Fall Break 2015

Ahhh the much needed break.  The kids were pretty excited to have fall break, especially since it meant not a lot of homework.  Well, Colt's teacher forgot it was break and she sent some home but it didn't need to be returned until Monday.   I had break at the same time so it was nice to spend some time with the kids.  But I was a mean mom and wouldn't let the kids do anything unless their chores were done.  And I still gave them a full load minus homework.  They weren't too happy about that but they still did them so they could play.

Thursday brought playing with their friends.  Aspen had a playdate with Audra, her best friend.  They went to the Children's Museum, which Aspen has been begging to go to.  Then she went out for ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  What a fun playdate for her.  Colten had his friend Xander over.  They primarily played video games.  But towards the end, they started to play superheros using Colt's hulk mask and hands and Captain America's shield.  It was fun to watch them run around the house hiding from each other.

Friday afternoon we met up with Grandma Chris and Darcee's kids at the Washington Community Center to go swimming.  The kids had fun playing, once we were able to get them to play nicely together.  And the only reason why they wanted to go was because they were hungry.  We had planned on McDonald's and Grandpa was able to meet us before he had to head to work.  It was nice to spend an afternoon with my mom and catch up and then talk with my dad.  My kids headed over to my mom's for a sleepover Friday night with the Alijah and Jeramiah.  Mom posted a picture of the movie that they agreed on, Arthur's Christmas.  What the heck?  It isn't even Halloween yet :)

Colten had a birthday party on Saturday and was super excited about it.  I decided to just blow up a balloon and put some money in the balloon and then get boxed candy to anchor the balloon.  Colt did really good to hold on to the balloon and get it inside the house.  But when I picked him up he told me that he didn't know that the mom had untied the balloon and he let it go and it apparently drifted off to the sky.  I told him that it was ok but next time to be extra careful, especially if you are outside.  He seemed to handle it alright.  I feel bad for the kid.  I might get some cash this week and have Colt take it to him.  Aspen didn't want to leave Grandma's and ended up going on an inspection with Grandpa.  So she was lucky to be able to hang out a little while longer.

Sunday brought church, even though Colten was trying to talk me out of it to watch the Broncos game.   But we went so we could practice for the program and I had to teach.  Got home in time to watch the end of the game which ended up going to overtime.  It definitely wasn't pretty but they got the win and are 6-0!!!

Also during the break, I got a call from Angie, my principal.  Just who I wanted to talk to over my time off :)  Anywho, through a series of events Angie is now the UTVA middle school principal and the high school interim principal.  She was calling to see if I would be willing to move up to the high school and be a positive influence there and be the math department head.  I was a little leery but she told me that I could go back to the middle school at the end of the year if I just didn't like it at the high school.  So after this next week, I will be leaving my 7th graders (way sad about it) to tackle 9th grade again.  I just hope that I can help in the high school and have success like Angie is wanting.  Wish me luck :)

So last Saturday, the kids had their soccer games.  Both of them are doing awesome.  Aspen is doing better at actually trying to play the game more and doing less cartwheels in any down time.  Colt is still an awesome defender.  His coach this year is doing an awesome job at teaching the boys the proper way to do things.  Colt is excited to go to practice because he says "I need to learn more about how to play soccer".  I love it!!!  The kids also attended Audra's 8th birthday party. I think Colt was invited by default, but Audra's mom was so nice to let him come.  She told me it was going to be all pink and Colt said "I don't care".  The party was at fiesta fun so I think that is why he didn't care.  And man Wendie (Audra's mom) wasn't joking when she said it was going to be all pink.  The sugar bar (the table with all the sugar) was all pink.  Pink cotton candy, pink popcorn, pink chocolate coated marshmellows, pink wafer cookies, pink gum balls, pink lollipops, etc.  I thought I did a lot for my kids' parties but I definitely have to bow down to Wendie.  The kids had a lot of fun at the party so that is what matters, right??

Denver Broncos vs Kansas City Chiefs

Alright, last post to try and catch up.  In May, David got me tickets to go see my Broncos play in Kansas City.  I was super excited.  I completed getting to watch the Broncos play in every stadium in the division.  Out of the stadiums, I would only go back to two of them, Mile High and Qualcomm.  Don't have a desire to go back to Oakland or Kansas City.

