Rock and Roll!!

Okay, most of my blog is dedicated to my adorable children but Kevin had a pretty monumental event on Saturday that deserves to be recognized...he ran his 1st (and as he says, his last) marathon! We have been planning on running the Rock and Roll Marathon in Seattle since Febuary this year. Kevin's reasons come from a long standing agreement between us that he needs to complete a marathon in under 6 hours if he ever wants to be able to buy a motorcycle. This was mostly me not wanting him to ever have one but lo and behold, he finished wtih 9 minutes to spare. So Kevin, me and my brother-in-law, Nate, ran it together on Saturday. There was about 40,000 participants between the half and full marathon...thats a lot of people! Our race day started out pretty rough, our "continental breakfast" we were expecting was stale cheese puffs and a coffee machine. Luckily Nate had some extra nutra-grain bars we stole. The shuttle to the starting line was a gigantic mob of people shoving and yelling at each other, we pretty much had to body surf our way onto a bus. It seriously reminded of war of the worlds and one working car. It was insane.

The day before the race there was a huge expo downtown, we even had our fortunes read by the Brooks shoe genie. We got lots of free samples, our gaits analyzed, and met lots of very different people.At mile 8 during the race my ipod decided to quit working and my earring fell out while I was pulling out my earphones. I didnt stop for fear of being trampled. I had to run the rest of the race in silence...but luckily being the Rock and Roll Marathon, there were bands every mile and lots of random high school cheerleading squads yelling for us. I have never felt more loved. Kevin had a good race as well and said he felt the best the first half. There was quite a few hills on this course and lots of out and backs which were mentally very tiring.

One of my favorite parts of doing races like this is all the fun people you get to meet. Along the way I met a man dressed up in a polar bear suit, "running against extinction", several people in tutus, elvis costumes, and several other random things. I loved how many dads I saw with jogging strollers and baby carriers with "go mom!" signs. No doubt many of theses babies have been dragged along in the stroller on numerous training runs. I also saw a communal vaseline station which was rather gross. Overall, it was a fun course although I think next time I would just do the half as that was the most scenic and had the most spectators cheering.

Kevin eating his bagel banana sandwich. I am pretty darn proud of him for running it and finishing. That takes some effort! I am never get him to run with me again but he did it once!
Below are some state of the art pictures of us running, I know, we look awesome.

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Here is a happy belated fathers day to Kevin. You are a great dad and our kids love you, although I mostly blame you for their crazy behavior. Thanks for getting up in the middle of the night, letting me sleep in, letting them come and bug you at work all the time, and hauling tons of dirt into our backyard. Oh, and for thinking our kids are as adorable as I do. It makes life so much easier :). I am so excited to get away with you this weekend, sorry that running 26 miles is the main focus... Anyone want to add Lucy to their facebook account? She would LOVE to talk to you online. And she has mastered the art of climbing onto the table from the chair she pulled out from under the table. You know, this all sounds so familiar, I could have sworn I had a little boy who did the exact same thing a few years ago..

Swimming, Dirt, and dump trucks

The pool opened this week! Okay, so I really miss our little subdivision salt water pool we had in Boise. It was uncrowded, we could bring toys, and for a month there, incredibly warm. But, the next best thing is living across the street from the park that has the pool. I love that its a zero entry pool and the shallow area is big. I need to buy Lucy a new sun hat. Meanwhile, she is sporting this almost too small one that our very nice neighbor gave us last year. Those 90th percentile heads are sometimes hard to find hats for! Isak LOVES the water and is very comfortable in it, he has no fear of jumping right in. This is not always a good thing

And meanwhile, I have TONS of dirt in my front yard that is being dumped in the huge gaping hole in my backyard, formerly the pool.

This dirt has led to multiple baths a day for these kiddos...and all the neighbor kids too. This dump truck has been quite the spectacle in our yard. Our poor elderly neighbor looked pretty darn nervous the first time Kevin came driving in our yard with this. I am pretty sure she thought we were going to dump it all over her car in her driveway, actually, I was pretty sure that is what was going to happen too. But, alas, Kevin apparently has some great dump truck moving skills and nothing was harmed.

