No Sleeping in Today!

We headed out a little after 7am this morning to get to our 5k. 10 days ago Rin came to me and asked if I would run with her in the 5k for 'Girls on the Run' that she has been training for. 'Sure...', I said.  Exercise hasn't EXACTLY been at the top of my list lately. I have been doing some light yoga and I walk on the treadmill while I indulge in my new favorite history program, 'American Ride', but that's about it.  So I ramped it up the last week and spent a little time running the dreaded 'program 4' on my treadmill and found that, yes, I am a little out of shape.

Luckily Catherine went easy on me and let me walk part of the time.  She was awesome though.  As always the first 1/2 mile was a bugger, but then we got our rhythm and rocked the rest of the way (even when Catherine's side started cramping at mile 2 1/2).  We came close, but didn't quite make our goal of 45 min.  Rin's personal goal was to not finish last.  Out of 2500 people, well, there was still a big crowd behind us at the end, so i guess we did make that one! I'm just glad that we made it all the way to the finish line with a smile on our face.

still fresh as a daisy before the start of the race

Following the race we picked up some lunch and then headed over to Thomas' soccer tournament.  He had an awesome day.  His team won 2 of 3 games, he made his first ever goal, and had 3 great blocks that kept the other teams from scoring.  So proud of him.  His whole team was so tired by the 3rd game, I wasn't sure if they would make it to the end, but they all powered through.

Just a pic of my birthday hike that I found when retrieving the previous pic from Brandon's phone

Garden of the Gods

We were totally spoiled over Thomas' birthday, Easter and Spring Break to have first the Uffenorde's and then the Turner's to visit.  So much fun. Our big outing with the Turners was a hike through Garden of the Gods by Colorado Springs. The BEST playground ever.  And not just for kids.

Buffalo sitting at the Visitor's Center. Ana,Eva,Catherine,Gwen, and Thomas.

Since getting her camcorder for Christmas, Milla has been our official documenter

The kids got through without incident, but this fissure proved too narrow for my woman hips.

Catherine's brave, but I think the heights got to her here

A rare sighting of 'Marc'

Soccer Birthday

THOMAS IS 7!!!

(and has been for a month...little behind)

All he really wanted was pink milk (see center). But Thomas was happy to get all the other treasures, too.

We were so excited that Aunt Alyssa and crew could be here for Thomas' birthday.  Above is Birthday Morning. PJs and Cake.  Mmmm 

Ahsha making sure my ears were ringing ;)

After breakfast we were off to Thomas' first soccer game where he rocked.  We've had snow every week for the last two months, but game day was beautiful.  Funniest happening was when we hear the referee looking towards Milla (whose back was turned watching Rin and Kyah playing about 10 feet away) saying, 'Mom! Mom!' over and over.  She was oblivious and we couldn't figure out what was going on 'til Lys and I looked at that end of the field and realized that Asher had wandered onto the field and the ref assumed Milla was the mother.  Ooops!  (Maybe you had to be there)

My birds

One thing that I love about this house over my La Grande one (which I was very attached to) is that the window over my kitchen sink looks out into my backyard. With my feeders up, my stream running and my neighbor's spruce, I get a lovely selection of birds.  I imagine as the neighborhood trees grow, I'll get more. So far the regulars are house finches, goldfinches,robins,red winged black birds, grackles, northern flickers, a couple different species of juncos, hummingbirds, and an occasional hawk (haven't gotten a good enough look to identify). The first pic I just found of some of the snowflakes Em,Cor, I and the kids made at Christmas time.  They covered my sliding glass door and survived long enough to get our Valentine wax hearts added to them. Made me smile as they filtered and embellished the view to my yard.

These videos will probably only be appreciated by you if you are a bird lover (I apoligize for my camera work- hadn't really gotten the hang of the new camera yet)  I love my flickers.

Cute kids

Here are just some random kid pictures that I finally downloaded off of the new camera that we got for Christmas.  The first two are the kids playing with the air rocket from Nana and G'pa Dave. They found they could get it to hit our second story ceiling by jumping off of our coffee table to land on the air pump.

Pretty sure the next one was taken by someone 'borrowing' the camara.  The following pose shots are kid taken as well.  They think they are pretty hip.  As do I.

Doin' the 'corndog'

And finally my sweet sweet Catherine helping me smooth out the 3 yards of compost that I spent hours wheelbarrowing from the pile in the front yard to the back (actually got help from all the fam once they got home from school and work).  This is one of the 2 beds that Shannon helped me build over spring break.  Couldn't find any pictures of us building them...must all be on Marc's camera.

Kayak

So the kayak that we purchased to bring to the family reunion arrived yesterday.  We were too busy to have time to open it last night, but I told the kids that we could get it out today.  I awoke to Catherine and Thomas acting like it was Christmas.  They were so excited that they were, on their own, prying the boxes open. As I watched, pleased that they were taking the initiative, it occurred to me that the butcher knife Catherine was using to open the box and the inflatable nature of the kayak housed inside the box might not be a good match. Luckily, the two didn't meet up.

the new favorite homework spot