The Nerds and The Chosen One, Part 2

Here is the rest of the video from Justin's assembly today.

I had to use my regular still digital camera because our camcorder is in the shop. So I had to stop recording so i could zoom in to get a better shot. And sorry for some of the shaky footage.
I'm so glad I was there to see this group perform. Hopefully Justin won't mind that I've put this on my blog AND on YouTube!
I was proud of him and Paul and I are both wondering who's son he is.

Justin Amazes Me

Justin is always surprising us with things he gets involved in.

This clip on YouTube is from Justin's 9th grade assembly today.
They call themselves "The Nerds and The Chosen One" (the drummer, Ty, is the chosen one because he's not in the nerdy "honors" classes with the rest of the guys. He's in our ward and we've known him since he was 8 - he's a natural with music and is self-taught).
Justin was pretty quiet about the whole thing and it was like pulling teeth talking to him about the assembly this morning. I finally called the school to find out what time it started. I knew I couldn't miss this.

8 Miler

I just got back from my first real big long run -- 8 miles!! It was me and two of my running friends. Our mother hen didn't go with us this time because she is doing a 50K (32 miles) run tomorrow!! (she's a bit on the crazy side)
We started at Smiths on Bengal Blvd and ran out Wasatch Boulevard to 12300 South and 1300 East (in Draper where Albertson's is). It was such a beautiful run and we all had a great time running together. We never even turned on our music - we had a good pace and enough energy that we just talked the whole time. It's so empowering to do something you never thought you could do. And it was so fun to see our mother hen waiting for us at the end (she dropped up off at the beginning and then walked for 5 miles). It took us 1 hour and 44 minutes. I never thought I would say this but it was a blast!!

Volleyball Slideshow

ER

I watched ER from almost the very beginning. I missed the first season when it originally aired but I own it now on DVD. I couldn't ever miss an episode and it was "me" time when I watched it - as in "don't bother me, I'm watching ER"
I haven't been following it at all this year and missed most of last year. It's just not as good as it used to be. I'd always thought I'd watch it to the end and I kind of miss it but not really.
Today I was searching YouTube for the Bon Jovi song (You Want to) Make a Memory and I found this video montage that someone put together of the years of ER to the song. I really liked it and I share it with you now.

Brooke's volleyball Team

Check out this link for some fun pictures we took of Brooke's volleyball team at their last tournament.
They were hanging out waiting around FOREVER for their next match to start. They had fun playing outside and having popsicles. It was fun watching the girls have such a good time.

Running

I've been on a marathon training program for several weeks. I've read several marathon books. The first book I read was actually the best and I'm surprised it's not more well known. ( I really think there was something inspired in that this book was the first one I picked up at the library).
It's whole title is "The Complete 26-week Training Program - Marathon and Half Marathon, The Beginner's Guide" by - Marnie Caron & The Sports Medicine Council of British Columbia.
I've haven't posted about this before because I was waiting to find out if our running group would get into the St George Marathon. Our little group came about by chance almost but it's been a great group. We call ourselves The Running Chics and our mother hen is Leslie Peterson. She is in my ward, cuts my hair and is an ultra runner. She's running the St George again this year - for the 12th time. It's been great to do long runs as a group. It's so much easier when you're all fighting your way up a long hill together.
So, we entered the St George Marathon on the very first day you could enter (April 1) and then had to wait over 6 weeks to find out if we would get in. That marathon is so popular that they have a lottery system to get in.
We all started this training program. It's a very detailed run/walk program that so far has been AWESOME! It takes every day of every week and tells you exactly what to do. That may not work for some people but it's perfect for me. We just finished week 6 with a 6 mile long run on Friday. I felt great during the run/walk (3 min run/1 min walk) and at the end I felt like I could've gone longer. I was pretty excited to go that far. I've never run farther than 3 1/2 miles in my life.
A week ago we got the sad news that we didn't get into the St George Marathon. We were all really bummed! But we're still training. I've personally decided to do the Logan Marathon (TopofUtah) in September.


