Top 10 in the Last 10.

Dear Blog,

Whoa, 10 weeks!  Don't worry, I'm still alive.  A lot has happened in the last 10 weeks and on multiple occasions I have thought about visiting to have you take a glimpse.  There's been trips, birthdays, holidays, races, first teeth, new glasses, and more.   Bringing you up to speed, here are the top 10 things that have happened in the last 10 weeks, in chronological order.

1) EASTER

2) A DAY IN ANAHEIM:  I had a CME conference in Anaheim for a week.  One of the days we got a hotel with a pool and Mike and the girls came up.  They swam, we ate, and ate some more, and visited a few tourist spots, like the Crystal Cathedral. 

3) MY BIRTHDAY: 

Celebrating at Claim Jumpers with my favorite people.

My men and I

4) VIEWS OF THE TEMPLE:  We took a trip to Utah and stayed with, as Gracie calls them, "the grandparents that live at the Temple".  I loved looking out the window and seeing this...

5) LITTLE EMMA:  And out of sheer luck, while we were there Mike's sister, Raquel, had her baby. 

Raquel holding Raquel's Baby

5 months apart

6) TIME WITH COUSINS:  The girls spent every moment possible playing with cousins.

My kids with the kids

7) DANCING:  We used to go all the time.  Then one day we got married and it ended.  After some nudging from my siblings, we decided to resurrect our dancing moves and go while visiting Provo.  I don't have pictures of the actual event, but here we are warming up the night before with Kinect dance games. 

8) PROVO CITY HALF MARATHON:  I've been known for rallying people to sign up for races and then for unforeseen reasons dropping out, leaving them to do it alone.  I almost did it again.  I started training for a half marathon back in January.  And I got my sister to start training too.

As my mileage increased, it became evident that I was going to have to give up on nursing or my long runs; my body was not going to do both.  So I backed off the running and called my sister to tell her it was a "no go" for me.  But as luck would have it, weeks before the race, I learned that you could do the half marathon as a relay.

So I called my brother and asked him if he would run the relay with me so that we could run along with Rebeca as she ran the full half.  He said yes, cuz he's a stud like that.

It was an absolute blast. 

9) BACK YARD EXPLORING:  I love that my kids spend so much time in our backyard.  A few weeks ago our garden flooded turning the outer edge into a mud pit, i.e, a kid's ultimate playground.  They spent the entire day out there, here they are prior to me hosing them off.

And when there's no mud, they still keep plenty busy out there...



A chariot with its horses

Enjoying the shade

10) MIKE'S BIRTHDAY: If it were up to him, this wouldn't have made the list.  In fact, the only thing Mike wants for his birthday every year is for everyone to forget about it, his words not mine.  I never oblige, because I can't help but celebrate the birth of this man.

There you have it.  Hope you enjoyed it.  And to prevent future picture overload (and because I need goals in order to get things done), I will be coming back at least once a week during the summer to upkeep this space.

Sincerely,

Maintenance