I LOVE MY SISTAS!!!

I have AMAZING sisters. I am so dang lucky that I have so many of them too! My sisters are my best friends. I can always count on them. I have been fortunate enough to have all my sisters except one live in Kennewick for the past couple years. It has been so much fun. We LOVE to have girls night, girls weekends, do projects, watch each others kids, trade furniture, decorate . . . . I am so sad that Emily and Mamie will both be moving to California in the next couple months, and Nish will be moving to New Zealand. I'm happy that Gretchen has moved from Mesa, AZ to Nampa, ID! Much closer! I guess now I will have plenty of places to visit. It will keep me very busy!

Maybe Closer is Better???

My Ava never watches TV. In fact, I can't get her to sit still for more than a minute. I always say she is my boy! Always getting into things, climbing on tables and counters, getting stuck in my bathroom sink, breaking things, bullying her sister . . . . I came into the living room the other day and saw this. I have never laughed so hard. I did take a break from laughing to take a few pictures. This must have been a really good show, because she was oblivious to the fact that I was even taking her picture
. . . something that she rarely lets me do! Funny Kid.

The Princess is 4!

Edyn turned four on March 3! She has been counting down the days for about six months now! It is hard to explain to her what years, months, weeks, and days are . . . But finally the big day came.


Damon took Edyn and her little friend Anique to go get pedicures. They had a blast. Damon was a great sport . . . . as he came back with pink toe nails with flowers on them!


We had a princess party in the afternoon. Everyone who came was supposed to dress up! We had a few party poopers, but for the most part, everyone there was in royal attire! My beautiful princess ensemble was compliments of the local goodwill. Damon's ensemble came from the Stake Dance Festival costume box. I think that hot pink is a great color on Prince Damon, and it also went great with his pink toe nails! I love this man! He is just wonderful! He LOVES his girls . . . . . .

Edyn got lots of good presents. Movies, stickers, dress ups, money, candy . . . . She was having a blast opening them. Damon and I got her office supplies . . . . seeing as how she has went thru two reams of our paper, about four rolls of tape and numerous envelopes in the past few months. Now she has her own ream, tape and evelopes. I am sure I will have many new pictures taped to my walls. Yep! Thats what she does with them. Any empty space she can find must be decorated with Edyn art! It's quite amusing . . . until I have to get it all off my walls.


Happy Birthday Edyn!

LA and Huntington Beach

In January, Damon and I went to LA and met our great friends Erika and Josh. Fun times! Although it is so hard for us to leave our kids, it was so worth the break. We both needed it. We had so much fun. Josh works for Expedia.com and was able to get us amazing hotel rooms, and tons of tourist things for free. We went to Universal Studios, The Magic Castle (where I saw Neil Patrick Harris aka Doogie Howser), The Queen Mary, The aquarium right by the Queen Mary, and Medieval Times. I am 99.9% sure we were the only sober ones at Medieval Times. And I am 100% sure we were having the most fun. Anyone who knows Damon well knows of his passion for competition of any kind. He was pretty much out of control, but it was hillarious. We also spent some time at the beach. It was so beautiful. We were sad to leave the warm weather, but we missed our girls, so back to Washington we went!






Fortunately, I had another trip planned for Huntington Beach a week and a half later. My friend Erin is an amazing runner and is always doing marathons. About six months ago, she emailed me and invited me down to do the Pacific Shoreline Marathon with her. I figured since I was only just barely getting back into running, I would be a much better candidate for the half marathon, which I trained for for about five months. I absolutley loved the training. My sister Mamie and I have a running club. There are two members, me . . . . . and Mamie! It is so much more fun to have a running partner. She was unable to come do the actual race with me, because her husband who had been in Iraq for a year was coming home that weekend, so my friend Denise came and ran it with me.

I did it! It was so amazing. The course was beautiful. It was right along the ocean. There were so many people there cheering you on. There were 11,000 people running the half marathon and my only goal for my first big race was not to come in last. At about 7 miles I took a good look in front of me and was thinking . . . Dang, there are so many people in front of me . . . . I better speed it up a little bit so I don't come in last. But then I took a quick look behind me and there were just as many people behind me as there were in front. I was okay with that. I pretty much came in right in the middle of the pack! Not bad for my first time. Its only going to get better. I feel like running has helped me to have so much more confidence in myself. If I can push myself to run thirteen miles, I can do ANYTHING! I can't wait til I do 26.2 . . . . very soon!