Freezing half

I need to race more, so I signed up for the Mardi Gras crawl down in Lakewood.  I wanted to see if I could PR and I wanted to check my fitness with Oceanside approaching.  Leave it to Colorado to dump eight inches of snow the night before the race.  Not only that, but there had even been a freezing rain before the snow which meant even with plowing the course it was super slick.  I lined up at that start line anyway just hoping I wouldn't slip and fall.  The course was slick so we had to be very careful.  The course was also hilly, which I hadn't planned on.  I felt pretty good though and was pretty excited to be in the top three at the half-way point.  At mile nine after I crested a hill and made the turn to go down, I slipped on the ice and went all the way down.  I rolled out of it and I doubt anyone even noticed that I fell.  I did a quick inventory and was relieved that I only had a scraped knee.  I finished 3rd overall for the women with a time of 1:43:36.  So not horrible considering the conditions.  I still want to consistently break that 1:40 mark though.  Still a great, though freezing cold day, for a race.

Maybe later

Daxton's new favorite phrase is "maybe later." 

-When he wakes up in the morning and asks for a cookie, I have to tell him no.  He responds with tears in his eyes, "Maybe later?"
-When he wants to watch a movie before eating breakfast and I tell him no, he asks, "Maybe later?"
-When he wants to take a bath instead of getting dressed to leave, he asks, "Maybe later?"
-When he wants to go to the park instead of the store he asks if we can go "maybe later?"
-When he wants to play trains instead of taking brother to school he asks, "Maybe later?"
-When he wants to go to Grandma's house and I tell him not today, he asks, "Maybe later?"
-When I tell him it's time to go pick up sister from gymnastics he tell me confidently, "Maybe later."
-When I tell him it's time to take a shower after swimming lessons he cries, "Maybe later!"
-When he wants to eat chocolate chips instead of dinner, he asks if he can eat them "maybe later?"
-When it's time to clean up his toys before bed, he begs that he can play with them, "maybe later."
-When he's delaying going to bed by asking for a certain toy and I tell him it's lost, he asks me if I can find it "Maybe later?"

I really hope I hear this phrase again never later.

Atacama Desert

McKenzie's piano teacher invited her to participate in a special recital down at the Broomfield auditorium.  It's a recital where musician from Broomfield, whatever their talent, come together and perform.  McKenzie has never played in this large of a venue before and was a little nervous about it.  When it was her time to perform, however, she did fabulous and didn't mess up even once.  About three-quarters of the way through her piece a huge grin spread across her face because she knew that she was doing an amazing job.

Keystone escape

Before life exploded into craziness, we had booked a mid-week trip up to Keystone.  After skiing with the Tolleys, our kids seemed to think that skiing with friends was more enjoyable than skiing with me and Jeremy.  Go figure!  Luckily, the Werners happened to book the exact same skication and we were able to spend two days on the mountain with that incredible family.  The night before we hit the slopes a storm rolled through a brought about six inches of fresh, beautiful powder.  I don't think I've ever had a powder day in Colorado and it was so refreshing!  The kids quickly narrowed down their favorite runs to those where they could pop in and out of the trees and feel like they were exploring.  The adults loved their choice of runs too because we would pop deeper into the trees for some great powder skiing and were even able to make some new fresh tracks.  

The girls on one of the lift rides up.

Aubri and McKenzie

Brynlee and Cambrie

All six crazy skiers

McKenzie was really, really into snowballs.

Towards the end of the day Cambrie wanted to go over to the terrain park.  This picture was taken late, but she caught some air and had the biggest grin on her face.

Kelton really just learned how to ski last year, and I wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep up with us all day.  With Brayden on the slopes, however, Kelton had extra motivation to fly down the runs.  It was glorious!  

Tree skiing comes with risk, like have all six kids get stuck in the powder at the same time!  It took some muscle to get them all out this round.

The first day Jeremy and I took turns watching Daxton while the other skied with the big kids.  

The second day though we took a page out of the Werner's book and dropped Daxton off at child care.  I never thought I'd ever do that, but I have to say that it was wonderful.  Our family was able to ski all together, and Daxton was entertained the entire time.  We was all smiles when I picked him up, and it looks like they had a blast playing in the snow, having snowball fights, and going on walks.  Next year we'll put him on a pair of skis so he can join us for our crazy adventures.  

When we weren't on the slopes, we were hanging out in the village and at the condo.  

We brought Jeremy's birthday presents and celebrated his birthday up there with presents and brownies.  The kids were really excited to get Jeremy this shirt.  

I love this picture of the five of them!  

There was a pool table down in the lobby and we tried teaching the kids how to play.  I say "teach" very loosely because I can't play either!  Luckily Jeremy knows a lot more than we do and was able to keep us in line. 

