He's a Big Boy

Jared on his bed in his BIG BOY Spiderman UNDERWEAR

NO MORE DIAPERS!!!!
We've spent this last couple of weeks working on getting Jared out of diapers and into big boy underwear. He was showing signs of being ready and I knew he could do it - I just had to convince him of that. He's pretty stubborn and unless it's his idea it's not going to happen.
So last week I convinced him to try big boy underwear and that went okay for a day. Then he decided he didn't like the underwear in his drawer and went commando for a couple of days - until we bought Thomas the Train underwear. He had a few accidents but nothing we couldn't cope with. We had a little setback over the weekend because Jared got sick and was back in diapers Sat and Sunday.
This week has been much better and I consider him fully potty trained. He even wears underwear to bed and has never had an accident during the night (I'm very lucky that way). This morning I didn't even talk to him about going potty when he first got up. I let him decide to go when he needed to - and he did. He has a huge bladder and can go 8 hours sometimes without needing to visit the bathroom.
I can't believe that phase is over and it was relatively painless.

Some Perspective

So this morning I was just checking out the announcements page on the running blog I post on and came across this announcement. I checked out the blog listed and spent the next hour reading about a family I don't know and having tears roll down my face as I read. I wondered why do all these tragedies happen and how do people overcome such huge obstacles? I always feel guilty when I read about such hard times that others face and know that I am not facing those tragedies nor do I feel like I could. It just makes me grateful for my family and our health and that we have each other and I will try to make each day count and not take so much as a given.

3 Schools

Today was the first day of school for my 3 oldest kids.
And they are all going to different schools.

Taylor is in 5th grade at Butler Elementary. His teacher is Mrs. French.

Brooke is in 9th grade at Butler Middle School. She had a great first day and has an awesome seminary teacher.

Justin is a sophomore at Brighton High School. I can't possibly be old enough to have a son that is going to high school. And going to MY high school too. Just too weird. He said he had a good day but not too much info out of him.

Traditional 1st day of school picture in front of our house.

16 MILES!

Yesterday my running group did a long run of 16 miles!! That is a long, long run!
We ran out Wasatch Boulevard and through Draper and by South Mtn and near the new temple and down Draper Canal Trail and almost to Ikea!!
The best thing about it was I felt good for almost the whole thing, very little aches and pains, and finished strong and felt like I could go farther. It was very good for me mentally and I actually began to think I might be able to finish this marathon I'm training for and is in less than a month.

Yard Sale

I got this crazy idea on Thursday to do a yard sale this Saturday! Maybe that really is the way to do it - only work on it for 2 days so you don't spend too much time on it.
Taylor has been bugging me for almost a year to help him clean out his room. We finally dug in and did it on Thursday. His room lets great now (picture to be posted later) and we cleaned out about 8 boxes worth of stuff.
I also had the kids clean out their closets and we bagged up about 6 bags of clothes!



so this morning I did the yard sale thing!
I actually had it at my friend's house (she was staying at her mom's this weekend) because she has a much better location for a yard sale. I had to get up early to go set everything out. I advertised the sale from 8:30 - 11:30 and a lady stopped by at 7:15 to see if we were selling yet!
It was an interesting experience to see who came and what they bought. Taylor came and helped me for about 1/2 the time and then loaded up what was left and went to the DI with me. We ended up making about $100 and got rid of a lot of stuff.

Fun Book Club

I just got back from book club and what a fun night!!
We read Brainiac - Ken Jenning's book about his stint on Jeopardy. Amber, who picked the book and hosted tonight had made up her own version of Jeopardy for us to play tonight. We played as teams and I was on the Persian Pickles team. We came from behind, caught up, went ahead with a correct answer on a daily double and then got the final jeopardy question correct (What book did Dr Seuss right on a bet if he could write a book using 50 words?)** and won by $2.00.
Great job Amber!!!
**Answer in the comments

Sleepy Kids

Jared and Kamryn were watching a movie this afternoon and this is how I found them.

They had been pretending it was snowing outside and were wearing their gloves and snow hats.

Kamryn

Jared

Brooke even joined in on the snooze action.

The last of Alaska

On our last afternoon in Sitka, Paul and I did a little shopping and exploring. We ran into this bear and I wasn't too sure about him but Paul hit it off with him fabulously.

ATV Tour

On Saturday we did a really fun group activity with everyone all together since the guys were done fishing. We went on a boat out to another island and then went in these Yamaha Rhino ATVs for a 3 hour tour of part of the island. They are like 4 wheel drive golf carts. Paul had so much fun driving that I let him drive the whole time (thus saving myself from the teasing at dinner that went on between the husbands and wives).

