Merry Christmas!

 Caleb and his Legos

 Michelle and her Easy Bake oven

 Gabriella and her new clothes and Unicorn pillow pet

 Megan and her Ladybug pillow pet, princess castle and fuzzy blue hat that Michelle gave her

 Trevor in his new vest and boxing gloves that go to his boxing bag

Angela and her new reading chair

Christmas Vacation Fun

Since a vast majority of people don't want to go to the dentist the few days leading up to Christmas, Trevor took this week off of work.  We spent the first few days doing some major projects around the house.  So today we played all day.  We went out to lunch then to the Nickelcade then roller skating.  I haven't been on roller skates in probably 25 years but it came back pretty fast.  I spent the majority of the time pushing Gabriella around on her scooter.  Toward the end my feet came out from under me and I found myself real fast on my hind end.  Let me tell you falls are much harder on a 38 year old body then on a 12 year old's body.  I bruised my tailbone pretty good and also the heels of my hands (which put a damper on my making our family's supply of bread).  Other than that I think the kids enjoyed their day. 

Gabriella's 4th Birthday

Our little Christmas Mouse is 4 years old! She brings such life into our family.  She's quite the picture poser and a fashion star who goes through an average of 4 outfits a day.  Once she hears a phrase she likes she'll repeat it over and over no matter who she's speaking to.  For example,  she thought it was funny to call people silly pigs ( I also need to mention that she hid under a table or behind me whenever anyone sang happy birthday to her) so today when my parents called to sing Happy Birthday she called them silly pigs and hung up on them.  A couple of other phrases she's enjoyed lately are "you're a hoot" and "oh, put a sock in your mouth". She definately keeps us on our toes but we love our Gabriella!

Perserverance

Along with the majority of Americans, this year has been financially difficult and stressful.  We've cut back on everything we could think of, we've traded in our Highlander for a tiny gas-conservative Yaris, and we've refinanced our mortgage.  The re-fi was a 3 1/2 month nightmare (we finally closed last Friday) that I won't bore you with except for the fact that during their scrutinizing of our financial records our accountant re-evaluated our '07 tax returns and got a pretty good sized refund 2 years in coming.  I just wanted to let everyone know that if you do all the Lord asks you to do and are very patient good things will come.

Happy St Nicholas Day

I'm half Dutch. My mom was born in Holland, then immigrated with her parents and two brothers when she was 18 months old.  When I was young we lived in Salt Lake.  Back then there was a huge Dutch population (they'd all fled war torn Europe) in SLC so we'd have huge celebrations for St Nicholas Day.  Trevor and I have always tried really hard to keep the celebration alive, besides it's one more good reason for candy.

This year St Nicholas brought each of us slipper socks which was a big hit with the kids.  The kids got Reese's candy while Trevor and I got See's Candy (St Nick sure knows the good stuff!) . Caleb asked me to ask St Nick if he could bring some See's to Caleb next year :)

The Ups and Downs of Running

Last night I was talking with my mom about buying my dad some running equipment for Christmas.  She was complaining about how expensive a sport it is.  I told her that once the initial items are bought then it's a pretty cheap sport but has lots of great benefits.  So this morning while I was out running I was thinking about our conversation.  I was thinking about how much our taking up running has improved our lives and health.  I was close to the end of the run and was having a great time thinking about how great I've felt over the last 3 1/2 years.  The song "Kryptonite" was playing on my ipod and I truly felt like Superman...until I tripped.
   The tip of my toe caught on a raised piece of pavement and next thing I know I'm flying just like Superman.  I landed in the push-up position before I slid on my belly like a seal for several feet.  Do you know how much force that puts on your arms, shoulders and back to fly down into that position?!  Fortunately I was wearing gloves otherwise my hands would be hamburger.  As it is the scrapes I do have didn't even break the skin and I didn't tear any holes in my clothes either.  A couple Tylenol have taken the achiness away so I'm good.

Football

This year Caleb wanted to play tackle football.  Having watched 3 of my brothers play football from grade school through high school and even a jr. college, I was worried about Caleb.  Visions of 2-a-day practices, having to play in searing heat and freezing cold, and injuries flooded my mind.  I admit that the first week of practice almost killed Caleb.  They were doing a lot of conditioning and running.  Caleb was gasping for air.  Turns out he has exercise-induced asthma and allergies to grass.  We loaded him up with meds and an inhaler and he was like a whole new kid.  Caleb played the position of Right Guard on the offensive line.  It's probably the safest position to play on the football team.  He was rarely tackled so the chances of injury were next to nothing, which, as a Mom, I was glad of.
The season was amazing.  Trevor was an assistant coach and the team went to the playoffs.  I was proud of Caleb for never giving up.  Tonight was the end-of-year party for his team.  Caleb and a few others were given an award for never missing one of their 9 games or 43 practices.  I must admit I love seeing my son wear a jersey with Smith on the back.  I hope he'll always wear it with pride.

