More Graduation

This was a video collage of all the kids as young kids then a current picture. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough so it's slightly out of focus, but so cute (I cried)

Kirks parents were able to watch and listen to the graduation from their mission in Japan through Facetime on Kirks phone. Once my mom heard about that she Facetimed me and she also watched the ceremony! It was so cool!!!

This was the picture from the video, it's Matts first day of kindergarden in Santa Rosa CA. Such a stud!!

This is the other picture from the graduation video from prom last year. The store offered to let him wear one for free this year since he looks so good in it he's a walking advertisement lol. But he won't be attending now. 

Matt preparing to lead the pledge.

Matts High School GRADUATION!!! 2013

Matt graduated this last Thursday! He has been attending a school through our county that allows him to do his school online at a school with teachers in the room which allowed him to go at his own pace. Which meant really really fast this year! The last 3 years have been a rough journey for him. He suffered from really bad depression. It took awhile and a few program to find what his demons were and fight them. This process put him behind in school by several classes and so we worried he would need extra time to graduate. Instead he finished early and is thrilled!! I admit I cried through a good portion of the ceremony. He lead the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. And then was one of 3 students who won awards with cash prizes for Outstanding Senior Project!! It was a very large project that took him a few months to complete and he had to find a mentor and then give a presentation to a panel of leaders from the school and community. He rocked it. He basically had people crying lol. His subject was drug addiction. :) He has promised me that he will wear his class ring even though it says 2014 and he is now class of 2013 lol
I know the picture above isn't quite what I had in mind, but I had vertigo for 3 days that week and that day could only stand for short periods if I kept my head bent all the way to my right shoulder and when we took that picture I was put on Matts let and wanted my head to be closer. So I fell after the picture like a drunk person. Connor needs a haircut badly and won't do it, and didn't feel like sitting through graduation as you can see from his cheerful expression. 

First day of school 2013

This is a unique year for me, one that won't happen again. I have 3 kids kids graduated from their schools this year! Matt graduates high school. Aj graduate middle school and Elle graduates from elementary school! I think May is going to be fairly busy! Matt is trying to graduate in December so we will see! He is ready to be off seeing the world and being his own man.

Matt my colorful senior!

Connor my sophomore!

Aj 8th grade! Ready for high school next year!

Elle 5th grade, ready for middle school next year

Our cat Bones

Elle found this stray cat in the neighborhood maybe a few months ago. It is a beautiful cat and amazingingly well behaved. Kirk helped her build it a house and she got it a food bowl and food. He came by twice a day and meowed loudly until we fed it. He tried coming in the house once or twice but because Kirk is allergic we couldn't let him stay.  Unfortunately there is a large red stray cat that is a total bully, he kept chasing Bones, our cat, out of our yard. At night a few times I heard them fighting in the woods. Well a week ago a neighbor sent out a email to the neighborhood asking if Bones belonged to anyone because they wanted to bring him inside their house and keep him. I informed her that we were taking care of her and she was my daughters. She said thats fine they would just go to the pound. Then it occurred to me, that we were being selfish. If this cat could find a home where he didn't have to be terrorized by a bully cat and sit outside in the rain and possible snow, it's like wining the lottery and we couldn't block his good luck.
So their family brought him in and she is adjusting really well. When I told Elle she cried so hard and  felt terrrible. She understood that it was a good chance for Bones, but that doesn't make it easier. The family let us come visit her yesterday and Elle got to see how well she is doing and they asked Elle to come take care of her in November when they are out of town. It was funny to go visit a cat. But really sweet of them to let us.

Peachtree Road Race

Heres a nice post. My mom and Aj and I got to run in the Peachtree Road Race on July 4! Its the biggest 10k in the world, I think around 65,000 people run it and so many people apply you are chosen out of  a lottery. Aj wasn't really trained for running that far so it was awesome when he did it! About mile 4 we realized he thought he was running 10 miles not 10k and he was very happy to hear that! Poor kid! It rained and rained the day before and after we were done but luckily it didn't while we were running. The race ends in a giant park that was a huge mud pit, we sloshed everywhere!
All in all it was amazingly fun to run with my mom and son!

Delayed Posts

It's interesting. I've used this blog to share funny stories, sad stories, updates on our life. I tell the embarrassing stories and whats hard if I can make it sound funny. But this summer wasn't my best summer. Most of it I can't quite make funny yet. We are all still here, alive and well. But I'm not sure what and how to share yet. I've also learned that by sharing I meet others who share similar stories that I didn't know about and that helps. So give me a little more time and I'll be back to blogging our adventures.