Taking a little break in Iris Meadow. We were hoping to see some bears but they didn't cooperate.

More Alaska Photos

Paul and I by one of the Totems in the Sitka National Park.

Paul's fishing group on their last day. That is a halibut, caught on a salmon rod, that weighed about 160 pounds. The guy who caught it (to the right of the fish) is shorter than and weighs less than the fish he caught.

Paul and I just before dinner at The Channel Club (very nice restaurant) in front of the Sitka Sound on our only sunny day.

Report from Alaska

We have really been enjoying our vacation. it's great because this is something we would never do on our own. One of the subcontractors, J&S Mechanical, that Paul works with is hosting us on this trip. Jack, who is president of operations, invited us a long time ago so it's been fun just anticipating the trip and checking out online what we would be doing.

There are 4 couples and then 4 more guys (without their wives) on this trip. We are staying in Sitka at a nice hotel.

Right after we arrived on Tuesday we went exploring in the afternoon. Sitka is a small town - you can drive from one end to the other and it's only 13 miles. The mountains are so cool - coming up right from the ocean. Most of our group walked over to Sitka National Park to see the salmon swimming upriver. It's such an amazing thing to watch. There were hundreds of fish in the river and pretty big.
The National Park was like a rain forest. It was beautiful and lots of great trails to explore. All I kept thinking was what a great place to run.
For dinner that evening we went out as a group for mexican. It was delicious. We thought that was pretty funny to go all the way to Alaska for mexican food.

Big Fish

One of the Silver Salmon that Paul caught today. He had a great time out fishing today. Much better than yesterday where he was SICK on the boat most of the day. All of the guys put in $25.00 and whoever catches the first fish of the day gets $50 and then the biggest catch of the day gets $50. Paul won for first catch of the day.

Me in Sitka national park. We went there on Tuesday right after getting to Sitka. It was beautiful.

One of the leaves in the park.

There's lots more to tell but it's late. We get to sleep in tomorrow so I'll catch it up in the morning.

bye-bye

Paul and I are headed off on a great trip. JS Mechanical, a subcontractor Paul's work uses a lot is taking us to Alaska for a big adventure trip. We'll be gone for most of the week. Paul will be going deep sea fishing for 3 days and has the possibility of bringing home up to 100 pounds of salmon and halibut. Here's some of the things I'll be doing with the other wives coming on the trip:
Whale Watching Tour
kayaking in the Sitka Sound
On Saturday the whole group is going on a 4x4 adventure tour in ATV Jeeps.
Hopefully I'll be able to post from up there.

Camping Slideshow

Camping update

Hope you enjoy the slideshow of our camping trip to Washington Lake. We had a great time the rest of the week that we were up there. We didn't have any more rain but it was quite windy a lot of the time. We went on hikes, did some bike riding - both around camp and on trails. We spend a lot of time out on the lake on our rubber rafts. Jared and Kamryn were very good about wearing their life vests whenever they were near the water and they loved going in the boat with their dad.
Right when we got there on Thursday Kamryn wanted to go out in the with her dad. She helped him blow it up and get everything ready to go. Jared and Kamryn also loved going in my brother's bike trailer and would beg everyone to take them for a ride.
We ate great meals and just enjoyed hanging out in the beautiful mountains by the lake.

Camping

We've been gone to our annual camping trip to Washington Lake. We went up early Tuesday morning. Justin drove us all the way there. He's getting to be a pretty good driver. I"m comfortable enough while he drives to read and look up every paragraph or so and check on him.
It's always good that we get up there early so we can get a decent camping spot. This year we needed two spots because my sister and her family and my brother and his family were also camping with us. They both have tent trailers and I'm SO JEALOUS!!!! I really need one.
We had a very kickback day and enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful lake. All of the kids had a great time playing together.
We survived a huge storm during the night. Luckily it didn't start up until after we'd all gotten to bed so we didn't get wet but sure made it difficult to sleep. It rained for most of the night and was blowing pretty hard. At times I felt like our tent was going to cave in on us. Taylor even started "talking" in his sleep - he sat up and started yelling "what the heck?" over and over while he was hitting the tent. It was pretty funny. He has no memory of it.
Today was a great day - the mom's hung out with the little kids while the dad's and big kids went on a hike to rock lake. Then my kids and I came home for a night. We needed to bring Taylor home so he can go to scout camp tomorrow and so we could go to Mutual where they showed a great DVD recap of our youth conference. I could get into this coming home part way through camping to have a shower and have a good night's sleep in my bed. We're going back up tomorrow.

