Backpacking Trip

This week was a fun one around our house. Our good friend Ryan Dorman (currently living in New York) flew in this week and spent a few days with us. Pretty cool huh! It was so much fun to have him here, and we had some great times. We love to have visitors and it was so nice to have an extra person around to hang with. Ben and Ryan went backpacking/camping Thursday and Friday. Crazy! It is freezing!
They had a great time and got some awesome pictures. They found a herd of big horn sheep, they practiced their yodeling, played the harmonica, talked to the sheep, ate mac and cheese, brought back some rusty nails for me (how sweet??), and did all sorts of man stuff. I am sure I haven't heard some stories and probably never will, but hey, boys will be boys.
I stayed home with the kids and we had our own little party. We went to the gym (they love the kids room, and I needed to run), rented Scooby Doo's Halloween Adventure, made a fort out of the blankets, and I bought them their first happy meal ever! Yeah I know, mom rocks...for that night anyway.
Too bad they were up until 3:00am with stomach aches. Party over, no more McDonalds for them. Once was enough. I knew there was a reason we never go there.
Anyway.....Ben and Ryan got back safe and sound and all was well. Maybe I can get Ben to post more about their adventures, but for now, the pictures will do. Enjoy.
As for Ryan....come back soon!!!

More Backpacking Trip Pictures

Sunday is... relaxing???

This is a typical Sunday at our house. (when we are not crazy busy with church callings or something) Mary and I always bake something yummy after lunch/dinner while Sam naps. Today we made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting! Some were topped with chocolate chips. They aren't pretty, but oh wow, they were good. Hooray for fall and pumpkin everything!!! Pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin chocolate cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin milkshakes. aaahhh
While we are baking, Ben usually talks on the phone to family and friends. Then....well, just look at the pictures. Lets just say that on Sunday, bedtime comes early.

p.s. The primary program was today, and it was our first time having a child participate in it. It was so cute to see little Mary up there singing away, picking her nose, playing with her dress, waving to us over and over, and getting shy when it was her turn to speak. It really tugged at the heart strings. Sometimes life flies by a little too fast.

He's The Man!

This week we found out that Ben was accepted to Regis University, so he is now going back to school to get his Masters Degree in Business Marketing. Way to go Ben!

His first day of classes will be in a week....on his Birthday. No worries there, we will just start the partying a little earlier.
His first session of class will be every Monday from 6-10pm. Plenty of homework the rest of the days.
He will still be working full time through this, so we will be a busy family. The program will be a total of 20 months. 20 very busy months. Bring it on!
I am so proud of Ben for having the desire to keep on going and for pursuing his goals. Good Luck Ben! Love ya!

Here is Ben showing off his new school catalog (my request), and his best Nacho Libre impression (his request). Gotta love it.

Little Mary Sunshine

For any of you that know Mary, you know that she is one spunky little girl. She LOVES dirt, sports, thrills, fast pace, bugs, tonka trucks, ect.
I don't blame her, after all, she is literally surrounded by boys everywhere we go. She has put up with a lot and has learned to hold her own pretty well. She has some great friends that are boys and they are good to include her and be nice to her, but sometimes you just need another girl.
I have thought it is pretty cute to have such a fun girl with quite the tomboyish personality, however I can't help but wonder sometimes.
Mary moved up to a new gymnastics class last month and it is all girls!!! FINALLY! She has been overrun with boys in gymnastics up until now. It is an advanced class and she is the youngest by a year, but they are all still great friends and giggle and laugh the whole time, when they aren't working their buns off! It is quite the class. She loves it! On top of that, she has a new, adorable and very sweet friend...Kate. They have a blast together. We have been so excited to have a girl her age around. Maybe these are the reasons for her major transformation.
Mary totally shocked me the other week when she asked if she could be a princess for Halloween! I wasn't sure she even knew what a princess was! I was pretty pumped, so we went all out. The dress lights up, she got make-up, a princess hat, ect. We can't wait for Halloween! She also decided that her doll house is a fun toy to play with. She plays with dolls, and she wants more! Santa is going to have to make some changes folks (the top of her wish list was a tonka truck followed by a bug catching kit)...we now have a girl.
Today she asked me if she could have bows in her hair for preschool!! I was in shock. Not only that, but she wanted pink and purple! I LOVE IT!!! (her hair is messed up in the picture because it was taken after park day and preschool..both of which she played so rough that her bows had to be replaced several times....lol)
We have also gone back and forth on what kind of Birthday party she wants this year. Because of so many boy friends, we have tried to think of neutral themes. Recently however, Mary is really really wanting a Strawberry Shortcake party. I am not going to push this one aside. If she wants to be a girl, by all means, I will let her be a girl. Her boy friends are all good sports, I am sure they will be fine.
Of course, she will never be the major girly type, and I don't really want her to be...I sure wasn't. She still loves bugs, dirt, sports, ect., but it is so nice to see that she is getting a balance now.
Bring on the pink, the dolls, the dresses and the nail polish! Girl power!