Climbing

 This is Allenbrook in Roswell. A fun small historic area, I guess the house here was built in 1850 and the owner also built the cloth factory 1/2 mile down that was burnt down in the civil war. I couldn't have lived here with young kids, the beautiful green all over the ground is poison ivy and this cliff is in their back yard. It wasn't a perfect climbing day, it had drizzled that morning so the rock and leaves were a little wet and we called Porter to come along but he had a friend visiting and the friend made it a little difficult. At one point he slipped trying to go to the bottom and slid about 6 feet and barely caught himself before falling 10 feet. I was above him and couldn't even cry out it scared me so bad. My kids who are part goat basically skipped down the same area.

 The is AJ and Elle down below the cliff, this area is really only for rappeling. Which we didn't get to.

 Kirk tying up the ropes. He drove there with his helmet on which got him some awesome looks.

 This is where our friend almost fell off. I made him sit there until kirk could come help.

 Elle climbs like a boss! Her size, flexibility and fearlessness is perfect. Maybe her next team sport should be the climbing team, the heck with dance! :)

 Aj was the only one who could do the level 10 (?) cliff face, his amazing arm and core strength cannot be beat. Add in his total desire to be the best and not fail... so fun to watch.

 My first time belaying. I know I don't need my hand on the rope since it's attached to me waist but hello, thats my baby on a cliff.

Kirk got to repel down once, all his hard work. He's so great.

I didn't get any great pictures of me, mostly because AJ was taking the pictures and that kid can't hold still to save his life. But at least I got a few that show me on a cliff, I have to admit, I am a natural. If I only had AJ's upper body strength. Which only requires 10 hours of gym time a week :)

Mothers Day

Hmmmm mothers day. Well. I had a wonderful 10 mile run on Saturday morning. Then I got to go climbing with Kirk, AJ and Elle. That was really fun actually, except we took our nephew and his friend and his friend was a little difficult. He was a little too big for all our harnesses.
Sunday morning  Kirk brought me breakfast in bed, which was a doughnut :) And a giant balloon, because what 39 year old mom doesn't want a giant balloon attached to a grocery store calla lily. lol. i'm not being picky I swear it was funny.  Two of my kids left early from church, I made lasagna for the Johnston family dinner. I didn't want lasagna but I couldn't think of anything else to make. I also made a pesto for dipping and that was delicious. Following a delicious dessert made by my fabulous sister my oldest had a complete melt down, always worth witnessing... not. All in all a fun day.
Wait and Elle choreographed a beautiful dance for me complete with a small box of chocolate kisses. And I made myself a lovely corsage from my garden, the rose smelled so beautiful!

Becky's baby Shower

 Well I'm a little slow I admit, it took me a few months to realize it was my privilege to host Beckys baby shower. I have never been very good at hosting parties, not very many people show up to mine, and I didn't want to let anyone down. But with some very excellent food donations and inspiration from a couple of Pins on pinterest, I think it turned out ok. I think we invited about 28 women, mostly from Bex ward and a few friends from other wards and some friends of mine that we've gotten to run with. We had 18 women come besides Bex and I and I consider that to be pretty amazing! Especially for a Saturday midmorning in the middle of a record breaking rainstorm! I went with the dinosaur theme since thats the fabric they choose for the quilt mom made. I put a tiny little bit of pressure on Mom to finish the quilt in only 2 days so she could ship it to me and surprise Bex at the baby shower!!

 These are my pathetic looking trees, I couldn't find the right paper lol. But I loved the rawr sign. and Kristen gave Bex the totally cute pj's with the dinosaur that I could hang up!

 I set up 3 sides of my very old crib to hold all the gifts and you can see moms quilt hanging on the right side.

 Ok nobody drank the punch, but it was very pretty and totally matched the blue and green theme. I put a nest  found underneath with my version of a dinosaur egg. (dont' worry there weren't any bugs in it)

 One of my favorite ideas, you scoop out the top of apples and put a green mum in the top! My friend made the table runners for her sons baptism and let me borrow ;)

 Mostly Bex got the cutest clothes ever, a few diaper packs and some clever blankets made by crafty friends.

OK so I totally hate this picture of me, I was so stressed trying to get everything ready I didn't do my hair and I was sure no one would notice! But its a adorable picture of BEx so I will sacrifice and put it up!!

 Yeah for amazing quilts from Mom!!

