September 2017

Some pictures from the spring and summer that I forgot to post. They are not all in order. 

The time has come for me to send another update. I just read through my last one and realized how much time has past and how many things have happened in just a few months. I am still planning on running my half marathon on the 30^th of this month and I am excited/nervous for that. Getting new shoes made so much of a difference for how my legs feel. I have also learned the importance of taking the time to stretch and roll my legs out every day to prevent injury. I also ordered some compression socks to speed up recovery after my longer runs. I was so excited when they were delivered and I totally wore them all day and looked super dorky in my knee high granny socks and my shorts but they felt so good, like a hug for my legs so I didn’t even care! I have worked hard training for this race and I am excited for it, but also ready for it to be over just because on the days that I am running 10 to 12 miles I will be out running for nearly two hours and it is just really time consuming and then I am tired for the rest of the day and feel like it impacts everyone else’s opportunity to do something fun that day because they are waiting on me. My favorite distance to run is 3 to 5 miles because they are long enough to feel like a workout but short enough to still do something with the rest of the day. It has been interesting though because I have actually gone up a pant size and have gained weight since I started running. I don’t mind because I can feel the muscle and know I am getting stronger, it just isn’t what I expected to happen. Since I started running Weldon also got running shoes and started running and actually enjoying it, although lately he has been so busy at work that he hasn’t had time.

Colton and Kaci also came home with a flyer about cross country for their school and they wanted to do the ‘really long race’ (a mile) because I was going to run a really long race and they wanted to be like me. So I said “heck yes” and signed them up for the races and started helping them practice. I measured the distance around our cul-de-sac and found it to be just short of 400M so if they run around it four times it is pretty close to a mile. We go out in the evenings and they do their laps. When the neighbor kids saw what they were doing they wanted to join in so Weldon and I sit on the tailgate of Weldon’s truck and watch and time as all of the kids run laps around the neighborhood. We cheer and give high fives as they all run by. It is pretty funny to see all the kids lacing up their shoes so they can run circles and see how many times they can go around without stopping. I think it is great because it makes it fun for Colton and Kaci and helps them stay motivated. They have each had one race so far and they both did really well. I am the crazy mom out there cheering and jumping up and down as they run past me. I used to be embarrassed about being loud like that, but now that they are my kids I am going to cheer and yell so they know I am watching. They look for me in the crowd while they are running and will wave and give thumbs up and they want to know that I see them. I figure they may not always look for me like that, so as long as they do I want them to know that I am watching, that I see them and that I am cheering for them. We told the kids that it doesn’t matter if they come in first or if they come in last, as long as they finish the race and did their best that that is the important thing.

We also got a membership at the YMCA because as it starts to get dark earlier I can’t wait for Weldon to get home for me to go running and they have childcare there so I can leave Preston and Owen there for up to two hours while I run the trails around the Y. I actually love having a membership there. They have a full gym so on my cross training days I can cycle or use an elliptical or whatever I want. They also have an indoor pool with a water slide that the whole family can use all year long (it will be so nice during the winter so we don’t feel too cooped up) and an awesome rock climbing wall that Colton and Kaci really like. I have taken Colton and Kaci running around the indoor track there a few times as well. One day after they ran their mile we were at the outdoor park there and I was pushing Preston and Owen on the swings but I was still close enough to Colton and Kaci to hear them talking to a little girl there that they were playing with. They were telling her that they had just gone running and then they said “that’s our mom over there, she’s a runner too, and we want to be just like her”. It made me feel really proud and made me that much more determined to actually do it.

Other than focusing on running I have also been trying to submit my stories to several different publishers each week in hopes that someone will want to publish them. I got my first official rejection from Dad’s publisher and I was a little bit disappointed, but that is okay because there are a lot of different publishers out there and I just need to keep submitting. I wasn’t going to tell the kids about the rejection because I knew they would be really disappointed, but the more I thought about it I realized that I needed to tell them because I want them to know that I will keep trying, that just because the first place I sent it to said ‘no’ doesn’t mean that I should give up all together and that I will keep sending it to other places until it gets published. They were disappointed and they felt really bad for me, in fact they almost cried, but they need to know that not everything is super easy and sometimes we need to work for it. They ask almost weekly if I have heard anything yet and I try to keep them in the loop about where I am submitting and how it is going. They already tell everyone that their mom is an author and an illustrator so I look forward to when I actually have a published book to prove it! Haha, they and Weldon are so encouraging and supportive and I am very grateful for them.

