Oh. My. Gosh.
https://emsandboys.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-happens-when-their-boos-get-washed.html
2014
Friday, September 28, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Random Pictures & Activities
Friday, September 21, 2018
Sherm, Breck, and a Bunch of Gals
So a friend of mine (Heather) asked who wanted to run the Breckenridge 10K. Breck is a pretty cool place and so I signed up! (Not really realizing it was four hours away . . . oh well.) Then, Heather asked if we wanted to do a 14er (Colorado has a lot of mountains over 14,000 ft.) the day before. It's not something I would have thought of, but it's totally Heather. She's crazy 'n cool like that!
So four of us (myself, Heather, Sherri, and Kandace) left Montrose on Thursday evening and drove to Breck. On Friday we woke up by 5:30 and headed out to hike Mt. Sherman. The day was picture-perfect without a cloud in the sky. The hike was difficult, as I think all 14ers are, but not too bad. I actually felt pretty great hiking and summitting. I think it was the easiest 14er I've done (I have only done 3). Usually 14ers are really, really windy - but it was actually not windy at all. And it was hot up there! It was crazy - but really nice. We sat up there for a while and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was an excellent hike!
This was at the beginning (close to) of the hike.
This shows: 1. My snot right below my nose and 2. The final ascent to the top of Mt. Sherman!
Yay, at the top!
Of course pictures don't do it justice. It was a pretty awesome sight, though!
The four of us: me, Kandace, Sherri, and Heather! Sherri and Heather have done oodles of 14ers, but not this particular one. I think this might have been Kandace's 3rd one as well?
As we were driving back from our trek, we were on the look-out for moose - and we found one! So cool!
Friday evening three more of our friends showed up at our condo: Chris, Nichole, and Brittany. We had a fun night of eating yummy homemade soup and bread and salad - as well as playing some fun card games. These gals are a fun group to be around!
Saturday we got up and ready for our run. I felt a little sore from the hike the day before, but nothing too bad. There were a few hiccups at the race (not enough shuttles nor porta-potties, etc.), but that's okay. The race also started a little later . . . about 8:30. We ran down a canyon road for about 4.5 miles and then we were in Breck. Those first miles were really steep and I had a good pace (although I would have liked it not quite so steep). I was pretty much running 8:37 miles - with one time even getting down to 8:07. That's like really fast for me - when I run around town, I'm usually at a nice 10 minute/mile pace. :) But by around mile 5 the path had flattened out with a few bumps/hills, too. It was the hardest mile I have ever run! I felt like I had hit "the wall" as people say - but usually when they are running a marathon or another long race. (I ran a marathon way back when and I never felt like I had hit the wall!) Anyways, it was an awful mile - I wanted to walk, but didn't. I think my pace went up to about 11-minutes. (I actually thought it was more around 12, but then I did the math and that sounds more correct. But it felt like a 20-minute mile pace!!)
So it was good to finish and it was still a "fun" race! :)
The fall colors were amazing! This is the road we ran down and it really was beautiful!
Free race photos - wow!
I'm not sure how I pulled off a double-thumbs up - this was during that awful last-mile stretch!
Yay, all done with that awful last mile! :) My finish time was 53:18. I was 13th overall out of 76 and the 7th female out of I don't know how many. I was 3rd in my age-group - out of 21.
After the race we showered, packed up, and headed back home. This picture shows some of the amazingness we saw on our drive! We stopped in Buena Vista for lunch and then made it home by 5. It was a fun and perfect little get-away!
I did get a call from Lucy on Friday night . . . I guess she had been crying for me. At least one of my kids missed me!
So four of us (myself, Heather, Sherri, and Kandace) left Montrose on Thursday evening and drove to Breck. On Friday we woke up by 5:30 and headed out to hike Mt. Sherman. The day was picture-perfect without a cloud in the sky. The hike was difficult, as I think all 14ers are, but not too bad. I actually felt pretty great hiking and summitting. I think it was the easiest 14er I've done (I have only done 3). Usually 14ers are really, really windy - but it was actually not windy at all. And it was hot up there! It was crazy - but really nice. We sat up there for a while and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was an excellent hike!
