3 things

1.So this might be a little different than the song I usually sing. And maybe the reason I love Apples today is really because mine sux. Here it goes. I made an appointment today at the Genius Bar because my external hard drive wasn't backing up thru Timemachine. (turns out my external hard drive bit the dust and now there was no point in having it in the first place!) But while I was there I asked what caused these miscolored stripes down my screen that I just figured were wear and tear. The guy looked up my serial number and saw that I was still covered under my Apple Care package and so now I get an entirely new monitor!!! So I'm excited that my originally crappy monitor is getting replaced just weeks shy of my three years coverage from Apple Care.

Ryan and I used to have different views on buying warranties. Now I'm always going to get one.

2.Yesterday I sewed my finger! My friend Jasmyn was over with her little boy, and I turned quickly to say something to him and I sewed through my fingernail and finger tip. I had to pull my finger off. I haven't done that since I was a little girl learning how to sew. And I never told my mom because I thought she wouldn't let me sew anymore.

The picture doesn't look bad (beside the band aid residue on my finger and nail) but essentially it's like I sliced the end of my finger into my nail.

3.Yesterday at Sprouts they had some beautiful Broccoliflower. I couldn't resist. So I made it tonight and it was so yummy. At first Gwen looked at it disgusted and asked what it was. When she heard it was called broccoliflower and I talked about how pretty it was she loved it! That girl loves flowers!

Owl City

This is my new music obsession. It's a different genre than my usual... it's electronic! But this guy is amazing. Check them out.

We got tickets to their show on October 24, then I saw that that's the same night as my high school reunion. Uh oh.

Well check out their album Ocean Eyes for some clean fun music. Our kids love it too!

D-lish

Calling all candy corn lovers!! These are so yummy. And the funny thing is I didn't like them immediately. So I poured what was left of the box into my pumpkin jar that had regular candy corn in it, and when I went back for candy corn and got a dot in the handful I realized how awesome they were and proceeded to pick out all the dots. Now I've been salivating for these for days. I might break down and buy some more.

earning my keep

That's what my dad used to tell us when we were growing up. He'd tell us to clean because we had to earn our keep.

So yesterday I got called in to work at the temple. The shift is 9:30PM to 1:30AM. I was already so tired I could have gone to bed at 8! So Ryan told me I should just stay the night at my parent's house which is like 4 minutes from the temple instead of driving the 25 minutes home to our house. Since I almost fell asleep on the way home the last time I worked I figured that'd be a good idea. So that meant that Ryan would have to get the kids up, dressed, fed, and make their lunches. And he did!! He got them to my mom's by 8:05 so I could have time to fix Gwen's hair and get them to school. So when we got home this afternoon, I walked into a disaster area! Just look. at the condition of the house.

Now I'm not blaming this on Ryan. A lot of this was my mess, but all the food from preparing lunches for him and the kids was still left out, there were clothes and toys everywhere. I'm serious. These pictures don't even do justice because this mess was so expansive that the camera couldn't capture it. So I worked my hiny off, and cleaned for 4 constant hours...

Here's the after.

Oh, it feels so much better.

fun family week

Last Friday Garth, Jodie and Sydney came down from Alaska to spend a week+ with us! It has been a muey fun week.

We hiked Camelback...
to the top this time!
And saw this guy on the way down. He was big! At least a foot long. Probably closer to 17 feet.
Wednesday Sydney was blessed. Look how sweet she looks in her white dress.
We also had BBQs and Delia was baptized Saturday, but too bad I didn't bring my camera that day. Molly, Darren and their crew even drove down from Salt Lake for the baptism. Again, I'm in trouble for not getting any pictures of the cousins playing. The week went fast...so busy!! I'm excited to get back to a routine and hopefully getting some reading done.

Also yesterday was our wards primary program. Gwen got to sing the third line of "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus" as a solo, at the podium, right into the mic. She did awesome. And after her solo was over and the member of the primary presidency pushed the mic up for the rest of the primary to sing together the chorus, Gwen pulled it back down so she was singing right into it the remainder of the song. Everyone thought that was cute and she got some giggles. I'm so glad she is so confident and loves performing. I'm sure it helped with all the support she had in the audience. Thanks to Gigi, Grammy, Garth, Jodie, Darren, Molly et al., Ethan, and Lauren for coming to support Gwenny.

In some sadder news, my marathon is less than four weeks away now, and I'm still having pain from my second stress fracture. So I'm not really running right now. I'm just trying to keep up my cardio by biking and swimming, and we'll have to see what happens in SanFran. It'll be crazy for sure-how will my body handle 26 miles when I haven't run more than three in a month and a half!? Hopefully another week or two of rest and I can start it up again. All I can hear right now is Tobias saying "Let the great experiment begin!" because this is truly going to be an experiment: what happens when someone who hasn't trained for a marathon attempts to run one?

thank goodness for a day of rest!