Anyone want to come play in some dirt? It will probably be there until tomorrow afternoon!

That is Isak on the end, sporting his lumberjack plaid shirt, open chest, with the turtle pj bottoms. What can I say, its how that kid rolls.

Last night a friend of mine offered to take some pictures of our family. We our huge Boise State fans so I decided to put my kids in their matching jersies and go for it. Perhaps for most people this is not the "traditional" family portrait with coordinating outfits and the like, but it describes us pretty well. My kids were pretty uncooperative and crazy, I think 1 and 3 are hard ages to photograph, especially when outside. Anyway, I dug up this first picture from 3 years ago when Isak was a baby and we first moved to Boise. Loved the cement walls in that apartment..

And below is from last night. Anyway, we look pretty much the same, plus Isak being much bigger and the addition of Lucy. Chelsea was very nice to take them for us and be patient with my kids. They were pretty darn active.Kevin and I did a 10k run this past saturday over in Moses Lake. It was an adjunct to the triatholon that was the main event. It was really fun, we both found some random people to run with since no headphones were allowed and got some medals. I think my time was 50:38, I was running with a girl who had a 10 week old at home and had 4 kids and she beat me by like 30 seconds. She was very inspiring. Kevin is lovingly displaying his on his head. We have a really big race in Seattle next weekend, the Rock and Roll Marathon, that we are both running. I am very excited...cheer squads and bands every mile. It will be like one big party!!
Today we are suppose to get lots of dirt dumped on our front lawn. I have never been more excited at the prospect of dirt. This will go to fill in the rest of the pool and to level out the front yard. Next on the list is sprinklers, then sod, then to finish landscaping. I'm guessing it will take most of the summer. Oh...notice that lovely blue color on my house? We randomly decided to start painting last saturday. It just needs to be finished.

Oh my little Lucy girl. Chelsea got this really adorable picture of her..right before she fell into a raspbery bush. I think Isak had peed his pants by this point so all those pictures had to have that edited out. Did I mention that I am good on kids for a while?

Kids being Crazy

Lucy taught herself to dance...she's got some pretty sweet moves. Please excuse her lack of a shirt...her need to boogie kinda comes out whenever she pleases. It can be hard to predict :).

Isak also loves to "rock out" as he calls it. This makes me kind of dizzy. How many summersaults can you do in a minute? I'm pretty sure Isak has me beat!

Lucy's hair pretty below much sums up how the last few weeks have been....crazy. We had kevin's grandma's funeral memorial day weekend and all of his family was up for that. It was a good service and a great tribute to such an awesome lady. She will truly be missed by all that had a chance to know her. While it was a sad reason to have to get together so soon after just being together for lindsey's wedding, it was still fun to see everyone. Kevin's brother Nathan and his wife Stephanie were able to stay a little longer than everyone so we decided to head up to Spokane with them while they were here. My parents were kind enough to take all three of our kids. We stopped at his very cool outdoors place that is about 10 miles outside of Spokane. It is full of lots of random things...like a huge museum. It had huge horses with men riding on them that were around $15,000, cauldrons, large lions on pillars, this huge dinosaur, lots of recycled aluminun patio sets and tons of other stuff I have no idea what anyone would do with.

They had several of these gazebos which would be really awesome if they didn't cost thousands of dollars.

We did some shopping, the boys drove high speed go karts while Stephanie and I watched. I am pretty sure I would crash or just be paralyzed with fear.

We also went out to dinner at P.F. Changs and had a wonderful, adult dinner out with no screaming babies. It was great! Stephanie also scored a super cute green and white chair that is going to look very awesome in her living room.

Our Children survived us being gone, and more importantly, my parents survived our children. The rest of the week has been filled with work and just more day to day "stuff". I worked one night and came home to Lucy being dressed by her daddy...

Yes, those are tights underneath her pants..."in case she gets cold" Kevin said. At least they were clean clothes....

Kevin can't figure out why his back hurts....perhaps because these little monkeys think that its the greatest thing ever to be thrown into the air 50 times in a row...