Hello again

I'm back with a fancy fall break update.  

We went to Orlando, yet again.  

We love it and will probably go again next fall.  That is if we get a break from school next fall.

Fingers crossed.

So here is the almost whole clan in front of some place...I forgot.

 JUST KIDDING!  It says it right there above our heads.  Jurassic Park.

We are missing Aunt Kelly because she is taking the picture and Grandpa Paul because he kept wandering off.  We needed a little bear backpack leash thing for that guy!  He liked it that way though.

Next is a picture of someone on their way to somewhere.  I was very cooperative taking artistic direction in posing for pictures for Aunt Kelly.  I hope I captured the feeling she was looking for.

 Cute kid with chocolate ice cream on his face.

Madeline suffering because we made her go to Captain EO again.  Her absolute favorite.

Gargumel.

Carter came running up to us exclaiming that he just bought something AWESOME!

It was this sparkly glove.  AND the finger tips light up and plink all different colors!

He sure was right!  It is AWESOME!

The illusive "Brian eating two scoops"!

This is why we love this place.

It's some kind of Disney Miracle.

Erin and I spent a lot of time hanging out waiting for the big kids and dad to get out of their rides.

Nash begged and begged to go on the It's a Small World ride.

Begged and begged.

Actually it's not his favorite ride.  30 seconds into it and he was out.

SO!  There you have it.  Fall Break was a success.

Now back to life.  

Which I love.

I am blessed.

Remembering Derek

It's such a hard thing to lose a friend.  

A few weeks ago Derek Jensen was hit by a car while riding his bike to work and killed.  

In an instant the lives of his wife, Mina, and their three young children were changed.

Brian and Derek were riding buddies.  Brian accomplished many biking firsts with Derek.

Last year they rode the Fourth of July ride together and had quite an adventure.

Today there was a 1 mile memorial ride to remember Derek before the big annual ride.

It was such a moving thing to see everyone leaving the church parking lot and making their way up the road.  It was quiet and really beautiful.  

This is a video of the group finishing the memorial ride.

We are all blessed for having known Derek.  

He is missed by so many.

waxing theatrical

Just for fun.  Very impromptu thus the messy kitchen counter.  
End of school = messy counters.
Actually, beginning, middle, end of school and summertime = messy counters.  
I clean them off often but that doesn't seem to last more than a few hours.  
You too?  Please say yes.


I LOVE Nash's eyebrows at the end of his 'solo'.  


Click on the title of the video and you can see it bigger.  The eyebrows are hard to see on this little one.

Huh? Wha?

Oh my goodness.


It's May.


How did this happen and me not notice?


Guess what though.
I think it's going to rain today!!!  I love the rain in the spring/summer because it cools things down a bit and I know my plants get a great big refreshing drink without me having to stand there with a hose.
If it could rain for a couple hours 2 times a week I'd be the happiest gardener girl around.


Also, Maddie is on the Math team at school.  How cute is that?!  AND she gets her braces off in a couple weeks.  How awesome is THAT?  Except, it's the last day of school so she won't have naked teeth to show her school friends 'til August.  She broke a bracket this morning brushing her teeth.  Hopefully I'll call and they'll say "OH, just bring her in and we'll take them all off right now."

She's so awesome.  She LOVES her math team shirt.  

It says "Come to the Dork Side.  We have pi."

I went outside the other morning and the squirrels were ripping the bark off some of our big old pine trees.  Now they look like they are dying.  The pine trees.  Not the squirrels.

So we will be clearing out some of our woods.  But maybe clearing out some pine trees will let the really pretty deciduous trees (NOT the Sweet Gums) grow bigger and prettier. 

I just had a little psychology type lesson pop into my head.

I haven't done a blog post for over a month and one pops up now.  

Over the last 2 days I have gotten a bunch of little nagging errands and project/tidy ups done that have been on the 'list' for months and months.  Feels good, but I know why I'm being so productive in those areas.

I have girl's camp work to do.  It seems I am finding so many things to distract myself with to keep from getting to camp.  I really like camp, too.  But I'm stumped on something.  Thursday nights program...what to do?  What to do!

Funny how that happens for me.  Distractions.  

Well!  Off to raise Erin's curtain rod two inches.  The curtains are puddling on the floor WAY too much and it's been bugging me since January.  No better time, I guess!

Love to all.

Are you HUNGRY? I sure was.

Maddie went to the midnight showing of Hunger Games Thursday night/Friday morning after hashing out all the details of what a midnight movie on a school night would mean and dad thinking she's old enough to make a good decision.  She chose to go.  Of course.  Duh.

Brian and the boys are out of town so I stayed on the couch waiting for her to come home.  

Hopefully soooo tired.  

Nope.  

She was thrilled and gushed about the movie and couldn't wait to see it again as soon as possible!

