May 2015

These two girls of mine have lots of sweet moments together.  (I dont know what I would do if I didn't have a second little mom for Abby.)

Ella graduated from 1st grade.  She had a lot of anxiety about school and half day Spanish.  But she loved her Spanish teacher Ms. Martinez VERY much.  So we made it through the year!

Between loosing teeth and having teeth pulled we started out May a bit toothless.  (by the end of the summer they started filling back in!)  Eating apples was a bit tricky for Ella.  

We watched a few more soccer games.  Abby thought laying on the blanket was pretty cool.

Tyler and all the scouts have some fun times together.  I am really glad I am one of the leaders.  I get to know the boys who Tyler hangs out with.  They are striking a "sexy sailor poise" here.  hmmmm...

It is really nice to have Tylers help with big projects.  He and Darren dug trenches to get my garden boxes water.  We spend a lot of time with AJ and especially Jagar.  Two cousins, and we live on their compound.... the Day Compound.

I am very happy where I live.  My garden makes me happy.  Planting little seeds of corn makes me happy.  Having horses in my backyard makes me happy.  We love having smores in our backyard.  One night Darren and the kids slept outside.  It rained and POURED!  They were inside around 3:00 AM totally soaked.  

We now know about make up.  Ella and Abby are good at fingernail polish.  I have held on to these little cream jammies for years.  They were given to me when I lived in Guam.  Now Ella wears them and it makes me happy!  We also all headed to the doctor in May.  Strep throat for all three kids.  And my friend Sarah Snowder and I took all our kids to the Payson Temple open house.  It was amazing.  My favorite temple so far!

Seth's Retirement and Birthday

My Father in Law retired.  Yes, I am slightly jealous because I cant even see it on the horizon for us.  I enjoy where we are in our lives now but thinking about traveling, gardening and taking a nap occasionally sounds dreamy!  Along with retiring, it was his birthday too.  (May 31st... I am finally getting caught up)  We helped clean up that patio and get all the furniture out.  Corie and Nolan showed up with water guns to save the day.  It was hot!

I find Abby so humorous.  She is singing Rock a by Baby to this baby in the rocking chair.  And when she gets to the drop part... well, lets just say I am glad it isn't a real baby.  She doesn't love clothes and she loves diapers even less.

The kids are old enough to start climbing trees.  The old apple tree is so perfect.  I hope no one ever falls and breaks their leg up there.  

Abby likes to be helpful.  She has a thing with sunscreen... she loves to apply it to herself, the windows, her dolls and Grandma was nice enough to allow Abby to apply it to her too. 

Darren and Nolan went for a ride up Green Canyon.  They had a great time.  The pictures were beautiful.

We had a great cook out.  Everyone had plenty to eat.  We sat around after dinner to allow Seth to read some fun notes we all wrote him.  Tylers note said something about how glad he was that Grandpa was retired so he would take us to Aggie Ice-cream all the time now.  ..... hmmmm....   :)

Darren @ Mesa Verde... Amy @ Ogden Marathon

Darren started training down in the basement in January.  Lots of hours riding a stationary bike in the basement... at 5:30 in the morning.  he was pretty excited when he could finally get outside and start riding. He took some great pictures.  

 His first race of the year was in Mesa Verde Arizona.  He and Rob Hyldahl headed down there. They tried to set up a tent and shelter to prepare for 12 hours of racing the next day. It was so cold they had to get in the sleeping bags at 6:00 just to stay warm.  By morning it was snowing.  The race got cancelled.  

So I remember my mother saying as a child... when the cats away the mice play.  I had a great time while he was gone.  My dearest friend Pam(ela) was preparing to move to Oregon.  She was one of my very closest college roommates.  A friendship I will always treasure.  Ang came over and we spent the day together.  Talking about life... thinking about how we got so old... wishing for carefree college days again.  The kids kept themselves busy.  We fed them occasionally.  Put on a movie when it got late.  mostly we just wished it wouldn't get late, but it didn't.  We said our good byes and knew we would see each other again soon.  

The weekend after Darrens race was my big race.  I trained for a marathon.  I used the book "Run less, Run Faster".  It was some intense training.  Some days I thought I was going to pass out and die.  But then I would finish a workout and know I was stronger, physically and mentally.  I ran a half marathon at least every Friday.  My long runs started on week one with 13 miles.  then up and down from 20 miles.  I was ready when this race came.  Unfortunately my running buddies both got injured.  I had to run the race alone.  In the rain ... 23 miles of rain.

My great friend Amber finished in the lead pack of the race.  I was proud of her.  We tried to stay warm at 5:00 in the morning as we waited for the race to start.  My other friend Amber who was injured met me at mile 23 to save my life.  I was so wet by then, and my knee was killing.  But she ran me in.  She helped feed me food since my hands were basically frozen shut and I couldn't uncurl them very well.  I didn't make  my goal of 3:45 to qualify for Boston, but I ran 26 miles and felt good about it.  4:10 minutes.