Praying for Chris

I've been praying for Chris a lot lately. He's not sick or anything, just under a ton of pressure. Chris has his MBA test coming up in 2 days. He is so nervous about taking it. He's been working for this for 2 years and is on the home stretch of actually getting his MBA. Lately he's been studying 30 hours a week just for this test. After this, he writes a final paper and that's it!

He is such a good man. I pulled out one of my old journals last Sunday, and read what I had written when Chris and I first started dating. Man, I was so in love with him. I thought he was so amazing and wonderful and I loved him so much! The way I felt then doesn't even compare to how I feel for Chris now. It is so amazing to me how much my love has grown for him. I never thought I could love someone as much as I love him. Our marriage hasn't always been easy. It still isn't easy, but we have always persevered.

Chris is such a good provider and dad and friend and husband. He always keeps my secrets. He works 40 hours a week as an Accountant, teaches accounting to high school students, does electrical work on the side, fulfills his church callings, and still has time to watch the kids for me while I workout. He helps the kids with homework, makes dinner when I've had a crappy day, takes care of our yard, watches the kids sporting events, and he hasn't missed a single parent teacher conference EVER. He puts up with all my crazy ideas and eats vegetarian meals just so I don't have to touch the meat. He's one of the most forgiving people I know, and is always the first one to apologize. Chris is the better half of our marriage. I always tell him that if I make it to Heaven it will be because of him!

I am so glad our kids have such a great role model to look up to. They love him as much as I do. I am the luckiest girl alive to have a man like Chris. I only hope I can live up to all he has been to me!

Six days

Can you believe this is six days of laundry? You would think I lived in a house of all girls with the amount of laundry we go through. I know many of you feel my pain on the laundry front. I actually don't mind laundry. It's one of my more enjoyable tasks, but with 6 people, it can be daunting. The laundry really piles up fast, so I try to do it about every five days. Today I only had time to keep rotating the laundry as it finished drying, then onto my bed it went into a big pile. I didn't get time to fold it until tonight. This first picture isn't even all the laundry. I have 2 more finished loads in a laundry basket, one in the dryer, and some on the clothes line.

One hour later:

Socks

Our family has sock issues.

First of all, check out this picture of mine and Braxton's socks side by side. His is the bigger sock. His feet are almost as big as mine, and I wear a size 9 too! It just amazes me how fast all the boys are growing up.

Here is a picture with Anden's initial on his sock. No, it's not so we can tell whose sock it is. It's because it's actually Calvin's sock, and he won't wear it anymore. He refuses to wear socks with even the smallest hole anywhere on the sock, and if it feels even slightly "funny" he won't wear it either. Since Anden could care less, he gets all the socks that don't pass the approval of Calvin.

This is a pile of Chris' socks. This guy is totally OCD about socks. There are 9 pair of socks here and that is small compared to what the pile usually is on laundry day. He has socks he runs in, socks he wears to work, socks to lounge in, socks to work in the yard, socks for church, socks for when it's cold, socks for when it's hot, and on and on and on. He goes through at least 2 pairs of socks a day.

Family Pictures

Yesterday we got our family pictures taken. There is a girl in town who does an amazing job. Let me tell you, I have been stressing about this for a long time. It took forever to pick our outfits out...of course they had to be color coordinated. I'm sure I drove Chris CRAZY with all the talk about the pictures and how we all needed to match, and how Roy better stop picking the scab on his nose or it wouldn't heal in time for the pictures (it didn't), or how I had gained 10 lbs. and now it was gonna show in the pictures....blah blah blah.

Anyway, it'll take awhile before she has them up, but she has a blog ( http://brookepehrsonphotography.blogspot.com/ ) if you want to see some of her work. She is amazing. She is a graphic designer as well.

She'll have to work miracles with us. Roy was bouncing off the walls, Calvin was cheesin' it big time, and Braxton had bloody boogers from an earlier bloody nose (gross, I know)!

Super Hero

Andy had been playing outside when he came inside and announced that he is a super hero! Of course I told him that was awesome. He wanted to know if I wondered why he was now officially a super hero. "Of course," I told him. He promptly said, "because I get this thingy thing and pick up bugs with it and move them." He was holding a super duper hero bug getter in his hands...a clothespin!

Feet

Yes, that is a picture of my freakishly skinny feet. And, no those aren't my fingers attached to them, those are my toes; yes, my even more freakishly, skinny toes. I am so frustrated I could scream. I have the hardest time finding shoes that I like, but finding shoes that I like AND fit my feet is insane. During the summer I live in my Chaco's. They are comfy, cute, and they actually fit my feet. Well, now that it is winter, I have been looking for some shoes so my feet won't freeze. To start off with, I don't like wearing shoes. I never have. The minute I get in the car or house my shoes are off. But it is getting cold.