Friday was Katie's (Eli's little girl) second birthday. We went to Chuckee Cheese for dinner and playing. The kids had a ball and keep asking to go back. Isn't she a cutie pie? We were having camera issues so almost EVERY picture from that night are blurred and light streaked.

But we did get Gwen and Katie driving a truck,

and Drake playing skee ball. He LOVED it!

Then Saturday morning we woke up at 5:00 to head up to DC Ranch for a triathlon I did.

Here's my support team minus my amazing husband. Thank you guys for waking up so early and cheering me on! And I know that this swim suit is less than flattering. But it's for a 14 year old, but it was on way clearance, so I can look like a dork for cheap.

That person in the middle is me passing person number 3! When the swim is in a pool, it's serpentine style. You swim up and back one lane, swim under the lane marker and then up and down the next lane all the way across the pool. It makes passing kind of tough but getting a mouthful of pool water is better than a mouthful of lake water.

And here's how the kids keep them selves entertained while mom's out on the bike or run:

tree climing,

dog petting,

getting wet in the fountain.

Finally I'm back from the bike! I loved doing this on my new bike! I was so much more comfortable that I was actually able to drink and ride (ha ha I had to), and eat my power jelly bellys. Plus going up hills weren't too bad, and there were a lot of hills.

And that blurry person about to go through the finish is me!

Poor Drakey had fallen and skinned his knee just before I finished, so he wasn't too happy in this picture.

Then as soon as I finished (we didn't even wait for results), we jumped in the car and headed to the lake where Sharod took us out on the boat.

Here's Ryan looking sexy.

And the kids loving it! Drakes face was frozen like that for the first half hour on the boat. He was so excited!

And Sharod became Drake's new best friend when he let Drake drive the boat. Drake really took the wheel and took us for a spin!

But I don't even think driving the boat topped Drake's excitement when Uncle Sharod took Drake wake boarding! Drake's been sitting on my lap just staring at these pictures of him wake boarding and on the boat.

After the lake we headed straight to the law school for a BBQ that we had to bring some stuff to. No time to go home or shower! We didn't get home until 10:30. It was a crazy busy day!

random

I almost killed our baby kitty. Seriously!!

The other day I was in a hurry and did some grocery shopping and came home just to put the cold stuff in the refrigerator. So I ran in and put the stuff in, then was going out to the car when I noticed some cottage cheese that I had missed. So I went back to put it in, and when I opened the fridge door, the kitty came out!!!!! He has this annoying habit of coming and sniffing the inside of the fridge whenever it's opened, I didn't see that he had climbed in! Could you imagine what would have happened if we got home that night and Drake went to the fridge to get some milk and a dead baby kitty rolled out? I had the sickest feeling after that, almost like it had happened.

Anyhoo, I've started running again. Aside from one week of running at the beginning of August

(before I got stress fracture number dos (that's 2 for you Spanishly challenged)), I haven't run for TWO MONTHS!!! And while it feels good to get on the pavement again, I'm starting to wonder if it's possible to train for a marathon in 5 weeks. I mean my running schedule says I should run 18 miles Saturday. Not going to happen. Especially while I'm still taking it easy since my leg is not 100% yet. Heck, it's probably not even 85% yet, but it hasn't bothered me during running yet. Darn my osteoporotic bones! Viactive is my new homie.

escape from the heat

For ever I've been wanting to take a trip to the cabin and get out of this 100º+ weather, but it seems like something is going on every weekend. So I was determined this weekend. Turned out Ryan had a lot to do this weekend and wasn't going to be able to go. I figured since he'd be working all weekend we wouldn't see him anyway so I might as well take the kids. So my mom and I drove up with the kids Friday afternoon (dad was going to come up a little later, and that turned out to be this morning).

Oh boy was it a breath of fresh air...literally! I forgot how sweet the air is up on the rim.

It was actually pretty nice having just mom and the kids there.

It POURED last night. The rain was so loud that it woke us in the middle of the night. Thank goodness the cabin is waterproof! (At least it's got that going for it)

Then this morning we took the kids on a hike up a little mountain. It was a little hard for the kids.

Mom helping the kids up the mountain.

Made it to the top!

We also went to the Pinedale cemetery. Here's Gwen in front of her great, great, grandma and grandpa's head stone.

After a Navajo Taco lunch with dad in the Pinedale barn, we drove over to SnowFlake. Here the babies in front of the Jesse N. Smith house. He's their great, great, great, great, great grandpa.

We also had to stop by the SnowFlake temple to let the kids see how pretty it is. And seriously we were so cold! It was like 56º! Then we drove home to the valley where it was a cool 87º.

Great weekend get away. Glad to be home.