A bit of everything

Our trip to Colorado

2011-08-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

We just barely got back from our trip to Colorado. Paul went to Alaska with my dad and all the sons/(in-laws) and was gone for 9 days. Rather than stay here in Utah by myself, letting the boys drive me crazy, I decided to spend that time in Colorado with the women and children left behind (aka- all my wonderful sisters and the cousins)! It was an AWESOME trip! I need to travel to Denver without Paul more often. Men sure know how to ruin a full day full of jabbering with your favorite women!

Some of the highlights of the trip (in order of appearance):
1. Breakfast with Lisa Gillespie, my singing bosom buddy that I haven't seen in years. I don't know if it's still this way, but growing up, Lisa's and my voices blended so well, we were just meant for duets together! To this day, I struggle to perform O Holy Night and O Divine Redeemer without her. We've determined that we'll attend "Time out for Women" together in November in St. George and I'm sooooooooo looking forward to spending more time with her then!

2. Quality time with Alisha (at Megan's) and spending the night with her. Alisha has two little babies who love (and would immediately miss) their daddy lots and lots. So to help out a little at church that first week, the boys and I spent the night at her house so we could attend church with her on Sunday morning. Alisha and I first spent the evening at Megan's, and then stayed up way too late learning how to use the 'My Digital Studio' program she bought a long time ago and had yet to install on her computer! At church the next morning, I got to hold a darling, sleeping Lauren all through Sunday school and Relief Society... ah bliss! I love my wee little sister, Alisha ;), and am super glad I got to spend a good chunk of time with her and her cuties!

3. Quality time with Shelyce on Sunday afternoon. Shelyce is a busy gal... busier than anyone I know, especially now that she's taking classes to get her CPA licensure on top of her 60+ hour work week. I took the chance to insert myself into her crazy life on Sunday afternoon and I'm so glad I got that chance. She's always so easy to talk to, and she helped me out a lot with my feelings about the loss of my oldest sister in my life. I don't have to feel so much pain about it now. Good stuff... thanks a ton, Shelyce! I love you and all yer guts too!

4. Time at the pool with Summer and Sarah. On Monday, I took the boys over to this little pool in my friend's neighborhood and met up with the Kelly sisters. Oh how I love these women! We let the kids swim around as we sat on the side and talked and talked and talked. I'd say it doesn't get much better than that, but I haven't gotten to the AMAZING dinner party they threw on Wednesday night! Summer is living in Lakewood while her husband is stationed in the Middle East. It was good for my soul to spend some time with these ladies.

5. Quality time with Jen & the girls. On Tuesday, we went up to Longmont to visit Jennifer. She is expecting their first son and I'm just DYING with excitement about it! Can't wait to meet our little nephew who's coming this November! Jen and I spent a lot of time going over the MDS software and hopefully I've gotten her hooked on digital scrapbooking as well. We took the kids to see a pretty dumb movie (The zoo keeper) and then got back to the house and just kept on gabbing while the kids played! At around 10:00 pm, we got 6 pairs of puppy-dog eyes begging us to spend the night, so we did... and stayed up way too late again! Since I love to be repetitive... I just love Jen (and Mikayla, Greta, and Katie)! I'm so blessed with amazing sisters (and nieces)!

6. Attending a "The Help" themed dinner party at the Kelly's house. Nobody knows how to throw a party like the Kelly women! The movie finally opened... something I've been looking forward to for a while, and the ladies put together a super fun party to celebrate the book! We all dressed up in our best 60's dresses (oh if I had only known in advance... Rhyll has the perfect dress I would've tried to borrow!) and pearls and brought food featured in the book. Since my culinary skills are limited, I offered to bring a chocolate pie from Village Inn! I made sure they left out Minny's secret ingredient. The dinner was amazing, the hostesses were SO CUTE, and we all had a great time. Summer had purchased the tickets in advance (which reminds me...) in case it sold out, but when we got there... we were the ONLY people in the theater! So FUN!! We could laugh as loud as we wanted! For as much as I love all the people I got to spend time with over the week, this party was definitely the highlight of my trip. THanks ladies! I love you all!

7. Quality time with Rebekah (noticing a theme here!?). On Thursday morning, we headed out to Parker, with my cutie pie niece Lily in tow, to visit Rebekah and her four girls. As you can imagine, we did a lot of talking... and it was GREAT! We established much earlier on in the day that we would just plan on spending the night with them as well. Scott & Rebekah's only son, William, is a favorite cousin of my boys and they were super bummed when they found out that he was going to be gone in Alaska with the men. But it was awesome that the boys got to spend some good time with their girl cousins that are all exactly the same age as them! Here are some pictures of them all sleeping together! I sure love Rebekah and that whole family! Thanks for having us!

8. Doing pretty much nothing else for the rest of the week. On Friday and Saturday, I made no plans. I used this time to actually spend it with my beloved mommy. We looked at oodles of choir music, put mulch all over her flower garden, watched the entire Pride and Prejudice movie, and talked. I didn't ever spend the night at Megan's, but I did get to see her the most often and I'm so relieved about that! I'm glad I took the opportunity to NOT pack my schedule to the hilt. Sometimes on a long vacation, you need to stay long enough to get just a little bored so you don't come home exhausted! That's what the weekend was for as we waited for the men to get back. I got to see Jen, Alisha, & Megan one more time on Sunday and then Paul flew in on Monday morning. We were back in Utah by 6:00 pm.

I love Paul A LOT! But I gotta say, 90% of what I loved about this trip to Denver couldn't have happened had he and the other men been there! It was nice to have my sisters all to myself, without worrying about if we were staying too long or if Paul was getting bored! I'm just ultimately so grateful that I got the chance to really connect with all these women again. Living my own busy life a state away from my entire family and the place I grew up doesn't lend itself to easy access to some very important people in my life. I hope we weren't too much of an imposition on anyone, but I couldn't be more grateful for the time I got to spend with everyone. Thanks for filling my soul and giving me the boost I needed to return home with the start of the school year looming in front of me! I'm ready to take it on! {happy sigh!!}

I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!! Thanks again to all of you

It's good to get away!

2011-07-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

Our anniversary was 23 days ago. We were in Montana. Camping. At a family reunion. Again. Last year was the same story. So like last year, Paul and I wanted to make up for our unromantic celebration, so in a last minute decision, we ran away for 24 hours!

First off, I gotta say thanks to my gracious Mother-in-law, Rhyll, for adding three more people to her hectic home! It's a blessing to have a mom that understands, supports, and even encourages the need for couples to strengthen their relationship through some alone time. She's a gem. And I'm grateful that my boys are very well behaved when someone else is taking care of them! It makes for less guilt in enjoying some 'mommy-daddy' time without them! We have great little boys!

So what did we go and do, you ask? With so many options out there, it was tough to narrow it down. Shakespearean Festival in Cedar... Tuacahn in St. George... Park City again (that's where we went last year)... nah, let's go to Wendover and golf!

Paul, bless his dear little heart, really wants me to learn to love golf. A while back, he bought me some women's golf clubs on sale. They're shiny, and in a cute pink golf bag, and when I swing them, guess what??!?! I still miss the ball... or it goes nowhere, or directly in the bunker or whatever water hazard may be near! I try to avoid golfing with him at all costs, but occasionally, I suck it up (just because I love him so dang much) and agree to waste my afternoon getting angry at a pretty pink ball.
But 'quality time' is Paul's love language (one that I don't speak so well, of course), so in choosing the getaway, I agreed to the Wendover package because I knew he'd love it.

So, we packed up some stuff, dropped off the boys, and made the 2+ hour trek over to the booming metropolis of Wendover, Nevada for the night. We enjoyed our evening together and got up early-ish this morning for our 8:00 tee time. Considering that Wendover is in the middle of the hot desert, we thought it best to get an early start. I didn't know until we showed up in the parking lot that we were going to be playing 18 holes.

18 HOLES!!!

I usually can hardly make it through 9! I begged Paul to let me bring my Kindle along for the ride, but he said no.

I don't need to hash out today's golf experience with a play by play. We can sum it up with the fact that out of necessity, I cheat a LOT when I play golf. I stop counting my strokes somewhere around 6.5 (there are a lot of half strokes when I hit the ball and it goes less than 15 feet away from me), so after I 5-putt it, I tell Paul to just write down 8 for my score... because 14 on a par 4 is just plain humiliating. The first nine holes contained a few semi-offensive cursings, but I made it through. The back nine holes, I hardly cared enough at that point to invest in swearing. I skipped a few of those holes completely.

But what I mostly appreciated about the back nine, is that Paul let me be a slouch without giving me a bad time about giving up. It was a difficult course with several hidden water hazards and very narrow fairways. His game was struggling as well and he was tired of looking for his ball in the weeds... though he found as many balls as he'd lost while looking for them! Despite the heat and the 4 hours of GOLF, it ended up being some good "quality time" spent together with plenty of laughs and smiles intermingled with lots of slow head shaking and frustrated groans. When we were done, I posted this on facebook.

"Dear Golf, I really want to like you, and I think we have good potential for a stable relationship someday, but spending 18 holes together on a difficult course today was taking our relationship a bit too fast for me. I think we should slow things down for now and let our relationship take its course 9 holes at a time. Really, it's not you, it's me."

I thought it summed up my feelings perfectly! Obviously I love Paul very much. More than anything, I'm grateful that we made that choice 12 years ago to get married. He's my best friend and a terrific husband. I'm blessed to have a man willing to invest the time to teach me how to play a difficult game, just so we'll have more things to do together down the road. Though it's not exactly what I want to be doing, I understand and appreciate the sentiment. Love ya, babe!

Have I ever mentioned I love stamping?!

2011-07-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Deep breath in and... {happy sigh}!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to the Stampin' Up! convention in Salt Lake City last weekend. It's an event in where seeing is believing. I would love to describe it all to you, or I could say, "It was AMAZING" but it just won't mean anything to you because you've never seen anything like it! I go to conferences for my Speech Therapy certification and spend a comparable amount of money, but that's the only aspect where the two can be compared! Just check out all the swag!

Cute Bag, nice pen, mini catalogs, a catalog binder, MDS digital content CD, simply sent cards, and oops, did I forget to mention 6 (SIX!!!) stamp sets?!?! All I get at an SLP conference is lunch.

That doesn't even include the beautiful make & take projects! Here's a picture of the banner and cards we didn't have time to make (so I had Emily come help me put them together on Saturday night! Thanks Em!) The shelves are cluttered so it's hard to see, but the pieces are super cute! I haven't finished the card box yet. But it's pretty too.

This year, I took advantage of all four days worth. I had a My Digital Studio (the digital scrapbooking software) class to go to on Wednesday, so since I was up there, I was able to check out the Memento Mall (their little store of souvenir goodies and such) and even check out the kick off party. I don't know what the convention center looks like for other conventions, but it's decorated to the hilt for the SU! ones. Look how beautiful the stage was!

The classes and presentations on Thursday-Saturday were just as fun and I couldn't believe all the great giveaways there were. Here's me getting a WHOLE PACKAGE of Holiday mini catalogs!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!

Obviously... I'm easy to please!

What also made the weekend fun, was that I got to spend the time with my friend, Rachelle VanBuskirk.

I met her and her mother, Zola, four years ago standing in line for the Make-n-takes. We've had a great online relationship and two fun, girl-time getaways since then for the 2009 and now the 2011 conventions. She's so easy to hang out with, and we managed to spend 3 full days together without running out of things to talk about! I also got to meet her hubby and all 6 of her boys, which was so nice since I already know so much about them through her blog! Thanks Shelly for making the time so much more special... and for finally giving me the much needed excuse to get a pedicure! My cute toes and happy feet thank you too!

You are great!

The people at SU! are master marketers! I want to help the WORLD learn how to stamp and create pretty things made out of their paper! They, of course, show us the newest products and all the things you can do with them. They display thousands of cards, boxes, scrapbook pages, decor items... (you name it) for us to photograph and gleen inspiration from. They give us a chance to feel like the customer instead of the store owner and we all just lap it up! I can't wait to show my friends the things I learned at the convention... I hope I can blow their socks off!

Ultimately though, as I was leaving and driving home, I just daydreamed of having that experience with all my friends that I've ever stamped with! The likelihood is unbelievably slim, but oooh, wouldn't that be so fun!? Why am I the only one having such a good time here? I really never intended this blog post to be a sales pitch, (and I'd hate for you to be turned off at this point) but just to let you know, it's really cheap to sign up as a demonstrator for the next two weeks! You can go to my website or to Stampin' Up!'s website and learn more about the $99 starter kit that's completely customizable! Or just come stamp with me on one of the next two Friday nights if you live close enough or are in town... Father/sons campout is coming soon!!!! I'm on a stamping high right now and think you should come and share it with me!

silencing the crickets around here

2011-07-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to sleep well tonight, so I thought I might as well blog. The crickets have been chirping loudly over here and I've just let them sing on and on. Unfortunately, I'm breaking the silence with a downer of a post tonight.

This wasteland of a blog started spiraling downhill last year when one tragedy after another happened to a bunch of dear friends of ours. These painful anniversaries are starting to come around in the next few weeks and it just sucks. Though the loss of Ben, Brandon, Cody, and Brian is not a strong presence in my everyday life (Camille is still much more so), the anniversaries of their deaths (or loss in Camille's case) bring everything back. I hate knowing that my friend's hearts will be aching more than usual for the next little while as they remember those awful, painful moments. I have not been looking forward to these next 6 weeks.

And then, we got a phone call today from Paul's mom letting us know that her cousin, Scott Burnett died today in a construction accident. Now, I couldn't tell you the name of ANY of my own mother's cousins, but I know pretty much ALL of Rhyll's cousins and love them ALL (and their parents and their spouses, and kids and grandkids, and in-laws, etc)! Every year, the Burnett-Oler family holds a great reunion that oddly enough, we all want to come to. It's usually up in Montana, so we don't make it every year, but we've never missed two in a row. The Burnetts are a tightly bonded family that invest in each other. We get together often enough that when a newcomer joins the clan, it's worthwhile to bother to learn their name and get to know them, since you'll probably get to see them again next year! It's truly unusual and an incredible blessing to be a part of it all.

This year, Paul and I made a last minute decision to actually go to the reunion in Gallatin Gateway, Montana. None of the siblings were going, so we were wishy-washy about the long drive up there, but ultimately figured... "let's just go," so we did. I don't have a close relationship with Scott, but I saw him, gave him a hug and had a quick conversation with him 10 days ago. I have nothing but love for Scott's parents, Clint & Bonnie, his sweet and fun wife, Colleen, his kids, his siblings. I'm just (AGAIN) aching for the loss THEY are feeling. I hate how unpredictable life can be and how quickly it can be turned upside down in such a painful way.

I had a brief moment of fear that the rest of this summer would be like last summer and I wanted to shout out to the world, "hide yer kids, hide yer wife, and hide yer husbands too..." Please keep your loved ones close and safe. Please speak kind words of love. Please strengthen your families and your relationship with God. These are my goals for now. I need to make sure to utilize these reminders of how short and precious life is, so the Lord won't need to teach me these things in any other way.

Sorry for the emotional post. I'm headed to the Stampin' Up! convention (aka returning to the mother ship) in Salt Lake City this week, so hopefully will take the time to brighten up this place in the near future. In the meantime... (((((((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))))). If you read my blog, chances are, you're someone I care about a lot... and I want you to know that.

No money for Obama!

2011-04-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

So, I was a little bit worried this week on Wednesday night. The kids are on Spring Break, but I've had to work anyway. Our initial plans were to go to Trafalga on Wednesday afternoon, but when I saw how packed it was, we changed plans and took the kids to see Tron Legacy. We were all really hungry (since it was dinnertime afterall) and Paul had the brilliant idea of going to Olive Garden... a dieter's nightmare!!! I'd been doing really well with my diet all week and was down at least 1.6 lbs, so I reluctantly agreed with him and we introduced the kids to 'real' Italian food (they ended up with pizza anyway). I did order a healthy(er) meal than I wanted to, but eating half a breadstick, a bowl of minestrone and half my entree was still too much food.

For penance, I went to the gym that night and spent an agonizing hour on the eliptical machine doing a "personal trainer" workout. I drank at least 64 oz of water throughout the process because it was kicking my butt! Anyway, when I got home, I jumped on the scale right before bed and about cried! According to the scale, I needed to lose at least 3 lbs in my sleep in order to report success on my stickk.com commitment!! Because I have the emotional maturity of a 5 year-old, I was SO mad at Paul! It's his fault we went to Olive Garden and HIS fault we got ice cream for FHE (I got a frozen yogurt cone when they got yummy shakes). Doesn't he care about our country?!?!?!?! (I mean... my weight loss!?!?!?)

Anyway, after a fitfull night of sleep (you have no idea the amount of shame I was feeling with the idea that I'd have to post on my blog that they took $10 from me to give to Obama!), I was relieved that my naked morning weight was in fact, 3.2 lbs lighter than the night before! Which means that last week, I lost 1.2 lbs. YES!!! It's likely not as much as it could have been, but at least it got the job done.

Thursday night I went and did yoga, today I did about a 11 miles bike ride and my shoulders and back are screaming at me! Ah well. It's a good thing and besides, that's what Ibuprofen is for.

So there's an update for you. Rest well knowing that I did not contribute to the Obama campaign this week and am well on my way to not do so again next week!

Can you believe it?

2011-04-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, you saw correctly, my name has jumped to the top of your blog list and I'm actually posting something on this wasteland of a blog! For a long time, this place was haunting me and making me feel all kinds of guilty for neglecting it, but considering that it's been four months since I've posted, I was able to get over that a bit. Honestly, I've realized that this blog is just not serving the purpose that it originally did. So, I apologize if that has been disappointing to anyone.

So why am I on here now? I don't really know. There are SO MANY STINKING THINGS that I need to update on here, but there's no way I'm going to be able to give each item it's due attention. In thinking about this blog's function in my life, one thing it helped me do initially was report on the progress I was making in my weight loss journey 2+ years ago. Well, I'm at it again.

When I reached my goal weight in the fall of 2009, I think I admitted outloud somewhere that my fear was that I would gain the weight back. I had made a lot of healthy lifestyle changes, so I didn't want to think that it could happen... but amazingly, life happens and things change sometimes. When we were putting in a lot of work into improving and selling the house (which went nowhere by the way), I wanted to be training for the spring triathlon again, but painted the entire upstairs instead. Then, I trained for the Ragnar Relay again and as the Red Rock Relay had done, it wiped out all motivation to keep running after that point. I will not be doing another one of those races again any time soon. Any race that makes you feel like you never want to run again, is not a good idea for me until I get to a much higher fitness level than I was last year at racetime.

So the result? Over the past 15-16 months, I've just not been very careful. I've not had any big weight gain jumps, but you know, gaining 1-1.5 lbs a month for a long period of time, you end up 25 lbs heavier than you want to be! All along the way, I would think to myself, "Self, just lose it again... you know what to do! It's only 8 lbs." But then, 8 lbs turned to 12-15 lbs, and then 15-18 lbs, and somehow, the motivation to really restrict my diet and get it done wasn't there. When I initially lost the weight, I was dealing with the emotional issue of newfound infertility. The wound was new and the exercise and healthy focus was healing for me. Thankfully, those emotions have settled over the last 3 years. Unfortunately, I've come to realize that my emotions (especially negative emotions) are a very powerful tool in my life! I clean very efficiently when I'm upset!

So now that I'm not obsessing over having another child, what am I gonna do to get motivated again?! I'm definitely not going to pray for another trial in my life just so I can get back down to a size 8! And then I heard about stickk.com from a colleague/friend of mine. What a concept! This friend of mine has recently lost over 30 lbs and when I asked what he had changed this time, he mentioned the role stickk.com had played for him.

Basically, stickk is a goal setting website based on some research of some Ivy League professor dude who knows something about the economics of achieving goals. When someone sets a goal, has a support system and then puts something at stake, they are more likely to achieve their goal. Makes sense, right? My friend made a commitment to lose 1 lb a week for 10 weeks and every week he failed, the website would charge his credit card $10 and at the end of the commitment, they would send it to the Jason Chaffetz for Congress campaign... which made me laugh because I really like Jason Chaffetz, a lot! But my friend doesn't!

Then I realized that there IS something that I have a lot of negative emotions about! POLITICS!!! and more specifically... BARACK OBAMA!!!! I really can't stand the guy one little bit and think he's a terrible leader for our country. I know I'm not alone in this in my primary circle of friends (but that doesn't mean I exclude those sympathetic to Obama's policies!). I thought to myself, "Self, the last thing you want to do right now is be a fatty that contributes to the 2012 Obama campaign." So, I decided to do it and commit!

On Thursday of this week, I made the commitment to also lose 1 lb a week for the next 10 weeks. If on Thursday I have not lost a pound, they will charge my credit card $10. At the end of the 10 weeks, they'll send that money to my colleague/friend (who loves Obama), who will then make a contribution to Obama's campaign. Doesn't the thought just make you sick!? It does me! I've set Paul up to be my referee, so he's going to keep me honest.

When I posted something about this on facebook, a couple of my democrat-leaning friends commented about disapproving of my methods and wanting to sabotage my efforts. Apparently this is offensive to them. If this offends you, please know that this is less about Obama, and more about me losing weight! It's about motivation. And so far, it's working! I've actually tracked my points over the last 3 days and hit the gym for a 60 minute workout on the treadmill, even though I was freaking tired the other night.

So, I guess, this little blog of mine might have a small little purpose in my life again. Though I won't promise... I may make an effort to update on my progress. I fully intend to NOT send ANY money to Obama! Any sabotage is unwelcome (send money to Obama yourself if you love him so much!) and all support is appreciated!!

The Halloween results

2010-11-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Who sucks at blogging? I suck at blogging.

Halloween was so fun this year and I have to credit it to the costume. A good corset makes you look uh-MAZE-ing!! I couldn't get enough of my manipulated hourglass shape! I wore the dress to school on the Thursday before Halloween, and let me tell ya, that was the longest 38 minute carride I've ever had! I made sure to untie it for the drive home that afternoon! I wore it again on Friday night for our annual Halloween party, and then again at the ward trunk-er-treat on Saturday night. Here are a couple pictures from the friday party that I can post right now. I still need to get the others from Melanie and Amy.

The Hostesses! Diana, Amy, Melanie

Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and thought, "I've never seen my face look like this before."? I think my face looks SO WEIRD in this first picture! Ah well, at least the rest of me looked cool! Anyway...

My hottie and me!

I thought Paul looked so awesome in his Elizabethian get-up! He played it up well in this photo of us. I just wish he would have broken out in song with, "I've been dreaming of a true loves kiss..."! His outfit is perfect for a Prince Edward!

I finally got around to returning the costumes to Michelle the other day and for the last week or so, I've kept checking her etsy shop and stalking her blog. She's having a sale on a bunch of corsets right now and just announced on her blog another sale she's having on Black Friday. And ya know what? I totally want to get one! I have NO logical reason to get an outfit like these, but I WANT one!! LOL! You'd want one too if you tried one on! I don't know... maybe someday.

Hopefully I can get my hands on the other pictures of my boys and the rest of the family from Halloween. I've got some digi-scrappin to do!

gonna look so good!

2010-10-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

I did something fun today. In honor of Halloween, I got to go play dress up... and it was so fun! With most holidays, I'm not a big celebrator. My poor children are destined for an underwhelming life. I pray that they marry women who were raised in families that make big deals out of holidays so that they can see how the other half live.

Every year, we have a big halloween party at the lodge. It's really my sis-in-law, Amy's brainchild and I make some of the goodies (and usually handle the invitations but Amy even took care of those this year!) and invite people to OUR halloween party! It's actually a very fun event each year. Costumes are encouraged for all partygoers, though, and this is often the hardest part.

But not this year!

I know this awesome girl named Michelle. I grin and chuckle when I even think of her because she's so cool. She used to live across the street from us and all I really knew about her was that she was super spunky & fun and that she and her husband have a corset/costume making business. I also know she managed to have the COOLEST halloween costumes each year at the ward trunk or treat, but had no idea how big her business was or how awesome her product is until today. Woah!!

Melanie (another sis-in-law who does a ton of work for this party) and I were talking yesterday about our costume dilemmas and I mentioned to her that I was hoping to track down Michelle's number to see if she could outfit me for the weekend, and I asked Mel if she wanted in. So I called Michelle this morning and she was so sweet to say, "sure, come on over!" With Melanie's two little boys in tow, we got to witness behind the scenes of their company "Damsel in This Dress" - clever name, ya?! It was so cool.

Check out her website: Damsel in this Dress
Or her blog... cuz she's really quite fun and crazy!
We each tried on one outfit and I'll get to be wearing something along the lines of this corset (a courtier bodice):

but with totally different colors (red & green) and a full-length green skirt. I also borrowed a KILLER outfit for Paul which he will look AWESOME in (once we find him some black opaque tights ;)!

So watch for the pictures next week (because I THINK I can manage doing more than one blog post a month). I can't wait to put the whole outfit together with the hair and gaudy jewelry & stuff! What are you dressing up as?!

Soccer mom = psycho mom!

2010-09-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a moment right on the very edge of that fine line in between soccer mom and psycho mom (ok, I'll admit it, I jumped over the edge and admit to feeling embarassed about it shortly after!). I'll paint the picture for you.

I have cute little boys... right?! See?

But with all their strengths and sweet parts, I gotta admit something... they're not destined for professional athletics. Somehow, they lack that cut-throat competitive spirit required for significant skill development and athletic performance.

Now, I've admitted before that the day soccer season is over is a day I celebrate. Every Thursday and Saturday morning, we stand there on the sidelines yelling at our boys for 2 hours... it's awesome. At least we're not having to chase Charlie off the field this year! Anyway, yesterday I sent Paul ahead to Canon's game and told him I'd meet him there shortly. After taking my sweet time to round up Charlie and some shoes for both of us, I made it to the game about halfway through...

and of course,

RIGHT AFTER CANON SCORED HIS FIRST GOAL IN THREE YEARS!!!!!

Crud.

Mommy-moment-FAIL.

He was so excited! The team they were playing was really small and looked really young. Canon was one of the tallest kids on the field. Over and over and over, Canon was able to kick that ball down the field toward his goal. He took like 10 shots on the goal! None of them went in once I got there, but I'd never seen him playing so well! I think at this point, they were up 3-0.

So the quarter ends and Canon gets a turn playing goalie. Perfect! He's standing there, ready to go anytime the other team manages to make it to his side of the field. He and his team were FINALLY having a good game. They even scored one more time while I was there.

Quick backtrack: Canon's team doesn't have any power players. They've won a couple games I think, but for the most part, they stink. A couple weeks ago, they had to play this team with a killer player on it. He was a little hispanic kid who was wicked fast, wicked good, and wicked aggressive. That kid (not his team, but THAT KID) scored at least 8 goals on Canon's team that day. He's not a kid you forget... his name was Diego and he. was. awesome. They got totally spanked!

So back to last night... I'm standing there on the sidelines close to the goal so I can appropriately yell at my kid just in case he needs reminders to stand up or stop dancing or something. Suddenly I notice this small little hispanic kid throws the ball in and starts dominating the field! He shoots at the goal and MY CANON actually stops it! As I watch this kid run around taking the ball and keeping it away from anyone who comes near him, a memory stirs. Once I realize this is Diego from a couple weeks ago, I kinda start freaking out!!

ME: "haven't we already played this team?"
SOMEONE: "no"
ME: "what's that kid doing out there? I know that's the same kid. It has to be!"
SOMEONE: "I think they're subbing him in"
ME: "what the crap is going on here? why is Diego out there playing? Get him off the field!!!!!!!!!" (I was talking loud enough that everyone could hear me.)

One of the moms on our team tries to tell me that the other team didn't have enough players so they had to sub someone from another team in so they could play the game. Now, remember, I got there late and didn't know if that was true. So, I shut up at that point, but was still thinking, "what the crap?" If you can sub anyone you want from other teams, yeah, I'd take that kid every time! Then talking to another mom nearby, she points out that the other team's coach (also hispanic, maybe related to Diego?) asked our substitute coach if it was okay if they sent in some extra players "since their team was behind." Our coach didn't know what to say, so the other coach just sent in 2 more of their players AND Diego! 10 players against 7, and one of them not even on the team. I was ticked. Yes, I know it's city-league soccer, but there is no reason to cheat.

Thankfully before I could make myself look like MORE of an insano-maniac, the teenage ref blew her whistle, the game was done and they didn't end up scoring on Canon.

Phew!

Crisis averted!

But it took me a while to fully calm down. For the first time all season, our little boys have a successful game. Not a blowout or anything near it... 4-0 is not an offensive lead in my book! My little boy had his first goal outside of cub soccer. My little boy was protecting the goal when all this cheating was going on. I'm so glad that no damage was done, because if that kid had jumped into the game and come back to beat them, that would have been devastating!