Cambrie was able to figure it out pretty well.  

McKenzie just could not master the skill of keeping her queue level.  It would swing up wildly after each shot.  

Daxton didn't want to be left out and set up his own pool game on the floor with the extra balls he found.  

During our first night we ventured out into the snow and the kids all said that it looked like Christmas in the village.  It was really pretty.  

We played on the playground for awhile then wandered over and found a oversized checkers game.  Somehow I have failed in teaching my kids the most basic of all board games, checkers.  Not one of them knew how to play!   We played until our fingers were frozen and we were ready for some dinner.  

It really was a great two days, and I was glad to have a break from reality while we were up there.  Thankfully the kids had so much fun that they're asking when they can go back.  Mission accomplished!

Philly Girls

It was time for a Philly girls reunion.  Deborah and Kristen were able to round up 24 of us (we were still missing a lot!) so we could spend a weekend together down in St. George.  We didn't have an agenda and just took each day/hour as it came.  There were definitely a couple of themes for the weekend's activities though.  

#1 Talking!  That many women can talk, and talk, and talk.  I went to bed at 1:00 each night and I was one of the light weights.  Most of the girls stayed up past 2:00 every night just talking.  

#2 Food!  I'm pretty sure that I ate worse this weekend than I did over Thanksgiving and Christmas combined.  The restaurants were tasty but never satisfied our sweet tooth.  Back at the condo we had ice cream and chocolate and cookies galore.  

#3 Laughing and crying so much all of our eyes hurt.  Kelley taught us this quick trick to alleviate eye pain, frozen spoons.  

#4 Random fun.  With that many women it's impossible to find something that everyone wants to do at the exact moment, much less to find a venue large enough to accommodate everyone.  We ended up floating between groups doing whatever fit our fancy.  I ended up painting a mug with some of the girls.  

Hiking Dixie Rock.  

Relaxing at yoga.  

Soaking in the hot tub.  

Going to church.  

By Sunday afternoon I admit I had a headache because of the lack of sleep, excess talking, and incredible amounts of sugar in my system.  I decided to go on a walk to refresh.  I ended up hiking in my church clothes while listening to Conference talks.  It was pretty incredible actually.  

Girls weekends are probably the best therapy around, and all of us needed therapy of some kind or the other.  Most especially Angela Mencl who just lost her husband five months ago and is trying to figure out how to be a 30-year-old widow.  We cried, laughed, and shared stories from our time in Philadelphia.  Those four years were some of the best years of our lives.  We have such a unique bond with all of those families.  When you're on the other side of the country from your families and have no one else to rely on except each other incredible things happen.  We were there for each other through divorces, miscarriages, new babies, apartment fires, floods, new mom experiences, homesickness, graduate school problems, inner city church experiences, food stamps woes, being broke as dirt, and a thousand other experiences that I wouldn't trade for anything.  What we had was pretty spectacular and I'm so glad that we had each other through it all.   

For Sale

If I have been a little absent lately, it's because our lives have just taken a very drastic turn this week.  About a week and a half ago I went on a run in our neighborhood and saw that a home was going to be listed for sale soon.  As a little backstory, when we bought our current home we knew that it wasn't going to be a long-term forever home.  It's beautiful, the location is fabulous, and it fit many of our needs.  However, I just couldn't envision large teenagers upstairs in those bedrooms sharing a single bathroom.  I had my eye on some larger homes across the street.  We couldn't afford them at the time, and there were so many miracles that happened to get us into this home that I knew it was meant to be.  We've been in this home now for seven and a half years.  Things have getting tight for the kids and we've known for awhile that eventually we were going to need to upgrade to something a bit larger.  I've kept my eye open on the housing market just in case the perfect home popped up unexpectedly.  Jeremy and I wanted a home with a larger backyard than the one we have now.  Ideally I'd want 1/3 of an acre or so.  In order to get a lot that size in this neighborhood, there are only a handful of homes that qualify.  So why didn't we look in other neighborhoods?  Because I have absolutely loved being within walking distance of the kids' school, the pool, seven parks, the grocery store, the new bike park, the lake, and the trail system.  It was too much to give up.  So over the past three years or so I've been eyeing those few select homes just praying that one of them would go up for sale at the right time.  

