Anyone want to do a Triathlon with me?

I really need to start training for something to get me motivated.  Anyone want to do the SheROX sprint tri on May 10th at Tempe Town Lake? 

Here's the info: http://www.sheroxtri.com/Tempe_Information.htm

Kanoe? Amy? My sisters? Brothers?

  

My long lost friend Melanie

One of the best things about blogs is hearing from friends you haven't seen in like 15 years!  So I got a comment from one of these special friends a while back.  She's extra special since she is responsible for hooking me up with my wonderful husband!  Thanks Mel!  Our houses backed up to each other during our junior high years and we spent many summer days hoping back and forth to each others houses, playing mad libs for hours and swimming with her older brothers cute friends.  It was a sad day when she moved over to the Mountain Pew side of town!

This picture is from girls camp.  Melanie is in the red & white striped shirt.  Emily is in the plaid and Traci is in the turquoise sweatshirt.  That's me in the black.  I think it's from 1985? or 1986?  I think that was the year Emily and I were almost sent home from camp for ditching out on the hike.  They made us chop out a big stump in the middle of the dirt road instead.  It was worth it though.  While they were out hiking for 5 hours,  Emily and I had the whole camp to ourselves.  We took hot showers, raided everyones candy, and took a great nap.  Good times!

Back to Melanie,  thanks for your comments and I can't wait to catch up with you!!  

I'm getting a little BUGGED!

I have been so excited for my favorite cupcake place to open.  They were supposed to open in October and it's what . . . almost March!!  What the heck.  I heard they are for sure supposed to open on the 15th.  We'll see.  I can't wait.  They have the best frosting on earth and I am the biggest frosting lover their is.  My friend Jill makes a pretty mean frosting.  Lemon is her specialty and when she makes some she always sends over the extras.  Paige & I love it!   We put it on graham crackers, a trick I learned from my aunt Jane many years ago.  And if we're out of graham crackers we just eat it with a spoon.  YUM!!

  

Oh my gosh, I'm the mother of a TEENAGER!!

It's true...Wesley celebrated his 13th birthday on Monday!  We had a great day,  he had a couple friends over to hang out with him.  They played rock band, went down to the park to play football and basketball and ate a ton of chicken wings and bagel bites.  Happy 13th birthday Wes!  We love you tons! 

He's my (shaggy) brother

Have you been to the visitor's center yet and checked out the new Reflections of Christ exhibit?  If you haven't yet you need to.  It's beautiful.  It's a photography exhibit with real people portraying Christ's life.  My brother is in a few of the pictures.  And so is his cute little wife.  Boyd plays Peter.  The picture of him with Christ is truly breath taking.  I can't even look at it without crying.  I'm crying right now just thinking about.  You must go see it.  He is also one of the thieves on the cross.  And Niki is Mary Magdalene in the crucifixion picture.  I couldn't be prouder!  The picture of the angels announcing Christ birth is another one of my favorite's.     

Photo Booth is so much fun!!

Todd got me a mac for Christmas this year.  I love it, I'm so exited to learn all the fun things you can do.  But my favorite thing so far has been Photo Booth.  It's HILARIOUS!  Please come over and take some pictures with me!!  I need a backdrop so you can't see my clothes stand, uh, I mean elliptical in the background. 

January

I love January!  I'm always so glad to be done with Christmas, I don't know why I let it stress me out so much. This one was especially bad!  January is also Luke's birthday month.  6 years old!!  It makes me so sad to say that.  He is growing up, and I'm not happy about it!  

This year we decided instead of having a party we would go on a trip!  So we went to Williams, AZ and took the train to the Grand Canyon!  It was a blast! It had just snowed a bunch that week, which made the train ride gorgeous and the Grand Canyon was incredible.  It's so amazing I almost feel like I'm looking at a picture, it's unreal!  I'm really surprised more people don't fall over the edge.  There were lots of parts that had no railing and the ground was ICY!  Our tour guide, Oscar, (Paige needs to fill you in on her buddy Oscar!) told us that only 10 people die from falling over the edge each year and half of those did it on purpose (Thelma and Louise) or were PUSHED OFF!  The other half slipped on ice and plunged to their death! (j/k, but that is what I was thinking!)

The day after our train ride we went sledding!  SO MUCH FUN!! I could watch my kids sled all day (if it wasn't soooo cold!)  They had a blast.  The snow was very slick.  I fell down once and could not get up.  Todd had to coming over and pick me up.  It was hilarious (and embarrassing)!

Another fun thing Paige and I (and all the girl cousins) did in January was Princesses on Ice!  It was new and improved this year - except for the fact that they didn't all come out at the end in their wedding dresses, which is our favorite part.  But they added lots of special effects.  The little girl behind us started freaking out ,during Sleeping Beauty, when the dragon came out and spit fire!  FREAKING OUT!!  Kind of sad, kind of funny.  This was the first year the girls didn't all dress up as Princesses, but they did wear princess shirts at least!  The little girls, Molly, Grace & Quinney still dressed up and were the cutest things ever!  

  

Paige also had her first violin concert!  She started taking lessons at the beginning of the school year and has gotten pretty good.  I love to listen to her practice.  We are hoping someday to have her learn to play the harp, but her violin teacher thinks we should wait another year or two. 

I think that sums it all up for January.  I tried to move the pictures around so they weren't all at the top together, but I can't figure it out, and I'm getting frustrated trying.  Maybe Paige will fix it for me when she gets home from school.  I love that she knows how to do all that stuff.