School's Out!

2nd grade has come to an end, and we enjoyed watching Kason sing in his 2nd grade program.  He knew every word to every song and did a great job. 

He earned the "Radiant Roadrunner" award for his 3rd year in a row.  One of his biggest accomplishments was getting 100% on every single spelling test this year except for one.  He missed the word "hiked" (hikeed) at the beginning of the year.  He was worked hard and is a good kid.  We sure love him.

 Hugs for mom after the program.

 His 2nd grade teacher, Miss Orchard.  He says she's "gorgeous" and is trying to figure out a way to see her in the summer because "I'll miss her."  He asked me this morning if I knew her phone # so we could call her in the summer. 

Spontaneous Huff to Bluff Marathon

Last year Tige ran the Huff to Bluff marathon, which goes from Blanding to Bluff.  It's one of his home town races.  But it was scheduled for just 2 weeks after the St. George Ironman, so he didn't plan on running it this year because he knew he wouldn't be recovered from the Ironman.

Well, Thurday night, 2 days before the race, Cathy & Ben Ford are here playing cards.  They and John & Krystal Beckstrand are going over to run it.  They want Tige to come.  He says "no way."  They beg.  "It'll be fun!  Bring Julie.  Brittney will babysit your kids.  A little couples roadtrip.  Come on!"  Tige says "if you can talk the race director in letting me run it for free, I'll do it."

Friday morning, the day before the race, Tige's gets a text that says, "you're in.  lace em up!"  What?  We go back and forth trying to decide if he should do it.  Can you imagine being in good enough shape to be able to run a marathon with just a day's notice?  I can't.  Anyway, we end up leaving out kids with a babysitter and driving over to Monticello Friday evening.  with our 4 friends.  We take our mini-van, because our Honda Odyssey ROCKS!   We get there are 8 p.m., get up early, and head to the race.  All 5 of them ran and then we hopped in the car and came straight home.  I don't recommend sitting in the car for 6 hours after running a marathon.  All 5 of them were VERY sore the next day.  We played Wizard and Pinochle in the car and watched movies and had so much fun.   Took a long time to get there and back though, because they were all "hydrating" and had to stop for 3 potty breaks each direction.  They are worse than my kids! :)

I have to say, it was one of my most fun races to watch because it was an open road, and I just drove back and forth along the course to see my 5 runners, and give them Powergels, GUs, coke, new shoes, or anything else they needed.  And I held up my most funny Ironman signs.

My 5 runners:  Ben & Cathy Ford, Krystal & John Beckstrand, and Tige

Tige & the girls handing me their warmup clothes

 Kirk ran the last 9 miles with Tige to help pace him.  This is the difference in how you feel when you run 26.2 miles verses 9 miles!

Coming in to the finish line

Tige finished in 4:16, which is 2 minutes faster than the same course last year.  He tells me that once he gets under 4 hours he's done.  St. George Marathon 2012 this October I'm going to hold him to it!

Enjoying some treats after the race before we head home.

Mother's Day

I was sure spoiled this year for mother's day!  Tige was so excited about my presents, he made me open them on Saturday night.  He got me an Ipad! Everybody in the house was excited.  I had no idea he was doing this.  (Note: he took it to work 5 days in a row until I told him he must leave it with me now!  lol).   I told him he didn't have to buy me anything if he would just mop the floor for me!  :)  He also bought me a beautiful coral colored charm for my bracelet.  We saw this charm in Puerto Rico on our cruise, but I didn't buy it, and then I regretted it.  So he got it for me.

In scouts kason made me a jewelry holder.  It's a pice of rectangle wood he stained that says "MOM" in sparkley pink paper on it.  Then he screwed about 20 little gold hooks on it.  So sweet of him.  I'm sure they worked on it at scouts for about a month!

Our ward gives all the women real Hawaiian leis for mother's day. How special it makes us feel!

 And we had an AWESOME dinner for mother's day.  Blackened tilapia with a cilantro/lime butter sauce.  This is one of my all time favorites.  With it we had some coconut rice, fruit and artichokes.  Tige came home from the store with 4 artichokes, which I thought was a too many since my family is 7 used to have to share 4 artichokes growing up, but my kids gobbled them down like crazy.  Even baby Taylor was eating them as fast as could be.  Tige and I could hardly get a leaf in our own mouths before he was squawking for "more." 

Have you ever seen a 1 year old scrape artichoke leaves with their teeth?  Mine does!

Kason also wrote me this beautiful letter at school.  It says:  "Mom, I love you because you take sutch good care of me. You help me in all I do.  And your SUPER NICE! And thank you for bringing me on vecaiton.  And thank you for giving me toys! Anyways, your a great MOM! Love, Kason Hazleton"

And Abby made a cute flower with stickers on it.  It was a fill in the blank her teacher helped her with.  Her's says:
"I love my mom because:  eyes
My mom is as beautiful as:  Abby
My mom is good at:  Flower
My mom teaches me:  chores
My mom loves me because:  family
My mom makes the best:  sandwiches
My favorite thing to do with my mom is:  blocks

I feel special and loved today.  And I sure love them too!

Veyo Pool

Today we met my parents and Clark's family out at the Veyo pool.  We haven't been there in more than a decade, and wanted to check it out again.  They have a nice and shady picnic area where we had a nice lunch.  Then we swam in the pool.  Check out Taylor's dirty, dirty face after lunch.  I believe this was the result of cheese doritos...

 Loved this picture of Clark and my dad's face as Josh was jumping in at them.  Too funny.

We ate and then grandma bought us all an ice cream cone. We swam til we were exhausted. Taylor took a little snooze in the stroller, and Abby and Kason both fell asleep the minute we got in the car. I do believe that's the sign of a good day!

FHE Swimming

Last night for FHE we took the family swimming.  Had a fun time being together as you can see from the pictures. 

 This is Tige reinacting his Ironman swim in the 40 mph winds at Sand Hollow.  Really!  3-5 foot waves and he couldn't see the shore, and landmarks, other swimmers, or the rescue boats.  If you haven't read his account of his swim, you should.

 My little sweeties! (most days)