I married Superman!!!

Did you get that? I did I promise! And I have proof...for the last few months Sterling has been training (A LOT) to do a triathlon with his buddy Kurt. So much training in fact that Kurt's wife Linda and I had to create the WoTA support group, (the Wives of Triathletes Anonymous) to help each other survive. We pulled through it all no worse for the wear and the guys were AweSomE!!!

Linda, her three boys, Lil Man, Max, and I all parked our booties next to the route with our posters and snacks to cheer on our stud muffins. It was a little tricky to pick out our two guys in the sea of sweat and spandex, but we did spot them at each transition and attempted to get some pics/video as they breezed past.

First off was the swim: Sterling and Kurt were in the Novice wave of athletes so they started 20 minutes after the super-mega-live-only-for-races-Olympic-racers. They got a little nervous watching as 2 of those racers were coming into the docks before their heat began (that means swimming a full mile in under 20 minutes...are you kidding me!?!) but they were chugging down the Goo and ready and rarin' when they heard the airhorn signaling their start. Unfortunately Sterling has a habit of trash-talking and it got him into a HUGE brawl with another swimmer in his group and he ended up with a bloody nose...ok really in the swimming portion of the race it is a mass of bodies kicking and paddling for their lives and Sterling got kicked in the face about 300 meters in (3-4 minutes in, nice start eh?). But did that stop him? No way! Superman would never let a bloody nose and massive headache stop him so neither did Sterling...onward and upward to the next leg!

Biking!! This is My man's favorite. No injuries were sustained in this part of the race, but I do have to brag about what a great guy he is. The biking leg of the race is 25 miles, at around 15 miles Sterling saw a guy who had blown a tire and was WALKING, carrying his bike the last 10 miles back to the transition area. My Uber Man of a hubby not only stopped to help him, but gave him his pump and his own spare tube! A regular modern day Samaritan huh? Enough bragging by me, he's gonna get all embarrassed :)

Last was the running leg of the race. This consisted of a 10k going along country roads (watchin out for cow patties) with many, many hills. Not my idea of a good time but he loved it. Luckily they ran past us at the halfway point so we got to hold up our signs again to cheer him on and grab a high five. And then the finish line...YEah DaddY!! (see I told you I had proof! And I defy any of you to try to get a better video while holding a puppies leash that is trying to run away, ans also holding onto a 5 yr old that is trying to get away in the opposite direction)

We has so much fun with our great friends the Olssons, thanks for putting up with us guys!! The boonies just wouldn't have been the same without you...

We'll share more pics and such of other events of the trip, but for now it's all about our FanTabUlous Daddy and his dedication and perseverance! We are sooooooooooo proud of you daddy!

WE LOVE YOU!!! :)

Heeeeeeere fishy, fishy, fishy!

Last summer Lil man was a bit...let's just say nervous, about swimming. It typically involved a life jacket, a kickboard, my arm, goggles, and the top step covered in only a foot of water. I just kept hoping the fear would go away with extended and repeated exposure but no such luck. Then this summer hit. First attempt at the beach (as previously mentioned) he suprised me by not only getting in himself with only a life jacket, he also juMpeD in from the side!!! Granted he jumped because I promised him a dollar and he'll do just about anything for a dollar, but he still did it.
Then lately we have been going to the neighborhood pool and he has really come out of his swimming shell...it's fantabulous! He suddenly wanted to be wandering around the pool without any flotaion devices, he stayed pretty close to the edge and only in the shallow end but still...then he stared venturing away from the wall...and suddenly one day I got this:

Then last week he grew uber brave and did this (about 100 times):

He was doing cannonballs, pencils, can openers, and "super hero twist flops" C'mon, admit it, THAT is pretty awesome that Lil man is jumping off the board into 12 FEET of water, and not only that but he is pausing mid jump to pose for photos. I lub him!!!!!

So, did any of you get the Sesame Street reference there in the title? If not go here and pay special attention to around 1:06 of the clip, yes I know I am random.

