Ogden 1/2 Marathon

I don't know how people run full marathons. A half was good enough for me. I have never ran over 8 1/2 miles at one time so I was pretty nervous about running for that long.
It was pouring rain and it didn't let up once. I ran in my pink poncho the whole 13.1 miles. It was beautiful though. The rain made the canyon so green. I'm really glad I ran in my poncho because it kept my body dry and I kept warm but by the end I couldnt move my hands, they were so cold! My shoes were drentched. I tried to avoid puddles at the beginning of the run but after the first 2 miles I gave up on that and ran through them. It was a really neat experience though. I think I will do one again and hopefully it will be better weather. I ran it in 2 hours 25 mins.
Now I can check 1/2 Marathon off the Bucket List!

St Lucia Extras

Baywalk was the mall center we did all of our shopping...

Trent's sand castle. He had a sand castle building contest with these two cute 8 or 9 year old boys. Trent definitely won. 

Huge caterpillar!

We ordered a banana split at the resort and this is what we got...

Fruit loops and Cheerios! It was one of the best banana splits I have ever had!

This guy was selling bracelets and necklaces and wanted Trent's Sosiety hat so he gave Trent 2 bracelets for it haha.

This place has the best ice cream! We had it almost every single day!

Loved spending a week with Trent! We had such a great time...I'm sad it's over. I hope that we can go back again! Love you Trenton!

St Lucia: Monday-Tuesday

Monday we went to the Pitons. The Pitons are two mountains that are right next to the ocean and are a popular tourist place in St Lucia. There is a restaurant that sits in between them and so while you are eating you sit in awe looking at the scenery. This was in my top 3 favorite things we did on the trip. The pictures do not do it justice. When you are looking out at the mountains your eyes can't tell if its real or a picture. It was absolutely amazing.

I love this guy!

Our drive through the island.

The cars on the left are parked and the cars on the right are coming towards us, so we had to pull forward park on the left and let the cars on the right pass before we could continue driving. The roads are so small in St Lucia. They don't have any yards either. These houses are all right next to each other with no space to walk in between them.

After lunch we went to an active volcano. It is like Old Faithful in Yellowstone there are a lot of hot pots and sulfur.  

This is a cashew. One of the weirdest things I have ever seen. It grows on a tree, and you can eat the yellow fruit that its connected to.   

Tuesday we went to Pigeon Point. It is an island that they used during the 1700's for like a war base between the French and the British when they . It was a nice hike and the view was beautiful!

I thought this tree was cool. I looks like a giant pineapple.

St Lucia: Sunday

Sunday we went to church! When Trent was serving in St Lucia about 7 years ago him and his companion were the only missionaries on the island and there were only about 2 or 3 members. Now there are 10 missionaries including 2 sister missionaries, 3 branches, and over 400 members!

This is the chapel.

 

Here are some of the missionaries! It was really neat for Trent to talk to them and find out how some of the members are doing on other islands. A member he baptized in Trinidad is now a Branch President! Super cool. We also met a lady there that is now a member of the church now because of a lady that Trent met and started teaching the gospel to. It's so amazing what one person can do! 

 

 This family is amazing! They are the foundation of this small Branch in St Lucia they have been members of the church for 6 years and were baptized by Elder Heslop (a boy that is also from North Ogden that we know) They are so strong in the gospel. On they way to church they say a man walking down the road so they pulled over and asked him where he was going and he said church so they said well we will give you a ride. You can come to our church! Haha they are awesome.

This is Ricardo. Trent taught him and Ricardo used to go around with them as they would teach people. He is not currently active but it was really fun to meet him and see someone Trent spent a lot of time with on his mission.  

After church we went to Rodney Bay to watch the sunset.

 

St Lucia: Thursday-Saturday

We flew in Thursday afternoon around 2:30pm and then it was an hour and half drive in traffic to our resort...that was a very long drive after over 12 hours of traveling. Then we made it! Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we just hung out at the beach and Trent showed me around the island.

Our Room...

 Our bathroom had holes in the wall. They had screens over them but you could see people walking outside and stuff while you were showering which was kinda weird haha

 This was our view from the whole in the shower wall...not bad!

This was our view from our bedroom! It was gorgeous!

 First things first we went to the beach!

 We were lucky to have a private beach so it was never that crowded which was so nice.

 This was our little car...which I was so glad that it was small. Driving in St Lucia is insane!

St Lucia is so poor. I kept waiting for us to go somewhere that had nice houses or nice stores but they were no where to be found...here are some pictures of the houses and shops they have...

Most houses are built on stilts and they hang their clothes underneath them to dry.

This made me laugh because it says 'President Suite' and then there is that poor little broken house...

 

One of the things I wanted to do there was get fresh fruit from one of the fruit stands. We got mangos and plums.  

These are what they call plums. They are really small but they were pretty good. They didn't taste anything like what plums are like here. It cost me $2 EC for that bag of plums. One US dollar is 2.6 EC. So it cost me less then $1 for them. Crazy!

We went to this restaurant called Razmataz and got some Indian curry, a popular food they have in the Caribbean. It was delicious! 

 These crabs are all over the beaches. Their eyes are so weird haha. They dig these perfectly round holes to hide in and they also by burying themselves in the sand and poke their eyes out haha

We spent a lot of time at the beach! 

Beautiful!