17 years and counting

Last weekend was our 17 year anniversary. Seems like we have only been married just a few years. It has become a tradition that we go to Vegas for our anniversary. Four years ago we signed up for the Vegas Marathon and have gone ever since. The Marathon is just a few days before or after our anniversary depending on when it falls. This year is actually fell right on the anniversary so we decided to run the 1/2 and run it together that was fun and it felt like we were cheating just a bit, to cut off half of the race! This year we wanted the time to spend together knowing I was having surgery as soon as we got home. So it was a nice weekend ALONE.

I have been to Vegas probably 10-15 times and every time we find something new to do and NEVER get bored. My first request was to stop at the Silverton and see the HUGE aquarium. That was so cool and it is connected to Outdoor World, which makes Cabela's seem like nothing. I actually enjoyed walking through Outdoor World and seeing all there displays. We always have to spend a day in Primm shopping, and Got GREAT DEALS! Saw our neighbors at the mall, they also got great deals. Saturday we went to the Marathon Expo and got our race numbers and then Shopped at the Vegas Outlet Mall. Had to eat a a buffet, which is always overrated! And early to bed for the 4am alarm.

The Race on Sunday was so much fun! Where can you run with Elivs, showgirls and renew your vows all at the same time? After the race we got tickets to Mystere a cirque Du Sollie show. I have always wanted to see one so we chose one we could get tickets at as reasonable price. the one I really wanted to see was O the tickets were 175.00 a piece, could not justify it! Kelly took me out to Ethel M's Chocalate factory they have an incredible light show, saw the fountains at Bellagio (one of my favorite things) We had such a fun time and it felt good to have the day of the Marathon to do things instead of feeling like we were to tired to do anything. VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Train Wreck

Ok, I know most of you ladies out there can appreciate and understand as women we sometimes have this YES syndrome. That is what I am going to call it. Kelly calls it my train wreck weeks because he can stand and watch me do too much but cant stop it. I find these weeks start off as easy weeks where you have a few scheduled items and then you get asked to fit more things in your week. I know I have a problem of just trying to do it all and I cant say no. Does everyone have this problem or do I need help?
I just recently had one of these weeks and I know my family suffers a little from my yes syndrome, but how do you say no? As wives and mothers there is always something to do and continues even if your schedule does not allow it. We always have the school volunteer moments, can you come and work in my class, volunteer for PTO or Booster Club, Field trips etc. (I recently went on a field trip with the 7Th grade class, Scary) We always have our church callings and obligations and then those are always added upon. Dinner needs to be brought to the neighbor because she is sick or just had a baby, how can you say no to that? Then yo have the random from people that just ask or need help so you do it. (THIS IS NOT A COmPLAINT!) Because I really do like to help out when I can. And don't forget Parent Teacher conference needs to be fit in between 5-8pm on Tuesday night before mutual!!! And the "Oh mom i forgot I need.......for this class....um by tomorrow....Sorry!"
After everything is said and done I refuse to give up some of the optional things that I really want to do that are not really mandatory. Showing up to the High School to send off the cross country team for state and making sugar cookies with the girls on Halloween because it is a tradition. During these weeks Kelly always asks "what are you going to give up?" my reply is "nothing I can do it all!"
After a week of little sleep and doing way to much I sleep for a day and everyone recovers. I do really hope I am not the only one who does this! When it is all I feel like my weeks following are not very productive because I do not get as many things done. I love my life and wold not have it any other way! This is just life and another train wreck week will be coming soon so I will enjoy this week catching up on Blogs and spending an entire day on my laptop!

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GO BEES!!

The Bonneville Boys Cross Country team made it to STATE!!!! YEAH! It has been a great season for all of them and they all worked really hard to get there. Kolton ran the race of his life at Districts on Friday. That was one of my payback moments for all the driving, money, time, and any other investments I have made in him. He has always come in the top 20 overall at the meets and for Bonneville he was always in the top 4 of his team. Today he wanted the win! For the majority of the race he ran in the top five overall and at some moments he was leading the pack. I could tell he may have gone out to hard and pushed a little more than he should have but it gave him an incredible race. He could not keep up in the end but still finished with a great race, 18:16 and in 11th place out of 86 boys. I had a hard time not crying...he is a Junior in HS now and it is emmbarressing to see your mom cry in public

Legally Blonde

I had the funniest thing happen to me last Friday so I have to share my moment...! I was wearing a light pink shirt so I put on The pink Miche Shell on my purse. It was a bit matchy matchy. I am out running errands around town and I remember our little dog Sydney is sick with a cold. I pick up the phone and call the vet, and they say "If you come right now we can get you in" . I rush home and grab Sydney put her in her travel bag and head to the vet. (Kenzie has trained her to be in this bag when we go out.)

