I realize that it has been a very long time since I last posted. I tried once, but the computer wouldn't cooperate. I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, we've been happy and healthy. We've had a busy couple of months with school getting out etc. We're leaving on vacation tomorrow, so I thought that I'd post a couple of photos before our departure.

We've been ice blocking with friends. This is a blurry picture of Sophie as she is falling off.

Sophie also lost another tooth recently. Her first top tooth. It's being a slow process for her, but that's a good thing. At this point we're occasionally having difficulty understanding her speech. What will it be like when both of her top middle teeth are gone?

She got a haircut today. She's very happy with it.
Brennan and Sophie having a happy moment with Daisy. I don't think that we could make Daisy pull that face again if we tried.

In other news...Aiden did fabulously well with his artwork this year. He took "Sixth Grade Art Student of the Year", and won best of show for one of his drawings as well as several first places. We're very proud of him. I will be sure to post a photo of his drawing when we get back from vacance.

Typical Aiden

Aiden came home from school today, and disappeared into the kitchen for a snack. I came in a few minutes later to discover that he was eating a yogurt and an apple. I was praising him for his healthy food choices when he says, "The ice cream was all gone." Typical Aiden.

Soccer Practice

Since the race, I haven't been doing any running in an attempt to finish healing from the lovely groin pull. I've been using the elliptical at the gym, but not running, and limiting my walking. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing a very good job at limiting my food intake. Anyway...I was with Brennan at soccer practice the other night when he let me know that he couldn't find his ball. There were probably about 200 + people at this park, mostly parents and kids there for soccer practice. I proceeded to walk the path around the park looking for his ball. The park is right next to a creek, so there are a lot of trees. I was busy studying the forested area in hopes of catching sight of the lost ball when I got nailed in the head by a soccer ball. There were some teenage girls there practicing, and one of the forcefully kicked balls miss the goal and hit me. It hit me so hard that I literally saw stars. The force of it almost knocked me off my feet. Unfortunately, as I staggered and stumbled about trying to stay upright, I injured myself again. Besides feeling like I might have a week-long headache, I was really mad. I was finally feeling like I was within a few days of being able to run again, and all because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time I was back to limping. Oh well, what's another week or two of inactivity? And no, we didn't find his ball. Someone must have decided that they really liked it.

Cowtown Half Marathon

On Saturday, I competed in the Fort Worth, TX Cowtown Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Competed isn't really an accurate description, because really all I wanted to do was finish. I started training several months back and was so excited about the improvement I was making, and then POW! BOOM! BANG! and maybe even ZOWIE! I hurt myself trying to get the high score on the Wii Fit Hula Hooping. I do believe that I did manage to beat the top score, but then I paid for it dearly. Apparently I suffered a groin pull. My friend Angela and I have gotten a lot of mileage off of the work "groin". It's just one of those bad sounding words.

Anyway, for more than a month I've been trying to allow this injury to heal while keeping up my training. It didn't work so well, so for about 3 weeks, I didn't run at all. I went through with the race because it was a goal I had set, and I was feeling really pretty good. I didn't suffer too much during the race, but I wasn't able to run as fast as I could have done had I been able to keep up with my training. As the day of the event drew closer, we started watching the weather forecast. We have been having beautiful weather, so that was what we were expecting. As luck would have it, a cold front moved in the night before the race. It was freezing. To add to it, we got stuck in traffic, and missed the start of the race. We started 25 minutes late, so for the first 4 miles we ran past all of the walkers. At that point, I knew that I needed to slow down my pace, so I let my friend, Heather, run on ahead so that she would have a decent time. I hit the wall at about 11 miles and wasn't sure if I could keep it up. I really don't remember much about the last 2.1 miles, but apparently I conquered. Here I am on my way to the finish line.

Lance came to support me, and to take a few photos. He was so cold that it was hard for him to get a decent shot of an already moving target. Wow! Look how fast I was moving!

Crossing the finish line.

Heather and I sporting our medals and holding onto a nice hot cup of chamomile tea. It was great! I think I'll do it again.

Susan B. Anthony

On Friday, Sophie participated in a project that her class has been doing. The kids have been researching famous Americans, and their contributions to society. Then they were to dress up as this person, and tell a little about what they admired, and what advice this person might give. Sophie was Susan B. Anthony. She was very excited about this project, especially the dressing up part. Here she is in the middle of her little speech. She had to stop and think for a minute.

We forgot to fold back the sleeves. She was very cute in her outfit. Her teacher is standing in the background.

We borrowed a lot of what she wore from a sister in our ward who has one of everything. We're glad that there are people like that around.

Sophie's Baptism

Here is cake #4. Sophie was baptised on Saturday, February 7, 2009. She was very pretty in her white dress, and it was a special day for all involved.

We are very proud of Sophie and her decision to be baptised.

My sister, Julie, and her son Evan made the trip to come and share the day with us. It was so much fun having them here with us. We will miss them, but look forward to seeing them this summer. It's so hard to get a good picture of a group of people. This was the best in spite of the look on Evan's face.
A family in our ward, the Silers, put together a video presentation about baptism that we showed between the baptism and the confirmation. It was really well done, and very neat. Here's the link: http://studentweb.engr.utexas.edu/cds847/SilerFamily/videos/BaptismVideo.htm

A week later we celebrated Sophie's 8th birthday. This was a big one. It turned into a week long celebration with eating out, her baptism etc. We had cake and ice cream with our neighbors, the Aherns. This is Jake and Lance with Mr. Nibbles (Brennan's hamster). The little boys loved the hamster, but were a little wary all the same.

This is Collin wondering how he really feels about a rodent crawling on him.

Sophie with her balloons, cake and presents, ready to celebrate. She received her very own set of scriptures, an MP3 player, several books, a little dress, from her family, and a journal, shirt, and sweater from the Aherns.

She had a good birthday, but was disappointed that she didn't get any toys. Oops! She received money from grandparents, so we thought that she could buy her own. Not good enough. We'll remember for next year.

Here's cake 3 within a week.