Friday evening three more of our friends showed up at our condo: Chris, Nichole, and Brittany. We had a fun night of eating yummy homemade soup and bread and salad - as well as playing some fun card games. These gals are a fun group to be around!
Saturday we got up and ready for our run. I felt a little sore from the hike the day before, but nothing too bad. There were a few hiccups at the race (not enough shuttles nor porta-potties, etc.), but that's okay. The race also started a little later . . . about 8:30. We ran down a canyon road for about 4.5 miles and then we were in Breck. Those first miles were really steep and I had a good pace (although I would have liked it not quite so steep). I was pretty much running 8:37 miles - with one time even getting down to 8:07. That's like really fast for me - when I run around town, I'm usually at a nice 10 minute/mile pace. :) But by around mile 5 the path had flattened out with a few bumps/hills, too. It was the hardest mile I have ever run! I felt like I had hit "the wall" as people say - but usually when they are running a marathon or another long race. (I ran a marathon way back when and I never felt like I had hit the wall!) Anyways, it was an awful mile - I wanted to walk, but didn't. I think my pace went up to about 11-minutes. (I actually thought it was more around 12, but then I did the math and that sounds more correct. But it felt like a 20-minute mile pace!!)
So it was good to finish and it was still a "fun" race! :)
I did get a call from Lucy on Friday night . . . I guess she had been crying for me. At least one of my kids missed me!
Thursday, September 13, 2018
An Update!
Okay, time for a lengthy update . . . Starting from youngest to oldest:
Bella - She's crazy. She's total pug. She just does what she wants and is quite silly. She's adorable. She's potty-trained - at least we think so! We haven't had any accidents in a few weeks so we're hoping we are done with that. We got a bunch of dog chew-toys from our neighbor; Bella's favorite ones are the lion (with its shaggy mane) and the skunk (with its shaggy tail). I think the shaggy ones remind her of her VERY favorite chew-toy: Brigham! She still doesn't get free-reign of the upstairs and so we are back to that annoying phase of having baby-gates everywhere. Really, we have one baby-gate for the back up-stairs, a long piece of plywood to block of the back down-stairs, and the girls' gym mat to secure the front up-stairs. It stinks. But Bella's worth it.
Brigham - He puts up with Bella and all her shenanigans. I think he likes her - 95% of the time. The other 5% he is just annoyed by her ("Will you please stop gnawing on my ears?!"). He loves going biking with whoever takes him and loves chasing after the bunnies and the birdies. He still is my favorite running-partner. He still is pretty much the best dog ever.
Lucy - She is now a second-grader in Mrs. Lopez's class. She loves school. She is building this "pizza airplane drop-off" something or other during the class' STEM time - she tells me about it all of the time. I went in to her classroom on Tuesday and got to see it. It's made from all recycled material. Her class seems good and she's happy with her classmates. She will begin competing this year in gymnastics and is very, very nervous about that. She still has a few skills she needs to master on the bar, but overall she is doing great. She is now in official piano lessons. Her teacher was the librarian at Northside for like 30 years, but retired right before Lucy began school. So now Lucy gets to have Mrs. Creasey. So far, she's loving her teacher and piano!
Emmy - She just started her final year at Northside, sniff, sniff. She has Mrs. Metheny and we are both thrilled with that. Emmy likes her class and hopefully will have way less drama this year as one specific girl is not in Emmy's class again. But there's already been a bit of drama with some other girls - not much, just a bit. Emmy will be competing level 4 this year. She is still struggling with her kip, but she's pretty solid on everything else. Her floor routine looks lovely. She just had her first babysitting job last night - our neighbors and one of Lucy's best-friends, Genevieve. G (her spelling-nickname) has a little brother Edwin. They live just about 1/2 a block from us and so we figured it's a good start to independently babysitting. She's trying to get a little group of kids to babysit one Friday a month at our home, so we'll see how that goes. She wants to earn money to go to BYU's week-long stay-in-the-dorms gymnastics camp next summer. Awesome.