I've been looking on Zappos.com. I decided since it is so hard to find shoes that fit, I would order several pair, try them on, then send back the ones that don't fit. I ordered SEVERAL pair. They came today. They all look terrible on me! They feel like I'm going to walk right out of them. The straps gape open. HELP! They just don't make cute shoes for narrow feet. They are all granny shoes. If you know of any cute, skinny, long (did I mention I wear a size 9?!) shoe, please let me know.

Wow, life is tough.

What a difference a day makes!

This year I decided to not plant a real garden like I usually do. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time since I was trying to train for a long distance triathlon. Well, we had just finished our concrete driveway, and had some concrete planter boxes put in. Since nothing was in them, I figured I might as well plant some tomatoes, basil, and peppers. We were also delighted when a volunteer cantaloupe plant started growing between my lavender.

Tomatoes

It ended up being a great idea! There was something about the boxes that the plants really liked. We were surprised, and they produced a bounteous crop. The basil thrived so well that we fed our rabbits handfuls of it everyday.

Basil

On Saturday, the weather guy said it was supposed to freeze that night. I never listen to the weather since they are terrible at predicting the weather for Blanding, but for some reason I decided to listen this time. We picked all the tomatoes we could see (it was getting dark outside). We dug up 3 basil plants and transplanted them in pots to be bring inside so we could try to prolong their life. We clipped the rest of the basil so I could make and freeze pesto. We also saved 2 melons from their cold fate.

When we woke up the next morning, everything looked like this:

I didn't do it.

So I didn't end up swimming in the reservoir, and I'm sure as heck not doing it now. It is FREEZING! Last weekend there was a triathlon in Moab, and Chris and I did that instead. Neither of us had trained for it, but we decided to go for it anyway.

Chris was THE bomb. They reversed the order so it was run, bike, swim. We all know Chris is an amazing runner, but he is even more gifted on the bike. He was with the front pack during the run, but on the bike he passed a few more guys and was in 1st place!!! He is just built for cycling. When he got to the pool, there was a guy just behind him, and Chris told him to go ahead. Chris just learned to swim this year, so he has really struggles at it. He is getting better, though. Chris was passed by several other guys and ended up finishing 5th!

This picture isn't of this race. We couldn't take any since we were both racing. This is Chris transitioning from the swim to the bike at the Hillman earlier this summer.

My race went well for me. The run was tough especially with my hurt foot, but I survived. I was able to pass several people on the bike, and finished the swim strong. It was a really fun race, and we were able to do it with some of our friends from Blanding.

Yeooooww!

In Blanding our city pool is an outdoors and closes on Labor Day. That means after Labor Day if I want to get in any swimming, I need to go to one of our reservoirs and swim. Well, it hasn't really been that bad since I have a wetsuit. A wetsuit really does keep you warmer, and for me it squelches my silly fear of being bit by a fish. Yes, I said BIT by a fish.

Well, the last few times I have swam there, it has been pretty darn cold. The weather has turned really cold over the past couple days, but I really want to get one last long swim in. Do I dare to do it? It's gonna be COLD, and if you know me, you know I hate to be cold. Last year me and a friend had to swim there since we were training for a race in mid-October. I'm telling you, it was so incredibly cold. I seriously wondered if we would get hypothermia by the time we made it back. Well, now I am not training for a race, I just love to swim in this beautiful body of water surrounded by nature.

I'll let you know if I end up doing it and survive to tell the story!

Thank goodness for wetsuits, though. My crazy self signed up for another Half-Ironman in April of next year. It's in Oceanside, California, and apparently the water is really really cold. I knew I wouldn't be able to practice any open water swims just before the race since all our reservoirs here will likely still be frozen, so I have really wanted to get a lot of open water swimming in now.

I'll start heavily training for that race in December. I hope my foot can survive the run. As you may know, I have a gimpy foot. I injured it in July and it's been hurting every since. I'm slowly starting to run on it again with only a little pain. The most I have gone is 2 miles. Not much, but a start nonetheless.

This picture is of me coming out of the water at Barb's Race. They had a small strip of carpet to run on after we got out of the water so we didn't have to step on rocks and such. The guy in front of me had just finished swimming twice as far as me (they were having a full ironman at the same time), so he was probably just excited to be done with the swim. He was walking, and I was pumped to get on my bike, so I wanted to run. This is about where I decided to run past him and I stubbed my toe....owie.

His Favorite Place

This year I was so busy training for my Half-Ironman that I didn't plant a garden in my raised beds. Now I'm glad I didn't because they are Roy's favorite place to be. He goes out there almost every day and spends hours playing in the dirt.

And he loves tormenting the cats!