I am standing at the counter checking her in and the receptionist says "you can bring her in now we are ready" I let her know I have her with me and hold up the bag she is in. She says "OH! I am sorry I did not see her" I now realize I look like a fool! I am in a vet with a 3lb dog wearing pink, with my pink purse, and my VERY PINK dog bag. I wanted to go back to the car and leave my purse and the dog bag but the damage had already been done. After seeing the veterinarian and have to go back and face the receptionist to pay my money. I know the moment I walked out of the door they all had something to say! I would have had something to say, and I deserved everything they said. "What is up with that lady and the pink bags?" Can you say ELLE Woods? I looked like an IDIOT.

After my mortifying experience I am driving to the bank and my friend calls me as she passes me on the road. "What are you doing driving around town with a little dog wearing pink?" We both laughed and I had to tell her about my vet visit so she could laugh at me a little more. I do believe she had tears in her eyes from laughing.

I have shared this story with a few people and they have all laughed and when they stop they look at me and laugh again. I hope you all find this as funny as I thought it was. Life is too short not to laugh at your stupidity

Random Tag...

#1: I HATE grocery Shopping I will wait until we are almost out of food and then go. Lets not confuse this with Clothes Shopping. I LOVE THAT! I was at Fred Meyer just picking up a few items and my neighbor that works there litterally took my hand and walked me through the isles to get the things on my list (she is too good to me). I hate going down the rows and trying to manuvere around others.

#2: I need my grocery items checked out in a certain way and put in the bags the right way ie Frozen in the same bag and checked out together, fridge stuff together,,,,,. I had a checker reach over my vegetables and grab the laundry soap, I grabbed it from her hands and she said "OH do you not want that?" So I reluctantly handed it back to her. YES I NEED COUNSELING

#3: I own over 100 pairs of shoes, 10 of those being running shoes, the others are just cute shoes. Can a girl ever have enough pairs?
#4:I Need to use a q-tip as soon as I get out of the shower or a pool, I cannot stand to have my ears feel wet.

#5: I am really organized most of the time. I like things in order and I like my life scheduled. Now that my children are older I have had to learn to live outside of the box and outside of our schedule and sometimes take each day as it comes
#6: I put all my drinks in a cup with ICE to the top. Everything needs to be on the rocks.

#7 I am a reality TV junkie...I love to watch those stupid shows

I Tag.. Robbie, Heather, Kelsie, Steve, Clifford

Miche Bags

I have had many questions about the Miche (Me Chee) Bags I am now selling. For all of you who have not recieved my emails I am now selling these purses. My friend in Utah started selling them and I recieved emails from her. I liked the concept of having one purse, but it still seemed like a hassle to change out your purse into a new shell. I envisioned taking out the soft inside and snapping it into a new bag.....TO MUCH WORK!

When I finally saw the product I LOVED IT! I finally got it. This is as easy as changing your cell phone cover or putting or slipping a pair of flip flops on your feet. You get a base (BAG) that comes in brown or black. Then you get Shells that wrap around your base, there are 40 to choose from and they come in various styles from causual to formal! I will be having an open house this week if you are interested in these bags I will email you the date and time. Here are some pictures this hope this helps!

Tagged....

Sam Tagged me.....Ok I have to admit that I let this one go for awhile. My dryer was on the blitz and so laundry was piling up. So until my cutie handyman husband could fix it I had to wait to post.... My Favorite Shoes: I bought these in Vegas when we were with Friends. It was like a little girl looking into a pet store, faced pressed against the glass. Kel said just buy them. They will make you happy. Shoes do bring HAPPINESS

My Favorite Room: Kitchen...I love spending time with my family in this room. It is where we spend most of our quality time together and it is where my children tell me about there day. It is usually the room I am in when Kelly gets home from work.

Kitchen: Need I say more? LOVE the spaciousness of it

My laundry room: I hate hate my laundry room! Our last house had a huge laundry room with a big table and lots of extras, Can you call this a laundry room? I need one that is at least 10x10!

My Closet: Wish I did not have to share! can you ever have enough closet space? Someday I will have a closet 8x8 just for SHOES.

My Sink: HMMM...This depends on the day and the bathroom. Main floor Stays relatively clean. Kids bathroom SHUT THE DOOR! Scary! Master bath, did I work that day and did the kids use my bathroom.....

Lesson learned from Cross Country

It has been an incredilble season for cross country! the weather has been wonderful and our kids are running with great times. I am even amazed every meet how well they do and how much they improve. Last week was the Blackfoot meet (BRAG MOMENT) Middle school races are 1.5 miles. Kenz ran a 11:15 and Keslie ran 11:21. Kolton ran a 3mile with a time of 18:16. This week we were in Arco...and wow what a city! dirt and sagebrush. This was one of the hardest courses I have ever seen, I think I would have stopped and cried. They all had to run up a large steep hill that was a dirt trail in 80 degree weather. Kelsie had a hard race due to dehydration but still finished with a great time for 2 miles. Kenzie had determination in her yesterday and wanted to do good. the last 1/2 mile she started sprinting and did not look back and placed in the top ten. All the BHS varsity boys ran so good they took 2nd, which keeps them in the running for State.

