Monica turns 30!

The big news from this past week is that Monica finally turned 30!  I was starting to think that I was going to be the only thirty-something year old in this house forever!  Monica had a wonderful birthday, I would know, and her favorite part was that I was so selfless all day long!  :)  Okay, so really I had to go to work for most of the day, but she/we did have a great day.  Here she is with her cake (on the day after... but I'll explain that later) waiting to dig in!!

A few weeks go (maybe months...?) when Winry would run around the house (typically chasing Brooke) she'd yell "Run around, run around!"  We never got a video of that, but we've been trying to get one lately.  This past week Monica got a video of her saying run around, but spinning.  Afterwards, she started saying "spin around," but her heart just wasn't in it.

I don't know if I've put a picture of this in before, but Brooke has been singing Winry songs for her naps and bedtime, and sometimes she asks if she can hold Winry.  She held Winry I believe twice this past week!  Winry is so lucky to have such a wonderful big sister.

Brooke and Winry have an old phone that they play with.  They love to pretend to call people on it, and lately Winry has really loved talking to baby Anaya!  Winry just super loves babies, and Monica calls her sister, Melanie, every once in a while and she just had a baby (who is named Anaya, if you didn't catch that).  Winry is very fond of her cousin.

While Brooke typically falls sleep in her bed every night, she tends to wake up sometime in the middle of the night and come into our room and sleep on the floor.  I don't think she wakes up Monica every night, but I tend to just wake up to Brooke laying on the floor next to me.  It's common enough that I always check before I get out of bed to make sure I don't step on her.  Here she is curled up with Pikachu!

This past week, Brooke's new dance class started up!  The main classes go through the school year, but we did sign her up for some summer dance stuff.  She had a dance camp a few weeks ago that was 4 hours long, and when Monica came to pick her up she said "why are you here already!!"  So yeah, this girls loves to dance!  She gets to do some tap dance this year too.

On Wednesday night when I was driving home from basketball at the church, there was a huge lightning storm going on in front of me, so I pulled over and captured some of it.  I think the video ended up turning out better than I thought, but you still can't see near as much lightning as there was.

We had muffins for breakfast on Thursday, and it was a pretty big deal for Winry.  Mostly, I just thought that was a cute video...

On Friday for Monica's birthday we went out to dinner, and I surprised her and had some of her friends meet us there!  Of course that means there were kids all around, and that meant that it looked like this under the table while we were having dinner!  To be honest, I didn't even know the waitress dropped off chop sticks for us until I looked under the table!!  Don't worry, we cleaned up the floor before we left.

And here's everyone that was able to make it to dinner.  Jessica and Dennis came, as well as Julia, Michael, Logan and Kai!  We all had a wonderful time.  Thanks so much to everyone for making it out!  The curry was fantastic as always, and the girls got pineapple teriyaki chicken which they loved!  And Winry devoured plain rice, because who wouldn't just want to eat a plate full of plain rice?

Brooke and Logan were running around like crazies after dinner and having a lot of fun together.  Eventually Brooke climbed up on this wall and wanted me to take a picture of her.  It was a very proud moment!

And when we got home we finally remembered to get a picture of Monica with her birthday present from Brooke.  Brooke gave her this stuffed kitty with a tail almost as long as Brooke is tall!  Sorry the lighting isn't great, the best place for the picture was on the coffee table, and the light was directly above the table, so the lighting is a bit... harsh.

In addition to the kitty, Monica also got a cake turner/decorator thing, some reusable "plastic wrap" things, and some running shoes that were too small (and so were the ones in the next size up...).  Unfortunately, she got a late start on her cake.  Fortunately, that means she got the cake turner in time!

Here's the final cake, and with a spin.  Monica finished the cake at 11 pm... but still on her birthday!  We did not dive in immediately as I had fallen asleep on the couch.  It was a Nutella cake, and it was amazing!  I wouldn't say I'm usually much of a cake person, I think I typically find cake too dry, but this one was fantastic!  I think this is the cake I'm going to have in my peanut butter chocolate cake for my birthday next year, just needs some different frosting.

On Saturday we went swimming with the Cammacks.  We took a few pictures while we were there, but they all turned out poorly.  Turns out the issue wasn't with the water proof case or the minerals in the pool at the hot springs, but instead the camera lens itself somehow got really filthy.  I cleaned it today, but that didn't help yesterday's pictures turn out well... so we'll pass on those.  After swimming, was nap time, where Brooke taught me this really cool game on the couch.  I'm still not exactly sure how the game works, but I know that Brooke won, and it was made just for me.

