The best vacation ever.......- Roman

Just last weekend, we went out to Az to visit the WHOLE family. Papi was visiting from Chicago for the week, so we were all together for the first time since Adrian's wedding... almost 8 years ago.

The boys are at a great age, where they remember their cousins and get excited to see them. The timing was rough though, because all the kids were in school. But, we decided to let the kids miss school on Friday, and we went out Thursday straight from school.

We stayed with Adrian and Nichole and family, who are always so good to us. Poor Martin got kicked out of his room, again. Which I think he is used to by now, he's such a sweet "kid", if I can call him that any more!!

We arrived at about 830 at night, and the kids were exhausted and begging for bed. I guess they weren't too tired though, because they were up before SIX the next morning, watching cartoons with Sighris. I blame that AZ sun! I swear it came up at 5 am.

Nichole and Adrian went to work, and the boys went to school, and it was just us. Papi was half an hour away at Julie's house. I tried to get Ben to call his dad earlier that week and let him know that we were coming out TO SEE HIM and that we would be there ON FRIDAY. But Ben was working so much to get ready for the long weekend, that plans never got made.

So we had some breakfast and lounged around a little bit. Then we decided to get some lunch and then put the boys down for a nap and go to Julie's after Martin and Sighris got home from school.

So there we were, at 430 in the afternoon, heading to Julie's. Ben could have worked a full day Thursday, the kids could have gone to school Friday morning, and we could have STILL gotten to Julie's at the same time as we did. I've said it, I'm not going to dwell on it.

We got to Julie's and tried to make plans of where we were going to go and what we were going to do. I had mentioned Golf Land to Ben, who mentioned it to Adrian, who said that Fiddlesticks was closer. I was thinking we could do something like that with Papi while the other kids were in school. But we decided to do it as a big old group on Friday night. We hemmed and hawed for an hour
about where to go, when we found a good coupon to Amazing Jakes. An indoor family fun center.

Amazing Jake's was pretty awesome, but not cheap. They had go-karts, and fair rides, and laser tag (the older kids loved that, my boys didn't do it), mini-golf, bowling, and a pizza and salad buffet. The boys had a BLAST. The hard part was that Aaron couldn't do too much, but by the end he got to go on a few rides and things ended on a good note. Speaking of "ending"... we totally closed that place down!! We were there until TEN THIRTY at night!! Then we had to drive 45 mins to Maricopa! We got home about 1115, and moved the kids beds into our room, so that Papi could have Sighris's room. By time Roman got into bed, he had a 2nd wind. He started talking about how this was the best vacation ever, and he wanted to know if it was midnight yet.

The next morning, the boys slept past 8! Is that all it takes?? We had a nice breakfast, and then started making plans for the family bbq that afternoon. Nichole and I went to WalMart to get the supplies, and came home with a little extra something for the boys... Squirt guns :) I had brought some water balloons, so we filled those, and the kids had a little water fight. The kids all got into it, and I ended up in the crosshairs somehow. Fortunately, every one dried off pretty quickly, thanks to that good old AZ dry heat.

The bbq was fun. The cousins all played really well together. Isaac and Adrianna were thick as theives, it was so cute. The food was good. Ben got to do the grilling, because poor Adrian had some kind of stomach flu and din't want to contaminate the rest of us! The food was good, Roman had about 12 helpings of soda, what can I say? We were on vacation :P

I told Nichole that if she made Aaron a pink cake, that she would be his favorite forever. She did even better than that, she let him help! He LOVES to help in the kitchen, and I don't let him do it nearly enough. They made the cake Saturday night, after the bbq, but the boys all went to bed before it was cooled and frosted.

Sunday morning, the first thing Aaron asked was where his birfday cake was. I told him, but also informed him he couldn't have any until after lunch. He went down stairs and ate some lucky charms for breakfast, and then asked if he could have some cake now. He still doesn't differentiate between breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Nichole let him frost it while she made another delicious breakfast, and then she found 4 packs of sprinkles and let Aaron, Adrianna and Sighris decorate the cake. Aaron didn't really get it, and just dumpled his sprinkles all in one spot. It was adorable, and scary :) Then Nichole wrote on the cake with pink icing (because Martin would not let her get strawberry frosting!).

