FINALLY!

Well, here's something at least...
We've had a busy month, and I really wanted to post some fantastic pictures of myself running the marathon and qualifying for Boston, maybe have "Chariots of Fire" playing when my blog was pulled up...but things didn't really happen as planned. I did run the marathon, didn't qualify for Boston, and I can't pull up the pictures of it on the disk Christy gave me for some reason right now, so I'll wait and discuss that later.


Here's Jonah at a soccer game. Some of these pictures are out of order.



Rachel and Katie and their kids came down for UEA weekend. It was Ruby's fourth birthday, so here's Ruby and her "cake." True to my roots, I didn't have birthday candles so we used one Christmas scented candle.

Here's Jay at Grandma Johnson's house sitting in the chair that belonged to Grandma's aunt--the chair is "at least a hundred years old" and has been that old since I was little, so who knows?

Here's Bridgie in the famous chair

Eden and Jay at the park. When Rachel and kids came to town we took In-n-Out to the park and I threw my cell phone away with the drinks. But at least we had fun, right?

Jay man

Eden

Ruby

Best buddies--both sucking thumbs? These two both wish they were babies sometimes.

Bridgie girl always pulls her hairbows out

Still toothless!

Rachel and Jay

Jonah is loving his soccer team this year--here they are in a huddle with coach Bryce.

Pretty intense....Jonah usually likes to run around the perimeter of the pack of players.

What a kick--though I heard it bounced off of another player and came back to hit him in the face :-(

My three boys after the Primary program on October 26. From my point of view on the stand, it all went as well as can be expected. Gabe and Jonah both had their parts memorized. Gabe was laying on the chairs trying to sleep by the time it was over--he said "He teaches me what I must do to live with God again. Our prophet today is Thomas S. Monson." But when not prompted, he tended to start out with "I pledge allegiance.." and then get embarrassed. Luckily he said it right for the program.

Ash hates having his picture taken!

Jonah looks 14 in this picture.

Bridgie's "scary" face Sydney taught her to do.

Bridge and Jude--true love....

Here's the "New Era" type picture we took for Sydney's young women project--she read the entire Book of Mormon and we needed a picture to display at the "Young Women in Excellence" night. She performed a song "Anything you can do I can do better" with a bunch of the girls...cute!Sydney and Bridge after we got home from our fun movie night at Staci and Douglas' house--we all brought our favorite movie clips and showed them on the projector outside--fun idea!

Random picture of Bridge--the girl her brothers call "the prettiest queen princess of all babies"

Bridgie and Jenevieve--we were trying without success to get these two to pose!

Friday night of UEA weekend we went to the town square and they had music and games set up for the kids. Here's Ellie, Nathan, and Eden shakin' their booties.

Bridgie soaking wet.

My two little girls.

Ellie having fun at the splash pad

Ruby "helping" with Bridge.

A little video from Ruby's party
Sydney and Asher both played in a piano recital October 14. Sydney was evaluated by a judge and got a superior plus and was asked to play at an honors recital. After that recital she was one of four students asked to play at a recital in Salt Lake, but we couldn't go because of the Primary program.

Okay, I've posted something now!

facebook flashbacks

Me and Derek, homecoming senior year. He was student body president, I was vice president. What a great guy and wonderful friend.

I was talking to a friend of mine who's 10 years younger than I am, and she asked: "what do people your age do on facebook?" Ouch! But anyway, I guess I could say people at my advanced stage of life do what everyone else does on facebook--they waste time! My b.f.f. Stacy P. invited me to join it, and I was plunged into a Port Angeles H.S. class of '92 reunion. It has been so fun remembering the good old days, so I decided to scan in some old photos. Now I'm panicking because I can't find a lot of pictures that I know I had somewhere, but here's my trip now memory lane.

Here's a picture of the morning after Senior Ball--we all slept at Stacy's cabin on the lake. I went with James Walton (back row second from left). Top row left to right: Sean, James, Justin, Derek, Peter, Gunilla (Swedish exchange student), me, Heidi, Laura, Hana, Stacy, Barry, Maureen, Aaron

Here's me, Bonnie, and Stacy at Spring Fling--we all thought we were so hilarious doing stayin' alive poses!

Here's my one night of royalty--I was Duchess. From left to right: Craig S. (right?), me, ?, Kim, ?

Me and Karl W. at Junior Prom. I have always hated this picture of me, but he sure has a hot cardigan on! I loved this dance--the best ever!

Here's me and my Mormon friends at the Seattle temple. Stacy, Emily, me, Bonnie, someone, Mik, Jennifer, Janet

Diving team--my sister Emily is top row second one in. I'm on the bottom middle. I can't imagine posing in a swimming suit now!

Here's me and my trusty debate partner Sarina on our trip to Walla Walla. We were so "Anne of Green Gables"...

Me, Grady, Amanda and Pat at some dance--Spring Fling senior year?

Okay, this one's for Stacy, who stuck with me through thick and thin. This is my sixteenth birthday. Luckily the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire came!

And another one for Stacy--homecoming sophomore year. Oh, those were the days!!!

Okay, I think I might have this whole high school flashback thing out of my system now!

Breaking Dawn

****notice--if you loved Breaking Dawn, please don't read this--I don't want you to hate me. And, just so you know, I'm still planning to see Twilight opening night, so there's the hypocrite in me!

