Spudman Memoir

I made it through the Spudman triathlon this weekend. I felt great about my swim, terrible about my bike, and when I say "my bike" I mean the bike I was riding because I worked my butt off and the machine just wasn't working for me. The run was a battle because I cramped up a lot between 1.5 miles and 4 miles, but I was able to finish the last 2 miles steady so I was happy about that. The sad part of the race was finishing to find out a 60 year old businessman named Donald Morehouse died in Wave 6 of the swim. (I was in Wave 5). The 7th wave of swimmers did not swim out of respect for his family. I am curious to find out what caused him to go under because he wasn't far from the start--not even past the end of the boat docks from what I understand. I LOVE the swim, and although I feel terrible about his death it doesn't scare me to swim in the river. The local triathletes have a couple swims scheduled this week, one on Friday for those swimmers who were in the 7th wave and didn't get to swim in the Spudman. I think that's a good thing.

It was interesting that my dad told me that he thought doing the Spudman was a waste of time, at least, he said, doing only a portion of it was a waste of time and he wished I would spend my time doing something like golfing. "It just takes too much time to be really good at it." Interesting thoughts...my response to my dad should have been this quote: "There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few that will capture your heart. Pursue those."

I have had a lot of things capture my heart, and there's no doubt I have to prioritize because I can't do everything. But without a doubt, swimming in the Spudman is one of those things that is just exhilerating to me and has captured my heart to the extent I plan to do it every year as long as I can get in to the race. I love the challenge of completing the entire race, but it's also fun to be on a team so I can focus on my favorite part. Anyway, what my dad said made me step back and look at why I'm spending precious time on this yearly endeavor, and I have no regrets. And next year, when I take more time to train than I did this year, I won't have regrets because I think I'm a better mom when I take the time to train.

On another note, I need to start saving for a good road bike!

Ring Around the Rosies

Dinner at Justin's House

We made it to church on time this morning for the 8:30 a.m. meeting. YAY!
Justin's talk was excellent, the food was great afterwards, and of course
the kids had a blast. I'm sitting in the backyard posting this blog entry
while the kids jump on the trampoline with Ty. They've got about 50
different kinds of balls on the tramp and they are playing with them. The
Marshall's next door have a big tree that shades our yard and it makes it so
nice to be outside.

Fireworks Phobia

I didn't want to forget to blog on Kysa's fireworks phobia. She has never
hugged us so tightly as she did when she was around any fireworks. She hid
under the blanket when we went to watch the fireworks by the river with
Kirby and Andrew. She would say, "I scaid!" (scared) and Kirby noticed
that she would give the fireworks dirty looks when we were driving and she
could see them out the window.

Justin's Homecoming

Our nephew Justin Shippen got home from his mission to Brazil on Wednesday
and reports tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. in Menan. Not sure how we're
going to get there on time, but we'll do our best. He is such a great kid,
and so handsome!

"Sunny" the new Kitty

The name Sunny prevailed for the kitty, by majority vote of Raleigh and
Kysa.

If the world had a front porch...

Our day lilies and daisies are in full bloom. When we bought our house the
front yard was covered in snow and we had no idea how beautiful the
landscaping was. BONUS!

Watermelon Crawl

Ty picks out the best watermelons!

Two Foot Jumper--and we're not talking about basketball here!

Shay is starting to be able to hang with the bigger kids on the trampoline. She was having a blast tonight with the Heath kids, and Raleigh and Kysa of course, and I saw her jumping 6-7 times in a row off both feet. She also did a couple of seat drops to standing. Not sure if that was just luck or what, but she's done it before too. When she does a seat drop, she tries to bounce on her butt and sometimes it just pops her right back up to her feet. Ty was calling her "Hollywood" tonight because she was wearing her little sunglasses around everywhere.

Kysa

Kysa is getting some serious air considering she is less than 2 and a half, but does she look more like a long jumper or a hurdler? I'm not sure.

Tonight I counted her doing about 4 sets of 20-30 leg lifts in a row while holding herself up between the tv stand and the couch. The funny thing was she really seemed to be doing "sets"--waiting until she was rested and then going to burnout each time. This is not something I've encouraged or showed her how to do. She just does things that challenge herself all the time.

The other day I asked Kysa a series of questions like "Are you going to be a _______ when you grow up?", and I filled in the blank with a variety of things like "waterskier, basketball player, teacher, doctor, mountain climber, golfer, swimmer, etc. I also ask her about things she is going to DO when she grows up, like "Are you going to get married in the temple?" She answered yes or no, and 90 percent of the time her answer was yes. I've only done this a couple of times, and tonight I asked her about three different questions and then she said, "Mommy, the temple....temple mommy". I sure thought that was cute that of all the questions I asked her, that stood out to her for some reason. So I asked her the temple questions, and then we sang "I love to see the temple" and then she fell asleep.

She also counted to 22 tonight, and then exclaimed "I did it!" Now I need to say, she missed two numbers--4 and 16, and I helped her get past 11 because she usually goes to 11 and then back to 8 for some reason. But she went from 19 to 22 on her own and I didn't even know she had those numbers down.

