Gpa visit

Sunshine has always been very interested in animals.  In fact he says the perfect job would be to study animals... and then eat them.  Hmmm.  Well, anyway, a couple of months ago he was talking to my dad, who still lives in New York, on the phone and they were talking about birds.  Sunshine asked Grandpa about bird houses and if he could come here and build one.  Surprisingly, Grandpa said Sure!

He was able to come out in September for a few days, and we had a great time hanging out together.  He found very specific plans to build a house for the Mountain Blue Bird, which searches for houses just like this one to nest in.

The hole in the front of the house is the perfect size for Mountain Bluebirds, but no other species.

Sunshine had a really great time with Grandpa, going to find lumber, cutting, gluing and nailing things together.

And on game day, we even got this Penn State alum to don BYU gear!

We managed to make it up in the mountains for a cookout.  I say "managed" because we left late, then couldn't find our lighter, and had to drive in the rhino for a while to find an available fire pit.

But of course the kids still had a ball, and we all enjoyed the warm foil dinners and cobbler.  It was a short but fun visit!

I had to mention that Cloudburst also finished reading the Book of Mormon this month.  She started reading when she turned 7, in order to read it all by herself before she turned 8.  And she did, all by herself.  She finished before Labor Day, and had a few friends over for a pizza party to celebrate.


And here a few pictures of Sunrise I just had to throw in... lately he just helps himself to food where ever he can find it, whether that be on the table, in the pantry, or in the trash can.

And he likes to "work" on the computer, just like mom and dad.  He gets up in the chair all by himself and bangs around on the keyboard.  We've only had the blue screen of death a few times since he started this...

Car Pool CD #4

A little bit after school started we made a new carpool CD.  I used to listen to the band "They Might be Giants" in high school, and discovered they have now made several children's CDs.  They have one about the ABCs, the 123s and my favorite, Here Comes Science.  They are kid's songs with a great beat!  I also discovered LDS Scripture Rock, which is a group that set LDS scripture mastery verses to music.  Love it!


1- I Am a Paleontologist; They Might Be Giants & Danny Weinkauf
2- Speed and Velocity; They Might Be Giants & Marty Beller
3- The Ballad of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space); They Might Be Giants
4- Alphabet of Nations; They Might Be Giants
5- Put It to the Test; They Might Be Giants
6- 7 8 9; Barenaked Ladies
7- The 50 States that Rhyme;  Raggs Kids Club Band
8- 50 States, 50 Capitals; Mr. Duey
9- All the Pennies; Mindy Gledhill
10- Whole Wide World; Mindy Gledhill
11- Defying Gravity (Glee Cast Version); Glee Cast
12- Keep Holding On (Glee Cast Version); Glee Cast
13- Sweet Caroline (Glee Cast Version); Glee Cast
14- Only Hope;  Mandy Moore
15- Wonderful World; Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
16- Naturally; Selena Gomez & The Scene
17- Holding Out for a Hero (Workout Remix); Power Music Workout
18- Bubbly; Colbie Caillat
19-1 Nephi: 3-7;  LDS Scripture Rock
20- 1 Nephi: 19-23; LDS Scripture Rock
21- D&C 1: 37-38; LDS Scripture Rock
22- John 3:5; LDS Scripture Rock

Road Rage

This summer opened up a new world to me- long distance running.  At least it is long to me!  I had never run longer than 4 miles when Thunder took me on a run in May.  We kept going, and going, and going... and ended up running for 6 miles.  I had never run that far, and was pretty astonished that I could run that long.  I had always thought my legs couldn't carry me that far.

After that, I started running with a neighbor who was training for a marathon.  I didn't go on her long Saturday runs, but ran a lot with her mid-week (even at night, screaming at the insane wind).  I toyed with the idea of training for a half.  The breaking point was one Saturday when I tried running 8 miles... and made it!  I signed up for a half marathon race that night.

Race #1: Salt Lake City Half Marathon

My good friend and running fiend Emily ran it with me.  Here we are, all lined up at the start.  We had timer chips tied to our shoe laces to keep track of our official time.

Can you barely see how this road climbs UP the side of that mountain on the left?  That's Little Mountain.  Hmm, who came up with that name anyway???

The route took us up switch back hills for the first 3.88 miles!  That was about 40 minutes of solid uphill running.  I was dying.  I was totally talking to myself, chanting "You can do this.  You trained for this."  But I didn't stop and walk at all.  I really wanted a clean race.  And I made it to the top!

Then the blessed downhill!  We went down through Emigration Canyon and the road was not closed off to traffic.  At a few points along the way, I saw Thunder and the kids yelling and cheering me on.  It was great!  The first time I saw them I was all smiles... by mile 10 I was feeling really tired and ready to be DONE already.

Here is my personal cheering section!  Can you see Thunder's shadow?

Coming in for the finish.  That big yellow banner never looked so good!

I totally sprinted at the end to catch that guy in the red shorts.  I came in at 2:04:41, which is about 9 and a half minute miles.  That's way faster than I trained!

Emily was so great.  She finished about 20 minutes ahead of me and won 3rd place in the division.

I was so happy to have finished!

And then I hobbled around a bit.  The downhill was really hard on my quads.  It was such a great experience!

Race #2: The Dirty Dash

And on to my next race for this summer... the Dirty Dash!  This was such a fun race.  It was a 10K (6 miles) through mud, hay bales, climbing walls, swampy stinky muck and the biggest slip and slide in the WORLD.

I did this race with Jenny B, and we had so much fun! We stayed together through the tough up-and-down course and pushed each other on.

The end was a GIANT mud pit with ropes that made you crawl right down in it.

Or swim, take your pick.  My lovely family was so thoughtful, yelling such helpful things like "get down there!" and "stick your face in it!"

