running

on saturday, I had the chance to run another half!

I love me some half marathons!

what I didn't know, was that this half was almost entirely uphill!

HOW DID I MISS THAT MEMO

I kept seeing a hill and thinking, "oh, this has got to be the last one."

or "with an uphill comes a downhill, right?"
NOPE.

just hill after hill after hill after FREAKING HILL!

it was SO HARD.

But it made me feel 100x more accomplished after this half!

And I felt really validated when one of the pacers told me afterwards that this was one of the hardest halfs in utah. HAHAHA WHOOPS

but I'm happy that I still got a new PR, even with the hills! 

(i am really too competitive for my own good)

AND I had a cute husband waiting for me at the finish line.

I can't quite convince him to run a half with me, but I did convince him to run a 5k with me on Memorial Day!

someone at the half told taylor they loved his shirt and that he needed to wear that when he raced one day.

so that's exactly what he did on monday. 

HA

I think we are in those shirts 90% of our lives. we love them.

(see here for the story behind them)

the 5k was a patriotic 5k in honor of memorial day.  

it was lined with american flags, and we ran around part of a cemetery to honor those who have fallen.

 taylor kicks my butt into gear with short distances.

(but I can kick HIS with long ;))

but I was proud that I had the burst I needed to 100% sprint it out with him in the end (which was impressive for me because he was running a fast paced mile (for me) for the whole 3 miles.

it was such a fun little experience.

I love sharing my hobby with tay!

and I think the 5k may have given him the race-itch to run a half!

OH YEAH!!

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

We just have yearbook day and graduation and WE ARE OUTTA HERE!

it's a good week!

(p.s. see here for half marathon tips and see here for working out tips)

our first date-iversary!

on may 21, 2011, taylor and I went on our first date.

and although it was an "accidental date" (read here for more details), it suddenly became our first date.

we seriously had SO much fun.

the BEST first date I've ever had (and last first date...).

tay and I love celebrating the "small things," and so every year, we do something to celebrate our first date.

I think May 21, 2011 is my second favorite day (behind the day when I finally became MRS TAYLOR GILBERT!).

I love looking back and thinking about how little 20-year-old kelli had NO IDEA what this date would lead to.

It was the FIRST DATE with my forever!

And that makes me soooo happy.

Because it was the start of this beautiful journey we share today!

ANYways, may 21 was on thursday this last week.

and I told taylor I wanted to plan something special.

I had been preparing all week, and had lots of special plans.

the plan was supposed to start with me cooking the meal that I cooked for him on our first date.

BUT, I got my first-ever cavity that same day (more to come on that), and when I got home, I fell asleep and woke up 2 hours later in a pile of drool (thanks numb face).

and when I looked at the clock, I realized I only had 20 mins before I had to leave for a church meeting.

soooo no time to make the dinner.

then, after the meeting, I came home to hear some bad news.

taylor and I had a pretty big bomb dropped on us that night.

one that was really hard for both of us to swallow.

...and had me in tears for the majority of the night.

our shared frustration and my tears (LOTS of them), had us both a little on edge.

and the LAST thing I wanted to do was to "celebrate"

and so, we both crawled into bed early that night.

with me still crying...HA

and taylor held me while I sobbed for another 20 solid minutes.

at this point, I was partly crying because of the "bomb" but also crying because that night was supposed to be SO SPECIAL.

I had prepared all week, and now we wouldn't even get to celebrate!

but as I laid in bed, with taylor cuddled up right next to me, I suddenly realized that this night was beautiful in its own way.

we didn't get to celebrate with smiles or laughs or dessert or fun plans.

but we were there for each other when things were HARD. 

I had a husband who held me until I stopped crying.

We were able to wither a storm together.

and I have May 21, 2011 to thank for it.

I was even MORE grateful for that first date than I think I would have been if we had been able to celebrate.

while we were laying in bed, taylor said, "I believe that today is only May 19th.  So we should celebrate May 21 on Saturday night." HA

so that's what we did.

we pretended saturday was May 21.

but it was kind of special in its own way, because May 23 (the real date of saturday) was the first day we held hands!

to celebrate, we started with recreating our first-date dinner.

then I kicked taylor out of the house for 20 mins to make this little fort.

and p.s. ALL of my pictures are blurry, because it was dark, and I was trying to hurry, and I didn't think to check them. HA

but I'm really proud of this circus-tent-fort.