Courtney and Jared Heath came over tonight unexpectedly to drop off my tile saw and they ended up staying for a fun evening. The kids were enjoying their popsicles in this picture, and they also had fun with our new little kitty we got from Troy and Janet's family. The kitty is the baby of the cat we found in the barn last year that Kysa dubbed "Mack" after Grandma Ro's cat Max. (She was trying to say Max but pronounced it "Mack".) Anyway, we're not sure what to call the baby kitty yet but Ty thinks Sunny is a good name because the cats dad was found at the house on Sunnyside. I like "M.J." for "Mack Junior", even though it's a girl kitty. And Raleigh wants to name her "Bushy" because she likes to hide in the bushes. Kysa would like to name her "Meow Meow" (prounounced with the m-"ow" sound, not the MEEE-ow sound), and Shay doesn't want to name her anything--she just wants to squeeze her guts out. Luckily the kitty has sharp claws. I need to take some pictures of the kitty and post them. The picture of above is of the kids playing with the kitty in the box, but unfortunately you can't see the cute little white fluffball!

The End of the SYTYCD Road

Bummer that Thayne didn't make it through. We tried hard but it wasn't quite enough. The judges were extremely complimentary and I think he was definitely in the top five guys but he just ended up with the wrong partner at the wrong time. The other two guys in the bottom three were the top two dancers, and it just wasn't in the cards even though Thayne's solo was great. ANYWAY, it's been fun for me to watch and I really hope I can go see him perform live sometime.

Voting Party for Thayne

Thousands of votes were cast for Thayne tonight at our little neighborhood voting party. We used our own cell phones as well as ones we borrowed from the neighbors! Some of the girls were double dialing. This picture doesn't show everyone who came--I think we had about 15 total but not everyone could stay to vote, but I'm hoping they voted at home. Although the judges weren't impressed with Comfort and Thayne as a couple, Thayne got a rave review from the famous choreographer Mia Michaels after their second number. Kirby said she voted over 1200 times by herself! Meredith also had a Thayne party, according to Kirb.

Janet's girls are staying the night and helping out tomorrow a.m. while Ty goes to Skyline for basketball for a couple of hours because I'm headed to the Teton Valley for the "Extreme Knowledge Bus Tour 2" hosted by Julie Bryan's Windermere Real Estate office. I'm going up with Keim and on the way up we'll be hammering out a proposal for a lease on the Corporate Express building. It will be my biggest deal yet by far if we can put it together. I'm optimistic but we are in competition with a couple other locations.

Family Home Evening at Tautphaus

Raleigh has been asking Ty to pitch to him ever since he hit some balls with an oversized bats over at the Taggarts a couple Sundays ago. It's fun to see him take an interest in practicing a little bit, and he's actually doing quite well at making contact.

Raleigh decided he wanted to go to the zoo yesterday, so that's what we did for family home evening. It was my first trip to Tautphaus and I enjoyed it. Shay and I really liked watching the monkeys and the billy goats. Shay did a lot of "woofing" at all the animals. Afterwards we came home and delivered no-bake cookies with mini-m&m's on top to a few of our neighbors--the Monsons, Lisa and Amy, Julie Rigby, Rob and Nanette Hansen, Dan and Charlotte Ackerman, Tracy on the corner of Margette and Darah, Bishop Jacobsen and Patty, and Karen and her husband. Obviously I've got some work to do to get everybody's names down, but our goal is to bring some treats to everybody on Robb, Darah, Enell, and Margette over the next few weeks.

It's so fun living over here on this quiet street. The kids have really enjoyed riding in the bike trailer around the neighborhood and I have enjoyed pulling them. We are getting a lot more use out of it. The only bad part is when Kysa gets mad and Shay and hits her, but we are working on it.

After Kysa took her bath tonight, she was sitting in the hall being funny and she put her towel over her head and said, "I'm hiding."

I asked why she was hiding, and she said, "I'm scared." (pronounces it "scaid")

"What are you scared of?" I asked.

"Shay Shay."

"Why are you scared of Shay Shay?"

Kysa said, "Because she hits me."

I'm pretty sure it is usually the other way around, but Kysa is starting to really be able to carry on a conversation. Yesterday she did something naughty and then asked Ty, "Dad, are you mad?"

I dressed the girls in matching pajamas that have silky bottoms after their bath and Raleigh commented, "Shay looks like a movie star."

Shay said "yes" a few times today, which is quite the breakthrough for her considering "no" is one of her favorite words to repeat over and over. She says cookie and "Pop" for otter pop. She still won't say Kysa, just RAH-WEE. She loves her Raleigh.

I was at the office most of the day as we had staff meeting, but got home around 3:20 so Ty could go golfing. He didn't end up going until later, so I took Raleigh and Kysa to gymnastics. They are going to take lessons through the end of August and then will re-evaluate. Kysa did great in the 3 year old class--better than I expected. It wasn't her skill level I was worried about but her ability to pay attention and follow directions and be obedient. The teacher Erin was great with her and I was proud. She loves it. Raleigh worked hard in his class with 4 other little boys. Kysa only had one other girl in her class. Raleigh is going to do two classes each week and Kysa will do one.

