A Racin' & A Skiin'

So last week I decided to run a 10K.  I'm not sure exactly what I was thinking.  I signed up on a Tuesday night, leaving myself only 3 days to prepare for the race!  Most people train for these for weeks!  Needless to say, I had butterflies all week and didn't sleep much...

 Can I just say, post-race pictures are never pretty!

These are my racin' buddies (they are awesome!):

I didn't quite make my goal time, BUT I did get 4th in my age group :-)

The four of us are looking for another race, so we'll see how I do next time!

On our way home from the race, friends called us inviting us to go water skiing.  YAY!

Here's my hunky hubby wake boarding!

I skiied too, and even Sam and Kaeli got up on skiis!!!!

 This giant-banana-looking-thing was a blast!

Thank you Rosiers!

Another year older...

 And wiser, too!

 

 

Summer is...

ice cream,

movies,

 visits to the ice shanty,

 

cousins,

(cousins, Corbin & Cooper in the middle) 

and getting wet!

 (or not...if getting wet is just not your thing)

 This picture made me laugh!

She can feel the wind in her hair :-)

 

I can't believe summer is almost over :-(

No more BRACES!

Sammy got his braces off two weeks before school started!  What a handsome SMILE!

POOOOOOOR Rylie!

While we were in Washington, Rylie got stung by a wasp at a park :-(


THEN she sprained her ankle when she landed wrong in the pool!  These pictures were taken a few days later.  You can see it's still swollen.  I wish I had taken a picture right after it happened.  It looked like a golf ball poking out of the side of her ankle!

I took her in for some x-rays when we got back into town.  Thankfully, it wasn't broken.


She also ended up with swimmer's ear a few days after we got home.  And if you don't know already, it's super painful!  Her doctor said her ear canal was so swollen he couldn't even see her eardrum.


Apparently, Rylie didn't get the "Milk It For All It's Worth" memo, and kept right on playing as usual.  She was caught jumping on the neighbor's trampoline just a few days after she sprained her ankle, ignoring my "no playing, but you can sit and watch" rule.  Luckily, it is healing nicely and she was able to walk on it like nothing happened a few weeks later, although I still make her wear a brace when she's running around.


I guess she inherited my weak ankles.  Bummer.

Going HOME!

The palouse!  This is where my family moved to (Pullman, WA) right before I started high school.  This is where I went to college (WSU) and met my Mr. Right.  This is home!

After I got married, my parents moved to Moscow, ID...which is only 8 miles from Pullman.  They are still on the palouse and we love going home!

My FAVORITE spot in Moscow is the arboretum.  We always spend some time there.  My mom and I like to go there in the mornings to run :-)

 (Arboretum)

We also went to Moscow's public pool.  The kids LOVED it!

 And of course we hiked Kamiak Butte.  I have a GAZILLION memories from my high school years of Kamiak!

  My Mom & Dad :-)

 There is a play ground that the kids always play at after the hike:

So there's this little stone house that you can see from my parent's back deck.  There is no road to it.  My parents explored it a few years ago and we asked to go see it.  Doesn't that house look so content and in a perfect spot?

 

 We walked through thick long grass to get there...

 The sun was close to setting so I couldn't help taking a ton of pictures in the orange light!

 This is looking out the front window!

The floor in the house was weak and missing in spots so we had to be careful walking around, and of course we wouldn't let the kids go upstairs.  We wouldn't call it move in ready, but Aaron and I are considering it :-)  It's our dream home!

 

 

After our visit on the palouse we headed out,

stopping by Ferdinans for ice cream of course...

 (I love that I caught Violet in mid-sneeze!)

...and drove to Kennewick, WA.  This is home too!  Aaron is from Kennewick and I grew up (until I was 13) in a small town just east of it.  Aaron's parents have a pool so we swam, swam, and swam some more!

This is Rylie's infamous "pencil dive"!  She did it over and over and over again.  So funny!

Kaeli is our fish.  She is a natural in the water!

 Aaron and the cousins!

 And Violet, our little skinny-dipper!

 I love Sara's goggles!  Too cute!

 Sammy is just chillin'

Aunt Kiera (Aaron's little sis) has horses.  The kids loved going with her in the evenings to feed and brush them.  They also got to go riding!

 (Duke & Tally)

 I see little cowboy & cowgirls in the making!

While we were there we went to Jessica's (our niece) baptism.  I was so bummed we didn't get pictures of her, but here is a snap shot of our family at the gathering afterwards:

 (Can you believe everyone's eyes are open and looking forward and everyone is SMILING!!!  Amazing!)

We loved our trip HOME and wish we all lived closer!  It's worth the 11 plus hour-drive!!!

Love y'all!