Summer Fun!

Well, I think summer might finally be here! YEA! It took long enough thats all I have to say... Here are some of the fun things we've been doing...



So we got this slide for the boys and it has finally been nice enough to put it up a few times. We had it up Memorial weekend, and then it has been so windy and yucky that we haven't had it up since. But finally it has been nice out. Jacob and I came home from a ride on Saturday and it was so hot that he went out and jumped on the slide with the boys to cool off. They thought it was great!



Kennedy doesn't get on the slide but she loves to watch her brothers play on it! And how cute is her swimsuit? I fell in love with it when I saw it...



Here is Landon pulling Kennedy and cousins Ty and Paige in the wagon. He is such a great big brother. He pulls Kennedy around in that wagon, or pushes her in her stroller, all of the time. She loves it. The other kids liked it too, but its really hard to get a good picture of all of them in the bright sun. So you just have to imagine them smiling, they were on the inside...



Ky got to go to Vegas with his Grandma Rose for a few days. This is him at the airport getting ready to leave. This was the first time he's left us over night... I was kinda sad. He was a little apprehensive at first but had a great time.

Going through Security....





They have both had Dentist appointments.... (Don't ask...)





Here I am out riding on one of our eternal bike rides. That is Jared Despain in the picture with me.



Picnic at the park Sunday... Kennedy was chowing down on chips dipped in Guacamole... That girl will eat chips dipped in anything....



... As will her cousin, Ty! Aren't they so cute?

Ok, so I think thats alot of pictures. I've been looking for some of Landon on his 2 wheeler, he actually learned last summer just as he turned 3, but I can't find the pictures. He is a little maniac on that bike though...

The Host, Stephanie Meyer

So again, I picked up this book when it first came out and read what it was about, and put it down. Too wierd for me. I am just not into Sci-Fi kinda things. Aliens? Yuck! (I did that with Twilight too, the first sentence, "Edward is a vampire..." had me putting the book right back on the shelf.) But then I kept hearing how good it was so I read it, and LOVED it, and the 2nd and 3rd. I didn't actually like the ending of the 3rd one as much, I had to go back and reread the 2nd one again. Anyway, I wasn't going to read this one, but I kept hearing about it and seeing it around, so I finally picked it up. I started it on Wed. and got thru 365 pages that day. Then I was so busy yesterday I didn't get to read it at all and then today I finished it, all 600+ pages. I haven't checked my email, and my house is a wreck... It was really good. Kinda slow in the beginning, jumpy and sorta confusing. But by page 80ish I was hooked. I was balling so hard finishing it up today I could barely make the words out on the page. (I can't remember really crying while reading a book before, well... maybe Firea and the Covenant.)... I couldn't figure out how it could have a good ending. But Stephannie Meyer doesn't disappoint. Again. I reallly enjoyed the story. Now back to life, huh? I love books and when I am reading a good one, I can't put it down! So everything else pretty much gets neglected.

Can't wait till Aug. 4th, when #4 of the Twilight series comes out! Yea!

Ok... so I love shoes....I love that my husband is tall enough that I can wear 3 or 4 inch heals and he's still taller than me. I have been getting ready for my "date" tonight with Jacob, I know its 2 in the afternoon and I'm just getting dressed for the day... not the point, I'm lucky if I get a shower every day, ya know? I've been trying to decide which shoes to wear. Its kinda been a lazy week of shorts and sandals so I am so excited that I get to actually put on a cute pair of shoes... Which ones to pick? That is the question. Since we have been riding on Saturdays we haven't been going out as much, so pretty much Sunday is my only day to wear real shoes. Anyway, as I was putting on makeup and contemplating what to wear and which shoes I wanted to wear, I thought I'd let you all see one of my great passions in life. Oh, and one of my other favorite things... Purses. I love to buy them. I still have some with tags on them and I usually only use the same one for a few months cuz I like to change them up. I also have a collection of lig gloss. I buy them all the time. Use them a few times then buy new ones. I switch purses so often that I often wonder what happened to that gloss. Then I pull out that purse a year or so later, and guess what I find...?

Have a great Friday!

Color Test!

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Orange

You're a bold, confident orange. A warm, powerful color that indicates a strong, welcoming personality, orange is the mark of people who are social and extroverted by nature. Vibrant, with an upbeat attitude, you have a bright, inviting demeanor. Energetic and fun-loving, you're a real friend-magnet. Your easy charm and unassuming manner make you the sort of person people want to meet and get to know better. Well-rounded and fun to be around, you enjoy helping others, so it's no surprise that orange also symbolizes attraction. Orange is an extraordinary color — for an extraordinary person.

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=colorogt&c=50652

I Moved

Not really... I just changed my blog site name. Which I guess you already know if you found me... Hopefully everyone else will eventually make it this way too...

Kyson

So today at church Kyson turned and told Jacob that he wanted to go up and bare his testimony in sacrament meeting. Now as a mom, I kind of worried about what may be said in front of all of those people. I know we've all heard some pretty funny things and you are sitting there thinking, "Oh, their parents must want to die," Right?

