Now that's a TIRED boy!!!!!

Photographic Evidence

Jesse has cankles!!!! (Of course I suppose most women who are 9 months pregnant do...)

And for the first time EVER I'm actually thinner than Jesse! I know, I know, she's pregnant. But still. It counts!!!

I should also make a comment in here that Shiloh announced this weekend she's pregnant. So that means the only sister I have who's NOT pregnant at the moment is Hillary. I just told the family not to count on me to be part of the pregnancy club.

My favorite Time of Year

I'll ad mit that by most accounts I'm kind of weird. I LOVE late summer. Those days when it's so sizzling hot that just walking out the door works up a sweat. (It reminds me of my childhood in Texas I guess.) When it's still and humid and all you want to do is sit in the shade with a cold drink are my very favorites. (Not that it's ever humid in Idaho, but it has been in many other places I've lived so, that's what I'm used to.) I love feeling the sun on my skin and how cool the grass feels under my feet. And I love how lazy the days are before school starts. (Not that I have kids in school yet, but still...life gets crazier in the fall and winter.) So far we've been pretty busy this August.

Gideon has been taking swimming lessons. He absolutely loves it. The only problem is that he gets in trouble for being fearless. He will jump right in the pool before the teacher is ready for him and that of course, causes problems. Still, at least he's not afraid to give it a try, right?

As for me, you know from my previous posts I'm still running. A lot. Combined with eating better than I have in probably my entire adult life and suddenly, I'm 23 pounds thinner than I was in May. I'm not gloating or anything, but it's a personal victory and a great feeling to not have all of your clothes fitting quite so tight.

Nite Lites aka "The Bloody Tutu"

Confession time: I LOVE running at night. If it weren't so inconvenient I'd probably do most of my training runs at night. It's just soooo fun! So it's no surprise that I jump at the chance to run any & all night time races I can find. The inaugural Nite Lites run was the first race of it's kind in town here. It's one of those where you choose your start time based on your pace, because the goal was to finish at midnight. The catch (which set it apart from other races) was that you weren't allowed to have a watch or timing device of any kind on the course and there were no mile markers. Plus, this was a race where dressing up in costumes was encouraged. And you were required to make your own bib number. After conferring with both Shiloh & Cami I decided to make a tutu & wear a wig and deck myself out in lots of glow sticks. For the number I used fabric and outlined it with glow-in-the dark puff paint. (Something I didn't realize they still made!)

Well, that was the idea anyway. The result was more "Tinkerbell on acid" than I planned, partly because I made the tutu a little too big. The colors weren't coming out the way I wanted them too, so I kept adding more tulle. Unfortunately I underestimated the magnitude of the poof and it was much, much poofier than I'd anticipated.

What you can't see is that we cut open some glow sticks and sprinkled the "juice" all over the tutu, so the tutu had a faint glow for a while.

My husband was a little embarrassed to be seen with me. At least until we got there and he realized I was not the only one dressed up or even the only one in a tutu.

I chose to start the race at 10:55 since I've been running really solid & consistent 11 minute miles lately. It was really odd running without a watch. It was just kind of disorienting not to have any idea how far out I was, or how long I'd been running. On the flip side it was great to not stress so much over time and pace. It allowed me to really enjoy the run. And it was a gorgeous run. We started up in the foothills south of town and it made for spectacular views at the start of the race.

Of course there was one minor incident where I was caught up in looking at the big, bright moon and enjoying the stars and all of a sudden "BOOM!" I ate asphalt hard. I have no idea where I was, or how far I had left to go and as I had nothing to clean it up with I just kept going. It looks pretty hard core to have a bloody knee under a tutu doesn't it?

By the time I got to the finish line the party was in full swing. I actually finished a few minutes after midnight, so I was much slower than I expected to be. I was a little frustrated at first because the pace felt so comfortable to me so I couldn't figure out why I was so slow. Then I remembered I'd donated blood on Thursday so maybe that's what slowed me down a little.