Canon was so funny about it. As we're walking to the car, he says, "mom, remember that mexican boy with the sleeves at that other game. That boy today was just like him." "No, Canon, that WAS him." "nu-uh mom, Diego was on my friend Cameron's team and we didn't play them tonight." "I know Canon, the other team was cheating by letting Diego play today. But you were awesome and he didn't score on you!! Way to go!" I was very proud of him!

I'm glad Paul wasn't there for my drama. He gets embarassed at me sometimes. We made our way over to Andy's soccer game next and I got to tell Paul all about it. He thought it was funny how upset I was over the issue. At least I was getting some validation from a couple of the other mommys that were there! They were upset about it too.

So there you have it... my psycho-soccer-mom moment. One more week til it's all over! And then, I get to look forward to next year when we have 3 kids playing (killmenow)!!!

Remembering Brian

2010-09-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

I had to cry myself to sleep the other night and wearing mascara has been a bad idea for the last couple of days. On Tuesday afternoon, I got home from work and jumped on facebook for a minute. I saw an old high school friend had commented to another friend some condolenses and something about his wife and child. Without reading all that he said, I jumped onto Brian's wall-page and saw this headline:

"North Van dad-to-be's final act saves family" next to this picture.

Following my initial gasp, I began crying almost immediately because this is my friend, Brian Raymond Wood.

Brian and Erin were in a car accident on Whidbey Island when an drugged-up 21-year-old swerved over the center line into oncoming traffic while taking off her sweater. At the last second, Brian hit the brakes and turned the car right in order to take the full impact of the collision. This action crushed the car and killed him instantly, but protected his wife and unborn baby. Erin is due with their first child in early November. I'm devastated.

Though Brian and I haven't had a lot of contact in the last 11 years, the way I describe our relationhip is "close." At one point way back when, we were more than friends, but never boyfriend and girlfriend. We would have never been compatible as a couple, but we were friends that truly loved each other. As was appropriate, we fell out of touch when I got married right after college. Occasional emails and a couple phone calls were shared, but otherwise, I knew very little about his doings for several years. But the day I found out he was engaged to Erin, I stalked their wedding website often hoping to get to know more about the woman who would make him supremely happy. I was and am SO happy that he found her!

For my own benefit, and for those that knew Brian when I did, and even for Erin to see a snapshot of her husband before she knew him through the eyes of someone who cared very much for him, I want to describe my relationship and history with Brian.

Brian and I met and had classes together in Jr. High. We became better friends by the time we were freshman in high school. It didn't take long for me to develop a crush on him that continued throughout that year, despite the fact he had a girlfriend. He was a cutie, even back then. I have so many memories of Brian from that year, memories you wouldn't normally have if you weren't paying 'ilikeyouwhydon'tyoulikeme' attention to someone! Ultimately though, I remember his smile and friendliness, even before we became closer friends.

Throughout high school, we had TONS of classes together, were in the plays and musicals together, and sang in the choirs together. But our friendship grew stronger during our senior year. I had a pretty psycho boyfriend that year and Brian was often there for me when I was confused or frustrated about stuff. I was also there for him when one of his mentors had committed suicide. We would talk a lot, hang out, sing, and tease each other. Brian would play his guitar for me after we'd rehearse for our graduation song audition. But the most memorable experience I had with Brian that year was playing the main leads together in 'The Pajama Game'. Brian played Sid Sorokin, and I was Babe Williams. We had so much fun playing these parts!

"Married life is lots of fun... Two can sleep as cheap as one!"

Here are some pictures of Brian and some of my other close guy-friends at graduation.

During the summer after graduation, things finally exploded with that previously mentioned psycho boyfriend and thankfully, Brian was there for me again. I was not-so-patiently waiting to head off to college at Utah State, but since it was on a trimester system at the time, I didn't start until mid September. Thankfully, Brian was still around so we could still hang out. But even after we both went our separate ways, me to Logan, Utah and he to Oberlin College in Ohio, we were in frequent contact... daily emails and often multiple emails a day. It was AMAZING the support I received from him. When I got my first guitar that Christmas, I named it "Sid" in Brian's honor. We even sent care packages to each other once. The one he sent me included this bear that Canon is holding in this picture at least 8 years later:

Sorry, I know that's totally random. Anyway, I believed in him and he believed in me. He always ended his emails with, "forever".

Brian finished school earlier than I did that next spring and even came out to Utah to visit me for about a week around Memorial Day weekend. He stayed at my friend's house at night, but hung out and went to classes with me during the week. He made fun of how 'dumbed down' my chemistry 101 class was and told me I could have gone to a harder college. I agree, that class was lame, but I can guarantee that USU did challenge me enough when it mattered! Neuropathology, much? Yeah. I think the week he visited was possibly the first time I'd purchased a green pepper and used it to cook a meal... he taught me how to make yummy fajitas!

That following school year, Brian transferred to Lawrence University and our communication with each other became less. We began not needing each other as much. But I would see him and hang out over Christmas breaks. Let's see, a random memory includes driving to a Shadows reunion together and him telling me I was wearing more make-up than usual. We'd catch up and talk about everything under the sun, including religion, the relationships we were or had been in, what our plans were for life. We were SO DIFFERENT from each other, but it didn't really matter to our friendship. I sometimes wondered in Brian and I could ever make a legitimate couple, but I think we both knew we couldn't. Which was fine, but because we were just a little "more than friends", everything changed our junior year of college. I'd behaved badly concerning Brian over Christmas break that year and then later when I began dating my future husband, Paul, we almost completely lost touch. It happens... life moves on, people evolve and carve their path in life; and relationships change, but the memories and love stay with you.

And that's again, why I was so happy when Brian met and married Erin. Brian was admittedly horrible at keeping in touch with me via email, but I knew he was so happy living his life with his true love. I was thrilled the day I found him on facebook, but he wasn't ever very 'newsy'. Most of his status updates were about how fast he ran 6km that morning, but it was nice to know he was there. It was fun to congratulate him on running his first half marathon this year and occasionally he'd comment on one of my updates about running.

Anyway, ultimately, I want to send out my thoughts and prayers to those of us who knew this wonderful man. We are all experiencing a huge loss. I'm sad he won't be here to help raise his baby. I'm aching to imagine what kind of strength it will take for Erin to pick up the pieces and redefine herself without him. She is living my worst nightmare. I want her to know that I truly care about her and her little one. And I want to thank her for helping my friend find joy in this life. I honor Brian and his love for Erin. He was a beautiful human being in life and a true hero in death. Brian, until we meet again, I will truly miss you.

"Forever"

Where to start?

2010-08-28T22:11:00.001-07:00

I feel like someone just shouted, "Start your engines!"

WORK: School started this last week. It wasn't a stressful week, but in visiting each school (I have 4 contracts again this year), I was able to get an idea of what our year is going to look like as it kicks off. Each school has a bunch of changes, some are great, others, while not necessarily horrible, have been filed under "we'll see how this all works out". Overall, I'm choosing to be optimistic about this school year. I'm excited to have my employee, Tia, working with me again this year. She's a great girl and I'm THRILLED that I don't have to train her this year like I had to last year! She's already set to go! She's started her masters program, which now makes her an intern. Tia is now able to help with the testing and IEP's, so that's good, but it also means that I will have to train her for that. It also means I'll have to be willing to let go of a little control... we'll see how that works out!

KIDS: The boys also started school this week. They both seem excited about their teachers and I need to get in there to meet the teachers and all that jazz. I'm a little nervous about this year for Andy (4th grade is a crucial and transitional year), but again... choosing optimism! Charlie is also starting preschool this year and as far as he is concerned, it can't start soon enough! It's KILLING him that he has to wait until Sept 8th... therefore, it's killing Paul and me as well! I can't believe how fast they're growing up. I'm not the mother of babies anymore, but I'm excited about being the mother of little boys. This is a fun phase. Listening to all three boys sing the Glee version of "Dream On" at the top of their lungs this afternoon made me say to Paul, "we have the coolest little kids!"

PAUL: No changes to report, but I didn't want to leave such an important person off the checklist. He's awesome; I love him; pretty sure I'll keep him around!

HOUSE: Nothing to report. Nothing's happening. Haven't had a showing since the first week of listing it. I'm not even trying to keep it uncluttered anymore! Obviously, we have it priced too high. I think we could sell it pretty quick if we wanted to take a minor $10,000 hit on it, but since we don't want to do that right now, we're planning on letting the listing expire and saving up some moolah (or paying the mortgage down) and trying again later.

SOCCER: Ugh. 4 games a week plus practices. Again, I exclaim, "Ugh." It is fun, however, to see that they're finally starting to understand the game better and they're trying harder than ever before. I guess I better be optimistic about this soccer season, because next year, Charlie will be playing too! Ugh.

STAMPING: Still love it, still doing it. Between my stamp club and card exchange, I make at least 50 cards a month. I actually did some scrapbooking last night while Paul took the boys to the Father/Sons campout. Funny story though. I wanted to get a group together at our church, but they've just refinished the gym floor. Fumes anyone? Then maybe at my house, but I wanted to be able to invite a lot of people. Solution = the lodge. There were just a few of us (so I COULD have held it at my house) but we were having fun. At least until about 10:30 when the power went out because a tree fell on the power line. For the record, it's really hard to scrapbook in the dark! But we got some lanterns and pressed forward for a few more hours! I had a great time, but didn't get many pages done!

ATHLETICS: It happened again. Relay races have a 2-0 record for burning out any further desire in me to run! I've only gone running twice since Ragnar. I really want to do the Turkey Triathlon in November though, so ask me how my training is going. Hopefully by the time someone asks me, I'll have started training by then! Paul's fallen off the wagon as well... so we BOTH need to get our butts moving. Mine is currently growing due to a lack of exercise and discipline in my diet. My fear of gaining the weight back is happening and I'm annoyed with myself. I think I've gotten over the pain of Ragnar by now and can finally learn to enjoy short bursts of physical torture again! Also, the construction on our road is wrapping up, so I may actually feel comfortable riding my bike outside soon! Now that school has started, I should be able to focus my schedule to include workouts. I'm a prime example of Newton's law that an object in motion stays in motion. I have a tendency to shut all engines down over the summer, kind of like a yearly "reboot" for my system. But now that things are scheduled and regimented, I need to rid myself of lame excuses.

So, the engines are running again and life is back to "normal". I've been able to do a lot of reflecting lately and I'm reminded again how blessed I am in life. How peaceful I feel to realize that I have all the tools necessary in life to be happy. Life is good. Hope you are feeling the same.

Digi-scrappin time

2010-08-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm dreading the fact that school is starting up again next week. This summer has FLOWN by and I'm just not ready to head back to work! I haven't had nearly enough time to get bored!

So what did I do yesterday? I spent the ENTIRE day digital scrapbooking. At our family reunion in June, we had some awesome portraits taken by our family's "go-to photographer," Merideth Dunning. Megan picked the color scheme and we met at Cheeseman Park in Denver to take pictures at the pillars. We got the pictures back about a month ago and I was itching to play around with Stampin' Up!'s digital software (My Digital Studio) and put an album together. Here are some of the pages I did.

Each family has a second page that goes with it. I'm going to have them printed out so I can have an actual album to flip through. It was time consuming, but a lot of fun!

Enough loss for one day

2010-07-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm very upset tonight. When I get upset, I want to talk about things. Sometimes I stop myself from talking about things that are maybe too personal on my blog, but I'm not going to tonight.

Today, I've had tears for two losses. One of them, I feel excruciatingly sad. The other, I feel overwhelmed with a wide spectrum of emotions, but the one that keeps popping up is anger. I know the anger will fade quickly so I can start dealing with the hurt, but I'm going to admit that I am, in fact, angry.

The loss I'm aching over is for a genuinely amazing young man in my ward. I'm friends with his mother and they live 4 houses away from us. My kids play with this boy's siblings on a near-daily basis. Brandon's story is here, but the short version is that he was thrown from and pinned under a jeep this afternoon after football practice and is in critical condition. If he makes it through this, his life as he knew it will be changed forever... and it is the epitome of tragic. My heart is hurting for him, his AWESOME family, and all his friends. I hope the Lord's love will help them through every step of this scary process.

I'm sure that this is extra hard having just dealt with the loss of my dear friend's loss of their son, Ben Harris, a couple weeks ago. Many tears were shed for him and for the pain of his family, whom we love so much.

The other loss I'm dealing with right now is that of my sister, Camille. I haven't talked about it on my blog out of an attempt at sensitivity. But chances are good that she'll never read this anyway. I've been dealing with the loss of Camille (and her whole family) for nearly a year and a half. Back then, she announced to my family that they were leaving the church. It was a shock and a blow, but one that I could deal with. What I didn't deal well with was her self-inflicted ostracization from our family.

Cami and I have been very close. Not recently at all, in fact, not for nearly 6-7 years. She's my eldest sister and she taught me so many wonderful things throughout my life. She mentored me, served me, put up with me and gave me endless lists of advice. The advice wasn't always welcome, and definitely not always followed, but I knew she cared about me.

She's had contact over the last year with a couple of my sisters, but has rejected any outreach from my mother. I sort of understand her motivation, but it's been mostly irrelevant to me as I've watched her repeatedly hurt my parents. They are not perfect, but they don't deserve to be treated that way. Anyway, my mom got the chance to see her yesterday, and in true Camille-fashion, she dropped an atomic bomb that I want to bitch-slap her for. Apparently, any contact she has with ANY of us in the family upsets her so much that she wants NO contact, ever again, from any of us. Period.

...

...

...

...

...

...

...
(these dots are all the things I want to say TO her and ABOUT her. But like Camille, I'm being a chicken and choosing not to actually put the words down on paper. Like I said, I'm angry right now and don't want to be held responsible for what I might say. But don't worry, those of you who are close enough will get to hear them as I process through the loss of my big sister. As you can see from the number of dots, it will be a long conversation.)

I guess I'll leave it at that.

Ragnar 2010!!

2010-06-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the big dance. I've been thinking/worrying/preparing for the Ragnar Wasatch Back relay for 5 months or more, so it was great that it finally came about!! As a warning, I must let you know in advance that yes, this post is just as long as my post about the Red Rock Relay back in September, so sit back and get comfortable... or just stop reading when you get bored!

Our team name was The UFO- Unforgettable Family Outing, and our team members included a bunch of members from Paul's family. Aunt Dawn and Uncle Reed Frandsen drove here early from Minnesota to do this race with us... it was so fun to spend that time with them! Paul's brother, Spencer, and our brother-in-law, Luke McCausland, were also in our van with us. The other 6 team members in Van #1 were Paul's sister, Amy, Aunt Heidi and Uncle Jon Obray, and Jon's two brothers, Tyler, and Rick, and Rick's wife Cathleen. Got all that? Good! Here's a picture of all of us!

The way this race worked out was Van 1 (Amy and all the Obrays) started in Logan, UT at 7:00am. They got to run through Cache Valley, through Logan, River Heights, Providence, Millville, to Hyrum, down through Paradise and Avon and over Avon pass until they reached Liberty, UT (total of 39.6 miles) at about 1:55pm. That is when Tyler handed off the slap bracelet to Dawn and she took off for a 4 mile run through the Liberty and Eden neighborhoods. I really wanted to get a picture of each handoff, but the first Tyler/Dawn handoff was blocked by a big suburban... grrr!

Dawn is a speedy runner, so she finished those 4 miles in about 38 minutes. She handed off the bracelet to ME at 2:34pm. Here's a picture collage of this!

Off I go! Did you notice the time? 2:30 in the afternoon was pretty toasty by that point. There was no shade, but overall the 3.4 miles I ran was pretty flat with a slow incline over the last mile. I'm not fast, so I only got 1 roadkill on this leg (that's when you pass someone). This is me needing some WATER!!!

And this picture is of me handing off the bracelet to Luke at 3:10.

As I was walking toward the van, Paul kept telling me I needed to stop and stretch but I got a little testy because I was so stinkin thirsty! We hurried along to the next exchange because we knew it wouldn't take Luke very long to get through his 3.5 miles. I took this picture of him at 3:35 (that's 25 minutes later) AFTER he'd already handed off to Spencer.

Luke almost ALWAYS has a smile on his face... not just when he's posing for a picture!

Spencer also ran his first leg super fast. This is him handing off to Paul at 4:01. If you're keeping track, that's 3.6 miles around Pineview Reservoir in about 26 minutes. Impressive, I know!

Both Luke and Spencer said this was their hardest leg because they felt the pressure to be really fast. They both had a short distance to run on mostly flat terrain, but it was hot and they pushed themselves really hard. It was great to have these tough guys on our team and in our van.

So, here's a collage of Paul's 3.7 miles up and UP and UP! and then DOWN Snow basin road. He handed off to Reed at 4:38pm (10 minute miles up a freaking mountain). Yes, I'm married to a total stud!

Reed had a VERY difficult leg to run at this point. He had to go 3.1 miles, finishing the ascent up to the Snow Basin Resort. It was hard, and he knew he'd have to walk some... but he ran most of it. After supporting him through most of his leg, we hustled up to Snow Basin for the van exchange. We got to say hello to our other teammates and ask them how they were doing. At this point, everyone still had some smiles!

I loved that the other team was wearing their alien antennae headbands! It made it easy to spot them in that gigantic crowd. Sidenote... the van exchanges were TOTAL chaos!!! This year's race had 1088 teams. That's over 2100 vans, and about 13000 runners (not all teams had 12 runners... some had 6). We were never all at the same place at the same time, but there was always a TON of congestion at the van exchange points. It's possible this race is getting too big. Here's a collage of the snow basin site. They had live music, free massage and chiropractic adjustments, really expensive food we opted not to buy, and a ridiculously long line for the toilets. That was a recurring theme at EVERY van exchange. YIKES! I did get an adjustment, but did not have the patience to wait for a massage.

Now, this is the part of this blog post that has no pictures, so I'll just have to talk about the next 12 hours. At this point, Van 1 was starting their second legs of the race. Cathleen got to descend 2000 feet over 8.5 miles to get out of Snow Basin. Heidi got to run 3 miles along Hwy 84 along Mountain Green. Uncle Jon ran 4.9 miles through a quiet residential area in Morgan Valley. Amy ran 4.2 miles along Morgan Valley Drive and into the town of Morgan.

*We were there at Morgan High School when she came through and handed off to Rick, but I missed it because I was in the High School waiting/taking a shower. Thankfully, when I entered the line for the TWO showers, there was only 4 people in it, but by the time I was done, the line was HUGE! I'm glad I got a shower since I'm pretty insecure about being a smelly person, but it wasn't a nice, calming experience! At least my timing was good! After my shower, I joined my vanmates who were "purposefully resting" on the field in sleeping bags. I think Luke managed to fall asleep, but in the 30 minutes I had to lay down, I'm afraid sleep escaped me.*

While we were not sleeping, Rick ran 4.2 miles south on Morgan Valley Drive again toward East Canyon. Tyler finished up their van leg running 8.1 miles up to East Canyon Reservoir... (Dang, we gave him the hardest crap to run! Ouch!). We got there with plenty of time for Tyler to hand off to Dawn. I'm not quite sure what time she started her run. I missed this exchange too, because I was chilling in the car, listening to my iPod and starting to gather all the gear I would need for my next run. Since it was dark, we needed to be wearing reflective vests, head lamps, AND tail lights. Add to this a hat, the iPod on my arm, my race belt holding my number, and a hydration belt to carry water and a GU. I was feeling a bit over accessorized for this leg of mine! It was also pretty chilly with a good breeze going, so I had on a tee-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt and my running pants. At least I was prepared!

Dawn had to run 3.8 miles with most of it climbing out of East Canyon along the Donner Reed Party Route. She did a great job and was running strong every time we passed her. She handed off to me at 12:18am and I got to start my 7 mile run into Summit County and into the town of Henefer. My first 5 miles were downhill, and I'm glad I trained a little bit for that. I had a good pace going with a sub 10-min-mile pace for the first 3.5 miles, a 10.5-min-mile pace for the next 2 miles, and then my last 1.5 miles leveled off and started to climb again. At this point, my hip joints and flexors were complaining quite loudly and I slowed down quite a bit with some occasional walking. I'd set an estimate of 75 minutes to do this leg and I did it in 74:05 minutes! Not too shabby I guess, so I felt pretty good about that leg. I actually love running in the dark. This was my best leg of the 3. (By the way, I got 4 roadkills on this leg!)

I handed off to Luke, and he KILLED it on his 9.6 mile leg heading toward Echo lake, around the lake, and into the town of Coalville. He got 34 roadkills on that leg... the dude is a machine. Then Spencer took off on his 7.7 mile run along the Weber River valley toward the town of Wanship. He got 21 roadkills... that dude is ALSO a machine! All throughout this portion of the race, I was laying down in the back of the van, TRYING to get a little rest, but mostly feeling all kinds of abdominal/GI pain. The toughest thing about races like these is managing the food and the way your body reacts to that food. For the actual running, I feel fine. But within an hour after I stop running, my system starts to freak out a bit. Paul started his leg in Wanship at 3:50am. He finished his 5.5 mile leg around Rockport lake 50 minutes later at 4:39am. The only reason I know these things is because our GPS watch keeps track of this kind of information. Again, I missed all these exchanges because the second we entered each exchange point, I had to find the honey buckets. Ugh.

So Reed started his leg at 4:40 and had to run 6.5 miles through Peoa and up into Oakley. I slept through most of this leg and when I woke up, it was already light outside. We ended up at the Oakley Rodeo grounds for the next van exchange. The Obray group had a slow time getting from their hotel room in Park City to Oakley, so Reed had to stand there for about 10 minutes waiting for them to show up. We used the bathrooms and bought breakfast there. It was yummy but with minimal sleep and "issues", I wasn't feeling so hot! We drove ahead to the next van exchange in Heber. We got to see the route the other van had to run and we were glad our name wasn't Jon!! They ran a total of 25.9 miles at this point. We used the facilities (after an even longer line than any previous line - seriously, Ragnar... more buckets at the van exchanges please!!!!) and then claimed another patch of grass in the shade. I wish I would have taken a picture of all the people wrapped up in sleeping bags in random places. It was quite a site, but I wasn't thinking about taking pictures as I was walking around half comatose. I think I snagged another 45-60 minutes of sleep before we started packing up our stuff again. I changed my clothes in my sleeping bag and had to get myself all sunscreened up and ready to run again.

Van 1 got to the exchange at 11:03 when I got to take this picture of Tyler running toward Dawn. She took off on her last run of 4.2 miles around the ag area of Heber.

We stood around for quite a while talking to our teammates in Van 1. It was fun to chat with them, but I was nervous that we weren't giving Dawn any support and also nervous that I was going to be too rushed to get my stuff ready. We jumped in the van, followed the route and passed Dawn when she had just over a mile left to go.

When we got to my handoff area, I got all my stuff ready and tried to get pumped up for this last butt-kicker leg of mine. I was feeling pretty exhausted, uncomfortable, defeated and worried that I wasn't going to be able to run much. Paul was giving me some good pep talking. I determined that I would set my watch to a 5 minute cycle where I would run for 4 minutes and walk 1. Dawn handed off to me at 11:46am and it was already pretty warm, very sunny, with a stiff breeze blowing. I was able to get through the first 3.5 miles doing the run/walk schedule and able to run for the entire 4 minutes. But once that leg started to climb more and more, I was stuh-ruggle-ing. I would run 2.5 minutes, walk 30 seconds, run a minute, walk a minute, repeat (over and over and over). And then by the end, my goal was to run as much as I was walking, alternating single minutes. It was so hot, I was so tired, the hill was L.O.N.G. and just kept getting steeper and steeper. I didn't get a single roadkill... I WAS the roadkill! But I finished, FINALLY, a whopping 80 minutes later! That is so stinkin slow, but what can ya do?! Here's a few pics:

Coming up was Luke and Spencer running up a ginormous mountain. I couldn't BELIEVE what they were able to accomplish! The highlight of these two legs for me was Dawn reading this quote to Luke and Spencer as they ran straight up, "In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits and favored by the gods!" This is the definition of "ragnar"! At one point, she ran along with them, reading the quote. Then she would shout it out the window as we would pass them! It kept a smile on Luke's face, and I took this shot of her following behind Spencer out the van window. She's holding the flag and Spencer is two people in front of her! Too fun!

Just so you have an idea, this is the view we were seeing as we continued to climb:

(I told you it was uphill!)
Paul started his final leg at 2:32 and he had a SEVERE downhill drop that was supposed to only be 5.4 miles, but right before he started, we got a text saying that due to unforseen blockages, they had to lengthen the leg 1.1 miles. So he got to run 6.5 miles instead. Awesome, huh?! The first mile was actually uphill, which was tough, but he ran it well, and then he started down. Most of the leg was on a trail and at one point he stubbed his toe on a stump and actually fell. He finished it in 57 minutes, averaging 8:45 minute miles.

I was very proud of him... Paul did an awesome job on all of his legs and didn't get nearly enough glory! He even got a KILLER blister on the bottom of his heel that looked awesome! I'm just glad I didn't miss THIS last exchange. I missed most of the others because of these:

Oh, Honey Bucket. May it be a long, LONG time before I spend any more time inside your four blue walls!

Anyway, Reed took off for the last leg of the race. We moseyed on over to the van, figured out a way to get out of the parking lot, and hurried up so we could wait in traffic FOREVER to get to the Canyons Resort where the finish line was. It took long enough that a bunch of us fell asleep in the back seat waiting and waiting. When we finally got there, we found a parking spot, and hurried up so we could wait in line to ride the gondola up to the resort. It was while riding up that we talked with the others to find that Reed already crossed the finish and was too tired to wait for us! Thats okay, but it was awfully anticlimactic. It was extremely frustrating to make it this far and NOT experience the finish. The Canyons resort was 10 times as chaotic as every other chaotic place along the course. We wanted to figure out some issues with our t-shirts, since the women's shirts were sized WAAAAYYY too small. But irritatingly, they only had women's M or S or men's L or XL... not what we're looking for here, people! So, I'm not sure if I'll get to wear my race shirt much unless I can actually manage to lose the 10 lbs I've gained back over the last 8 months!

Aaaaannnnd... here's some of our final pictures.

We were all pretty burned out and ready to get a move on, so we kind of forced Dawn and Reed to take off a little earlier than they would have liked. They were giving the four of us a ride to Woods Cross where our van was parked at my Aunt Lynn's house. She was a sweetie and gave us a ride up to Ogden on Friday morning so we would have less travel time after the race was finished. She's so awesome! Once we got to her place, we grabbed some Panda Express and made our way back home... exhausted in every kind of way! Thankfully, Charlie fell asleep in the car on the ride home from Grandma's so we didn't have to work hard to get him in bed that night! I showered and collapsed and had the best nights sleep I've had since I did the Red Rock Relay! I guess it's a special kind of fatigue!

Overall, this experience was better than my last long relay experience. It was hard, but not dramatic! It really is a fun thing to do because for the most part, you don't feel like total crap until after your second leg. So at least 2/3rds of the time, it's all kinds of fun! And, there, now I'm done posting about it and I can get on with my life! My next goal is to start training for another couple of sprint triathlons by the end of the summer so I can get my hot body back!

Canon turns 7!

2010-06-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Canon had a birthday, Canon had a birthday, One year older than he was before!!

Because I'm not a super-mom like other people I know, I've decided to do what my mom did when we were little, and let us have a friend birthday party on our even number years. Since Canon turned 7 this year, it was a family celebration day and Canon got to decide what we would get to do.

We started off the day with a few presents and then a family bike ride to a nice park 2 miles away from our house. Luckily it wasn't too hot at that point. Here's a picture of Canon opening his gifts and the boys and me enjoying the shade at the park.

Canon really wanted to go swimming that afternoon, but we were unable to set that up in advance, so we'll have to do that another day. He then decided that he wanted to go to Pirate Island for dinner. We took the plunge and decided to check it out. Basically, Pirate Island is a glorified Chuck-E-Cheese, but for bigger kids. Charlie still managed to have a good time, but the environment and arcade games were really geared toward slightly bigger kids (which means that Paul had a great time!!).

We ended the evening with a dollar movie. We went and saw Alice in Wonderland and I LOVED it! Paul had to miss the ending because there's no guarantees when Charlie is involved.

Canon wanted to sleep outside in the tent, but it was really windy, cloudy and threatening rain. Bummer, another activity we'll have to do on a different day. But overall, I think Canon had a great birthday.

A much needed new toy

2010-06-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

I think one of the (many) reasons why my blog has sucked so bad is that for quite a while, we have not had a camera. How can you blog about something exciting if you didn't even bother to take a picture of it!? I have NO IDEA what happened to our old camera... I'm blaming it's disappearance on the process of decluttering for home staging purposes!

