Santa Cruz Beach Babies...

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So every year, my family goes to New Brighton Beach in Santa Cruz, CA to camp and go to the beach. It is one of my FAVORITE traditions. There are tons of families that go that we don't get to see very often, so we all love it. I had to leave early this year because Nate's brother Duffy was getting married on Saturday, so me, whit, my mom, and the kids all went up on Monday night so I could have a few days there. I have to say, camping is a lot harder with a little one, and going to the beach is not nearly as relaxing as it used to be. I had to chase Asher around to keep him from putting everything he saw in his mouth. I was not 100% successful. Asher LOVED the beach. He crawled all around in the sand (which, by the way was very hot!). He loved the water too. I sat him down where the tide comes in, and he loved playing in the mud. That is until I let him get hit by a little wave. It didn't knock him down, he just got water in his face. He actually didn't even cry, he would have kept on playing, but I thought maybe he'd better not! It was all so fun though, and I'm glad I got to spend some time with whit and my mom, and a few of our friends that were there early. Asher and I also drove up to Palo Alto to visit my old roommate, Maren and her 3 month old, Leah. It was so fun to see them! I wish we would have been able to visit a little bit longer, but that's ok. I hope you enjoy the video of our time in Santa Cruz!

We did it!!!

Well, it's official folks. I along with 3 of my sisters and my dad, am an official "marathoner"! On Saturday may 19th, we all ran and FINISHED the Zion's Bank Ogden Marathon.

So we met the buses at 5am on saturday morning and took the nice long drive up the canyon. It actually was not nearly as long as I thought it would be. I have heard that the drive up can be quite daunting, but it really wasn't for me. We got up there and huddled around fires, and waited in lines at the porta-johns, along with about 2500 other runners. The gun went off promptly at 7am, although it took us a few minutes to cross the starting line as we were towards the back of the pack. It is all very exciting, there are so many people, all shapes and sizes. It is also quite interesting to see everyone's stradegies. We saw lots of walk/runners. They would run for like 5 minutes and walk for 2 or something like that. But they were keeping up. I think actually, the two ladies I saw doing that finished before us. We also got a nice treat around mile 3. I guess some girl just couldn't wait another second to go to the bathroom, so she just popped a squat right there on the side of the road (there were porta-johns like every mile or so). It was awesome!

Ok, so on to the actual run...it was great! It really was. I really enjoyed myself, and kept thinking how great this was, and just loved all the support we got from onlookers. We even had a hill after mile 13 that was no problemo. Then we got to about mile 22, and all that went away...I hated the marathon, and couldn't think why on earth I was putting myself through this torture. But I had gone this far, I might as well go another 4 miles. Mile 23...I am going to die, I am going to barf, I don't want to do this anymore, just keep going. Mile 24...why on earth did the city Marathon have to be 26.2 miles away from Athens (see Origins of Marathon), just keep going, you can't stop running until you hit the mile 25 marker, you can do it, no I can't, yes you can, no I can't...ok, I'm there! Mile 25, 1 more mile to go. Dad's telling me this is all mental...ppsshh, what is he smokin'? Get a drink, take a walking break to get geared up for the final stretch...put off running as long as possible...start running. We turn the corner onto the final stretch...we can see the finish line, and OH MY GOSH, it is SO FAR AWAY. I can't do this, I want to stop, just keep going, speed up so we actually look like runners, my lungs are going to burst...oh my gosh, there's Asher and Nate, and Ashley and Whit and Ben...we are going to make it...smile, look like this is no problem! We did it, we're there...it's over...THANK GOODNESS!! We didn't do it as fast as we would have liked, but we did it. I just looked at the final results and my official time was 5 hours and 5 minutes and 29 seconds. Here is a video of us coming into the finish. Sorry, it is very bouncy, Ashley started running with us and in doing so, had a hard time keeping the camera steady. If you listen closely, you can hear the announcer saying our names as we cross the finish line. He realized after saying a few Busaths that it was "Team Busath...the yellow girls".

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So needless to say, this was by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. WAY harder than having a baby (although I realize that that is not really saying much in my case). When I finished, I didn't think that I would ever run a marathon again. But just like having a baby, I was very quick to forget all the pain and suffering that I went through, and by the next day, I was already thinking, yeah, I think I could do that again. I guess we will see!