Ty was able to go golfing with Travis and Troy Deane and I think he had a good time. It's a lot more fun to play in the evening when it's cool outside.

Mom stayed here last night and taught her class today in Rexburg before heading to Grandma Rue's to take her to her doctor's appointment. She is doing okay and starts radiation next week. Her treatment is going well and hopefully she'll get through this next step without too much difficulty. I don't know how bad radiation is, but it seems like it's not supposed to be as bad as chemo. I hope not anyway. Grandma hasn't lost her hair or anything. Yay. She is such a trooper.

Raleigh has tee ball tomorrow morning. Barb Ehardt is a great coach. There are a lot of kids on the team who have no clue what is going on, so I'm thankful she does such a good job with them. Raleigh is somewhere in the middle, but at least he pays attention when someone is coaching him. I have a hard time with the space cadets regardless of skill level. That is why I need to stick with coaching older kids I think. I was definitely not meant to be a preschool or kindergarten teacher.

4th of July Report

The girls needed a rest after the races in Menan! Kysa and I started the
day with a bike ride down to the river to help set up the Snake River
Landing booth at the Liberty Festival. Then we all headed out to Menan for
the races and the parade, and a really long wait in the taco line with Jen
Schaat. It was fun to have Jen and Eric family come out. I left with the
tired girls after the parade, and Cindy Davis came over while they were
sleeping so I could go help take the booth down near the falls. Steve and
Alison Frei were there nearly all day. They had lots of fun things to give
away. I even took one box of fans out to Menan and gave them away there.

Kirb and Andrew got here around 7 and we had our own little BBQ and then
watched the fireworks. We started by Taylor Crossing and Kysa put a blanket
over her head because she is totally scared of the fireworks. Shay decided
it would be funny to stick her finger down her throat and she threw up on
the grass. Then she laughed and tried to do it again. She seriously wasn't
sick, she just made herself throw up and thought it was hilarious. I don't
know where that came from.

We decided to try to get closer and go to the car so we could listen to the
radio broadcast. We ended up driving around. I got pulled over in the
middle of the fireworks and the officer told me my taillights weren't on.
OOPS! He let us go really fast, but it scared the crap out of me. I know
he had better things to do than give me a ticket so I was lucky. When we
got home we watched some comedians on YouTube. I've got my laptop hooked up
to my flat screen in the living room and I'm using a wireless laptop and
mouse from the coach to work on the computer. It was fun to watch the
YouTube clips on the big screen. I just got it hooked up like this
yesterday.

Ty and Raleigh stayed out in Menan and are sleeping out in the tent tonight
at Sue and Emmett's. I'm sure they are having a blast.

Tired Racers

The girls were ready to crash after the kids races in Menan. Shay went
right to sleep and was able to get a powernap in before the parade started.
Kysa made friends with "Granny" Pat and Grandpa Gale Walker, who were just
so nice.

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Raleigh fell off the tramp.

Patriotic Flag Display

This beautiful display of 1776 flags is just through the field on the corner
of Bellin and Pancheri. Ty took the kids over there again tonight with Amy
and Eric's family and Connor. Raleigh was excited to get a pocket copy of
the constitution while there, and he wanted Ty to read some of it to him
tonight. I think he sensed it was something very special and he's very
happy to have his own copy.

Our house is still hot

We had a good portion of the Shippen family over tonight and we took a walk over to the 1776 flags on display on Broadway and Bellin Road. A nice man named Mr. Cluff that was volunteering invited us to go up on the big lift to look out over the flags. Raleigh decided he was scared of heights along with Tyler and McKay. We went about halfway up and Sarah and Connor got scared so we took them back down. Emma, Kysa, B.J, me, Nancy, and Jean went to the full height and I took a couple neat pictures. Kysa was buckled into her stroller so she didn't have much of a choice, but she did good.

We came back to the house and had marshmallows and hotdogs. It was the first time everybody had seen the house, except for Emmett. Sue was with Amy's family on the way back from Boise. They didn't make it to Menan until after midnight. Hopefully they can come over sometime in the next couple of days.

Justin is coming home from his mission on the 9th. Can't believe it's been two years! His homecoming is on the 13th at 8:30 a.m.!!! Yikes, I wonder how we are going to pull that off.

On another note, I need to vent. Or should I say, "I need A vent!" I love everything about this house except I wish it had central air and an air conditioner. I think I'll get a window unit. But at least here we can go downstairs. The bottom two levels are cool. But I feel bad for the girls upstairs when they take their naps because it can get really H-O-T.

Shay's favorite word continues to be Raleigh. It has replaced "No" as her word of choice. When she wakes up in the morning she just starts yelling for him, over and over. It's adorable. I think that Raleigh is her hero because he is nice to her and protects her from Kysa. She doesn't say Kysa's name yet.