Anyway, it was time to take the plunge and just buy a new camera already! We looked for a while and decided that we are fans of Nikon cameras, and ended up with the S3000. We got an OK deal on it on Memorial Day, so we were happy about that! So what do you do when you haven't had a camera for a while? Take ugly pictures of yourself in the car, of course!!! Here's a little sampling.

Ahhh, much better!

2010-06-07T19:09:00.001-07:00

On one of Andy's first days of summer, he got to go to the dentist to get that tooth fixed! They had to shave it down and ended up putting a cap on top of it. I think it looks great and it was all for the bargain price of $180! Here's hoping he can manage to keep the rest of them whole from here on out!

See... much better!!

Awww, Man!!

2010-05-21T08:43:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday I missed a phone call from Andy's teacher at school. I didn't listen to the message until after I saw Paul's text message saying, "The sooner you can get home the better. I have to take Andy to the dentist as close to 3:30 as possible."

Oh Crap!!

So I then listened to the message from his teacher letting me know that Andy had a pretty significant chip in his front tooth from when a baton was tossed at him and hit him in the mouth. Paul was there to take care of the dentist appointment where the doc put some kind of sealant on the tooth to cover the nerve endings. I took care of picking up Canon and Charlie and hanging out until Paul and Andy got back. This is what Andy looks like now:

We've got an appointment for the dentist to fill in the space in a couple weeks. Thankfully it will only be a couple hundred dollars instead of what I was fearing the cost would be! Until then, we get to look at this funny triangle tooth!

Best Mother's Day Gift Ever!

2010-05-10T09:45:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a wonderful Mother's Day for me and my family. I know it's fun to incite that awesome competition of how my mom is better than your mom, but I don't believe in doing that. I'm sure you have a lovely mother and I'm very happy for you! Instead, I would like to say that I am insanely blessed to be the daughter of Liz Anderson and the wife of the son of Rhyll Croshaw. I love both of these women beyond words. They add so much love and security to my life.

I also love mothers day because I'm very grateful for the chance I have in this life to be the mother of these three little cuties:

I love being a mother to these boys. They each present their challenges, but the joys far outweigh them. Each of them were extra sweet to me yesterday, including a stream of compliments from all of them at breakfast with Charlie looking at me and saying, "you're so cute, mommy." I just had to laugh. I say that to him all the time!

Anyway, I titled this post the best mothers day gift ever because of what we were able to accomplish with Charlie yesterday. I'm sure you care A LOT but guess how many times we had to change Charlie's underwear yesterday?!?! ZERO! Despite being at the Croshaw's all day yesterday (which includes a fair amount of parental neglect on my part... "go outside and play boys!") Charlie did all of his business in the potty multiple times. Looks like we may have gotten over that fear of pooping in the toilet. YAHOO!!! I'm feeling more and more confident that we've gotten through the worst of it! What a relief. And what a trip it is thinking that I may never have to purchase diapers again. Do you agree that this is a pretty impressive and expensive Mother's Day gift!? It makes the iTunes giftcards I got from Paul pale in comparison!

I hope you all had a great Mother's day honoring all the awesome women in our lives. I know I did.

What I've been up to.

2010-05-08T10:27:00.001-07:00

I'm trying not to get annoyed with myself with how little blogging I've been doing lately. One of the fears I had when I started this blog was that at some point I would feel like it's one more thing or hobby that I would feel guilty about neglecting. So instead of getting annoyed or feeling guilt, I'm going to focus on being glad that there are a lot of great things going on that have kept me busy.

I'll start with a list of things I've been doing lately:
1. Running again. Paul's Aunt Dawn started talking last year about putting a family team together for the Ragnar Wasatch Back relay in June. Since Dawn lives in Minnesota, she asked me to be our team captain, which put me in charge of making sure we were registered on time and making the assignments for who would be which runner. The Wasatch Back (WB from here on out) is just like the Red Rock Relay. You can read my epistle about it by clicking that link. I'll admit that I'm nervous to do this again, mostly because I remember just how sore I was after the RRR. But there are some things that will make the WB better than the RRR. We are not an all woman team... in fact, in my van, we've got Paul, Spencer, and Luke (all seasoned triathletes and excellent runners). I'm relieved to have been able to pick one of the easier slots in our van!

Our team name is "The UFO- Unforgettable Family Outing" and the race is June 18-19th. I've got 6 weeks to kick it into gear to be more ready. For the last 2 weeks I've been following the recommended training schedule exactly. Today I'm supposed to do 2 25-minute runs, but I need to wait until Paul gets back from his 50 mile bike ride (He's got a 1/2 ironman in 5 weeks). So, I've been spending more time lately running and have a lot more to do!

2. Burning Out. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ready for school to be out. Thankfully, I've only got about 3 weeks left. This school year has had DRAMA written all over it. There is always drama and politics in any working environment, but when you times that by 3 for the different schools I work with, it can get old really quick. I've learned a LOT this school year from picking up an employee and REALLY learning how to run a business, but I'm ready to scale back and spend more time with the boys.

3. Potty training Charlie. Ugh. This whole process has been so AGONIZING!!!! A couple weeks ago, we ran out of diapers and I decided I didn't want to go buy anymore. So, Charlie has been wearing underwear since then and I wish I could say that it's gone smoothly, but it's Charlie we're talking about here! Actually, he's done a very good job with staying dry! The problem we're having is getting him to go #2 in the toilet. He did it once and we got him a cool police car he picked out. But since then, no luck. We may have to put him in a diaper at night so we don't have to start each day with a cold bath. We've discovered he's a consistent morning pooper. Anyway, this process has been taking a lot of my mental energy lately!

Now I'll list some things that have been worrying us:
1. The stinking housing market!! The first week it was listed, we had 3 showings. Since then... ZERO. I haven't even bothered to keep my house super clean because nothing is happening. The initial showings we had were very positive and they really liked the house, but there is so much out there right now. I actually shouldn't say that we're worrying about this, but it's been a bit frustrating. For this summer, Paul will likely be renting some office space with a colleague so he's not stuck here at the house with me and the kids trying to get all his work done. So, I've asked the realtor to switch the for sale sign in our yard to one less imposing. The big sign obviously isn't helping!

2. CONSTRUCTION!! Somewhere in the last few months, I must have offended the construction gods, because there are road closures and orange barrels everywhere I turn these days. The cul-de-sac we live on isn't under construction, but the road you HAVE TO drive on to get to our road is completely torn up right now and will be until fall. This may have something to do with the zero action we're seeing with the house for sale, but that's not my main frustration with it.

3. Medical bills. Canon's emergency appendectomy was the first time we've needed to actually use our health insurance since Paul changed employment last year. Turns out our plan is GARBAGE and we get to pay for the whole thing! Good times!

4. ADD. I think Andy's got it and Paul and I aren't quite on the same page on what we need to do about that. Any advice?

5. Summer clothes. I'm up about 10 pounds from where I was a year ago when we went on the cruise. Life has been very delicious since Thanksgiving! All the summer clothes I bought last year are 1.5 sizes smaller than I am right now, so I'm getting back to following the weight watchers plan. If I can really focus on my food for the next 6 weeks, I'm hoping I can get back down to below 150 by the race in June. Then I can also be skinny again for the family pictures we'll be taking at the reunion at the end of June. I may use this blog as an accountability source for the next 2 months! Hope you don't mind.

There... I've updated the blog!

Okay, here's the scoop

2010-04-13T22:34:00.000-07:00

After spending a grueling day trying to figure out our taxes (procrastinating anyone?), I thought I'd grab the laptop, turn on the GLEE episode I've been all geeked about watching for a week, and finally fill in the gaps from my last post about moving.

Since January, my posts have been few and far between because we've been doing a lot of sprucing up around here. We've painted the entire upstairs... a job that desperately needed to be done 4.5 years ago when we moved in. We've also figured out how to decorate a wall or two, find drain pipes under concrete and walls, put in a bathtub/toilet/sink/flooring/etc. and overall make this place look downright cute in some places! Come to think of it, all of these things would have been nice to have done 4 years ago! It's been a lot of work, but it's also been great to know that none of these tasks were IMPOSSIBLE! With some incredible help from our brother-in-law, Jason, and hiring out some key plumbing and drywall work (for a killer deal on both) it has come together quite nicely.

But yes, we are trying to sell, because right now is a really great time to upgrade your house if you can. Since Paul changed jobs over a year ago, he's been working from home and has needed a home office space. So he's been functioning in the back of the family room downstairs. I also run my speech therapy business from home, and while that doesn't take a TON of space, my stampin' up! demonstratorship does. So, we're going to see if we can sell this place and hopefully break even. We're not in a position where we need to short sale the house, but we also don't have a ton of wiggle room on the price. But thankfully, we're not desperate to sell either. Though it's sexy to be looking at some nicer homes with more space, we love our house, love our neighborhood, and love our ward. So if we don't get any viable offers, we'll stay... and maybe finish off the 4th bedroom.

As for where we're going? Hopefully not far. Our boys attend a charter school that we've liked really well so far. It would be great to still have quick access to the school, so we're looking for homes here in Springville, Mapleton, and Spanish Fork. We want to stay close. We love this area.

So do you want to see it?! Here are some pics.
We'll start with the front room/first impression:

Next, onto the kitchen:

Now the bedrooms upstairs:

The TWO bathrooms we now have!: (for the record, this is the first time in my 10.5 years of marriage that we've had more than one toilet at our house... it's wonderful!)

Here's the boys' bedroom downstairs:

And finally, the family room/office - (aka: the part of the house we hope buyers will overlook after being impressed with the rest of the house!):

So, this is what we've been up to... and what I WILL be up to for who knows how long. In the first week, we've had 3 showings, 2 of which were to the same people. We've gotten great feedback so far, so we're hopeful, but trying to stay chill about the whole thing. Send us your "happy showing" thoughts and your "happy offer" thoughts, and while we're at it, your "happy help-Diana-somehow-keep-the-house-clean-like-we-don't-live-here" thoughts... cuz we could sure use a lot of those!

For Sale

2010-04-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's official. This morning we finally put our house officially on the market. More details to come later. In the meantime... pray for us!

I love music

2010-03-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Have I ever mentioned before how much I love music? Maybe once... maybe twice... well, I do. Today I had a neat realization and I thought I'd, you know, document it.

This morning I had choir practice with my choir. Low turnout again... looks like I'm loosing a bunch of sopranos :(. Anyway, with the amount of support I've had over the last 9 months, I wanted to end the season with a bang before we quit for summer, hopefully we'll be able to pull it off with some smaller numbers. So anyway, since a choir is only as good as it's director thinks it is, I've picked a tough song, but one I know we can do because it's one of my top five favorite songs of all time (and you can't imagine how hard that is for me to narrow down!). We're singing Gounod's 'Oh Divine Redeemer'.

This song and I go way back to high school singing it in duet with Lisa Cowley Gillespie. I pray that one day I'll have to the chance to perform this piece with the MoTab myself, but until then, I'm going to subject my little ward choir to those soaring A's! I love the amount of passion this song conveys. It truly is a prayer that I've felt before.

So after practicing that song for nearly an hour this morning, I came home and decided to read several of October's conference talks before getting ready for church. One of the talks I read was Richard G. Scott's talk called To Acquire Spiritual Guidance. In this talk he says, "Have patience as you are perfecting your ability to be led by the Spirit. By careful practice, through the application of correct principles, and by being sensitive to the feelings that come, you will gain spiritual guidance. I bear witness that the Lord, through the Holy Ghost, can speak to your mind and heart. Sometimes the impressions are just general feelings. Sometimes the direction comes so clearly and so unmistakably that it can be written down like spiritual dictation." This whole talk is basically about learning how the Spirit communicates with you personally. This is something I need to work on in a bad way, especially as we are trying to make some major life decisions in the very near future.

Well, during sacrament meeting, I ended up not being able to sing the sacrament hymn due to an overwhelming feeling of the Spirit. Reflecting on that (after wiping up my mascara streaked cheeks), and in combination with singing 'Oh Divine Redeemer' that morning, I understood how profoundly the Lord communicates with me through sacred music. I love the hymns of the gospel and try my darndest to help my boys develop a love for them too. Singing in church is my favorite part of our worship because in reality, other than those rare circumstances when you're asked to speak in sacrament, it's the only significant participation and worship we do as Latter-Day Saints. To me, saying 'Amen' at the end of a handful of prayers and a couple of talks doesn't make me feel like I've spent much of my time actually worshipping my God. But by singing the hymns and speaking the words, I find myself communicating feelings of Love for my Creator, Savior and Redeemer. And sometimes, like today, the words of the hymn are as if He is the one speaking and the Spirit is able to bear testimony that He love me too. Not many prayers of mine have been answered in the words of many songs, but sure and undeniable feelings of belonging and peace have been imprinted on my heart through song.

We concluded the day by attending an Easter Hymn Sing-in that our stake was holding tonight. Our ward was asked to sing a song we'd prepared in November of last year, "For the Beauty of the Earth" by John Rutter. My accompanist had emergency brain surgery this week, so my darling/talented/fabulous/can't-thank-her-enough Mother-in-law came and saved our bacon for the performance tonight. It's an extremely difficult song to play... and sing... and direct... but Rhyll and our choir did a great job. What a blessing. So tonight, I'm a little high on music with amazing gratitude for the Lord and this telephone-line like connection that He and I have together. We've had a LOT of good conversations today!

Have to start somewhere!

2010-03-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

This has been the longest gap I've had in blogging since I started blogging 1.5 years ago. Something will happen and I'll think, "I should blog about that." But then I also think, "I haven't blogged about this, that, or the other thing yet, so maybe I won't blog about it yet." It's the feeling I get when every room in my house is messy and I don't know where to start, so I just don't start. Also, things have been busy around here, so my down time has been spent catching up on my shows or something else immensely worthwhile.

One thing that helps me when my whole house is messy is setting a timer for 15 minutes and devoting that 15 minutes to one room. This idea comes from FLYLADY, one of my heroes. Anyway, I'm going to apply this principle to the blogging I need to accomplish. My posts may not be super-detailed, but hopefully, some of these events can at least get documented and that will have to be good enough.

I'm going to start with Canon's surgery last week. This experience with him in the hospital is what has made this month feel like it was sucked into a vacuum. How is April next week already? Anyway... here's the story.

On Sunday, Charlie stayed home from church because he was sick with a really bad cold and cough. Monday morning, Canon woke up and told us that his "tummy hurt" really bad and he could hardly eat any breakfast. So figuring he'd picked up something from Charlie, he stayed home from school that day. Paul took them to the store at one point and Canon had fallen asleep in the car on the way home and came inside and laid down on his bed (very unusual for Canon to nap) and proceeded to sleep nearly all afternoon.

I got home from work at about 5 and was helping Canon get a drink of water. Even the process of sitting up was painful for him, as well as any touching or pushing on his abdomen, so I wish I had paid more attention to that detail earlier on. We attempted to feed him some dinner but he kept throwing up. We let him sleep on our floor at bedtime to keep him nearby for any future puking. When I went to bed at about 11:00, Canon woke up wanting more water. His pain was worse and the red flags finally started flying for me. I looked up appendicitis symptoms on my blackberry and sent Paul down to the computer to do the same. Canon was also able to pinpoint where it hurt the most, which was right above his right hip. Paul and I decided we would definitely take him in to the hospital that night, even though Canon didn't like the idea. He kept saying, "Just take me to the doctor in the morning!"

We had Paul's dad come over to help Paul give him a blessing. Though Canon must have been in tons of pain, he was being such a trooper. Paul decided he would take him in to the ER in Orem (since it's always 10 times faster than at Provo). They were able to be seen right away and with an ultrasound, they were able to confirm that it was indeed, appendicitis. (good job, mom!) Though Orem's ER is faster, the hospital isn't as well equipped with staff, so they transferred them to Utah Valley (UVRMC) for the surgery. Paul would be able to give better detail about this part, but I do know that he went in to surgery at about 5 and Paul called again at 6 saying that everything was finished and Canon was in the recovery room. They did find in the surgery that there was a small perforation with a small amount of leakage, so they knew he'd need to stay in the hospital at least through the day and night (This is Tuesday now).

I got Andy off to school and Charlie off to Grandma's house for the day and came to switch Paul places. He needed to get some sleep in a bad way. From this point, there is little to report about Canon's hospital stay. It was night and day difference from the last time I had been bedside a family member in the hospital for VERY obvious reasons. There is no way to compare a mere appendectomy to Spencer's accident. Canon was responding very well to minimal amounts of medication, able to start walking around the pediatric ward quickly and remained in pretty good spirits throughout his stay.

He did whine about being lonely and was hoping ALL of his family members would come by to see him. We had to wait until evening, but when we got visitors, we got a bunch of them and Canon was thrilled. Here's a picture of him with Andy and his cousins Ellie and Will.
We were blessed to have every nearby living Croshaw family member stop by for a quick visit. Canon especially loved the balloons they brought!

Ultimately, we were hoping we could go home on Wednesday sometime, but because of the slight rupture, they wanted to keep him on IV antibiotics an extra day. We spent the time doing laps around the pediatric ward, playing the Wii or new DS game we got him, reading, and watching the Star Wars trilogy. At one point, Canon even said, "this place is awesome!" I guess if you have to stay in the hospital, hope you get to stay in pediatrics... they definitely take extra tender loving care of you there!

We did finally get to go home on Thursday morning first thing. Canon was very anxious to get home, as was I. The sleeping arrangements for the guest were less than stellar. Canon has made extremely fast recovery. We only gave him normal tylenol or ibuprofen occasionally if he started walking funny. He's practically back to normal at this point, a week + later.

Phew, one blog post down. A bunch more to come, but no promises when you'll see them.

Taxes, painting, decluttering, and projects... ugh!

2010-02-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

This has been quite a week. It's been a while since I've felt this frazzled with life. I've got so many balls up in the air, I'm getting a bit tuckered out. At least I was able to knock off one major thing off my to do list...

Flippin, flippity, flip, flip TAXES. No, we didn't get ours filed or anything. I was just finally able to print off my employees W-2 and the W3 forms after a long week of being past due and completely stumped as to how to get these forms printed without spending a million dollars. I'm not going to bore anyone with the details, but I will say that Quickbooks simple start payroll is a flippin rip-off, nobody in Utah county has a typewriter, and I ended up having to spend $40 for a program that would allow my printer to print the forms without a big, flippin, RED, "DEMO" printed down the middle. So, now I can give Tia her w2 tomorrow (a week+ late) and send in the necessary forms and necessary money to the necessary people.

We've been painting our upstairs this week. It looks AWESOME! And just for the record... painting is a royal pain in the (you know what)(I'd say "ass" but it's Sunday). But taking the extra time to tape well and use painters caulk has made a HUGE difference and it looks super-de-duper!

We're also making some headway with installing our 2nd bathroom. There is now a big hole in the concrete... one made in order to locate the drain, which apparently was brilliantly placed under the WALL. Idiot builders. We also have the initial wiring/electrical all ready to go and the framing ready for drywall. We're going to buy the tub/shower unit tomorrow and have it installed by a plumber on Tuesday. Hopefully, we can then get the drywall completed this week as well, and move on to the floor, sink/toilet install, paint, and fixtures. I'm so excited to be getting this all done! It does mean, however, that our house has been in a complete state of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) since all these projects began. We're decluttering everything, and clearing out excess furniture as well. We were able to take a truck and minivan full of crap to DI yesterday and it's so liberating!! One room at a time, this place is starting to look pretty good... or at least better.

So this next week, I'll be praying for continued energy to just keep plugging along on that monstrous to do list. I'm hoping I don't burn out too quickly.

A new potty training trick for Charlie

2010-02-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today we tried a different trick for Charlie and his potty training. This process has been so different for him than it was for our other two boys. While he's not nearly as old as Andy was when he was ready, Charlie is months and months behind where Canon was.

We've tried a bunch of different things to try and motivate Charlie... starting with the basic and simple stuff (ie. bribing him with M&M's, toys, 'big boy' underwear, Santa gifts, etc.) with no avail. When you ask Charlie if he's a big boy or a baby, he says, "I'm just Charlie!" Which is oh, so true!

Today, I stayed home sick from work (I basically can't inhale, I'm so congested... which sucks). We were also painting the house and so I knew we'd be home all day long. Charlie is motivated to wear underwear, but doesn't have the initiative to go potty when necessary. He said he wanted to wear his Lightning McQueen undies today, so knowing I'd be distracted, I set my phone's alarm to go off in an hour to remind me to have him go potty. When the alarm went off, Charlie was in the room and he thought someone was calling me. In a spark of brilliance, I told him Lightning McQueen was calling for him to ask if his underwear was dry and if he needed to go potty. Charlie played along with me and told McQueen that he would go potty right now.

So he went. And we proceeded to stay dry all day with alarms going off at longer intervals! Charlie would talk to Lightning and agree to go potty (even this is a big step). At one point in the afternoon, he got soaked playing outside in the pool of water in the neighbors sandbox. We changed his pants and underwear (He chose the Wall-E ones) and from then on, Wall-E was calling him everytime the alarm went off again. Unfortunately, at the last alarm at 8:00 tonight, Charlie did NOT have a good report for Wall-E because he had gone poo in the Wall-E underwear :( Booo!! Thankfully it was an easy cleanup, but so frustrating! This #2 potty training has been tough-tough-tough! He still wants to go and hide instead of using the potty.

So, we'll try it again tomorrow. Paul is willing to give it a go, since he's the one who will be home with Charlie. We're hoping Charlie will be motivated to stay dry ALL day long so he can get another train car for his GeoTrax set! It may be a while, but I've got my fingers crossed that this trick may work!

Good thing this isn't my job!

2010-01-25T21:12:00.001-08:00

I was reading my cousin's blog posts and she was posting about how pathetic she was for still having Christmas decorations up in her house! She was doing us a favor just in case anyone was feeling bad about themselves that day. After looking at her post, I realized I still had stupid Christmas decor on my blog... then I felt a bit sheepish!

I'm just glad my livelihood doesn't rely on how well or often I blog... things have been pretty busy these last couple of weeks. You know... stuff, stuff, and more stuff... but not very much blog-worthy stuff, I guess. Anyway, just thought I'd change the wallpaper around here.

We may actually finally get around to painting the walls in our house soon too! Just thought I'd share.

Bringing my work home with me.

2010-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today when I got home, Paul told me a great story about Charlie that I had to document before it was lost forever in our memories.

As a speech therapist mommy, I've been encouraging Charlie to say some of his words better. He can almost always say the word correctly when I have him repeat me.

When Paul was getting him ready for the day, Charlie wanted his jacket, so Paul said, 'here's your jacket, Charlie.'

C: no, dad, it's jacket, say jacket.
P: jacket?
C: no, 'jacket'.
P: jacket.
C: good job, dadda

Funny what kids pick up from their parents!

Monkeys off my back!!!

2010-01-10T23:16:00.000-08:00

I DID IT!!!! Hooray!!!!! I finally finished A Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens! This book has been a little monkey on my back for a good year & a half... ever since my friend Rachelle (a woman with a degree in English Lit) said it was her favorite book. I started this book 4 times before I was able to break through the first 60 pages and actually finish the dang thing. One of those times was even a book on tape... I even struggled with that!

Truth is, Dickens is just dang tough stuff to read. So captivating, but very difficult to trudge through. At one point, I ventured to look up a bunch of the impressive vocabulary words in the dictionary, but the frequent interruption of flow got old quickly! But, I gotta say, I LOVED the book. I love how he tied everything together so well with so many characters. Even though I was completely confused through several scenes in the book, at least at the end, you understand what was happening after the fact and see how it ties in. Ahhhh. It was very refreshing to have it end so beautifully. Thanks for the recommendation, Rachelle. Wouldn't have done it without ya!

Another monkey I got off my back was the John Adams biography by David McCullough. What a great man Adams was (and his sweet wife) and what a wonderful writer McCullough is! This was another book that took me literally months and months to read. But reading it taught me just how little attention I paid in my American and World History classes in high school. Back then, dates were pretty irrelevant to me... leaving me with NO CLUE that the French Revolution happened just after the American Revolution. I'm glad I was able to finish the Adams biography before fully reading 'Two Cities'. I'm sure the timeline would have still been lost on me without that frame of reference and my somewhat increased knowledge on what was happening in America at the time. Shameful how all that good history education was wasted on my teenage mind!

So now that I've finished these, I'm fascinated by the whole thing and it's pushed a bunch of other books to the top of my 'to read' list. I'm excited to get my hands on the Scarlet Pimpernel, and especially the unabridged Les Miserables. I have read an abridged version, but I think I've matured to the point where I could handle the big cahuna now! Anyway... just thought I'd share my triumph!!

According to plan?

2010-01-01T21:44:00.001-08:00

Last year in January, instead of choosing any resolutions to break, I decided to just list the plans I had for 2009. I went back to read that post today to see how I did on those plans and thought I would return and report.

Here's the list, followed by how that all worked out for me:
1. I fully intend to reach my Weight Watchers goal and perhaps even go beyond, but not too far. CHECK! I did reach my weight watchers goal and became a lifetime member! In total, I lost just over 40 lbs. I did NOT go beyond that goal because I was pretty burned out. I will admit to having gained a fluctuating 4-6 lbs from my lowest weight of last year. The holiday season spanning from Halloween to Christmas has been very delicious this year. So, I have a little backtracking to do to continue the maintenance.

2. I'm going to grow my hair long again. CHECK! I know this one was stupid, but I did grow out my hair and it's taken all year! Here's a current shot of me taken today... I look old.

3. I'm going to do this triathlon in April, and I'll be ready for it. CHECK! In case you missed it (hahaha!), click here to read all the deets. Getting into triathlon and racing was a very empowering thing for me this year. I ended up doing 2 sprint triathlons, 1 5k, 1 10K, and the Red Rock Relay. I intend to do all this and more in 2010 (except trade in Red Rock for the Wasatch back relay! No more Red Rock for me!)

4. I'm going to keep reading good literature. CHECK! I have read a lot of good books this year, though I got a bit tangled up in a few. The John Adams biography took me FOREVER to read and I've started A Tale of Two Cities 3 times and continue to get stuck in the first 70 pages. It's gonna happen soon, though. I know I can do it!

5. We're going to finish paying off our debt and achieve a fully funded emergency fund. Boooo! Unfortunately, we did not accomplish this plan. We haven't necessarily been STUPID with our money this year... we just haven't been SMART. I'm carrying this plan into 2010.

6. Charlie will be potty trained before 2010. Boooo! This one didn't happen either... YET! We're getting closer. But we (as parents) haven't fully committed to this one YET! Soon, very soon!

7. Because of #6, we will be putting in the bathroom downstairs this year. Boooooooooooooooooo! Didn't do this one yet either... BUT, we have gotten one bid on it, and since that one won't work, we're pursuing other options. We have the money put aside and I'm hoping to get this one done by the end of this month... we're getting desperate for another toilet around this place!

8. I'm going to get contacts this year. Boo! See above picture and yesterdays post about getting new glasses! The eye doctor basically told me that he didn't think I would actually wear the contacts if he prescribed them for me. People who don't REALLY need to wear glasses are very unlikely to stick things in their eyes. He convinced me to just get the glasses for now since the only time I've been missing them is at night while driving. So though I didn't follow through with this plan, I don't feel like this one reflects a character flaw! I'm actually pleased to have some glasses to throw on when they're handy.

There's my report. I accomplished 50% of them and we're close on some of the ones that weren't accomplished. So, I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I haven't yet taken the time to plan out 2010. I think one thing 2009 taught me is that no matter your intentions, life never goes completely according to plan. A year ago, we spent some time after Christmas with my brother Spencer and his family. Never in a million years could anyone have guessed how much their world would be rocked this year. A year later, I still consider our family extremely blessed to still have him around and thriving. Trial followed by huge blessings.

Also a year ago, my two sisters were pregnant with their first babies. Alisha's came 6 weeks early, freaking us all out... but thankfully, Marcus is a happy and healthy baby and now Alisha's expecting a new baby girl this April. We're counting on her showing up in April! Megan's baby, Lily, came a week late in June and ended up spending over a month in the NICU with no diagnosis. Sweet Lily is a little fighter and is making progress all the time, but every little gain she makes will be a victory since 'typical' development has been slower. She's an absolute angel and one of the prettiest babies I've ever seen. Both Marcus & Lily's births were big trials, but followed with significant blessings.

So, who knows what 2010 will bring. I have lots of hope for great things, and faith to know that whatever comes, we'll be supported through it all.

Lets update this blog thingy!

2009-12-31T14:40:00.000-08:00

I've been sucking at blogging, so here are 3 new posts summarizing our entire Christmas holiday and my birthday!

My birthday is December 29th. I'll admit, it's not the best day in the year to have a birthday, but over the years, I've found some good things about it.

