Our Sandy Beach...

It's Spring Break... so most mom's know it's a time of trying to keep the kids entertained and from fighting with each other all day. Well the weather has been AWESOME the last couple of weeks and so we have been doing some family bike riding. There is a particular bike path that we all really enjoy going on, it's along the Queen Creek wash. There are TONS of rabbits running everywhere, lots of trees to shade the path, and it's a pretty easy ride for the kids. Cody loves the trail because there are really big dirt hills along the path that make for some really cool ramps!! So today we loaded on our bikes and made our way over for some dirt bike ramping!! (apparently ramping isn't a word according to spell check) We got there and the kids decided to go explore the wash...well let's just say they struck gold!! They had a blast!! They kept calling the area "Sandy Beach" like in Mexico....this one is just as good and we don't have to pack for two days to get here!!


























































Now I gotta try to find something just as fun for tomorrow...wish me luck!!


(Blogger is going crazy on me...I can't fix my pictures to where they aren't over lapping)

"I'm a mean Witch!"

Makayla was cracking me up, she put on McKenzie's boots and was walking around the house saying "ha, ha, ha, I'm a mean witch!" She makes me smile!

Seattle Washington

I love Seattle!! We couldn't have picked a better weekend to go, the weather was great! Clayton was going to Vancouver for work and we had a free round trip airlines ticket that needed to be used so I decided to meet him in Seattle at the end of his business trip. Neither of us have been there and so we were so excited to go explore, just the two of us! Before we left we asked around for ideas for "must do and see" from people that have been there before so we had a pretty good list of things we wanted to do. Thursday was a day of traveling just to get to my hubby, waiting for me in the Seattle airport. We got a rental car and headed to the hotel. (I LOVE Priceline) We got a $150 hotel for $55...and it was a NICE Hilton hotel!! Clayton spend a couple of his business trip days in Seattle so he wanted to show me a couple "neat" things, first he wanted to show me the floating bridges.

This City doesn't waste any space..they build things anywhere.

We then went to the Space Needle put our name in for lunch and had an hour to waste so we walked around the grounds of the space needle...

The view of downtown from the top of Space Needle

Lunch at the top of the Space Needle is a must...it's AMAZING!! (the view and food)

Next we took the monorail and went downtown. First we hit the famous Pike's Market Place.

The famous fish throwers...look close and you can see the blurry fish flying in the air.


While walking around the Market Place we stumbled upon a crepe shop. O MY GOSH!! SO good! Worth every cent of the $12 dollars we spent on one crepe!!

Next stop was the Seattle Aquarium. I wasn't to thrilled about going, but Clayton was persistent. I am so glad we went...lots of neat fish and we even got to see an octopus up close. The pictures we took there was the kids favorites to look at. They kept saying "no fair, you guys got to do fun things" while we were showing them. We will definitely have to go back as a whole family someday.

The rest of the day we walked around the piers, shopped and ate... The shopping was my favorite part, they have the best stores and Clayton was being sweet and never told me no when I wanted something!!

I ate the corn and potatoes and Clayton ate the rest of the pile.... :)

LOVE this store!!

Saturday we decided would be an explore day. We put our car on a ferry and went across to Bainbridge Island, what a fun little town!! We had fun going to all the little downtown shops and driving around dreaming of owning a home there! And can't forget to mention the best restaurant there...we asked a few locals what they would recommend for lunch and they all said a place called The Pub...go good!! The view from the restaurant was AWESOME!!

Driving onto the ferry.

The view while driving around the Island.

On the ferry leaving Seattle.

We then drove to another town on the Island and again stumbled upon another crepe shop...Clayton couldn't resist.

We got back on the ferry and went back to Seattle and then drove to an outlet mall in Marysville and shopped until the stores closed!

I was so nice to have my husband to myself and enjoy each other all weekend...I was sad it was coming to an end, but I was ready to see my kids.

Moulding and Millwork has an office in Alaska..I told Clayton to work on doing a business trip there, so hopefully next stop, ALASKA!!

A GREAT learning experience for my kids...