Yesterday, 3 of us from our running group did the 5K Running With Angels at Thanksgiving Point Gardens. Races are always very motivating to me and get you all pumped up. The course was beautiful although more hilly than we expected. Our group stayed together for the most part and finished within 30 seconds of each other. My official chip time was 36:42:2. I felt great about that and it was fun to look at the race results and see that in my age group I was 21st. Racing is one thing where age gives me a little advantage :)

This is me and my friend, Paige. She was also at the race. She's the one that gave me the idea to do that race. She did a great job on the race and is an amazing woman. For her description of the race go here.

I can't believe I'm actually training for a marathon but I've thought about it for years and have talked with Leslie about it many times. It's one of those "bucket list" things for me. The main thing is the marathon training is a goal to just get in shape and be able to run 3 miles easily several times a week. I'm actually looking forward to our upcoming 8 and 9 miles runs.
For me, it's now or never.

Happy Birthday to Jared and Kamryn

It's pretty sad when it takes almost a week to post about my children's 3rd birthday. (I started this post on Wednesday but it's taken until Sunday to get to it to finish).

Kamryn and Jared have been pretty excited about their birthdays for weeks. Every time we went to Sam's Club (which is every week) they looked at the cakes and wanted to get their birthday cake. I told them that their birthdays were coming up pretty quick and soon we would get their cakes.
One sad note is I forgot to take pictures of their cakes, not that they were anything special. We went to Sam's Club Monday morning and I let them pick out their cakes. Luckily there were two perfect ones there - one with light green frosting and all decorted girly with flowers. The Jared picked out was decorated with a party theme with confetti and red frosting.
After we picked up their cakes they spent the afternoon at Grammy and Grandpa's while I shopped for their presents. They really didn't need anything but I got them presents anyway.


Here's Justin being a good sport at their birthday dinner. I decorated the kitchen so it looked like a party for Jared and Kamryn. I'd made them take naps that day and then had to wake them up for dinner. Luckily they were in good moods after being woken up and were very excited about their party.


We had our usual/traditional Monday night dinner - spaghetti with salad and breadsticks. The birthday kids ate dinner (that part is a little unusual depending on what's for dinner.) Then we headed over to the rec center to go swimming. Jared and Kamryn LOVE to go swimming and ask almost every day to go. So that is what we had to do.


Jared is always a little timid at first when we get in the water. This time he went right in and went down the frog slide. Kamryn loves the water so much so that we never got a good picture of her in the pool because she is always moving. She loved going down the big slide with her dad.
They swam for a long time with all of their cousins and grandparents that came to swim too.

Taylor enjoying the little kids pool.

After swimming, everyone came back to our house for cake, popsicles and present opening. All of that was crazy. Having two kids open presents at the same time surrounded by cousins is a little challenging. It took me a couple of days to figure out who gave them what (thank you to all). It took a week to get those bikes put together that they are opening in this picture.
By the end of the present opening it looked like a bomb had gone off in our living room.
In the future we would like to figure out a what to spread out all the fun. Let them alternate who's year it is to have a birthday (I don't think Jared and Kamryn will go for that). Maybe we can take turns celebrating on the actual day and the day after or something.

Mother's Day Follow-up

I had a good mother's day. My kids helped clean up the house on Saturday night and Paul stayed up VERY late painting the bathroom - yellow. Not what he would have picked but it was what Brooke and I picked.
Paul wanted to get me something but I didn't really give him any ideas. He got points just for calling my friend Leslie to get some ideas from her. I told him I didn't really need anything and had just bought new running shoes and a running watch.
We had a great dinner that everyone helped to prepare and then visited Paul's mom and my mom.
One of the best parts of the day was getting chocolate mint sandwiches as a gift after sacrament meeting. And then the bishopric taught all of the YW so the leaders could go to RS. That was a great break.

Happy Mother's Day

These are the mother's day cards I received
from Jared and Kamryn.
They made them in nursery at church.
When we got home Paul had them give the cards to me.

The card above is the one from Kamryn.
Look at those "cute little hands."