Anyway, it wasn't all bad. They had LOTS of door prizes including a couple of new pairs of shoes from Saucony, who had a rep out there giving away free swag & doing fittings. I actually tried some on since I'm in the market for a new pair of running shoes so I was really hoping I'd win that prize. Instead I walked away with a gift card to Blue Hashi for sushi. And I got one of the costume prizes. The race director (who's a friend through running) pointed out my battle wounds to everyone and commented that if she had a prize for the bloodiest knees I'd have won that too.

Entertaining

Cheapiest sprinkler system ever. $9.99 for a three pack of spray nozzles from Home Depot and a 3 yr. old. Everything gets water.

Weekend at the Cabin

Replacing the deck a little bit at a time.

Nana Saves the Day

So last night after our trip to the clinic, Gideon was promised by Nana that she'd buy him a toy today to help him feel better. So this morning I heard him get up and come rushing up to my room. "Mom! Mom! Mom! My head feel better. Go to Nana's house please, please, please! Her have new toy for me!" So we got up and got dressed and went to Nana's house. By the time we got there he was insisting that he needed to go get a "Slinky Dog" (You know from Toy Story.) Gideon was so excited all morning he was practically shaking. First we went to lunch at the Red Robin (that was a pretty good treat in and of itself if you ask me.) And then to Toys R Us. And Nana learned why I don't take Gideon into that store!

It was a successful trip. We did indeed find a slinky dog as well as a Mickey Mouse playground set on clearance and he ended up with both. So Nana saved the day and managed to make this little guy extremely happy!

He's very thrilled about his slinky dog as you can see. As for Parker she wasn't left out, she got new teething rings.

The reason I'm Tired today....

Parker's top two teeth finally poked through but that means she's been VERY fussy & cranky!!!!!!! And she was extremely restless last night waking up at least once an hour just crying and fussing. She typically went back to sleep within a few minutes of me rocking her, but it was still a long night up and down and up and down.

Today Gideon got to make his first trip to the urgent care clinic. He managed to pull my laundry drying rack down on his face leaving a small, but deep gash in the center of his forehead. Naturally it bled. A lot. There was extra blood because after he hurt himself, he was screaming and grabbing his head and tripped over the rack into the brick wall and bit his lip, so that was bleeding too. Fortunately it didn't require stitches. The doctor patched it up with that special super glue and a bandage. He fell asleep on the way home from the clinic but they were kind enough to give him some Tylenol, so I'm hopeful he'll be comfortable enough to sleep through the night.


As for me, now that I have both kids in bed, I should probably be picking up the toys, sweeping & mopping the floors, cleaning the blood off the patio etc, etc, etc. But I'm tired. And it will be there tomorrow. So I'm going to sit here and watch swimming world championships (Hello Ryan Lochte!) and have another doughnut!

A Good Place to Hide

So when I told Gideon Saturday morning that Daddy was coming home he got very excited (naturally) and said, "Me hide and surprise him!?!?!?" Sure, why not. (He likes to do that a lot lately.) Anyway he went downstairs to play or hide or whatever. What's funny is that when Travis came home, we couldn't find him. Turns out, his great hiding place also turned into a nice place for a nap.

This is the tub where we keep the coloring books and crayons and he was sound asleep. It was pretty cute.

We had fun with daddy, even if he was only able to be home for like 24 hours. We played in the yard and of course, daddy had lots of help mowing and watering the lawn. Speaking of the lawn, it's finally all put back together, although it kind of looks like Frankenstein's monster right now. But I know that by next summer it will look fine. Just as long as I can keep it alive until then.

Have I ever mentioned I have the best climbing trees ever? Gideon sure thinks so anyway.

When the Going Gets Tough...

...The Sprinter's Go Home.

So here's the thing...
I like to watch sports. Not mainstream professional sports. I watch stuff like marathons, triathalons, surfing, swimming, track & field, skating, volleyball, skiing, etc, etc, etc. It inspires me. It motivates me to keep going even though I'm so far from an elite athlete that it's laughable. I'm a distance runner. Everyone knows this about me. I've mentioned countless times that it's easier for me to run 5 or 7 miles than 2 miles. I'm in no way a competitive athlete, but I train hard for what I do. And even a recreational runner like me knows that you have ups and downs in any sport. As I've said to so many people you're not going to have a brilliant race every time you step off the line. Some days you have a tough a day and that hurts a little, but you just learn what you can from the experience and move forward.