We took a red eye flight out of Las Vegas.  I wasn't planning on getting any sleep on the flight because I have never been able to sleep on a plane.  That desire was solidified when a drunk guy got argumentative with the flight attendants.  First off, he had brought his own alcohol on the plane which is a federal offense.  When the flight attendants brought that to his attention, he said he didn't have any more.  Then when they weren't looking he got out another small bottle.  David went to inform the attendants that he did have more bottles and they came and got it.  The people around him moved to other seats.  And he just couldn't stop arguing with the attendants.  The guy eventually fell asleep.  When we started into the descent to Kansas City, the attendant told David the cops were going to board the plane and take him out first and they might want to talk to him since he witnessed it.  After that, we were able to start our trip.

Which started off with breakfast at Denny's.  Staying awake all night gives an undeniable hunger.  Then we found a parking garage and slept for a little bit.  We drove around Kansas City for a little bit.  David liked how spread out everything was.  We were finally able to check into our hotel room and took a power nap before heading to the game.

The main reason why I have no desire to return to Arrowhead is because getting to the stadium is an absolute joke.  It took us an hour to get from the freeway to the parking lot.  Then the parking lot had a lot of little lots and it took forever to find a spot.  When we eventually made it into the game, it was incredible.  We were 6 rows up in one of the end zones.  And of course the Broncos were heading the other way but were backed up to their end zone so I got to see Peyton Manning and the rest of the offense right off.  It was truly AMAZING.  I was able to catch a video of the Sanders front flip into the end zone for a touchdown.  I also got Virgil Green's touchdown on video.  I got some amazing pictures :)  We were surrounded by Chief fans but they were really nice.  The Chiefs were winning until Manning led the Broncos on a game tying drive.  So we figured we were heading to over time.  Well on the Chiefs next offensive play, there was a fumble and the Bronco defense picked it up and ran in for the touchdown.  Unfortunately it all happened on the opposite end of the field from us so we had to watch it on the jumbotron.  It felt great to see the Broncos win :)  I believe I am 5-1 in the games I have seen live.  This was David's first live NFL game.  He wasn't a fan of it being the Broncos but he said he just wanted it to be a good game.  Afterwards I asked him if that game was a good game and he said yes.

We also went to the University of Missouri football game on Saturday.  It was about a 2 hour drive from Kansas City.  Definitely not a high paced game like the NFL.  There was a lot more down time.  Missouri was favored over UConn by like 21 points.  It turned into Missouri fighting for the win.  The final score was Missouri 9 UConn 6, and there was not a field goal made.  Missouri had a safety and a touchdown.  UConn had a touchdown and blocked extra point.  It was fun to see what the crowd did.  One side of the stadium was start chanting M-I-Z and the other side would answer Z-O-U.  They did that about 6 or 7 times throughout the game.  Also one of the end zones were color coordinated.   It was fun to watch but I think I will stick with NFL games.

All in all, it was a great trip and I had a great time.  It was truly an incredible gift from my hubby and definitely is at the top of the list :)

 

Swiss Days 5K

So over the summer I was able to get in a routine of running, almost every day.  I was still waking up early so I could get in the habit of exercising before I had to go back to work.  I found an app that was a weight lose app (although I didn't lose much weight from it but that is because of how I ate) and it really helped me get into the grove of running.  I decided that I wanted to try a 5K since I was getting to where I was running 3 miles every other day anyway.  I asked Colt if he would want to train to do a 5K with me and he said yes.  Then over one weekend he was with his day, their stake did a fun run so he was able to do the 5K, and Aspen too.  Colt ran it in like 36 minutes and Aspen ran it in like 39 minutes.  That is pretty good considering they don't do heavy exercising on a regular basis, especially during the summer.

At the beginning of September, I signed us up for the Swiss Days 5K (the Santa Clara city celebration days).  The kids were excited and I was a little nervous.  Over Labor Day I had gotten a cold which turned into a sinus infection and was unable to run for about 3 weeks.  I only got back into exercising the week of the 5K so I was really down about it.  But alas, I was finally feeling better so hopefully I wouldn't do too bad.  Oh and I got Darcee to sign up with us.

So the night before I put the kids to bed early telling them they would be getting up really early.  I went to bed a little early for a Friday night but I woke up at 3:45 and could not get back to sleep to save my life.  So I just watched some TV til it was time to get the kids up.  After I got ready I got nervous that Darcee wasn't up so I tried calling her and she didn't answer.  Luckily she called back about 5 minutes later saying she was on her way.  

