Warning: Picture Overload....

Since Todd was gone this year for Memorial Day I decided it wasn't a day for home improvement projects. Instead I wanted to enjoy my day off of work and play with the kids and have family over to hang out. Success. It was a fun filled day.

I spent a few hours filling up water balloons. Our backyard faucet didn't work so we ended up in the front yard filling up balloons. Which meant we had even more kids to play since the neighbor kids weren't going to miss out on this party.





















What a great day. The only thing that would have been better would have been Todd and all of our family here. We sure did miss Steve's family - I don't know how we'll make it through the rest of the summer without them!!!

To start off Memorial Day a few of the girls and I ran Southfork. We went up 4 miles and back down 4 miles. It was BEAutiful! The run was challenging but my hip didn't hurt so it was enjoyable for me. My average pace was 8:44 - which is fast for me especially with all that uphill.

Of course we took pictures at the top. Here are the 4 rockin' women I ran with. Oh how I love these girls. They inspire me so much and I couldn't ask for better company.




Good times on the mountain.

This morning I was trying to get a picture of Luke &Todd. I kept telling Luke to smile then I took this while Todd was trying to make him smile. I love this picture of them. I can just see the love in Luke's eyes for his daddy. We sure do love the weekends since Todd is home!!

One of my rights as a mom is that I can brag about my kids. I don't think it's prideful to be a proud parent (if you do .... you might want to stop reading now). My mom was always overly vocal about how wonderful her kids were and as embarrassing as it was growing up I know it helped me get through a lot of my awkward years with lots of self confidence. So I'm not going to hide how proud I am of my sweet Lukey.

Last week Luke's teacher called and told us he was receiving one of the "student of the year" awards. All year he has LOVED kindergarten. His start of the year test results were 187/210 and his end of year were 210/210 (the paper said the average for our school is 187 at the end of the year). But the thing that makes Luke a great student isn't just that he's a little smarty pants he is also eager to learn, willing to help, happy, funny and a good friend. His teacher told me if they need something picked up he was always the first to volunteer to do it even if he wasn't the one who got it out. Anytime I went to school functions with him kids were going out of their way to say hi to him and he would give me his sweet little smile back (like I don't know why they like me). One morning last week before school he and Tayson were being silly and I said "Luke you need to calm down before school" and he replied back "I don't act like this at school". I love that Luke loves to read. I will catch him picking up a book just to read and not for the mandatory 20 minutes a day. I love reading and it's something I hope to pass along to at least 1 of my kiddos.

We told Luke we were going to the assembly at school with Tayson and that since he went there he should come too. He didn't catch on to any funny stuff even when I made him put on a "church shirt" and I even made him fix his hair. When they called his name he didn't know what was going on and the look on his face was priceless. I wish I had a picture of it. I am so proud of Luke. We didn't tell Tayson about Luke and he was way excited when they called Luke's name. He even gave him a high-five. I hope he is always happy for Luke. Especially since school isn't something Tayson has a lot of love for.






This morning when I asked him if he was excited to be a first grader now he said "yes, and I will still be able to see my teacher" and then he listed all the places he would still see her at school. So cute. He said they will be friends forever.

My hip has been killing me so I went to see a massage therapist yesterday. It hurt like the dickens while he was doing deep tissue massage. I was honestly doing "labor breathing" while he was trying to help my muscle let go. Apparently my gemellus was all seized up and since you can't really stretch that muscle nothing I was doing was helping. This morning we ran 5 miles and it didn't hurt. No pain or pulling at all. My hip felt a little looser than normal and a bit tender (like a bruise) but that was all. I am so excited!

Today I volunteered at Tayson & Luke's school for field day. I didn't get to see Luke since Kindergarten did a separate one but I did get to see Tayson for a few minutes. It was so fun. I was in charge of the younger grade sponge relay.







I love that I was able to go and help out at school and show Tayson how much he means to me. I'm so glad I work for a company that allows me to be a mom too.

