Last week

Okay, this has been a busy week. As you can see we are having the spring melt. It has been really rainy this last week and that has helped with the melting it hasn't helped things dry up very well, so it's really mud city around here. We are actually seeing more grass than snow so this is a great sign. Now if the sun would just come out for about a month and everything will be dry and the flowers might finally decide to risk it and come up from their long winters nap.

Bret took the boys to a Pheasant fest and I wasn't sure if I posted this picture yet. All dressed up ready for the hunt! They had a great time. On Friday I did my long run for my marathon training. I ended up running a little farther than I thought but I got to break in the new shoes! And it wasn't very cold. I actually had to take off my wind breaker. That evening, the High school put on their spring play, so we all went to that. The Middle school put on their performance first, and although it was great of them to get up on stage and perform in front of so many people, it was agony to sit through. It lasted an hour. I was hoping the High school's would be better. It was. It was called The Old Folks Home. I got to see what Amber would look like in 70 years. She was all gray haired and wrinkled and hunched over and talking in an old lady voice. She was really good, and the performance was very well done. There was a lot of laughing. Ben and Sam were rolling in the isle. Amber is a natural on the stage, I hope she has an opportunity to further her talent in that area. She really enjoys it. Sorry I didn't get any pictures my battery was dead.

Monday, yuck

And it is another Monday morning. I woke up at 4:45 and headed to the fitness center to do my 3 miles of intervals. I like doing those, it mixes things up a bit. I'd prefer to do them on a track outside, but ours is still covered in snow. So the treadmill it is. Allyson was there, and we had a good time, it's always nice to have someone to talk to at the gym. The kids were a little sluggish this morning. To much fun this weekend I guess. Friday we were bowling till late, on Saturday, Amber had to leave in the morning to go to Des Moines for a Jazz band competition, and wouldn't be back until 8pm. By the way they got first place!!! Bret had to leave at 8am to go to Omaha for a certification class for teaching the hunter safety courses. He would be done at 4. So Allyson, bless her, offered to take my boys so I could meet Bret and have dinner with him and then go to the adult session of Stake conference. She also offered to pick up Amber when she got back to the school. So nice of her, I do owe her for that. But Bret and I had a great time. Our second date in one week! That so never happens. The meeting was good. Nothing earth shattering, but I'm glad I went and was able to get some great parenting advice. You can always use that. When we picked up the kids at the Bendorfs, they looked like they had a great time, and they didn't want to leave. Sunday we kind of did a bad thing and stayed home from church. Stake conf. is hard, I hope we can do better on getting to that in the future, but it's hard when only one parent feels the need to go. I won't name names here.......
The kids had a piano recital at 3 and it was at the First Baptist church here in Harlan. It was Sam's first one, and he did great. Amber and Ben did very good too. Keaton fell asleep in my lap for about 20 minutes. I think the weekend had caught up with him. We ended our Sunday with a great Family Home Evening, and all went to bed a little early. All except Amber who for some reason feels she can't go to bed before 10:00! Just like her father!

Yay it's Friday! The end of a great week! I've got my training schedule down now and into a routine. Always nice. Also the weather has decided to warm up a bit, upper 30's lower 40's, so the melting has begun. Which means I was able to do my long run, which I do on Fridays, outside on the roads. It felt so good. Really need a new pair of shoes though. I've worn mine out.

Bret called me in the afternoon and asked if we had anything going on and asked me if we all wanted to go bowling. He wanted to invite the new doctor that has joined the medical staff, and his family, to get to know them a bit better. I thought it was a wonderful idea, and so we invited the Bendorfs and the Monsons, some really good friends of ours, and had a great time at Cyclone Lanes! Named after our High school. It was a great night of bowling, pizza, pop and candy. Alyson kind of started a running tab and let my kids get whatever they wanted. It was a good time. Keaton bowled a 125! He's 4! I couldn't believe it. He beat me. He did have the bumpers to keep him out of the gutter, but there were times that he didn't touch those and got quite a few pins down. he even got a strike and a lot of spares. Unbelievable. Bret got the high score of the adults, no surprise there, and Ben was the winner of the kids. He got a 127. Amber didn't do her best as she was feeling really self conscious, a few lanes down there was a lot of the "popular" kids from her class celebrating a boys 16th birthday party and they were laughing and having a great time and Amber was feeling a bit left out. Plus she was feeling like they were watching her every move. Makes me a bit sad, a lot of those girls that were there, we have invited to our house when Amber was smaller for birthdays and Halloween party's and were friends. Now that they've grown up a bit, they've kind of separated into the "clicks" associated with high school. Now Amber feels like she can't talk to them because she's not a part of that crowd. Just wish everyone would be friends with everyone and not have to separate like that. Makes High school even more difficult. But after they all left she started to have more fun and play around more. The Bendorf girls, Morgan, and Jordan, are 9 and 11, and they worship the ground she walks on. She started having a lot of fun with them. I was glad.

Bret has stared another taxidermy project. He's is now skinning a coyote, and getting it ready for tanning. Which means a lot of smell and flesh hanging around. Yuck! So that's what I did after we got back and I put the little boys in bed, watched him scrape flesh off of the hide. Lovely sight.

Bret turns 42!

Happy birthday to my Bret! He's 42 years young and still loving life!!! We celebrated by going to Bass Pro Shop and eating at their restaurant. It was very nice and the food was great. We had the Alligator appetizer! It was a little chewy but good. It was deep fried and usually anything deep fried is good. The kids went to the Bendorfs house, some friends of ours, she said she would watch the kids for us so we could go by ourselves. So sweet! They had a great time. Pizza and games and movies. What more could a kid want. When we got back home Bret opened his presents, and after that it was past bed time! After I said "time for bed!" They were all like, "Time for cake!!!!" I told them Bret didn't want a cake, and they couldn't believe that someone wouldn't want a cake for their birthday. Things change as you get older.

We're still locked in the grip of winter. It is trying to warm up, it got up to 33 yesterday. The first time we've been above freezing since I don't know when. It's supposed to warm up little by little each day this week. Let the melting begin! It's going to be very sloppy outside but I don't care. I think it will take weeks for all this snow to melt.

Everyone has been doing very good. All the kids are doing good in school, we've started a new school schedule so we can make up for lost school days. They are extending the school day 15 minutes in the morning and the afternoon. So we have to get up a bit earlier in the morning and go a bit later but it will keep us from going into June! Which no one wanted to do. I think everyone will be very happy when this school year is over.

I'm still trying to get myself ready for this marathon that I'm doing with Sandi at the end of June. I've started going into the Hospital Fitness center at 5 am. It's helping me a lot! I meet Allyson there so that helps me get out of bed. She's just had a baby and is trying to get that baby weight off, so we're helping each other. But it is so nice to have my workout done and shower taken care of before I even get the kids up. I don't know how long I can keep it up though.