Jonas - He is in 7th grade and seems to like it okay. I mean he's happy, but also told me that some of the classes are boring. Which I believe! Hopefully classes will get better as they finish up all the testing they have to do. He is in Jazz band and they have before-school practices four days a week. So he leaves a little before 7am to be there for that. He likes band, I think! But I think he's most excited about the days he'll get to miss school for band competitions, etc. :) He is doing STUCO again (student council). He tried to be the vice-president, but was out-voted by the female majority for female leaders. But whatever. He can try again next year. He attends the weekly after-school meetings, helps out with concessions at the sporting events, and will be involved with the other student-activities that happen throughout the year.
Miles - He is a 9th grader! Freshman! He goes to seminary each morning - leaving by 6:30 am to get to the church, via his bike, by 6:45. He seems to be enjoying it so far! He then comes home and spends 3-4 hours doing his BYU online courses. He is taking geometry, world geography, and english (reading/writing). Oh, he also is taking a required "student development" course that introduces the students to online learning. He seems to like it and understand the concepts he is being taught. He took a geometry quiz from the first unit and got a 93% and so that's pretty good. He then takes a lunch break and reads a lot. Too much almost! He's read about 8-9 books (big books), from one series, in the past 2 weeks. He goes to the high school every afternoon (2:05 class M, T, Th, F and 1:15 class on W) for either art or Project Unify. He enjoys both classes. He is doing the high school's mountain biking team and they have practices every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5-7. He likes that, too! Unfortunately the races are on Sundays and so we haven't been able to be a part of that. Which, in some ways, have made Ben and I feel like non team-players. But whatever. Have some Saturday races for crying out loud! :) Actually, there is one race this season on a Saturday and so we'll see if Miles is interested in doing it. Miles' pet rat died. Nobody was too traumatized by it. I think Lucy was probably saddest of us all. I think Miles was bummed, but also knew that the rat didn't get the best care. We'll see how long Jonas' lone-rat will last . . .
Me - I'm just doing what I do. Working a tiny bit. Exercising (mtn. biking, running, road biking, and swimming). I like having a mix! It's not bad having Miles home during the day. I do try to not be upstairs too much (Miles' desk is at the top of our stairs). Some mornings I'm running errands, at the school, grocery shopping, or sleeping if I've worked the night before. Other mornings I'm working on the computer doing our banking, looking up stuff for activity days, etc. So it seems to work out just fine. I'm heading out today on a racing trip with other women. We are going to Breckenridge for a 10K run on Saturday. My third weekend away from home! If I had realized that, or had thought about how far away Breck is (4 hours!), I probably wouldn't have signed up. :) So I guess it's good I didn't think. It should be a fun trip. We are hiking a 14er tomorrow! I've realized those are hard on me and am not too stellar at them! So we'll see how I do.
Ben - He is really wanting some change in his work, but is not sure what that really means. In some ways, he's bored with just circulating cases at the surgical center. He loves it when he gets to first-assist, but that doesn't happen enough. This year it has happened way-less than in the previous 3-4 years that he's been doing the first-assist thing. He looked in the hospital as they were hiring a RNFA (registered nurse first assist). However, it's good he didn't do it as, as he has observed when he works at the hospital on Mondays assisting, he probably would be doing more circulating and less first-assisting. No reason to leave the surgery center for the same job at the hospital. But he might try and take some call-time at the hospital - a couple nights during the week and maybe a weekend a month. We'll see. He is doing some advancement to become a Certified RNFA (I think that's what it's called). He's ordered lots of books and now needs to figure out when he has time to study! He's a busy man and will be excited when the boys are done mowing for the season. :) That will free up some time. (Oh yeah, the boys have mowed a good deal this summer and have made some great money. They are lucky to have a great dad help them out, too!)