#1. If you didn't get everything you wanted for Christmas, you can still ask for it for your birthday.

#2. Because it's between Christmas & New Year, I'm often with my family sometime during that week... so my mom never forgets my birthday. My mom is an angel on earth, but she's not so great at remembering everyone's b-days. But mine... she always remembers!

#3. uuuhhhhhh, can't think of a third thing, I guess.

But anyway, as I mentioned in my last post, we decided early on to drive home on the 29th. There was a storm coming in to Denver on Tuesday night, which meant it was already in Utah on Tuesday morning. Paul and I didn't end up getting a good nights rest on Monday night because he picked up the same mystery bug that Charlie did. When Paul throws up, it sounds like the end of the world... no kidding! So he threw up several times that night, which meant both of us had interrupted sleep. I also was struggling with some pinched nerves in my neck and shoulders during the night. But on Tuesday morning, we got up, and started gathering in all our stuff that was strewn all over the house. We had a difficult time keeping all the toys "put away" because the kids kept getting them out and putting them in different places. I was doing my best not to start off the day ornery, but I was in a bunch of pain whenever I moved my head to the right, left, or even up. YIKES!! By noon, we were pretty confident we had everything gathered and ready to go.

Right as we were leaving, when Charlie was literally heading out the door to go get in the car, he ran down the wheelchair ramp in the garage, lost his footing and landed face first on the garage floor. His mouth was bleeding and he had a HUGE fat lip. Poor little monkey! So he was pretty upset for a while as we started the journey home. Several times during the trip, he was sad and wanted to be held, but overall, did very well considering his mouth was hurting.

We didn't hit too much weather driving home. A little bit of snow here and there the closer we got to Utah, until we got to Price. So very similarly to driving TO Denver, we didn't hit bad weather until we were within half an hour of our destination. My neck and shoulders were killing me and we were all SOOOOO ready to be home, as we always are. We finally pulled in at about 8:30pm and unloaded the car. I was glad we got home in time for Paul to play basketball with his buddies from the ward. I got the kids in bed after watching Meet the Robinsons on the new TV and then I went to bed as well. So... not quite a perfect birthday, but it could have been worse. The highlight of my day was hearing my phone beep everytime one of my friends left me birthday wishes on Facebook. So thanks to all those who did!

But instead of ending this post as a big ol' pity-party, I need to tell you about the day AFTER my birthday! I had plans to go to lunch with my bestie, Emily, but because my neck was still hurting, I needed to schedule either a massage or a chiropractor appointment. Thankfully, I was able to schedule the massage AND facial for that afternoon (Paul had given me a gift certificate for Valentine's Day and I finally took the time to use it!). Boy howdy... I LOVE GOING TO THE SPA!!!!!!!!!!!!! The last time I got a massage and facial was 2 years ago. The massage I got yesterday was seriously the best one I've ever had. She worked on my neck, back and shoulders so well and I felt tons better afterwards. The facial was also very nice, but it's always a guilt-ridden experience for me since I spend VERY little time and effort on my skin. She chastised me in a very loving way and did convince me to stop using bar soap as my daily facial cleanser! I've even washed off my make up for 2 whole nights in a row! I know... impressive!

It turns out I wasn't able to go to lunch with Emily because she also had an appointment for that afternoon, but it meant that I could go on a date with Paul. Em and I will go to lunch on Saturday! Paul and I thought about going ice skating that night, but the rink closed early. We ended up just going to dinner and walking around the mall after looking into getting me some new glasses.

Speaking of new glasses, I did end up going back today to get a new eye exam and glasses. I was considering getting contacts, but because my prescription is so light, the doctor wasn't convinced it would be a good option for me. So I had to pick out my frames all by myself and I'm not completely convinced that I picked the right ones. Some decisions should not be made alone! I hope they don't look stupid on me, but even if they do, it is wonderful to be able to see clearly again... especially at night!

So, even though my birthDAY wasn't the best, I'm excited that I was able to get pampered and get some new specs! Yay for birthdays!!

Christmas with the Andersons

2009-12-31T11:28:00.000-08:00

We got to celebrate Christmas in Colorado with my family this year. I love spending it with them, since I'm usually suffering some level of homesickness throughout the year... nothing too clinical or anything, but I miss my family often!

Despite weather warnings, we headed over to Denver on Wednesday the 23rd. Tuesday was a nightmarishly busy day. I had a chiropractor appt, errands to run for work, a class Christmas party to help with, kids presents to wrap, treats to make, house to clean, clothes to pack... I'm sure you get the idea. There was so much I had to get done and I only accomplished about 2/3rds of it before leaving on Wednesday. That's why my neighbors didn't get any yummy treats and why my house was still pretty cluttered (which wouldn't have mattered, but we offered to let our neighbors use our house while we were gone... so embarassing! At least the sheets were clean!). But we were able to get out the door by 9:00 on Wednesday morning and we prayed for good weather and good time. We miraculously got both! We didn't hit any bad roads until we were 30 minutes from Denver! Hallelujah!!!!

We even got there in time for me to go see the 'Little House on the Prairie' musical with my mom. It was done very well and even Melissa Gilbert herself was in the cast playing 'Ma'. My only complaint about the musical is that they attempted to make a political statement with one of the songs. I was highly annoyed that they portrayed the people of that era as embittered and whiny that Uncle Sam wasn't helping them enough. Ugh! Ah well... otherwise, it was lovely and I really need to read those books!

Thursday was Christmas eve and Paul broke our rule and took my sister and went shopping for me. We had agreed to pool our Christmas gifts together to get a new TV. We ended up with a 42" LCD screen HDTV and we're both excited about it. But Paul was frustrated that I wouldn't have anything to open, so he went & spent a little more... the booger. So then I went to Target with my mom so I could get stocking stuffers and something little for Paul to open as well. I guess we both cheated! On Christmas eve, we just hung out at my parents with my 3 younger sisters and my cousin.

Christmas morning was perfect. We always have our yummy breakfast casserole, and then open presents. We let the boys open all their gifts quickly because we had an appointment to talk to Paul's missionary brother, Tanner, at 9:00. This Christmas was so fun because the boys were very specific about what they wanted this year, so they were very excited when they got what they were hoping for. Charlie got the fire truck he knew he would get from Santa, as well as a Geo Trax train. That train is the best money we've ever spent since Charlie hasn't stopped saying "chugga chugga chugga chugga CHOOOOOO CHOOOOOO!" for 5 days now! Canon scored with all his bakugan and star wars toys and Andy got some fun things, but unfortunately, 2 of those toys were made of crap, so they broke within 5 minutes or never worked at all. Here's hoping Toys-R-Us wants to be nice and let us exchange them!

Talking to Paul's little brothers on Christmas was great. We talked to Preston at 2:00. If I'm being totally honest, I can't say I miss them. I know it sounds harsh, but they are exactly where I want them to be right now... serving honorable missions, learning new skills, strengthening their testimonies of the gospel, growing up... all good things! It was fun to hear their voices, but I'm counting on NOT seeing them for another 18 months.

All my Colorado siblings came over for Christmas dinner. That makes for one busy, noisy house, but I love it. My boys don't get to see their cousins nearly enough and they were having so much fun. We ate a yummy meal and gabbed and gabbed as we always do! We even pulled out a game of Trivial Pursuit, which would have been more fun except that very few people actually like that game... I know I don't! We sent Andy and Canon home with Scott's family for a sleep over and made plans to see them that next day. We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas day.

On Saturday, we went to Scott & Rebekah's house for the afternoon. The kids played so well together that we were able to sit down and play an entire game of 'Ticket to Ride'. It was a lot of fun and Paul even enjoyed it and managed to win! After that, we drove to Shelyce's house and had dinner and hung out with them for the rest of the night. Our visit with them was dampered a bit by Charlie's frequent vomiting. He threw up on the stairs and then proceeded to throw up every 30-45 minutes or so until we left... fun for all! Thanks to Shelyce and Lynn for being so gracious about it. I have NO IDEA where Charlie would have picked up this stomach bug, but he got it and passed it on to Paul, then Canon. My deepest prayer is that none of the family we visited this week picked it up. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry if ya did :/.

The rest of the weekend was mellow and we watched a bunch of the Planet Earth documentaries and movies on my parent's new BluRay disc player! Paul took me shopping and to lunch on Monday because we'd decided to drive home on my birthday (tuesday). I was basically able to milk my birthday celebration for 3 days! And even though it was sucky to spend my birthday in the car, we needed to avoid another storm and let my cousin have her room back. Julie was a sweetheart about the whole thing and I appreciate her being willing to give up her space for a week.

So in a nutshell (okay, a big nutshell)... that was our Christmas holiday. Thanks to my family, and especially my parents, for being the best! I love you all SO MUCH.

Christmas with the Croshaws

2009-12-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

Since we got to spend Christmas with my family this year, we had our Croshaw Christmas gathering early on the 14th. One thing I love about celebrating Christmas with the Croshaws is that we have some traditions in place, which is what makes a celebration even better.

This year, we met early (since it was a school night) and had a pizza dinner together. We bundled up the kids and went caroling as a family. Thankfully, the weather wasn't quite so miserable this year as it has been in years past. Caroling always takes a little longer than I like it to, but it is a fun tradition because our family sounds really good when we all sing together!

After getting back to the lodge, we decorated Melanie's delicious sugar cookies and drank hot chocolate. Mmmmmmmmmm! Then, we had the children act out the Nativity story. Andy was Joseph, Canon a wise man, and Charlie was happy to be a cow! He even stood there and moo'd when his part was mentioned! Then we exchanged gifts! The kids were all very excited about their toys from Grandma and their cousin exchange and I got a beautiful shirt and some jewelry from Amy. Awesome!

We didn't do it that night, but we did also gather one evening to go see the Christmas light display in Spanish Fork. We piled into Steven's huge motor home and drove around the park twice. We were thinking of going up to temple square that way, but considering that the motor home really only travels 4 people comfortably, we're glad that we only had to drive about 15 miles total with over 20 people in there!

Thanks for a fun Christmas celebration, Croshaw fam! We sure love being close to all of you!

A payday of sorts

2009-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

Warning: This will be a boastful blog entry, if you will. As I read 'Seriously So Blessed' and the comments it generates, I've come to understand that it is bad form to ever express something that happens that you are proud of... so good form aside, I shall proceed. Be sure to call me TAMN in any comment you may wish to leave.

On Sunday night, our stake held it's annual "Christmas Choirside." This is a musical fireside that every ward in the stake contributes to. Each ward chooses a hymn in which the entire congregation sings together, and then they proceed to sing a Christmas song they have prepared for their Christmas sacrament meeting program. The first couple years I participated with our ward in this event, I was annoyed by it and always wanted to leave as soon as our ward was done. But now that I am the choir director of our ward, I actually find it fun. You wanna know the reason? It's because, hands down, I have the best choir in the stake!

See... I told you this post would be dripping with pride. I can't hide from it!

Now, I don't mean to say that the other wards have bad choirs (okay, truth be told, some of them do... sorry). Several of them were quite talented with some excellent singers. Some wards had pretty small choirs, but could put out a good sound. Some had medium sized choirs with a decent sound. They all chose lovely Christmas songs, and it's hard to go wrong when singing beautiful music celebrating a miraculous event. I can honestly say, there was something good about each number performed.

My choir was 7th on the program. We were all sitting together, squished like sardines on 2 of the longer center pews in the chapel, and when we went up on the stand, it made the chapel look pretty bare. Not all my choir members were there last night and we still had about 25 singers. I'm so blessed (yep... sounding like TAMN!) to have so many talented singers willing to support our choir. We have some seriously beautiful voices and all of them are able and willing to blend their voices together so that we sound unified. I'm also blessed that they learn music quickly and actually follow me and humor me with some of the wacky techniques I picked up from my voice teachers and choir directors of my youth. I'm ALSO very lucky to have a gifted accompanist who has been able to handle EVERYTHING I've thrown at him with zero warning.

Our song was beautiful and I got the biggest buzz out of being in front of them and being able to call them "my" choir. I will attempt some humility here, though, and call it "our" choir. The hardest thing about being the director of a ward choir is that it is a job that is IMPOSSIBLE to do by yourself. A person could be the most gifted performer or director (which I'm not) and still be a complete failure without the support of the ward members. I am very, very thankful to ALL the ward members willing to come and make our choir the success that it is. I have so much fun with all of them!

So, last night was a payday for me. Being the choir director, like any calling in the church, does have it's element of work. Thankfully, this is a calling with frequent rewards, and last night was one of them! I left there feeling like a million bucks! Thanks everyone!

An eventful weekend!

2009-11-28T22:43:00.000-08:00

We had a great weekend here at home. Even though I love spending Thanksgiving with my family in Colorado, I'm so glad we didn't have to travel this week. It has been so nice to spend time with family, and also have some time at home for the long weekend.

Our Thanksgiving break started off pretty uneventful. It was wonderful to be able to sleep in a bit on Wednesday, even though I did end up having to work for a couple of hours. We went to Costco in the afternoon to pick up some pumpkin pie and other fixings for our food assignments. So, pretty typical day... but the excitment picked up after 11:00 pm!

Charlie has been a nightmare at bedtime ever since we put him in a regular twin bed. He keeps getting up and playing around upstairs and I hate having to keep going up there to put him back in bed. After I'd given up, I knew he was up and moving around, but didn't do anything about it as long as he stayed out of my way. After a long time of NOT hearing him, Paul went up to check on him and to get ready for bed. Problem #1, he couldn't FIND Charlie! What we DID find, was this... Problem #2:

NOT THE PUMPKIN PIE!!!! It's a good thing we bought TWO!!! I guess this just meant that we'd have to keep the destroyed pie all to ourselves since it was clearly unpresentable... but thankfully, still edible! This is me enjoying the pie for breakfast!

Oh, but getting back to problem #1, where is Charlie!? We seriously looked all over and couldn't find the kid. After checking every possible (and impossible) place he could be upstairs, I was sure I had heard him come downstairs. Finally, I was able to catch a glimpse of his foot under Andy's bed. He'd crawled under there (probably hiding because he knew he'd be in trouble for destroying the pie!) and fallen asleep. Had to get a pic of course:

We could barely see him at first because he was behind a box under Andy's bed... the little booger!

Then the next morning, as we were almost ready to leave for Grandma's house, I found problem #3 (things like this always happen in 3's right?!):

Yep, that's what you think it is... Red permanent marker on EVERY key on my piano. I don't really know if this crime had been committed the previous night or that morning, but in either case, the kid got a good solid spankin'. In our house, we have a rule that if you make a mess too big to clean up yourself, you have to sit in time out until I get it cleaned up for you (sadly, the picture I took of him looking sad in timeout was all blurry). When the first cleaner I tried didn't work, I hoped for the best with the 'Desolve It'. Thankfully, it DID work and all four of us (Paul, me, Andy and Canon) scrubbed and scrubbed each key until it all came off. Ooooh, that kid got lucky. Among the other things I was thinking, I did see the bright side that at least this wasn't GRANDMA'S piano!! I would have DIED, and Rhyll would have too, I suspect! We did keep a little better watch on him that day than we usually do, hoping he'd gotten his fill of mischievous behavior!

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. I brought yams, because thanksgiving isn't thanksgiving without yams. I didn't make very much of it because all the Croshaw kids hate yams (probably because they didn't grow up eating my mom's yams), but I'm proud to say they were well received by the cousins and in-laws and were promptly gobbled up! I also had to bring a fruit salad and I made sure there would be pumpkin pie because of the same reason as the yams! It was great to hang out all day with family, as well as steal some time on my own to make some good progress on "The Hunger Games" book I was reading. By the end of the night, I was almost finished with it.

Friday was nice and lazy to start off with. I got to go to breakfast with Rhyll and all the sisters. We passed on the black friday insanity (mostly because I'm already finished with 90% of my Christmas shopping) but wanted to do something on our own. Later that afternoon, Paul and I got a sitter and ran up to Costco to look at some more TV's (that's what we're getting ourselves for Christmas this year) and to pick up Charlie's last gift. At 3:00, the family met up at Progressive Power Tumbling to play on the trampolines and all the gymnastics mats and activities. It was a ton of fun, but somewhat dampened a little by some drama that I played a part in... long story. Ah well. That night we watched Star Trek on the big screen. That's a great show!

Saturday (today) was a work day. Paul had a vision of things to accomplish, and I ended up going a bit crazy on the decluttering and reorganizing. We first cleaned our room and I ended up tackling our closet. Then we moved down to the storage room and moving the toys out of the family room downstairs. We really weeded through the toys and gave away some of the stuff that's still in one piece. But organizing all the toys required the decluttering of all the toys in 3 locations throughout the house! Then, we got our AWFUL couch out of the basement and TRIED to get the couch from upstairs down there to replace it. Unfortunately, our basement was designed by an idiot and we were unsuccessful at getting the couch into the TV room! Paul got himself ready and took the boys over to the lodge to watch the HOLY WAR of the BYU/UofU game. I'm so glad he let me stay home for most of it! I finished cleaning the storage room. Look how much empty floor space there is in there!

I know it doesn't look that organized, but really, it's a HUGE improvement!

Paul was able to get the couch out of there tonight with the help of our neighbor. And he only had to take off the door and completely remove the door frame in order to do it! I'm really glad that they were able to get the couch into the basement family room, but I'm shaking my head realizing that it will very likely be YEARS before that room gets a door put back on it!

Well, sorry, this post has been insanely long. I guess it fits in with all the rest of my posts since I've been blogging so rarely that I always feel the need to catch up on everything... that and the fact that I'm gifted at sharing too many details that aren't really that interesting! I guess to sum up... it's been a great weekend. I'm so glad tomorrow is Sunday and that we have one more day to rest before rushing into life and December this week! I hope you all had a great weekend too.

letter to a friend

2009-11-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

(this is a letter that I just wrote to my good stamping-blogging buddy, Rachelle, who sent me a sweet letter telling me she's missed hearing from me on my blog. She asked me a lot of questions... that's why this letter is long and all kinds of rambly with me going on and on about what's happening over here in my neck of the woods. So just in case you care, this is what we've been up to!)

Hi there friend!
Yeah, things have been pretty crazy around here these last few weeks. I just realized it's been forever since I've posted on my blog and even my facebook updates have been few and far between! Sorry to be so elusive when I'm usually so OUT THERE!!

Work has been great, but busy busy busy. December 1st is a special education head count that determines the money received from the fed gvmt for next year's special education funding. So basically, if you've got students that are going to qualify for services, you gotta make sure you sign them in before December 1st. So, I've had all the new kids that I needed to test, qualify and hold IEPs for, and then all the kids that I need to renew their IEP's after signing them all in LAST year (and the year before that, and the year before that, etc.!) in November! So thank heaven above for my sweet little employee gal. Seriously NONE of my students would have received therapy at all this whole month had it not been for her. Well, they would have if I were willing to work 5+ days a week, but I'm not willing to do that, so it's a REALLY good thing I hired Tia this year! I'm also feeling more secure about how to pay the withholding taxes and stuff each month. It took me a couple run-throughs, and now I don't panic anymore when payroll or tax day comes around again! What a relief!

I have been able to do some fun stamping lately, but only out of necessity. I love having a stamp club because it gives me an excuse to order some fun things each month and keeps me stampin with the new stuff! I must say I've copied some REALLY cute Christmas cards in the last 3 months! I'm also in that card exchange, so that keeps me stamping as well. Remember that cute singing reindeer card at convention that you'll find all over the splitcoast gallery these days? I made the CUTEST cd cover with him on there and burned a music CD of some of my favorite Christmas music. I'll have to send you one! By the way... I LOVED your darling halloween card! So sparkly and classy for a holiday that's usually so dark and uninspiring! I love that dang medallion! I made a cute card stamping it with that platinum shimmer paint... very cool!

Training? Hmmm, not so much! Paul has been doing really well to get his butt to the gym and he keeps trying to schedule his gym appointments at a time when I can go. But because my work schedule has been a little unpredictable with extra testing sessions and IEP meetings scheduled randomly, I've been wussing out a bit. I've backed off "training" for anything and have just been satisfied with lifting weights and doing some cardio whenever I can get over there! Have you gotten back into a swimming routine? I know it's tough. It's important though, and i really need to recommit.

The kids are doing pretty well. We're trying to give Andy the extra support he's needing since he didn't end up qualifying for any extra help through the resource department at school. I guess it's good, but it's also very frustrating. He's low enough to need some extra help, but not low enough to actually get it. What to do, what to do!? But we signed the boys up for wrestling and Paul's been a super sweetie about taking charge of all that... I just don't have it in me to be on top of getting them to practices and managing Charlie at the chaotic meets. I can't say that either Canon or Andy have any natural talent in wrestling, but Andy's getting his head wrapped around some of the concepts and has won a handful of matches! Canon just doesn't have a killer instinct. I guess he's a more of a lover than a fighter! I don't know how Paul and I (who are both competitive down to our toes) produced such sweet natured boys! They're having fun with the wrestling, though, and i think this experience will be really good for both of them.

Our Christmas plans are coming along really well... but only where the boys are concerned! I'm 90% finished shopping for them. But Paul and I are having a harder time figuring out what we're going to do for ourselves. We kind of have the idea of combining our Christmas gifts for each other and getting one big item off our wishlist. Paul's got his eye (and all his spare brain cells) on a 47" flat screen TV... I've got my eye on a new couch since the one we sit on while we watch TV is at best the most uncomfortable couch on the planet and at worst, a total health-hazard! Ideally, we would love to get both, but we also REALLY really REALLY really REALLY need to install a 2nd bathroom downstairs now that we're starting to get more serious about actually potty-training Charlie... that's a whole 'nother blog post right there! When you have 5 people needing to use a potty on a regular basis, it's nice to have more than one!

Hmm, book club suggestions... I'm actually just starting Hunger Games and know that it's been very popular among book club crowds. I've kind of been MIA with my ward's book club because #1, we started reading the John Adams biography over the summer and I still haven't finished it and I'm ticked about that. #2, I've hardly had time to answer "what's on my mind" on facebook let alone get much reading done lately, and #3, the last 3 books haven't jumped out at me. Has your group read "the Goose Girl" by Shannon Hale? It's young adult lit, but oh so good and a quick and easy read. Her 'Princess Academy' is also very very good, but Goose Girl is a little bit more grown up. I've got tons of YA lit that's good... the fablehaven series is full of awesomesauce, Peter and the Star Catchers is also really fun. There's also always "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" which is a fun twist on an old favorite! But really, if you haven't read Goose Girl yet, that one was a big hit, even for the old bitty in our group! I wish I had more for you, but my reading has hit a screeching halt in the last 3 months... hopefully soon (after I've finished my Christmas cards) I'll be able to pick up some more!

I hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving! I'm really excited for the long weekend with my boys and the chance to hang out with family all week. What are your plans? Do you host the big meal or do you get to relax and bring a side dish? I've decided it's my plan to never actually have to host Thanksgiving dinner. That's a level of domesticity that just seems way beyond my reach! My grandmothers china is safe for another year!

Love ya and appreciate your letter checking in on me! It's nice to know I've been missed!
Your friend,
Diana

Regrets

2009-11-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to participate in another sprint triathlon today. Not because somebody told me I had to, but because 6 months ago when I did my first Telos Spring Triathlon, I decided I wanted to do it again in November to compare my times. But sadly, a couple weeks ago when I was feeling overwhelmed with stuff, I decided I was too busy to get ready for it. I was also convinced it would be too cold and yucky.

NOPE.

The weather today was beautiful. I'm sitting here at noon still in my pajamas irritated with myself that I missed out on something I wanted to accomplish again before the year was through. I'm annoyed that my desire to workout died away after that red rock relay race and that I have not maintained my fitness level to be able to do this triathlon in style. I realized last night that I COULD have started and finished the race, but it would have been with awful results.

So, I do regret that I didn't follow through with what I had originally set out to do. I don't intend to sink into a dark pit about it or anything, but I DO intend to get my butt in gear and get started again on a consistent routine so I CAN be ready for the race again next April. I do NOT want to feel this way again!

Okay, Here's our Halloween Post

2009-11-06T21:13:00.001-08:00

I would hate to break the unwritten rule that states in legal jargon the necessity of posting pictures of your kids in their costumes and descriptions of the halloween gatherings attended! So here ya go. We'll start off with a little collage of the few pictures we took on Halloween night (Canon was hot in his spiderman costume, so he'd taken it off by this point!).

Our Halloween was fun and very similar to last year (and the year before that, and the one before that, etc.). Every year the Croshaw siblings like to throw this big Halloween party at the lodge. Okay... it's really Amy. Without her and her killer hostessing and decorating skills, it'd never happen. Anyway, I enjoy this party because it gives us a chance to invite some of our friends that we rarely get to see over for some food and visiting. Unfortunately, Paul and I didn't do a good job getting our friends invited in time this year, so we didn't have a lot of our own "peeps" there at the party. But the few that did come, we had a GREAT time with! As we were driving to the lodge all decked out in our costumes (Paul= a demon thingy, Diana= a witch, Andy= batman, Canon= black spiderman, Charlie= red spiderman), Paul even said, "We HAVE to make sure we get a picture of all of us in our costumes." As you can guess, since this is me we're talking about here... the picture never happened. But we did have a great time eating yummy soup and treats and dancing with our friends!

On halloween night, we did what we always do... went trunk-or-treating at the church parking lot. I've heard a lot of trunk-or-treat bashing going on lately, and I gotta say, "I'M A FAN!!!" It makes the whole process take a LOT less time, you get to see your friends all dressed up (if they so choose to... SHOUT OUT to my friend Tina who was ROCKIN' it as Lt. Aurora with all her boys dressed up as the Star Trek men! She looked so HOT!), and your kids don't end up with 3 boatloads of candy.

It's kind of a blessing and a curse in our ward that we get a lot of people that COME to our trunk-or-treat, but a bunch of these moochers don't usually bring candy to PARTICIPATE in it. Here's my recommendation to those out there that go trunk-or-treat-hopping at halloween and never end up handing out any candy. Trunk-or-treating should be viewed like a candy exchange. You bring your bags of candy and you leave with an equivalent amount distributed between your children's candy bags. I don't mean to be a hater or anything... I'm just saying.

But I really shouldn't be complaining because I'm actually really glad that my kids didn't come home with a ton of candy. I'm the kind of mom that hates the constant fight with my children when there is a lot of junkfood in the house. I'm SO over the constant whining that follows the comment, "you can have another piece after you eat some REAL food for lunch." So I basically just say, "have at it kids!" and let them eat the whole bag as quickly as possible. This way, they're only sick for one or two days, there is less time with all that sugar all over their teeth, and then I'M not tempted to eat it for days on end! See? Win-win for all! Canon even told me on Sunday, "hey, I didn't eat any lunch!" My response was something along the lines of, "I think you had candy for lunch." I'm happy to report that the candy is already gone!

So there ya go... I'm a good mommy for documenting Halloween 2009!

Time for some pictures

2009-10-29T16:19:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited to have some pictures to share! My blog posts have been pretty bland lately.
When we went to Denver this month, our family ended up crashing my little sister's family photo session! I'd been thinking about getting some family pics taken ASAP, but couldn't get our lives organized enough to just get it done, already. I'm so glad we were able to throw ourselves into this afternoon and let our friend/photographer double her money! Here are some of the results.
All of us:

The boys:

Andy:

Canon:

Charlie:

Me and my sweetie:

And even though there is a lot wrong with this picture, I love it that by some miracle of the camera angle and some well-placed shadows, I'm looking pretty skinny in this one! Haha!:

So, I'm excited to get these printed up so we can hang them on our walls. I'm also excited to spend a little time doing some digital scrapbooking with these as well. I just got Stampin' Up!'s new digital software and it throws an album together in a snap!

Thanks, Merideth! The pictures look great! And thank you, Alisha, for letting us crash your party and for letting us go first. I'm glad your little angel baby was so patient, since I know my little devil-toddler wouldn't have been!

Hello, Moon.

2009-10-29T16:08:00.001-07:00

Last night, Charlie and I got back from picking up a pizza. As I was helping him get out of the car, this conversation followed:

Charlie = Oh look, there's the moon!

Me = Yeah, he came back to say, "Hi Charlie!"

Charlie = "Oh...Hi, Moon! This is my mom!"

Just had to grin at that one. I love that he wanted to be sure the moon and I knew each other, too!

Gotta love my little boy!

Growing up so fast!

2009-10-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I mentioned on this blog that I was confused about how I've officially had to 'grow up' now that I'm paying taxes on a monthly basis. Well, I've decided maybe that's not SUCH a bad thing because today, it helped me get a new, cool, grown up phone!