I WANT MY PANTS BACK!!!!!

Sorry if you are all sick of hearing about running. It is basically all I am doing right now. I have to, I am right in the most crucial, but most demanding part of training. It is nuts! I eat for fuel to run, sleep for energy to run, and run to well...be able to run longer.
5 weeks left! Yippee!

Obviously the weather is getting colder here, so on my runs I layer up. After a few miles, I start shedding layers. I normally place my extra clothes in secret hiding places (under bushes, behind fences, ect.)
WELL, on my long run last week, I did just that. I wore my FAVORITE pants ever and when I got too hot, I hid them on a fence and just ran with my shorts and sweatshirt. When I got hot again, I shed the sweatshirt and was warm enough to run in the usual shorts and t-shirt. No worries, no more shedding after that.
Normally, on my way back home, I pick up my clothes and tie them around my waist. This time however, I was so delirious..literally, and so sick (the cold/sinus infection I STILL have), I completely forgot about my clothes.
I didn't even remember them until a few days later...I freaked out for a while, then I forgot again!!! I think I am beginning to loose my mind. All of the blood in my body is in my legs from running too much. None left for the brain. Not good.

I finally remembered last night and we took off in the dark to try to find my favorite pants in the whole world, and my sweatshirt. We drove up and down research in the dark with no luck. And I could not remember where I had put my sweatshirt. Again..back to the no blood in the brain thing. I was soooooooooooo sad!
When we got home, I remembered where I had placed my sweatshirt, so we went back and there it was! (Thanks Ben for putting up with my brain farts.)Yippee! That was a relief, because it is non-replaceable. It is a sweatshirt I got at BYU-Idaho for doing a midnight 10k. Good memories.
Unfortunately.....my pants were not where I had left them. I am so bummed! I loved those pants! I saved for a few months to get them and I have taken such good care of them. I planned on wearing them to and from the marathon in the car because they are so comfortable and because they are my good luck charm.
Great..how am I supposed to run a marathon without my good luck charm. Dang!
Anyway....I want my pants back!



They looked just like these, but the Adidas stripes were a different color. (sniff,sniff)

Who woulda thunk!

O.K.
I heard all the talk about these "vampire books," and totally laughed to myself. I figured it was just a silly fad and that they had to be sooo cheesy! I really can't stand fads..they drive me nuts. I avoided them like the plague.
Well, on our trip to the Bahamas, I decided that I really needed a book. I cannot sleep anywhere except for a bed. Truly. I can't sleep in cars, airplanes, ect. Just doesn't happen. So, I went to a shop in the airport, and of course, the Twilight books were plastered all over the place. I decided what the heck, and I bought the first one.
HOLY MOLY!!! I finished the first one that day and finished the series by the end of the week. I stayed up until 4:00am finishing the last one. I must say, the last one was a little too "steamy," in my opinion, but still incredibly amazing!
I admit it, I am in love! I absolutely am a huge fan and I am literally counting down the days until the movie comes out. Heck, I even have dreams about them. Crazy...yes. It is even on the calendar right next to the day the 24 prequel comes out. It will be a great week!!!! Not to mention it is also the marathon week, so while I am healing up from my torture in Vegas, I get to watch some awesome movies.
So, here I am. Totally suckered into the Twilight fan club and loving every minute of it. Genius I tell ya, genius.