Anyways, I'm running out of time and people/pets to update, so that's a wrap!
Bella - She's crazy. She's total pug. She just does what she wants and is quite silly. She's adorable. She's potty-trained - at least we think so! We haven't had any accidents in a few weeks so we're hoping we are done with that. We got a bunch of dog chew-toys from our neighbor; Bella's favorite ones are the lion (with its shaggy mane) and the skunk (with its shaggy tail). I think the shaggy ones remind her of her VERY favorite chew-toy: Brigham! She still doesn't get free-reign of the upstairs and so we are back to that annoying phase of having baby-gates everywhere. Really, we have one baby-gate for the back up-stairs, a long piece of plywood to block of the back down-stairs, and the girls' gym mat to secure the front up-stairs. It stinks. But Bella's worth it.
Brigham - He puts up with Bella and all her shenanigans. I think he likes her - 95% of the time. The other 5% he is just annoyed by her ("Will you please stop gnawing on my ears?!"). He loves going biking with whoever takes him and loves chasing after the bunnies and the birdies. He still is my favorite running-partner. He still is pretty much the best dog ever.
Lucy - She is now a second-grader in Mrs. Lopez's class. She loves school. She is building this "pizza airplane drop-off" something or other during the class' STEM time - she tells me about it all of the time. I went in to her classroom on Tuesday and got to see it. It's made from all recycled material. Her class seems good and she's happy with her classmates. She will begin competing this year in gymnastics and is very, very nervous about that. She still has a few skills she needs to master on the bar, but overall she is doing great. She is now in official piano lessons. Her teacher was the librarian at Northside for like 30 years, but retired right before Lucy began school. So now Lucy gets to have Mrs. Creasey. So far, she's loving her teacher and piano!
Emmy - She just started her final year at Northside, sniff, sniff. She has Mrs. Metheny and we are both thrilled with that. Emmy likes her class and hopefully will have way less drama this year as one specific girl is not in Emmy's class again. But there's already been a bit of drama with some other girls - not much, just a bit. Emmy will be competing level 4 this year. She is still struggling with her kip, but she's pretty solid on everything else. Her floor routine looks lovely. She just had her first babysitting job last night - our neighbors and one of Lucy's best-friends, Genevieve. G (her spelling-nickname) has a little brother Edwin. They live just about 1/2 a block from us and so we figured it's a good start to independently babysitting. She's trying to get a little group of kids to babysit one Friday a month at our home, so we'll see how that goes. She wants to earn money to go to BYU's week-long stay-in-the-dorms gymnastics camp next summer. Awesome.
Jonas - He is in 7th grade and seems to like it okay. I mean he's happy, but also told me that some of the classes are boring. Which I believe! Hopefully classes will get better as they finish up all the testing they have to do. He is in Jazz band and they have before-school practices four days a week. So he leaves a little before 7am to be there for that. He likes band, I think! But I think he's most excited about the days he'll get to miss school for band competitions, etc. :) He is doing STUCO again (student council). He tried to be the vice-president, but was out-voted by the female majority for female leaders. But whatever. He can try again next year. He attends the weekly after-school meetings, helps out with concessions at the sporting events, and will be involved with the other student-activities that happen throughout the year.
Miles - He is a 9th grader! Freshman! He goes to seminary each morning - leaving by 6:30 am to get to the church, via his bike, by 6:45. He seems to be enjoying it so far! He then comes home and spends 3-4 hours doing his BYU online courses. He is taking geometry, world geography, and english (reading/writing). Oh, he also is taking a required "student development" course that introduces the students to online learning. He seems to like it and understand the concepts he is being taught. He took a geometry quiz from the first unit and got a 93% and so that's pretty good. He then takes a lunch break and reads a lot. Too much almost! He's read about 8-9 books (big books), from one series, in the past 2 weeks. He goes to the high school every afternoon (2:05 class M, T, Th, F and 1:15 class on W) for either art or Project Unify. He enjoys both classes. He is doing the high school's mountain biking team and they have practices every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5-7. He likes that, too! Unfortunately the races are on Sundays and so we haven't been able to be a part of that. Which, in some ways, have made Ben and I feel like non team-players. But whatever. Have some Saturday races for crying out loud! :) Actually, there is one race this season on a Saturday and so we'll see if Miles is interested in doing it. Miles' pet rat died. Nobody was too traumatized by it. I think Lucy was probably saddest of us all. I think Miles was bummed, but also knew that the rat didn't get the best care. We'll see how long Jonas' lone-rat will last . . .
