Spring Activities and Marathon Training

Springtime is fun. It's been such a beautiful spring in Colorado Springs this year. It's actually been warm and we have been able to spend a lot of time outside. Hooray for spring! I love the longer days, the school activities, the outside exercise, kids playing out back with friends, and green grass. 

 TCA has a lot of theme days where the kids can dress up. This was immigration day for Katelyn. Luckily for us, a good friend loaned us this outfit from Denmark. Sometimes she has to go in her uniform, like for India day. And next week is Greece day. Not sure what to do for that one.

 She had a lot of fun. They spent the whole day making passports, traveling to Ellis Island, taking the Citizenship test, and doing all sorts of other things. 

 I need to get better pictures of Katelyn at the gym. She spends A LOT of time there. This is how she wakes up and goes to bed most nights. She has to ice different parts of her legs and she limps around moaning about how sore she is, which I am sure she is. The last two weeks we've had to dope her with Ibuprofen. She's getting pushed really hard. Both girls do gymnastics. I drive there 7 times a week so this is a BIG part of our spring activities. When they are not at the gym they are doing tumbling tricks on the trampoline, handstands, and whatever else they feel like. Katelyn's gym program is more rigorous, which is why she ends up like this on the floor.

 While there is always room for improvement, we read the Book of Mormon while we eat breakfast. Hans and I usually read to them in the interest of time, but Ashley has picked up some of the reading if she has gotten up early enough to be done eating. For the last several years we have been making the kids pancakes every single morning for breakfast. They are spoiled. 

My winter has been consumed with preparing for this spring race. This is the only picture we have of me at the marathon. I was so happy to be finished. I spent from January to April running at least 30 miles every week. It was an awful training for me and I vowed to never run a spring marathon ever again. I felt sluggish, tired, slow, and miserable. Some long runs I would feel tired at 1 mile in, which is never a good sign. I was lucky enough in February to find a Saturday running friend and she got me through most of the runs. We ran every portion of the Santa Fe trail. We ran from El Pomar north 10 miles and back. This was by far our scariest run. We passed dozens of homeless men sleeping under overpasses in a very remote area. We never did that again, which was fine with me since it was the most miserable 20 miles EVER. We ran from America the beautiful Park and our most frequented was from Palmer Lake to Woodmen Road or Costco on Nevada. I could force myself to stay with Kristi for an hour and then she would take off and I'd wonder why in the world I had lost my speed. I always finished though. My body survived the training pretty well. I had to do serious foam rolling on my IT bands to stay healthy and went to physical therapy with a Lifetime friend several times as well. She did dry needling on me. Dry needling was helpful, but painful. I had tendonitis in two tendons in both feet. I guess it's because my calf muscles were too tight. I limped around for awhile and didn't really run too much during my taper. Luckily it all helped and I didn't feel too much pain running the actual marathon. About 4 days before the marathon I finally got into see the doctor who did some testing and called me to tell me he didn't know how in the world I was getting out of bed in the morning, let alone marathon training. He said he was impressed, but surprised that it took me this long to see a doctor. My iron levels were beyond low. They are supposed to be well over 30 for females at our altitude and mine was 4. I was also anemic. He started me on prescription iron pills but said they wouldn't start helping for at least a month and most likely 3 months. I was so relieved to have a reason for all the crazy fatigue I'd been having for well over a year. I think I was more relieved to have a reason my running had gotten so pathetic. I always felt like I was running through mud and had to force myself out the door. I am so glad it is all over. 

A Boat!!!

We took the plunge and bought a boat. I have been dreaming about owning a boat for about my whole lifetime, so you can imagine my excitement. In fact, I can remember asking Hans to promise me that he would buy me a boat someday before we got married. As we signed over the title from the previous owner Hans said, "well babe, it took me 12 years, but I did it." Yes he did. And I am in love. We shopped all over the place for the past couple of years on ksl and craigslist and found this one only 2 hours from home. It's a tige. We test drove it in Denver and then the owner kindly drove it down to us. 

 The boat sat in front of our house for a few days while we found a storage place. It was a great toy for the kids. They love playing in it and showing it off to their friends. Everytime I saw it staring at me from the front windows, I smiled. I kind of miss having it parked in front of the house.

 We took the boat out after our Easter egg hunt. We drove to Pueblo, where it is warmer, but it was still jacket and blanket weather. It was very windy, which made for a very exciting trip. The kids loved it. It's so fun to drive. We drove around enjoying taking turns driving and then decided to sit in the middle of the lake, eat snacks, and listen to music. When we were done the engine wouldn't start. The battery was dead. The wind blew us into the rocks. The lake was very empty. Justin had a full, blown panic attack. He is my child, for sure. He was hysterical. I tried my best to talk him down, but he really was beyond reason. Luckily after 30 minutes or so we were able to flag down a fishing boat that gave us a jump and we drove back to the boat ramp. I did a laughable job of driving the boat into the trailer at low speeds with all the wind, but I was successful in the end. While a little stressful, and a lot of work, I loved it. It's just part of owning a boat. After getting the boat out of the water we discovered we had ruined the prop and dinged two places on the side of the boat. So...Happy Boat Ownership to Me. And Hans, of course. 