Future Public Speaker (unlike mommy)

Lil Man was assigned to give a talk in church and he took it VERY seriously. He has given talks before but has never wanted to be so completely independant when doing it (as in "Mom this is my talk not yours so I need you to give me some space to type" and "Why are you telling me what to write? I know what my brain wants to say"). He wrote the whole thing himself, looked up statistics on the computer, found pictures he wanted to use, and when there wasn't a picture he was looking for he just drew one. He did ask me if I would hold his pictures for him during the actual talk since he thought it would be hard to find his place if he had to keep track of the pictures too, however he was VERY specific about how to hold them and which words in the talk were my cue to change pictures. Lil man insisted we practise at least 10 times before church on sunday morning to make sure I wouldn't mess up (I think I did pretty well considering the pressure he was putting on me). He did a fantabulous job giving his talk complete with dramatic pauses and gestures toward the pictures being referenced, and he only swallowed the mic one time. I was the proud mommy up there with him yesterday although I probably made fool of myself getting all teary eyed over a talk that lasted a minute and a half. I am so grateful that his confidence in himself is growing. This summer has really been great in that department, he has been trying new things and not getting as frustrated when they are hard or he can't do them the first time. I love it!!
Since we can't exactly videotape in church we had Lil Man re-create his talk when we got home to share with all our friends and fam that are too far to see it in person (sorry if that is weird of me :) ). By the time we taped this he was pretty much over it, ready to change out of sunday clothes, and really hungry so it isn't quite as enthusiastic as the original, but you can get the gist of it. Please excuse the screeching birds, Davis calling us, and the ring tone going on in the background I only had one take. Oh yeah, and he insisted on holding the mic, it's just not a real talk with out it. (Just pause the music on the sidebar to hear it...sorry)

A Pig Just Flew Past my Window...

Say what you want...the devil just hit me with a snowball, a monkey just crawled out of my nose, etc., etc., but anyway you say it, it happened. After 8 years many, many promises, and lots of guilt trips my husband finally.........(wait for it)........TOOK ME SAILING!!!!!! Yes you read that right he finally bit the bullet and took me out on a boat with sails that is wind powered!! And it all happened on our 7 year anniversary too. How Romantic eh?

Now, I wasn't completely convinced it would happen (especially since what should have taken 5 minutes to get the boat in the water took 30 due to issue after issue, and and almost broken boat piece) so I wasn't fully prepared with a camera and a notary to document the occasion but I imagine we looked somewhat like the happy people on this boat, if you added a cute 5 year old and a very attractive 18 yr old girl (yup my sis Janelle) as extra passengers. We had a blast!!!

Lil Man especially loved it. We dropped him off the back of the boat with a rope and let him body ski. We were actually going pretty fast but Lil Man rocked it out and only let go once when it got too "splashy". So instead of having him hold the ropes we rigged up a system to an extra life jacket that was on the boat (don't worry moms out there he had his regular one on so he was safe and sound the whole time!) and let him hold onto that. He was born to be in the water that is for sure!

Yeah for us! Yeah for Daddy! Here's to the next eight years before our next adventurous voyage!! Just kidding Daddy!!! (kind of..........)

The Beachy Beacherton...very looooong

Guess I am on a roll...look at me posting 2 two days in a row! I am giving my self a pat on the back.

Anyway, let's bounce back again and meet some of the grooviest people around Uncle Austin, Aunt Katherine, and our hero's cousins Jayde, Simone, and Haven..they rocked our summer! This fantabulous five-som invited us to go on an adventure with them to The Outer Banks for an entire week...an entire week in a a fancy house right on the beach with a million bedrooms, 3 huge jacuzzi tubs, pool, heck this place even had an elevator! (never mind that the mom's had a tricky time figuring it out) We felt extremely spoiled!!!

We arrived at the beach late at night, and immediately got stuck on the one road leading to the house. We were beginning to get annoyed until we saw a helicopter lift off from the road and med-evac (what we learned later to be) 2 people. Scary start huh? Don't worry it was all happy happy joy joy once we got to the house. In order to preserve memories but not bore the crap out of you I will attempt to summarize each day in Limerick format...Ready???

Day 1:

There once were some kids at the beachy

Not burned yet their skin still looked peachy

In the pool most they played

O'er the sand the wind stayed

So the Ocean they didn't quite reachy.

(it was REALLY windy which made us not want to deal with sand in eyes and complaints of the cold...we walked on the sand but didn't dive in! Lego's and Bakugan kept them entertained as well!)

Day 2:

Next the kids jumped into the Atlantic

It was warm, and alive and "GIGANTIC"

Catching crabs great fun (the crawl on the beach kind)

From the waves they did RUN

When caught crabs disappeared they were frantic!!