Paul's phone has been acting up in the last 24 hours, making him miss a handful of calls yesterday and not receive some text messages until hours after they were sent. He's been talking about getting a new phone... AND talking to every service provider... AND getting advice about phones from his friends in real life... AND on facebook. When the kid gets an idea, he runs with and won't let it go. So off to the mall we went!

I wasn't sure that we would be walking out with a new phone and contract but we talked to the Verizon guy, and then countered a little with the T-mobile guy, and then went back to Verizon guy and signed the papers. We were able to pick up 2 Blackberry Storm phones for free... which I thought was super cool. I now have internet capability and can get all my email (from all 3 addresses) on my phone!!!

I guess it's okay to be a grown up sometimes... especially if it means cool toys. Now I just can't wait until next Tuesday when we can switch our old numbers to the new phones. Till then, I'm just carrying around both phones!

Need a new alarm clock

2009-10-25T12:58:00.001-07:00

A LONG time ago, I bought Paul one of those clocks that sets itself when you plug it in. For the most part, it's been a good little alarm clock. 363 days of the year, it does what it should. But the problem with this alarm clock is that it still hasn't received the memo from congress that daylight savings starts earlier and ends later than it did 7 years ago when we bought it!

So, today (and this has happened before) we woke up at what we thought was 7:00, got ourselves ready, all the while ignoring all the other clocks in the house that said it was 8 or 9 something. I remember thinking, "Why are we the only family walking in to the church right now? We're on time!" Once we got into the church building, we could hear the speaker in sacrament meeting and finally realized our mistake. How ANNOYING!! Ah well, it was an innocent excuse for missing sacrament meeting, which admittedly is one of my top 5 least favorite hours of my week! "Wrestling the tiger" that is keeping Charlie quiet is not super fun. At least we did attend sacrament mtg last sunday with my parents, and then attended the other meetings today.

Whoops... I think it's time for a new clock!

Me, Me, Me, Me, ME!!

2009-10-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

I admit it... I like doing these things! So, here's a meme that my cousin, Loralee did and I felt like doing it too. Mostly because I've stunk big-time at blogging lately.

THE ABC’S OF Diana
A – ADVOCATE FOR: People being happy with whom they are… accepting what is good about yourself while being honest about what you know you can do better. I also advocate personal responsibility and accepting the consequences of your decisions. I truly believe in the individual spirit in all of us and know that we ARE more and can DO more than we think we can.

B – BEST FEATURE: I like my lips when they are properly painted with lipstick. I also appreciate having a joyful nature.

C – COULD DO WITHOUT: having to clean my house, whiners, and being pulled in a million directions ALL the time.

D – DREAMS & DESIRES: My ultimate desire is to have a strong marriage and a close family that loves and trusts each other through the course of our lives. I also really want to sing with the Mo-Tab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) someday. It can happen, but not at this phase of life.

E – ESSENTIAL ITEMS: I look forward to drinking a Diet Carbonated Beverage every day. I feel naked without lipstick, go crazy if I forget my watch, and need good hugs on a regular basis.

F – FAVORITE PAST TIME: I love to read, make cards, watch my 3 favorite shows (biggest loser, SYTYCD, & Glee), and hang out with my girlfriends.

G – GOOD AT: Fixing speech impediments, singing, making pretty cards, kissing my husband, hugging my boys, donating blood, getting over things, and talking to people.

H – HAVE NEVER TRIED: being a vegetarian, snowboarding, jumping out of an airplane or any other extreme sports. I’ve also never tried Zumba, but I want to!

I – IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS: Pay cash for a modest (but nice) home, take our boys on actual vacations every year, buy Paul a car so he stops whining about our minivan, invest and be generous with it.

J – JUNKIE FOR: I have a hard time passing up chocolate in any form, and I already mentioned Diet Coke.

K – KINDRED SPIRIT: There are so many that I would HATE to forget someone. I have had at least one bosom friend in every place I’ve lived. You all know who you are!

L – LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Seriously nothing comes to mind… I talk about myself so much that my life is basically an open book.

M – MEMORABLE MOMENT: Some good ones: My first kiss with Paul, giving birth to my 3 boys, starting my own business, receiving apology letters from two painful break-ups. Most crappy one: hearing the news about Spencer’s accident last Marc.

N – NEVER AGAIN WILL I: I’m afraid the answer to this one is: get to have another baby of my own. But that also means that I may also never have to buy a formula or diapers for my own kids again… so you know, silver lining.

O – OCCASIONAL INDULGENCE: spa treatment stuff. I’ve had a gift certificate for a massage and pedicure for 8 months and have been feeling too guilty to use it. I already spend so much time away from my hubby and kids. But when I do indulge… I LOVE IT!

P – PROFESSION: Mom, Wife, Speech-Language Pathologist, Demonstrator for Stampin’ Up!

Q – QUOTE: No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become. President Dieter F. Uchdorf

R – REASON TO SMILE: being alive, loving my life, having a loving husband, being the mother of 3 really awesome boys, knowing I helped a child become a better communicator, showing someone a cute card/craft idea, (do you want me to keep going? I’ve got a happy list that’s pushing over 700 things). Something little though… getting comments on my blog posts!

S – SORRY ABOUT: Not being able to give everyone that needs something from me everything they need. I’m sorry that I’m not always home for my boys, sorry I don’t always know how to help a student, sorry I suck at cleaning our house, sorry I hate making dinner, sorry I’ve been too self-absorbed to notice the needs of someone else… lots of stuff.

T -THINGS THAT ARE WORRYING YOU RIGHT NOW: Running into bad weather on our trip to Denver this weekend. I’m worried about Andy’s schooling and if we’re doing enough to help him be as successful as possible. I’m also worried about the aftereffects of a bunch of really crappy trials that some of my loved ones have been dealing with this year.

U – UNINTERESTED IN: the plot lines of the insanely stupid cartoon shows my boys watch. I have no desire to hear about the latest adventures of Pokemon, Bakugon, and Scooby Doo. I always feel a little bad telling my boys, “I really don’t care to hear this story,” but sometimes, it needs to be done.

V – VERY SCARED OF: I’m very superstitious about saying these things out loud. I guess you could say that I’m afraid that admitting my fears will make them come true!

W – WORST HABITS: I pick scabs, stay up too late, don’t clean up after myself, procrastinate, and lose my patience too quickly when helping with homework.

X – X MARKS MY IDEAL VACATION SPOT: I want to see it all. I love history and look forward to touring Europe someday. I also LOOOOOVE going on cruises with Paul and some good couple friends.

Y – YUMMIEST DESSERT: I love pumpkin pie and wish it wasn’t so fattening. I wish I was eating some RIGHT NOW!!!

Z – ZODIAC SIGN: Capricorn. I don’t know anything about it because I just don’t follow this stuff!

WHAT ARE THE ABC’S OF YOU? Leave a comment if you do this one too. I'd love to read yours. Plus, now you know that comments make me smile!

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

2009-10-09T21:58:00.001-07:00

Today was my baby's birthday. He's three now and in many ways, we still treat him like a baby. But in many other ways, he and we are also ready for him to be a big boy! We had a great day today with Charlie! It was as if the right vibes were flying through the air that he would be a little sweetheart on his birthday.

Charlie got to spend the morning with Paul and I, and then when school got out, we picked up the big brothers and went to Chuck E Cheeses. Thankfully, we'd all eaten already, so we were able to get by with purchasing 100 tokens and coming home with a handful of cheap crap from our ticket purchases! Plus, it was GREAT that we went during the afternoon so we were practically the only people there! Without a crowd, that place is much more bearable. (Side note: because we'd done it with Canon, we thought we'd try with Charlie to see how he would do wearing underwear for the day... you know, now that he's 3 and a big boy & all! Plus, he's made some great strides this week. We did make it through most of the day, but had a wet accident at C.E.C. We may need to do some more "practicing" before we're really ready to potty train the kid. Or Paul just needs to decide that we're already ready and we should just DO IT! I say Paul because he's the one that's home with Charlie several days a week.)

Paul had a little work to do in the later afternoon, so we came home and played with friends outside. Later, we went to dinner at Chuck a Rama (notice the "Chuck" theme going here!?) so Charlie could drink his weight in chocolate milk. We finished up the night with watching "A Goofy Movie" on the DVR and about a 1000 books (or so it seemed).

I'm so grateful for my little "Chuckles". He's been such a blessing in our home. I love his expressive eyes, his sideways wink, and his 'full-speed ahead' way of approaching life. His intensity can be exhausting, but it's also what we love about him! I'm one lucky mamma.

VICTORY!!

2009-09-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here it comes... a blog posting about pee-pee! It's amazing how once the process of potty training begins, the words 'pee-pee' and 'poo-poo' become high frequency words in your vocabulary.

This morning, Charlie woke up with a dry diaper... AGAIN. He actually does this often, and on many other previous occasions when this has happened, I've sat him on the potty with ZERO results. The kid has some amazing bladder control! But today, it was feeling very promising. First off, he was willing to sit on his "duck potty" without a fuss. Then, he kept talking about how he was going to do it. He talked about it A LOT. At one point, I told Paul, "I don't care if we're an hour late for church, I'm not moving this kid until he pees." Then, miraculously, it FINALLY happened!

CHARLIE PEED IN THE POTTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, people, there is hope! We did end up being late to church, but only by 10 minutes... so I'm feeling very good about the day!

Randomness...

2009-09-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've sucked at blogging lately. Mostly because nothing seems interesting enough to blog about! I end up boring myself when all I can think to say is about how busy things are right now... everyone's life is busy... get over it, Di! But I'll throw some random thoughts up here for some kicks and giggles.

1. I feel a tickle in my throat that I'm worried is going to turn into an ugly cold. I'm so not in the mood to get sick right now.

2. We've been making some gains with my speech technician working with me this year. We're now at the point where she's more comfortable going to our elementary schools on her own, so I've been able to work just 3 days per week the last 2 weeks. It's helped my sanity tremendously!

3. I haven't had a serious workout since the relay race weeks ago. Though it was fun and a crazy experience, I think it may have burned me out a little. I did go on a short little 8 mile bike ride with Paul tonight and I struggled. I think the three week workout hiatus, the sickness I feel coming on, the dehydration I've been feeling today, the tension headache from the pinched nerve in my neck, and the after-effects of donating blood yesterday were contributing to me feeling like HUD. But it was fun to be out there with Paul, even though he was riding as if on a pleasure cruise while I was huffin' and puffin' a bit!

4. Paul is going on a 100 mile bike ride tomorrow. What is wrong with us?! He's excited about it and my heiney just cringes at the thought of sitting on a bicycle seat for over 5 hours. Have fun, sweetie! Glad it's you and not me!

5. Soccer games finish up soon and I'm SOOOOOOO glad! My kids sure enjoy playing, but ugh... I don't love being a "soccer mom"!

6. I now have 3 TV shows that I am watching religiously: 1. Biggest Loser, 2. So You Think You Can Dance, and 3. GLEE!! I love that dang show... it's crackin me up! But like I've got time to sit & watch TV! No wonder I haven't finished a book in months!

7. Life is full, but good. I'm trying to be chill about how much is on my plate right now and just get things done without stressing about them too much. I've been amazed at how I've been feeling too much like a grown up lately. I blame the business/taxes stuff I've been learning about for this yucky feeling. Only grown ups have to deal with taxes on a monthly basis, right!?! How did I get here?!

So, there you have it. A Diana-flavored taste of randomness for your day. Hope you're doing well!

The other side of the table

2009-09-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I went to volunteer in Andy's class. I accidentally showed up a little early because I threw away the paper that told me what time to come. But being there a little early allowed Andy's teacher to talk to me about some concerns she's having with Andy's ability to accomplish the school work in 3rd grade. He's struggled here and there in the last couple of years, but it's really starting to show now that the academic expectations are higher.

Now, being involved in special education programs for the last 8+ years, I've had this in the back of my mind for a while now, and now, the day is here. Today, I went in to refer Andy to be tested for a possible learning disability. He's a bright enough little guy, but somewhere things are falling apart for Andy, and we've never been able to figure out how much he knows or why some very basic things are difficult for him, even when he knows the answer. The frustrating thing is, I have NO IDEA what this testing is going to show us. Shouldn't I know? It's SO WEIRD being on THIS side of the table. Because I'm so very comfortable on the educator side, I feel like a total fraud that I'm sitting on the parent side with no idea what is going on with my own kid. I'm pretty confident, however, that his issues are NOT language based... so THAT makes me feel better!

So, this will be an interesting process for Paul and myself. We both work with people with a variety of disabilities. I'll be paying very close attention to how my words (when they are said back to me) may sound to the parents of the kids I get to work with on a daily basis.

Are you ready for this?!

2009-09-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

Here I go... I'm going to post about the Red Rock Relay. Here is your advanced warning that this is THE longest blog post I have ever written. It has taken me 2 days to write it. It may take you a little less time than that to read it. It has way too many details. It covers what we did, how I felt about it, what was fun, and what was down right CRAPPY. My potty mouth has recovered a little over the week, so I refrained from using an offensive expletive there! I was leaning toward the "sh" word or "f'd up", but see, I'm recovering. ;) But this event was a big deal for me and it taught me a lot. So all these details are for me... to help me remember... and I'm not going to apologize for it. But don't say I didn't warn you.

The story starts on Wednesday when I decided to call Emily and see if she was game to drive down with me on Thursday night so we could drive back together on Saturday night after the race. This decision was made after hearing enough crap from Paul to the tune of, "Why are you staying a whole extra night? Whose idea was this? The race is done at like 12:00 on Saturday... you won't be home until Sunday afternoon?!" After I set up this little carpool situation, I told Paul of our change of plans and he didn't say much about it after that. (this part of the story will add to the dramatic effect on Saturday evening).

On Thursday, I went in to work up in Draper for a few hours and managed to make it home by 1:30ish. At 2:30, I got a voice message from Emily saying she got called in to work until 11:00pm that night and that she'd just drive down by herself after work. This basically freaked me out (and in turn, Tina) because at best, I knew Emily would be starting this race WICKED tired and at worst, she could bail on us. After I got to talk to her, we knew she wasn't going to bail (cuz she's awesome like that) and I got a ride down to Cedar City with the rest of our van. That evening consisted of driving up to the Brian Head resort to get registered, getting dinner at Sizzler, grocery shopping for all the van food, and then ending up at Emily's parent's house to get a little sleep. Emily didn't end up getting there until 2:00ish, the poor thing! I'm so glad she made it safely.

Friday morning, bright & early at 5:30, Tina came and picked us up so we could be at the starting line by 6:30. Here's a picture of our team at the starting line (for the record, it was really cold up there that early!)

Here we have Julie, Joanie, Tina, April, Diana, and Emily

Tina was our first runner and she got to start off with a ride up the ski lift, followed by a 3.7 mile run down the mountain on a trail. Julie rode up the lift to send her off and thus began the process of waiting for your teammate! Tina's 1st leg here was all by her onesie, so unfortunately, we couldn't cheer for her until we saw her coming toward the exchange... way to start us off strong, Tina!

Then she quickly handed off to Joanie who was lucky (?) to get to run her hardest leg first. Honestly, there is nothing lucky about running this leg at all. 6.1 miles on trails around the resort with no van support where she had to run UP a HUGE hill, and then UP a MONSTROUS mountain that just kept climbing and climbing. Apparently, it sucked so bad that when she got to this handoff with Julie, she said, "I just want to flip all of you off!"

Julie's first leg wasn't much better considering her 1.9 miles was 100% uphill. Only consolation, it was short. Julie being the rock star that she is, ran probably 99% of the way. As we were waiting and taking silly pictures of ourselves, other vans were telling us they couldn't believe that Julie ran the whole thing. She does admit to walking some of it, but nobody witnessed that part! Here comes Julie, followed by the handoff to April.

April's 1st leg was a long one too. An even 6 miles that was theoretically labelled as "moderate". We quickly learned that these ratings of hard, moderate, or easy were really a bunch of bull-pucky considering there wasn't an easy leg in the entire course. This leg included "rolling hills" which is a nice way to say, "you're going to be running uphill a lot, with an occasional flat break." My favorite part of this leg? Seeing THIS:

How beautiful is that? Later, I got to see it from below as I ran down the mountain on the other side.
April did an awesome job with this difficult leg, especially considering her asthma. Here she is handing off to Emily who was ready for her 2.5 mile run down the canyon!
See? Ready to fly... and fly she did!

We stopped at some bathrooms we had passed earlier (bathrooms were an important part of this story's plot, but I'll spare the details) and by the time we got alongside Emily as she ran, she was seriously almost finished. This freaked me out because I hardly had any time at the transition to get myself mentally ready. Emily totally rocked this first leg of hers, but unfortunately, it tweeked her knee pretty bad. None of us properly trained for the climbing and downhill running we experienced on this thing. Before I knew it, Emily was there handing me the slap-bracelet, and my gps watch, and off I went!

My first mile was actually uphill, even though I'd prepared myself mentally for an all downhill run. Once I crested the hill, my descent down the canyon commenced and it was a while before it ended. I had to wear the reflective vest because this canyon had ZERO shoulder to run on. Another issue is that there was a TON of traffic, so it wasn't like I could just run on the road until a car was coming, because a car was always coming! I enjoyed a little light sprinkle of rain as runner after runner passed me by. Apparently, many of the teams must have given their stronger runners this leg of mine with the most miles, because every stinkin runner that made me their "roadkill" (nice term, huh?!) was either a fast dude or one of those tall, skinny chicks built to run! After being roadkilled the fifth time, I wanted to scream, "where are all the other chubby chicks running this race?" Anyway, with the help of my iPod and gravity, I made it 6.5 miles down the canyon in exactly 1 hour. For ME, this was a decent time (my average pace was 9:13). Tina started at 7:00 am and I finished right around 12:30.

Once I got to the exchange, I got to hand off the bracelet to Cami, Tina's youngest sister and the first runner in the other van. Since our van was done, we headed down to Cedar City to get some food at Hogi Yogi and stop at Emily's parents house again. During this first set of legs, we had our 5 gallon water cooler tilted over our bags, and with Murphey's law lurking around each turn of this race, pretty much all my clothes (and a few of Julie's) got soaked as it leaked all over. I threw my clothes in the dryer and went ahead and for the benefit of my teammates, took another quick shower. I'm convinced I smell worse than most people after sweating for an hour straight, so for my own peace of mind, I took advantage of the fresh start! We sat around chillin for a while until my clothes were dry and we piled back into the van to go ride the routes that Tina's sisters had to run.

Driving these legs seemed to take FOREVER!! First of all, 3 of the legs were straight uphill. The mountain they climbed was called diablo, and a little devil it was. These legs were shorter, but extremely difficult. By the end of their climbing, we ended up all the way up here:

I'm glad I got to the top while riding in a van and NOT while walking up it (no WAY I could've run those 2 mile stretches!)

Then, the 5th and 6th runners got the pleasure of running over 7 miles each along a dirt road through an aspen forest. We drove this super slow because we didn't want to kick up dust all over the runners. During this time, it started to DOWNPOUR and HAIL on poor Kara and Ann. Kara had some ugly welts on her legs from the hail hitting her as she ran... plus, their shoes were all dirty and mud was splashed all over their legs.

We had plenty of time to stand around and wait for the van exchange. We took a bunch of pictures and not surprisingly, I look like an idiot as I make my scissor mafia gang sign! Here's Tina stretching and getting ready to get us started again at around 6:00 pm. She's so sassy!

Tina had to go 6.7 miles, some of which was on a dirt road. I'm pretty sure she ran the whole thing and came in with a good time! Awesome job, Tina! As she finished her leg, we picked her up and entered into Zion's National Park and had to drive a ways before we could let Joanie out to start her next leg. Joanie took off to run a 2.7 mile stretch that was mostly flat or slightly downhill. She ran this quickly and looked LOTS happier finishing this leg than she did her first one! See that happy smile!?

We all had some happy smiles at this point because this area was SO BEAUTIFUL! I'd never been down to Zions, so it was a neat little adventure to get to drive through it.

Joanie handed off to Julie who proceded to KILL her 2nd leg of 6.6 miles with a flat to downhill grade! I KNOW she ran this whole leg and kept her pace under 9 minutes the whole way. She admits to pushing it too hard and paid the price through the night feeling pretty nauseated. It was a very impressive run, though, especially considering how many times she had to change her stinking headlamp (at least 4-5)! It was really dark by the time Julie ran and finished her turn, so any pictures taken demonstrated the effectiveness of the reflective vests we were wearing! I did get a good picture of what happened to my glasses sometime during this part of the race!

Julie handed off to April, and once again, the difficulty of her leg was very misleading. She had 6.5 miles that were supposed to be easy and flat, but it was a mild but steady bit of climbing. Plus, she started having an allergic reaction to something halfway through and struggled because of that. I can imagine that it's harder to run uphill and breathe when your throat starts closing in on you... don't ya think? She finished it though, and I was very proud of her. Both of her running legs at this point had been long and very challenging.

Basically, the leg that April ran up, Emily got to run down (6.5 miles). She started off strong, but because her knee was hurting a bit, she walked more of it than she wanted to. But the times she walked, she had a nifty speed walk going on, so she still did it in a decent time. Emily enjoyed some lovely rain and quite the downpour there for a little while. Luckily for me, by the time she finished, the rain had lightened up a lot, so I didn't have to stand out there getting drenched.

Once Em handed off to me in the town of Virgin River, it was about 11:40 and I took off running through some neighborhood streets until hitting a highway that would take me to La Verkin. I had told my van to meet me about halfway, since I had my hydration belt and was stocked up with jelly beans if I needed something. It was a pretty solitary run with very few cars either coming or going. I even managed to freak myself out a little wondering if there were any coyotes in the area. Occasionally, I'd see another team's van up ahead and would hope that maybe MY teammates decided to wait for me there at the top of this hill! But it wasn't them. I ran about 3 miles before they found me and a good 2 miles of it was up hill. This is when I started getting passed up by other teams again, especially once I finished the hill and started the 2.5 mile downhill stretch that finished off this leg of the race (and my right hip and shin for that matter... they were already feeling it from my first downhill run on a slanted surface). I think 6 people passed me up just flying down that hill, and even though I had gravity on my side, I just could NOT kick it into a higher gear! I was keeping my pace at about 10:30 - 11:15 minute miles, but couldn't push it any lower! So aggravating! This was the first time I'd ever cried out in pain from running. 13 miles in one day, a lot of it being downhill, was taking its toll. I was molified a little, though, when the full moon came out to smile at me during the point I needed it most.

I finally made it into town and handed off to the next van at about 12:45 in the morning. I needed more time to stretch out, but my teammates were wanting to get to the rec center as soon as possible. We drove the route the other van would be taking and it started to rain really hard again. I listened to some classical music (Rutter's Requiem in case you care!) in order to detox my spirit a little as we drove and drove. It took a good 45 minutes to get to the Washington rec center and by the time we got there, I was in one crazy state of pain (muscular & intestinal), fatigue, and total exhaustion. We lucked out and found the empty child care room where I quickly staked claim on the love sac in the corner so Emily and I could share it. I changed my clothes, used the bathroom, downed a cliff bar, and crawled into my sleeping bag.
I was OUT...
...
...
until I was so rudely awakened by an announcement over the intercom that the rec center would be closing in 5 MINUTES and that we needed to leave!!! WTF!! This was at 4 freakin o'clock in the morning! We'd gotten a little less than 2 hours of sleep. It was at THIS point that we found out that the other van on our team had broken down at about 2:00 am and Tina had left with OUR van (okay, HER van) to go help them out. Other teams had helped our teammates get to their respective handoff points (where they got to sit there in the middle of the night, WAITING for an hour or more, ALONE, in the POURING RAIN, with LIGHTNING crashing right over their heads, in the areas where we were warned to watch out for COYOTES!!!!!) One of Tina's sisters was ultimately hoping that her headlamp would stay on long enough for them to find her dead body; she was so scared. They weren't sure of the name of the towing company that came and towed off their van with all their luggage and food in it. Once they were done running, most of them had to go to Wal-mart and buy new clothes, since they didn't have anything to change into and what they were wearing was soaking wet. We felt SICK just thinking about what they went through. And then, there we were sitting outside the rec center, needing to use the facilities inside, sitting in the woodchips to stay out of the rain, waiting for Tina to make it back so we could get ourselves changed and mentally ready for our last turn to run.

Poor Tina... our fearless captain got about 15 minutes of sleep that night. She also had the stress of it being her SISTERS stuck out there in the rain. On top of that, she was our first runner and she had 6.1 miles to conquer. We left her at the van exchange while we went to Wal-mart to use the bathroom and get a few things. I picked up some batteries and a rolling pin to roll out my muscles. Once we were done at Wal-mart, we backtracked in order to find Tina before she had to run through a pitch black park trail. Thankfully, there was another runner from another team right with her and they agreed to stay together through those last 3 miles. This was a blessing for Tina, but also a curse because it meant that she HAD to continue running the whole way, even though she wanted to walk some of it. I bow in reverence to what Tina went through in all those agonizing hours. She really showed herself, and all of us, what she is made of. I was (and AM) amazed by her! This is a picture of her detoxing a little.

So, to continue with some drama, Joanie was supposed to be our next runner, but because of some SEVERE abdominal pain she was having because of a galbladder problem, she'd taken a Lortab that morning. It knocked out the pain, but it also knocked her out almost completely! So April ran Joanie's leg in order to give Joanie more time to recover. I don't know if this point of the race was ever well marked or if they were starting to clean some stuff up, but April ended up going the wrong direction (for the second time) and lost about 5 minutes. But she ran those 4 miles looking really strong. She's awesome. At this point, this is when we realized our team was in LAST place!
These two are good friends!

Julie was going to have to run 7.2 miles next, but somewhere along the line, they'd changed the course and took a mile off of it and gave it to the person before. So Julie got to run 6.2 miles through some Santa Clara neighborhoods. She had a great pace (shocker) and wasn't that far behind the team just in front of us, but we didn't want to tell her that because we didn't want her to push herself any harder than she already was. Julie is one of my heroes. I hope I'm as "sporty at forty" as she is!

When Julie finished her last leg, Joanie was ready to tackle what would have been April's leg. She'd pulled out of the Lortab-Coma she was in and was able to run 3.8 miles before it started getting too hot. While she was running, I took advantage of having my best friend armed with a rolling pin near by, and had Emily roll out my hamstrings and butt muscles. It felt SOOO good, even if we were getting some REALLY funny looks from people (nonracers) driving by! Joanie was awesome and kept a steady pace throughout her 4 miles and did a great job! I was very impressed with how well she did, especially considering the amount of pain she had been in all night and dealing with the fog of the medication. What a gal!

This next part of the race was the hardest part for me. It was time for Emily's last leg and going into it, she had a great attitude. We'd rolled out her muscles, I'd made her eat a small bagel with as much cream cheese as I could pile onto that thing, she'd iced her knee and had purchased a knee brace at Wal-mart that morning... so things were going to be okay! Emily started off running, but unfortunately, within a minute, her knee went out on her and she couldn't run on it. We saw that she had a pretty steep hill to descend, and knowing her knee was hurting the most on the downhill, April jumped out and offered to run the .75 mile stretch of downhill for Emily. Emily accepted, but sadly, this was a bad thing that sent her spiraling into a deep, dark place. Emily is not a quitter. She's very competitive. She has high expectations for herself and often accomplishes amazing things. But that mid morning, running on the fumes of only 5 hours of sleep for the past 2 GRUELING DAYS, minimal quality nutrition, and in all kinds of pain from her knee, Emily did not have much to give and somehow needed to move herself 5.5 miles up and down a bunch of hills in the heat. She ended up walking the whole way (and not quickly like the night before) and wouldn't accept any food or water from us as she would catch up to us every mile or so. Watching this was VERY difficult for me. All of our teammates were just wanting to help her somehow, but there wasn't anything we could do. I could tell Emily was mad at herself and just needed to be left alone. I should have known to just drive to the end of her leg and let her get there when she'd get there, but she didn't have any water, and it was getting hot. Being exhausted myself, I wasn't able to keep my emotions stable in defending her. More than anything, I wanted to walk with her, and I would have if I hadn't still had my own 5.5 miles to accomplish once she was done. Eventually, Emily finished. It did take a long time, but ultimately, she finished the damn thing and did her part. I was proud of her. Hell, I AM still proud of her, even though she wasn't proud of herself. This look on her face is very telling. I love you, Em! Sorry this was a really dark couple of hours for you.