I was just looking for something in a drawer in my office at work and came upon a frame with this picture in it. The frame said "My Boy" and I remember when we got it. We were at Target doing our registry and Todd was crazy scanning in everything he saw that he thought was remotely cool or funny (we ended up getting a bathroom scale as a wedding present because of this). He saw the "My Boy" frame and registered for it and then we laughed because it was obviously for a baby not a hubby. But I bought it anyway for my desk and put this picture in it.

Is is bad that my hair is almost the same as it was in this picture? I swear I've had lots of different lengths and styles since then...I just always seem to go back to this length. Man we look so young - and I'm wrinkle free in that picture.

Since I'm thinking about Todd anyways....I sure do miss him. Sometimes I can't believe how happy I am and how lucky I am to have someone as amazing, hot, funny, smart, righteous, and so on and so on as my hubby. I couldn't be happier. Falling for that guy back in 1999 was a pretty good move on my part. I'm pretty sure we were made for each other. Only 1 more day until he comes home again. Yippee!!! I sure do love you Todd.

Yesterday there was a Ragnar meeting to learn all about the rules and what not so a few of us from the team went. It was good to hear about the race details and how to get our packets, numbers, what we have to bring, etc. And it made me anxious for the race. After the meeting the race director gave us these fancy shirts so of course we had to take a picture.

P.S. My hip has really been bothering me lately and I'm getting worried about it holding up so I can run strong. I'm running no matter what but I don't want to hurt. Usually my mom takes care of me but she's going out of town today until the week before the race so I'm a little scared of not having her here. She has always kept me up and running. I'm going to see a "special" Brazilian massage therapist in 1 1/2 weeks and I'm sure he'll work his magic on my back and hip and keep me strong.

P.S.S. I love that the sign behind us says "sweat, exhaustion, pain, triumph, next 26.2 miles". So true for the marathon I just wish it said next 188 miles since I'm sure it will hold true for Ragnar too.

Yesterday when I got to my parents house for dinner I noticed a nice chunk out of Claire's hair. I asked her what happened and she and Bella admitted to cutting her hair. Luckily it wasn't too short and I have been thinking about cutting her hair into a bob for a while now. These pictures aren't the best since I took them with my phone.




I think the short hair makes her features stand out more and makes her even more beautiful.

Last weekend I went to St. George with the girls on my Wasatch Back Relay team. Gretchen has a beautiful condo down there that she was willing to let us all crash at. And let me say say these girls are some of the most incredible, fun, awesome girls EVER! I love them all and had so much fun. I'm always amazed at how blessed I am to have so many amazing friends in my life. And the more I get to know each of them the more I love and respect them.

Here is what we did this weekend: drive, run, eat, laugh, lay by the pool, eat, laugh, run, laugh, sleep, laugh, run, laugh, eat, laugh, lay by the pool, eat, laugh even more, eat a little more, drive again.

I had such as blast and got home completely refreshed. The timing was perfect for me because Todd forgot to book his tickets this past week so he worked from home which made it easier for me to leave for 2 days. It was decided to do "secret sisters" and since we were sleeping all over the place we couldn't leave them in secret on their bed so we opted to do charades or poetry instead. HILARIOUS! We also played a game which was named "be honest" at dinner. Everyone put in a question (or two) then we passed them around and you had to pick out a question, read it and then answer honestly. It was so dang funny. I laughed and laughed and as I think about it now I am still laughing.

A few more highlights:






On a side note: I drove the mini van down which prompted me to spend over 2 hours cleaning out the nasty my kids had left behind. I might not let my kids back in the van for a while.

Today is Leigh Anne's birthday so Traci planned a very fun run for us this morning. Just a normal 5 mile recovery run (that I couldn't finish....darn hip). We met a little early to be at Leigh's house when she came out in the morning. We all tied balloons on and then she got the rest of them. It was so fun to run with the balloons on - I loved it!





Oh how I love these girls. What a fun way to start the day off celebrating with such an amazing and dear friend. Love you Leigh!!!

I just saw this online on sale for $109....are you kidding me????

We finally finished our fence and got a trampoline. Best ever. The kids LOVE it and it makes me happy when they are outside playing and having fun together.