As I ran past that "coming soon" sign I knew it was one of the houses that just might fit everything on our wish list.  I called the realtor directly and discovered they were going to start showing the house on Friday.  Next, I called Andrew, our friend and realtor, and asked him to get us into that house first thing.  We were the first ones through the home, and as we walked in we realized that this might be exactly what we were looking for.  There are four bedrooms upstairs, and three bathrooms.  The girls could finally get their own rooms!  The boys would also get their own bathroom which is a blessing since my girls are getting older.  There is plenty of room on the main floor to move around, not feel crowded, and maybe actually host a party.  The backyard is a perfect size for playing soccer or throwing a ball around.  We could set up a full-sized tramp, or a volleyball net, or so many other things.  It has a three-car garage which is perfect to hold all of the kids' bikes.  The basement isn't finished, which I actually prefer because we can finish it the way we like.  The home was built the same year ours was so there is some updating that needs to happen.  The most pressing issue though is that this home has cats and a dog.  I definitely did not want a home that had housed animals because of our allergies, but we are planning on new paint and new carpet throughout the entire home.  If we take care of that and give it a good deep clean, I think we'll be okay.  

Before we even left the house, we told Andrew to submit an offer for us.  Later that night we discovered that there were three other offers and we were now in a bidding war.  Jeremy and I slept on it that night trying to decide how high we wanted to go, and what was realistic.  Saturday afternoon we came up with a number and submitted it to Andrew, only to discover that the other buyers didn't want to risk a bidding war and dropped out.  There was one more potential offer but the seller liked our family and that we were from within the neighborhood.  Before we knew it, we were under contract for a home!  

The next step was selling our house.  We had a day and a half to get our home cleaned and ready to list.  Our family spent Sunday and Monday cleaning everything.  Monday afternoon the photographer came.  Tuesday night our house was on the market.  Wednesday morning we had our first showing.  Thursday we had five more showings.  Saturday we had our final three showings before receiving a full-priced offer.  

How did we go from living our lives as normal on Tuesday, then buying and selling a house in just ten days?  I will tell you that Jeremy and I have had some pretty amazing experiences these last couple of weeks.  When we bought our current home we felt like it was meant to be and Heavenly Father put things into motion so that we could buy this house.  This home purchasing experience is feeling the exact same way.  

-As we knelt in prayer when we were trying to decide what to do, I very clearly felt the impression that it was time to say goodbye to this home.  I cried.  I did not necessarily want to say goodbye.  We love this home.  We have so many memories in this house as we've made it our home.  We've worked on it to make it fit us just right, and it's hard to say good-bye to all of that.  
-Jeremy felt very strongly that we should buy the house at the asking price and not raise our bid at all.  At the time it didn't make sense because of my impression and the fact that we were in a bidding war, but now that we know they had dropped out we would have been paying extra for no reason.  
-I rarely run on that street, but had I not gone that day we wouldn't have seen the house until it was too late.  
-Andrew and his family just moved back into the ward after been gone for a couple of years, and knowing that we can trust him makes this all so much easier.  
-Jeremy had the time off to help me get the house ready.  
-We changed my Lasik surgery from this Thursday to earlier in the month which meant that I was healthy and out of bed for all of this.  
-We went through the self-reliance class last fall which helped us get all of our finances arranged so that when this opportunity came up we were in a position to take advantage of it.  Along those lines, at the first self-reliance meeting our stake president got up and promised us if we followed the program and did our very best to listen to the Lord through all of this then we would receive blessing we couldn't even imagine.  Buying a house in this neighborhood with this market definitely qualifies as that kind of blessing.  
-Our home went under contract less than a week after we listed it.  We only had two crazy days of showings that were a little rough, but now I don't have to keep the house clean 24/7 with two little boys at home all day.  
-We found a buyer for our house who is willing to lease the property back to us for a month or so while the family in our new home moves out and while we do the projects we need to before we move in.  

I may be missing something, but it truly feels like this home purchase, as unexpected as it was, is meant to be.  We are so excited for this new chapter in our lives.  The hardest part now is just waiting.  Waiting for all of the inspections to clear.  Waiting for the final moving dates to be set.  Waiting to build a dream home for our family.

The chaos of our week in pictures.  Frantic packing.  I was so overwhelmed on Saturday when this all became a reality that I was frozen.  I couldn't do anything because there was too much to do and I didn't know where to start.  Thanks to Bruce and my mom, I was able to get moving.  Just basic advice like, get boxes and move them out of the house, was enough to shake me from my frozen state.

When this sign went up, I wanted to cry.  It feels so real and so final with that sign in my front yard.

Once the house was completely clean and we told the boys they couldn't get any of their toys out, they played with the couch cushions, which wasn't that bad.  This day they were hiding from the cool air and fans.  We had a painter here doing touch-ups on the kitchen ceiling but we needed to air out the house ASAP before showings so we had a lot of cool air flowing through the house that day. 

Getting kicked out of the house unexpectedly on Saturday morning meant we went to Daylight Donuts.

Then another showing that afternoon meant lunch at Chick-fil-A.  Thankfully we only had two days like this.  It could have lasted much, much longer.