(Jayde caught a little crab and made it a home but unfortunately in the night some hungry animal came onto the deck and ate the meat of the crab leaving the bottom of the shell with all the legs still attached!! Not a happy camper. We also attempted to teach the kids how to play badmitten...epic fail)

Day 3:

On this day kids and dads went to town

To see just who could win a race crown

Round the track we all drove

Played putt-putt on the cove

This they did while the sun beat them down!

(Ok it was defintiely 1 million degrees this day and we felt it on the slick track and the golf course...after burning our hands on the seat belts from the cars and playing 9 holes on a course completely devoid of ANY shade or relief from the sun the kids were more than happy to bow ut early and hit the pool again. Seriously who builds a mini golf course in the Outer Banks that has no shade?!?!?! Shameful, but I digress...)

Day 4:

On Thursday was more fun in the sand

We built "farms" (or as I call them, remand)

Buckets full of the sludge

Mussels needed a nudge

And some beetles that would burrow in our hands

(these little guys were weird and hard to catch, but Coulter and Jayde spent like 5 hours total this day digging in the sand looking for them. They were really sweet (and I say that subjectively) and made Simone a farm since she had been traumatized by the water on an earlier date. We also had a funtime baby-sitting the cousins while Aunt and Uncle Awesome went on a date. It was spaghetti night and Haven found it especially enjoyable)

Day 5:

Nature Centers are really hip scenes

With bamboo we all fished for marine (life)

Kids got bored on the dock

Picked at poop from the flock

Then watched UP on the really big screen

(these are getting gooberier and gooberier...sorry. Anyway this day we went to a clinic about fishing, dodged about 2,000 piles of goose poo, and then went to see UP at the theatre. It was perfect timing! As the movie started, outside it poured rain and continued throughout the whole thing...but miraculously as the movie ended so did the rain!! So, we were able to spend our last night at the beach. Don't you love it when that happens??)

Other Highlights from the trip that didn't fit into the limericks:

Playing Rock Band 2 with the kids was a trip!!!

Apples to Apples and Pass the Pigs won the kids hearts

Lil Man Learned how to body surf...after multiple face plants and near drownings he got really good at it.

Simone found spikey weed balls on the deck and christened them puffer fish :)

The fudgery was AMAZING!!!!

Lil Man braved the pool with just floaties...no life jacket!

Lil Man jumped into the pool by himself for the first time!! (technically I had to bribe him with a dollar but that is beside the point)

The souvenirs that the kids picked were not neccessarily beach related...Coulter chose a jet and a submarine that runs on bakg soda. Ironically he chose rings with a beach scene in them for his frinds souvenirs??? Odd...

All three kids could have had their own room in that massive house, but they chose to sleep all in one room with bunkbeds...really cute that they wanted to be all together.

All in all the kids were FABULOUS with each other...we had maybe one or two minor scuffles after 5 days of sleep deprivation, but they were nice and friendly and happy 9/10ths of the time and what more can a mommy ask for on vacation???

OK I know this hasn't been my brightest moment in blogging, but I did it anyway! I gotta be me right? :) Thanks SOOOOOOOOO much Fabulous Five-som for making our summer start out with a huge bang! Hopefully next time we get to spoil you rotten the way you did for us. You are the best!!

MIA...oh and graduation

So for all of you bugging me to post here more often, I will refer you back to my initial post about how I make no promises on quality and quantity...and leave it at that. :) You know who you are...
Anyway because it has been forever since I have posted I figured I would take you back in time to where I left off and fill you in on life up until now (my goal is one a day for the next few days, but I know myself and am not sure it will happen). So strap in because we are goin' for it!

We left our hero (Lil Man of course) in preschool with just a few short weeks left until his time there was finished. Imagine if you will a week full of celebrating teachers and showing them appreciation, so Lil Man and I decided to do just that. We never shy away from a craft opportunity! On Monday we gave them a frame with a cute teacher quote inside:
On top was a note from Lil Man "Dear MS (fill in Ellen or Lori :) ) Thank u for being my teecher. I had fun plaing at scool. My favorit is wen u reed books to us and then giv us snacs. Thanks for being nis all the tim. Luv COULTER" Sweet huh? But then he drew a picture of an alien abduction on Ms Ellen's letter and told her to watch our for aliens this summer and then Ms Lori got a picture of a flower field, a tree, and him walking with her saying that the best kind of flowers are blue. Can you guess which teacher he worked better with?

