my marathon man!

I am typically writing to tell a cute story about my children. Or I am writing to say that I am proud of them for an amazing accomplishment.(i.e. poop in the potty) Well today I am writing to say how proud I am of Evan. He set out at the beginning of the year to be a healthier person for the sake of his own life but also for the life of his boys. He decided that he would train for a 1/2 marathon. He found a training program, a training partner and put his nose to the grindstone. There were so many days when he would be exhausted and say that the last thing he wanted to do was to run. But he would pick himself up and get out there and do it. He and his training partner, Doug Connelly, had never run long distances. But they both finished the Famous Idaho Potato 1/2 Marathon this last weekend in Boise.
This is the cheering section. We had the Connelly family, Fred and Jamie VanMiddendorp and Ev's parents there cheering them on. Evan's first goal was to finish the race. His second goal was to finish in under 2 hours. He came across the line at 1 hour and 49 minutes. He accomplished both of his goals. Way to go Evan!

Here is Doug crossing the line just seconds after Evan.

They were just a tad on the sweaty, stinky side at this time. Thank goodness for the race shirts they were given to change into.
Dads and kids posing with the YMCA dog.


I am so proud to say that Evan is doing what he can to better himself and provide a wonderful example for his family. Congratulations on accomplishing a great thing. You are an inspiration to me and your boys. We love you Ev!!

a-camping we will go

for mother's day weekend this year, we took the trailer out for a quick camping trip. we drove an hour southeast to glenn's ferry and stayed at three island state park. they had great grassy areas for the kids to run and play. it was a beautiful weekend. when we arrived i got lunch ready and we ate together at our cute little table. the lindley's arrived shortly after we did and the playing began. wyatt and sulli didn't stop. neither did ben. they were playing with balls and bikes, dirt and rocks. you can see our campers side by side in our "companion" spot. we ate yummy food and relaxed (in between chasing kids). my parents came over for a bbq that night. it was fun to see them (didn't capture them with the camera though...darn). after benny went to bed, lisa got a great campfire going. the night was made complete with s'mores.

the next morning, lisa made omelets in baggies (great idea for camping). it tasted so good. then evan, cody and lisa went for a run. i took the boys on an adventure walk. we came across an old ferry that used to take the wagons across the snake. then we came to the oregon trail interpretive center. it was closed but there was a neat wagon out front that served as a photo op spot! benny did great chillin' in the stroller. the boys were troopers. they walked for over 45 minutes and never once complained or asked to be carried (this is huge!). we had a great time and are already planning our next get away. mother's day ended with a dinner at evan's parents house. what a wonderful weekend! happy mother's day to all of you wonderful mothers out there. you are so special...and so loved.

boys will be boys

we had the priviledge of watching the williams boys while their mom and dad enjoyed a night to themselves to celebrate their anniversary. sulli adores them and they play really well together. they woke up in the morning...all donning their superhero jammies...and decided to build some amazing duplo creations. there were treehouses, spaceships, guns and much more. too fun!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary....

How does your garden grow??? Yes, I am going to try my hand at gardening this year. I am starting small so that I don't overwhelm myself. I have learned that if something becomes too much for me to handle, I quickly want to give up rather than push through (not a favorite personality trait of mine) so I thought I would take this year to figure out the gardening thing and then kick it up a notch. Evan built me a 3x6 box and I am following the steps from the "Square Foot Gardening" book. My in-laws gave me the book for Christmas to get me started.

My in-laws then surprised me with the "dirt" for my garden for my birthday. The perfect gift!!!

Evan has since added lattice to make my individual square foot sections. So I have 18 different areas to plant. I have planted onion and strawberry plants and carrot, sugar snap pea, romaine lettuce, another lettuce and spinach seeds. The boys and I checked today and the only thing sprouting so far is my lettuce. There are teeny, tiny sprouts poking up through the dirt....YIPPEEEE! It is going to be so much fun checking it daily with my kids. Such a neat project in so many ways. Learning more about sustaining ourselves and not being so dependent on society for EVERYTHING. Showing my kids how things grow and where our food comes from. Pushing myself to do something new and to know how my food as been grown will be great.

Wish that my garden came equipped with a full-time, good-looking garden boy! Oh wait...it does! Lucky me!

Croquet anyone? Happy Belated Easter!

After a wonderful Saturday night and Sunday at our church, Bridgepoint, we had an early dinner/late lunch at our house with Evan's parents and a friend of ours and her son. After the meal, we had a friendly game of croquet. Evan came out victorious but we all put up a good fight. As soon as the wickets were in place, Ben was helping to clean up by removing them. Bumpa turned this into a game of "tut-tut".

Janet was the green team!

Sulli is plotting his next stroke. He took it very seriously.

And Evan, the black team.

The boys took part in the egg hunt on Saturday night after church. The boys are both in the pee-wee league so they aren't competing against the big kids.

Benny wasn't really into the egg hunt. He would find one and stand there and shake it. He liked hearing it rattle. Didn't so much want to put them in the basket.
Sulli on the other hand, totally understood what was happening...more eggs=more candy!

Handsome little man!

