Proud Wife

Totally in love with this guy. He is the best husband a girl could ask for. But that is all beside the point of this post. We are heading out of town tomorrow to go to Utah. After a couple days with the in-laws, we will be in Logan, Utah for Carl's Grad School Graduation. I am so proud of this guy. He has worked so hard to finish school and provide for us. Not only did he get his bachelor's, but he now has his master's. No telling what he can do now. He promised his mom and I that he would walk for his master's, since he opted otherwise for his bachelor's. What a guy. He is so good lookin' too. Anywho....for those of you who are still in Logan, we will be there friday...would love to see our good friends. Carl....so totally proud of you and so totally in love with you.

Run, Paula, Run

As most of you know, I am in training for the Wasatch Back race in June. I am so excited because I am running it with some of my sisters, brothers-in-law, parents and friends. Like other "training" I have done, I have ups and downs. Usually start out with some awesome enthusiasm and over exert myself. Then I get bored, which slows me down a bit. Sadly I find my body takes a toll from my training...creeky knees, painful heels, sore hips and raw toes. My most challenging down of training is the mental wall I hit, about halfway through the training. I hit that wall last week. Turned to my team for help...a boost, motivation....whatever they could give. They came through.
My younger sister posted on her blog a really great, motivational post. BIG BOOST! My two older sisters gave me words of encouragement. My husband (best man ever) gave me a foot massage, and rubbed out my sore heel. Now it doesn't hurt. Ta da...I am back on track. Excited and ready for my run tomorrow morning.
Here are a few things that help me get through my training.....

1. My IPOD...can't run without music.

2. Foot rubs. Thank you Carl.

3. Yogurt, smoothies, protein drinks

4. Vitamins

5. Water....love my water bottles.

6. Bananas

7. Ice...poor knees

8. Shoes, good shoes are key

9. Prayer

and last but certainly not least

10. My TEAM

You guys rock, keep up the great work!

Friday Night Family Night

Friday Night Family Night...I love these times. Mondays after FHE, we draw out an activity from our "FAMILY FUN BOX" Well, last monday Kya pulled out "musical performance". So I started to do my search...for concerts or shows. Being new around here I couldn't find much. Except, Disney on Ice was here with "Finding Nemo"....I SO wanted to go. Kya loves "Finding Nemo" and she would love it, plus that would be a great musical performance. Unfortunately, the tickets were well out of our family night budget. So......

We decided to have our own "On Ice" program and FIND our own NEMO. So, we went ice fishing. Kya loved it. She loves it when we catch fish, she wants to kiss them all. So funny. Carl would say that he won, because he caught the biggest fish, but I caught the most, and I caught a crawdad (crayfish: see pics above).

You might be wondering, 'what does that activity have to do with a musical performance'. Well, we sang songs while we waited for the fish to bite. Kya loves songs like...

'Itsy Bitsy' (Kya says, "bitsy, bitsy")

'Twinkle, Twinkle little star' ("tinkle, tinkle")

'Popcorn popping on the apricot tree' ("pocorn, pocorn")

So, there was our music. Kya did not want to leave, she was frozen, but having too much fun throwing rocks. I was getting some great photography shots (see next week on my photography blog), and of course Carl was having a blast doing his thing, fishing and being outdoors.

Are you kidding me?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So far I haven't really gotten much "spring fever" because our winter was so warm. Days in the middle of December and January where we could enjoy a nice day at the park. So really....I have been waiting for winter to come. BUT NOT NOW. It started yesterday afternoon and this is what we woke up to. CRAZY!

Ok...old man winter...were you hibernating and forgot to get up, or are you just playing games with us all. I have turned off the heat, pulled out my spring/summer wardrobe, spent a couple hours washing, drying and ironing my warm weather clothes and now we get a good snowfall that is sticking. Anyway, now I am ready for spring, so this snowfall was not a welcomed one.

Camo Fort

DADDY...you will appreciate this.

So, I am sure we all are tired of hearing all the POTTY talk. That is enough of that. This morning Kya and I decided we wanted to make a fort and play. It looks more like we are camping or hunting with daddy. Ya Man! In fact, we are sitting in the fort right now to post this.

Kya of course loved the idea she has a fun place to read and color. And now...eat breakfast. Too bad Daddy is not hear to sit in our way COOL fort. Daddy...we are hunting animals, actually we are ANIMAL RESCUERS, like Diego.

We'll save you a spot!

Complete concentration. She is studying (coloring) her next rescue, I think it is a GIRAFFE.

Busy Weekend

Last Wednesday for mutual I put together a Life-Size "LIFE" game for my Laurels and the Mia Maids. It was a lot of fun. The girls all realized by the second game, they wanted to be sealed in the Temple and go that route. It didn't send them into outer darkness. We laughed a lot and had a blast.

Friday after Carl got off work we headed to Pueblo so I could decorate my friends house. See Photography & Decor Blog. Kya loves to wear her sunglasses, only she calls them "hangasses". We thought this was a cute shot of her chillin' in her seat, reading a book for the drive (of course).
And this is what we do with a potty trainee, when there are no stops nearby. She did not go, maybe she got road fright. But then 15 minutes up the road when there was a truck stop, she went on the potty. I am not a crazy mom, she has gone by the side of the road before. When you got to go...you got to go. Carl thought he needed to get a picture of this, and of course I had to blog it.
Friday night while I was working on stuff with my friend, the boys took the little girls fishing to a pond up the street. Kya was so excited to do this with daddy. They even went again on Saturday while again I was at the house decorating. I told Carl, "take the camera and get a picture of Kya holding the fishing rod". Silly Carl, he forgot. Sorry no pics of Kya fishing. While decorating we had conference on the internet in the background so we could hear.

Sunday we watched the morning session of conference on the internet (outside of Idaho or Utah we have to improvise a bit to get conference). Then for lunch we went over to our friends house and made breakfast. I love breakfast foods. Our friends have the "mountain" channel so we got to watch the last session of conference on their TV. They were so nice to let us come over. This was our first conference where we had to really pay attention, with four little ones playing and needing parents for one thing or another. Good times! What a great weekend.

Feel free to take a look at my Photography Blog to see the decor results.