BLACK DIAMOND PINETOP 10K

Ok so even though the race was technically called "Cool Runnings Pinetop 10k" I believe someone referred to it as the Black Diamond (a ski hill term) of 10k's because the course was so hard. Beautiful course, loved running next to the pine trees and the smell of the pine trees, loved the smells permeating from the road kill, loved the "hills" at the beginning, didn't even mind inhaling all the car fumes along the road either but man oh man once you rounded that corner just after mile 4 everything changed. I believe as we rounded the corner at the same time Stephanie said, "Oh Carol!" I said, "Oh $H!*!" (sorry Mom and Dad).Ok so to start at the beginning...13 of us headed out Friday afternoon about 4pmish. We caravanned up to Pinetop to stay at our Bishop's house up there. We stopped and Chevron and took a few pictures and had a good little stretch and learned that the other car made fun of our car for our luggage rack on top - I think they were jealous though that we weren't all squished! (Maggie, Stefney, Me, Amber, Natalie, Lisa, Lauren, Kati, Tiffany, Stephanie, Tisha and not pictured Kalie and Lindsey)After that few minute stop we headed up to Showlow to eat dinner. It was a Mexican Restaurant which made a few of us nervous because you know about eating things that make you go #2 before a big race!After dinner we finally made it all the way to Tiffany's house. How cute is our Bishop that he had a huge bowl of candy there for us and a fridge full of waters and G2's! We all stayed up for a while chit chatting and then finally decided it was time to go to sleep. In the morning we got up and headed out for the big race. It wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it would be. I heard last year it was 20 degrees so this year the 48 degree weather was a welcomed surprised.How do you describe the "hill"?! Any words would do an injustice to this Mount Everest we had to run. Thank you Coach Davis for teaching us to take little steps up a hill when running it, I did that and well, eventually I made it to the top - it may have been a walking speed but I "ran" it none-the-less. My goal was to finish the race having ran the whole thing. After the first 3 miles and how fast we were going I wanted to finish it under an hour (knowing that on flat ground in Chandler at that speed we could have finished it in less than 50 minutes easy!!). I finally finished it at 1 hour and 11 seconds...blast that 11 seconds! I am going to put the blame on the 7200 foot elevation we were running in and the freaking hills :)After the race we went to Eddie Basha's Country Store and had a fabulous breakfast; french toast, egg and bacon and gaining back all the weight we had just lost.It was a great weekend and I can't wait to beat my time next year. Thank you Tiffany for planning this and letting us all come and crash your place! You're the best!

And to you my dear shoes...Thank you for taking me on many miles of running. We were a great team together. You helped me train for my first half, for my first official 10k and you have been with me every time I needed you since I got you Christmas day 2006 (oops, a long time I know!)Please understand I left you behind in Pinetop with a grateful heart!

BZZZZZZZ-Y DAY!

Today was a very fun filled day for us (more for me I am sure!) Jared was kind enough to be a "mystery reader" in Emma's class. We (or me, really) thought it would be really fun if he went in dressed up in a costume and read a book to the class dressed in the costume. Jared being the amazing husband/father that he is agreed. He never hesitated once, well...not until he saw the fantastic costume I was able to borrow! He dressed in a giant bumble bee costume complete with antennas on the hood. The night he tried it on I had him put on my black stretch leggings and about peed my pants seeing him in them. He said he would have to draw the line at the leggings, drat!The teacher gave clues all day long to the kids, "its a dad coming in," (they get more excited about dads coming in because not very many do), "its a girls dad coming" (then all the girls think its their dad), etc. Right before Jared went into the classroom he knocked on the door and a boy says, "um, there's a bee outside!" "why is there a bee outside?" So he walked in with the book covering his face and all the kids are saying, "that's not my dad" (in a nice way, not a repulsive way) and then Emma says, "I think that's my dad?!"The kiddos were very excited to see him dressed up and came up and petted him, asked him to sting them, blah blah. Jared sat down read the book and they were really enjoying it and then he asked them a few questions about it. Afterwards they made bumblebee bookmarks made out of tongue depressors, cotton balls, googly eyes, pipe cleaner, you get the idea. When they were all done with that they were dismissed to lunch and Emma was thrilled to have her daddy stay and eat with her. As the teacher was walking me out she says, "are you going to dress up next week when you come?" and I say, "no..." "why not?" "um because that is embarrassing!" Thanks Jared for being such a good sport, thanks Lisa for watching the boys while we did this and thanks Votaws for the costume.

The day finally came for Emma to do her big Diamondbacks performance! If you have talked to Emma in the last month or so I am sure you had a conversation with her that went something like this...
Emma: "Who is your favorite baseball team?"
You: "such and such team"
Emma: "well our family's is the Diamondbacks...I am dancing at the diamondbacks game next month!" (nice segway there sista!)
She was pumped about it! Couldn't wait, her poor teacher had to hear about it every day.When we get to the ballpark and I re-apply her make-up again (rule to dance make-up: if they look pretty, she's not wearing enough, once it looks like there is to much, you have enough, ha ha!) she says to herself looking in the car window, "I'm pretty!!" very matter of fact like. All the girls met together outside a certain section and talked, took roll call, gave a little pump me cheer, etc.Finally it was time to go down to the field. They actually danced before the game started so there wasn't a huge crowd but it was still fun and exciting to dance on the field at Chase field and it was great practice for them since the lights were on and they could actually see the audience instead of the usual dark auditorium. They walked down the stairs with their arms behind their backs and big smiles on their faces.They were shown on the big screen and the teachers said, "don't watch yourself on the big screen its a 3 second delay it will mess you up"They performed fabulously, we were so proud of all of them! Afterwards we met up with the Votaws and got some dinnerI think Emma's favorite part of the whole night was while her and I were walking to get food. Some man bought her a drink of soda because as he told her, "I saw you up on the TV, you were dancing so good. You must be tired from all of that, let me buy you a drink!" She was so excited she got a free drink! Then on the way back to meet up with everyone people would walk by her and tell her how cute she looked, how nice her hair was, how good she danced, etc...she ate it all up! During the game we spoiled her a bit and she ended up with cotton candy, french fries and ice cream (whatever, dinner of champions, right?!)We had a great time at the game and it ended with some fireworks which Emma insisted we stay to watch.She is already counting down the days until her next performance at Schnepf Farms. Emma, we are so proud of you for being so brave and dancing in front of everyone and doing an awesome job at that! Thanks Grandma Jensen for watching the boys all night. (You can watch a video of the game under the video section)

LABOR DAY WEEKEND!