After nap time, the Cammacks came over to cut the cake with us!  We all sang happy birthday of course, and then we dug in.

This weekend was stake conference, and Monica was singing in the choir for the adult session so she had to go, which left me at home with the kids.  Dinner was later than usual as everyone was full from cake, but after dinner I took Winry up for bed.  Brooke and I played "Feed the Kitty" while we waited for dinner time to come, and Winry played on my team!  While Winry was eating dinner Brooke and I played "Feed the Kitty", and while I was putting Winry to bed Brooke ate dinner, changed into her pajamas, and sang songs to Winry.  Once it was just Brooke and I, I pulled out a special game for us to play.  Brooke was SOOO excited to play the Pokemon game!  We had a great time, and I did keep it pretty simplified.  Once we finished I did have to tell her the name of ALL 150 Pokemon on the cover of the box.  Time well spent.

This morning after the kids were dressed for church, we turned on "Music and the Spoken Word."  They love watching it, so it's a good treat/reward for getting ready for church.  Brooke headed down to the couch while we were still getting Winry ready, and she prepped herself for watching.  It almost looks like she was going to take a nap.

At stake conference today Elder Henry J. Eyring talked about writing a journal, and keeping events that make us a "hero."  AKA, record your good moments.  He challenged us to specifically spend some time thinking about one or two spiritual experiences we've had and record them in our journal.  Well, since this is my journal I figured this would be the place to do it.  Also, I hope all of the things I have written about over the years have sounded really heroic...  :)

Anyway, the first experience that comes to mind is stake conference itself.  If I had to pick one it'd be stake conference from a couple years ago.  I had a rather negative attitude about having to go on Saturday night, and while we were there I heard a talk that was exactly what I needed.  Our stake president talked about our expectations, and how happiness, or our lack thereof, comes from our expectations.  If we have unrealistic expectations, that will lead us to sadness and misery.  It was a wonderful lesson then, and I've found that I've had a big lesson to learn at every stake conference since then.  Lately I've been trying to learn more about the Atonement and trying to have better and more meaningful repentance.  Our stake president shared a story today and challenged us to try to make our repentance more meaningful.  Again, it was the message I needed to hear, and it also affirmed to me that I am heading in the right direction.

For my second experience, this past week while I was doing my scripture study I read the prompt "Why must we have the Holy Ghost in order to understand the things of God?"  This reminded me of times in my life when I'm studying a topic and have an "ah-ha" moment where you suddenly feel you deeply understand the thing you are studying.  Those moments where you go and tell someone what you've just learned, and the response you get it "yeah... you just found that out."  And that's when you realize that your sentence is obvious, and your newfound understanding is something you cannot communicate.  Well, this past week I had one of those moments ABOUT those moments, and it was really eye opening to me to see how much I really have had the Spirit in my life guiding me.  I would say I'm not a super emotional person, and so to see and recognize all of these spiritual experiences for what they were was wonderful!

I am so grateful for the gospel.  I am grateful for Jesus Christ, and that he suffered the Atonement for all of us.  I am grateful for stake conference, and for my inspired local leaders.  I am grateful for "Come Follow Me" and for all of the changes and improvements it has brought to my personal study and our family study!  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Happy 6th Anniversary Monica!!

What a week!  This one was slam packed with stuff!  We had a wonderful time over the week, and especially over the weekend in Glenwood Springs.  Monica and I headed out there for the weekend, while Monica's mom stayed with our kids.  Thanks Gram!!  While out there, we got to hike hanging lake, and it was wonderful.  It's a pretty steep hike, and a lot of places are basically large rock stairs.  We made it to the top and even had some extra time to relax and enjoy the lake.  It was really pretty.

Speaking of pretty, on my run last Monday as I was finishing up, the clouds started to look super awesome.  I noticed it about a half mile from home, and by the time I got home, got Monica outside, and got my phone out for a picture they didn't look quite the same.  The clouds were very round and rolly like a bunch of scoops of ice cream.  Just imagine this picture looking a little more like that.  Pretty cool ,huh?

On Tuesday Monica mowed the lawn, and the kids were really excited to sit and watch!

Tuesday was also a good day for a garden harvest.  Brooke loves to take a picture with each item separately.  Here she is with the tomatoes.

And just to mix things up here's Winry checking out the zucchini.  Also on Tuesday, Winry sang me some songs while the floor was being mopped..

On Wednesday, Monica looked out the window and noticed that one of our aspen trees in the front was falling over, so we called Knot Head and had them come take down the trees.  The girls watched them work through the window, and Brooke even tried to help when the tree fell.