I am sad to see the season come to an end, it has brought such closeness with my children and for us as a family. The sibling bond has become so strong and it is so wonderful to see the friendship grow. Determination is one of those great lesson we have learned this season. Cross country is a very individual sport and even though you train with a team the races become your own. I have seen all three kids dig deep down inside them to finish the race or beat a time. Sometimes you cross the finish line with your best time and a great smile, other times you cross barely standing feeling like you are going to die. I have watched all three kids experience this and each time I get a little teary. (because I cry at everything) I am thankful for the lessons learned from cross country.

I have to admit I have also learned great lessons from cross country....forgiveness......(some of you know the assistant coach) This year I have learned to forgive and forget....Thankful for the lessons learned in cross country.

Family Pictures

It has been 2 years since we had our family pictures so we decided it was time to have some taken. Last time I had them taken our neighbor who does photography took them and did a great job, so I had to call her again. She is so good to see my vision and take my ideas and let me tell her what I want and then we use some of her ideas....I had so many comments on them last time I knew she would be wonderful. I am so happy with the finished product. I am going to have a hard time deciding which ones I like the most. I put all of them on the slide show if you would like to see them and here are a few to enjoy.

Freedom and cross country

We are now officially in the middle of cross country season. All three kids are running this year and it has been such a fun experience for all of them. Kolton picks up the girls from RMMS and takes them over to BHS and then gets all of them home. It has been so wonderful to have all of this extra time not driving kids all over! The days they have dance or piano he just takes them from practice to dance or piano. (LOVE TEEN DRIVER!) The only thing I have to do is have dinner on the table when they walk in the door, and they are so hungry they eat everything!

For the 2008 season we have traveled long distance for meets which is different than it has been the last 2 years. We spent our weekend in Boise and for the next 2 meets we will go to Salmon and Arco so we will be putting the miles on the Yukon. I guess the upside is lots of alone time in the car with my sexy husband!

We had a fun rainy weekend at the Bob Furiman invite. All the kids running were covered in mud. Kolton ran just after the rain stopped and it turned SUNNY and beautiful. The girls were not scheduled to run until 4:30 in the afternoon and just as the were warming up the dark clouds start rolling in and the the lightning strikes.......the girls did not run! I was not to sad about this because I did not want muddy girls riding in my car. I think they were feeling just fine about not running in a down pour. So at the end of the day we were all happy.

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NOW FREEDOM

Kolton driving has given me this freedom that I am loving! But I am finding that now my weekends are filled with my kids activities. I miss the days of little babies running around and watching Disney all day, feeling like I was trapped in my house and to take a shower was a great feat. We now live our lives in cars driving from one thing to another, and at the dinner table catching up on the kids. I am not working many hours so I am finding that I do have LOTS of freedom. I spent the first few weeks of school having ME TIME, breakfast with my friend Shareen (al her kids went to school this year), reading books, and catching up on projects. I actually think I might tackle a Levi quilt! I have been saying for years we needed one for all the cold sporting events, I think I have the time. The upside to all of this is how fun the kids are and how much fun we have together and how enjoyable this age is. It makes me sad to see how fast time in going but I keep hearing it just gets better and better. So far so good.

I choose to live in here....

When you grow up in this little community and marry your high school boyfriend (who has deeper roots than I) you learn to accept that you will run into everyone else that has the same scenario and you will find that you can find a connection with anyone in this community or they know your family or friends. About 20 people a year are able to break away from Idaho Falls and move to other places. In reality about 10 of them find there way back to move"HOME". Based on the choices I have made I will continually run into old "friends" or make a connection with someone during the week (good or bad).

Now I will admit due to my profession I have a high profile community job where I interact with many people, so I am at risk to be put in these situations quite often. I have run into people from high school, old ward members, people who knew me as a little girl, and others who know my family or Kelly's family. Some of these interactions have been fun and others are quite awkward. One day while at work I even met the father-in-law of an old boyfriend. (that's a funny story)
I had one a the funniest things happen to me at work yesterday and today it still makes me laugh a little. Our blood drive was at Kelly's work yesterday. While he was donating another guy came and sat in the chair next to him. Kel is so good to make sure he introduces me to everyone and make me familiar with his co-workers. So he says "Jen have you ever met Eric ****** " I looked at him and said "no, Nice to meet you Eric *****" and after processing the name in my head several times I looked at him and said "Are you the same Eric ****** from South Bonneville?"
He had recognized me but I would never have placed him in this lifetime. I walk over to Kelly's chair and explained quietly to him that he was my very first boyfriend and that I broke up with him because I thought he was kind of a geek. In Eric's defense he was such a nice guy and now make fabulous money! It was a funny situation and probably more awkward for me than him. I do live in the community I grew up in and so what should I expect? Good thing we all grow up and become better people!