Wahoo, we did it!

There is another race, a shorter 5K in May. I'm signing up again!

First daze of school

School sort of snuck up on us this year.  It seems like the summer just started, how can it be over already??

Here is Cloudburst on her first day of 2nd grade.  She was so excited to get back to school and see her friends.  And yes, she is missing several teeth.

We continued our tradition of having grade-matching pancakes on the first day.  The kids were excited for several days before, asking how big their "2" or "K" pancake would be.

Getting ready to leave!  Eat up!

Time for one last picture before we loaded up the car to head off.

We carpool and it's divine.  This is one of Cloudburst's great friends.

One week later, it was Sunshine's turn to go to Kindergarten.  Here is his special pancake!

It was also the first day for Tornado to attend preschool.  He was so excited to be like the big kids.  And this is a "P" pancake, if you can't tell.

It was so cute to see Sunshine dressed up in school uniform.  Just don't tell him I said "cute," he prefers to be called "cool."

Sunshine's teacher sent him a postcard during the summer telling him to bring his favorite teddy bear on the first day.  I think she is one inspired lady, because that was definitely comforting to him!

Here he is outside his door....

... and at his new seat.  Did I mention he also lost a tooth??  What a big kid!  I'm such a proud mama!

And we have one more starting preschool.  He was so excited, he had his backpack ready long before we had to leave and kept asking if it was time to go yet.

The school has a large indoor play area so it wasn't too hard to get him to stay!  Now he walks up the stairs all by himself and loves it.

Here is when we picked up Sunshine from his first day.  Tornado missed his brother.

Hopefully the rest of the year goes just as well!

Ten Uh Seeeeeee!

Yes, Tennessee.  Does anyone in our family live there? No.  But somehow we ended up there for a family reunion.  And it was great!

We were up in the Smoky Mountains, and every morning we got to see why they are called the "Smoky" mountains.  It was lovely to watch the fog waft up every morning.

When I say we were in the mountains, we really were!  The cabins were built right into the side of the mountain with multi-story foundations sticking out.  Our cabin had 4 stories with 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a pool table, hot tub and an elevator!  Yes, the kids were threatened with death if they touched the elevator.

Here is our bedroom.

After we arrived on Tuesday, Wednesday was fun to really see everyone.  My mom and dad, sisters Jen and Allie (and best friend Alison) and brother Robert were there.  It was also great to see my Aunt Becky and Uncle Jeff, with cousin Josh, who I haven't seen in about 10 years.  My other cousin Eric and girlfriend Adrianna also arrived later in the week.  After a morning run, which about killed me with the humidity, Wednesday was the opening ceremony for the Bolympics!  Our first event was bowling.

On Thursday we headed to a park to play tennis and lots of other sports on the agenda.  Here is Alison along with my brother and Thunder.  Alison speaks fluent Spanish and it was fun to watch her converse with our kids, who took Spanish earlier in the summer.

Here is my mom and my sister Jen playing Bolo Ball (ladder golf).

Here is Allie, Tornado and my Uncle Jeff.

Cloudburst loved seeing her Aunts!

This was a game of wiffle golf: use a golf club to chip a wiffle ball into a blow-up tube.  We were very creative!

Here are some of the ladies, looking fabulous with all the heat and humidity.

Thunder took advantage of the relaxed schedule to take a nap with Sunrise.  This was about the only time Sunrise slept on the trip.

Duff's!!!!!  We ate here, thinking it would be fun to sample "local" cuisine. We all left with a belly ache.

There were some spectacular spiders that inhabited the cabin along with us... well at least on the outside of the cabin.  They were about an inch long.

We had several activities going on at once, so we had a few tennis games...

... along with more wiffle golf...

.. and more Bolo Ball.

Here is a made-up game called Sparkle Dribble.  I swear it's harder than it looks! That's why I did so bad!

We stayed in Pigeon Forge, which has a touristy downtown full of go-carts and ice cream shops.  One afternoon Thunder and I took the kids on a Jurassic Park boat ride.

Surprisingly, Sunshine was crying and throwing a bit of a fit before we got on about how scared he was.  He has NEVER done this before in his life, so we didn't know quite how to handle it.  He was just very tired.  But with a few hugs he got on the ride.  And shut his eyes half the time.

On Friday morning, we split into a few groups to to hiking, fishing, or relax at the cabin a bit.  I went with Jen, Allie, Alison, and Robert on a hike to Paul's Bunion.  Round trip, it was about 10 miles.  Other than the time that Allie turned our TP into PPTP, it was a great hike!

Here is our fearless leader.

It was a great view from the top!

Here's Jen and I enjoying the great outdoors.

While we were hiking, another group went fishing: my mom, dad, Aunt Becky, Cloudburst and Sunshine.

Later, Cloudburst told me about some great stories Aunt Becky told along the way.

I think Grandma wanted to go on the bigger hike, but unfortunately she had an injured leg.  We missed her, but I know the kids loved it!

And here are the fishermen.  This is my cousin Josh, Sunshine and Grandpa.

That afternoon, we had a few more Bolympics sports to complete.  We played Bocci ball...

... had a football punt, and also a homerun derby (although we used a tennis raquet and wiffle ball).

We also enjoyed lots of downtime together.  Everyone had a night to help cook dinner and we ate very well.  It was fun to just chat with everyone!

On Saturday we had family pictures taken, and had closing ceremonies for the Bolympics.  Apparently Tornado didn't think pants were necessary for the occasion.

Grandma made sure that everyone got prizes.  It was such a fun week and we had a great time!  I'll leave with some of the family pictures we had taken by Larry Miller.


Thunder and I celebrated our official 10 year anniversary on the trip!