men love power tools

This is a sad story.

We have a huge tree in the front yard, and I LOVE it!

It is one of the reasons I really loved this house when we were looking for houses.

But the HOA apparently doesn't love it.

Because it hangs over the road.

Give me a break!

So we got some tree trimming quotes.

$500.

Seriously!?  To trim a tree?!!?

So Ryan set out to do it himself.  He shimmied up the tree, tied him and the chainsaw to a branch, and tried to cut off some branches.  

But it was hot, and he was really high, and next thing I know, he almost passes out.

willow before

 So instead of passing out and falling out of a tree, Ryan got a bucket truck.

Exhibit A: Ryan in bucket truck

 This handy bucket truck Ryan could control from the bucket and raise himself to wherever he needed to be to cut the poor tree limbs.  

Exhibit B: Ryan about to cut tree limb

 Ryan was out there for 5 hours cutting this thing!

Because once he got the limbs down, he needed to cut and pile those so the city pick-up would come and get the branches.

 Oh, and I was in the house, doing my Saturday chores, and Ryan kept having me come outside to see what I thought about what branch to cut, bring him water, etc.  The funny thing is, is I was wearing this:

for your viewing pleasure

 You see, I have some pretty funny girlfriends who gave me a birthing baby gift.  It included  things like stool softeners, hemorrhoid cream, nipple cream, etc.; and this lovely little number.  They may have thought this gorgeous pink cherry nightgown was a joke, but once I tried it on, it was no joke!  I was wearing it all day on the tree trimming day.  So each time I went outside to observe/help Ryan, at least one neighbor would catch  me in this.  

Fortunately my neighbors are awesome, and they'd say it was cute (lie), or say "you're 9 months pregnant, wear whatever you want!" (truth).  

I love this nightgown.

And that's the story about how Ryan appeased the HOA, and saved us $500, and I gave my neighbors something to laugh about.  

Willow after.

Ryan rules.

..36...

McPhie celebration season has come to an end.

Gwen, Drake, and I all have birthdays in July, and then in the first couple of weeks of August is our anniversary, then Ryan's birthday.

Ryan's birthday came on a Friday.

Fridays are trial days.

So we sent him off to trial with a yummy waffle breakfast.

I got Ryan this watch for his birthday.

 But in typical Ryan fashion, he wants to exchange it.

Maybe for this one...

or this one.

Which one do you like better?  I thought about the light wood one, but thought it might get dirty.??  So here's some advice if any of you, for any reason, give Ryan a gift for any occasion, give him a gift card.  I still try and give him gifts, but they are just about always getting exchanged.  

It's okay.

Well he had a good trial (won on one count, lost on another; but he knew that one would be tough).  We celebrated with dinner and The Wolverine.  

It's a good one.  Even though Hugh Jackman was not in very good shape for it.

Not.

Yes, I just said "not".

Then we had family birthday party on Sunday.

 And I was too lazy to put 36 candles on the cake, so we had 3 candles + 6 candles.  It equals 36 in candle math.

Oh yah, and here are the kids with their As You Wish paintings from our family anniversary date.

Drake's hair is awesome

 Oh, and here's Drake's self portrait on the wall in school.

Notice the robot/lego arm, and the gun arm.
But no legs.
I love his creativity!

Happy birthday Ryan.

eight eight thirteen

10 years ago, my car of college girls ran into a car of boys in the dollar movie theater parking lot in Provo.  The boys came over to our apartment, and upon coming in the door, Ryan noticed that he and I had the same studded belt on so he plopped down by me on the couch and we started talking music and bands.  He found out I hadn't seen Braveheart which meant he had to show it to me.  We talked all night.

He showed me Braveheart a few days later.

I tried to not like him.

I was graduating in a month and moving home, and last thing I wanted was a long distance relationship.

But Ryan was persistent.

And I gave in.

I fell hard and fast.

We were married in Oakland, on a gorgeous day.