Me - I'm just doing what I do. Working a tiny bit. Exercising (mtn. biking, running, road biking, and swimming). I like having a mix! It's not bad having Miles home during the day. I do try to not be upstairs too much (Miles' desk is at the top of our stairs). Some mornings I'm running errands, at the school, grocery shopping, or sleeping if I've worked the night before. Other mornings I'm working on the computer doing our banking, looking up stuff for activity days, etc. So it seems to work out just fine. I'm heading out today on a racing trip with other women. We are going to Breckenridge for a 10K run on Saturday. My third weekend away from home! If I had realized that, or had thought about how far away Breck is (4 hours!), I probably wouldn't have signed up. :) So I guess it's good I didn't think. It should be a fun trip. We are hiking a 14er tomorrow! I've realized those are hard on me and am not too stellar at them! So we'll see how I do.
Ben - He is really wanting some change in his work, but is not sure what that really means. In some ways, he's bored with just circulating cases at the surgical center. He loves it when he gets to first-assist, but that doesn't happen enough. This year it has happened way-less than in the previous 3-4 years that he's been doing the first-assist thing. He looked in the hospital as they were hiring a RNFA (registered nurse first assist). However, it's good he didn't do it as, as he has observed when he works at the hospital on Mondays assisting, he probably would be doing more circulating and less first-assisting. No reason to leave the surgery center for the same job at the hospital. But he might try and take some call-time at the hospital - a couple nights during the week and maybe a weekend a month. We'll see. He is doing some advancement to become a Certified RNFA (I think that's what it's called). He's ordered lots of books and now needs to figure out when he has time to study! He's a busy man and will be excited when the boys are done mowing for the season. :) That will free up some time. (Oh yeah, the boys have mowed a good deal this summer and have made some great money. They are lucky to have a great dad help them out, too!)
Anyways, I'm running out of time and people/pets to update, so that's a wrap!
Friday, September 07, 2018
Swiss Days . . . Again!
Since Ben loves Swiss Days so much, I told him to get the Friday off so we could be there for more time. We didn't realize at that time that the girls' school was starting so late, but whatever. The girls had their first day on Thursday, then we headed out that night (after gymnastics and mountain biking, of course - getting a late 7pm start to our drive).
Once again, Swiss Days did not disappoint. It's just fun. And, of course, it's always great to hang out with my parents at their home. Plus, a bonus: the Sabeys (Christian, Erin, and their kids) came over for dinner on Sunday. Awesome.
We checked out the vendors on Friday morning, then came back home for lunch - and then headed to Timpanagos Cave for a tour. Ben worked there for a couple of years during his BYU days, but hadn't been back since. Our kids had never been either. I think the last time I went was at my 4th-grade field trip (like, uh, 30 years ago!).
Here we are at the beginning of the trail. Lucy bought some binoculars at the store there. She loves them.
Lucy + Grandpa's hat = adorable!
On the trail. It's an up-and-up hike for sure! But luckily we had some shade and so it wasn't too bad at all.
At the entrance!
Ben recognized a few people from his days working there - 20 years ago! He visited a lot (especially when we were finished) with our young tour-guide as they knew many of the same people - including the boss man, who fell off the trail on his dirt bike a few years ago and died. :(
We all enjoyed the outing!
Saturday morning we went to the parade - it's a legit parade (as opposed to those that happen in Montrose) and always fun and always provides lots of gross candy for the kids.
