My new hobby

I have found a new love in life. I guess everyone has their hobbies, some people scrapbook, bake, knit, sew, decorate, etc. I have little to no interest in these types of hobbies. Maybe it's because I don't have time for them. Who knows? But one thing I have grown to have a deep appreciation for is running. I like to run. I don't know what it is about it. I like the challenge. I like the struggle between my mind and body that happens every single time I head out the door. I like overcoming something that was hard for me in the past and I like meeting new goals. I am not fast but I wouldn't say that I'm unbearably slow either. I just like the challenge of it, the struggle, and the victory. I count every time I get out the door and go as a victory. Sometimes I still walk because I don't have it in me to keep running, but even that is victory because it's better than staying at home doing nothing. I love the satisfaction of coming back from a run and being done for the day.

I ran my first 10K recently. I am proud of myself. I wasn't fast, but I pressed on and kept running. And I crossed the finish line and it felt good.

Some things I have learned about running from this past race:

1. Use the facilities before the race starts
2. Don't slack off on your training
3. Get a babysitter so you don't have to push the kids in the stroller
4. Keep it light and keep it fun, sing a song while you run

Autumn colors

One of fall's redeeming qualities.

A Raspberry

The other day I took my son and daughter to the farmer's market for fun and to buy some fresh produce. It was so fun for them to buy carrots and onions with the stem still attached. And I just feel so healthy by walking through the rows and rows of God's beautiful creation all made for our pleasure and nourishment. My son has a fancy for eating fresh berries - pretty much any berry there is out there he loves to eat. We were looking for blackberries, but bought some raspberries by default which turned out to be an excellent mistake. He reached out and pretty much man-handled the entire pint of berries with his hands, so I had to buy them. I have never been so happy with an accidental purchase. Those raspberries took me back in time the moment I sank my teeth into them. There is something about the sweet tanginess of a raspberry that took me back to my grandparents house on the farm. My Grandpa used to eat a bowl of fresh raspberries with sugar on it. My grandma had many different kinds of fresh berries that she grew at her house and my cousins and I spent many a summer day consuming all of her precious potential jam. I love tastes and smells like this that just take you back to wonderful memories. And I love how they escape your mind until you taste or smell that thing that takes you back to such a distinct memory. The brain is such an interesting thing with all of its nooks and crannies of memories and they pop up at just the right moment. I am so intrigued by our design and what a great Maker we have.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Our sweet River is one year old today! She is such a joy. River, you bring life to where you are with your cute toothy grins, your waves of greeting, your roly poly legs, the sound of your little voice and your sweet sweet personality. We love you so much and it has been such a privilege to watch you grow.

4 years old

Happy Birthday Liam! I love you!

Show me the money

Do you ever feel like you just keep getting older, yet you never grow up. I have felt this way financially for a long time now. I don't mean to boast or anything, but I do think that we have been blessed with the gift of living simply and being thrifty. I don't think we do half bad living off of a youth minister's salary. I would dare to say that not many people could live the way we do. It's always tight, yet we have still been able to maintain a high quality of life. I often feel blessed and like we are living the good life. But in a lot of ways, even though we have done alright for the past 7 years of marriage, it hasn't really been until the past 3 months that I feel like we have made the choice to grow up financially. We have been sort-of following a budget the past 2 years of pay off our debt and living by the concept of don't spend more than you have. But the past 3 months we have really started to grow up and stick to a strict budget. The best part about this budget is that it is amazing how much money you can find when you know where it is all going. I am amazed that we went on vacation last month and paid cash for everything. Dave Ramsey (our financial guy) says that the best vacation is the one that doesn't follow you home. And now having experienced this myself, I would have to agree. In the past, Visa would have picked up the slack for us on a vacation and we would have spent several months paying it back off. It is nice to know that we had such a great time and we came home and we know there's still money left to eat for the rest of the month. So I am not here to just brag about it, but it feels pretty darn good for us to feel like we know where we are spending our money and knowing that we have extra money set aside to pay for things when they come up, etc. The other thing about a budget is that I have been very hesitant to really live by a budget because I am a free-spirited person and a rule-breaker. I do not like feeling restrained or limited or restricted by anything. I was so apprehensive to actually commit to this because I thought it would take my freedom away. The good news is that since having a budget, Jeb and I both feel even more free to do what we want because there is actually money to do it with. If we want to take a trip, we save for it and do it. If we want to go on a date and go to the movies, we have money set aside to do it. If an emergency comes up, we have money set aside to take care of the problem. So for the first time in a long time I really do feel a lot of peace about this area of my life and I feel more free than I have in such a long time. It isn't always easy, but it sure is worth it!

My babies

My son is not a baby any more. He is totally growing up. I have to say I love his sweet boy personality and he keeps things fun and laid back. He is getting more and more independent. I also love that he is living up to his name. Liam comes from William for those of you who don't know and means, "will, desire and helmet, protection, determined guardian, etc". This guy is so considerate of others and goes to great lengths to keep his little sister safe. I am so proud of his gentle yet unwavering qualities.

