Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for this cute Pilgram girl.

She's thankful for...

Race

On Saturday I ran the Snow Canyon Half Marathon in St. George. It's one of my favorite courses. Mile 1-4 are on the St. George marathon course then you dive into the north entrance of Snow canyon, run through the park and come out by Entrada Golf course and finish at Snow Canyon highschool on the track. It's scenic and fast (or at least it makes me feel fast. I finished in 1 hr 44 min)

When we got into St. George Friday night and picked up my race packet, they had openings for the Tuff Kids race. They had a 1 mile, 1/2 mile and 200 meter kids race. Sophie has been asking me when she gets to run a race like mommy. So we signed her up for the 200 meter race.

Saturday morning I ran my race at 8:30 am got back to dads house about 10:30am, showered real quick then we took Sophie out to her race which started at 11:30am at the finish line of the 1/2 marathon. It was a cold morning, low 30's when I started my race and low 40's when Sophie started her's.

Sorry the pictures arn't in order

The kids doing their stretching before the race

Run Sophie Run! Can you see her? She's in the back right corner.

Got her finisher medal. She finished 12th place overall (out of 15 kids) and 6th place in her age group. Time was 1 min 20 sec.

Enjoying the post race gatorade and oranges

Ready for the race, they even gave her a timing chip for her shoe.


She ran so good. Actually she got mad at me for running along side her. She wanted to run by herself. After she finished she said, lets do the race again!

Trying to stay warm as we waited for the race to start

At the finish line

With our finisher medals

Here is a little video of her running her race.

Recipe

I made this soup last night from melskitchencafe.com It's Chicken corn chowder. Try it... it's very good. I made a few modifications (in red text below) to my tastes but you can make the original or do what I did.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 jalapeno, finely chopped, seeds and membrane removed (this is important for flavor – but doesn’t add heat because the seeds and membranes are removed and it is cooked with the other veggies) Not a fan of jalapeno's so I didn't include it.

1/4 cup thinly sliced or cooked chopped ham

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 (14-oz.) cans chicken broth

3 tablespoons flour

3 ears of fresh corn kernels or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels (I used frozen)

2 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I just put 2 chicken breasts in the crock pot for a few hours and shredded it)

4 oz. softened cream cheese (Again not a fan of cream cheese so I left this out)

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon salt (I added another 1/2 tsp salt as I thought it needed more, so 1 tsp total)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I left this out as well but Chris sprinkled his on top)

2 small potatoes diced - I think chowder should always have potatoes in it so I diced some up in smaller chunks and added it after putting in the broth and milk and let it cook for about 20 minutes then added the chicken and corn.

Can you tell I don't care much for cheese?

DIRECTIONS: Place olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute celery, bell pepper, onion and jalapeno until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and ham; cook for another 3 minutes. Whisk the broth with the flour in a liquid measuring cup or bowl and then stir into the soup. Add diced potatoes, cook for 20 min. Stir in the corn and chicken. Bring to a low boil and reduce heat. Whisk together the cream cheese and milk in a large bowl until smooth (I had a difficult time getting my cream cheese to completely whisk into the milk so my soup had some minor small lumps but next time, I’ll soften the cream cheese until almost melted in the microwave). Whisk the cream cheese/milk mixture into the soup along with the salt, pepper and cheddar cheese. Simmer on low until ready to serve.

The soup freezes well too. I froze the leftovers last night and had some for lunch today. Yummy

Oh and here is a cute girl.

Halloween fun

We had lots of fun the week before Halloween. The neighborhood moms put on a little Halloween party for all the kids with games/activities.

Here is Sophie at the party with our neighbor River

Sophie and her friend Max at the party. Sophie loves to play with Max they get together about once a week to play.

Heading in to the Haunted forest
Waiting for the next activity. Don't they look thrilled to be there.
We carved pumpkins with the Cindrich's


Sophie with her cousin Chloe
More Cousins
Checkin out the pumpkins

Chris took her out trick or treating to a few friends in the neighborhood before Soph and I headed to Provo to my dads for dinner and trick or treating down there. It was such a nice day and warm night for trick or treating.

When we woke up the next morning we had snow!