Finally, my moment of truth was up. I started at 11:10 am and the desert sun was right on top of me. This time, I told the van to stay within a mile of me which turned out to be a very good thing. I was surprised to find that once I got moving, my emotions steadied and my muscles were feeling pretty good. It didn't hurt to run, but my main problem was that I just couldn't move myself quickly through the heat. I felt like I had a huge leak in my gas tank. This leg of the race had a lot of hills, and even though I occasionally got to run down a little bit of one, it felt like it was a lot of climbing. I kept moving though, and would run for as long as I could and then walk for a minute here or there. It took my pace down to a 12:30-13:30 mile/min rate, but what can you do!? It was hot. I drank a TON of water and never felt it sloshing in my stomach. I also kept pooring the water on my head and down my neck, which helped a lot. But eventually, I just couldn't take it and eventually just had to take off my shirt. It wasn't like there were any other runners on the road and I was on my way to the thriving metropolis of Gunlock. Modesty be damned! Did I mention it was hot? Now, I know women run in sports bras all the time, but most of them don't have the darling, pasty white, stretch-marked "muffin top" I do! Sorry for the visual. The hydration belt DID help hide some of it! I was supposed to end with a half-mile run up a hill to the Gunlock dam, but the heavens (and race designers) smiled down on me and cut that part of the race. My van mates met me at the chute and we ran it in together. I ended up going 5.1 miles and it took me about 65 minutes.

This last 5 miles was agonizing, surprising, empowering, and humbling. I remember thinking, "this race is bigger than me, but it wasn't going to BEAT me." Going into it, I was nervous about not being ready, but I had some naive confidence telling me it wasn't that big of a deal. Well, it WAS bigger than me. 18 miles through the mountains on 2 hours of sleep is more than I can handle in a day's work. But, I was grateful that I was getting it done. With a little over a mile to go, I said to myself, "this is all you have left to do." I was slow, but I did it. It wasn't glorious, but it was mine. Yes, we were last, but we didn't quit. And I'm proud of that.

Once I was done, we had Tina drive us to the finish line. I needed to get out of that van. I didn't get a chance to stretch, I needed some food, and I wanted a chance to talk things out with Emily. When we got there, I was glad Julie was staying at the finish with us. Tina, April, & Joanie went back to give additional support to their sisters in the other van. Emily, Julie and I found a sliver of shade and laid out our blankets. The three of us were able to have a great talk together, reminding me why I love these ladies so much and why I'm glad we're friends. It's always so refreshing to be able to have such honest conversations with other women. While we were waiting there, we heard them announce the two teams ahead of us as they came across the line. Then we heard them ask, "Is there anyone from "So You Think You Can Run" here?" Julie went to talk to them (since Emily and I could barely walk!) to reassure them that we weren't TOO far from finishing. Had we been more than 2 hours out, they would have just called it quits for us, but we were only about 45-60 minutes away.

Tina, April and Joanie pulled up and we knew they were getting close. We gathered at the edge of the parking lot and when Ann and a few others turned the corner and ran toward us, a bunch of us got teary. This was obviously a difficult journey for all of us. We all ran in together, with Emily waiting for us near the finish since her knee was not about to let her run anymore that day. We crossed under that arch at around 4:30 pm, after 33 hours and 29 minutes of consecutive running; and we celebrated! Turns out we were only 10 WHOLE HOURS slower than the team that came in 1st place, and only 39 minutes behind the people who came in 2nd to last! As I mentioned in the last post, they offered each of us a free hat for coming in last. It wasn't like there were any other teams still hanging around to get jealous or anything! But at that point, I don't think anybody on our team even remotely cared that we came in last place... we were just glad to know that nobody gave up and we all accomplished this thing together.

After hanging out for just a little while, we got a ride into St. George to the hotel where everyone was staying. This is where things got a little dramatic again. During that 10 minute drive from the high school into town, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Emily felt the same way. When it came down to it, we were both scared to DEATH about the idea of driving home 4-5 hours that night. I knew I would be tired, (duh!) but I really had NO IDEA the level of sheer exhaustion I would be experiencing at that point. Em & I talked about sharing a room and then called our hubbies. Paul said he knew that this would happen and I totally lost it. I had ZERO control over the tears. Apparently when I'm really, really, really, really tired... I cry. I was happy that he understood and was ultimately supportive of me staying the night, but REALLY annoyed that he gave me all kinds of crap in the first place, and then didn't say anything when I told him about my change of plans on Wednesday night. He's done a relay like this before and he knew just how tired I might be. It would have been nice if he'd have backed off at that point and just encouraged me to plan ahead on staying. Emily's husband understood as well, but was struggling with his 3rd straight night of taking care of their tempermental toddler! They both wanted us home, but agreed that it would be bad if we DIED in the process of getting there! So they didn't make us feel any worse, but also didn't make us feel any better! Ugh... husbands! THEN, we also felt awful because Emily's brother, Jason, came down to St. George to pick us up (Em's car was in Cedar City) before we could call him and tell him not to come. We gave him some gas money and cried some more, which seemed to enlist some extra sympathy. Anyway... we booked the room, went upstairs (oooh, stairs... ouch!) and got cleaned up. Taking a shower definitely helped wash a bunch of the emotion away.

We all went to Cafe Rio for dinner, which was another thing that helped my wounded soul! Nothing like sweet pork salad to wash away the blues! Then we made it back to the hotel and no joke, I think we turned out the lights at 9:03 and I'm sure I was asleep by 9:04. Though I could stay up all night talking to Emily, we both agreed not to get offended that the other person had no desire to converse. We just needed sleep... and praise the heavens, we both got a lot of it.

We got up at 8:15, threw on some clothes so we could partake of a really yummy and free hot breakfast! We made it up to Cedar City, bought Jason a sandwich (we were still feeling guilty about wasting 2 hours of his time the night before), filled up the car, and headed home. We'd bought a People magazine and I read the whole thing to Emily as we drove north! Turns out, we're both secretly obsessed about the same celebrities! I'm so glad we were actually able to enjoy our drive home after getting enough rest and enough food that morning, rather than fighting the fatigue and the darkness the previous night. I really do think we would have died had we attempted it. Phew! It was great to get home and see Paul and my boys.

Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Thank you, Tina, for being our team captain, organizing all of us, and being an awesome leader. It was so hard, but you said it would be. I'm so glad I did this race with you and your sisters and their friends. I don't regret this adventure AT ALL, and wouldn't dream of blaming you for dragging me into it! :)

So, would I do it again? Yes... under some different circumstances. I would love to do this race with Paul and a couple other guys... and some other really strong girls. That would mean I could take one of the spots more suited for less than fantastic runners maybe! Not that any of this race can really be considered suitable for beginners like me. But overall, it was an awesome and intense experience and it showed me a little of what I've got, and a LOT of what I don't got... YET! But even that is good information.

Now, if you've read this whole post, I think you're either insane or as obsessed about me as I am... which is impossible, so you must be insane! But I like to reward insanity, so if you leave a comment for me admitting you just wasted an hour or so of your life, I promise I will either bring you a candy bar or send you something in the mail. This post is RIDICULOUS!!!!

Taking 'suck' to a whole new level!

2009-09-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

I titled my post a couple days ago asking the question, "am I ready?" Well, the answer was a resounding HELL NO!! I'm not quite ready to blog about the Red Rock Relay race just yet, since I just got home a few hours ago and have some mothering to do, but I did want to throw my initial thoughts and reactions to the race up here.

Basically, the race is best summed up by a comment made by my friend, Julie. Right before her last leg of the race she said, "I don't know if I want to laugh, cry, vomit, or poop." This was an event that definitely made you want to do a lot of all four of those things, and occasionally, all four at the same time.

Our team's name was "So you think you can RUN!?" and based on our performance, we ended up being that nerdy fat chick that auditions for the reality dance show having no idea that she's completely inept and without talent whatsoever. Yep, that's right, we came in DEAD LAST!!!! LOL! I just have to laugh at that! You can count on ONE HAND how many people (volunteers not related to any of the runners) were still there at the finish line when our group ran under that arch. Ah well... turns out this race was designed for those who actually ARE hard core, and NOT those of us who think they might be able to handle a fun little race with their girlfriends!

Today, 24 hours after finishing the dang thing, I'm in excruciating pain from my hips down to my toes (especially my ankles... they're KILLING me!). I'm walking around like an 85 year old man; you know, the kind that can barely walk (not the kind that can still square dance with his sweetheart). But I've showered and cutified myself with some makeup 'n hairspray and am feeling more positive about the overall event. If you asked me last night if I would ever do this again, I would've answered another, "HELL NO!" (sorry, this weekend brought out my potty mouth - and I said a LOT more than just a couple hells!). Today, I'd probably consider it, but only under some majorly different circumstances. Give me another 6 months and I'll probably have forgotten enough of the 'suckitude' that was this race that I'd probably agree to it.

Once I'm able to get a hold of some of the pictures from my teammates, I'll do a play-by-play of the entire event. If you thought my post about last April's triathlon was long, just you wait! More to come later.

Am I ready?

2009-09-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I got 2 days until I leave to do this relay race down in Southern Utah. Somehow and for reasons unknown, the race organizers had to 'tweek' the legs of the race. Some were lengthened, some shortened. I got the good fortune of having my final leg lengthened from 3.9 miles to 5.5 miles. So instead of running 16.9 miles in a 24 hour period, I get to run 18.5! I get to run the farthest out of the 6 girls in our van. I just keep thinking, "How is it that I'm one of the good runners in our van?!? Because last time I checked, I'm not a good runner!"

I know I can run each leg. What I'm not sure of is if I can run each leg all in one short period of time. But ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter now, because there's no backing out! My friends would KILL me!! So even though I'm excited, I admit to being pretty nervous about the whole thing as well. Guess we'll know soon enough how it'll go!

Go Team Croshaw!

2009-08-29T13:23:00.001-07:00

The Croshaw family added another triathlete to its ranks today! Andy participated in his first kid's triathlon this morning and he did a great job. I should qualify the word "great" a little bit. By "great" I mean that he did everything he was supposed to do and had a lot of fun doing it! But "great" doesn't mean that he did these things very fast... but hey, speed will come with time... maybe! He actually completed the entire thing in under 9 minutes which is respectable. All but 4 of the other children had even MORE respectable times, but we're not going to worry about them! The kid's race started first, followed by the full tri racers. Neither Paul nor I got to watch Andy, but his grandpa was there helping him out! The thing that burns me up the most is that I had PLENTY of time to watch him. Next year if we have the kids do this race again (Canon was starting to make plans of his own!), I'm totally holding back to help them out.

Those who participated in the "full race" started after the kids. They had us line up according to how fast we could swim 400 yards, which put me behind about 2/3rds of the racers. It felt like I stood there FOR-EV-ER before it was finally my turn. Paul was in and out of the water WAY before I even started. During the swim, I actually passed 3 ladies, so I guess I underestimated my abilities a little bit!

The bike portion went well even though it got off to a rocky start. I couldn't find my water bottle (the ONE thing I screwed up with last time) so that took some extra time to get situated before I could get moving. It was a decent course along some busy Orem roads. We had a head wind as we soared downhill, but at least that wind was behind us as we climbed up a moderately difficult hill two times! I got passed by some strong lookin guys, but for the most part, I was the one passing people here and there. The most disheartening thing about the bike was coming back into the transition area and Paul was there all finished with the race! Then as I was just heading out on the run, I heard my friend, Julie, get announced as she finished the race as well. I couldn't help but think, "crap... I still got a 5K to run here!"
This is Paul starting his second lap while I was probably just starting my bike!

The run took me a little while to get used to. In training for the April triathlon, the run was first... so my legs were nice and fresh for that race. But after swimming and biking, my legs felt pretty fatigued as I started the run this morning. I figured I would need to walk a portion of the run, but convinced myself that it WOULDN'T be during the first 1.5 mile lap. But by the time I started the second lap, my legs felt much more stable and I was able to finish it out pretty strong.

Sorry, this is just the face you make after an 86 minute workout!

My final time was 1:26. 8 minutes slower than Julie (she came in at 1:18), and 21 minutes slower than Paul (his time = 1:05)... not that I EVER expect to beat either of these two. They both took 2nd place in their age division... cuz' they're awesome like that!

So, it was a fun morning for my family and me; well, at least some of us! I'm not sure how much Canon & Charlie loved it and I'm sure Paul's parents could've found more exciting things to do this morning! But we sure are grateful for them being willing to come watch us race and watch the little boys for us. Thanks again, Mom & Dad! We love you so much!

If anyone is thinking about dabbling in triathlon, this is a great race to get started with. They have a "novice" race that went half the distance of the full sprint. There was quite a variety of racers out there this morning from old to young, fit to flabby, etc! The more I observe of this sport, the more I realize that just about anybody can do it! They even had a wheelchair participant this year... oooh, I'm sure that dang hill was KILLER for that guy's arms! So, if I can encourage or inspire you, I want to! It really is a fun sport and WAY more fun than just running for 1.5 hours straight! Think about it... really!

Lifetime Membership!

2009-08-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

HOORAY!!!!!! I finally reached my lifetime membership at Weight Watchers! It was looking a little iffy in those last weeks of summer that I would be within two pounds of my changed goal weight of 148. There were some afternoons that no amount of nakedness would have helped me get under that 150 lb mark!

But then school started with one more week before my final weigh in. It is SO much easier to eat healthy when I'm working, and with the chaos of things at the start of the school year, I've worked everyday this last week. With the limited amount of time for eating, I managed to lose about 3 lbs this week and weighed in last night at 146.8! A total weightloss of 40 lbs even and good enough for lifetime membership!

The coolest part is that I was even within 2 lbs of my ORIGINAL goal of 145, so I'm super happy about that! So, what happens now?! Basically, I just need to weigh in once a month, and as long as I'm still under 150, there's no charge for it. If I do start to creep up there again, I can still attend the meeting and refresh my motivation to make smarter food choices. The point is that all that I've learned and done will STICK and that the monthly weigh-ins will motivate me to maintain the loss. I admit, it did keep me from running to Sonic last night at 10:30 for a cream slushie! I'll have to get one tonight instead, but at 8:00, instead of 10!

I'm so glad it's finally done... and it only took a YEAR! I'm sure it could've/should've taken less time, but no need to beat myself up over that now. Now I can find something else to do with that $40 a month! I'm sure that won't be too hard!

Have we done it?!

2009-08-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Got Milk?

Well, Charlie doesn't anymore!

We finally have gotten Charlie to the point where he doesn't need a "baba" before going to bed. Yes, I know he's almost three... DON'T JUDGE ME!! If your little guy RAN to his bed with a happy face because a little milk in a baba, you just might do it too!

But lately, Charlie was asking for a bottle in the middle of the day for naptime, so we'd comply and lay him down hoping for the best! Life really is so much better when naps happen. But once he was done with the milk, he was done with that CRAZY idea for a nap. So last week, I told him, "If you don't sleep for naptime, you don't get a baba for night time. Only babies drink babas, and babies need naps. No nap, no baba!" So after not napping, that night, we started a new nighttime routine which didn't include a baba. He wasn't really thrilled about it, but he also didn't throw a fit, so I was pleased.

Well, it's been a week! He even took a nap today and still went down tonight without his beloved milk. YAY! This gives me hope that Charlie will someday actually embrace growing up to be a 'big boy'. Next stop, a real bed and then... potty training!

First day of a new adventure

2009-08-19T21:37:00.001-07:00

Today school started up again. This is day of mixed emotions for me. I LOVE the summer time because it means a bunch of different things to me. It's time with my boys, time to just be 'chill', time to read, time for playdates with our friends, and the chance to just 'go and do something' if we feel like it. Not that we always felt like it, but hey, the option is there!

But once school starts, it's all about the SCHEDULE!!! It can be frustrating, but ultimately, it's a good thing for our family and for me. I've realized this last couple weeks that I'm a prime example of inertia. You know, an object in motion stays in motion. Over the last school year, I was able to accomplish quite a lot! Even though I am crazy busy with 3 schools' caseloads, I still manage to fit in the mothering, the 'wife'ing, my hobbies, and those things that are important to me (though not necessarily WELL on any of these things). But over the summer, everything just slows down to the point where some days, NOTHING gets accomplished. Paul got really annoyed with me this summer that the cleaning only got done in random increments. I got annoyed with myself that besides running, I had a REALLY hard time being consistent with working out. Somehow when you have all the time in the world, the only time to get to the gym is NEVER! I think I only went swimming at the gym 3, maybe 4, times. I was WAY more prepared for the triathlon in April than I am for the one next weekend. I know I'll be able to finish it fine, but it won't be glorious! So, I guess it will be very good for me to "get busy" again.

I'm actually glad that I'll be forced to spend time with the boys helping them with their reading and homework. It'll be GREAT to really look forward to spending all day with Charlie... I hate it that I take that for granted over the summer. I'm THRILLED that we will have structured and more productive things to occupy the boy's time. And I know, I KNOW, that these things can be accomplished over the summer as well, but I admit... I'm not good at actually DOING it. It sucks that I'm deadline driven, but at least when there are deadlines, things get done.

This year, besides starting up all the usual "bidnez" with work and school, I've also added an employee into the mix. Last May, I was able to meet and hire an awesome gal named Tia to work with me as a Speech-Language Technician. She has her bachelor's degree in speech pathology, so under the state licensure, she can perform therapy tasks with students as long as she is under the supervision and case management of a SLP. So, my caseload is still GIGANTIC with 3 schools, but now I have an extra set of hands. Tia and I will work together 3 days a week (one day at each school) and then she'll work an extra day at each elementary school on her own doing therapy that I plan. It will be very nice to be able to offer each school ALL the speech therapy services that they need, and still be able to be home 2 days during the week. But, as you can imagine, I'm anxious about the whole set up and am praying SO HARD that this works out for ALL of us, including the schools! It'll require much more organization than I'm accustomed to, but I know I can do it... because I will HAVE to. Remember that part about being deadline driven!? So, please send your prayers and good thoughts our direction! We're going to need it!

So, today starts a new adventure for me as an employER. Here's hoping the ride isn't TOO bumpy!

More evidence that I'm spoiled rotten

2009-08-16T21:55:00.001-07:00

I had THE most amazing time at the Stampin' Up! convention this year! I was frustrated with the inconvenient timing of it all (i.e. Paul's birthday conflict), but somehow, I managed to have a great time anyway! The weekend started off by driving up early on Thursday morning to pick up my awesome, stampin, bloggity, fellow-boy-raisin' friend, Rachelle. She and I met last year at convention standing in line for the make-n-takes. She was there with her mother and the stars aligned for me to be standing right by them as we waited to enter the room. From hanging out with Rachelle and Zola throughout the convention, we became fast friends and managed to even build our friendship through emailing and blogging all year. I'm so glad I met Rachelle last year, because that made THIS YEAR'S convention that much BETTER! She is the ultimate companion for a ladies weekend away!

That Thursday, there was so much to see and do at the convention itself. We picked up our darling convention bags filled with stamps (ahhhh, new stamps!!!) and found seats for the first mainstage presentation. We were introduced to the new digital line SU! is coming out with and I was SOLD once I saw all the cute things I could do with it! We also got a big presentation about the new Build-a-Bear Workshop partnership line. I wasn't as JAZZED about that, but it's fun if you're in to teddy bears. We were able to look around at the THOUSANDS of beautifully stamped cards, projects, scrapbook pages, and decor items on display throughout the rooms. I went through 3 sets of batteries taking pictures of the things that inspired me the most. The convention day ended with our make-n-takes, where we get to pull out and break in our brand new stamps! I was more impressed with the projects we made this year than last.

Shelley and I grabbed some dinner at PF Changs and proceded to spend the next 10 HOURS or so just talkin and talkin! Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not much! Rachelle can talk almost as much as I can, so I don't think there was a moment of silence between us that whole night til we FINALLY called it quits at about 1:30 am. Yikes! We were so tired that next morning, but we still dragged our butts out of bed to get down to the pool. I was able to get my first lesson in flip-turning. See, Rachelle is an awesome swimmer too (among her many other talents!). I didn't quite get the flip-turn figured out that morning, but I'll keep practicing.

We were both very impressed with the Friday morning presentations, but opted to skip out of the afternoon classes that focused on building your business. So, I apologize to all my customers... I'm sure I would've learned some great things to make my workshops better, but I don't regret playing hookie and proceded to have an ultimate, TAMN-erific (see the 'Seriously So Blessed' blog link on the right) GNO (girl's night out - even though it was all afternoon!).

No self-respecting girls day would start without a PEDICURE from some sweet, albeit rough, Vietnamese ladies! My toes are STILL smiling at me a week later!

Then we went shopping/browsing down at Gardner Village. It was really fun shopping with someone possessing a creative mind like Rachelle's! She's a big garage saler, so she would see something, examine it, maybe take a picture, and store that idea away for some future date when she finds the perfect item and can recreate it for a dollar! It was a very educational experience! Ohh, and all that candy we bought was for the kids of course (wink wink!)

Then we HAD to go get a pork salad from Cafe Rio... because, again... where else would we go!? I know the Utah facination with Cafe Rio gets mocked, but I'll be damned if that isn't the yummiest salad on the planet! I'm not embarassed about the fact that I crave that salad all the time and I DON'T apologize for eating the whole thing down to the very. last. black. bean.! So there!

We also fit in a stop at a mall, a Nordstrom Rack, and Target, since I needed to pick up some birthday presents for Paul. We finally made it back to the hotel around 9:00 and ate the rest of our salads at that point. We didn't stay up QUITE as late as the night before, but we still managed to find things to talk about until about 11:30 pm.

On Friday morning, I got up early so I could drive down to Springville and surprise Paul. He'd mentioned earlier in the week that he was mostly bummed that he would be waking up all alone with nobody to wish him a happy birthday. The boys and I gave him his presents and he took off to play some golf with his dad and brothers. I then jumped back in the car and drove back up to SLC to catch the keynote speaker. That Saturday also had some excellent presentations, but unfortunately, Rachelle and I didn't win any of the prize patrol prizes :(. It's immature of course, but I was a little disappointed that this was the first year I went home empty handed, aside from what came in the convention bag. Ah well... next year, for sure!

Once everything was wrapped up at the convention, I drove Shelley to the airport (where she proceded to wait and wait and wait for her 9:00 flight) and I made my way back home to catch the tail-end of a Croshaw family reunion. I was excited to see my boys again and to finally "check back in" as a mom. I came home from this convention with so many fun ideas that I can't wait to share with my stamp club girls. It's going to be a fun (and expensive) year for me since there's so much I want to get! Good thing a bunch of this stuff pays for itself, otherwise I'd have lot's of 'splainin' to do!

I want to shout out a great big "THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" to Rachelle for the awesome time I had with her. I can't imagine attending another convention without her. Hopefully next year, we can get her momma to join us again! So, with that being said... I can't WAIT 'til next year, girlfriend!

Lagoon & Nummy Yummy Steak!

2009-08-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Because of convention falling on Paul's birthday, I did my best to create a fun day for Paul before I took off. On the Wednesday before his b-day, Paul and I went to Lagoon and had a total BLAST! People asked if we took our kids... my response? "Lagoon is no place for children!" A couple years ago, I was able to go with Paul's mom and sisters on a ladies weekend, but it was way more fun with Paul! Plus, it had been over 15 years since Paul had been there, so he was like a kid in a candy store! That boy loves his thrill rides, despite his fear of heights!

So, yep, we had a great time. Especially, since we went on the 'Wicked' ride (pictured behind us in the pic) at least 8 times. We also particularly enjoyed the people watching... just another reminder that it takes all kinds to make the world go round!

After the long day on our feet, we went to dinner at Carver's and I got my second favorite steak ever. My favorite was at Prime in Park City last year for Paul's birthday, but we opted not to splurge THAT much this year. But if you go to Carver's, get their BV steak... it's really good! Paul also enjoyed whatever it was he had! I had a great time trying to overcompensate for Paul's birthday this year. He definitely deserved it.

Andy's baptism

2009-08-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

Though it's been two weeks already, I still need to blog about Andy's baptism. I can't believe I already have an 8 year-old kid that's old enough to get baptized. Andy is growing up to be such a fine young little man, and I'm very proud of him and his decision to get baptized.

The date of Andy's baptism was a source of frustration for us. He was baptized on August 1st. In our stake, the only option is to participate on the date of the stake baptisms. We were trying our darndest to figure out a way to have it on a different date, but it would have ended up being much more complicated (like taking the event out of state to do it in tandem with our neice's baptism in Colorado). The main reason why the 1st was a problem is because of an annual reunion taking place up in Montana that weekend. We LOVE attending the Oler-Burnett reunion (Paul's grandfather's siblings and all the posterity) and hated to see that the dates would be conflicting. Not only was it conflicting for us, but for Paul's entire immediate family. My in-laws ended up having to leave the reunion early in order to be at the baptism and I truly appreciate that sacrifice they made in order to be there to support Andy's choice. It was a blessing to have so many of them there, even though we all live close and see each other all the time!

A bunch of my family was also able to come over from Colorado and down from Brigham City to be there. This also required a bunch of sacrifice, and again... it was truly appreciated. It's always nice to be surrounded by the people you love the most; and thankfully, that is our family.

The baptism itself was quite low-key. Our stake doesn't allow for talks, so the ordinance itself is pretty simple. Andy was able to be baptized by his daddy with both of his grandfathers as witnesses. No foot popped up (despite the font barely being full enough), so once was all it took! I'm so grateful for the vaste amount of priesthood in my life. Thank you to Paul, Arlo, Steven, Jason, Spencer, & Luke for participating in this special ordinance for Andy and for setting such powerful examples for Andy to follow as he progresses in the gospel.

Our bishopric member surprized us a little by inviting the mothers to bare their testimonies about the gospel. Under normal circumstances, this isn't something difficult for me to do, but I do have to admit that this experience was a bit harder. It's always a little scarier to be bold about your beliefs and state them clearly when there are loved ones present that no longer share your beliefs. But I was able to share with Andy my feelings about how much I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how my life has been blessed by being a member of the church.

After the baptism, we gathered at the lodge and we had hawaiian haystacks for the luncheon. Yummm! Thankfully, we had plenty of food, even though that is a meal that is difficult to figure out if you have enough of everything! We had a great time hanging out with everyone until they needed to take off. My parents and sisters, Alisha and Nicki, stayed through that night and drove home on Sunday. I love ANY amount of time I can spend with them. I definitely don't get my fair share being a state away!

So, all in all, it was a fantastic little event for our family. One that I hope Andy will always remember fondly and especially never regret!

Off to convention!

2009-08-05T22:12:00.001-07:00

I'm going to be AWOL for the next few days (not that I don't do that sometimes anyway) because Paul is being awesome and letting me go to the Stampin' Up! Convention in Salt Lake City. Since it's in SLC every year, I've been lucky enough to go a few times and get a taste of what I put my customers/friends through during workshops! This year, I'm going with my friend, Rachelle, who I met there last year. I'm very excited, but feeling very guilty about leaving Paul to deal with the kids all by himself for the next 3 days... especially considering that Saturday is his birthday. Once again, no "wife-of-the-year" award for me. BOOOOOO! Hopefully, he and the boys will survive and manage to have a little fun.

I love you, Paul. Thanks for being so sweet.

Back in the saddle again

2009-08-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Last week, I signed up and paid the money to do another sprint triathlon. This will be my second one and I'm excited to get back to the cross training. Since signing up for the Red Rock Relay, I've been doing nothing but running. But last Friday morning, I finally got on my bike again after way too many weeks. I did just a short 10 mile ride, but it felt good to be out there with the wind on my face! Plus, I didn't get a bee sting this time... so that's good!

Today, I jumped back into the pool. Paul noticed an ad that one piece swimsuits were on sale at Big 5, so we went and got me a new suit. I got my first suit last fall wearing a size 14 that was a little snug (as swimsuits are supposed to be) but since losing the weight, it's been feeling like I was pulling half the pool around with me. So I got a new one today and took it for a test drive at the gym. I'm definitely out of practice, and it didn't help that I was already a little tired after going for a low-key run with Paul and the boys this blazing-hot afternoon. But, I'm sure with a little practice, I can get back into the swing of things before the race.

Did I mention that Paul AND Andy are also going to do this triathlon with me? This will be the first time Paul and I do the same race and also Andy's first attempt at a kid's course. His race is really short, so even though he's not a great swimmer, we know he'll be able to make it across the pool, ride his bike around the park for 1/2 a mile and then run a quarter mile to finish it off. I'm sure he'll struggle a little, but we're hoping to get him focused on doing something productive to start off this school year. His first attempt at running around the track today went really well. He struggled with a sideache during the first lap we ran, but after showing him how to breathe better, he looked much stronger on the 2nd lap. I'm excited for him and proud of his willingness to give it a try. He's such an awesome kid!

The race is on August 29th and the registration fee goes to a charity. They have the "full race" which is a typical 1/4 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3.1 mile run, but they also have a "novice race" which is half the distance for those looking to give it a try! I'm excited and looking forward to the event.

A book to treasure.

2009-07-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yet another book that sadly took me 32 years to get around to reading! May I not make the mistake on letting my children reach adulthood without reading these beautiful and innocent stories. Reading this put a much needed smile on my face considering the political and other depressing books I've been reading recently. Yay for Pooh!