Winry was on the brink of having her mind blown at seeing a tree fall.  Whoa...

And here's the front of the house now that we don't have any trees out there any more.  I'm not sure where we're going to hang our Halloween ghosts this year... :(

Wednesday  night the kids were looking through the blog book and Brooke saw herself with tattoos, and so she wanted to put some on again.  Here she is, also dressed as Cinderella.  While I'm writing this, I'm realizing this is just a vicious cycle, and now there will just be more blog pictures of her with tattoos, creating a feedback loop where she wants to wear them more and more...  oh well.  Really this is just here because she looks really cute dressed as Cinderella.

We gave Jelly a box to play in this past week.  The second I set the box on the floor Jelly climbed in and sat down.

Monica's Mom, Lani, flew in on Thursday night, so on Friday morning we headed to the zoo!!  We got to see the penguins getting fed.  This was Brooke's request, and was also on the way to the flamingos.

They were being fed behind a rock, and so it was hard for the kids to see, so I put Winry up on my shoulders to watch.

Afterward Brooke rode off into the sunset on a baby hippo!

We also let the kids ride the carousel.  Turns out we get some free rides with our membership, so we used them on this trip.  I stood by Winry.

And Gram stood by Brooke.  Brooke wanted to ride on something that didn't go up and down.  Also, while we were riding I kept trying to get Winry to wave or blow a kiss to Monica, but it never quite worked out.  We got close one time, she had her hand on her mouth ready to go, but she didn't see Monica.  Instead, she ended up seeing some other lady about 20 feet away in a somewhat similar colored shirt, and blew her a kiss instead.

Recently Jelly has been chilling on the top of the couch by Monica and I at night, and I've wanted to play with her and felt sorry there wasn't really a good way.  We actually haven't really played with Jelly much at all recently.  We used to have cat wand, but it broke, so I looked online and ordered a new one.  The kids are in love!  Oh, and things occasionally slow down enough for Jelly to paw at something real quick in passing.  We've actually had to make them a nap-time only toy, because Winry gets just a little to crazy with them!

Saturday morning (Happy Anniversary, Monica!) we headed off for Glenwood Springs.  There was some crazy traffic at an on-ramp about an hour into the drive, but other then that things were pretty smooth sailing.  We stopped in Silverthorne at Blue Moon Bakery for lunch, and it was fantastic!

While there we got an incredible peanut butter brownie.  It was so good that we stopped again on the way back to get some treats to share with the kids for being so great for Gram while we were gone.

In spite of the traffic, we were still able to make it to Glenwood Springs in time to catch our bus for the hike to Hanging Lake.  You have to reserve a spot on a shuttle bus and get a pass to go hike the trail right now.  The hike was great, and at the lake there's actually a split in the trail and you can hike up to the source waterfall where the water actually comes out of the rock wall.  When we got up there the wall started to come down, but Monica quickly jumped in and put it back up!  Good thing we were hiking last Saturday.

After our hike we went to Slope and Hatch which is a taco/hot dog place.  Monica got tacos, and I got a hot dog.  My hot dog was covered in pulled pork, and was rather incredible!  Would I eat there again?  Yes, please.

That night at our hotel room we played some games I brought.  One of them was bananagrams, and I had to document the fact that I won.  We played on the bed, so it's a little hard to follow my board, but I believe everything was legit!!

On Sunday after church we went to Sweet Coloradough for lunch.  It was a bagel/donut place.  We both got a bagel sandwich, and it was superb.  We followed that up with the best donut I've ever had in my life.  They were SOOO good!  I'm not a foodie, but we hit the food out of the park on this trip.

On Sunday we also transitioned hotels.  We got to our hotel before we could check in, so we wandered the streets for a little and stumbled upon the greatest souvenir I've ever seen.  We did not buy them.  We also found out the train station was on the opposite side of the river from hotel, and there's a walkway straight to it!  So we might come back some time and ride the train.

That night for dinner we went to Brava Modern Trattoria, which was a very fine Italian place.  That night after dinner we also tried the hot springs pools that were part of our hotel/resort.

It was fun being there at night cause the lights turned on.  The fountain even lit up too!  However, the one downside is that as soon as the sun started to go down the bugs started to come out, and they were everywhere.  We were planning to stay a little later, but the quantity of bugs, and the speed at which they congregated made us reconsider our plan.

This morning we ran around and grabbed souvenirs to bring home and did various other preparations for coming home.  Then we headed back to the hot springs to swim in the pool.  They even had a "rapids" river to float.

