The duathlete

Emily has been training for the last few weeks for her first big race - a duathlon! What's a duathlon? Well it's like a triathlon but without the swimming. Why is it not called a biathlon? Easy, that's skiing and shooting. See the biathlon for yourself on NBC starting next month. See Emily's duathlon photos below.

Here are Emily and Scott pausing from their warm-up for one of many photos taken by the mom. (How could I resist?)

About 40 kids, including about ten from our church, showed up for the big day. The event was free so a lot of the fair weather kids stayed home. It's been raining for a week straight here so it was no big deal to have a little raindrop on the head.

Find the following things in this photo:

1. Emily

2. The race winner

Here's a hint. Emily is the cutest and I had the winner picked out before they even hit the starting line. He smoked everyone! This may not have been his first event.

And they're off! Thanks to Alyssa for being Emily's pacing buddy.

Donavon and Kristen also came to support the cutest duathlete in the ville. The sisters were there too, although they were not as enthusiastic about the sprinkles.

Yeah Emily!

(PS - 1 mile run, 1.5 mile bike ride!)

Coming Summer 2010

I saw this quilt's photo on a friend's blog.

37 seconds later I had ordered the pattern.

Cute, right?

But I already did one with similar colors so I'm doing . . .

THIS!!!

I can't wait for the Tour de France to start so I can get started.

Step By Step

AKA how to paint a table in one Saturday morning

Step one! We can have lots of fun.

Once we bought a cool looking table. The color was a little off though. I actually like the color of the table in this photo but it never looked like this since the photo used a flash and the room is always dark. I thought it needed to be brighter.

Step two! There's so much we can do.

I saw a blog post about someone who silver leafed their dresser. I loved it. I didn't love how much money it was going to cost me and so I tried to think of another way to get the same look on one-tenth the price. Two words - spray paint. Here's the base coat. Adios verde.

Step three! It's just you for meeeee.

Taaaa daaaaah! It's lighter now!

Step four! I can give you more.

It looks even cooler in person. Just don't look at the top where I put the globe because it wasn't quiiite dry and now there's a lovely globe base-shaped circle. Oh well.

Step five! Don't you know that the time has arrived!

(Pause) Huuuuuh!

That "Huuuuh" noise is me hurling. Why are those guys dressed like the United Nations of sports teams? Also, um, gross, why were they popular? And the best question of all is WHY do I know the lyrics to their songs? My awesome sister (her words) swears she does not remember this song. She is 26. She needs to be schooled in bad music.

Punch #4

Remember The Brave Little Tailor? Remember how Mickey squished seven flies at once but the other villagers thought he toppled a giant instead?

Mickey did not squish these girls.

These girls are raising their hands because the ALL had strep throat this week. I did too. Fun! I joke that it was Old Testament justice. Our family gave the cousins the flu. By the time it got to their family it was much, much worse. In return they gave us strep. We are now done giving each other diseases. We hope.

Anyway, back to the original analogy. Well, now Heidi can yell, "THREE! THREE IN ONE BLOW!" but it will be for real, and in her case it won't be flies or giants, but a plethora of ENT-treated surgeries.

Here's cute little Heidi, ready for what the surgery center calls a T and A and removal of a foreign body. Yikes. I know! It sounds like something a Bachelor contestant would get.

Luckily this was a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy and the foreign body that needed to be removed was actually just an old ear tube that was locked in wax. Once they got the wax cleaned of her ears they realized that, hey, this kid needs tubes in her ears again. Luckily she was already in surgery and it only took an extra few minutes.

Sadly it will now be more difficult to get the 5th punch on my ENT surgery punch card. Then again, maybe not. The need-for-an-ENT genes are strong in this family.

Punch #1 Punch #2 Punch #3

The recovery room was not fun at first. Heidi was more than a little freaked out and she hurt a lot. Poor kid! A minute later she was O-U-T and the next time she woke up she was feeling much better.

And now we're home! She is either a super-speedy healer or is still so drugged she doesn't realize how much this hurts. So far she's been watching Dora and happily eating Rice Krispies. As I write this I sadly realize I may not get the break I was hoping for. Yeah Heidi!

Prospero año y felicidad!

We were kind of tired 3 years ago today. Molly and Emily were kind of uncooperative too. At least Heidi was being quiet - for the moment.

And here we are today,

styled by Emily, who also created the set decoration.

Happy New Year!

Here's to a happy and extra peaceful 2010.

Feliz Navidad

Check it out! We had a white Christmas!

To celebrate my parents' 40th anniversary, all four of my siblings, plus their kids, dogs, etc. made a trek to Utah. Since Christmas was only a few days after that, three of us, plus kids, dogs, etc. stayed for the big day. As John Denver said about visiting his Grandma, "We didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun." Right on, JD.

The first big present was for Martha. Santa brought her what she'd always wanted as a kid - an accordion. At first she wasn't so sure she still wanted it, um, 29 years later. But Santa knows. She's now back in Arizona and having a jolly old time playing her favorite polkas.

(Grandpa's in the right corner. I think he knew what Santa was bringing.)

The girls are showing me that their pajamas glow in the dark!

I accidently used the flash. Heidi was surprised.

On Christmas Eve we opened the traditional (yet completely untraditional) Christmas Eve jammies. I found these glow-in-the dark pajamas in September. Were they Christmassy? No. Did I know the girls would love them? Yes! Heidi didn't take them off for over 24 hours. I love Christmas jams!

Heidi was NOT sure about the snow at first. She didn't want to touch it, stand on it or even look at it. California wimp! After a few days she got used to it and even asked to play in it. Mostly, she liked to pose in it though. Really. This is the ending pose of the clown dance for her December dance recital and we have about 12 of this exact photo.

Did you know Alta is free after 3 pm? Scott and Molly took advantage of free skiing since we don't get it much where we come from. Molly loved it! I love her elf hat.

OK boys. We still have not chosen a suitor for her. Look what Emily wanted for Christmas. How many girls do you know that want a YODA for Christmas? We're raising her right. You're welcome.