Easter Fun

Easter is a fun time of Year. I love Spring, Easter, Conference and all that they symbolize. I'm so grateful to be able to teach my children about Jesus Christ and the Resurrection. I'm grateful that they love Jesus and know that He is real. I have to continually remind myself that if my kids learn this then I have been successful as a parent. 

 Dyeing Easter eggs. We have had an amazingly warm winter and spring for Colorado. It's been delightful.

 Can you tell that they like this?

 I hid their Easter baskets all over the house. They had fun finding them until the first one was found. Then the others needed hints in a desperate sort of way. They got candy, seeds, and planting pots.

 I love the Christian community in Colorado Springs. They have great kids Easter egg hunts. They start with a live re-enactment of the Resurrection and a prayer. Then it's every kid for themselves finding eggs.

 This Church is called The Gathering and has the most beautiful property. It's close to Cathedral Pines, which is where I am hoping to move someday sooner then later.

 These two were all business. 

 She is so cute.

 The older kids hunt was more difficult and the girls were also all business.

 Happy kids. They got way more eggs then they needed.

 Happy Parents.

Morrills joined us. We love having them live near us.

 For Easter the kids got seeds to plant. This was a lot of fun.

Justin's Birthday

 Justin turned 6 on March 21st. He wanted to have a bowling party with friends from church and school. He enjoyed himself immensely.

Here he is on actual birthday morning. I gave him a wallet and chapstick. He loves cold, hard cash, but can't seem to hang on to it. I am hopeful that owning this wallet will help him. Now he is concerned with getting cards to put in there since there are slots for cards. He has a petco card and we are getting him a library card as well. Justin loves accumulating stuff.

Justin asked for Waffles for his birthday breakfast. His dad made these for him.

 Both sets of grandparents gave Justin money this year. He promptly bought this large, stuffed bear from Costco. He also bought a fishing pole.

 Now I get startled when I see a bear head watching TV. Pretty cute.

 Justin is wearing his 100 day celebration shirt in this picture. He celebrated his 100th day of kindergarten with a party at school. He decorated this shirt by himself. He drew 100 puffins. He was very proud of himself, as was I.

 Justin and Mia are party prepping. Stuffing goody bags with candy is a lot of fun.

 I also bought Justin a new pair of shoes for his birthday. He had outgrown his last pair of PE shoes and desperately wanted some real running shoes. Next time you see him ask him to show you how fast he is in these. He learned how to tie the shoelaces all by himself too.

 For the bowling party Hans and I both drove a lot of kids to the bowling alley. I think the driving together in the car was one of the best parts of the party. They were very cute.

 Justin refuses to use the bowling ramp. He does a great job throwing the ball down at the pins. He also got the highest score amongst the non-ramp using boys.

 Ashley has all the nurturing skills I somehow missed out on. She is amazing with Mia. She was a great help at the party.

 I can't remember why Katelyn was sad. Sometimes it's hard to enjoy other people's successes though. 

 Katelyn ended up winning amongst the non-ramp using girls.

 His enthusiasm for life warms my heart.

 The bowling cake. We worked hard on this with the help of some neighbor friends.

 He was spoiled by his friends. I didn't even know he liked legos, but he loved all the lego toys. The best part of legos is that Ashley loves them too and so they spent hours together working on projects. 

We sure love Justin. He loves life. He is full of joy and just feels every moment that he is in. He wakes up early to see the morning and goes to bed late. He wants to feel as many minutes of every day as he can. I admire him for that. He spends a lot of time playing with Mia and his neighbor friends and he is a great friend. He knows how to make sure everyone is included and he can change a game up to make sure that everyone is having a good time. He loves interacting with people so he isn't much of a toy guy, but he loves his fishing pole. He is hopeful that he will get to go fishing someday rather then just practicing his cast outside on the driveway. He loves his bike. He still loves swimming and has conquered most of his fears of water. He loves to go to lifetime and swim laps. He will spend a good 30 minutes just working his way back and forth across the pool. He loves reading scriptures and has decided that he is going to read the entire Bible by the time he is baptized. He diligently reads every night. He is in exodus. Hans and I read to him as well, but he isn't overwhelmed by the task. It takes him 15 minutes to read 3-4 verses, but he is sticking to it. He has excelled at school and is reading well. He loves his teachers and his friends and is happy to go to school now. He is my biggest fan. He just feels excitement and loves to see how many miles I have run, what I've done at work, etc. I really really love this boy.

Catching Up

We have been so busy. Busy with fun stuff and of our own creating, which is the best kind. So much has happened since Katelyn's baptism. I am making a list of blog posts to come.

Justin's birthday and catching up with Justin.
Marathon Training and the Marathon.
Easter.
Our new Boat.
Day to day for Spring Months - school activities, Hans' new hours, my jobs, etc.
Boston Trip.
Kate's move up at gym.

Now hopefully I get to doing this soon!