He's Home!!!!

My Baby Brother, Cody, arrived home from his two year church mission today! We had quite the reception party at the airport for him. Myself and my two kids, Jesse & Kelly, the two boys I tend, mom & daddy and Hillary. Mom & Hillary stayed up late last night making signs.

I thought mom was going to hyperventilate when she saw him through the doors coming down the stairs!
There's our boy!!!!!!

Hugs all around!

Gideon was a little shy of him at first, so he clung to me, but he warmed up fast!

Cody told us he wore his sunglasses the entire flight home because he didn't want anyone to see that he was crying.

Parker liked meeting uncle Cody okay, but she was really more interested in his balloons.

After the airport we came back to my house for barbecue and birthday.

Cody felt the baby move and said, "Wow that's soooo weird!!!!"

Since August sees the birthdays of Daddy, Cody & Hillary, we had a little birthday party this afternoon. They have a combined age of 101 so that's what they were trying to do with the candles.

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.