Pictures That Have Nothing To Do With The Rest Of The Post

I got up with the intention to run at 6:00 this morning. (Got to get the run in before the day heats up.) As I got ready, Clayton woke up. Not wanting to leave the three year old as the only person awake in the house, I got him dressed, made him some take along breakfast, and headed out to get my running stroller out of the garage. Unfortunately, all three tires were half flat. Back inside I go to get the air pump. When I headed back outside with the pump, the dog followed me. Having lubed and aired up the tires, I realized that Miss Ally really wanted to come for a run too. So I headed back inside to fetch the leash and a poop bag. While I was inside, the Empire decided to strike back. (This is my own personal running code phrase for dumping the waste before making the jump to hyper-speed.)

FINALLY on the road and running, Ally (dog) was behaving badly. (I really need to take the time to leash train her better!) It's totally not fun to run with a dog that wants to pull, while pushing a running stroller! So after running a quarter of a mile, we came to the woodsy place where I try to get my dog to do her business when we are out walking or running, so I don't have to pick it up. I stopped running and gave her ample opportunity to take care of things. She didn't ... until about two houses after we left the woodsy area. Mess cleaned up, we are again on our way, but Ally won't stop pulling, and trying to go after cats and squirrels. Fed up, I ran back home and left that stupid dog behind.

Now sans dog, I realize that my stroller is pulling to the right. Annoyed with my kids who like to ride my running stroller, down the hill in the back yard, and into the fence, I kept on anyway. After I leave my neighborhood, and am crossing the road, I realize that my kids have also lost me one of the quick release pins that keeps my handle bar in place. So once safely off the road, I stopped for a couple of fixes. Being of the quick release variety, my pulling to the right front wheel was not too hard to straighten out. I also replaced my missing handle bar pin with a less important one, and AGAIN we were one our way (an entire HOUR after I wanted to leave).

Fortunately, I had a really good run after that. It wasn't too hot, I felt good, and I ended up doing just under six miles with a child in the running stroller. Just a rough start to a good run. Yay for perseverance!

I Always Wanted To Be The Best At Something

As I was changing his stinky diaper, Clayton informs me, "Mom, you are the best wiper. Leela is the best drawer. You are the best wiper."

Oh joy. What an honor.

Vacation Week

We started last week out by shopping for and replacing our fridge. Here's what poor Bruce looked like when he came home from earning all that overtime that is paying for our new fridge.

So after cleaning the house, doing all the laundry, packing everybody's stuff, cleaning out the old fridge, and installing the new one, which was just a bit taller than our old one, so we had to move a kitchen cabinet to make it fit, ANYWAY after that and a long run on sentence, we went to Santa Claus, Indiana with Bruce's family. We played all day at the water park on Wednesday, and on Thursday we played all day at the non-water part of the park. It was a good time!

Here's the good thing about traveling with boys. Ross was actually there too, but he got done and ran out of the shot right before I took this picture.

Clayton had his birthday while we were in Indiana.

Next we packed up, drove home, dropped off our dirty laundry, and headed out for Nauvoo, where we geeked out again over Vocal Point. I have more pictures just like this one, but with the different members of VP. However, you'll just have to be happy with a sample, because I don't feel like posting all of them.

Ross was way excited to take a picture with VP's Ross. All of the VP members were very nice and good sports about dorks like us who bugged them after the show for pictures. I totally love these guys!

Vocal Point
Back row left to right: Jake Hunsaker, Robert Seely, Keith Evans, Mike Christensen, Tyler Sterling, and Ross Welch
Front row, left to right: Tanner Nilssen, McKay Crockett, and Ben Murphy

We got home from our Nauvoo trip Sunday evening. My family deserves major props because they all pitched in and in less than an hour's time we had our van completely unpacked, and everything put back in it's place.

Monday morning I was up at 4:45 and off to do the 4th of July biathlon (5 mile run and 20 mile bike) with Bruce's dad. I think the clouds scared off a bunch of folks, because the turn out was not all that good. However the weather was just about as perfect as it gets for 4th of July. I did okayish. I took second in my division, but that's really only because there weren't very many people there.

Am I just old and farty? That vacation WORE me OUT!!