Poor Andy

Poor Anden got his first stitches this evening. We were all over at Chris' office and Andy came to me crying. I gave him a big hug, then realized he had his hood over his head where he was saying it hurt. I pulled it off and it was bleeding like crazy. Well, I'm the offical family comforter and Chris is the official look to see if it needs stitches man. So I told Chris to come see. He split it open to see how deep it was, and yup, he needed stitches. Chris took him to get the stitches. He said Andy didn't even cry when the Dr. was numbing it up. The Dr. was pretty amazed. This is the same kid that didn't even so much as squelch when he had to get 4 shots. He's such a brave little man! He told me he was glad he didn't get cut on the back of his head or he wouldn't be able to sleep.

NY Highlight

This is my NY family. It was the highlight of my trip to be able to see them. Jonathan is the one standing next to me. He has grown and changed so much. He's turning into a MAN, and I can't believe it! He's doing awesome things...he's in a band and is going to college. He is such a sweetheart.

Robyn is standing between her parents. She is still in high school, but is getting her cosmetology license at the same time. She is so grown up and is turning into an AMAZING young lady!

We ate dinner and reminisced. It was so much fun! They are wondeful people!

NY

This is Chris at Times Square. He loved NY so much. It was so fun to be there again and see him look around in awe. When we went to Grand Central, Chris just loved it. We found a corner and people watched for awhile. It is amazing how many people there are in this city! You never fully understand it until you visit yourself. Fun times!

While there we also got to see Wicked on Broadway. It was the best play ever. During intermission I broke down crying. Everyone was staring at me because the play isn't sad. I was so completely homesick. I missed my kids more than I ever had in my life. I knew they were well taken care of, but I just couldn't take being away from them for that long.

On our last day we NEEDED bagels. There is nothing like a NY bagel. I love them all...every flavor. I love them with every cream cheese flavor, butter, as a sandwich, or any other way they make them. We found the best bagel shop on the planet. They were AMAZING...man I'm making myself hungry! Then we went for a run at Riverside Park. It's a large park. We got separated, and Chris had the cell phone, money, subway cards, and hotel key. I cried. I asked a lady to help. We were lost most of the morning and on into the afternoon. I prayed. I looked ahead. There was my husband running toward me! Our NY experience would not have been complete without getting lost in the Big Apple! We drowned our wasted day in.....BAGELS...yup, we went back to the same place.

NY

This is Chris on the Brooklyn Bridge. Right after we checked into our hotel, we took a subway down to the bridge, walked across it, and ate pizza. The pizza was fabulous. If you've ever seen the Seinfeld episode about the soup nazi, it was just like that. On the outside there were all kinds of hand written signs telling what the "rules" were....no strollers, no cell phones, you MUST wait in the line, no checks, no credit cards, etc. When we finally got in, the place was PACKED. We were seated at a table with 10 other people who we didn't know, which made it tough for conversation. I was so glad to have this experience because I wanted Chris to see what NY was really like.

This is me after we had pizza in Brooklyn with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

The next day we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I had NEVER been there during the 2 years I lived in NY! This is my favorite picture of the Lady. Chris and I had to wait in line FOREVER for security to go inside the statue. Ellis Island was really cool, too. After we got off the boat we were sooo hungry, so we went to Chinatown. We got lost on some side streets and it turned out to be really cool cuz we got to see what it's really like. There was tons of fish markets, and the fish looked like they had JUST been caught because they were still moving. Everyone was speaking Chinese and staring at us. Eventually we found an authentic Chinese resaurant. They only had chopsticks there and you had to ask if you wanted a fork. We wanted to fit in, so we struggled along with our chopsticks. The next thing we know all the cooks decided it was lunchtime for them too. They came out to a huge table filled with food, and whipped out........forks for themselves! We were cracking up! The food wasn't that great. Chinese food has definately been Americanized....and I learned that I like it that way!

The next day we went for a run in Central Park and visited Grand Central Station, the NY public library, Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square, and the Empire State Building at night. This collage is completely made of recycled stuff...cell phones, keyboards, mouses, etc.

Boston

We went to Boston and NY back in April, but until now I couldn't post the pics, so here goes. This first picture is me and our good friend Yvette. She let Chris and I crash at her house. She was a wonderful hostess. Thanks Yvette!

The next pic is Chris just after he finished the marathon. He was awesome! We loved Boston so much. Yvette's law office was in a high-rise, so she took us up to the top and we were able to see the entire city.

This is Chris sporting his medal. Did I mention he was AWESOME?! The food in Boston was magnificent. The seafood was so tempting, even for this vegetarian girl. Chris ate squid, and several other things which normal people don't usually eat. We wished the boys were there, but loved sleeping in too!

This is Chris and I at the Boston airport waiting for our flight. While running the marathon, the spring sunshine burnt Chris to a crisp...but only on one side of his body. He forgot to wear sunblock, and was soooo red. He wore his beanie for the first couple days after the marathon because half a burned bald head isn't exactly the look he was going for :)