A shout out to Craigs list!

As many of you know, Ben and I basically get everything on Craig's list now. We got our hiking packs, our dog, Ben's skis, Ben's coat, Mary's dollhouse, Mary's bedroom set, our dresser, ect.
A about 9 months ago, in California, we got our first really nice set of gorgeous leather couches. Big splurge for us, o.k., actually it was our tax return money, but still a good chunk of moola.
We loved the couches, but needless to say, they were so nice, it made us all uptight. We could hardly sit on them without worrying about messing them up somehow. We would freak out when the kids even came near. Not good.
Obviously, not such a good idea for a young family. So, we posted them on Craigs list about a month ago. We gratefully sold them and, oh my, were we able to get some great stuff in exchange.
The first thing we got were some new couches to replace them. They are leather and they are the most comfortable things I have ever sat on in my life. WE LOVE THEM!! You just sink right into them. We will have to have a party so that all of you can share in the comfort. The best part is that we still had money left over from selling the other couches.
So we were able to hop on Craigs list and find a .....drum roll please....






PIANO!!! PIANO!!!! PIANO!!!! PIANO!!!! PIANO!!! PIANO!!! PIANO!!!!

I am so excited! I love to play the piano and I have missed it so much. It is an excellent piano and it is in awesome condition. We got such a good deal I am still in shock! Music has always been a big part of my life, so now with a piano in the home, I feel like our house is complete. I am so excited to start collecting music and to play it. It will also be fun to teach the kids how to play when they get older.
Yippee for Craigs list!

Hooray For Fall!!!!

Just wanted to say that WE LOVE FALL!!! Fall is by far the best and most favorite time of year in our house. We love the cold air. There is nothing like a crisp cool day topped off with soup, some baked yummy fattening, sugary pastry, hot chocolate and the smell of some sort of spice candle to top it all off.


Fall is the beginning of so many fun things! Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a holiday fanatic...freak actually. Truly! If I had endless amounts of $$ our home would be decorated from top to bottom and inside out with holiday decorations. Cool decorations...not ones that are just thrown all over...but cool ones, that look neat. For now, I am just slowly getting a collection...hopefully a really really big one!


We love the beginning of so many awesome holidays and lots of Birthdays in our family as well. We love the gorgeous colors of the trees and the many many many drives through beautiful mountains. We love anticipating the snow and the cinnamon rolls that always come with the first snowfall. We love not being hot anymore. We love football games, snuggling by the fireplace, the beginning of school, warm snuggly sweaters and cute hats. We love anticipating family gatherings and making wonderful memories.
WE LOVE IT ALL...HOORAY FOR FALL!!!

This is hilarious!

Although this is so true and at the time, so frustrating, I believe that these are some of the things we will miss the most when the kids are grown and gone. Enjoy the moments!!!


Thinking of Having Kids?
Do this 11 step program first!

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the
last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and
be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.


Lesson 8
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to si de.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the
level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Pikes Peak Hike

We did it!!! Wahoo!!! Last Saturday, Ben and I completed the hike to the top of pikes peak. This was no small walk in the park! It rocked our socks!
It is a 12 1/2 mile hike. We started at 7000ft elevation and ended at 14,110 ft. Needless to say, the last 3-4 miles of the hike we were a little short on oxygen.
It took us about 6 1/2 hours to summit. There was snow the last few miles and on top and it was freezing! It was so cool to be up there though and to take in the amazing view, wow! It was gorgeous!
A really nice girl in our ward watched the kids for us, so we were able to hike with just the two of us. It was really fun to be alone with Ben and just be surrounded with so much beauty. It was great!
I am so proud of us. We have hiked all summer to get ready for this. We have done 10 hikes with the kids on our backs and one hike with just the two of us. So far this summer we have hiked 11 times and camped twice.
We kind of have a freakish love of the mountains, but it sure keeps us in shape, and our kids love it too.
Hiking buddies are always welcome!
(The picture of the mountain is what the peak looks like from our house.)

Valley of Fire....Here I come!!!!!!

