Portland Shamrock Run 2010

This year for Jeffs Birthday (in December), Andy and I bought him registration for the Shamrock run! We were so excited to have a fun weekend with him!! The weekend finally got here and we had so much fun! Of course it was a week before school finished up, so we all had homework hanging over our head;) Ashleigh decided to come with us at the last minute, so unfortunately registration was closed, but we still got to spend time together, which was so fun!
Andy drove us there very efficiently (is that the right word for fast and furious:)) giving us plenty of time the first night there to call Beth and have dinner together. We went to Macaroni Grill and had wonderful food and company! Then back to the room to crash! It was Daylight Savings Time the next morning so we needed lots of sleep!
The next morning was just beautiful! The sun was shining and there was NO RAIN! We had such a great time running! The boys took pity on me and ran with me, which made it super fun for me!! The course was a bit hilly, but it always makes it for some interesting running, instead of boring flat terrain! It's also fun to run with 22,000 other people. Keeps you motivated and entertained for sure:) My favorite part was a turn that we took and you could see waves of people running... It truly always is such a great feeling to see that many people doing something hard, and accomplishing it! Even though lots of people do it faster and make it look easy, it still is hard! So much fun to be a part of it! And a beautiful day to enjoy the green scenery! What a fun day! We are so grateful for Jeff letting us spend his Birthday Gift with him!

The view out our hotel room window Sunday morning! It was truly a beautiful day!!

I can't tell you how much we adore these women! They are so much fun to be around and such inspirational women!! We had such a great night together!

This is my favorite two pictures. This is a picture of the start of the 15K, see the people all ready to go, readying their watches to time their run perfectly... So serious and ready for a hard run!!

So here is the picture of the group that we were in. They have you line up according to your pace, since there are so many runners! So they would let a wave of people go, then we would wait, then more would go... on and on! So, here is our group, with the sign showing "SLOW"! Really? We weren't that slow, come on!! Cut us some slack!! Notice we all don't have on the short shorts and no one is setting their watches! Made me laugh!!!

Red to Red Bike Race

Andy competed this year in the Red to Red bike race in Echo Oregon. It is a 27 mile mountain bike race. They have two different races. 20 miles, or 27 miles. In order to race in the 27 mile ride they had to register as a Category 1 racer, which he had never done before. It was such a beautiful day for a race in March, sun was shining and it was fairly warm out. The poor little town of Echo is just tiny, and then has 300 bikers and family members bombard the quiet town! Andy did so well and finished in less time than his goal! I was so proud of how well he did! He actally finished faster than he had told me, so I missed his finish line picture since I thought I had another half hour! I really love watching him compete, he does such a great job on his bike, and has fun doing it!

Hearts in Motion Competition

We love going to the Hearts in Motions Competition in Pendleton! They really know how to put on a show over there! Kyndalls group was so ready for the competition, and they are old enough now that they have a fun time together and can be pretty independant. The younger groups always are more like babysitting, but as helper moms this year, it was SO much fun! The girls did a great job and won 2nd place in their Junior Large Group division. In reality they competed against girls much older than them, so we were so proud of them! They dance to a cut of the new version of FAME! Such a fun dance to watch:) And of course it's just so fun to watch all of the other groups dance. Fun to see the diversity and talent in the state.

Sleeping in the snow!

February always marks the month when the boys sleep in snow caves for the Boy Scout Klondike Derby. They look forward to it so much! It begins on Presidents day, spending the day at Anthony Lakes digging the snow caves and making camp. Then they go back that following Friday and stay over night! They cook dinner in the snow, try to avoid their clothing and food from freezing in the horrible cold weather. Spencer ended up getting horribly sick on the Thursday of the week and ended up not getting to go camping. But he had so much fun digging the caves. They built their camp so that all of the cave were built kind of in a bowl. Their 7 caves opened to the middle where they all spent their evening eating and visiting. This ended up working rreally well due to the face that the wind was super strong and being inside of the bowl, they were protected from the wind. Wyatt had a great time on the Saturday day activity. The boys got to cross country ski. Wyatt had a great time skiing. I think he is now hooked on cross country skiing, but then again, Wyatt loves anything outside!
As mom, I am always so relieved when they get home safe! But it is always a bonus when they had a great time as well. Not many people can have a WONDERFUL time in 10 degree weather:)

Surfin in the USA

Grace's dance team danced at the EOU game this month! They are all so cute! Her class is full of little 5 to 7 year olds. Her dance teacher is seriously my hero! That is a lot of work to keep them working hard and doing such a great job! They danced to the Beach Boys - Surfin in the USA, which is so funny, cuz they had never heard the song and don't LOVE this dance, but the audience so loves it! The outfits were not foofy enough for Miss Grace! But I think they were super cute and fit the dance so well!!! She has so many fun friends in this group of girls, makes it really fun for her to be involved in dance.

Valentines Day!

What a busy weekend we had for Valentines Day! Because it was on a Sunday, we spent our weekend celebrating! On Saturday we took a day trip to Boise!!! Shopping at the mall of course:) Then we got to eat lunch at our favorite restaurant, Tucanos! We had the most wonderful lunch of meat and salad bar, with chocolate covered strawberries and roses! It was such a fun lunch! At the end of the day we went to the theater and watched the new movie Percy Jackson.... It was a lot of fun spending the day together!


Valentines day was so incredible! We really had such a fun weekend! We woke up to a visit from cupid... for some reason he always visits in the night and leaves red, white and pink streamers in the our bedroom doorways! We LOVE waking up to them:) After our day at church, we hhad a formal dinner of salad, prime rib, lobster, veggies, and desert! I thought I would be so fun and serve everyone individually... My memories always work better in my mind then in reality! Everyone had me running, trying to keep up with them each as they ate. Finally at one point I turned to bring something to the table and the entire place setting where Dallin was sitting was on fire!!! Lol! It was the funniest thing, (after we got the fire out!). No one at the table had even noticed this HUGE fire in the middle of the table! Dallin had thrown his napkin up on the table, landing it into his individual candle at his spot, thus catching the napkin and candle holder on fire. Those napkins are EXTREMELY flamable! So, my lesson learned, candles + a 4 year old = chaos! It definately added some flare to dinner!!! what a weekend of love with our kiddos! So much fun!!

Dancing at EOU

Wow! I was going to get better at this blogging thing, and have really not done so hot! I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I blogged.
This weekend was wonderful! Andy and I were able to go for a bike ride with some friends on Saturday morning. I was so needing to get on my bike and remember how fun it is, spin class hasn't done that for me:) The weather wasn't wonderful, but the roads were dry, and that's all we needed! So the guys took on the head wind and I drafted as much as possible and got close to 40 miles in. It was further than I had planned, but was happy to know I could still do it... now to get strong enough to do it well:) We were so glad we got out when we did, because that night it started snowing! Of course, it hasn't stayed, but the ground is wet again! Back to running for a while! We are signed up to do a run in March, so I suppose that is appropriate anyways!

Kyndall danced Saturday night with her team and they did so well. This is a dance that they will be performing in Pendleton in a competition. They are dancing to the song "Fame" from the new movie, it moves a little faster than they have danced before, and they are doing a great job with it! I love watching them dance and love the team she is on. So many wonderful girls from wonderful families. I love when my kids are surrounded by people who are so positive and supportive! So here are a few of my favorite pictures from the night! (I really dislike shooting in the gym and the background is horrible, but the pics were fun!)






This picture made me laugh. No, she is not looking at some mans crotch, but of course he had to be in the background at that very moment... I seem to have many of those moments in photography!

I guess it's back to homework for me now! Maybe I would be a better blogger if I just posted my assignments:)