The rest of Youth Confernece

When we were finished with the challenges at Sugarhouse Park we went up to East Canyon. We had dinner there provided by a great sister in our ward. After dinner we announced the winning teams - a tie for first between the Blue Team(my team) and the Orange Team. All the teams received awards specific to their team. After the awards we had a testimony meeting where everyone participated.
In the morning everyone helped pack up camp and then we spent the rest of the day boating.
We had 4 ward members bring up their boats so most of the kids and adults were out on boats most of the day. We have a really great ward full of people who are willing to help and share what they have.

Justin, enjoying a break from the boat.

Me and my friend Erica (she's the YW Pres) going out tubing for the first time that day.

It turned out to be a great youth conference. It was a lot of work but well worth it. It's so great to see our youth bond with each other and learn from each other.

Friday Afternoon

After finishing the bean challenge, the teams were given a clue to their next destination. The clue was to look up scriptures - book, chapter, verse, word. So for instance, they had 3 Nephi 11:15:20 so in the 15th verse they would count to the 20th word and write down the first letter of that word. Eventually they had all these letters to unscramble and it spelled out Sugarhouse Park. All teams went there for a mandatory 45 minute lunch break. The lunch was provided by our awesome RS presidency.

Our blue team planning for the next challenges.

The next set of challenges were all "detours" - a choice between 2 tasks. The first detour was "pitchers or pyros." The orange team, pictured above, was the only team to do pyros. They had to build a fire with only 2 sheets of newspaper and only 3 matches. Once they had a fire going they had to bring 1 cup of water to boil.

All the other teams chose pitchers - they had to alternately take turns as a team throwing horse shoes until one team member got a ringer.

The next detour was "hike or bike" The teams could either put together a bike and then have one team member ride it around the 1 1/2 mile trail. For hike, the team had to carry a 50 pound sand bag around the trail and each team member had to carry the bag by themselves for at least 2 minutes. All the teams did the bike challenge except for the red team and they carried the sand bag. All the teams worked together great. We were so proud of our kids. We really didn't much complaining and they all helped each other and helped other teams. The biggest challenge was probably dealing with the heat.

Friday's Activities

After breakfast on Friday morning all teams went together on a hike to Willow Lake (across from Solitude). It was very steep to begin with but ended in a beautiful meadow.

Several of our leaders on the hike.

Before going back down we spent some time at the top of the hike. The YM Pres directed the kids to follow him to this clearing in silence. He asked them to spend 20 minutes in silent scripture study. This is Justin pictured above. After their personal study they spent 15 minutes discussing what they read with their team.
This is Brooke's team - The Orange Team. Their team name was Team Nemo and their motto was "just keep swimming." They were a very strong team and ended up tying for 1st place for the whole race.

This is Justin's team - Team Red. Their name was Team Fruit and their motto was Eat Healthy. (they needed a little help in the creativity department.)

When all the teams were finished with the hike we held our challenge for the morning. Each team was giving a bag of beans - very small beans. They were told they had to count the beans and turn in the count. For every bean they were off on their count, each team member had to eat that many vienna sausages. My team only had to eat 1 vienna sausage because we counted twice. Justin's team had to eat 14 each!!

Youth Conference Fireside

After we were done with our tasks/challenges for Thursday we traveled to the "pit stop" which was the cabin next to my family cabin (we had other relatives using my family cabin so our neighbors let us use theirs). We had a wonderful dinner provided by our YW secretary, her husband, and our Primary president (her husband is in YM).

Brooke with her friends, Haley and Taylor (Taylor just moved into our ward a week ago and was immediately sucked into our great group of young women - and the guys are all fighting for her attention.)

After dinner we had a fireside. Jason Reynolds was our first speaker. He grew up in this ward and is a little younger than me. 3 years ago he went in for minor surgery and it went horribly wrong and now he just lives day to day never knowing how long he'll live. He gave a great "talk" and was very straight with our youth about how they need to be living their lives.

This is some of our group all crammed into the cabin. We had 36 kids and 12 leaders participate in youth conference and a few more adults up at the cabin to help put on the dinner.

President and Sister Stringham were our concluding speakers. He was just recently called to be the stake president. He was in the bishopric of the single's ward when I was attending that ward a long time ago. So I've known him for a long time and asked him to speak to our youth. It was a great evening. We concluded with having everyone say what the best part of the day was for them. One young man was honest and said dinner was the best part of the day.