Happy Father's Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhqRMP9meMc

I did it!

Can I just take a minute to toot my own horn? Tacky, I know, but sometimes you just can't help yourself. So here it goes...I ran my first official half marathon! It felt great and I can't wait to do another one (I'm kind of kidding about that). Anyway...

Here are my homies, rootin' me on...
Good friends, Gabe and Amy who fought and conquered as well...way to go girls!

Playing catch up

Where have I been the last two months? Apparently not at my computer. Actually, I have been at my computer for more mundane reasons, like bill pay, counting calories, checking my email. And it is for those reasons that my daily alloted computer time seems to run out before I get to the fun stuff, like blogging. But, summer is upon us, which means kids are out of school, which means I will be fervently searching for more short, peaceful like retreats on a daily basis as a means to escape the chaos, which means I will be locking myself in my computer room a lot more often, which means I will probably be blogging a little bit more from here on out.
But as far as playing catch up goes, here is a list of highlights from the last two months...

1. Easter
A pleasant morning of Easter basket finding and a yummy breakfast before church and a lovely dinner after church with family joining us...

Easter morning baskets full of surprises...

2. Been doing a little running...oh wait is that a 4th place ribbon I'm holding?

Why, yes it is. Some friends and I participated in a 10 mile run back in April and believe it or not I took 4th in my age bracket. Okay, so maybe it's not that unbelievable since there were only 5 people in my age group. Laugh you may, but I still ran 10 miles.

3. I had a great Mother's Day weekend. It started with a fun evening out with my children, Mary & Jaykob. We visited a traveling Titanic museum and ate sushi.

The next day I headed to the coast with some girlfriends for some good shopping, good food and good laughs. I must thank my parents, my in laws and my husband for making that weekend possible. When you think about it, it takes a lot of preparations just so the mom can get away for one night...kind of makes me feel important...a great feeling to have on mother's day weekend.

4. We had a fabulous stake conference in which one of the 12 Apostles, M. Russell Ballard, came and spoke with us. As wonderful as it was to listen to this incredible man, it was a relief to get out of that very hot and stuffy stake center on that 90 degree day. With the spirit of this meeting in our minds and in our hearts, we decided to continue our worship at one of Heavenly Father's most wonderful creations...the beach!

5. Memorial Day weekend means camping, right? Well in Oregon it might mean the campground that you reserved several months earlier might have 4 ft of snow come Memorial Day weekend! So what to do? Cross your fingers that this other campground that your friends found will be halfway decent since it was the only one available at such short notice.

Well crossing the fingers worked because the campground was perfect and so was the weather! We had a great time hanging with friends, going for a boat ride, eating yummy food and going on a fabulous bike ride with Grandma & Grandpa Heder. Jaykob did end the weekend with a horrible case of empitigo (spelling?) which kept him home from school for a week, but other than that, we had a splendid time.

6. In addition to a little camping, a little running and a little beach hopping, I also read a great book called "The Red Scarf Girl" by Ji-Li Jiang. I highly reccommend it.