42 seconds too slow

2009-07-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning, I ran my first 10K race, the "Speedy Spaniard" in Spanish Fork. I've run the distance a handful of times before, but there's nothing like the adrenaline rush of doing an actual race. Usually when I go longer distances (5 miles or more) I'm pretty happy with myself if I can keep my pace close to 10 minutes per mile, so in order to push myself with this 10K, I wanted to see if I could do it in under 60 minutes.

Paul was going to run the race with me. He was all registered and everything, and we all spent the night at my in-laws so that we could leave early in the morning (the race STARTED at 6:30) and let the kids just stay asleep. On Thursday night, Paul was complaining that his stomach was hurting, thinking something wasn't right with the sandwich he ate for dinner, but it ended up being more than that. Pretty much ALL night he was getting up to use the bathroom and throw up. When he finished throwing up for the 4th time at 4:30, I told him he shouldn't do the race, since we'd be getting up in an hour to get over there. Neither of us got good sleep that night.

When it was time to get going, Paul did get ready in his running gear and drove me over to the start of the race. He was figuring he could just run a slower pace with me and be okay, but ultimately didn't want to risk a gastric attack at either end! Thankfully, my friend from the ward, Tina, was also doing the race and she and I stuck together for the entire 6.2 miles. She's the reason why I ended up doing as well as I did, seeing as I kept having to catch up to her before she could pull away from me. Last year, Tina completed the race in under 58 minutes, so I was hoping we could accomplish something close to that.

As with most races for me, the first 2 miles were comfortable, and by the end of the 3rd mile, I was fine, but ready to be done. Up until this race, I usually AM done at the end of 3 miles! Mile 4 was a little slower and I took a "GU" which helped. By the time I finished mile 5, I was mentally freaking out, but with the help of some rockin' tunes on my ipod, I made it through another 1/2 mile. With .75 of a mile to go, Tina kicked it into gear and I wanted to scream at her, but continued to push through. We FINALLY got to the park that held the finish line, but I didn't realize we had to run all the way around it! I turned one corner, and had to yell, "WHERE IS IT?!" I'm surprised I didn't throw a good "DAMMIT" at the end of that question, because I know I wanted to! After turning that last corner, I could see that the timer said 1:00:10 and I was a little disappointed, but what can you do!? So, I said, "oh well" and ran as fast as I could to that dang finish line!

So, my time ended up being 60:41, which isn't too shabby at all. It was just 42 seconds slower than I wanted it to be! At least I can say that I didn't leave anything out there on the course. I think I really did give it everything I had, so with that being said, how can I be disappointed!? This race was the fastest I've ever run 6.2 miles, so I'm definitely pleased! I'm bummed that Paul wasn't able to run with me, but on a happy note, he'd given a friend of his from Spanish Fork his race number (since the friend hadn't actually registered for the race), and his number ended up winning 18 holes of golf in the raffle! So, the $19 registration fee for Paul wasn't wasted after all! If his friend hadn't run the race with Paul's number on, it wouldn't have been entered into the raffle in the first place. So that was cool!

Anyway, it turned out to be a fun little event for me to participate in, even if Tina and those 6.2 miles kicked my butt! The rest of the day was spent being lazy with a frequently interrupted nap and reading the John Adams biography. We had dinner at the Croshaw's and just hung out til it got dark. Hope everyone had a very happy Pioneer Day!

A confession

2009-07-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged about actually reaching my goal weight of 145 yet, because, so far, it still hasn't happened. Since the cruise, I have been within 3 pounds of that stinking number and for some reason, my motivation, drive, and ambition to actually lose those last 2-3 pounds has flat out DIED. Isn't that crazy? SOOOOOO CLOSE and yet, can't get there.

So, last week at WW, I made a choice... one I've been thinking about making for a while now. Even though it seems like a TOTAL cop out, I changed my goal weight to 148, and reached it weighing in at 178.8. Here's why I did it:

Firstly, I'm tired of paying the $40 a month to go NOWHERE.
Secondly, if I'm having a really hard time GETTING to 145, I'm going to have a KILLER time staying at 145.
Thirdly, I ultimately decided that what I most want to avoid is getting above 150 again, and setting my goal weight to 148 still fills that purpose. Once I reach lifetime member status at WW, I have to stay within 2 lbs of my goal weight... which means under 150.
Fourthly, I need the stress of the actual number on the scale to GO AWAY! I'm thrilled with being a size 10! Sure, now that I've been here for a few months, I've started to feel less skinny than I did originally, but my clothes still fit nicely enough.
Fifly (sidetrack: I've never used the word "fifly" before, if it's even a word, and it looks really weird typed up like that!), I just needed to hear the official word that I DID IT! And I did... I feel great about what I've accomplished.

So, as I hoped, with the stress of it all gone (well, not COMPLETELY since I still have 6 weeks of maintenance to do), I lost another 1.4 lbs this week weighing in today at 146.4, bumping my total weightloss back up to 40 lbs. Though I'm not constantly telling myself, "i'm on a diet," I'm still making pretty decent food choices and trying to make my good habits stick. Plus, I'm still running a ton in preparation for my 10K tomorrow and the Red Rock Relay. And I also need to be throwing in some extra bike and swim workouts in order to be ready for another triathlon in August. These things should help with the maintenance.

So here's my sigh of relief; "Ahhhhhhh"

It feels good to be alive and healthly!

Lazy Blogging

2009-07-18T22:21:00.001-07:00

I have a best girlfriend, and her name is Emily. She is very nice, very fun, and awesome to hang with. She teaches me lots of things; like how to put songs on your iPod (yes, I FINALLY got one!), and how to blog and stuff. We do lots of things together too; like make cards, eat FroYo, talk about books, and lots of working out. She's going to be doing this Red Rock Relay with me in September and I'm super excited.

I titled this post "lazy blogging" because last night, my friends from our relay team went on a wicked long run down the canyon and Emily joined us for the last 4 miles. We went a total of 9 miles in 95 minutes. It truly sucked. But anyway, Emily blogged about it and said a lot of nice things about me (except for the 'very overweight' thing... haha!), so I'm just going to link this blog post to HER blog post about us running together.

And, don't give me any crap about being a lazy blogger... I ran 9 miles last night and have hardly been able to move since! I love having a best friend!

What's going on around here?!?

2009-07-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how this is happening, but all these things I thought would be so easy to accomplish because it's summertime have NOT been quite so easy to accomplish! Some of these things include: BLOGGING, exercising/training, dieting, cleaning projects, hanging out with friends, reading. The days and weeks are just slipping through my fingers so fast and a part of me is starting to panic. School will be starting in about a month and I am

just. not. ready!

Anyway, I just put up a ton of posts, most of which are probably NOT going to be interesting to the general public, but nevertheless, they need to be posted! Basically, it’s what we’ve been up to for the past 4 weeks or so. Some have pictures, some of them don’t. Read them if you want, and comment if you’d like! You know I'm a comment whore!

Phew, it's nice to be caught up a little bit. Maybe later this week I'll blog about Andy's hip infection and all the books I have managed to read so far this summer! So stay tuned!

It's great to be 8!

2009-07-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

My first baby just turned 8 last week. He got the chance to go to his first scouting day camp on his birthday, so we waited until friday to have his birthday party. I think he had a great time during the day camp and then that evening, we all went to Chuck-E-Cheese. My kids just love that cesspool of bacteria! With all the tickets we'd hoarded over the last couple years, we were able to get both the boys a decent gift from the prize area and Charlie a little lunch box. Kinda fun getting stuff for "free"! I did manage to grab a few shots of us there:

After dinner, Paul took the boys to a baseball game in Orem. I opted to take Charlie home since he's now decided naps are no longer necessary and he wouldn't have made it 2 innings. The boys had a great time with their dad and it turned out to be a great actual birthday for Andy.

Then on Friday, we let Andy invite 5 friends to go play Laser Tag for his birthday party. The boys had a GREAT time and it really made the party planning thing easier for me. Remember, I tend to freak out about hosting things, so I was very grateful for an easy way out this time!

Andy's baptism is coming up on August 1st and he's very excited about it. We are also excited to see those members of our family who will be coming. What can I say, it's great being 8! I love my little Andy so much. What a fun, sweet, and tenderhearted little man we have in Andy. Happy Birthday, kiddo!

I must be crazy!

2009-07-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

After doing the triathlon in April, I fully intended to sign up for a couple more triathlons to compete in this summer. I thought about doing a race near Park City at Echo lake last week, but didn't manage to train myself properly. I've really slacked off on my swimming and biking, finding it hard to fit in the same number of workouts I was doing in preparation for that first tri. Since April, all I've done is the Art City 5K, and in a couple weeks, I'll be attempting my first 10K at the Speedy Spaniard in Spanish Fork!

Well, I made the mistake (j/k!) of going running with some friends in the ward (Julie and Tina) who are training for a half marathon. First of all, they kicked my butt on an 8 mile run down the canyon, and while doing so, we talked about the idea of doing one of those insane Ragnar relay races! There's one coming up called the Red Rock Relay and Tina got a fire lit up underneath her and within a week, got a team put together! It takes place Labor Day weekend and starts at the Brian Head resort and ends at the Tuacahn theater outside St. George. I'm actually really, really excited, despite one major factor... Tina, Julie and I are among the better runners of the group. This means we get the hardest legs in our van. AAACK! My first leg of the race is 6.5 miles all downhill. The second leg is 6.3 miles, again, all downhill (my poor quads!). My last leg is 3.9 miles with a nice 1/2 mile run up a dam to finish it off! So, I got some extra training to do in the next 6-7 weeks.

I'm really glad that I've got something really tough to shoot for again. Nothing like being totally intimidated to get your butt out there and moving again. I'll try to update on my progress. At this point, I can run 4 miles without too much difficulty. Five gets a bit tougher and by six... I'm really ready to stop. So far, my longest run was that 8 miler on July 4th. So, yep, better get busy! Wish me luck!

Getting some summer sun!

2009-07-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

This summer, we've discovered yet another reason why it's wonderful being children of Steven & Rhyll. Not only are they awesome parents, it's also very nice to have access to something as useful as the family lodge! Well, they also happen to have REALLY awesome neighbors, the Shurians! Not only are Chris and Stephanie a ton of fun and salt-of-the-earth type of people, they also have a backyard pool that they have offered to let us come over and swim whenever the mood strikes. On some of the hot days this summer, we've taken them up on this offer and it has been so much fun. Just to throw some more pictures of us up here on the world wide web, here are a few of us swimming!

In just 3 swim days, Charlie has become a little pro in the water. The first time we went, he jumped in after Canon (thankfully, AFTER I put on the life jacket) and was freaking out because he kept spinning in circles from back to front getting water in his face! I had to jump in quickly to help him out and he'd hardly let go the rest of the time. But the next two times we went, he'd figured out how to keep his legs beneath him and to doggy paddle through the water. We all have a lot more fun now that he's more independent. Heaven forbid he ever get near the water without the life jacket on though! I'm afraid he's gotten a little too fearless!

I don't know if they'll ever read this post, but I want to thank the Shurians for being so awesome to us. We really appreciate your generosity and your genuine kindness. I'm honored to even KNOW you guys, let alone to have the chance to swim in your pool! You're the best!

A taste of baseball

2009-07-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

This summer was the first time we've signed the boys up for baseball. I mentioned it a few posts ago how pointless T-ball is. So pointless, apparently, even that subconscious part of my brain that usually reminds me to take the camera to events so we can get some pictures for "documentation purposes" found it less than important. Here, instead of posting pictures, I'll just describe what they would have looked like...

Canon standing right on 3rd base with his glove on his head as he spins in circles... ideally he would have been paying attention to the fact that someone was batting and his team was planning on throwing it to him soon!

Canon hitting the ball and casually sauntering over to first base... he never actually skipped to first base, but he might as well have!

Canon chasing down one of the 2-3 runners that will eventually need to touch home plate after the last batter hits his mandatory grand slam.

Last one... the ADORABLE smile on Canon's face as he walks away with his Capri Sun and treat at the end of a fun game. Okay, okay... I guess T-ball isn't COMPLETELY pointless!

At least we got a couple pictures of Andy playing with his team this summer. He was in coach pitch and with a little help from Paul, he wasn't too bad! Still had some focusing issues, but nothing like Canon's team!

He also enjoyed his time playing baseball, but it didn't spark any sort of passion, unfortunately. We're still hoping something BESIDES video games and Cartoon Network will ignite something within our boys! Guess we'll have to keep looking!

FHE night with friends

2009-07-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, a handful of couples from our ward pooled together some grub and met up the canyon for FHE night. We got all the chairs set up, the fire going strong, and the hotdogs ready to roast. There isn't much to say about it, other than the fact that I sure do love being a part of this ward. Somehow, we've never lived in a bad ward. I'm so grateful for good and friendly people... it just makes things more fun! Here are some pictures of the event.

Just a few shots of us.

And a few more of Charlie. I've found that he who gets dirtiest, gets more pictures taken of him! Can't wait until we take this kid on an actual campout! He's a dirt magnet!

A milestone reached!

2009-07-05T22:32:00.001-07:00

This last Friday (July 3rd), Paul and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. I know I already blogged about us actually celebrating it on our cruise 2 months ago, but I do need to acknowledge the passing of the actual date! Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to figure out how to scan some of our wedding pictures with our new printer, but once I do, I'll post some pictures of that day.

Our wedding day was wonderful! It wasn't glamorous or fancy in any way, but it was perfect for what we needed it to be. I am a lot of things, but fussy is not one of them. Basically, in planning my wedding, I went with a theme centered around INEXPENSIVE and SIMPLE! My parents gave me a budget to work with, we figured out how much an inexpensive honeymoon cruise would cost, subtracted that amount, and then worked with the rest. Good thing temple wedding ceremonies are free (well, except for the tithing part)!

We got married in the Logan, Utah temple. I love this beautiful building. I'm so thankful that Paul and I had made the choice early in life to marry in the temple. We were surrounded by family and our best friends. So many people came to support us, many of whom I didn't know at the time, but have grown to love them as much as my own family over the years. Our wedding ceremony was in the morning, followed immediately by pictures. After that, we had our wedding luncheon at the Bluebird restaurant on Main Street (I'll freak out if that place ever closes down!). I remember listening to words of advice collected from the different tables and Paul and I sang a song together... cuz we're cheesy that way! Looking back, we should have at least picked a better song, but oh well!

My immediate family had scheduled family pictures with our photographer in the afternoon since it had been the first time we were all together in a really long time. After we finished with that, we headed over to my Uncle Milton's beautiful home in Millville. We held our reception in their backyard, and enjoyed the nice summer evening overlooking Cache Valley. The reception wasn't very well attended due to the holiday weekend situation, but it was nice that we didn't really have a "line" to speak of. Paul's Aunt Marilyn and 3 of her children played a string quartet for us and there was lots of yummy food. Our reception was a little atypical in that I never threw my bouquet and we didn't have a wedding cake. Well, there was yummy cake, but it wasn't a wedding cake. My siblings enjoyed that cake for some time after we'd left on the honeymoon! Our car was decorated/vandalized with plenty of marshmallows, cookies, and other sticky things (something I admit to having a really bad attitude about at the time - because the last thing you want to do leaving your wedding reception is to HAVE to spend 20 min at the car wash - maybe I'm still a little bitter!). Anyway, the only thing I regret about the reception is that we opened the gifts we received that night before we left. THAT was a very dumb thing to do! Ah well. Can't do anything about that now!

We finally left the reception around 10:30 and (after the car wash) headed off to the Sherwood Hills hotel in Sardine Canyon. Can't remember why exactly, but the room that was reserved for us wasn't available, so we got to stay in one of their themed rooms... the Blue Bayou room to be exact! The scary blue-walled room had the bed sitting on a Tom Sawyer-type raft right next to a monstrous fish tank! Anyway, I won't go into anymore details of the evening, but thought the ridiculousness of the room should be mentioned. Needless to say, it added an extra flair to the memorable evening!

Ultimately, the wedding and the celebration itself wasn't anything remotely resembling a bridal magazine affair, but at the end of the day, I was married to my sweetheart. And that's all that really mattered... then AND now. Life is all about choices. Ten years ago, I can honestly say, I made the best choice of my life in choosing to be Paul Croshaw's bride. It's a decision I have never regretted and work hard so that he never will either. Happy 10 years, sweetie! I sure love you!

What do you do when you're upset?

2009-07-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

I was in a funk pretty much all day yesterday. When I have days like this, one of two things happens; I either retreat into a corner and nothing gets accomplished, or I go into overdrive. Seriously, the best way to get me to clean my house, is to tick me off! I don't know why, but it feels good to sort of throw the silverware into the dishwasher and throw things away forcefully!

Another thing I do, (or at least what I did yesterday) is go out for a run. I've been trying to increase my distance over the last month, but have really struggled to get 5 miles. Last night, I ended up going 6, and it definitely worked all my "funky" thoughts away. By mile 4, I was tired enough to just be thinking about keeping my legs moving. It felt like the entire route I ran was uphill somehow. By the end, my hip flexor muscles were painin' and I was totally pooped! Thankfully, 'So You Think You Can Dance' was waiting for me on the DVR at home, and I was able to chill out and stretch while watching my favorite show.

So, even though the day had an irritating cloud hanging over it, at least it ended in just the right way. What do you do to drive away the 'funk'?

Looking for more miracles

2009-06-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

{{editing to add a picture of Lily. She is so precious and I just want to hold her and give Megan the biggest hug in the world right now.}}

My little sister, Megan, finally had her first baby last Wednesday. Little Lily Sarah Stafford was 11 days overdue and in many ways, her arrival has long been waited for. Even before her birth, Megan and Chris knew there may be a heart issue, so Lily was taken to the Children's hospital in Denver shortly after birth (Megan delivered at a birthing center). After a couple days, the heart was looking fine, but Lily was having a hard time eating. Apparently she hasn't been sucking on even a bottle nipple. But I was told by my mom, that they'd be able to take her home once she started eating better and gaining some weight.

Then, yesterday, while at a big family gathering with Paul's family, my dad called to let me know that Lily has taken a turn downhill. His news was pretty grim and he told me about multiple seizures that Lily was having and the fact that she wasn't digesting the food they'd put in her stomach. Dad said that they really didn't know what was wrong. So, all afternoon, I was worried to death that Lily wasn't going to make it.

Thankfully, when I talked to my mom later that night, the news wasn't as grim (by the way, Dad, when it comes to passing along news in the family... you're fired! The picture he paints has now been worse than reality TWICE). Anyway, the doctors had done a CT scan with everything looking just fine with the brain. The heart is just fine. They'd done a spinal tap to check for meningitis, and thankfully, we now know there is no infection. She's had a slightly elevated temperature and heartrate, and she has started to digest some of the milk they've given her. The seizures have also stopped with some medication they've given her. As of right now, I'm still not aware if they know what's going on. But the head doctor of the NICU has been handling her case and is very optimistic that everything will be okay.

So, for anyone out there with extra room on their prayer list, please send one out there for Lily, Megan, and Chris Stafford. I'm sure they won't mind the extra faith and prayers sent their way. Thanks. As my mom told us siblings this morning, "We have been blessed with many miracles this year already, but I will still ask for more." So will I.

A bike ride first

2009-06-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

This morning I went on a bike ride. It was long and difficult because I decided to ride up one of the nearby canyons. There was a minute there that I wasn't sure if I could make it up this really tough hill! After I'd had enough climbing fun (which was only 4 hills into the canyon) I turned my bike around and cruised down those same hills at my fastest speed yet on a bike (about 35 mph). On the way down, I felt something hit my right shoulder and then shortly after, something stung me! Leaning forward with the wind blowing against me, my shirt was pretty open at the neck and a stupid little bee flew in and got me at the base of my ribs... OUCH!

This was my first bee sting ever! And I was sort of freaking out because I was riding downhill very quickly (which is scary anyway) and worried about getting stung multiple times. Thankfully, I didn't get anymore stings, and I found out I'm NOT allergic to bee stings! It didn't sting for too long, so I was able to go another 7 miles. I ended my bike ride having ridden the furthest I've ever gone (20 miles), having climbed the start of my first canyon, and having experienced my first bee sting! It was a pretty eventful morning! When I got home and sat down, I found that sorry little bee struggling to climb up my shoulder. I helped him out by throwing him in the toilet! I hope that taught him a lesson!

Mommy time bliss

2009-06-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

On Saturday this past weekend, Paul and I took the boys up to North Ogden for a high school choir reunion. It was held at one of those awesome "aquatic centers" that many cities in Utah now have which is what saved my sanity for the event. Paul was able to see a handful of old aquaintances along with his old choir director and his family. Paul spent the afternoon hanging out in the bowery shooting the breeze (he never even got in his swimsuit), while the boys and I played away in the water and the sun. It really was a fun little afternoon event and all of the boys were ticked when it was time to go, even though we'd been there for over 4 hours. Each of the boys got a bit of a sunburn, but nothing they can't survive!

We got home at about 5:30 pm and Paul's plan was to go hang out at his parents since so much family was in town for the twin's farewell. Knowing the kids would be able to roam around and play, I asked Paul if I could head up to the Downeast outlet in Orem to do some dress shopping. Since losing the weight, I've purchased enough shorts and capris to get me through the summer, but my options for sunday attire were pretty limited. He actually let me go ALL. BY. MYSELF!!!

I gotta tell ya, it was BLISS! Guilt-free, time-limit-free, mommy-actually-gets-to-go-shopping-in-a-store time is extremely rare for me. I do get plenty of opportunities to leave the house alone, but I'm usually on my way to work, or someone else is watching the kids, so I always need to hurry back. But this time, I just moseyed around, picked up everything I thought was cute, and tried it all on without having to hurry. I ended up getting a cute, cotton, knit, black dress that will work for any type of occasion with a red tank top to wear underneath (practically all their clothes require an undershirt), and a denim skirt and a fun, yellow shirt. Ahhh. It was so nice to have options on Sunday morning!

Then, to top it off, the Downeast store is right by a Cafe Rio restaurant. I know everyone makes fun of how trendy it is to eat at Cafe Rio, but I love that pork salad and could eat one everyday! So, I treated myself to a salad and sat in my car and ate the whole thing! Mmmmm! After that, I felt sufficiently spoiled and headed to Mapleton to join Paul and the boys at Grandma's house. I know it's dumb to make such a big deal about an hour and a half of alone time, but it really was wonderful!

A Phenomenal Book

2009-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

I just finished the book, "The 5000 Year Leap" by Cleon Skousen and just want to talk about it briefly here on my blog to get the word out about it. It's a book about the 28 principles on which the founding fathers based the constitution and their hope for America as a republic. I know it sounds a bit on the boring side for those who prefer novels and fiction, but it's actually formatted in a manner that is easy to digest and understand. The chapters are short with lots of quotes from the founding fathers.

Just to give you an idea, here are the principles: (After a few, it might start looking like "blah, blah, blah" but each one really is important!)

1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is natural law.

2. A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders.

4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.

5. All things were created by God, therfore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.

6. All men are created equal.

7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

8. Men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

9. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.

10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.

11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.

12. The United States of America shall be a republic.

13. The constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.

14. Life and liberty are secure only so long as the right to property is secure.

15. The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations.

16. The government should be separated into three branches - legislative, executive, and judicial.

17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.

18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.

19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained in the people.

20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.

21. Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.

22. A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.

23. A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.

24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.

25. Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.

26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

27. The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.

28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.

So, there are the principles. Many of them are pretty bold and in today's political climate, likely considered outdated, obsolete, and politically incorrect. I recognize that, but I don't apologize for it. I want to be the kind of person that stands up for these principles. I strive to build my home around them and teach my children about their importance. As I read the book, I was filled with feelings of hope and pride in our blessed nation. But along with it, I also felt a sense of grief and loss as I perceive that the voices from the supposed "mainstream" of our society mock these principles. It's also difficult to see what damage has been done by branches of our government stepping outside these boundaries and implementing unconstitutional policies. I'm not blaming left, right, republican or democrat, because it's happened on all sides. And I agree with Skousen as he credits Milton Friedman for having "demonstrated that every one of these adventures in non-Constitutional activities proved counter-productive, some of them tragically so."

Anyway, I rarely speak out politically in a public forum, but I guess I just did a little bit today. I loved this book and I think you should read it!

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T14:38:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to take a second and wish all the wonderful father figures in my life a Happy Father's Day!

First, to my Dad. Thanks for being a wonderful father to me! Thank you for working hard and providing for our big family. Thank you for loving and respecting my mother, and in turn, teaching me that I was worth that same love and respect. Thank you for being an excellent example of faith and service and for teaching me about the gospel of Christ. Thank you for all the projects you have helped me with over the years. Thank you for supporting me in my interests as they have evolved. I love you and am so happy to be honoring a man such as you on Father's Day.

Second, to my Father-in-law. Thank you for everything you do for us! Living close to you and Mom is such a blessing. Thank you for being an active part of my children's lives. They love to be near you. Thank you for always accepting me as one of your own. Thank you for teaching me so much about the atonement. I've learned so much about it from your example. Thank you also, for your example of service to others. I admire so much the work you have been doing with the foundation. I hope you have a great Father's Day.

Third, to my husband. I love you so much. Thank you for loving me back. Thank you for serving our family in every way. Thank you for your hard work and financial support. Thank you for being an awesome dad that plays with and teaches our children. Thank you for being a worthy priesthood holder in our home and for exercising that priesthood whenever it's necessary. Thank you for being a good example to all of us with your hard work in training! I love how you are always trying to do better. Thank you for leading our home with a gentle hand and voice. I know I made an excellent choice when I picked you! Happy Father's Day, sweetie!

I have such a strong testimony in the importance of fathers. They sacrifice SO MUCH for their families and deserve our utmost respect. I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have had such fantastic influences in my life. I wouldn't be the woman I am without the men I've had to support me. Here's a shout out to all you fathers out there. I hope you know just how influential you are.

an ABC's tag

2009-06-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

My friend, Rachelle, tagged me to fill out this meme... and since I'll admit to enjoying doing these types of things, here I go!

A - Age: 32 and a 1/2
B - Bed size: Queen - I sleep on the right side.
C - Chore you hate: As evidenced by my house, pretty much ALL OF THEM. I hate bathrooms the most though.
D - Dog's name: no dogs, just boys. Favorite dogs from childhood were Chief and Mugsy
E - Essential start your day item: sunscreen moisturizer
F - Favorite color(s): Chocolate brown
G - Gold or Silver: gold jewelry, silver decorating
H - Height: 5' 5"
I - Instruments you play: voice, piano, guitar
J - Job title: wife, mom, speech therapist, stampin' up! demonstrator
K - Kids: 3 - all of them boys
L - Living arrangements: we live in a twin home.
M - Mom's name: Liz and Rhyll (rhymes with Bill)
N - Nicknames: Mom - by my kids, "Nana, Dee-dee"- by my family, "Di"- by old friends, "Dina"-by nieces & nephews that are young, "doll, dear"- by Paul
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: 4 times, one for each pregnancy
P - Pet Peeve: when people type 'your' when they should type 'you're'. I'm a grammar nazi, part of my job description!
Q - Quote from a movie: "No more rhymes now, I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?" Princess Bride
R - Right or left handed: right
S - Siblings: 5 sisters, 2 brothers, 6 sisters-in-law, 10 brothers-in-law
T - Time you wake up: varies. during the summer it's around 7:30
U - Underwear: all white, 'cept for special occasions ;)
V - Vegetable you dislike: jalapeno and onions
W - Workout style: running, biking, swimming, weights, yoga
X - X-rays you've had: spine, teeth, and a bunch of ultrasounds (do those count?)
Y - Yesterday's best moment: watching Paul finish 1st in his age group at his olympic triathlon! Way to go, love!
Z - Zoo favorite(s): gorilla, tiger, elephants

Now you know my ABC's! Go ahead... sing with me!

two little comments

2009-06-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

So, I've just got two little comments to make today.

#1 - T-ball has to be the most HUMONGOUS waste of time! It's sort of funny to watch just how COMPLETELY clueless these little 5-6 year-olds (though some of them are shorter than Charlie, I'm sure) can be at baseball, but it's also sort of really annoying and pointless. Canon is the one playing T-ball. Andy never got that chance, but he's doing okay in his coach pitch baseball, making me think, "wonder if Canon will notice if we just stop going to his games?" Nah, we'll stick it out, but the whole thing just makes me shake my head.