I would also like to thank Nate for all the love and support that he has given me throughout the past 4 months. (Sorry to get all cheesy on everyone) When I decided to do this, neither of us had any idea what we were signing him up for too. Hours and hours of babysitting when he had tons of things to do. Every saturday was basically shot. But I want you to know Nate that I could never have done it without you. I love you. Thanks for all you have done for me...especially the many cafe rio salads that you got for me after my long runs! :)


To the fam...Jill, Hailey, dad, it was so fun experiencing this with you. Whit, I could have NEVER done this without you. I was not a runner, but you made me believe in myself and pushed me to be better every week. I love you guys...GO TEAM BUSATH...THE YELLOW GIRLS!!

Asher was such a good boy. Ashley said he didn't cry once all day. I think he just loved being outside. What a cutie!

visit zazoosh.com and look up my number 2012 for more pics.

Happy Birthday Nate!

So, Nate said to me today (Sunday, the day after Nate's birthday) "so how come you did a birthday tribute for everyone else, but not for me?" Well, it was hard to convince him that I really was still planning on doing one, but just hadn't had a chance. Yesterday I was running around like a crazy person all day...whit and I had a quick 8 mile run, then had to hurry home and get things going for our Shabby Apple party at noon (which was a great success...such cute dresses!) After that, I came home and switched into birthday mode. I did feel bad that I wasn't able to devote more of the day to Nate. He even ended up having to help ME with things, which should not happen on one's birthday. So, when I said I still wanted to do one, he said not to do one. Sorry babe, I disobeyed!

Nate is now 32. I know, he's an old man! I am almost 25, 7 years younger, but I always say that our marriage works despite our age difference, because I am mature for my age and he is immature for his age, so we meet in the middle! Nate is an amazing husband and father. He loves Asher so much and is so protective of him. I am always amazed that I got such a wonderful husband. Throughout our marriage, I have been so humbled by Nate's willingness to serve and love me unconditionally.

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Nate's most recent accomplishment has been the completion of his book, "Championship Contest Fiddling". He has been working for about 2 years on this book, interviewing National champion fiddlers, transcribing fiddle tunes and writing and re-writing biographies, etc, etc. He has a contract with Melbay Publishing Company, but they usually take about a year to get them out. So Nate self-published it for now, and just got the first batch last weekend. A couple of months ago, Nate and I were on our way to Wal-mart, and he said that one of his goals was to make $750,000 and only live on $60,000 and give the rest to charity. I said, yeah, that would be great, but how are you going to make $750,000. He says, my book. I said, I don't think that you are going to be able to make millions off of your fiddle book. He says, why not, that's totally possible, just look at the DaVinci Code...(laughter, laugher...) So, I love that my husband has such high ambitions that he would compare his book to a National bestseller... and I also love that he has such a great sense of humor! I love being married to Nate. We have so much fun together. He is truly my bestfriend and the love of my life. Nate is one of the most talented people that I have ever met, and I am so lucky to be married to him. Happy Birthday Nate, I love you!

Warmin' up my vocalizers...

So Asher always does this hilarious thing with his mouth...he puckers up his lips and scrunches his face and makes spitting/buzzing sounds (it reminds me of a warm-up Jer-bear and other voice teachers would have me do before we start singing). I am always trying to get a video of it, but he has never been very cooperative. But the other day he started to do it and got in the "buzzing zone". He seriously did it for like 10 minutes straight (don't worry, the video is not that long), nothing I could say would stop him. It was so cute! He'll also occasionally do it when he has baby food in his mouth, which is not nearly as amusing! Anyway, I just thought I would share...

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Happy Birthday Grandpa Charlie!

Today is also my Grandpa Charlie's birthday, my dad's dad, who passed away a couple of years ago. I have so many memories of Grandpa. On several occasions, I would bring my science projects over to his house (we would go over there every Sunday or Monday) for "help", and he would end up practically doing the whole thing for me. He had (still has I should say, no one wants to attempt to clean it out) a garage full of every imaginable tool, and he loved to tinker around with things. So really, I was helping him to get his creative fix! :) Grandpa always had jellybeans (his favorite candy), and always tickled us. He always had all these funny little rhymes that he would say when he was playing with us. I can't remember exactly how they went now, but whenever I say little things to Asher, like: "bumble-bee, bumble-bee, bumble-bee, STING!" when I am feeding him, I always think of him. This is a picture of him holding one of his great-grand babies, I think it is Isabell Liddell, but could be wrong. I thought it was so cute though! Happy Birthday Grandpa, we love you!