I've thought about this a lot this last week as two stories have come out of the sporting world that have caught my attention. One from gymnastics & one from swimming. (Yes, I follow Olympic sports in non-Olympic years. I'm a dork. I know. Get over it.) As I've read negative press about two former champions, Shawn Johnson & Michael Phelps, my contempt for people kind of grows. People are idiots.

So here's the buzz on Johnson, this week was her first international meet since the Olympics in '08 and the press was less than kind painting her as overweight and rusty and suddenly doubts about her ability to bring home any medals in next summer's Olympics began to surface. She didn't medal in either of the events she competed in, however she did extraordinarily well for a girl that's been away from the sport for 3 years. She may be taller and heavier but she's in no way overweight. And frankly she shouldn't be dismissed. I mean the truth is, yes, she's a little rusty. But the mistakes she made during the meet are all things that are definitely fixable and I'm more than confident she's already been back to the gym and is working on them.

As for Phelps it seems the media has been particularly critical. Everyone is wondering if he's lost his fire and competitive drive. There have been comments about how he's distracted by his new girlfriend and he's undertrained and unfocused. I'm actually shocked this conversation is even going on. The man has 28 world championships, 14 Olympic gold medals. What does he have left to prove? And who does he have to prove it to? The truth is even if he never wins another medal and retires tomorrow from the sport, never stepping a toe in the water again, he'll still be considered one of the greatest swimmers of all time. He's proved that already. It's true he lost the 200M fly 3 times throughout this season a race he hadn't lost in 9 years. But let's face it ALL winning streaks eventually come to an end. And so far at the World Championships he's not won a single gold medal yet. But he's only contested 2 of his 7 events so far and everyone will concede that the 4x100M Freestyle Relay wasn't his fault. He went out and did his job, he turned in a fast split time. Some of the other guys didn't have their best swims, so team USA leaves with a bronze instead of a gold in that relay. As for the 200M Freestyle in which he took silver behind teammate Ryan Lochte (who by the way, I kind of have a crush on. He's a HOTTIE and let's face it having a swimmer's body doesn't hurt!) During Phelps's 18 month hiatus from swimming Lochte has worked extra hard to try and come out of Phelps' shadow. In 2010 he was called, "The best all around swimmer in the world" by pretty much everyone. No one remembers that Lochte took 2 bronze's behind Phelps in Beijing, that he won a gold in the backstroke and was part of 2 of Phelps' gold medal relay teams there. The story in Beijing was Phelps, but let's not forget that Lochte has spent years training with and competing against him and is a gifted swimmer in his own right. I think Phelps has had a greater affect on the sport of swimming than even he realizes. He's caused the competition to become better simply because he's so good. Everyone else is working harder to catch him. Not that his feat in Beijing was easy, but I can tell you that his competition is tougher now because of what he accomplished there.

But there are two things the public (and the press) need to remember 1. The Olympics are still a year away. Both of these athletes have taken hiatus's from their sports and are using this year to gauge where they are and what they need to do to be ready for London next summer. 2. You're talking about two people who are CHAMPIONS. I mean that in every sense of the word. They'll use their recent defeats as motivation. This will become building blocks, something else to stoke the fire and come back even stronger next time. Because that's what Champions do.

Shawn Johnson and Michael Phelps will both win more Olympic medals. Will they all be gold? Probably not. Will they ever dominate their sports like they did 3 & 4 years ago? Doubtful. But why does it matter? The truth is neither one of these athletes should have to prove anything to anyone. So what if neither one of them earns a single medal ever again? (They will. They're competitive like that and they won't be satisfied until they each walk away with more hardware.) But they don't have to win or even compete ever again to have my respect and admiration for the accomplishments they've already achieved. Because dominating a sport like gymnastics or swimming is much more like a marathon than a sprint. And when the going gets tough, the sprinters go home.