The card above is the one from Jared.
Anyone who knows him has heard him say "NOT" a million times.
It really made me laugh when I opened this card.

Bye Bye Binkys

On Monday it was bye-bye to the binkys. Here's the story:

So for the last couple of weeks I've been talking to Jared and Kamryn about not having binkys anymore (they only have them to go to sleep at night). At first we talked about them turning 3 and not having them but I decided they wouldn't like their birthday very much and wouldn't want to turn 3 so I had to figure out something else.
We've told them frequently that binkys are for babies and they are big now. So one time I told them we need to give them to little babies that are crying and need a binky and don't have one. I came up with the idea to take them to a hospital and see the babies in the nursery and give their binkys to a nurse for the babies.
Monday was the day - I'd prepared myself mentally for over a week for this. I think it was going to be harder on me than them.

After lunch we went to the Women's Center at the big IHC Hospital. Jared and Kamryn were happy to be going to see the babies. They each had a little ziploc baggie with their binkys.

This is where my plan got a little fouled up. I checked in with the receptionist and she told me that you can't just go look at babies in the nursery anymore. You have to be visiting someone specific.

Yikes! Now what? I enlisted the receptionist's help (she was a young mom and could tell what I was doing). I told the kids the babies were sleeping and we couldn't go see them but that the nice lady would take the binkys to the babies. Kamryn gaves her little baggy right up but not Jared. He was not about to give his precious binkys away to that lady. I talked to him for several minutes and he wasn't going to give in. I was about to give up and go to another hospital when a young mother walked in the lobby with her very tiny newborn baby sleeping in his carseat. Jared saw the baby and said he'd give his binkys to that baby. I enlisted that mother's help and Jared put his little bag of binkys on top of the baby's blankets and then got Kamryn's binkys and gave them to the baby too. Then the mom walked away on got on the elevator.

Good thing she got away quick. Jared held it together until we walked outside and then started crying for his binkys. He cried the whole way home about wanting his binkys back. It was so sad.

Kamryn was happy as could be and was singing as usual and noticing the pretty flowers.

When we got home Kamryn had a popsicle and Jared continued to be sad and we had to get all of his blankies and pillow and have sad time on my bed. After being home about a half hour all of a sudden Kamryn started crying. I went to check on her and she was in the kitchen. I asked her why she was crying and she said she wanted her binkys back. What a delayed reaction! She's a bit ditzy.

That night was when it was really sad for her. Jared went to bed okay and told his dad that he went to the hospital and gave his binkys to a baby and he was okay with it by then.

Not Kamryn! She wanted her "pink" back! She cried for almost 2 hours. It was way after midnight before she finally went to sleep.

Luckily they both woke up happy the next morning. She's cried about it both nights since then but is okay after a little bit. I wonder how long it's going to take.

An uplifting read

I just finished reading Amy Grant's book, Mosiac: Pieces of My Life So Far. It was a very easy read - most chapters were 2 pages. In between the chapters were words to her songs and also some poems she's written. It was fun to look at the pictures she's included in the book. It was nice to read a book that was spiritual in nature and some good things to think about. I particularly liked the following parts:
"Don't Go" a chapter about her friend dying from cancer
"First Thing" a chapter about how Amy starts her day and her interpretation of the Lord's Prayer
I recommend this to anyone who needs a quick pick me up.

Trip back in time

On Wednesday evening our mutual group went to tour the LDS Church's Humanitarian Center. It was fascinating and I highly recommend it for any youth group and all adults should take a trip there. The frustrating thing is to volunteer there as a youth group you have to schedule it a year in advance.
The trip back in time occurred during the movie they showed us at the end of the tour. They were showing all of these humanitarian missionaries all over the world and the projects they are involved in. All of a sudden, there on the screen, was Joel Sperry, my 9th grade math teacher. Seeing him brought back so many memories - the #1 being that Mr Sperry always pointed at the board with his middle finger!

May Day

Happy May Day!

My poor cousin is having a wedding celebration today at Gardner Village. What bad timing for a snow storm.

My poor flowers.