(to make the fort taller, I attached string to the ceiling, and then safety pinned the string to the sheets! it was genius, and I'm still really proud of that idea)

I lit up the whole fort with string lights and LED candles.

which was really cool in the dark, but not so cool with a flash camera. HA

when taylor came in, I had a racquetball racquet hanging on the door with a sign that said,

"thanks for causing a "racquet" with me for the past 4 years. I'm so glad we get to play on the same team for life!"

(we payed racquetball on our first date)

 ^and of course, we had some cheesecake in our fort!...to symbolize the cheesiness of our lives. case in point...celebrating our first date-iversary. HA^

I also rented the movie we watched the first time we held hands...but we ended up watching burn notice instead. haha...neither of us could remember if the movie was even good (we were both too nervous to be paying attention to the movie four years ago), and we really wanted to watch something good.

so burn notice it was!

I cut open a racquetball and had little numbered messages inside for him to read.

don't know what taylor is doing here, but it kills me!
maybe crossing his fingers that it would be a fun night...? HA

and then...fort selfies.

 is this real life?

I am beyond grateful that God decided to make my May 21, 2011 one of the most special days of my life!

still don't know what I did to deserve taylorraygilbert!

until next year, May 21!

and happy first-date-iversary to my gilbert boy!

P.S. 3 days left of school until we can shout SUMMER from the rooftops! 

xoxo

an ode to tayray

yesterday was a pretty rough day for me.

just one of those days, you know?

I woke up from a bad dream--and that kind of set the mood for the rest of the day. HA

it's the dreaded end of term--where all students expect me to be sympathetic, when there is absolutely no sympathy in my bones at this time of year.

two more days of "real schedule days" and then 3 finals days and then DONE.

guys, I can't even handle it.

I am more worn out this year than I can say!

how do people have jobs without a summer vacation!?

I had mentioned to taylor that I was having a bad day, and that sweet boy listened to all of his intuitions and drove home at 2:30 (right when I got home) to give me a hug.

It was exactly what I needed!

He literally ran in, gave me a hug and a kiss, held me for maybe 45secs, and then said, "I've got to go back to work, but I wanted to come and give you a hug to make your day better."

LIKE WOW.

he is the VERY BEST.

then, I had major FOMO (fear of missing out) because I had to do my last long run before my half marathon on saturday, and the whole gilbert family was going out to one of our favorite restaurants out in midway.

but I literally had no choice--I was already pushing doing my 12 miles this close to the race (wasn't able to do it any other day!)--so while everyone was out having fun, I was out running 12 miles.

and let me tell you.

after mile 9, you start to get real bored.

of any music or book or anything else.

so I was pretty bummed out.

BUT THEN, I came home to this:

the note said, "I am the only one in danger of missing out because you aren't with me."

cue heart strings being pulled out of my chest.

oh, and if you're wondering why he signed it "lobby" I call him "my lobster" or "lobby" for short.

please tell me you know why, and we will be bffs.

and also, I must give my tayray a big high five for running nearly 10 miles in the rain with me on saturday, just because I mentioned that I didn't want to do it alone.

SO basically this whole post is an ode to taylor.

but he majorly deserves it.

he's been such a gem these past couple of weeks.

also, it seems so strange that it is so rainy when there are only two weeks left of school.

the weather doesn't quite match the usual "summer excitement"
I mean, I'm wearing hunter rain boots on MAY 19th!
what is this!?

life at the gilbert household has been so hectic!

and now taylor is spending his evenings studying for the gmat.

so that's super fun ;)

TWO WEEKS, GUYS!

not-a-mother's day

I LOVE MOTHER'S DAY JUST BECAUSE I GET TO TALK TO THE CUTEST MISSIONARY EVER!

(and yes, I was too excited to think about swiping those alerts away, so they are just blocking her cute little face)

man I miss that girl SOOOOO much. I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL MAY 2016!!!

and she is seriously just the funniest.

She asked me a few weeks ago what she should send our dad for his birthday.

I told her, "no one expects you to send gifts on your mission. just send little notes to everyone!"

then, on monday, I get a letter in the mail.

I open the envelope--and it's empty!

...or at least I thought.

I looked harder, and saw this tucked into a corner:

HAHAHHA I died.

it was so funny.

and so jamie.

I also love my cute mama-bear.

I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting on mother's day (a little overwhelming considering how sensitive of a day it is to a lot of people), but it wasn't too hard when I have a mom like the one I do.

also, taylor and I kind of have this little running joke.

on our first mother's day being married, I jokingly said to taylor, "so what kind of gift do I get for mother's day?"

he said, "girrrl you aren't a mom. I'm not getting you anything until you make me a dad. which makes you a mom."

and so, every year leading up to mother's day, we have the same little sarcastic squabble--I ask him what he's getting me, he tells me I don't deserve anything until I make him a dad, I tell him I will still BE the mother of his children ONE DAY and so I deserve something, he refuses with his cute half smile.

and then he always breaks down and gives me flowers...and we both look forward to next year when we can have the same little argument again.