The pool was HUGE too!  It was like 400 feet by 100 feet, or something like that.  Also, the minerals in the water apparently dried on my camera, so after it got wet the first time the pictures all started to come out blurry. :(

After a little bit of swimming we headed into the spa for our scheduled couples massage!  It felt very nice.

On the way home there is this hill you go up where the road seems to be mostly flat, and all of the trees look like they're growing leaning over.  It's really fun every time we drive through.

Also, we made it through this whole weekend in Tuna, our 20 year old Corolla!  Great swimming Tuna!  Thanks for being a wonderful car for the last decade I've owned you!  There were a couple slow points driving up the mountains when things got steep, but we made it all the way with no issues!  Also, this is our return trip Blue Moon Bakery.

The kids were very happy to see us when we got home, and we were very happy to see them too!  After handing out gifts we kept things simple and headed out for dinner.  When we got home it was time to put the kids to bed.  They had been great for Gram all weekend, but you could tell the strain had been building up on them.  They were a wreck while we got them ready for bed!  Still, I'm glad to be back home, and I'm sure we'll have a more normal day tomorrow!

47:01 - New 10K PR!

Hello everyone!  This past Saturday was the So Long to Summer 10K, and we went out as a family and had a great time!  Monica pushed the stroller with the kids and ran the 5k, and I raced the 10k.  Monica totally crushed it with the kids and took 4th in her age group pushing the double stroller!!  I was able to sprint out (literally) the competition to take 1st in my age group (2nd finished 1 second behind me).  I set a new PR for a 10k of 47:01.  I'm happy about it, but earlier in the year I set the goal to try to run sub 47!!  I was 2 seconds away! :(  Maybe next year.  I was SOOO close!

There has lately been serious stomach interest around here lately.  I'm pretty sure it all started from Winry, but Brooke is always game to join in!

Monday night we ended up at Texas Roadhouse for dinner (I have really been wanting to go there recently) and I think everyone loved it.  I know I very much enjoyed myself.  It also happened to be family night, and there was a balloon artist wandering around who made it to our table just before we were leaving.  The kids were very happy to get their bear and poodle.

Winry has been taking a blanket and an assorted pile of stuffed animals to bed with her each night.  She looked really cute one night this past week, so I snagged this pictures of her with Monica's phone.  The pixel sure can get some good photos in the dark.

Our garden has been doing pretty well this year.  The squirrels are thankful...  Monica got a net to cover everything and that's been helping.  Our pepper was ready to pick this past week.  Look at that baby!!  We haven't eaten it yet, but it super looks good.

So... this is Jelly in a garbage can.  I don't know this story, but hopefully we emptied it before she did.

One day when I got home from work the kids were outside playing while Monica did some weeding in the front yard.  Brooke got the broom out to sweep something, not the weed pile, and the next thing I knew we were sweeping a loop around the block.

Oh, at Texas Roadhouse they had kids toys (don't know if this is a new thing or what) and right now they're gardening tools.  Brooke got a watering can top for a water bottle and she loves to go water the herbs.

Brooke has loved to help put Winry to bed lately.  She really likes to come in and sing songs to her.  I guess Brooke even put her down for a nap one day this week all on her own.  Okay, Monica was in there to help... but really, I love that Brooke comes in and helps put Winry to bed!

Winry has started to wear her life jacket around the house over the past week.  I think it's just because it has a bunch of buckles on it.  We take it off for meals, but other then that she gets to wear it if she wants it.  Maybe we'll have to try it at the pool again sometime and see if she likes it there too.

We spent a bunch of time in the backyard this past week.  The only downside to this is that everyone just wants to swing.  The kids have been pretty good about taking turns, and I think it's much rougher on me than it is on them to coordinate the swapping.  Winry typically goes to the water table while Brooke swings, and Brooke jumps on the tramp twice and then gets out and wanders the yard wishing she wasn't bored.  I just wish they wanted to play in the water table or jump on the tramp as much as they want to swing because they can do those things together.  Also, if someone is on the swing then any other activity is only fun for like 10 seconds at most.

Saturday morning we hit up that race!  Monica made it in before me so I got a cheering squad at the finish line!  After the race Winry and I were stretching together which somehow resulted in the next picture...  Also, we got our delicious pancake breakfast!!  Good ol' Flippin Flapjacks!

Today at church Winry decided now was as good time as any to learn to sing, and started singing along with the hymns.  She's actually been doing this for a few weeks now. Oh, there was also a primary musical number and Brooke went up and got to sing to all of us!  She nailed it as well.  What a family of singers we are!