I have also been doing some canning lately. This time of year just makes me want to can and bake stuff! I made some black berry jam, and I have also learned how to make crabapple jelly. It is so good, I think it is my new favorite! Crabapple trees just grow wild around here and I had made a small batch with some that we found along the trail when mom and dad were here. I also found a peach tree that I don’t believe belonged to anyone so I picked a bowl full and went back to get some more but it seemed like someone else had the same idea as me because when I went back a week later every single peach on that tree had been picked. Hopefully I hadn’t stolen peaches from someone’s tree! I don’t think so though because I am pretty sure it was on public land. Since I had gotten it in my head that I really wanted peach jam I started watching the sales at the grocery stores and when they came on sale I went and got 15 pounds of peaches. They were still pretty hard so I put them under the cupboard to ripen. As they started to get rip they were so delicious, I would get one or two out and eat them. This went on for a while until finally I had enough time to get them out to can them. I opened the cupboard and there were three peaches left! That’s right, I had eaten 15 pounds of peaches… all by myself!! They were really yummy though so I can’t really bring myself to feel bad about that. Haha, I think I gave one or two to Weldon with his lunches and Owen and Kaci each had one as well, so that counts as sharing, right?

So I was going to buy more peaches when one day Weldon came home from a run and tells me that there is a small crabapple tree that is just loaded with crabapples and the branches are low enough for me and even the kids to reach. It is on the trail next to the YMCA that I have run past probably a hundred times and somehow never noticed. It is perfect and I took the kids and we picked three bags full and I have made several more batches of jelly from them.

I know Weldon loves me because he not only noticed the tree but he came home and actually told me about it even though the idea of me picking fruit next to the trail that other people use is a little bit embarrassing to him. Haha that is love right there! The kids do that too, they point out flowers and sunsets and other pretty things that they know I will love. They are all so sweet to me. Another thing that I was thinking about the other day was empty toilet paper rolls. They make me crazy! Weldon hadn’t changed the toilet paper even though extra rolls are right there in the bathroom in the cupboard right next to the toilet. I was going to come downstairs and give him a hard time about it and when I walked to where he was in the kitchen I saw him refilling the salt shaker. It really made me think… we have been married almost eleven years and I can’t think of a single time that I have ever refilled the salt and pepper shaker, even though the larger containers are right there in the same cupboard as the smaller shakers. I will even go as far as to pour a little in my hand from the big container to sprinkle over food rather than just refill the dang little ones. And Weldon has never ever pointed that out to me, unlike when I point out to him the occasional time he doesn’t change the toilet paper rolls. He also does things like keep track of when the oil needs changed in my van or the registration needs updated and so many other things around the house that I probably wouldn’t notice until he stopped doing them. He is a good guy and I am grateful for him.

We have so much fun together and I just like hanging out with him, no matter what we are doing. We had a cricket somehow get upstairs and it was so loud at night, but we couldn’t catch him because every time we would get close he would jump down into the vents in the floor and sneak to another room. Finally we heard him chirping away upstairs so we snuck up the stairs and figured out that he was in the small hall closet. We crept up to the door and knelt down and got ready to end him. Weldon opened the door and I was going to grab the cricket but it must have known we were there because as soon as the door opened the dang thing jumped right at me and landed on my hand. I am not proud of this but I screamed like I was auditioning for a horror movie and flapped me arms like crazy trying to get it off of me. All the while Weldon is yelling “Don’t let it get away! Smash it! It is headed for the vent!” I was able to cut it off at the pass as it tried to go behind the dresser to get to the vent on the other side in the boys’ room and redeemed myself be catching him. Then we flushed it down the toilet and had a good laugh.

 Another thing I thought was cool was on Saturday we took the kids to a cute little park and there is a trail through the forest on the other side of a little stream that wraps around the park. We went on a short walk down the trail and came to where it splits, I took the kids down the way that leads back to the park but Weldon wanted to go the other way that dead ends after about fifty yards overlooking a field to see if there were any deer in the field. After a few yards my direction I looked down and saw some beautiful shiny nuts that had fallen from the trees overhead. I knew Weldon would think they were really cool so the kids and I picked them all up and waited for Weldon to come to show them to him. After a few minutes he came walking back down the trail with his hands a pockets full of them as well because he saw them and knew that I would think they were really cool and he wanted to show them to me. We were excited because we thought they were chestnuts, but after doing some research found that they were actually buckeyes or horse chestnuts and are toxic to people if eaten. So we left all of our beautiful treasure in a pile for the squirrels because apparently they are the only thing that can eat them without getting sick.