Girls Camp Got Wisdom? WORD!

Who knew I could make it four days in a tent but I made it! Being the camp director this year has been such a blessing in my life, I have had the best week. I started the week off with no sleep because I kept thinking about things that I forgot to pack and things I wanted to get for all these girls! At 2:30 I went to bed and by 3:00 am I was at walmart getting moleskin for the hike.

Our Theme this year was fairies. Our ward choose the tooth fairies. I made all the girls tutu's we were particularly cute! We started off the week with a bang! (Andrea I knew you would love how wrote that! just for you!) The elderly couple that was the camp host for the summer scared the girls about bears so we had to deal with that all week. And the morning of the hike Kelly had to ask the girls if they heard the coyote at 4 am! Thanks KEL! I got one of our priesthood to wear a tutu during our skit...WE LOVE BRO LOTT! And then the pranking started! I believe in good fun pranks, I had our girls leave with all the other wards a crown and tooth brush with a sign that said GOT WISDOM? We stole other ward flags and left fake teeth with notes to get other ward to come up to our camp. When they came to retrieve there belongings we would give them all a toothbrush.

My very favorite part of camp is when the girls decided to prank the leaders. We were in our tent having solo time(sleeping), the girls had gone down to the creek to write in there journals. We had an extended solo time on Wed after the hike so they could nap if they wanted. We woke up to Saran Wrap being applied to our tent. They had pinned our zipper closed and kept saying "try to get out" to that we laughed! and Laughed and laughed. Like we wanted to leave the tent from our great nap. Silly girls. So the pranking continued the rest of camp we had a blast! To get the girls back we took squirt guns and ambushed them while they were cleaning the bathrooms. That was a proud moment for me, I have been pranking these girls for years and they have never pranked back until now.

We had all the fathers as priesthood for the week and that made the experience for the girls soooo amazing! I was so thankful for all their dads. This was Kelsies first year and Kenzie's second I think they both loved having Kelly and I there for the entire week. I know I was thankful for Kelly, he treated all the girls like princesses.

The last night it rained and rained and rained so we had to move the girls from there tent into the cabin it became a huge muddy mess :) Who has ever been to Darby without rain? Makes for a fun experience?

Chaos

We had some friends tell us years ago enjoy your summers and the time you have while your kids are young because at some point in your lives you no longer get to chose what you do your children's activities will keep you from travel and activities you want to do....the time has come. It was amazing we had time to fit our vacation in.

Our children's activities now run our lives. Between Dance Camp and all the things they are scheduled for we are packed full of activities. Kelly and Kolton are at high adventure this week and I am sure they are having the time of there lives! They left on Tues and We should see them late afternoon on Saturday. We will be attending the Williams Family Rodeo this weekend which runs from Fri to Sat. I keep hoping Kelly will be home before the "official" rodeo starts on Saturday. And the Girls and I are getting ready for girls Camp.

I have almost forgotten what it was like to have a lazy summer....

Cross Country season will start as soon as we get back from girls camp and school soon after it will be nice to have some order and live with a schedule again.

Sunshine?

We just got back from Seattle where we attended a Williams Family Reunion. And of course it was the funnest time ever and we did not sleep and we saw many many things and did many many things had long visits with family, and drove all night to get home....that is not really the reason I am writing.

I have always been a fan of the North West. I have always believed it would be fun to live there and have often looked into moving up North. Seattle is a city that I have always enjoyed and romanticised it a bit of being a "city Dweller". So many of you have read Kelly's blog about how much he HATES Idaho and how he cannot believe we live in this WINDY area. Now don't get me wrong any of you Washington residents! It is Beautiful and it is very green and it does offer more that you can ever imagine.

It is too darn cold for me! After our Really long winter and a rainy spring many of us were so thankful for warm weather and sunshine. I just cannot imagine having rain most of the time and having it be cold in July. I carried a jacket with me most of the time and had it on about 50% of the time. It did make me a little crazy that is takes sooo long to get anywhere! I have always wanted to live in a big city or near a big city. So now I have learned I do have to appreciate the fact that I can make it from one side of Idaho Falls to the other side in about ten minutes and I can hit all the major department stores in just a few hours. Now don't get me wrong Idaho Falls and rural living has it draw backs! but I wont dwell on those right now. HOME SWEET HOME!