We went to Sacrament meeting, and then came home for some lunch before hitting the road. And of course cake. One of the best boxed cakes I have had in a long time.

We made it home without stopping for food, and Aaron got a much needed 3 hour nap. I had made dentist appts for the boys for Monday, so when they were asleep at 745, I decided to just let them sleep in and go to school after their appts. THAT is the way to end a vacation!! Usually we get home and just jump into the rush. It was nice to just sleep in :)

Ragnar

200.9 miles from Huntington beach to Corondado. 12 people, 2 vans, 2 days. That is the SoCal Ragnar, and I had the pleasure of participating this year, with 4 days notice!

Walt had been training to be on a Ragnar team with some guys from work. I desperately need to get back into shape, so I was running with him a few days a week in the morning.

Monday April 11th, Maricela called to invite me to be on her team, as one person on her team had been injured and would not be able to run. She was shocked and relieved when I said YES.

Maricela was the number one runner, and I was replacing the number six runner. If I couldn't run, she was going to have to run 2 extra legs!! Yowzer.

The team was made of members of the Stake, but Maricela was the only one from PQ1. It was great to finally get to know people in the Stake!

I was in Van 1, so we headed up early Friday morning to check in and get running.

Being the number 6 runner was hard, everyone kept getting back from their runs, and were relaxing and eating. And my anxiety was just growing with each hour.

By time it was my turn to run, it was 1 pm, 90+ degrees, with 10% relative humidity. My first leg was only 2.7 miles, mostly down hill. I was all pumped from watching everyone else get their first leg over with, so I took off like a rocket! Some how I flew down the hill, despite my normal knee problems.

One weird thing about the Ragnar was that you had to hit the "walk" button to cross the streets. Other events that I have done have been on closed coursed... but they can't close down 200 = miles for 2 whole days!! This time around though, that "walk " button saved me. I came to the bottom of the hill and caught up to a girl that had already hit the button and was waiting to cross. She had a good pace going, so I kept with her until the next light. At that light, there were ar least 4 other people already waiting for the light to turn. As wee crossed the intersection, I quick stepped around them and kept them just behind me. I think that made about 6 "kills" for me in that one leg!

After the smooth downhill and my awesome kills... it was a horrible, flat, hot run along a drainage ditch somewhere near Santa Ana. It could not have been more than 2 miles of flat nothing ness, but it was possibly the longest, hottest 2 miles of my life!! As I mentioned, I was training in the early morning hours. This heat and mid day stuff was a whole new set of marbles, and I wasn't sure that I could make it. Fortunately, ,my ego wouldn't let me stop. I had the shortest, eastiest run of the entire event!! So, I made it to the end, and handed off to Alan, and Van 2. We got a nice group shot, minus Alan, our TEAM CAPTAIN! I have to add, that they always took the group shots AFTER my leg, as it was a major exchange where both vans were togbether. So, if I look like a hot mess in each picture, I WAS!! After our Van was done with our first legs, we got Subway and headed to Tricia's in-laws house for showers and a place to crash. It was HEAVEN!! I was concerned about being in a van for 2 days straight, i don't know if I could have done it without this glorious reprieve! After naps, we got back in the Van and into horrible OC traffic.

The second major exchange was in Lake Elsinore, at some tucked away campsite that was not quite equipped for our kind of traffic. We got all the way to the back of the parking lot, and started thinking about how long it would take us to get back out once Maricela started her "short" 5 mile leg. We decided to get the van out of the parking lot and onto the street BEFORE Maricela left. And it was a good thing, because it took us a good hour to get the car out of there, AND then we got stopped at a DUI checkpoint on our way to the next exchange! If we hadn't moved the car, Maricela would have been left standing waiting for us. but thanks to our good thinking, we made it to watch Maricela come in and hand off to Itzel.

