Des Moines and Dam to Dam

At the beginning of June, we went to Des Moines, IA so that I could run Dam to Dam on June 5th. We stayed in a hotel, did some swimming, ordered in pizza and went to Adventureland the next day. We had a good time and the run was great. I hope to do it again next year. The race started at Saylorville Lake and Dam and finished in downtown Des Moines. It rained nearly the entire race this year, but it the end it was a blessing. It wasn't hot and humid!

May 2010

School's out for summer! We are all really looking forward to summer vacation this year. We have a lot of fun things planned. We have tickets to a couple of baseball games. We will be going to Adventureland, Great Wolf Lodge, Denver and Estes Park! I plan on painting the boys' room and doing some running and other projects. Hopefully I get to read a few books as well!
May was a busy month with the end of the school year, graduations, running, Mother's Day, and a trip from Grandpa Denny.
Denny visited at the beginning of the month for a night. He always brings the boys each a set of Hot Wheels cars, which they love.
Mother's Day was the day after I chaperoned AL's prom, so I was a little tired. We didn't do much. We hung out, had a good dinner and the boys gave me some gifts. They got me a new (much littler) camcorder. The last camcorder we had was the one my parents gave me for our wedding in 2001. It seemed small at the time, but seemed huge now! The one we got is awesome and fits in the palm of your hand! I love it. They also got me some new pictures to hang on the walls, once we get them painted!
This weekend has been spent doing mostly fun, unproductive things! Sunday I went to Sherry's house with Susan for dinner and then we went to see Sex and the City 2, which was cute. We had a good time!
Today we went to the Boys Town Memorial Day Run. The boys, Doug and I all ran the one mile race. It was Jack and Charlie's first. We weren't sure how they would do. We were fairly certain Charlie would make it the whole way. We thought Jack might want to be carried, but it all turned out great. I ran with Charlie nearly the whole way and we finished in 12:2something. Doug walked most of the way with Jack and they finished in 17 minutes. I think Jack was almost last. He wasn't super excited about the event, maybe because he's only 4, but Charlie was really excited. About 1/4 mile into the race, Charlie asked if we were done yet. I worried that he might want to quit, but he only stopped to walk a bit and ran the rest of the way. Both Jack and Charlie want to do another race. They were excited to get their t-shirts and their ribbons at the end. They liked having the bibs on their shirts and the timing chip on their shoes. Of course, it all had to come off the moment they were done. I was proud of the both of them for finishing the race and for being so happy along the way. This is a great race to do as a family. There are always a lot of kids and activities and it's so family-friendly.

Some funny things my kids have said:

After playing outside on a hot day, Jack was sweating buckets. Charlie looked at him and then yelled, "Daddy, Jack is leaking!"

Charlie is just finishing up kindergarten and he had seemed to like this little girl, Catie. She also seemed to like him. One day at recess, apparently she tried to hug and kiss him. Charlie came home saying he no longer liked her because she did that and he really didn't want her to do those things. Jack said, "So, just push her down." Charlie replied, "No, I just threw wood chips at her!"

(for some reason, I can't get my photos to move to the appropriate places, so I guess they will all just remain at the top of the post!)

April 2010

April was a long month! Finally, we are on to May. Only one more month before summer break. I am super excited about that. I decided that I would return to school next fall. I am going to attend Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha to get a Masters in Reading with a library media specialist endorsement. I plan on taking two classes this fall, so I will be rather busy! At the school where I teach, because of some staffing reductions, I got moved to teach reading. I am excited to give it a shot and make some changes.

At the beginning of April, my mom's brother, David, passed away. We had a visitation for him at St. John's Lutheran Church.

Emily, Whitney and Jill

Our family at the visitation.

Julie with the boys.

In March, Heather had let me know the Embassy Suites had a special. If you stay a night in April, you get a season family pass to the Omaha zoo included in your stay. So we picked a weekend and stayed at the LaVista Embassy Suites in mid-April. We had a really great time. We hit happy hour and there were enough kids for them to keep each other entertained. We ordered pizza in to our room, ate and then the kids went swimming. We ended the night with a few drinks in our rooms and with the kids watching Star Wars on their little dvd players. The next morning, we went swimming, ate breakfast and packed up and went home! We had a really fun time! The boys enjoyed it too!Heather and me!

The boys loved the hotel pillows. They were perfect for pillow fights.

Ben and Charlie after swimming.

Heather and the boys when we got to the hotel!

Then this month there was Easter. Julie came to visit and stayed a couple of days with us. The boys had fun and she got to experience some of their not-so-fun moments! We spent Easter at our house. Julie, Mom and Bob came over for brunch and then Julie and Nate headed back to Denver that evening.

March 2010

Well, March wasn't a very exciting month. We did quite a bit, but I didn't seem to take many photos. This might be because I started teaching another Metro CC class. This time it's an online class, so it doesn't require me to teach on campus. Some things we did do: we went to a Lancer's hockey game with some friends and the boys, we celebrated Jack's half birthday (he turned 4 1/2) and Barb and Jessie came for a visit. We celebrated St. Patrick's day with a treasure hunt and a leprechaun trap. We also colored some Easter eggs in preparation for Easter. After doing the eggs, we used the vinegar and backing soda to make a volcano erupt. The boys love doing this.