(that we both secretly love)

and then for father's day, I always get him a BIG gift and say, "see? I give you a gift on father's day because I'm so grateful you will be the father of my children!"

and it is maybe the funniest thing ever.

(maybe you have to be one of us to think it's funny)

ANYways, this year, taylor went out of character and got me a "big gift!"

taylor surprised me with a polar m400! (a running watch!)

I had mentioned once like 5 months ago how cool it would be to have one, and whatdaya know?

he goes and gets one!

when he gave it to me, he said, "here's your not-a-mother's day gift!"

and all throughout the day, he would kiss me and say, "happy not-a-mother's day!" HA

(had to be all sneaky and take this picture with a room full of students HA)

sooo for runners out there:

 I have been comparing the polar m400 and the garmin forerunner 220 for the last month or so, and was slightly leaning towards the polar.

based on all of the reviews I read (especially dcrainmaker--love him!), the polar m400 is THE watch for 2015--beating out its garmin competitor for one of the first times.

there are A TON of cool features on the polar m400.

if you don't care about vibrating alerts or live tracking, then the polar m400 is the way to go hands down.

three of my favorite things about it:

+ it tracks my daily fitness (one of the first running watches to have a complete daily fitness tracker built in)

+gives me a ESTIMATED FINISH TIME (the only watch to do this!). I can't wait to use that feature for my half marathon at the end of this month

+tracks my sleep

basically I'm in love.

and I felt extra confident that I was leaning towards the polar m400 when taylor picked that one after all of his research, too!

SO happy it's friday!

one real week and one non-sense week left until SUMMER!

xoxo

pictures from the husband's phone

I was scrolling through the pictures on taylor's phone the other night, and I found a few gems.

first, loved this picture that I didn't know existed.

hahah--for some reason it made me smile knowing he took this.

he is my very favorite cuddle buddy!

during finals season, taylor and I headed down to campus and left some quarters for the poor stressed students to use at vending machines.

 I'm not sure how long it stayed up--but hopefully a few students benefitted!

pictures of taylor getting my approval in the dressing room.

and we went to the payson open house this week!

man that temple is seriously BEAUTIFUL.

we can't wait to go through once it is dedicated!

last night, we had the biggest thunderstorm.

I am SUCH a sucker for thunderstorms.  I have to be right outside watching them or leaning up against a window with the best view.

with the pouring rain, we opted for the upstairs window and mama at papa gilberts house.

I am SO happy-giddy when taylor watches with me.

one of my favorite things ever!

afterwards, we went back home and made fresh chocolate ship cookies and curled up to netflix.

how is life so awesome?

alsoooo--today in my second period, a student accidentally farted SO loud.

I tried to just move past it, but students started giggling immediately.

it was stifled laughter at first, and then everyone's stifled laughter turned into out-loud laughter.

and that quickly turned into uncontrollable laughter.

I tried at first to just keep plowing through the lesson and not draw more attention to it.

but when the whole class was bursting with laughter, I couldn't hold it in any longer myself.

I feel so bad for whoever it was.

but luckily, no one was really sure WHO it was, and everyone was nice not to ask.

I have my suspicions though...haha

but man, oh man...that was something else.

I am super ready for this weekend!

one more day to go!

a little weekend update

this last weekend was just so fun having my parents in town.

I was the absolute worst at taking pictures though :(

but the utah gang (me, taylor, my brother, and his wife) had so much fun with my parents.

we went to lots of yummy food places around utah, toured a masonic temple (always some sort of museum involved with the mama ;)), more geocaching, celebrated Rachel's graduation, game playing, modern family watching--and so much more.

we also have a little too much fun making fun of our cute daddy. hahah 

he always gets the rough end of the deal ;)

^here are the little family selfies we sent to my cute sister on a mission!^

I'm so grateful my mom was in town this last little bit.

she was able to help me out with some big things--and it was so helpful to have my mama's advice right when I needed it.

speaking of my cute missionary sister, today marks 6 MONTHS of her being gone! 1/3 of the way there! 

sometimes it feels like FOREVER.

thinking of another year seems crazy long, but I'm so happy we hit the 6th month mark for her!

we sure miss her like crazy.

I am SO happy it's may.

3.5 more weeks until I am SUMMER FREE!

I am so antsy and excited for summer.
I just can't wait!