OK next.....Well I must admit it has been too long and I didn't take a pic of the second gift so, if I told one of you what we did please let me know and I will add it in here. Yes I know I am lame.

On the last day Lil Man made super cute flowers with scrapbook paper and pipcleaners and we wrapped them around chocolate dippend pretzels we made. It was so cute! We put them in a tin bucket that I punched holes in around the top and strung a ribbon through...please just imagine it with me because again no pics (again, yes I know I'm lame). The best part of the flowers were the leafs that Lil Man cut out and I wrote quotes on. Throughout the year I had written down little things he had said about school and such and those are what I put on the leaves. Here are my favorites:

"Sometimes I think my teachers are smarter than Yoda"
"How do my teachers always know how to teach lessons? Is there a class for that or something?" "School makes me wanna dance...but not at school because there we are supposed to sit nicely"
"Snack time is the best part of school because it is yumalicious, even the fruit parts"
"Art things are fun to color and glue and put things on other things, but the best part is to just wash your hands at the end because man they get slimy" (Man is he a Thomas!!!)
But my favorite of all favorites is "My teachers like to teach kids how to do things except for how to fight ninjas, but I think that is because there are no ninjas at my school." Hmmmmmm...

All in all it was fun to try and spoil the teachers for one week, because heaven knows our teachers don't get enough love from their paychecks!

Fast forward a couple of weeks to graduation day!! I tell ya, nuthin tugs at the heart like a bunch of lil ones pushing and shoving each other to be seen by their parents cameras. The kids sang a few songs (Tingalaya will be forever burned into my brain),
then they called their names to walk across the stage and receive their diploma. I would have been crying huge tears like a baby, and I was close. But just as I was about to squirt some my son turned quickly to say something to his friend behind him and whipped himself in the eye with his tassles so he spent the next song trying to blink out the pain. Oh yeah, and he also said (rather loudly) to that same friend that their diplomas were "more than completely awesome because we can make them into lightsabers later to battle", man do school gyms echo.....
The gym was decorated like an art museum with each child getting a space with a poster showcasing some of their art from the year and I thought it was really cute! The night ended with a HUGE and very random potluck dinner, lots of pictures with teachers and friends and he got to keep his tassle which was the source of great happiness! There was also a lightsaber battle as promised because the rolled up papers they were handed really were just scatch paper and we got a "real" diploma later. Weird.

All in all it was a fun night and Lil Man was so proud that he did it. Lastly, he asked a few moms for their phone numbers, he said it was so he could call his friends to play over the summer, but you never know! We are a little sad that most of his friends will be going to a different elementary school when the start the big K-word, but I guess that is what we get for going to a preschool where the fancy kids go! :)
So we will just look at is as a new opportunity to make new friends right!!!??? Man is this kid's mom nervous.

So if you are still reading this that is it for this time travel adventure, and hopefully I will see you tomorrow with another installment...let's just say it involves water, balls, shovels, and rashes in places that there should not be rashes!!

ps, for some reason I am having issues with the formatting, but it is too late and I am too tired to care. :) Hope you all can survive the visual eye scraping.

Spring Cleaning

So, one of the benefits of having this fancy schmancy new car is that my husbands inner guy-pride has been reignited and he wants it to always be shiny. It's great because while he is making that one shiny he feels guilty and wants mine to be shiny too! Even though the Toyota had been washed a total of never in the past, oh I'd say 3 years, it has been bathed 3 times in the last month thanks to the Volvo! Inside and out...*sigh*...I am beginning to understand the meaning of true love when I am not the only one who has to dig all the cheerios/goldfish/apple cores/legos/matchbox cars/french fries/straws/stickers/checkers/crayons...etc. out of the car seats, I now have 2 fabulously handsome strapping young men to do it for me! I know you are all jealous...I love how Lil Man looks so dang hapy cleaning the car, why can't he be that excited to clean up the toy room? Is it a testosterone thing?

A day or two later I asked Lil man to clean up the toys in the back yard, this is what I saw ten minutes later. Apparently I was not quite specific enough. He'd gathered up all his toys (including his old tricycle from underneath the deck), put them into his mini wading pool and hosed them off. Admittedly they all probably needed a good scrubbing, especially the soccer net ???, how great that he decided to help me out like that! Too bad he got 100% drenched in the process and created a mud puddle that could drown a brontasaurus or whatever it is that dinosaur is called these days :)