Hello everybody,
Yes, I am absolutely and completely officially INSAINE!!! I am going to be doing the Valley of Fire Marathon in 10 weeks. Yes folks, all 26.2 miles of it. I have been training for about a year now, and I am finally where I need to be. This is it!!!
I have run two marathons in the past, but those were before I had kids and my body was quite different. It has been a long journey this time to get to where I need to be. Much harder I must say.
The marathon is in Vegas, so it will be a 12 hour drive to and from. Total of 24 hrs in the car. Lots of time to think about the crazy decision I made before the marathon, and lots of time to sit and cramp up after running the marathon. ;)

Anyway, I am going to begin the long runs this week. Wish me luck! And uh, if anyone wants to do this with me...I would love you FOREVER!!! Common, you can do it! You get gatorade and a cool shirt ;)

Family picture time!

I am sure you all know the joy that comes with family picture time. You get the kids all ready, they get messed up while you get ready, you get the kids ready again, then they are hungry. You starve them so they don't get dirty and race them to the picture place before they can fall asleep or get dirty.
Once there, you get in a full day's workout making them laugh or smile at just the right time. Needless to say, we only do this once a year.
We were soooooo happy this time though, because we got some great pictures. Hooray! It paid off! So, here are some of the pictures. Welcome to our family. ;)

The rest of the pictures

More of us.

Mr. Toad

This week, Mr. Toad, our "tadpole," finally got his arms. He is now a complete frog. (however he still has his long tail...hhhmmmm) He got his legs a long time ago. He has been the ugliest creature we have ever seen, but really interesting to watch as he mutates.
I was in the pet store looking for a leash today (Chamonix pulls me so hard on our runs, that I literally have sprained my fingers where I hold the leash...time for further action) ANYWAY...I was in the pet store and decided to ask someone what a frog/tadpole/mutant eats.
I described our enourmous tadpole to the guy and he said, and I quote, "Holy Smokes..you don't have an ordinary frog, you have a bullfrog! Who the heck gave you a stinkin bullfrog!"
I came to find out that bullfrogs are a danger to the ecosystem and that I need a lisence to even have one. Thank you Walmart for not knowingly selling us a bullfrog tadpole thingy. Good ol' Walmart. And I thought I was being such an educational mother buying my kids a tadpole that they could watch grow.
So, the guy said that our frog will get so big that he will need to eat mice and small birds! EWE!!! We will also need at least a 20 GALLON TANK to hold him!!!! He will get HUGE and really really loud.
It isn't legal to sell him to anyone, or to give him away, so we just get to wait until he is enourmous, eats his tank-mate Mr. Goldfish, keeps us up all night, and then try to give him to some lab or some school biology department. Oh wow, and we thought a dog was a lot of work.

A week in Paradise!

So, our vacation to the Bahamas was AWESOME!!! We had a vacation of a lifetime! Wahoo!!! It was so amazing. It was so nice to be able to just be together and have so much care-free fun! We felt like little kids all over again!
We loved every minute of it.

We stayed on Paradise Island at a resort called Atlantis for 5 days. This picture doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.



We stayed in a five star hotel and because of some room confusion, we got a room upgrade, so we ended up in a suite! SCORE! It was really fun for us.



Here is the trip in a nutshell:
Swimming in the aqua/blue bath water warm ocean..aaagghhh





Flying down some out of control water slides at the aquadventure water park. (one slide went so fast and so straight down that our backs didn't even touch the slide. It shot us underground through a clear tube that was in a pool of sharks.)

Very fancy business dinners: it was fun to get all dressed up and eat dinner next to the pool with really fancy tables, a band from the Bahamas, candle light, and enough food for an army. (there were 1000 people there from Ben's company, 500 employees and each brought a guest)





Chillin out in our awesome room with an amazing view, watching the olympics, with no interruptions.





Awards night: Another fancy dinner where Ben was recognized for all he did this year. Go Ben!



There were so many other awesome things about the trip, but it would take too long to write every detail, so we just posted the main ones. We soaked it all in and had to pinch ourselves often to really believe we were there. It was great! We are already anxiously hoping for another chance to do this again sometime.




We had a great time and our kids also had a fun week with grandma. She took wonderful care of them, and we didn't have to worry about them. Thank you grandma!

This is great! Makes me laugh every time.

photo booth prank...sooooooo funny!