 I forgot to get a picture of the whole spread, but it was delish :)

Gee did I not get in the group picture?? Lol neither did our friend Celeste.

My trip through Nebraska :)

Very fine dining at the a mall in downtown Kansas, they delivered our burgers by train!  It was worth every subpar bite to get to hold Brynn, Dane and Cole!!

My post race recovery included holding Brynn and watching tv with Cole who used my roller as a light saber!

Awww

He wasn't a huge fan of smiling for my phone, but this works just as well. I think him trying to steam roller me wsas a sign of affection!

After our race in Kansas City Ken got to drive home with us and we stopped at this amazing BBQ place! The line was out the door, but since we all know thats a good sign we stuck with it and wow was it good! I almost went back up to buy sauce to take home!

I wish I had a real camera, a lot of my shots were slightly blurry and mom tried to improve the pictures by holing up blankets in the background! thanks mom!

The race was billed as a "fast and flat" race, the people there told us they meant flat for Kansas, which I can tell you is not flat! It was also colder then we had planned, we started at about 39 degrees. But we were determined to run the race in the orange tanks we had both found so we did indeed finish in tank tops!!

THis is one of the coolest families ever!! Blessing day is such a stressful day and add in that Dane had a mystery illness which has since been diagnosed as Strep throat!! But you couldn't tell how hard it was, Kristen made amazing food, we had a great time hanging out! The blessing was so sweet, next time they need to get someone tall to hold the microphone, the poor kid couldn't reach Ken so it was quieter then I like, but I was also drawing cars with Cole to keep him quiet.  I am going to pray 2 or 3 times a day to get Ken accepted into the program in Columbus South Carolina next year!!

Zooma 1/2 marathon

 When mom moved to Texas last year and met her running buddy she heard about this race in Bastrop Texas. Its run around a resort and they give out necklaces instead on medals and we both agreed that sounded like a great race! Plus we havent run a race in Texas yet. SO it's been a goal for a year now to run this one, but maybe 2 months ago we decied we weren't trained and so much is going on. I hadn't run since I got so sick during our last race. But then about 2 1/2 weeks ago mom decided we had to run this race. So much is going on in my life and her life that a break would be really really nice. So I went out and ran a 6 mile run, seemed to go ok so then I ran a 10 mile run, again no major problems, I think i got one more 6 mile run and that was it for training. I was super nervous but we went into it with me untrained and mom had a major hamstring pull and wasn't feeling great, but we decided that we were there to run, laugh and have fun and maybe hopefully just not get our worst time ever! And it wasn't. Her friend Kristi who ran this before and was going to run except she is having a baby in a month, so she ran the 5k and was bummed to not do more. She was able to tell us the whole course where to walk, where to expect water and GU breaks and that helped us so much! The race only had I think less then 2000 people. Mom and I were back in the back making friends when people started walking and we said why aren't they running? When we heard the announcer tell the 1/2 runners to hurry and leave so they could get the 5K women running, thats when we realized we were the very last ones to cross the start because we were back with the wrong group! The nice thing about starting in the back? You pass a lot of people!! The hills were killer, the chickens and roosters hillarious, the wild flowers everywhere were goreous! The vultures waiting in a tree at mile 12?? Seriously??? The last 2 miles in through a gold course on the little cart trail that winds back and forth 4 times, it was so funny to see people running all through the golf course at different spots, made me think of ants in a ant farm! Anyway we ran a great race, it wasn't our slowest time ever!! We earned these cute necklaces and we did indeed laugh, run and had a lot of fun!

 This is my kind of ice bath! The water was cool but not terrible and the sun was warm enough I came back a little pink!!

Thanks Kristi for introducing us to a great race! I'll be back next year to earn the PR medal!!

1st Eagle Palm!!

Connor was awarded his first Eagle Palm last week! It was so exciting, I'm not sure most of the boys even knew there was such a thing. Most of the leaders definitely didn't! He has worked so hard in scouts that he has earned 1 more but can't get it for I think 3 months since they need to come separately, the question will be can I get him to do the extra 5 merit badges to earn that last palm?? It would sure be cool! This is actually the most normal picture I could get of him, he kept making silly faces or throwing "gang signs", sigh. I keep telling him someday he is going to need cute pictures of himself and he will look back and see he wouldn't take a normal picture!! Luckily he is cute anyway.

End of the Season

Well the season is over and I'm exhausted!! Aj had a great gymnastics season and ended up 8th in the state for his age group and level, not bad at all! He works so hard to stay balanced with gym, school, scouts and friends and I am so proud of him!