And all through the house, new matching monogrammed jammies were a hit with everyone but my spouse.

Aren't they cute? (excuse the red eyes  This is as good as it's going to get tonight)  Santa's got work to do.

It has been a long journey with lots of ups and downs, highs and lows. The journey probably started 9 years and 250+ pounds ago. As Marty says, he was a tank. He made the determination that he was going to get healthy and fit. He started by pushing Rylee in a stroller as they slowly walked around the mall. As he was able to walk further he started to walk the Provo River Trail in Provo. He gradually built up his endurance and walked a 5K fun run. Team Christoffersen was there for him all along the way. We cheered him on every step of the way. Many people thought he couldn’t do it, but we knew better and cheered him on.


When we moved to Arkansas he bought a bike and twice a week would bike to the fitness center in Bentonville, swim for an hour and then bike home. The weight continued to come off. However, one day Marty’s knee gave out on him. The doctor told him not to bike any more. Running & swimming was fine, but biking was to be eliminated. Now what?

Marty then set the goal to run a marathon. He wanted to run the Little Rock Marathon in March of 2009. However in January, Marty fell on the ice and broke his hip. Another setback. The doctors released him to slowly start back training in July. He wanted to run the St. George Marathon in October, but missed the deadline to sign up. So the hunt for another race began. When Marty found the Las Vegas Marathon, he knew that he had to participate. And participate he did.

Here is Marty all ready for a chilly start.



For the marathon they closed all 6 lanes of the Las Vegas Strip to car traffic for runners only.



There were nearly 25,000 runners (most for the ½ marathon, but about 6,000 for the marathon) I quickly lost Marty in the crowd.

In true Las Vegas style, there were Elvis runners, a run through wedding chapel, bands, and lots of fun people. I love to watch people. I really wish now I had taken more pictures of some of the people, but this is the only one I could find.

I was able to catch Marty at the 3 mile and 9 mile marker. After that the marathoners turned off the strip leaving the ½ marathon runners behind. I had no way to get off strip to see Marty for the last 16 miles. I then went to Breakfast at the Paris and waited for Marty at the finish line.



Interesting thing about the 9 mile marker. The runners were running on the opposite side of the street from where I was. There was no way to cross the street other than, well, cross the street. I wanted to get closer to him to get a good picture. I was stopped by a police officer and told that I couldn’t cross the street because this was a “very serious event” they had going on here. I explained that I knew it was a serious event and I wanted pictures of the serious event. He let me stay in the middle of the strip and get my pictures.

Here he comes toward the finish line.



As he passed me, he gave me two thumbs up, but due to my excellent photography skills, this is the picture that I got.



Here he is right after he crossed the finish line. He was tired, but said that it was his best run ever in 5 hours 36 minutes 12 seconds.



Marty has been trying to decide what kind of a reward he wants for accomplishing such a great challenge. I reminded Marty of a goal he had set 9 years ago. He bought a leather motor cycle vest in a size XL. At the time he was over 500 pounds. He said that if he could ever fit into that vest he would buy a motorcycle. I asked Marty if he still had the vest. He went to his closet and pulled it out, sure that it wouldn’t fit. He was right, it is too big!!!!! I told him that we needed to buy him a motorcycle for accomplishing two major goals . . . losing 250+ lbs & finishing a marathon.



Anyone that knows Marty knows that he doesn’t like to spend money, especially on himself. He wouldn’t commit to buying a bike. He test drove several and fell in love with one, but just wouldn’t commit. On Friday I took the rest of the money out of my “Miata account” and told Marty that we were going to go buy his motorcycle. He reluctantly agreed, but secretly I know that he is in LOVE!



I haven’t had a chance to get any pictures of Marty (or the girls) on the bike, but I’m sure there will be more time for riding when our daily temperatures get out of the 40’s.

1. I pack WAY too much stuff when I go on vacation. My bagged weighed 49.55 lbs at the airport. Oops, almost had to pay extra.

7. I get way too caught up in what I’m doing to remember to take pictures of anything.

8. Le Rêve at the Wynn is absolutely fabulous!

9. My husband is a stud! He set a HUGE goal for himself and accomplished it! (More on that in a later post.)

10. NEVER take new shoes with you on vacation, especially if you are planning on doing a lot of walking.

11. Beautiful Christmas displays can be made out of live flowers, plants, and nuts. The Bellagio hotel has an amazing display including polar bears, snowman, Santa & reindeer all made out of natural material. I’d show you pictures except I left my camera at the hotel that night. I did take a few pictures on my cell phone, but I can’t figure out how to get them off my phone and on to here.

12. Marty is not only willing, but happily will go with me to a cowboy expo. The National Rodeo Finals were in Vegas the same time we were there. There were cowboys EVERYWHERE! My dad’s brother and sister happened to be in town for the rodeo so we met them at one of the many expos. Marty even bought something at the expo :)

13. Not only can they, but they do, cancel shows after you have purchased tickets. We had tickets to Phantom of the Opera for 7:00 Tuesday night. We showed up at 6:30 to be told that they had cancelled our show. No reason was given, just that they had also cancelled on Monday. I was crushed. That was what I was most looking forward to. I was surprised by how disappointed I was. It was too late to get in on any other shows, so we were out of luck.

14. When you are SUPER sweet, you get really cool things! We decided that we would sacrifice sleep on Wednesday night (we had to get up at 3 am for our flight Thursday) to try to see Phantom. We called the box office to see if it was running and if there were tickets. We were told that it was showing but seats were very limited. We asked if we could trade our Tuesday tickets for Wednesday tickets. They informed us that our Tuesday tickets had been refunded, but if we came to the box office they would see what they could do for us. So, off we went. Marty turned on the charm with the box office attendant and explained how disappointed we had been to miss the show the night before. The lady said she would talk to her manager and see what they could do. She came back to let us know that they didn’t have seats left in the section we had purchased (second to the last row in the balcony) but they could get us seats in another section if that would be acceptable. We asked where the seats would be and she showed us seats in the fourth row of the orchestra section right on the inside aisle. She informed us that these seats were available but at a different cost. We asked her what the difference would be…… $25 less than we had paid for the original tickets!!!!! These seats were so close to the stage it was amazing. Many of the scenes had parts with the actors standing in the aisles inches from us! Phantom sang so close to Marty he was tempted to reached out and touch him.

15. I have large calves. I always have. When I was a gymnast and a hurdler it came in handy. Not so much for boot shopping. I found the most amazing pair of boots, but I couldn’t get them zipped up. Truly depressing!

16. $5 is cheap entertainment in the penny slots. I can spend hours in front of the penny slots and never go over the $5 limit. Over the week we were there I actually ended up winning about $13. Not bad 1¢ at a time.

17. I can re-distribute my things into Marty’s suitcase and come in well under the limit for the return flight home.

18. I love to spend time with my husband. I am so blessed to have such a great man in my life!
orry, I had to share this last picture!  This was the messiest cupcake ever!  We were both laughing so hard that most of my pictures turned out blurry, but this one is just too cut!