Then she bounced up the stairs ready to hop into bed and wake up in 2 hours for seminary.  Conveniently for her she accidentally set her alarm for 5:30 pm and slept right through till I went to check on her.  ugh.  Missed seminary.  She uses a skype-type thing when dad is out of town because I can't pick her up from seminary and get everyone to their prospective schools before the tardy bells ring.

After I got her and her sister safely to school I came home, exercised and couldn't stop thinking of her excitement about the movie.  So after my shower I checked the listings to see if they had a show early enough that I could go to and still get home in time to pick up the kidlets from school.

THEY DID!!!!!

Off I went to the grocery store to get me some healthy treats for the movie.  I JUST 'Jillian Michaeled' and wasn't about to blow all that hard work!  I picked me up a container of mixed strawberries and blueberries, 'cause I could pop them in my mouth with my fingers, and off I went to the movies.  

In the middle of the day.  ALL BY MYSELF!  

It was a great movie.  They did well to honor the book.  And the actors they chose were awesome.  

I thoroughly enjoyed myself,

SO much so, that after piano lessons and dropping little Erin off at her friend's house for a sleepover Maddie and I headed back to the theater for a encore presentation!!!

The guy taking our tickets recognized me from earlier.  

That was a little embarrassing, but no apologies here!  

It was fantastic the second time.  

Maddie would be begging me to go see it again today but poor chicken had to wake up at 4:00 this morning to get ready for her Choir trip!  She is, right now, busing it with her fun friends and choir somewhere warm, uh...warmer.

Welcome Spring Break!

Hmmm.  I'm feeling a bit famished.

Hungry anyone?

call me.

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13.2 miles of happiest place on earth!

The first weekend in January marked the end of my training for 2011.

Brian and I hot footed it down to Orlando and ran our tooshies off in the 

Disney World 1/2 marathon.

My gear below:

We actually left a bit early in the week so we could traipse around Magic Kingdom for the day.

It was awesome!  I love going with the kids but MAN!!! it was sure fun without them.

We hustled to animation trading posts to swap out undesirables.

We took our time at lunch only to find out we didn't really want to take our time at lunch!

It took me a minute, tops, to realize I didn't have to head count OR head off any drama.

And I took the whole rest of the day to enjoy it.

Then we woke Bright...uh...EARLY!

3:30 EST which was 2:30 our CST.  

Off to the shuttle to take us to the park and hopefully 

make it in time to get into our assigned corrals for the 5:30 start time.

We didn't.  Make it in time.

By the time we made it to the front, corral A had already started so Brian shot off with corral B and I made it up there in time to start with corral C.  Which really just meant we got to pass a bunch of slow pokes the first little while.  Just kidding.  They weren't slow pokes.  

Well, some of them were.

It was super chilly and really dark, but so fun.

This is me coming up on the entrance to Magic Kingdom.

I didn't want to stop to get a good focus so I just slowed a bit and almost got run down.

They had characters set up along the way that you could stop and get pictures with but there was always a line and I wasn't feeling like standing around waiting.

By the time I ran 11 miles though, I told myself I was going to stop at the next character because frankly, I was tired and could use a good excuse to rest a minute.

So that was my dude and there was no line.  10 second rest wasn't really what I had hoped for.

 Brian finished a good 1/2 hour before I did.  By the time I found him he looked like he hadn't done much more than walk over from the shuttle!

They handed out these foil emergency blankets when we finished because 

it was still cold and we were all sweaty.  Brrr.  They helped a ton actually.

Later that afternoon we hoofed it over (quite gingerly on my part - I was so sore!) to BOMA.

A fab buffet at the Animal Kingdom Resort suggested to us by my dear brother.

This is my dessert plate.

It was such a great weekend.  And I haven't run a step since.

Bling! and a gross picture of stitches so don't scroll down past the first story if you don't want to see it.

For Christmas we granted Erin permission to get her ears pierced.  

Mixed feelings about it.

She LOVES having earrings and can't wait to switch them out next month.  

Man she's so big.

ALSO: 

(warning: gross picture of stitches below)

I'm recovering from surgery.  

I had a tumor in my saliva gland removed and the reports came back

 that it was benign and should not reoccur.  Yippee! 

I might have some side effects but the most important one that might have happened didn't.  Phew!!

The facial nerve goes right through the spit gland so they had to be really careful not to damage that nerve.  And they didn't.  And I'm so glad.

My sister Cally came down to help out which was so nice.  

But I wish I wasn't drugged and sore so we could have had more fun.

I think I might have to fake another need and have both sisters required to come help but the chance of infection would be high so I would have to recover in some comfy resort hotel with both girls in attendance.  And room service.  And spa service.  

And JD should probably come for the heavy lifting.  Oooo.

Yes, I think so.

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