Nothing too exciting happened - just little fun things here and there. Friday was something so lame but Emma loved it! "Mom, we have our very own ice cream truck!" That's right, for the first time ever Emma had the expierence of the Icecream truck man driving in front of our house. She really wanted to get something so I grabbed some cash and we bought whistle pops for her and her friends - she thought it was the greatest thing.Saturday morning her dad took her to breakfast at Mimi's Cafe for a little date. She loved it! Then since it was overcast all day her and her brothers played outside all day long with the neighborhood kids! Jared and I loved that :) (this is why we bought a house in a cul-de-sac, it was awesome, free reign of the street without having to worry about cars coming and hitting the kids!)Sunday we had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Rodgers and then later that night Grandma Jensen came and stayed the night with us and Emma loved staying up and watching "Bride Wars" with her and asking questions through out the movie. My personal favorite question she asked was, "who is she calling a B!#*h?" After cracking up for a few minutes we had to explain to Emma that that was a bad word :)
Then Monday we were off to Wendy and Michael's house for a BBQ/Swim party!Nothing too exciting but a fun weekend nonetheless.

4,200 PLUS DIAPERS!

The twins have now been alive for exactly 450 days or 14 months and 25 days, however you want to look at it. After 2 baby showers and surprise diapers from random people we received just over 4,200 diapers for the twins.My cousins and I thought it would be fun to see how long they would last us. Our first hope was they would stretch out until Jan. 2009 (they would be 6 months old) then it was, "wouldn't that be awesome if you don't have buy any diapers the first year and if you are just a few diapers short of that, tell me and I will buy you a package just so we can say you made it that far!"

Well, we made it that far and then some. Last night I went to Costco to buy my first set of diapers for the twins! What a bittersweet moment that was :) THANK YOU profusely to everyone who gave us diapers, we have truly been blessed!

1 YEAR AGO FROM THIS MONTH...

A lot has happened in the last year for Eli. One year ago in August he started therapy through the state. We had speech and development coming out to our house to help him. He was clearly speech delayed, possible signs of autisism, wouldn't socialize with other kids, kept to himself and hung his head down outside of our family.A year later we have been able to drop the development therapist (a while ago) still get speech but we are now only receiving it every other week and he is in the process of being tested for free preschool through the state but will not qualify for that anymore if anything it will only be for speech help. We are sad to loose the free preschool but at the same time we get very teary eyed thinking about how amazing Elias has been blessed to have accomplished so much. He goes to friends houses now, he holds his head up, he talks and his speech therapist went on to tell us how gifted and smart he is for the things he knows at his age.Elias - someday you will be older and will read this post. So to you I say: We love you so much. You mean the world to us and how sweet you are to your brothers even though you like to steamroll and wrestle them. You are so sweet to stick your head out the car window and shout "goodbye Emma, goodbye Sabrina, goodbye Maddy!" to all the girls as they get on the bus. You are truly amazing and we are extremely proud of everything you have accomplished this last year! From your dad: "Free pre-school would’ve have been nice but we’ve been very blessed to have Elias progress the way he has. It’s pretty miraculous to go from receiving state aid to being called gifted/smart/etc"

POTTY TRAINING DAY 5!

Well our potty training with Elias has most likely come to an end. Oh no, don't be thinking he is all trained or anything, I am just going to take a break from it for a bit. After having him straddle the toilet twice today so I could dump the poop in his underwear into the toilet I think I am good for a while. We will try it again at a later date. Diapers here we come.But with carrying on Eli's tradition of using good manners...when I dumped the second time today Eli told me, "Good job Mom, you're a big helper!" Thanks big guy but you still aren't getting any candy.

POTTY TRAINING DAY 1!

Last night Jared came in from taking the 3 boys swimming and he hadn't quite put a diaper on Elias yet and Elias kept saying, "pee, pee" so Jared asked him, "do you need to go potty?" and he kept saying no but kept saying "pee, pee" while doing a small potty dance and finally Jared realized that he was holding it because he wanted a diaper on so he could go to the bathroom but with the craziness of the twins being fussy it was too late. After Jared told me this I took Elias to the store last night at 8:45pm to let him pick out some candy and underwear so that we could start potty training today. I ended up buying 13 pairs of underwear in case he had accidents and I hadn't washed them all yet I wanted to have back-ups.Well this morning as soon as he got up we took off his diaper and let him pick out the pair he wanted to wear, we started the day off with "Nemo." It has now been 7 hours later and he is wearing his 7th pair. I can say though that pair #4 only got changed because he hopped in the pool with them on and they were wet from water nothing else :) He has not made it to the toilet once, did pee all over Emma's pillow and sheets, the tile and the carpet and at least is sitting on the potty which is a big step for him but that's it.

Oh yes, and I have discovered that when he thinks he is going to be in trouble the kid has impeccable manners..."excuse me, excuse me...I pooped." Fantastic.