I think Itzel was on her 2nd leg somewhere around 9 pm. So were were all in our reflective vests and flashing lights, it was quite a site. Itzel ran 9 miles, including a mile on a dark not-van-supported horse trail, and handed off to Frank for a eay breezey 3 mile night time run. Fred handed off to Tricia who ran through the mor happening parts of Murrieta. Tricia handed off to Joey, and it was time to get me in place for my second leg.

We parked in the designated lot and I suited up (jacket, vest, headlamp). Fred, aka the navigator, took a last look at my 5.3 mile leg, and noticed that they had changed the course and it was now SEVEN miles!! I freaked out. I hadn't run 7 miles in.... well, YEARS!! But what could I do??? I stretched, fretted, stretched some more, fussed with my rear light... and before I knew it, Joey was there, and I was off. Fortunately, my run was a nice gradual down hill. I just hunkered down and paced myself so that I could make it the whole way.

It was weird running at night with a head lamp and vest. The vest sounded like someone was always coming up behind me, although it was rare that I saw ANYONE at this point. The only people passing me were the crazy fast people who had gotten really late starts. And the only people that I passed were the ones who should have been picked up by medics! So there I was, alone on old Hwy 94, with only my headlamp to light the way. I thought that would be the best part of the Ragnar, but the more I thought about it, I was like "If you want to run at 2 am with a headlamp on a dark back road, do it." There was no team or event feel to it. No one cheering. One lonely water station, a single cooler manned by a single guy. It was weird.

As I came to the 1 mile left marker, I felt that I had a lot of energy left, so I kicked things up a gear. It was kind of cool, because I was passing the #7 runners of the other team who had been handed off to and were headed off on their runs. So, I cheered for them, and they cheered for me. I caught a girl that had a bike pacing her (that was only allowed at nights), and we both began frantically looking for signs of where to go and if we were close to the hand off.

This is one of my main complaints about the Ragnar. The major exchanges were major head aches. The girl and I were dodging cars and walking people trying to get to the gate. And then there was a taped off area that looked like a gate, but was not a gate. It was chaos. But, I finished really strong, and I knew I got to sleep afterwards :)

I handed off to Alan, and we walked out to where Tricia had parked on the street. It was a good thing that she did, because it would have taken us AT LEAST an hour to get out of there!

We drove all the way to the next major exchange, Taylor Golf Course, where we would sleep. Most of the team laid claim to one part of the Van or the other. Maricela and I headed straight over to the golf course to try to get a few winks in. Fortunately, I had brough a tarp, as the grass was wet wet wet. Maricela and I laid out our sleeping bags in the middle of other makeshift campsites and slept for less than 3 hours. We were back up and at them at 5 am, as Maricela prepared for her final leg.

My last leg was straight up the Torrey Pines hill. It was rough, and longer than I thought it was. I plodded ahead, afterall, I trained on hills!! But after a few turns where I thought the hill should have ended, I walked. For 3 steps. But that was it. I knew I could make it up that silly hill, so I got back to it and passed one girl. At this point in the event, the runners were so staggered, that I felt very much alone. There was a weird intersection, and no signs. One of those intersections that is like a triangle. I saw two ladies walking down where the road curved right. I followed them and asked if they were Ragnar runners. They said no, but that they saw some other people who had gone straight where I had turned, so that was probably where I wanted to be. I thanked them and got back on what I hoped was the right path.

As I continued, I was heating up pretty good again. I had hoped that we would be running these legs in the early morning, but we got behind schedule and I was again running in the heat of the day. Someone had ditched a water bottle at a bus stop. It was half full, and I debated pouring it into my mouth, but wasn't quite that desperate. So I poured it all over my head and down my back. Aaaaah. That was good.

I still wasn't sure that I was going the right way, and the last thing that I wanted to do was run 2 miles off course, have to get back on course and still finish!! I saw someone walking and asked if I was heading towards the Glider Port (the next major exchange). He said "yes" and my spirits were lifted.