Anytime you look for Liam you will find him intently playing with some sort of vehicle. It could be a car, plane, train, or X-wing in this case. The other morning we woke up and a few minutes later heard him wake up and started talking with his cars. He is such a fun person. In fact, tonight he got out every single blanket and laid them all flat and spread out on the floor and built a blanket-fort bed. He basically draped a big blanket over the chair and ottoman and made a little bed underneath. He asked if he could sleep there and sure enough he is fast asleep while I type.

River is growing teeth right now. She has the cutest little gap in her top teeth that makes me giggle inside whenver I see her toothy grin. I love her rosy cheeks. Sometimes they are so rosy it looks like she has been busy smearing jelly on them and we never wipe it off. This girl is also living up to her name, she is a river of life and brings so much joy to so many people. She is really into dancing lately and will do a jig (which looks more like rocking back and forth) if you sing her a song or she hears a song on the radio. She is getting so confident in her abilities and can say some words that may seem unrecognizeable to the untrained ear, but her dad and I understand. It is really fun to watch this girl grow.

Inspiring People

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a sports enthusiast. I don't like to watch NFL or NBA, I do like baseball, but on some late nights you will find me flipping through the channels of our TV to watch NBC Universal Sports. The programs I find particular interest in are the long-distance races and iron man races. Good grief, the amount of stamina a person has to have to run that fast for such a long period of time. It kills my insides just thinking about it. I recently was watching the 2009 Boston Marathon. This was a truly amazing race. What really drew me in was that there was a girl from Portland, OR running. Apparently, there has not been an American woman in the top 3 finishers of the Boston Marathon since 1993. Ever since then the Kenyans and Ethiopans have dominated with their running abilities. But this girl, Kara Goucher, from Portland, OR stayed at the front of the pack the entire time. I am amazed that there are women out there who can run less than a 6 minute mile pace for 26 miles. At the end of the race in the final miles these girls even kicked it up. She ran fast and hard and finished third, the first American woman to place in the top 3 since 1993! I am inspired by athletes like this. I like to run. I am not fast and I don't plan on running any marathons. But my inspiration this week comes from this girl from Portland, OR who is a total stud....who when I googled her I found out is older than me! It gives me hope, I've still got time to get in shape and start running!

Susan Boyle, You Go Girl!

My wonderful husband showed me this video and it is fabulous! It goes to show that things often are not what they first seem and it is inspiring to see someone who is not afraid to just put themself out there. Maybe you've already seen it, maybe not, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Catching up

Lately it seems so easy for weeks or months to go by before posting anything. I guess it's best to just start somewhere. So here we go...

In January I celebrated my 30th Birthday! I have been looking forward to this with excitement and enthusiasm. My life is good for being 30. I have many things to be thankful for. I love the Lord, I have a fabulous husband who gently and humbly leads our family and loves me, I have two beautiful healthy children, I have a college education, I have good health, I have a loving family, I have many friends, and I have so much more. What more could a person want when they turn 30? I am so thoroughly and sincerely happy. God has been good to me.

I took a trip to New York with some friends for my friend, Beth's 40th Birthday recently! And that was without the children. I had been anxious for month's about leaving my 9 month old nursing daughter for 4 days with daddy. I was anxious that things would still be ok if I was gone from the family. The great news is that everyone did fine! I had a wonderful time seeing as much of New York that you could possibly see in 4 days! But this trip deserves a post all of its own, so I will write more another time.

On my drive home from the airport, I got the news that my Grandpa Ray passed away. It was a strange feeling to be coming home from such an exciting trip and reuniting with my family to receive such sad news. Maybe that's why it really didn't hit me until I drove into Trout Lake and realized that there will be no more visits to Grandpa's house when I visit. And while you always count on your grandparents dying at some point because they are old and none of us will live forever, this still came as a shock. My Grandpa was in great health for his age, but a tree fell on his house and they say he died of a heart attack. I will miss many things about him, the gleam in his eye, the contagious laugh, the teasing and the visits. I am so glad that he was able to live a long and full life.

The last bit of news I share with joy. Jeb and I have been working so hard since July of 2007 on paying off my student loans. The great news is that this past week I made my last and final payment on my loan!!! It took 22 months for us to pay off the last $17,000. But we are done! We achieved this goal and it deserves to be celebrated! It was a lot of hard work and we finally made it! It gives me a lot of satisfaction to achieve a goal! Now we are so close to being debt free all thanks to Dave Ramsey and his plans!

Too many thoughts, too little time

It has been a long time. Usually when a long time goes by before blogging it means that real life has been happening. That has been the case here. I haven't been super busy or doing anything fancy, but life has been full and good. There are a lot of things to say and thoughts to share, but I am not committed to writing a long and thoughtful post at this time because I want to just relax tonight and maybe watch the rest of Planet Earth. So I shall just share a few random thoughts of what has been happening lately.

