Surprise – I’m Still Here!

I know – you’ve all (all three of you) been waiting with bated breath to see what I’ve been up to.  Sorry – July and August sort of got away from me and September just about killed me.  Luckily for you, today I Skyped with Daniel and he requested that I resume blogging.  (Awww….he misses us.)  Luckily for me, my trusty phone managed to capture a teensy bit of my life from the past few months.

And now, without further ado, I present….

A ridiculously brief recap of the past three months as told by the contents of my phone gallery.

July

We enjoyed a fantabulous but all too brief family reunion smack dab in the middle of the most gorgeous mountains in Utah.  There I was, enjoying the best that Mother Nature has to offer and visiting with families members that I only get to see once or twice a year, and guess what the only thing I thought to take pictures of was:

That’s right – a Calvin and Hobbes-style snowman family created by Daniel during a rainstorm.  Because who needs pictures of actual people when you have playdough?  Sometimes I’m not very good at life.

The munchkins had swimming lessons.  Jakester can now go off the diving board all by himself – no life jacket needed.  Or at least that’s what he thinks.  Those of us watching from the sidelines are never quite sure that he’s going to make it out of the water.

And as for Bizzie…she can now put her face in the water and blow bubbles.

I successfully fought off the urge to join my favorite cows in their swimming hole during a particularly hot run.   It does NOT pay to sleep in when you have a long run planned in the middle of summer.

August

Daniel turned 19.  See how excited he looks?  He moved up to the eeeevil U a few weeks later.  I’m still trying to get over the pain of having a Ute in the family.

Don’t mock the girlie birthday cake.  Daniel decided that it’s deliciousness was worth any teasing he might have to endure for choosing it.

When I realized that school was about to start and our carefree summer was about to end, I went into summer-fun-having overdrive mode.

First, Sarah, Em, and I spent some quality girl time getting pedicures.

NOT!!!!

We went ziplining instead.  It was much more fun.

Before we headed up the mountain, we amused our fellow zipliners as we unsuccessfully attempted to take a group photo.  After about seventy bazillion attempts, we finally managed to get a keeper:

I am not even kidding when I say that that’s the best picture we got.  And why didn’t anyone tell me to fix my helmet?

Em and I went horseback riding with some friends.  I think that I love riding even more than hiking.  Now I need to get rich so that I can buy some horses.  Or maybe I can just steal Sadie.  Russ…Mindy…what do you think?

And in the spirit of continuing the adventure, we went to the Olympic Museum at Park City.

Emma and Jakob tore up the track.

Daniel, Josh, and Biz?  Not so much.  Those big boys love their brakes.

Jakester couldn’t get enough of the ropes courses.  He totally lapped some buff college dudes on one of the challenge courses.  The look on their faces when they realized that a small-for-his-age seven-year-old was showing them up was priceless.

School started, and I was introduced to the cutest class of second graders on the planet.  Seriously.  I love them.

But….in between teaching a grade that I had absolutely NO experience with, soccer games, football games, church activities, and GETTING A PR IN A HALF MARATHON, I might have been just a tiny bit overwhelmed with life.

So I gained a lot of weight and started fighting with my fellow teachers.

Sorry, Facebook friends, that joke never gets old.  Unless you’re not me.

This brings us to October, which has been a much better month.

We found some time for hiking and climbing.

And we headed to Jakers (best. pumpkin patch. ever) to enjoy some dangerous fun pick up some pumpkins.Jakob had just jumped off those really high hay bales in that picture.

Bizzie was the only one with enough common sense to walk through the maze instead of on it.

We rode the train up to the big city for some Fall Break fun.  Pssst….don’t ever go to Discovery Gateway.  Trust me on this one.

We also caught a football game.  BYU won because we were there.  I think they should give us season tickets.

Our beloved Sabrina endured a very difficult shed.  We were sure she was dead twice.  We even all started crying over her crumpled, broken body once.  Then she got up and started walking around and we felt kind of silly but also very relieved.  Someone please tell me that tarantulas can live forever, because I don’t think we’ll be able to handle it when she really does die.

By the way, have you ever wanted to see a close-up of tarantula fangs?

 

You’re welcome.

This all brings us to today.  The combination of long teacher hours and short winter days was wreaking havoc with my running, which in turn was wreaking havoc with my sanity.  The girls and I put together my solution tonight.

Please ignore the safety cord thingy in front of Bizzie’s face.

After all that hard work, we rewarded ourselves by decorating some sugar cookies.

Whew!  Not that I’m all caught up, I can begin a serious of ridiculously brief biweekly posts dedicated to Daniel.

He’s going to regret this.