I was again kind of dragging, still running, but dragging. And I saw the "1 mile to go" sign. I kicked it up a little, not a lot. Then a guy passed me. He wasn't going that fast, so I caught up and decided that I could stay with him. I think we were both glad to be nearing our final exchanges. As we turned down the driveway to the glider ports, traffic into and out was again a nightmare. We were dodging cars and walkers, and didn't know what side of the road to be on. I was yelling for someone to tell us which side, and know one new. So we dodged cars straight down the middle. As we got into the open field of the glider port, my buddy must have seen the gate, because he took off in a sprint, encouraging me to do the same. We sprinted to the end and I felt AMAZING. I was full of pride at my great finish, and I was relieved that I was D.O.N.E!!!!!

We hung with our Van 2 people and reveled in the fact that Van 1 was done!!! We took some pics of our twinsie cars, wished Van 2 the best, and went for Jamba Juice and Chipotle. (And bathrooms that really weren't much better than some of our porta potties!!)

As we were at Chipotle's, Alan called Tricia. He was at his exchange, and his Van wasn't there!! And he didn't have their numbers. So Tricia called Robyn.... and they were at THE WRONG EXCHANGE!! Ahhhh!!! AND, their exchange was in Pacific Beach, midday on a Saturday. Traffic was HORRIBLE. They had a nightmare of a time getting to the right exchange, and I don't even want to think about how long Alan was there waiting.

They finally got there, and Alan handed off to Scott, who took off to try and make up time, because he was the navigator who got Robyn lost. (But please know, we did not give Scott a hard time. We were all worried the whole time whether we were going to the right exchanges at the right time, there was a lot to keep on top of!! We were all glad that that didn't happen to the rest of us!)

Our van debated going home, showering, and then meeting everyone down at the finish line. But I knew that if I went home, I wasn't going to the finish line. So we decided to stay and cheer for Van 2. I'm glad that we did, it was the first time that we really felt like a team. And it was great to be able to cheer for them, without the pressure of a run looming over us.

Poor Scott got lost on his run, and it turns out that someone had taken or moved the direction signs, so EVERYONE got lost on that leg.

I think that Van 2 might have had the harder runs, it seems that all of their last legs were more than 5 miles, up to 9. Robyn had a 9 miler with a killer hill, and she rocked it. Brent had a very uneventful ugly run that seemed to be just north of TJ.

The finish line was in Coronado. We hung out there, eating our noodles and wondering how much of their weight the Biggest Loser alums had gained back. There was some confusion on how long the last 2 legs were. Chris was our last runner, and he was one of our fastest. I think that his last leg was shortened by 1 mile (and Chelsea's before him had been increased by 1 mile). So I was a little frantic about whether we were going to have everyone together when Chris got there so that we could cross the finish line together. Sure enough, when he got there, he was running at a good pace, and we had to snatch him off the course, and we waited for 3-5 mins to get everyone together so we could cross. But it was worth it. It was great to cross as a team, and mostly to be done!!

I was bitter about paying $95 a person for an event that was so horribly organized, and the goodie bags were PATHETIC. The exchanges were a headache, the signage was a nightmare, and the goodie bags were 1 for each van, and they included 2 water bottles, 2 mini power bars and 4 gus. That was pretty much it. Dana and I can score all that for ourselves at a decent expo :P!!! It was also hard because we were over zealous with our 10k pace times, so we fell far behind when we should have ended, and didn't cross the finish line until 8 pm!! (Not to mention the time lost while Alan waited for his van and when Scott ran a mile or so off course!) Also, our Van should have been supporting our runners more. We didn't give anyone water during their legs.

So, when we were done, I felt accomplished, but didn't think I would EVER do a Ragnar again. But my team started talking about doing it again next year, and tackling the same legs to show them who's boss :P We joked about the fun times and the crazy times... and now I am a Ragnar maniac. I can't wait to do it again :)

My Little Man

Aaron likes to take pictures. A lot of our family activities lately have involved a lot of things that are for Roman and Isaac, but Aaron is too small for. So I hand over the camera for a few minutes. these are actually photos he snapped out in front one morning while I cleaned the car.