I just finished reading Breaking Dawn--what a joke! There's a reason why the "happily ever after" part in most books is only about 5-10 pages at most. Even though we think we want to see the happy couple together, once the drama and suspense and conflict is over, it really is time to end the book. Think of Pride and Prejudice--do we really want to see Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy get married, settle down, have kids, go to work, clean the house blah blah blah...(sounds like a book about my life, and I don't want to read about my life!) We might think we do, but a sequel would be really boring. But not as boring as Breaking Dawn--was there a conflict at all? NOTHING bad even happened. Everything Bella worried about was resolved almost instantly--lucky her... but no fun for the bored reader! Have I used that word enough?

I don't even want to dwell on the disturbing, yet somehow still boring parts of the book--like how Bella is covered in bruises after her wedding night--is anyone worried about having young girls read this? Or, what about Bella craving and drinking blood when she's pregnant--then vomitting it up--SICK! And was it really a big surprise that she got pregnant? We knew this was coming from book 2...

And here's the other thing I have to say. Anyone who compares the Twilight books to Harry Potter should be grounded. In Harry Potter, we know the characters--we love the good ones and hate the bad ones and are intrigued by the ambiguous ones. In Twilight she only really develops three characters--Bella (obnoxious), Edward, and Jacob (and maybe Alice and Bella's dad a little). The rest are totally indistinguishable. So you would think she would keep the only reasonably interesting conflict alive--that love triangle between the three. But no, it's all resolved in like the first 150 pages. BORING. Then the big fight at the end, which turns out to be nothing because Bella is so awesome and powerful and had no problem at all becoming a vampire, is confusing because who knows or cares about all these characters that only come around at the end? Each time a new vampire comes to join them, I have to wonder--will this one be gorgeous beyond all reason too? Yep! And was anyone really scared at the end? I mean, we hear everything Bella thinks and she knows her life is coming to an end over and over and over and over again...Also, do we really care about a character that is introduced in the last 10 pages (that half human, half vampire guy). Do you think she's opening this up for a sequel?

Obviously I'm reading too much into this...I'm just mad at myself right now for wasting so much time, and I know it's my fault! And it's set in Forks so I HAD to read it! I'm just jealous that I didn't write it myself! So I'll end this now and go do something more useful...like sleeping

Okay, have you seen this movie? We apparently don't get out much and just got this on Netflix the other day (our solution to perpetual late fees!). It was sooooo good. Charming, funny, endearing, quirky, intelligent. I love, love, loved it!

too early for piggies?

I had to try! She's got a major mullet going, so we slicked the top down to look like it was long enough to reach the pigtails. Results: bald looking in the front, but cute in the back. Maybe we'll have to wait a few more months for more hair!

a good day

I guess I first better back up and include some older pictures. Summer "vacation" seems like a distant dream, but here is Ash on the last day of swim team. Even though I forced him to do it he ended up really liking it. When I asked him how practice went one day he said "It was hard, but good." If you knew Ash you would know why this was music to my ears!

Here's the whole team. Ash is hiding because he forgot his green shirt.

And here's my big 7th grader on the first day of school as I dropped her off. School was no big deal for her, since this is her second year at Lava Ridge--she rules the school!

Asher and Jo were excited on their first day of school. Jo was most excited, but nervous, about eating lunch at school, riding the bus both ways, and having lots of recesses. Apparantly he had five recesses the first day! When did he have school time? We don't know!

Ash, fourth grade! I can't believe it!

Little Jo, a big first grader! It's wierd not to have him around to play/fight with Gabe!

And here's Gaby on his first day of preschool, a week later. We are rotating with 5 other boys and having preschool at home! This should be an adventure!

Such a Gabe smile. I am actually discovering that I like this little boy again! It's nice having time with him alone, and he is maturing some. He asks before he takes off, and is generally more content alone. I hate so pinpoint one specific sibling as causing much of the problems for Gabe, so I won't mention names!

Here's Bridgie girl sitting in the hot rocks. I am loving having more one-on-one time with her as well!

And here are the six preschool boys--destined to become best friends or worst enemies this year! From left to right: Ollie, Jackson, Corbin, Gabe, Griffin, and Andrew. You should have seen how hard it was just to get them all in one place for a picture. This should be an interesting year!

I'ts been so long since I've posted anything, I had to remind myself how to do it. I've been breathing a long sigh of relief ever since school started again, and this afternoon has been as close to perfect as I have had in a long time, thanks to Jen who has had Gabe over to play and swim with Janessa for 5 hours now, and a baby who has slept almost that long. Bridge, Gabe, and I spent the morning in the front yard pulling weeds, so by the time Gabe got invited to play, Bridge was all tuckered out. So tired, in fact, that I was forced to lay by her on my bed until she fell asleep. Once she was asleep (and I got a power nap myself), I had a passably clean house (don't look in any drawers, cupboards, closet, fridge, garage, van, or upstairs!) and had a good 2 hours to myself to finish my book club book. Too bad it was a depressing book! Then when Sydney got home she practiced her instruments (viola and piano), Jonah and Ash came home next and I had a chance to read with Jo Jo alone. Oh, the simple pleasures of life!

One thing that would have made it better would be some fresh fruit or vegetables. I am sticking to my grocery budget now that school has started, and we spent it all in Park City for our anniversary. So, I'm not going grocery shopping until Friday, even if it kills me or if we all die of starchy carb overload! I made rice crispy treats for some of the Primary teachers and the kids ate the rest for their snack. Note the white, bland color. We had German pancakes for dinner last night, and tonight we are having chicken in the crock pot with cream of chicken soup over rice with some frozen green beans. Again, a creamy, pale, starchy dinner--but at least is has some protein! I'm almost starting to feel like Leah in the book I just finished--The Poisonwood Bible--with all the boiled manioc root they ate. But, what a stupid comparison. I really can't relate to living in Africa, and NEVER want to be able to relate!