Aug 11

It has been 6 yrs, and everything is different. I think of what happened, what could have been, what should have been, and even more how grateful I am to be where I am today.
I miss you.

Lovely Lily

Lovely Lily has always been 100% girly. I write the word 'always' as if she is completely grown already. Lily is 2 years old, she will be 3 in October, and already she is completely high-maintenance. Yesterday morning I asked Lily to go to the potty (for obvious reasons), and when I entered the bathroom to help her, this is what I found:

When I asked her what was going on she matter-o-factly replied that she was doing her nails.

I love this girly girl so much! She cracks me up day after day!

Keeping Busy

We found this really cool park near downtown Fayetteville with Tennis courts, a running trail next to a lake, and very new playground equipment. Here are a few pics of us at "Mazarak Park":




I love this one below.. I think I am going to get it blown up, maybe black and white.





Of course with the lovely heat and humidity, eventually the kids wanted to find a place to play that was air conditioned. We found the Fayetteville Children's Museum downtown, and that place totally rocks! The kids can pretend shop, play dress-up, learn about TV stations, and a whole lot of other activities that were age appropriate for all three of them. Here are just a few pictures:
Lily shopping:
Dean was racing around with that shopping cart! He did not want to move on to any other activity!

Gavin was at the working register pushing buttons and really getting into the job:

This is Gavin at the stationary bike. The computer would tell kids how many calories they burned in terms that kids can understand; for example, Gavin peddled pretty hard and it told him he burned as many calories as one glass of chocolate milk.

Gavin and Dean working with simple machines.

More pictures and blogs to come soon! Summer is almost over already!!

This video cracks me up!

It makes me wonder what people are thinking when I take Gavin out for a 5K and we are really pushing the pace.

Summer Jack-O-Lanterns

This is why we don't carve pumpkins in July:

I asked Gavin if the pumpkin was just sad because there were no trick or treaters coming around, and he said, "No, its just hot and it needs water."

I guess Gavin is getting a little old for the pretend stuff.

Gavins Post

Gavin is going to have a go at writing the blog today. Enjoy:

The leaves were dying, so it was time to pick the pumpkin and the watermelon because they looked ripe. We used a knife because the pumpkin was too hard to cut with scissors.

Today what I want to do with the pumpkin is carve it into a summer jack-o-lantern.

We are going to share the watermelon with our neighbors Mrs. Dailey, Mrs. Smith and our family.

The pumpkin is 10 inches tall and 23 inches around. I wanted it 23 inches tall and 30 inches round, but I am still happy.

The watermelon is 29 inches round and 10 inches tall. I like it that size and it look delicious.

The Storm

Last night we had a huge storm. It was full of all of the fun things like thunder and lightning and even hail. The incredible winds even knocked the power out for about an hour and a half. But that is not the only thing that the wind knocked out... my sweet little garden is ruined. 15 foot sunflowers broken, tomatoes falling off of their vines. We got some pretty neat video though:
(warning: TURN VOLUME DOWN!)


This second video is a lot shorter.. I thought that the storm was basically over, so I went outside to check out the damage.



The highlight of losing the sunflowers that we grew from seeds is that we now have a beautiful bouquet on the table... there was so many that even our neighbors have bouquets too!

sibling rivalry?

I love the fact that Lily and Dean are getting bigger and are just so full of personality. The way they interact together is pure comedy.
Here is today's lunch time comedy:

Silly Lily

This morning Lily was being especially silly.. I mean she's always cracking me up, but today was over the top. After we saw a commercial for "America's Got Talent" in which someone was singing opera, Lily said she wanted to be a singer and to be on camera, so here are the results.

Silly Lily, I love you!

Running

Finally, after about a month of feeling weak and not really wanting to do this marathon training I feel better and stronger. The muscles classes I have been taking are making me stronger and I have kept up my base mileage even though I really wasn't feeling it.

For those of you who don't know, a marathon is 26.2 miles of running fun. A feat that seems impossible, which is why I want to do it...to accomplish something that I never thought I could do.

Today I pushed the running stroller (with the babies in it of course) a little longer than I normally do, faster than I normally do, and in more heat and humidity than anyone should... and I feel great. The marathon is in December, plenty of time to get even stronger and faster.