He got a pretty good shot of Jillian, if it weren't for that pesky finger :P

I like the artisit shadow shot.

The neighbors were pretty good sports about the mini-paparazzi snapping their pic as they walked their dog.

He took at least a dozen of the lemon tree, but most were out of focus.

I took the one of him in his little church outfit. How adorable is he?!? He's growing so fast, in fact that was the last time he could squeeze into that vest.

Legoland

Last summer we got some free kids tickets to Legoland through the library reading program. The expired April 30th of this year, so we decided to go for Roman's birthday. We wanted to go the Friday of spring break, but it was drizzling that day. The next week Ben had a camping trip with the Deacons. So we were going to go the following Friday.... but I got invited to join a Ragnar team last minute, so we had to push it off until the 29th... One day before the coupon expired!! But we finally got there.

At first I was a little stressed because the park was packed and the boys didn't want to go on any rides. Roman went on the race track ride with Ben, while the other two sat out with me for a good 45 mins. When they were done, they again said they didn't want to ride anything. They were confused, because everything was supposed to be made of legos. So we went over to mini-land, where all the little lego cities were. They LOVED it. THAT was what they were expecting when they were excited for Legoland.

After miniland, we went up to the castle and Isaac finally rode a little roller coaster, and, shocker, LOVED it!! At some point we grabbed some over priced lunch and tried the apple fries. Then we headed to the pirate play area, were the boys had a blast doing park like things that we could have done any other day... but I digress :P

Legoland was fun, but it was hard to find anything that the baby could go on. Which I thought was weird, because I thought that Legoland was for younger kids. Oh and the park was only open from 10 to 5!! How nuts is that? We didn't even get to do half of the park, but the kids had a blast. My recommendation is to go the annual pass route. Which we will next year. It's just way to stressful to try to do it all in one day.

Oh, that doesn't even touch on the mad house it was in the big store once the park had closed! Fire hazard of the worst kind.

Mother Knows BEST!

It was the first weekend of April, General Conference Saturday. Ben's family was in town visiting Aunt Barb who was very ill and in the hospital. Saturday was getting a slow start. Julie and Clarissa were getting ready to go to the hospital, and Ben and Isaac had gone to get much needed hair cuts.

Roman has hyped up from playing all morning with cousin Angel and was needing to get out of the house. He started spinning around on his stocking feet, as he often does. As I was helping Julie get a bowl of cereal, Roman slipped and fell down, hitting his head on a killer corner of our dinning room bench. He didn't get up from the floor right away, so I rushed over to see how he was, and as he picked up his head, I could see the blood gushing out between his fingers.

I immediately handed everything over to our family nurse, aka Grandma Julie!!! She assessed the situation while I ran next door to take Aaron over to the Sharp's. Julie sat in the back with Roman while I drove straight to Pomerado ER. The ER was so good to us, fortunately there was no wait. But they took him straight back while I checked in and then joined him within 5 minutes.

The docs and nurses were great as well. Roman was completely petrified, and felt really bad about not listening to me. I tried not to harp on it too much, but I can't even count the times that I have told him not to spin around in his socks like that!!!

The nurse applied a topical anesthetic, and Roman stayed completely still while the doc put in SEVEN stitches!!! I freaked out a little when I saw him all stitched up, the stitches went all the way across the bridge of his nose and reminded me too much of Frakenstein!

The worst part was probably him having to put up with my paranoia for the next 2 weeks. "Don't run", "Don't get your face near anyone's feet", "Careful!", on and on. But he survived that as well, the wounds have healed and he now has a rockin' scar and full fledged membership in the "Boys Club".

That same weekend, we watched "Tangled" for the first time. My new favorite movie, Disney or not I might even say. I LOVE the "Mother Knows Best" song and sing it to my boys all the time. It's too bad that the "mom" who sings it is a crazy old witch who gives the rest of us real know-it-all good moms a bad name!!