I grabbed all of our bags and told everyone to get out to the car and headed out.  We had to park at the high school and take a shuttle to the starting line.  So I grabbed everything and made sure that I had it all and off we went.  We get to the starting line and I get the bags out to pin on the bibs for everyone and I only have 3 bags.  My bag is missing :(.  I think it must be in the car (afterwards it was not in the car so I have no idea where it got left).  So unfortunately my time would not be recorded.  But I was still going to complete it.  I was going to try to keep up with Colt so I would know what my time was.  Well I lasted about 1/2 mile before he started to pull ahead.  I was nervous to let him go because I wasn't positive that my mom would be at the finish line.  But he was tired of waiting on me and took off.  Darcee and Aspen pretty much stuck together the whole time.  But I crossed the finish line and the clock said 33:56.  My official time may have been a little lower but I am happy with that time.  In all my training, I had never run an 11 minute mile.

Colten finished the race in less than 31 minutes (so I wasn't too far behind) and he came in 4th in his age group.  He could have done better had I not held him up at the beginning.  The top 3 runners in each age group got ribbons.  I had to do a lot of talking to Colt to calm him down for not making it in the top 3.  He definitely wants to do it again next year to try and get in the top 3.

Aspen finished the race just over 36 minutes and came in 9th in her age group.  She was a little behind Darcee because she stopped to walk for like 15 seconds.  I am so proud of her.  Never thought she would want to do that long race again but she is loving it.  We are planning on doing the turkey trot in November :)

Labor Day fun in Lake Powell

David and I decided that it would be fun to take whatever kids could go to Lake Powell.  Well we got all but Celise.  We left early Saturday morning.  Well let me rephrase that, we got up early Saturday morning but didn't actually get on the road til 9:00.  So we got to Lake Powell around noon.  Well we spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday on the lake and man I was worn out.  So we started off tubing since it was later in the day.  Aspen and Colten haven't been too willing to get on the tube lately.  But I was finally able to get them out there on Sunday.  Colt started to enjoy it again, I think.

Lake Powell is HUGE.  We did a little exploring but really we didn't even touch much of Lake Powell.  We had thought that we were going to have a few of us sleep on the boat and a couple up on shore but Saturday was very windy.  We had borrowed a 2 man tent from Jay and had trouble getting it up in the wind.  Then we put our stuff in it and came back an hour later to a lady telling us that she had to shoo people away from our stuff.  So we decided to put it all back in the boat and just find a place to sleep.  Well that ended up being at a dock :)  David wanted to change where our car was and we needed to go to Wal Mart anyway for some food for Sunday, so he went to Wal Mart and then we just ended up staying on the dock that night.  It gets dark early in Arizona so we couldn't really do much after 9:00 on the lake.  The girls and Colten crashed at that time.  David and Austin were eventually able to fall asleep.  I didn't sleep great that night but oh well.  We woke up bright and early to a fisherman launching his boat.  So we headed to a marina so we could all go to the bathroom.

Since we were up so early and the water was like glass, we gave knee boarding and wake boarding a try.  Baylee tried the wake boarding.  She was able to get up but couldn't figure out how to get the board turned.  After a few whip outs, she was done.  Austin also tried to wake board but was about as successful as Baylee.  And if memory serves me correctly, I think David did it as well.  He got up for a little bit.  Our board is a youth one so I don't think he did very well with it.  Then it was knee boarding time.  We probably spent the next two hours knee boarding.  All the kids but Aspen were able to do it.  Alyssa and Alanah were wanting to go outside the wake and they both were.  Colten did the wake boarding.  And when he was going with Alanah, he started to put his other hand down in the water and just acted like a pro.  Now the next step is to get him to use the strap so he can have more control over the board.  All in all, it was a very fun trip.  And had only one casualty....my lips got sunburned and were swollen on Monday and then turned to a cold sore for the next two weeks.  I learned that the liquid Carmax doesn't have sunscreen like the tube Carmax does.  Unfortunate way to learn a lesson but it was definitely learned.

All in all,I think everyone had fun.  Aspen and Colten finally got to sleep on the boat.  It was a great way to end the boating season.

I took mostly videos but here are a few of the stills I did get.