Back They Go

Some parents love the first day of school.  I am not one of them. There are parts of going back to school that I like, but there are a lot more that I don’t like.  I like the getting into a routine and the kids in bed early, I like them being “entertained” by someone else for several hours, I like that my house stays clean during the day.  I do not like packing lunches, getting kids up on time and out the door on time, dealing with thousands of papers and things to sign, homework, worrying about them getting enough sleep (I know, I am uptight about sleep),  having to be home from exercising at an earlier hour, that it starts in the middle of the summer!!!!  You know, things like that.  Anyways I don’t have a choice in the matter, well unless I decided to home school, but that would not go over well with my mental state.  So here we are back to school!

(Brandon put a backpack on Jonah so he would fit in)

And also on this back to school day goes my wonderful friend Brookie Shoko off to China for 4 months.  Just like Lauren who left for Mexico, I am going to miss Brookie so very much.  She is a gem, really one in a million and those Chinese children are going to love her!

It’s My Birthday Shout Hurray!

I just love my birthday.  I love everything about it.  I don’t even mind having to get older in order to have it.  Today was a perfect day.  Bryan and the boys made me breakfast in bed and showered me with lots of presents (like a laptop, shoes, shirts, a pan that I wanted that was really hard for Bryan to find).

We then went on a walk to the cemetery and got caught in a big rain storm.  It was great.  I wish I had taken my camera with me, but I didn’t.  I don’t think it has ever rained before on my birthday, but with the weather we have had this summer, who was surprised?

The afternoon was relaxing and then Brandon and I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple dedication.  I was kind of sad it wasn’t regular church on my birthday, but it was a nice event to be able to attend.  Bryan stayed home with the younger boys and got ready for the rest of my day.

My whole family and BFF’s family came to dinner.  Bryan arranged and made the whole thing.  I gave a few suggestions, but other than that I didn’t have to do anything.  We had a nice night talking and playing a little DDR and everyone telling me Happy Birthday.

Bryan loves my birthday almost as much as I do.  He does such a great job and I love that about him.  I don’t want the day to end because then I have to wait a WHOLE year for it to happen again.

I must like it so much because I have so many people who love me.  So thank you to all the people who indulge me in my birthday loving!

(It doesn’t make me very happy to have to end my SUMMER birthday early in the night so everyone can get in bed before the first day of school!)

Supposed to be

We are supposed to be in St. George right now.  One last hurrah before school starts, the only vacation for the whole summer.  And knowing how my summer went, who can guess why we aren’t there????  Yep, I got sick.  Tuesday I had a terrible headache all day and then I woke up Wednesday morning with the same headache and aching all over my body.  I slept most of the day and feel much better today.  So much for one last hurrah!  We are going to go up to Snowbird later today to stay the night.  At least it is something!

Random Week

As the end of summer vacation draws near we have been packing in the activities.  This past week we have gone to a Bees game (where we ran into lots of friends and had a fun time), the boys started tennis lessons which they LOVE and wish they had everyday, Jacob finished swim lessons with Emilee Belnap, which he loved and wishes he still had, had a super fun water party at Nana’s, Brandon got what I was convinced was strep throat, but only turned out to be a virus that mimics strep, went swimming at the Belnap’s with cousins, took Brandon to Raging Waters for a party his orthodontist puts on, I enjoyed lunch out with the RBEWEA club, tried to help Grandpa and Grandma with their fence but got hit by too many hail storms.  Seems like a lot of making the most of the time we have left. 

Yesterday was equally packed.  Although I woke up mad as can be about the weather.  I love fall in October, I don’t love fall weather in August.  I finally had to go outside and do some weeding to warm my body up, it was great weeding weather! 

Last night we hurried out to IMC for a NICU reunion.  We weren’t in town last year so we wanted to go this year.  They moved the NICU from LDS hospital to IMC about a month after Jonah came home, I was so glad we didn’t have to make that move.  As we were walking in I could barely hold back the tears, too many memories.  Jonah had a great time riding on a pony and petting a camel.  He got his face painted like spiderman and played some games.  He thought the whole thing was great.  We were in a hurry so we didn’t stick around to see people we might know.  I did see one nurse that remembered us, but we weren’t close to her.  It would have been fun to see more people, but it was nice anyways.

Then back we raced home to attend the FUNNEST party ever.  Several of our friends hosted a Beatles Bash which was so great.  They had people bring salads and desserts and they provided LOTS of very good meat.  We set up lawn chairs ate and enjoyed the company.  Then the Beatles band started playing and off I went to dance the night away.  Near the end Bryan felt bad for me dancing alone and came and joined me.  I love dance parties!!!!  I don’t know how to dance and I don’t care either.  I have been trying to figure out how I could do this every weekend.  Maybe I will just blare some music out of my house and dance on my driveway.  I know my dancing BFF Melinda would show up!!!