I no longer work for our apartments. By choice of course. Last Saturday at 5 pm I left the office never to return as an employee ever again. I am thrilled to spend Saturdays with my family now. So for my first employment-free Saturday (yesterday) I joined my hubby and several families from church for a trip to the mountains. It was awesome and refreshing and fun. Everyone was tubing...including my scaredy-cat son who apparently is so scaredy-cat anymore! He loved it! River and I watched while everyone else tubed. It was so fun to be in the snow and it made me reflect on how I would really love to go snowboarding or skiing. I have never been skiing...downhill that is, I have been Cross Country skiing with my friend Alice and that was hilarious! I kept falling down and we laughed our buns off. Alice is a way athletic friend who in the past few years has ran marathons...and finished 4th in her first iron-man race. she is pretty much a stud. In fact, thinking about it I could tell a million hilarious stories about her. So maybe I will just save those for a post of their own.

River is so inspiring to me. It amazes me over and over again her determination to learn a skill and her perseverance to get to what she wants. She is crawling and pulling up on things now and I am inspired by her because several times a day, she pulls herself up and then falls down and hits her head, or slips and falls, etc. But when she falls, it never discourages her from her goal. She might take a minute to cry because she is hurt, but she moves on quickly and strives for whatever her goal is immediately. I just wish I could remember being that driven and ambitious. I wish I had that kind of perseverance in my faith where you just jump right back up and keep goign towards the goal. I am learning so much by watching her explore her world! She really inspires me to watch her work so hard for what she wants.

College was awesome. Right now we have several Seniors who are making plans and thinking about college, where they are going and what they are doing and it just reminds me over and over again how much i loved my college experience. Some of my best memories are from college. Some of my best best friends I met at college. My passion for learning and life blossomed in college. I fell in love with learning there. Most importantly, my faith became my own in college. I fell more in love with my Savior and figured out what I think that should look like in my life. But now reflecting on college, my heart is a little broken that my alma mater will be closing its doors at the end of this school year. That place is irreplaceable. I wish there were an alternative, but the harsh reality is that this has been coming for 15 years. But for some reason God made Cascade College possible for 15 wonderful years. For that I will always be grateful. And I am so glad that I was able to be a part of it. The rest of you suckers don't know what you'll be missing out on! :) Tbirds for life!

I have many more things to write, but I'm going to sign off for now. I want to talk to my hubby. Stay tuned for more random thoughts and photos of our kiddos.

We kicked off the holiday season with a stroll down Snowflake Lane. It is a place where every night, live toy soldiers come out and drum lining the streets of Bellevue Way. It is really cool. They play all sorts of Christmas music and they have characters dressed up as Rudolph, Frosty, Snow Queens, etc. Here is Liam and Jeb with a toy soldier on stilts. They pass out candy for the performance. Then for the finale they blow bubbles from the top of the buildings so that it "snows" every night. It was really fun and we were able to go twice this year. I would have taken pictures of River, but she slept in the stroller through both times we were there. Liam was afraid of the characters, he commented afterwards both times that he wished they would just dress up like people.
Speaking of snow, we were given a generous share of snow the week before Christmas. This was our first snow day where we went for a walk to a nearby restaurant. It is so quiet here when it snows. Everyone slows down and stays in. We had a great time staying home during a time when usually we are running errands frantically looking for the perfect gift. This year we just enjoyed sitting in our nice warm apartment with the glow of the Christmas lights going. Liam helped me make cookies and we ate a lot of family dinners at home. And Liam has really grown up from years past regarding snow. He discovered how much he loves it. We built a snow man, had snow ball fights, and we finally had to have him come in because his hands had turned to ice.
Here is our girl all bundled up for her walk in the snow. Don't you just want to reach out and squeeze her cheeks.

And during the snow, it was also a milestone event. Here is River before her last meal of exclusively drinking milk. It amazes me still that she has grown from a brand new 7 lb 5 oz, 19.25" girl to this....20 lbs and 27 " all on the food that God gave me to give to her. It is a pretty amazing thing that He made and so good for her to! Aren't they all so sweet!

This is our latest. Jeb had an all-nighter for the teens this past weekend and they kicked off the weekend with ice skating in downtown Bellevue. It used to be under a tent, but when all the snow came, the tent collapsed and so now it is so beautiful. You can skate with the white Christmas lights on the trees around you and the downtown skyline right behind you. Simply beautiful and fun. I didn't skate, but the kids and I bundled up to watch Jeb skate. Please excuse me for a moment where I have to boast in Jeb's ice-skating abilities. He is really agile on the ice...I guess all those years of roller blading as a kid have paid off! He makes it look so easy. I wish I could skate even half as good as he does! This photo does not do any justice to how pretty and magical it all was. This photo is facing the ice rink with the city behind in it. Such a fun time!