Happy Birthday Ashley!

Today is my sister Ashley's birthday. She is turning 21, so she is now officially legal. Ashley is the 4th child of 7 and the 3rd girl of 6. She is currently living here in Provo with the rest of us and going to Paul Mitchell cosmetology school. Ashley is very talented with things of an aesthetic nature. She has always loved makeup and hair, which is why she decided to go to Cosemetology school.
Ashley also has the most amazing singing voice. Funny fact: we were all in Galena, and during Ashley's years in Galena, she had many solos. One year, Jer-bear decided to do a publicity video with snippets of different songs and dances. So we sit down to watch the dvd and look, there's Ash, and, oh wait, there's Ash again, and again, and again. Practically the whole dvd was the Ashley Busath show. It was awesome. So I guess we're not the only ones that think she is amazing.

In my opinion, Ashley has always been the "cute" one. She is so tiny and skinny and so beautiful. I must admit that until I got to college, I pretty much hated Ashley. I hated her because I was insanely jealous of her. There were countless times that people in our ward would come up to me and say, "yeah, you did a great job singing that solo, but do you know who has the most beautiful voice? Your sister Ashley...blah blah blah." It used to make me so mad. But when I finally grew up, I learned to accept the fact that I just wasn't that talented in that area, and started to realize that everyone was right about Ashley. Since then, I have always been so proud that I had such a talented sister. I still believe that she could still make it to Broadway if she wanted to.

Ashley is also the most emotional of all us girls. I remember one story my mother told us. Ashley was probably 3 or 4 and started screaming and crying about something. My mom said that she had to go to her room until she was done crying. So she goes to her room, cries cries cries, and comes out a while later, no longer crying, but still noticeably upset and says (while shaking and still sniffling a little) "ok, I think I'm done now". :) What a silly kid. Another time, our stupid cat Bell had kittens. Our favorite one was this little pudgy one with white feet, we named him socks. We kept the kittens in the garage in a box (w/ no lid of course) lined with blankets and such. One night, we came home late from a galena show. My dad pulled into the garage driving our enormous 12 seater van. The kittens were getting bigger and were now able to climb out of the box. We could see that they were out, but didn't think they were in the way. But I got out of the van, and sure enough, dad had run over our favorite kitten, Socks. It was not a pretty sight. When Ashley found out, she locked herself in the bathroom for like an hour and just cried. So sad. So there you have it, Ashley is a very emotional girl. But I think that that is actually one of her strengths. I think that it just further emphasizes how big Ashley's heart is. She truly is one of the sweetest people I know. She is such a good, kind person and wants nothing more than to love and be loved.

These days, besides going to school and working, Ashley loves the outdoors. She is always telling me about these amazing hikes and campouts she goes on with her boyfriend. She loves music of all kinds, and in her heart, I believe she still wishes she was cloggin' up a storm! :) Happy Birthday Ash. I love you and hope you have a FABULOUS day!!

PS. Forgive the bluriness of the top pictures, I had to scan them in and they didn't turn out all that great. Oh well!

A Gem...

So I have discovered a gem. I have been a long time fan of Patty Griffin, and all of her albums are amazing. But she recently came out with her new album, Children Running Through, Nate got it for me on itunes, and I LOVE it. You may have noticed my recent addition "Music" to my blog. The song that is there currently is "Heavenly Day" and it is a Heavenly song. I love it...it makes me feel so happy and light, like I am laying or running around barefoot in a field of dandelions and daisys, on a beautiful day, with someone I love (like my husband for example :). The whole album is fantastic. It's one of those albums that you can put on and listen to the entire thing without having to skip the ones you don't like. All of the songs have beautiful orchestrations and have so much emotion in them. I encourage all to check it out. At the very bottom of my blog, I have a playlist with some songs from her other albums, 1000 Kisses and Impossible Dream, which I also highly recommend.