I have come to really enjoy running in races....but this one was different for our whole family. My kids are getting use to waking up early on Saturday mornings and going to watch me run in some sort of race, but they didn't know this one would be a life learning experience for them. The race was to help out a family that has conjoined three year old twins. To learn more go here. These sweet girls were born sharing the same heart...when we got to the race the kids saw pictures of the girls and the questions starting coming. It was nice to be able to stop and take the time to explain to them that just because people are born "different" doesn't make them any less special. It was such a treat to be able to meet this sweet girls.

It was an honor to help this family out...my kids were in heaven when I did a silent auction for a Nintendo Wii and we WON!!!

Coming in for the big finish!

Clayton's sister's Rashel and Kristy ran the 5k race...and kicked butt!!

Cody enjoying the after race festivities!!

They had a petting zoo for the kids...and some how one REALLY big kid got in the gate!

**On a side note..this was a 10k race (6.3 miles) and I ran it in my best time EVER for this distance (56 min 32 seconds)!! I was so excited!

School Valentines Party

I was able to go enjoy McKenzie's class Valentines party! McKenzie seems like she is the only one that still likes mom coming to her class and hanging out with her..the other kids are getting too cool for mom.

They played a game where you stack candy hearts as high as you can in 45 seconds and the person who stacks the most without them falling wins. McKenzie stacked hers really high and a couple seconds before they said stop her pile fell...she shed a few tears. The room mom was kind enough to give her a prize anyways....this is her with her HUGE smile!!

Passing out her Valentines cards...she was SO excited to do this for the first time!!!

To be young again.......

She's 9 and turning into a BEAUTIFUL young lady!!

Callie turned 9 on the 9th of Feb!! We love to watch her grow before our eyes...she is turning into quite a cute, special little lady. She loves to coordinate all her outfits with her jewelry. (she has more jewelry than her mom) She loves to wear hair flowers and headbands to match each outfit. She takes more time picking out her clothes than I do! Callie is such a sweet girl. She loves being the oldest and helping/bossing her siblings. She is a huge help to her mom!! Callie has such a tender heart, she loves church, and LOVES school. We love you Callie...I remember the day you joined our family just like it was yesterday, you made us parents for the first time and you a SO special to us! Thanks for being the kind, gentle, loving, smart girl that you are!

Family party...got to Celebrate birthdays with Uncle Eric, and cousin Dylan!! Aunt Elli did an AWESOME job on the cake!

She LOVES her new headband she got!

The party was fun...but by the looks on every ones faces you wouldn't be able to tell. LOL!

The tradition of eating cake/cupcakes for breakfast before school on your Birthday!

I did it! London's Run 2010

I was so excited for this day to finally come! I worked so hard for the last 20 weeks preparing my body for this long run. I was very disappointed when 4 days before the event I got sick, I caught a cold and it took me a couple days of laying around to finally start feeling good enough to attempt my last days of training. I knew when I struggled to run 4 miles two days before the event that I wasn't going to be able to reach my personal goals of running it under 2 hours and doing it without walking, but I was gonna do my darnest and try!! I can say I gave it my all, but at mile 10 my body and my lungs were telling me they were done and they needed to stop, so I ended up having to walk a little bit of the last 3 miles. I am very proud of my time giving my circumstances.....I completed it in 2 hours and 11 minutes. I will for sure do it again next year and try to beat my time!

Thanks everyone for helping me out along my journey...especially my mom!! She was willing to watch Makayla while I ran during the week. And a huge thanks goes to my husband, he had to put up with a lot of grouchiness due to me being worn out from training. And thanks for everyone that made it to cheer me on at the finish line, it means more than words can say!!

After a long run like this and coming around the corner to see a crowd cheering for you...it's emotional. Here I am trying to fight back the tears as I cross the finish line.

I have never been so happy to see the word "FINISH"... I was drained.

My biggest fans!

While my family waited the 2 hours for me to finish they had so much fun!! London's Run always makes it fun for the whole family.

They had face painting,

a helicopter they could get up close to and check out,

a scary animals petting zoo,

McKenzie's and Makayla's favorite was the inflatable bouncers and slides!!