#2 - It literally feels like I am NEVER going to lose this last 2 lbs. I've been within 1 lb of my goal weight for 4 weeks now, though for 3 of these weeks, I didn't go weigh in. Last night, I weighed in at 145.8. Getting under 145 is the goal here. So, I guess I was able to figure out how to lose 41 pounds, but not 42... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I'm planning on doing another triathlon in July, so hopefully, increasing my workouts again will help. We'll see. Last night was pretty discouraging. And I'm sure it didn't help that I rewarded myself for the .4 lb weight gain by eating some Sour Patch kids, half of Charlie's dinner, and some frozen yogurt! Better go and write down my points for today so far so I know how many lettuce leaves I can eat for dinner!

A really WET hike!

2009-06-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

Last week while in Denver, we opted to go hiking with my sister-in-law, Rebekah, and her 5 darling children! We drove to a state park south of Denver a ways called Castlewood Canyon. It's a bit out of the way, but it's a pretty little canyon and a kid friendly place to hike. Unfortunately, when I was packing for our trip to Denver, I didn't expect it to be as cold as it was all week long! I DID pack jeans for everyone, but no long-sleeve shirts and no jackets for any of us! We ate our lunches before heading off on the hike, which turned out to be the smartest thing of the whole day! After a quick potty break, we were on our way!

All the bigger kids, ranging in age from 12 year-old Brooklyn, to our 6 year-olds Canon & Eliza, went on ahead with Paul while Rebekah and I walked along with Charlie and Jeanette, and their newly halfblind little dog, Penny. These two kiddos are so cute together!

They wanted to jump off of every rock along the trail, but that was slowing us down significantly! We met up with the big kids at this beautiful overlook. Paul is showing the boys some sort of wildlife.

They all walked ahead and we met up with them again at this stream.

It was already getting windy with dark clouds rolling over us, so the kids didn't get to play much in the creek. By the time we got much beyond this point here,

it began to rain... HARD... with HAIL!!! Carrying two little toddlers and 6 other kids in tow, it was a semi-stressful situation. The last place you want to be during a flash flood is at the bottom of a canyon. But once the hail passed and we were completely and utterly DRENCHED, we just kept walking as quickly as we could back to the top where our cars were parked. We did stop for a minute to hide from the hail and huge raindrops, but ultimately, had to keep moving. Look how miserable Charlie looks!

By the time we reached the top, it had mostly stopped raining... OF COURSE!! Here's how we looked after the drama subsided!

I know... attractive!

We were scheduled to spend the evening with my cousin, David, and his darling wife and daughter in their new home. Since the last people you want to look like a total dump in front of is Dave & Becca, we opted to spend a couple hours at Scott & Rebekah's house to get washed up and run our clothes through the wash. It was great to get to spend some more time with our cousins and Rebekah. We definitely don't get to see them often enough. It was also very nice to be clean and dry as we spent some good, quality time (as well as a delicious dinner) with Dave, Becca, and Genevieve. Despite the weather, it turned out to be a great day.

So that was our little adventure in the rain (or at least one of them... it rained on us at the Denver Zoo the day before as well). It's too bad we had to hurry so fast out of there. It really was beautiful and it would have been so nice to leisurely walk through this canyon! We'll have to schedule another hike for our boys this summer. We don't get them outdoors enough and they enjoyed it!

Seeing Spencer

2009-06-13T16:01:00.001-07:00

We just got back from our first trip to Colorado since Christmas. I was so anxious to get over there that we left the weekend after all my teaching obligations were finished. I'm always excited to see my family and to take a trip to Colorado, but this time, I needed to get over there so I could see Spencer.

The last time I saw Spencer, he looked like this.

Now, he looks like this!

Not too bad, eh?! He looks a little different because he's lost some weight and now wears glasses, but other than that, we've got our Spencer back! Even though we got out to Denver on Saturday night, we weren't able to see Spencer, Jen and their girls until Tuesday evening. I was so happy when they arrived at my parents house! I'd talked with Spencer on the phone, but nothing was better than seeing him walk in with a smile on his face. I'm happy to report that he is doing so well! I stopped doing "Spencer updates" a while back once he started making fast progress in the rehab unit at Spaulding Hospital in Denver. He made amazing strides in his physical therapy, quickly mastering all the basics and then moving beyond them to strengthen any muscle weakness he had. He also made impressive progress with his speech therapy and all the cognitive rehab. They had him practicing mental drills that most of us would have real difficulty with. I'm so grateful for how hard they pushed him. Spencer has always been a very smart guy and they needed to get him back to his rocket scientist/engineer status. Thankfully, this happened/is happening very quickly.

Spencer got to leave the hospital the Sunday we left on our cruise (first weekend of May). The whole family was together (except us, unfortunately) and he was able to participate in my little nephew's baby blessing that day. Since then, he's been doing outpatient rehab and has continued to make such amazing progress that he actually went back to work last Thursday while we were still in town. His therapist went with him to do an assessment on what needs may arise as he enters the work place again (i.e. can he actually see the computer screen?). I talked to Spencer that afternoon again and he sounded so happy and positive. He said he didn't realize how much he'd missed being at work! Thankfully, he has a job that he enjoys and colleagues that have stood by him with nothing but 100% support. I think it was great for Spencer to see that he was missed. It's always nice to be needed. They even have some projects they are ready for him to get working on. It looks like he'll be going in twice this next week, three times the week after that, and apparently, he's wanting to work everyday in July. Hopefully that's with shortened hours, but who knows?! I am so amazed by all of this.

So, for the most part, Spencer will have his life back. Of course, it will never be like the accident never happened. He is now blind in his left eye and will now always need to wear glasses. Using a contact in his good eye is too risky, because if he gets an infection or scratches the cornea or something, he doesn't have back up. We're lucky that we haven't seen any major personality changes as a result of the brain injury. The main difference is that Spencer is much more chatty than before! No offense, Spence, but you almost talk as much as Dad and me now! I love it! My favorite thing to report, though, is that he's still our awesome, silly, ol' Spencey who refuses to look normal in pictures! You can't see it well, but he's crossing his eyes in this picture with Jen and Greta!

Spencer said that he's hoping to start running again. I don't know why, but this fills me with happiness! He's wanting to run the Bolder Boulder 10K next year in May and Paul and I promised that if he did it, we'd come out and run it with him. I think running 6.2 miles next to my brother who potentially could have never walked again as a result of this accident would be one of the best ways I could spend an hour! Hopefully, he doesn't intend to become wicked fast, but if he does, I'll do what I can to rise to the challenge!

I'm so proud of my brother. I'm so happy that he is getting his life back. I'm proud of how well they've been hanging in there together as a family. I'm so grateful to Jennifer for her love and support for Spencer. I'm sure that in the last 2.5 months she has felt the full spectrum of emotions, from debilitating panic to the deepest joy and relief. She has amazing strength and I admire her in every way. She is truly an elect lady and I love her so much! What a journey they have travelled together.

So even though we had some other great adventures this last week, seeing Spencer was the highlight for me. Love ya, Spence! Keep up the great work!

Last weeks 5K

2009-06-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy week, being on vacation in Denver, and all! But I wanted to post quickly about the 5K I did last Saturday with my friends.

Anyway, the race went really well. I didn't get much sleep the night before because Paul was on a father/son campout with Andy and Canon. I don't know why it's so hard to actually go to bed when your spouse isn't there! I also rarely sleep well the night before a race... you know, all those crazy dreams about being late and not being able to find your shoes. I did manage to get some sleep and woke up early to get ready and drop off Charlie at Emily's house. An awesome young woman in our ward (thanks again, Sarah!) was willing to come over at 6:45 am to watch our two toddlers. She was an angel and total life saver for both Emily and me!

We got to the high school and got registered. I had meant to register weeks ahead of time, but never managed to. I was actually glad, though, because they were out of their lame t-shirts, meaning the registration was only $10 instead of $15! Sweet! We then spent some time looking for some of our other friends running the race. Those we saw from the ward were Jina, Monica, and Tina. It was fun to have so many people to congratulate at the end of the race! This picture is of Emily, Jina and me.

The race started right at 7:30, but because there were SO MANY PEOPLE packed in at the starting line, it took a good 5-10 seconds before you could even start moving! I quickly took off, though, and weaved in and out of people until I could find some space to run. It's amazing how much easier it is to run at a quicker pace when you have other people running with you. A lot of my running lately has been solo. I was able to keep my pace between a 9-9:30 minute pace for most of the three miles, with some slowing down during and after the hill. I felt really good, though, and just kept pushing it along! That 3rd mile is always the toughest for me, though. The race ended with a lap around the track and once I saw the timer above the finish line, I really tried to kick it into gear and finish before the clock hit 28:30. Once the times were posted as we were leaving, it said my official time was 28:28! I was so thrilled! Here is a picture of myself, Monica, Jina and Emily after the race was finished. We hung around after to see if we won any of the cool raffle prizes, but unfortunately, none of our numbers were called. Better luck next year, I guess!

This wasn't my fastest time for a 5K, but this one felt especially good to me. Last year when all my friends and I did a 5K on July 24th in Mapleton, I came in DEAD LAST by many MINUTES! I wasn't out to prove anything this year, but I did want to redeem myself a little. I admit that it feels good that I came in fastest this time, but it's not something I expect to do everytime. Emily is going to be catching me any day now! But, all my friends ended up doing a really great job with this race and I am so proud of them! I'm glad that running is something we all enjoy doing together. Thanks for a fun morning, gals!

Happy Birthday, Canon!

2009-06-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

My little monkey, Canon, turned 6 today. I know it is SOOOO cliche to say it, but it is amazing how fast time goes by. I sure love this little feller! I thought in honor of his birthday this year, I would come up with a little mini Canon happy list.

Things about Canon that make me happy:

1. his freckles

2. his squinty smile and how much he "cheeses" it for pictures these days.

3. his energy for life

4. his affectionate nature

5. his ability to finish a whole math facts homework page without me standing over him!

6. how he LOVES to be tickled

7. his readiness to grow into whatever comes next!

8. how easy he was to potty train all those years ago

9. the cute things he says ("Mom, chores are for big year-olds!")

10. that he loves to dance and watches 'So You Think You Can Dance' with me.

11. his friendly and outgoing ways

12. he's a happy kid who smiles a lot

13. he's easy to make laugh (REALLY easy!)

14. he is teachable and a fast learner

15. that he's no longer a kindergartner (I hate that schedule!)!!!

16. his love for anything boyish (spiderman, star wars, super heroes, sports, etc.)

17. that he always wants to sit by me

18. his confidence in himself

19. that he's now saying his /r/ sounds correctly (after 2+ years of nagging)!!!

20. THAT HE'S MINE!!!

Today we had a friend birthday party for him over at his Grandma's house. Grandma's awesome and friendly neighbor let us bring 12 kids over to their pool and swim for an hour. It was a great day for swimming and all the kids had fun. After drying off a bit, we went back over to Grandma's yard to open presents and eat cupcakes. When figuring how many kids were coming to the party, I neglected to add my own boys and an extra niece to the headcount and didn't get enough cupcakes. Paul and I had a bit of a squabble about it, but no major drama ensued (well, maybe just a little) except that Paul accidentally took the camera with him when he went to get more cupcakes against my wishes. I took some pictures of Canon opening his presents with my phone, and Paul caught these pictures after the kids had already eaten their blue frosting cupcakes! We missed the whole singing "happy birthday" event and that ugly yearly picture of blowing out the candles. Ah well. Overall, it was a fine little party for my extremely low standards. My friend, Rachelle, would never approve because she throws ridiculously amazing parties for her boys (I'm so jealous of her hostessing skillz), but it was good enough for me because it actually happened! I was pretty tuckered out, though, afterwords.

Canon's cupcake ring!
Couldn't help but point out all that icing on his face again!
The carnage!!

So, happy birthday big guy! I'm happy to be celebrating your life. Each day being your mom is a gift. Your daddy and I love you so much.

He's so good

2009-05-31T22:41:00.001-07:00

Paul just competed in his second triathlon of the season yesterday. He did the Salem Sprint Triathlon along with his brother Spencer and his brother-in-law, Luke. Salem is a small town just south of where we live. I love it when the race is close by! I actually got there in time to see Paul get started on the race. He was so pumped up, as evidenced by the picture on the top right of this collage!
Luke and Spencer got started 5 minutes before Paul did because they are in a younger age group. Once we saw Paul enter the "washing machine" of people hitting and kicking each other as they start swimming, us spectators took our own, dear, sweet time and moseyed on over to where the swimmers get out. We missed Luke and Spencer getting out, but thankfully, I was able to find Paul swimming toward the shore and get a picture of him getting out (top left).

By the time I walked over the little hill to where the transition area was, Paul was already heading out on the bike portion of the race. He had a wicked fast transition! The bike was a 6.75 mile loop they did twice. It's really difficult to get a good picture of someone speeding by on their bike, but I managed to get the one on the bottom right as he started the second loop and the one on the bottom left as he was finishing. It's fun to have multiple people to cheer on and Paul was just a little bit behind Luke and Spencer.

I didn't see Paul after that until he was running in to the finish line. I'd given the camera to Melanie so I could go up the hill to video the guys as they came in. She caught a picture of Luke sprinting in, finishing in 1:11 and coming in 5th place in his age group (awesome!)...

and then here comes Spencer, finishing in 1:18 taking 14th in his age group (way to go!).

Paul surprised us all by coming in just a couple minutes after Spencer. Unfortunately, digital cameras aren't always just "point & shoot" anymore, so Mel wasn't able to get a picture. Oh, well! He finished in 1:15, taking 7th in his age division! He missed 6th place by 4 seconds, 5th place by 15 seconds, and 4th place by 30-40 seconds. Pretty impressive if you ask me! No wonder he keeps nagging me about getting a new wheel set to make him stinkin fast. But no matter what place he takes, the most important thing is that he beat Spencer! Those two are very competitive with each other and this is now the second race in a row that Paul's beaten him, even if it is just by 2-3 minutes! Way to go, Paul! You're getting good at this!

Here are the guys (looking all sexy with their shirts unzipped!) chillin after the race. I'm so impressed with all of them! They work so hard and have truly earned the title of athletes!

A fun project

2009-05-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

So, one of the reasons I haven't blogged in a while is this fun project I finally got done! Several weeks ago, Paul's Aunt Rebecca called me up to commission me to make some cards for their Jr. High school teachers. She needed them to be a specific size (in order to hold money) and I had a couple weeks to get them done. It was a pretty daunting project, mostly because Paul's Aunt Marta made the cards for her last year... and you should see Marta's cards. She's awesome! In order to simplify the project a little (she needed 18 cards total), rather than making each card unique, I made a different card per department. Here's how they turned out.

This one for Janis on the left is my favorite one, closely followed by the one for Tara on the bottom right.

These ones aren't quite as fancy, but I still think they turned out well. It's hard to design cards for men. At least with Corinne, there, I could throw on a big flower focal point and call it good!

I like these cards for the English teachers, but felt like they were a little plain-ish. I loved the paper, though! In making these cards, I was SOOO glad to have my Serif Alphabet dies for my big shot as well as the smaller alphabet die. Once I decided to make their names the focal point for each card, it made it a little easier. Aunt Rebecca received them from FedEx today and sent off a very reinforcing email to me telling me she loved them! I was relieved to hear that she was so pleased with how I did. Hopefully the teachers will also like the cards next week when they receive them with some cash inside! I'm sure the cash would make ANY card look good to an underpaid teacher! What do you think?

SOOOOOOO CLOSE!!

2009-05-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is going to be another post about my weight. We got back from the cruise on a Saturday night, which meant I had 5 days to try to remedy the overeating/weight gain issue from the cruise before my next weigh in. The Thursday before the cruise, my WW weight was 147.2 (.6 of a pound from officially losing 40 lbs!). I was glad about this.

The Thursday after my cruise, I weighed in at 150 even, a 2.8 lb gain. Honestly, I didn't feel bad about this one bit. I made a conscious decision while on vacation that I was going to enjoy myself. I didn't go crazy (except for that last night!), but I also didn't deny myself too much. I had figured, "I know how to lose 5 lbs, so as long as I don't gain 10 lbs, I'll be fine!" That's why we worked out as much as we did during the cruise as well. To add to this 150 number, I was retaining some water as well (guess why!?!), so I think that had something to do with it. In either case, I wasn't going to stress about it.

This week, I've done much better. I haven't been perfect, but I've been conscious of what I've been eating and how much. I've also been working out, trying to get in at least 4-5 workouts a week. I've got a 5K race coming up in a week and I've also made plans to run the "Speedy Spaniard" 10K on July 24th and the Hobble Creek 1/2 marathon in August. That's a dang lot of running, but I know I can do it. So that's some motivation for getting my butt out on the road for some run workouts, but I'd like to keep up my fitness for triathlon as well. I've been scoping out another triathlon to get registered for, but I'm still leary of open-water swimming. Plus, I really don't want to buy a wetsuit this year. We just got Paul a new one, and I think we've spent enough! There are some pool-swim races that I'm looking into, so I'll let you know when I pick one.

So, the moment you've been waiting for... I had a KILLER week this week on the scale! Today at WW, I weighed in at 145.4! I lost 4.6 lbs this week! HOLY COW!!! I realized a couple weeks ago, that I weigh less after a bike ride than I do after a run, so today I rode my bike about 10 miles before weighing in. It helps, too, to be wearing lighter clothing like bike shorts and a cycling jersey! So, officially, I have now lost 41 lbs. I don't have to "round up" anymore! Pretty much ever since I'd lost 38 lbs, I've been saying that I've lost 40. It's nice not to have to lie now! I need to be really good this week and not blow it! If I can lose more than half a pound this week, I'll have reached my Weight Watchers goal. Then, if I can lose even more or maintain that weight for 6 weeks, I'll become a lifetime member, as long as I stay under 147. I fully plan to keep up the weight loss so I hopefully never have to pay for WW again!

I think the way I've changed my eating habits and increased my fitness levels, I believe that this is a lifestyle I can live with for years to come. I've been very careful to do this the right way and to make my changes in a sustainable way. I think I've also been very careful to keep a steady heart and mind as motivation behind all of this. I haven't blogged about this, but many of you who are close to me have heard me explain "why now." Since I'm an open book, why not share it with the rest of the world (as if they were reading)!

Last year, Paul and I were planning on having one more child. After months and months of disappointment with this goal, we finally got some testing done and figured out that our chances of having more kids are really small. I had just joined WW at the beginning of August (after putting it off for about 6 months thinking I'd be getting pregnant) and 3 weeks into it, I got this news. It was (and still is sometimes) extremely disappointing, but thankfully, not earth shattering. We are beyond grateful for the 3 awesome boys we have. While bummed that we can't add to this, we recognize the blessings we've been given and do not want to take them for granted. I had been running 5K's all through the summer and thinking that I should set a goal to do a triathlon (since Paul's sister had done one!), but again, that "I'll probably get pregnant by then" thought kept holding me back. Once that went away, I knew I had no excuse. I had really been using that potential future pregnancy as a crutch and roadblock. Without realizing it, though, I was able to adopt a "let's see what else this body can accomplish in 9 months" attitude. Somehow, I was able to channel this "loss" into this new goal of doing a triathlon. Paul's help and suggestions for training were very instrumental in all of it, along with his support with the diet. Diet and exercise worked in tandem for me. I was thrilled that with increased training, I'd lose more weight and with more weight lost, I was more successful in training. It only makes sense that "putting Charlie down" would help me run faster (3 minutes per mile faster, actually)! Following a diet plan and working out consistently WILL bring weight loss results, and I guess I just enjoyed the results so much that I was motivated to stick with it.

So, that's how I got here, for those of you who have wondered. Thanks again (for like the 50th time) for everyone's support and encouragement! It has made this journey so wonderful!

Day 6 & 7 - Time to wrap this up!

2009-05-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's time to wrap up all this blogging about the trip. I need to move on with my life!

After our very fun day in San Francisco, we got to spend one whole peaceful day on board, sailing ALL THE WAY BACK to Los Angeles! I don't even think the engines were running. I think they just put the ship in neutral and we just floated downstream to LA! Anyway, it was a wonderfully relaxing day and just boring enough to get us to the point where it would be okay to go home! In the morning, we did workout again (I know, we're nuts... but it DID help on the potential weight gain front!) and got some breakfast at the buffet. Then we got our swimsuits on and went swimming again. It had been a long time since I'd been thrown in a pool... at least I was prepared!

Pretty much, we roamed around the ship and accomplished the following:

1. watched a little bit of the art auction - some of those pieces were going for less than what the frame would cost. And some others, well, they went for MUCH MUCH more!

2. put a deposit down on a future cruise. Check this out! Because our itinerary for this "Mexican" cruise was completely changed, Princess offered everyone a 50% credit of what we paid for this cruise toward a future cruise! So, with that, plus the deposit we put toward another cruise, plus the onboard ship credit they'll give us for putting down a deposit, we're minimally already $850 down into our next cruise. We just have to book it before April 2011! I'm so excited! We definitely won't be waiting another 10 years to go on another vacation.

3. talked with some of our new found friends. We spent some time chatting with Gary and Tracy again. They are very cool!

4. purchased some of the photos they had of us. We got one of our formal picture poses and the one they took of us at dinner together. It's very much like the one we purchased 10 years ago on our honeymoon, so we thought it would be cool to put them side by side! Seeing this photograph was one of those moments where I was SOOOOO grateful I'd lost so much weight before the cruise. It would have been more depressing to be 10 years older AND 40 lbs heavier. I'll take the 10 years, but I'm very glad to leave the 40 lbs behind!

5. settled our account. We were glad to see we hadn't wracked up too big of a bill. We actually kept it pretty frugal compared to some I've heard of. It helps that we aren't drinkers. I can only imagine the bar tabs some of those people were stuck with!

6. packed up all our crap. Paul was actually hanging out with the guys doing something before dinner, while I managed to get all our dirty clothes folded up enough to fit them back in the bags. I was glad we got most of this packing done earlier in the evening so we didn't have to stay up late doing it.

All of our party gathered again for our last meal together. With the way I ate, you would have thought it was my last meal EVER!!! I know it's cliche, but "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" I had 3 of the appetizers (shrimp, salad, & some fishy thing), the steak that came with fries, and one of Paul's fajitas for the meal. They were serving baked Alaska for dessert, so I thought I'd try that, but the deep dish apple pie sounded good, so Paul and I got one of those to share. Well, I only ate about 2 bites of the baked Alaska, but SNARFED that apple pie! It was so good! But with each bite, I felt myself getting sicker and sicker. I still laugh at myself that I went so crazy! Even Ken told Paul later, "I wasn't going to say anything to her, but DANG!!!" I literally wanted to throw up. If it had been alcohol instead of food, my body would have FORCED me to throw up in order to avoid alcohol poisoning. I'm not proud of it, but I did end up going back to the room and did try to throw up, but chickened out. Just more proof that I could never be anorexic OR bolemic... which is good!

Somehow I managed to avoid a food coma and we made it back downstairs to the theater to watch the last rock concert by the band Wavelength. They had the jazz combo and the string quartet playing with them on several numbers. The concert was awesome! Since Paul became such a big fan of the group, we found them afterword and got a picture taken with them...

We didn't stick around to "party" with them or anything (can you imagine!), so off to bed we went!

The next day, we got up early (6:00 early) to get ready for the day and get some breakfast eaten before we took the "walk off" option. This was actually pretty slick since we didn't have to worry about transferring anything to the airport or anything. We got everything out of the room and just left! We were glad that we were all able to get an early start on our drive home. We were in the car and heading back home by 9:15. I don't have much to report about the drive home. Shane drove the first half and Paul drove the second. We made it to Payson and needed to get some gas. It was here that I figured, "oops, we never got anything for Charlie." So I found him a cute stuffed froggy (he loves his froggy blankets) for $5 and called it good! Hey, it was still technically a souvenir from our vacation, just the very end of it!

We pulled in to Paul's parents house at about 8:00 pm. It was great to see the boys. I think we were gone just long enough that I was really ready to be their mom again! Charlie looked like he'd grown in the last 9 days, and it was nice that our bigger boys were ready for us to be home too! There's no question that grandma and grandpa were also VERY glad for us to be back! We are so thankful to them for taking care of our sweet boys all week and allowing us to escape the way we did. They are wonderful parents and awesome grandparents! Thanks again, Mom & Dad!

So... that does it! It's been fun to relive the trip by blogging about it and trying to remember all the details! We had an incredible week. It was just what we needed! To those that managed to read the whole thing, thanks for sticking with me!

Day 6 - San Francisco!

2009-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday was my FAVORITE day of the whole trip. We woke up early(ish), skipped any thought of working out, ate some breakfast, and headed out to see San Francisco! Yet another city that looks so cool from the coastline! This time, our entire group stayed together the whole day. We all wanted to take advantage of our cool tour guides, Cyndi and John. This lucky couple from San Francisco drove all the way to LA in order to go on a cruise to their hometown! They live just outside San Fran, and were gracious enough to spend the day with this strange group of folk from Idaho and Utah! It was even Cyndi's birthday and she was awesome enough to spend it with us!

First off, it was a GORGEOUS day in San Fran. It was sunny, clear, and cool enough, but not cold. We couldn't have asked for a better day to be there. It was also nice that it was Thursday and not overloaded with tourists. We got off the boat and headed over to Pier 39 first. We walked around the little shops and I was tempted to buy some beautiful jewelry pieces, but resisted. Walking around the pier, we saw these images:

I loved the huge crowd of seals and the cool views of the bay.

Next, we walked over to Fisherman's Wharf and saw all the yummy food you could buy there. We didn't get anything (since we'd just eaten), but it did sure look good! We also kept walking and made it over to the cable car turn around by Ghirardelli Square. We jumped on the car and took a ride across town to China Town. I LOVED climbing and going down those steep hills and seeing the amazing architecture of the area. Those homes are so close together! Definitely a different lifestyle than what we enjoy here in Springville, UT. But it was very cool to see it. Paul took some pictures to get the idea of just how steep those roads are. We got off the trolley at Union Square and walked by the pricey stores in that area (Saks 5th Ave, Tiffany's, Prada, etc) on our way over to the gate to China Town:

These pictures capture the view from the top of the hills and here is the entrance to China Town!

Of course, we did a little bit of shopping in China Town. "Special deal, just for you!" I ended up buying a necklace and some wooden swords for Andy and Canon. For the record, it took Canon less than 48 hours to break his sword once we gave it to him! He was bummed when we told him it would be a while til we went back to China to get him a new one. Tough luck, kiddo! Since John and Cyndi weren't Chinese food connoisseurs, they didn't feel comfortable recommending any of the restaurants there. They didn't want to recommend something and then have it be yucky or overpriced. Since we'd already walked through 15 stores that all sold the same things, I recommended that we walk back to the ship, eat lunch there, and then hit Alcatraz after we've eaten. This is what we ended up doing and by the time we made it back to the pier, we were VERY ready to sit down. We'd already done a lot of walking that day!

After lunch, all of us, except Shane, wanted to tour Alcatraz. That island is just sitting right there in the middle of the bay with so much history attached to it... we just HAD to go! We took the tour boat over there and walked through the awesome audio tour. It was SO COOL! I just love historical sights and like to imagine what it would have been like to be there in all the different capacities. There were so many different "ways of life" on that island; from the guards to the prisoners to the children who lived there. Amazing! Here's a collage of just Alcatraz:

Thankfully, the ship was disembarking later than usual, so we had some extra time in the city. We made our dinner appointment for 7:00 that night and enjoyed our meal before heading up to the deck to watch the ship sail under the Golden Gate bridge. Pretty much, the whole ship was up there and it's a good thing... this was a moment that I would have HATED to miss! The night was clear, the sun had just set, and the moon was full casting a stream of light on the ocean. By the time we got to the bridge it was getting pretty dark, so you had all the lights of the city in the backdrop as well. It was breathtaking and incredibly romantic. I was so happy to be there witnessing that scene with Paul. Nobody else I would rather be with! Unfortunately, this was the result of the shots I tried to take...

This picture captures what the moon looked like (that's not Golden Gate right there)

This picture captures the city lights

And this was the attempt to capture the moon, the city, AND the bridge, but no luck!

yep, too bad my camera stinks and this is all we came up with! Guess you had to be there!

The night ended with just walking around the ship and then listening to some other people pretend they were talented enough to sing with a real rock band! To say the least, some of the singers were just not good! At 10:30, we headed up to the bar to help Cyndi wrap up her birthday with some dancing! A bunch of her friends bought her some birthday shots, which was probably a bit much for her since she admitted she wasn't much of a drinker! Paul and I ordered mocktails and I enjoyed every sip of that pina colada and strawberry daiquiri yumminess! Mmmmm! We also had a good time dancing. I admit though, I was pooped! So I actually went to bed earlier than Paul... he wanted to try his luck with $20 in the casino. It didn't take long for it to disappear, and I think he learned a valuable lesson. You get more entertainment out of $20 in the slot machines than you do at the craps table!

So that's our day in San Francisco. I totally fell in love with this city and can't wait to go back. There is so much to see there that one day doesn't do it justice!