Here we are hanging out on Grandpa's toy watching the parade. Fun for sure!
Jonas got to try out this electric, or somehow motorized, bike - he loved, loved, loved it.
Jonas and Emmy had fun racing on this inflatable toy.
Jonas and Miles had fun, too!
We enjoyed more time at Swiss Days checking out more booths and such. The kids went swimming that afternoon. After dinner Jonas wanted to go back and buy a puzzle (like Miles . . . ) and so Ben, myself, and our two boys went. It's definitely the time to go - last evening, it's nice and cool, way less crowded, and the sellers are cutting their prices! It was fun and the boys were able to nab two Dowdle puzzles for the price of one. :)
We watched the BYU football game that night and shockingly they won!
Sunday was church and then for dinner the Sabeys came over. My mom prepared an awesome dinner for everyone (I put the "labor" in Labor Day weekend for my mom - ha.).
We all love the Sabey's kids and their newest one, Sunny, is no exception!
Jonas, Vance, Minne, Sunny, Lucy, Emmy, Hope, and Miles. What a great group!
On Monday the boys went and helped clean up some of the Swiss Days stuff. Then we packed our car and headed down to Provo. We weren't the only ones who thought of hiking the "Y" . . . about a billion cars were there, too! The trail didn't seem too crowded, though. The hike is a good climb - and it was a little warm in the high-noon sun, but it wasn't too bad nor too long. We hiked back down and headed to the Creamery for some Ice Cream (duh). I saw several other groups at the Creamery that I had seen on the trail to the "Y." :)
One of the viewpoints along the hike. Miles took off after this point and we didn't see him until we reached the "Y." That kid is a fast hiker! I used to be in my young days . . .
At the "Y"!
Emmy's "new" sunglasses she found along the trail. She saw them on the way up, they were still there on the way down, so she took them. Sort of legit, right?!
The "Y" from down below - not a great shot, but whatever!
Then we just drove back home! Another great trip!
Once again, Swiss Days did not disappoint. It's just fun. And, of course, it's always great to hang out with my parents at their home. Plus, a bonus: the Sabeys (Christian, Erin, and their kids) came over for dinner on Sunday. Awesome.
We checked out the vendors on Friday morning, then came back home for lunch - and then headed to Timpanagos Cave for a tour. Ben worked there for a couple of years during his BYU days, but hadn't been back since. Our kids had never been either. I think the last time I went was at my 4th-grade field trip (like, uh, 30 years ago!).
Same picture, except for Lucy looking through her binoculars. :)
We all enjoyed the outing!
Saturday morning we went to the parade - it's a legit parade (as opposed to those that happen in Montrose) and always fun and always provides lots of gross candy for the kids.
We watched the BYU football game that night and shockingly they won!
Sunday was church and then for dinner the Sabeys came over. My mom prepared an awesome dinner for everyone (I put the "labor" in Labor Day weekend for my mom - ha.).
On Monday the boys went and helped clean up some of the Swiss Days stuff. Then we packed our car and headed down to Provo. We weren't the only ones who thought of hiking the "Y" . . . about a billion cars were there, too! The trail didn't seem too crowded, though. The hike is a good climb - and it was a little warm in the high-noon sun, but it wasn't too bad nor too long. We hiked back down and headed to the Creamery for some Ice Cream (duh). I saw several other groups at the Creamery that I had seen on the trail to the "Y." :)
Then we just drove back home! Another great trip!
Aiyiyi August
Though it may not look like it, August was insane! Soooo busy. It started off with a 5-stake Youth Conference that our YM & YW stake presidencies have been working on since last year! Then it was just non-stop from there. . . BYU gymnastics camp for the girls, STEM camp for the boys, birthday, a birthday party, another birthday, pool parties, back to school shopping, back to school nights, actually going back to school, mountain bike practices, beginning real piano lessons for Lucy, etc., etc.! But at least it was full of good stuff, I guess!
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