Fun week and to end the summer off I am finally going somewhere!!!!!  Not exotic, but hopefully we will have fun in St. George for a few days.

And I almost forgot something else from this week.  My dear friend Lauren Nickl left for Mexico for 4 months.  Jonah baby and I will miss her very much.  She has been a part of my life for 7 1/2 years.  I am so glad she is going though and is going to have a great time.

Ahhh all my college friends are leaving this week, that makes me sad.

Maybe this is the answer

I think this may be the key to getting Jonah to eat.  Have a water party at Nana’s with pizza and let him go to town!

My First Triathlon

I say my first because it will not be my LAST!  This was the funnest race I have ever done.  It is so much easier on the body to be switching sports and not just having my knees pounded to pieces.  Of course it took a lot of training to be able to switch sports and still do well in each one.  I felt confident going into the race and think I did pretty good!

I was so upset with the weather that morning, really what else it new?  It was raining and as I rode my bike down to Kimi’s to meet I was wet and freezing.  Luckily by the time the race started the rain had cleared up and it was PERFECT racing weather.  The only hang up was deciding until the last second whether to keep my jacket on or not.  Luckily Diane talked me into taking it off and I was very grateful on the run that I didn’t have to deal with a jacket around my waist.

(Note to self, have someone besides Brandon take pictures of the race next time so I can actually be in the pictures)

Here I am just after completing the 5K run portion of the race.  I started out with Rachel Farr, but she quickly got rid of me and raced ahead.  Kristi, Kimi, and I stuck together and we joked about how glad we only had 3 miles to run instead of 13!

And take your pick of great shots of me getting on my bike and out of the transition area.  The biking was SO fun.  I trained on my 15 year old mountain bike and a week before the race decided it just wouldn’t hold up.  I switched to Bryan’s 1 year old mountain bike and that went much better.  All my friends had road bikes and so they left me in the dust.  I was proud of my legs going around and around as fast as they could!  I caught up with Rachel Farr and rode with her a good portion of the biking and then I somehow got ahead of her.  My BFF Tiffany was on her back porch waiting for me to go past her house on the Legacy trail.  It was so exciting to wave and gave me the chills to know that someone was proud of me!  The only casualty I almost had was when a cat ran out in front of me, I slammed on my brakes and it skidded in front of me and I narrowly missed running over it’s tail.   I was getting tired at the end of the bike, but I just kept pedaling as hard as I could!

Oh can’t you see me swimming in there?  Ya neither can I.  I knew the swim was going to be the hardest and it WAS.  I was so out of breathe when I got into the pool area.  I couldn’t get my swim cap and goggles on right, but I didn’t want to waste time so off I went.  At the first 4 or so lane dividers I would wonder if I could hold my breathe long enough to go under.  I don’t even know what I was swimming half of the time.  It is definitely different when there are so many around you and you are trying to keep breathing and not drown!  I was surprised to pass my fast bike friends (except for Kristi) in the pool.  Around the last 3 laps I finally spotted Bryan and the boys in the cheering section.  That helped me keep on going and get out of the pool with a smile.  All of us that trained together ended up finished within 5-6 minutes of each other.  It was so great to give everyone a hug as they got out of the pool.

I placed 21 in my age group, but who really cares?  I thought it would take me an hour and 40 minutes to finish and I did it in an hour and 26 minutes!  Two more weeks and I would have been in an older age group and would have finished in a little higher ranking!

Such a fun time with great friends.  Hopefully someone got a picture of all of us and I can put that here instead.  It is amazing what one can do when we are TO”GATHER”.  I loved it and really can not wait to do another one!

Nope I didn’t make it

All that talk about me being healthy and not eating sugar for the last 3 weeks until my triathlon……ya didn’t happen.  I made it a solid 12 or 13 days with nothing, and I mean no syrup, no jam, no juice, nothing.  And then I got sick of being tired and super ornery!  Lucky for good friends like Si who know that life is not supposed to be lived without sugar.  Really what is the point?  I was telling my sister how it is not worth it to do.  I said I have been yelling at everyone for 2 weeks and I have only lost like 3 pounds.  My Dad piped in at this point and said, “and 6 friends”.  Really not worth it!

I certainly have not gone off the deep end.  I have had 2 choice treats and have enjoyed every second of them.  I hope to keep this up until Saturday and maybe after that I can only eat what I really really want instead of whatever is in front of me.  At any rate I hope to start being a nicer person soon!