Lorraine and Josh were at a Linemans convention in Kentucky so we made plans to meet up with them in the forest about five hours from Fort Wayne. it was so good to see them and we had a good visit and got to see some cool things.

I already talked a bit about Colton and Kaci and what I going on with them and running cross country and all that so I will focus on Preston and Owen and what is going on with them.

Preston is as sweet as always. I wish I could see inside his brain sometimes. He is very much in love with triceratops right now and wants to be one for Halloween, I am not sure how I can make that happen but we still have a while for him to change his mind so we will see if he still wants that in a few weeks. He came up to me a few days ago with a sad look on his face and very seriously asked me “Why did you guys name me Preston instead of Maximo?” he really wishes he could be called Maximo but since I won’t call him that he has started calling Shadow Maximo instead of Shadow. Either that or sometimes he calls him Turbo and can’t understand why we just won’t change his name from Shadow to either Maximo or Turbo. He doesn’t even make sense to me! Haha I really just wish I could see what he is thinking. Yesterday he was taking a bath and he whispers to me, “Can I tell you a secret?” I say sure and he says “are you going to get me in trouble?” (Nothing makes me more paranoid then a question like that) I say “I don’t know, what did you do?” he informs me that he had peed in the bathtub when he first got in instead of just peeing in the toilet first. This comes after I have watched him drink the water, swish it in his mouth and spit it out like a delightful little water fountain for the past five minutes or so. Kids can be gross, but I am pretty sure they all do it. He is silly and sweet though and I wouldn’t change him for the world

Owen is so fun. He is two and a half and he talks really well so I get a glimpse of what is going on in his little mind at this stage. What he can’t explain with words he will act out or give sound effects for so it makes listening to his little stories a very entertaining process. One of his favorite words right now is ‘actually’. Example: “look Mom, batman!” as I look at the scribbles he just made on a paper and compliment him on his batman. He then will look at his artwork and say “no, actually spiderman!” or if I am getting him dressed and he chooses a shirt and then changes his mind “no, actually I want this one”. He also likes to say ‘and then’ a lot when he is telling stories. He will insert it when he switches from words, to sound effects, to acting out.

He doesn’t use the word burp, instead he will inform us that he “tooted in his mouth”. He also feels the need to inform us every time he actually did toot. He will say “tooted butt, mom” and will repeat it until he is acknowledged and then when I say ‘excuse you’ he will very sincerely say “oh, thank you!” A few weeks ago I was in my room getting ready and he was laying on the floor in the other room and was not aware that I was watching him. He had the hiccups and was getting so mad about them. Every time he would hiccup he would yell and kick his legs and say “stop doing that, mouth!” Another thing that made me giggle was I had given him a peach that I had pick from the tree that I had found. He sat at the table eating his peach while I was cleaning up the kitchen when all of the sudden he starts yelling “a snake, a snake, my peach!” I go and look and there is a little worm near the peach pit crawling around. (Thankfully a whole worm, not just half) Owen didn’t know the word for worm, so he just called it a snake. The odd thing is that there were no marks or holes in the peach so I am not sure how it got there, but I made sure to slice the next peach for him just in case.

Kaci and Owen really like to play ‘house’ together and they will spend hours packing around baby dolls and being the mom and dad. Sometimes though Kaci will be the mom and Owen will be the baby and he calls her mom and follows her around and they have a good time. My personal favorite though is when Kaci is the baby and Owen is the daddy and does his best to take care of her. Haha they are cute though and I love to hear all of my babies play together.

Life is good here, it is turning into fall and it is so beautiful, I love all of the changing colors. Everything is good with us and I feel like we have been blessed in so many ways. We had such a wonderful time with Mom and Dad here and the kids tell us almost every night how much they miss Grandma and Grandpa. I bawled like a baby the whole way home from the airport and again with the kids when I got back home. We are so lucky to have people we love enough to miss when they are gone, and the time goes by too quickly while they are here. We want to end up closer to home and look forward to that, but for now we are enjoying where we are and all of the experiences we get to have here. 

We found a butterfly that had just barely hatched and its wings were still all wrinkled up so we enjoyed watching it for a while and also looking for caterpillars.