Well he did great. He was so stinkin cute! He was very calm and thought about what he was saying and I felt so proud of him. I bore my testimony a couple of months ago, for like the first time in forever. As I was walking down the aisle back to my seat Landon ran up to me and Kyson had the biggest grin on his face and I knew that I needed to set a better example for him more often. Today, watching Kyson I realized that they probably like seeing us make good choices as much as we like seeing them make good choices. The time that we have to influence them goes by so darn fast. It just amazes me how big they are getting how fast and how soon things will happen. Ya know, college and missions is only 11 years away, which I know sounds like a long time, but we've already been parents for 7, and it has gone so fast!!!

Saturdays Ride

So this last Saturday we set out on our training ride. Our goal was lots of miles and as flat as possible. We started out with a group of 5, it was so nice to ride with a bigger group. We headed out Badger and looped around to Benton City. We came up Jacobs Road, whitch runs parallel to the freeway back to Dallas Road and came into Richland down Keene. Hansen's headed home at that point, Cory had to get to work, so Jacob, I and our friend Billy hopped on the Bike path and sailed through Richland, over the bridge to Pasco, flew down to the cable bridge and here's where we messed up. I wanted to ride back down the Kennewick side of the River, remember... lots of miles, as flat as possible??? Well Jacob thought we could do more miles if we headed out to Finley and wound around to the new highway, down State Patrol and back home 27th... So we headed out Chemical to Finley, past the schools and smack into a DETOUR sign. The road was all torn up but there was a nice smooth paved path off to the side. We also at this time ran into a group of about 25 other cyclists. We see the path and decice its not too bad, we can get through it to the other side. Only a couple blocks. The next road has DETOUR signs so we stop and contemplate our plight. We either go back over the 2 blocks of construction, or we go out and up one of the hill climbs the guys like to do. Now the road ends at the top, but Jacob is pretty sure it meets up with another road at the end of another climb they like to do and he wants to be "adventurous!" (his words).

So we climb, and climb... it wasn't super steep but it went on for like 15-20 miles... Not to mention we have already done 50 miles. So as we are getting to the top, the big group of cyclists is heading down. I'm thinking, why are they all coming down if the road goes through? Jacob says, "thats what you do, go up then down." Ok I say... Really I am starting to feel familar feeling reminiscent of our last ride where we went out to the windmills and ended up on a gravel road for 5 miles and had to get a ride... blah blah (it was the worst ride ever, it was 2 years ago when we were training for the STP before.)

Back to my current story. So we are at the top of this climb and thinking that the other road is just around the corner. So we start riding in the gravel. Not fun on a road bike. Let me tell you! 5 miles go by, half riding, walking our bikes up the hills because its just too gravelly. We are out in the middle of nowhere. I don't even know where we were. I didn't know you could go where we were. (Apparently you shouldn't on road bikes) By the way, if you've never worn rode bike shoes, they have these clips on the bottom so your feet are attatched to the pedal. Well, they are not easy to walk in on flat ground, so you can imagine what they are like on a gravel road, up hill, pushing your bike! They SUCKED!!!! Finally after 6 miles of this road and seeing no end in sight or no paved roads I turned to Jacob and said, "Call my mom to come get me, I am done!" It was all I could do to not sit down in the gravel and cry! (That is really hard for me to admit. I pride myself on being strong and pushing through anything, but I was done!) So he grabs his phone... No Signal! Of course not! We are out in BFE!!! So we keep on walking. Finally he gets a signal and calls for help. We keep walking and, oh by the way, by this point two trucks have flown by us as we are walking our bikes up a gravel hill and didn't stop. Which I couldn't believe. Note to self and all others... If you ever see road bikers walking their bikes, stop and see if they need help. Especially if you are on a gravel road that never ends...

So a 3rd truck starts approaching and if I had to I was going to take off my clothes and flag him down. Luckily he stopped when I waved at him. I slyly asked, "How far till we hit pavement?" He replies, "Oh a couple of miles. Have you been on this road before?" Seriously? Do I look like I'm having fun and would choose to be on this road if I'd had any idea what it was? But I sweetly reply, "No, we are lost!" "Well," he says, "once you turn the corner you have a big hill coming up, after that one more big hill, then you turn the corner and the road starts." Hmmmm, I am thinking, is he going to offer us a ride or do I have to beg? Apparently I have to beg... So I do, and he gives us a ride to the road. We hit pavement, hop out of the truck and back on our bikes. All 3 of us were like, "AHHH!" it felt so good to be on solid ground... which you can imagine how awful the gravel was if it felt that good to get on our bike seats after 70 miles of riding. :)

So its like another 12-15 miles home and I tell Jacob to call my mom, I would just ride home. They were already on their way though and so I decided to just ride until we ran into them and then I would get in the car and let the guys ride home. A few miles later, here they came. Oh! What a happy sight. I was so glad to get in the car. I struggled with not wanting to feel like a quitter, but I kept reminding myself, that my goal was 70... it had been 75 and with the gravel and all, it had been quite a ride!

So there is my loooonnnggg story. The moral of this particular story is this... Never ride a road bike to Finley! It is just not good! And, at the first sign of DETOURS, Road Construction, or Gravel... TURN AROUND!!!

This Saturday.... 100 miles.... FLATS!!!

P.S. Jacob and Billy just informed me that they both saw cyotes while we were out wandering in BFE! I'm so glad I didn't see them! I would have really freaked out!