Here are a few of the very few photos I did take:

Jack turns 4 1/2!!

The boys love Star Wars and Scooby Doo.

Our leprechaun trap.

Our finished Easter eggs-Star Wars, of course!



Making a volcano with Aunt Jessie and Grandma Barb.

Funny/Nice Things Charlie Has Said Recently...

The other day Charlie was asking about marriage and wanted to see our wedding pictures. He then told me that his friend in kindergarten had picked out a girl in class to marry. He was saving her for later.

Tonight while I was getting ready to do my exercise video Charlie said, "Mom, do you get Girl Scout cookies so you can do this?" And I said, "No, but that's about right." Just the other way around. I exercise so that I can eat a full box of Thin Mints in a weekend.
Then he said to me, "You don't need to exercise. You are already skinny." Ahhh, just what I wanted to hear. Bonus points for him!

February 2010

Here we are again...February is such a short month. I like that though, because it makes spring come that much sooner.

This month was kind of blah. I had hernia surgery on the 2nd. I was off work for two weeks. I watched a lot of Oprah, Good Morning America and Dr. Oz.

My mom watched the boys the day of my surgery. They made me some cards, got me some treats and flowers. It was very nice (my mom's idea probably!).

The Winter Olympics started this month as well. The boys each made their own "country flag" for the opening ceremonies. They carried their flags around the house and we clapped and yelled for them. They loved this, especially Jack. They decided they were hockey players, so we had to yell, "We love you hockey players!" It went on and on, per Jack's request.

Charlie's flag was the country of Gummi Bears. He loves Gummi Bears. Jack's had something to do with fire and bombs...doesn't sound very Olympic like, but it was very boy like.

Mid-month we enjoyed a great Valentine's Day weekend. We didn't do much and relaxed a lot. Doug and I have been watching all the episode's of Dexter, a series on Showtime. We've only finished season one, but really like it so far. That is what we did most of that Saturday. That Sat. night, I had the boys do a treasure hunt with clues to find one of their Valentine gifts. Sunday morning, we did another treasure hunt for some other little gifts. They got some pencils, a t-shirt, and a Star Wars Lego Wii game. They love this game and played it forever that day...with a little assistance from Doug. That day I also made homemade pecan rolls, which were so good.

I had that Monday off from school, so the boys and I laid around in jammies and also made chocolate covered strawberries, bananas, pineapple and grapes. During this process, Charlie said, "Everything is better with chocolate. Except lasagna. Lasagna is not better with chocolate." He is so right.

The next weekend the weather was a balmy 30 degrees with no wind, so we made a trip to the zoo. We hadn't been there since fall. It was a welcome chance to walk around outside and enjoy the zoo when it was not busy. We visited mostly indoor exhibits, and had a great time. After the zoo, we stopped at Noodles and Company for lunch. It was so good.

On the 24th of this month, Doug and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. I guess saying we celebrated would be a little bit of an exaggeration. I had a meeting at Metro Community College that day after school to meet with a professor about the class I am teaching this spring. On top of that, I had a horrible headache. I went to bed around 7pm that night. Pretty exciting. We did order in Thai food, which was good. This weekend we had my cousin, Jake, babysit and we went to Blue Sushi and to see the movie Avatar. It was a great movie.

On a different note, I wanted to record some funny things Jack said this month. He is such a funny and animated kid!

A few nights ago, the boys were running around the house like crazy and I yelled, "You boys are animals." Jack yelled back, "So send us to the zooooooo, Mommy!" Some days I wish I could!

Another night before a shower, Jack was picking the toe fuzz out from between his toes. This is something Jack has ALWAYS done. We didn't teach him this. He just does it. He informed me that night that he only likes to pick the toe fuzz out every once in a while, so that it's more colorful. His theory is that if he changes his socks every day and wears different color socks, his toe fuzz will be more colorful.

This past Friday night we went to La Mesa for dinner. Jack was being a little rowdy at the restaurant and I told him if he didn't behave, he would get a check mark. (We have this imaginary chart where we give them check marks if they are naughty). He said, "Go ahead, give me a check mark. I want to be on the bad side!" Apparently, he's been watching too much Star Wars and is with Darth Vader on the "Dark Side."

January 2010

I am running a little late on posting for January. I had surgery the beginning of Feb, so things have been a little slow around here.

At the beginning of January, we had Charlie's 6th birthday party at a local bounce place. Charlie invited some neighbor kids and all of his classmates and the party was a great time. It was held on a Friday of a week in which we had snow days due to extreme cold Wed-Fri of that week. So, we were very ready to get out of the house and burn off some energy. The temps that week ranged from -20 to -40 wind chill. It was very cold. We didn't leave the house all week, except for the party.

The week of Charlie's party, we had fun cheering on the Hawkeyes in the Orange Bowl. We all got out our Hawkeye gear and had some good food and fun watching them.

Due to all the cold and snow over Christmas, we had to delay our family Christmas celebrations until after the new year. The weekend after New Year's, we had the Bogardus and Whitney Christmas'.