Thanksgiving

Pre-dinner activity: reading Calvin and Hobbes with Dad and Grandpa Rains

This year for Thanksgiving Dinner we had my parents and my Oma come for dinner.  No one wanted to spend the time to bake a huge turkey so we improvised.  Each of us got to choose 3 food items that we wanted to eat.  Some of us chose traditional items like turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie but others chose macaroni and cheese, strawberries, chicken nuggets, cinnamon rolls.  But my mom, being the creative person she is, had each of us eating out of very untraditional dishes.  Trevor for example had a muffin tin for a plate (perfect for a guy that doesn't like his food to touch each other), a measuring spoon for a spoon, and a measuring glass for a cup.  My 85 year old Oma wasn't too sure she chose the right grand-daughter to have Thanksgiving with but she played along well enough.  Needless to say in the 61 Thanksgiving dinners she eaten since immigrating from Holland this is the most unusual.

Halloween

This was the first year I went to the Halloween parade at the kids' school.  It's also the first year we didn't get around to carving or painting any pumpkins so these are all the photos I have from Halloween.  All the kids put together their own costumes.  Michelle was a Flower Keeper's Daughter.  Gabriella was a Flower Keeper Daughter's Sister, we shortened it to a Flower Girl, but can you tell how much she looks up to her sister?!  Megan was Cinderella (for the third year in a row).  Caleb was Moses for the second year.

Running With Dad

My dad has caught the running bug.  Back in July I paced him on his first competitive 5k down in Bryce Canyon.  We both placed 2nd in our age groups.  Now he wants to do the Bryce Canyon half marathon next July.  My parents came into town this weekend so Dad and I planned a run together.  I thought we were only going to run about 4 or 5 miles, but when we were 2 miles out my dad decided that he wanted to go further than he's ever run before.  When we finished we had run 7.2 miles and made it a record day for my dad.  Words cannot describe how fun it was to run with my dad, and to know that I've successfully converted yet one more person to long distance running.

Gone with the Wind

As a tribute to my Grandma Rains I read "Gone With the Wind". My grandma died 5 years before I was even born but I've always thought that I'm a lot like her. The sad thing is that no one in the family really talked about her very much for some reason. So her liking this book is one of about 5 things I know about her. I can now see why she liked it so much. Margaret Mitchell does such a good job of bringing the South alive that while reading the book you are taken away.

The book is 1037 pages long so I've always wanted to read this book, the one my Grandma loved and read countless times, but shied away due to its length. The only other book I've read that's over 1000 pages is the Bible and that tooks me months. This book took me 12 days! I thought I knew what it was all about because I've seen the movie a couple of times. I was so wrong. The movie left out a ton of details. You still want to slap Scarlett upside the head and yell at her "what were you thinking" but I enjoyed the book nonetheless.

Michelle's Baptism

I uploaded all the family photos for this special event and then I was going to delete the worst and keep the best. Then I thought all of you could use a good laugh. These photos are awful. Michelle is her usual good posing self but everyone else needs a lot of work. Now you know why I hate getting family portraits done. But I detract from Michelle and her special day.

She is a beautiful 8 year old now. Getting baptized has really helped her want to do things the right way. I got to be more involved with her baptism than with Caleb's so I really enjoyed that.

I love you, Belle!

Marathon!

I realize I'm a few months behind and I don't want to bore you with too many events but I have to mention Trevor's marathon. Last September, both of us ran a marathon but Trevor was only abl to run 11 of the 26.2 miles due to an ankle injury. So we both signed up for another marathon in May. I couldn't run it at all due to having knee surgery 3 weeks prior to the race. But TREVOR COMPLETED HIS FIRST MARATHON! It turned out to be the hottest day of the year so he didn't do as well as he had hoped but I don't care. He finished and I'm proud to be married to a marathoner! As soon as we got home I slapped 26.2 stickers on both our cars (I'd been waiting since last September).

Camping

For the 4th of July weekend we went camping up in the Uinta Mountains. Up at that elevation Spring had just sprung. The wildflowers were blooming and every thing was green. Unfortunately this meant that there were hungry swarms of mosquitoes. But the temperature as great. 70 degrees was cold compared to the mid 90s back home.

This is the Provo Falls. There are 8 of them and it was gorgeous. I never knew that the Provo River started this far north.


The last day we were there the wind was calm and the lake was smooth. You'd never guess from this picture that the day before there were actually large waves on the lake.

Washington Lake - an artist's dream (especially that painter guy on PBS that paints happy little cabins amongst happy little trees).

The sour faces are showing extreme tiredness. This is up at Wall Lake. It was a mile long hike over very uneven trails and each of the kids (except Gabriella who Trevor carried in a backpack) hiked the whole way. I need to point out that the trailhead was at 10,000 feet and Wall Lake was 10,300 feet above sea level! That's a lot of hiking with only a little oxygen in the air.

We had great time though and can't wait to go back - next time we'll be armed with loads of really strong bug repellant!

Promises

I was recently told by my younger brother that he actually reads my blog but was annoyed it hadn't been updated in so long. So, Jer, this is for you. Now you have to be sending me some pictures of you and your house.