 We were an hour and a half late to our luncheon because we were taking pictures and then in bad traffic from Oakland to Sacramento.

 We had a gorgeous reception in the backyard of Ryan's house.

 We had a little cake fight.

 We were so excited to be starting eternity together.

 And we became Mr. and Mrs. McPhie.

I won't lie and say that everything has been peachy keen since.

Marriage is hard.

We've had happiness, and sorrow.  Fights and laughter.  But most of all, we've had each other.  We have leaned on each other and do truly love each other more now than we did then.  

10 years later, I woke up to this.

 My side of the bathroom mirror covered in things from 2003.

Justin Timberlake, Cry Me a River?  Check.

Black Eyed Peas?  Check.

Santa Cruz trip?  Check.

Cancun trip?  Check.

Moving to AZ?  Check.

And around the house, pictures like this.

Braveheart - first date.

 This little gem was on the fridge.  I said, I thought Kendra Wilkinson had her baby uno way after 2003.  Ryan said that picture wasn't hung up because it happened in 2003, but this picture reminded him of us.  

Naturally.

The resemblance is uncanny.  

Oh, and this picture was still on our fridge when we had a babysitter in our house for seven hours.  She must think we're awesome.  Or super creeps.

Ryan was in court all day on our anniversary, and was prepping for a trial the following day, so we had a low key Italian lunch date, just like on our wedding day.

Then he planned a Saturday day-date.

We were going to hike Camelback, which he really was doing for me, because I always want to go hike, but he doesn't want to wake up.

10 years!  It's all down hill from here.  The mountain that is.

 We made it to the top!

Oh ya, and this baby came with us.

Going up was the easy part, it was coming down that I felt it.

I wore my belly band, but still needed an arm to support my belly.

I realized that you naturally lean back a little when going down hill, and with all this mass in front of me, I needed to lean extra far back to compensate.  Core. Work. Out.

We spent the rest of the day together, hanging out, having fun, bringing up memories from the last 10 years.  

It was a great anniversary.

Even if we weren't on a cruise.

(apparently they don't like preggo people on cruises)

I love you so much Ryan McPhie!

Thank you for putting up with me for the last ten years.

I'm excited for what's in store.

I'm back!

So I took a six month hiatus.  NBD.  Life has been cra-zy!  But some exciting things have happened.  Maybe some of these will get their own posts, but let's be honest.  Probably not.  So some fun things that have happened since I last posted:  

I did finish Ironman!  One of the most incredible days of my life, and if you like to read, you can read more about it here.  

 Ryan started a new job.  He is now a prosecutor for Maricopa County.  When he gets home from work, Drake likes to ask him "how many bad guys did you get today?"  It's pretty cute.

We found out a new McPhie is joining our family!  This has been a great surprise, and we couldn't be happier.  Baby McPhie is coming some time around October 4, and Gwen and Drake are so excited to have a baby brother or sister!

We bought a house!  We had been renting ever since Ryan started law school, and most recently we spent a few months living with my parents while we were house hunting.  While we loved being there, Ryan was anxious for a place of our own, so we sadly left Mesa, and moved to Gilbert.  We love the area, and love the house, and someday will furnish it.  ;)

Gwen and Drake have been killing it in school!

They're sad to be leaving the school they've been attending the past few years in Mesa, but are excited to maybe get to ride bikes to school next school year.

And I GRADUATED!!!!!

   This I can't take all the credit for, because I would not have made it without the support of my family and friends.  This last year has been especially hard since so much time was spent doing my schooling, I felt it was keeping me from being the kind of mother I wanted to be for my kids.  Often they'd ask me why I have to go to school, and if I could just quit.  Ugh!!!  I wish I could have.  I'd tell them McPhies don't quit, and it'd be over soon.  Mostly I was convincing myself.  But it turned out to be true.  It's over!!  Now on to bar prep.  :p

Ryan threw me a lovely graduation party.

 The kids helped decorate.