The biggest attraction for Benny was the balloon. He would have been totally happy to forgo the eggs and take home the balloon. Silly boy.

If you have a chance, go to our church's website and check out something that we did for Easter. It was an amazing thing to be a part of and one that has forever touched my life. Once you get to the website click on "cardboard testimonies" under quick links. I included a link on this post but I am not too tech savvy...so it might not work. Enjoy and God bless.

http://www.bridgepointchurch.com/#

california...knows how to party!

April 1st...we set out on our first true family adventure. We decided that due to economic pinches, we would make our annual trip to California a road trip. That way we would not have to buy plane tickets or rent a car. And to avoid the expense of a hotel room, we decided to pull our new travel trailer. Not sure that it was wise to make the 1800 mile trip our trailer's maiden voyage, but it all turned out great. Our trip started out with a bang...literally. Our goal was to leave on Wednesday at around 4 p.m. so that we could get a few hours under our belts. Evan didn't get home from work until after 5. And when he arrived home, he threw his bag in the door and yelled, "there is a screw in my tire and i am going to try to make it to les schwab before it goes totally flat" and off he went. I got a call about 10 minutes later and he told me that the tire had blown out and he was on the side of the road, with Les Schwab in view. I called the tire store and they sent someone out to help him. After that fiasco, we were on the road by 7:15. We made it to Winnemucca that night and pulled over in the parking lot of a park around 11:30ish. We got up the next morning around 5 a.m. and headed out. Thanks to my friend Andrea's suggestion, stickers were a great distraction for Ben. Also, shredding paper ended up being a good activity.

We pulled over a lot for potty and stretch breaks. This is Ben and Daddy dancing in the road to get the wiggles out.

You can see the trailer following us in the back window. And you can also see sulli's blank stare. This was thanks to Nana and Papa who saved the day by purchasing DVD players for the boys to have on the trip. Sulli watched several movies from the library while driving. Lifesaver!!!

This was a welcomed sight...a baby asleep! Didn't happen as often or for as long as I would have liked...but it happened nonetheless.

The chauffer...he had me drive for one hour of the trip...total!! Thanks for all the safe driving honey! Below is a poor example of some of the pretty views we had along the way. This was middle of nowhere Nevada looking at Mono Lake. It was beautiful!We stopped for a quick lunch in Bishop, CA. It was so nice to stop the truck, hop into the trailer and whip up some burritos! There was a cute playground at this stop. Nice break and then on the road again.

We arrived in LA around 5p.m. on Thursday and had a great time seeing Ev's brother, sister-in-law and our baby cousin Dylan. On Friday we took a trip to the LA Zoo (for all of you Boise folks with zoo memberships, LA is no longer a reciprocal zoo...bummer!)The kids loved the animals and the playground. We then found an In and Out Burger for lunch...yummy!

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Hanford, CA to visit Ev's Grandma Lil. We took a much anticipated trip to Superior Dairy for "dinner". This has been a family tradition for Ev, can't stop it now! The servings that you see are "regular" scoops of ice cream...huge!!! The kiddos loved it.

This was one of Benny's favorite places to be, on GG's lap. He loved playing with her. We stayed Saturday night with Grandma, and all day Sunday. I made birthday dinner for her and I Sunday night since we share the same birthday. After getting that all cleaned up, we packed up the trailer and headed out to get a few hours out of the way that evening. Ended up staying the night in a grocery store parking lot in Modesto. Made it home Monday night around 7:15p.m. All in all, a great trip!

We love you Grandma, Uncle Andy, Auntie Erin and Cousin Dylan!

conversations of a 3 year old

sulli has been having some great conversations with his playmates. the first one to share happened a couple of weeks ago in mccall with our great friends the vanmiddendorps. their 4 year old daughter sailor and sulli were conversing and it went something like this:

sailor-i'm going to go put on my wedding dress (a dress she wore to a wedding)
sulli-why?
sailor-so that i can get married and have babies and stuff
sulli-i don't know about that!

he has been using that "i don't know about that" phrase a lot lately and it cracks me up!

then just a few moments ago we were in the car. i had ainsley (my kid swap kiddo) in the car with us and she found out recently that her mom is going to have a little girl in august. their conversation went like this:

a-i'm going to have a baby girl sulli
s-is she going to be 'dorable?
a-what is 'dorable?
s-you know, cute! is she going to be cute?
a-oh yes, she is going to be cute, like me!

me-what are you going to name your baby ainsley?
a-that's up to daddy and Jesus
me-well if you were going to have a baby, what would YOU name her?
a-um tinker bell or cinderella
s-that is gorgeous!
a-what is gorgeous?
s-it means purdy

oh i love their language and interactions. sulli and ainsley have great interactions now and i just love watching and listening in on them. sulli told us the other day that when he grows up he is going to marry ainsley and have a wedding. evan told him that he would have to ask her daddy if that was ok, and sulli said that he would ask erik. not sure if that has taken place yet or not but as i have said all along...save the date!!! it will be here faster than we think...haha! love these kids.

we just returned from a long weekend trip to california to see evan's family. we drove this time...and hauled a travel trailer. i will get pictures and stories posted from our trip in the next couple of days.