on Carlee's mission blog, so feel free to skim my retelling of our adventure.

At the end of February, Carlee flew down to Arizona to run with me in the Ragnar Relay Del Sol. For those of you who haven't heard about this race, it's a 200-mile, 12 person overnight relay race, and it's awesome! My roommate organized 4 teams from the Tucson YSA group including a few out of towners, so Thursday night we all went up to Buckeye and then headed early Friday morning to begin our race. This is a picture of our team, or at least most of it. We were the Cycling Sunbeams. The meaning of the name is too long of a story to blog about, but you can ask me later.


So, the race began in Wickenburg, AZ which I've never been to before. I was the teams second runner, and Carlee was number six. The team was broken up into 2 vans of six people and here's how it goes. Runner 1 begins, van drives a mile or two ahead and cheers for the runner as they pass, van drives a few more miles and cheers for the runner again, van drives ahead to the next exchange, runner 1 tags runner 2 with a slap bracelet, repeat. Each person runs 3 different times with anywhere from 13 to 21 miles total. Carlee ran around 16 miles and I ran about 19. Total race time: about 30 hours. Here's a few pictures from this crazy adventure:


Now, you may be thinking that we were completely crazy and that this doesn't sound like fun at all, and while that may be partly true, it was truly one of the funnest races I've ever done. Partying in the van and cheering on our runners was awesome. We were blasting music the whole time, getting pumped, getting ready or recovering from running, eating tons of snacks, etc. And while van 2 was running, we would go to different houses and play with some of the other teams from Tucson. The overnight run was by far my favorite. I ran from 10-11p, which wasn't bad. It was nice and cool, and definitely my best run. Carlee ran from 2-3a which was pretty exciting and she was battling it out with a runner from one of the other teams the whole time so it kept her awake and motivated. She beat him to the exchange point, but due to an unfortunate miscommunication, our next runner wasn't ready yet. She was amazing, though.

Basically it was just one long party for 30 hours. Lots of adrenaline, lots of loud music, lots of cheering, and lots of sugar afterwards. I have never been quite so tired in my entire existence. After the race, all 50 or so of us went to one of the racer's house for dinner and it was the most hilarious sight I have ever seen. Just try to imagine 50 active, healthy, college aged young adults literally waddling around in slow motion, crying every time they stood up or sat down, trying desperately not to move or fall asleep while eating more food than you could ever imagine. It was pretty amazing. Overall, it was a great experience, and I'm glad Carlee got to come down and party with me before she left on her mission. We also got some great views of Arizona along the way.

So that was like a month ago. Since then I have experienced the joy of attending a school that actually has a spring break! It was pretty amazing. I went to San Diego to visit a mission companion and stayed almost the whole week. We went to the beach, the temple, the zoo, some gardens, walked around Old Town, saw the Mormon Battalion thing (which was actually more exciting than I had envisioned) and ate a ton. I would post pictures, but my companion had to work all week so most of my tourist outings were solo and all my photos have no people in them. But it was a blast and I loved it!

Cohen's Baby Blessing

Cohen was able to be blessed last Sunday in Utah.  Even though doing it in my sister's house was a back up plan it turned out really well.  We enjoyed it being a smaller setting with just family.  It was a really special day and we are glad we were able to celebrate it with family.  We wish we all lived a bit closer together so more of you could have come, but here are a few pictures from the day.

Cohen!

Even though Brenton and I have joined the parenthood party of utter exhaustion we are so happy to have little Cohen in our family.  He is such a good baby, and we can't get over how much we love him!  Even though he has screaming fits sometimes in the evening, it tires him out so much that he sleeps longer at night, so we take what we can get :)  Here are just a couple of recent pictures.  He is getting so big that it's hard to believe that just a month ago he was inside of me!  I now have more appreciation for women who bear children...you men have it sooo easy :)

He was trying to escape!  Or he doesn't have control over his body yet...

Always so reverent in church...wonder how long that will last!

He can't wait to meet you all!

Lawson's Eating Adventures

So right before we moved out to CO we got the go ahead from our doctor to start feeding Lawson real food. We waited till we got out here and started him on a little bit of cereal. We also got a new camera that records in hd video so we took a video of him first eating. The file ended up being too big for a blogger video so we put it on youtube instead. So here's the link, hope y'all enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p26roQ9e_CA


Here's my favorite picture of him, gotta love his face!

The Manwarings celebrate New Years in Utah

We spent New Years in Utah this year. We had a lazy couple of

days but it was fun. We went to Temple Square and saw the lights,

we went to the BYU campus and say the Carl Bloch display,

walked around the dorms with Melanee and Marissa,

and had fun with Mike's family. Unfortunately

I didn't take very many pictures but here are a few.

Party!! Ok, not so much.

Sledding in Utah

We went sledding while we were in Utah, just a local park hill.

It was fun but so cold. Not as much snow as Marlo and Kristi had.

We only lasted an hour too. Gene had an old fashion wood

sled that worked the best. This is Kenna. I had a blast.

Morgan heading on down.

Katelynn waiting her turn

There goes Mike

Here is Keaton and Mitchell climbing back up

which was not as much fun as going down.

Christmas Morning at the Manwarings

Katelynn sporting her new outfit.

By the way, I keep forgetting that these pictures add on above the

previous ones so this post is backwards, but I'm not doing it over:-)

Grandma still has what it takes to give us a run

for our money and always beats me!

Mike putting the ping pong table together.

Breaking in the new Playstation 3, by playing old Playstation 1 games. Go figure.

We were so lucky to have Grandma with us for Christmas this year.

Lining up on the stairs is an Anderson tradition.

The whole family crawling into Mom and Dad's bed is a Manwaring tradition.

Christmas Eve With Grandma

Mitchell feeding the reindeer

Right down the stairs??

Doing the Nativity a little different this year

In the middle of the Holidays

Kenna and Mike on their way to a Christmas Party

Keaton on his 8th grade Basketball team

Mitchell at his piano recital


Keaton and Fallynn with friends at the Christmas Orchestra Concert

A Few More Thanksgiving Pictures

Just a little gaming

How many Anderson's can fit in the Hot Tub. I think a few more!

Hanging out at the pool over Thanksgiving

Grandma and McKay share some piano time

Basketball Basketball

I am having so much fun with this new camera. Nate and Sam just had a game tonight and I took over 100 pictures. It is so much fun to use the continuous shot feature. We saw Sam make a great lay up and get a major foul as a tall girl grabbed him from behind. Ref's didn't catch it. Nate had some good runs and throws also. Sam is 11 and Nate is 12. Again, another year of fun.

Family Tournaments at the Reeds

I am not a good blogger, but at least I got these pictures online. It takes way too long, so maybe
I'll do more later

This one is for you Fallyn. This makes me a little sad because my Sam runs when he even senses that I'm going in for a hug. What's your secret Fallyn? I know, I'm "mom".

The oldest and youngest grandsons competing.

Check out these moves.