Love these signs Drake made!

And now, perhaps life will slow down a little.

Besides preparing for the bar, I'll be running the babes to swim, and eating watermelon all summer, so hopefully I might be able to resume blogging as well.  

life goes on

I got on my blog and realized that no one was updating it for me.

Darn.

I guess I can at least through up some pictures to prove that we have been surviving since school started.

Ryan had a birthday.

 Drake got pneumonia.  :(

 I don't think it was because of this...

 But he survived!

 Gwen has lost some teeth.

Tawnya had her baby.

Sweet little Skyla.

 We love her.

 D-backs game.

 My mini me, and my giant forehead!

 Triathlons.

 And serious training!

Now if I don't update for a few more months, please be understanding.  

It's going to be a BUSY next two months!

...9...

9 years ago today I made what would have appeared to most, the stupidest decision ever.

I married a guy that I had known for five months.

Ya, we are those people.

The people we thought we'd NEVER be.

Well guess what?

Best decision ever!

young and dumb... and in LOVE!

Thanks for marrying me Ryan Harper McPhie!

And I've got lots to blog about, but that'll come later.

Phoenix 1/2 Marathon

This was a good one.

I knew that I had wanted to run this, but wasn't 100% since I knew it'd be the weekend after the Ultra Ragnar. Since I had never run 34 miles in a 24 hour period before (like I did for Ragnar), and having just recovered from stress fractures in my femurs, I didn't know how I'd feel or what condition my body would be in. But I was pleasantly surprised at how good I felt after Ragnar. My right knee was sore, but I'm sure it's just IT band stuff, so I wasn't too worried about that. And I know my legs weren't at 100%, but felt like I could still do the half. So I drug Ryan with me to the start dark and early.

My pre-race breakfast:

wheat toast with peanut butter, bananas, honey and chia seeds.

Mmmmmm... I'm addicted.

I usually eat two pieces, but I didn't want to be burping it up while I was running, so I stuck to just one.

How cool was this? The bagpipers leading the runners to the start up on Usery Pass.

So we started towards the front, and I wasn't sure what kind of pace to try. I felt good, but I also wanted Ryan to be able to keep up, and he hadn't been running much at all.

So for the first 4 miles, it was a decent down hill and we did about an 8:05 pace.

Mile 5 it leveled out, and I tried to maintain that pace, but I was worrying about Ryan.

So right when we hit mile 5, Ryan gave me the go ahead, and he hung back.

I debated just staying with him since I knew I hadn't trained for, and my body wasn't in shape for a PR. But I also just wanted to run at a fast but totally comfortable pace. So I just kept going.

And that was my strategy for the rest of the race. I found another runner who was running at my pace, and I just stuck with her, and didn't look at my watch until mile 12.

When I finally did look down, I saw that I was totally going to get my PR. CRAP!! Why didn't I run faster?!

So I surged ahead of her, and pushed up the last hill to come in just barely still at 1:48.

Then I hit up all the goodies!

This race had the best finish food! I got a giant cinnamon roll for crying out loud! As well as strawberry Rocket Fuel (my favorite post race drink!), Jamba Juice, granola, fruit, cookies, yogurt pretzels, the list goes on.

They know what runners like.

Then I ran back to the finish to look for Ryan.

He came through at 1:58 and just said, "water!"

He rehydrated, then made his way to the medic tent to get his knees iced.

Silly boy. He doesn't train for these things, but comes with me anyway.

I appreciated that though. I was worried he'd back out that morning, but nope, he ran. Untrained. And still PR'd!

It was a perfect morning for a run.

The race was well run.

And I am definitely doing it again next year!

Oh, also I got my new shoes!

I tried the Brooks Pure Flow hoping to find a cheaper natural running shoe. But sadly my feet didn't like them. I can wear them for shorter runs, but over 5 miles, and I'm hurting.

So back to my beloved Newtons. I guess you just stick with what works.

So pretty.